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Books > Humanities > Archaeology > General
We live in an age in which one can easily think that our generation has invented and discovered almost everything; but the truth is quite the opposite. Progress cannot be considered as sudden unexpected spurts of individual brains: such a genius, the inventor of everything, has never existed in the history of humanity. What did exist was a limitless procession of experiments made by men who did not waver when faced with defeat, but were inspired by the rare successes that have led to our modern comfortable reality. And that continue to do so with the same enthusiasm. The study of the History of Engineering is valuable for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it can help us to understand the genius of the scientists, engineers and craftsmen who existed centuries and millenniums before us; who solved problems using the devices of their era, making machinery and equipment whose concept is of such a surprising modernity that we must rethink our image of the past.
Managing Heritage in Africa provides a wide-ranging, up-to-date synthesis of heritage management practice in Africa, covering a broad spectrum of heritage issues such as archaeology, living traditions, sacred sites, heritage of pain (slavery), international conventions cultural landscapes, heritage in conflict areas and heritage versus development. Dealing with both intangible and tangible heritage, Managing Heritage in Africa gives an informative insight into some of the major issues and approaches to contemporary heritage management in Africa and situates the challenges facing heritage practitioners.
An anthropologist and an anatomist have combined their skills in this book to provide students and research workers with the essentials of anatomy and the means to apply these to investigations into hominid form and function. Using basic principles and relevant bones, conclusions can be reached regarding the probable musculature, stance, brain size, age, weight, and sex of a particular fossil specimen. The sort of deductions which are possible are illustrated by reference back to contemporary apes and humans, and a coherent picture of the history of hominid evolution appears. Written in a clear and concise style and beautifully illustrated, An Introduction to Human Evolutionary Anatomy is a basic reference for all concerned with human evolution as well as a valuable companion to both laboratory practical sessions and new research using fossil skeletons.
The distinctions and similarities among Roman, Jewish, and Christian burials can provide evidence of social networks, family life, and, perhaps, religious sensibilities. Is the Roman development from columbaria to catacombs the result of evolving religious identities or simply a matter of a change in burial fashions? Do the material remains from Jewish burials evidence an adherence to ancient customs, or the adaptation of rituals from surrounding cultures? What Greco-Roman funerary images were taken over and "baptized" as Christian ones? The answers to these and other questions require that the material culture be viewed, whenever possible, in situ, through multiple disciplinary lenses and in light of ancient texts. Roman historians (John Bodel, Richard Saller, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill), archaeologists (Susan Stevens, Amy Hirschfeld), scholars of rabbinic period Judaism (Deborah Green), Christian history (Robin M. Jensen), and the New Testament (David Balch, Laurie Brink, O.P., Margaret M. Mitchell, Carolyn Osiek, R.S.C.J.) engaged in a research trip to Rome and Tunisia to investigate imperial period burials first hand. Commemorting the Dead is the result of a three year scholarly conversation on their findings.
This book shows how anthropology can provide an innovative perspective on the human movement into space. It examines adaptation to space on timescales of generations, rather than merely months or years, and uses evolutionary adaptation as a guiding theme. Employing the lessons of evolutionary adaptation, Principles of Extraterrestrial Anthropology recommends evolutionarily-sound strategies of space settlement, covering genetics at the organismal and population levels. The author organizes the concept of cultural adaptation to environments beyond Earth according to observed patterns in human adaptation on Earth. He uses original artwork and tables to help convey complex information in a form accessible to undergraduate and graduate students. Though primarily written to engage students interested in space settlement and exploration, who will eventually build a full anthropology of space settlement, Principles of Extraterrestrial Anthropology is engaging to anthropologists across sub-disciplines, as well as scholars interested in the human dimensions of space exploration and settlement. Just as the term exobiology was invented only a few decades ago to shape the field of space life studies, exoanthropology is outlined to assist in the perpetuation of Earth life through human space settlement.
Urban Religion is an emerging research field cutting across various social science disciplines, all of them dealing with "lived religion" in contemporary and (mainly) global cities. It describes the reciprocal formation and mutual influence of religion and urbanity in both their material and ideational dimensions. However, this approach, if duly historicized, can be also fruitfully applied to antiquity. Aim of the volume is the analysis of the entanglement of religious communication and city life during an arc of time that is characterised by dramatic and even contradicting developments. Bringing together textual analyses and archaelogical case studies in a comparative perspective, the volume zooms in on the historical context of the advanced imperial and late antique Mediterranean space (2nd-8th centuries CE).
Profusely illustrated with full color and black and white maps, photographs, illustrations. Center of Miliatry history publication CMH 30-22. Issued with a laminated hard cover that has an illustration of soldiers standing in front of American flags. Presents American military history from 1917 to the present. Includes expanded sections to include an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.
Modern human origins and the fate of the Neanderthals are arguably the most compelling and contentious arenas in paleoanthropology. The much-discussed split between advocates of a single, early emergence of anatomically modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa and supporters of various regional continuity positions is only part of the picture. Equally if not more important are questions surrounding the origins of modern behavior, and the relationships between anatomical and behavioral changes that occurred during the past 200,000 years. Although modern humans as a species may be defined in terms of their skeletal anatomy, it is their behavior, and the social and cognitive structures that support that behavior, which most clearly distinguish Homo sapiens from earlier forms of humans. This book assembles researchers working in Eurasia and Africa to discuss the archaeological record of the Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age. This is a time period when Homo sapiens last shared the world with other species, and during which patterns of behavior characteristic of modern humans developed and coalesced. Contributions to this volume query and challenge some current notions about the tempo and mode of cultural evolution, and about the processes that underlie the emergence of modern behavior. The papers focus on several fundamental questions. Do typical elements of "modern human behavior" appear suddenly, or are there earlier archaeological precursors of them? Are the archaeological records of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age unchanging and monotonous, or are there detectable evolutionary trends within these periods? Coming to diverse conclusions, the papers in this volume open up new avenues to thinking about this crucial interval in human evolutionary history.
Americanist Culture History reprints thirty-nine classic works of Americanist archaeological literature published between 1907 and 1971. The articles, in which the key concepts and analytical techniques of culture history were first defined and discussed, are reprinted, with original pagination and references, to enhance the use of this collection as a research and teaching resource. The editors also include an introduction that summarizes the rise and fall of the culture history paradigm, making this volume an excellent introduction to the field's primary literature.
In this authoritative volume, leading researchers offer diverse theoretical perspectives and a wide-range of information on the beginnings and nature of social inequality in past human societies. Their illuminating work investigates the role of status differentiation in traditional archaeological debates and major societal transitions. This volume features numerous case studies from the Old and New World spanning foraging societies to agricultural groups and complex states. Diachronic in view and archaeological in focus, this book will be of significant interest to archaeologists, anthropologists, and students.
This unique guide provides an artistic and archaeological journey deep into human history, exploring the petroglyphic and pictographic forms of rock art produced by the earliest humans to contemporary peoples around the world. * Summarizes the diversity of views on ancient rock art from leading international scholars * Includes new discoveries and research, illustrated with over 160 images (including 30 color plates) from major rock art sites around the world * Examines key work of noted authorities (e.g. Lewis-Williams, Conkey, Whitley and Clottes), and outlines new directions for rock art research * Is broadly international in scope, identifying rock art from North and South America, Australia, the Pacific, Africa, India, Siberia and Europe * Represents new approaches in the archaeological study of rock art, exploring issues that include gender, shamanism, landscape, identity, indigeneity, heritage and tourism, as well as technological and methodological advances in rock art analyses
For many years, one of my favorite classroom devices in historical archaeology was to ask the students to imagine that they had to make the choice between saving-from some unnamed calamity-all master's theses or all doctoral disser tations in anthropology, but not both. Like good students, they usually looked to their Ph.D. holding professor and chose the dissertations. Much to their surprise, Iwouldrespondthatthetheseswould win withouteventakingtime to ponderthe issue. The issue is clearly one of often naive and rarely eloquent theses full of good primary data versus sometimes more sophisticated and better written works full of irrelevant theory and meaningless statistics. Perhaps this is an overstate ment of the situation, but it is not too far offthe mark. The University Microfilms International efforts to make the titles of disser tations in North America and the English speaking portions of Europe available through Dissertation Abstracts is commendable. With only one minor exception, dissertations in historical and underwater archaeology in the United States are to be found listed in Dissertation Abstracts and thus are available for purchase."
The study of forensic evidence using archaeology is a new discipline which has rapidly gained importance, not only in archaeological studies but also in the investigation of real crimes. Archaeological evidence is increasingly presented in criminal cases and has helped to secure a number of convictions. Studies in Crime surveys methods of searching for and locating buried remains, their practical recovery, the decay of human and associated death scene materials, the analysis and identification of human remains including the use of DNA, and dating the time of death. The book contains essential information for forensic scientists, archaeologists, police officers, police surgeons, pathologists and lawyers. Studies in Crime will also be of interest to members of the public interested in the investigation of death by unnatural causes, both ancient and modern.
This unique book offers a theoretical framework for historical archaeology that explicitly relies on network theory. Charles E. Orser, Jr., demonstrates the need to examine the impact of colonialism, Eurocentrism, capitalism, and modernity on all archaeological sites inhabited after 1492 and shows how these large-scale forces create a link among all the sites. Orser investigates the connections between a seventeenth-century runaway slave kingdom in Palmares, Brazil and an early nineteenth-century peasant village in central Ireland. Studying artifacts, landscapes, and social inequalities in these two vastly different cultures, the author explores how the archaeology of fugitive Brazilian slaves and poor Irish farmers illustrates his theoretical concepts. His research underscores how network theory is largely unknown in historical archaeology and how few historical archaeologists apply a global perspective in their studies. A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World features data and illustrations from two previously unknown sites and includes such intriguing findings as the provenance of ancient Brazilian smoking pipes that will be new to historical archaeologists.
Focusing on the city of Armidale during the period 1830 to 1930, this book investigates the relationship between the development of capitalism in a particular region (New England, Australia) and the expression of ideology within architectural style. The author analyzes how style encodes meaning and how it relates to the social contexts and relationships within capitalism, which in turn are related to the construction of ideology over time. |
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