This publication released to a wider audience the work on Assyrian inscriptions of Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-95), who had begun his career in the East India Company in Persia and Afghanistan, where his exceptional linguistic skills were recognised. He had been studying the monumental, trilingual (in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian) Behistun inscription of Darius the Great since 1836, and, building on the earlier research of Georg Friedrich Grotefend, delivered a summary of his progress in decipherment to the Royal Asiatic Society early in 1850. He intended to follow it up with a longer book, but was anxious to gain credit for primacy (which was questioned at the time and still remains controversial), and so published this short work in March 1850. It states Rawlinson's theories, and offers a linguistic and archaeological background to his work, along with his interpretation of king lists and other inscriptions.

In this two-volume work, published in 1912, the Hungarian-born archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) describes his second expedition to the deserts of Chinese Turkestan in 1906-8. (His account of his first expedition, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan (1903), is also reissued in this series.) Stein intended this account to be read by non-specialists, and, like his previous book, it is highly illustrated and full of interesting details about his journey and the people he met en route, as well as of the important archaeological discoveries which still link his name with the civilisation of this remote and dangerous area. In Volume 2, Stein describes the discovery of the caves near the great trading post of Dunhuang which contained - walled up and almost perfectly preserved - manuscripts, sculptures, silk cloths, and the Diamond Sutra, the earliest complete and dated example of a printed book, hidden by Buddhist monks nine hundred years previously.

The Assyriologist George Smith (1840-76) was trained originally as an engraver, but was enthralled by the discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson. He taught himself cuneiform script, and joined the British Museum as a 'repairer' of broken cuneiform tablets. Promotion followed, and after one of Smith's most significant discoveries among the material sent to the Museum - a Babylonian story of a great flood - he was sent to the Middle East, where he found more inscriptions which contained other parts of the epic tale of Gilgamesh. In 1875, he published a history of Assyria for the 'Ancient History from the Monuments' series. Using biblical accounts as well as the Akkadian documents in clay and stone then being excavated in the area, Smith traces the history of the Assyrian empire from its origins until the fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE. Several other books by Smith are also reissued in this series.

Research on early medieval Cyprus has focused on the late antique "golden age" (late fourth/early fifth to seventh century) and the so-called Byzantine "Reconquista" (post-AD 965) while overlooking the intervening period. This phase was characterized, supposedly, by the division of the political sovereignty between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, bringing about the social and demographic dislocation of the population of the island. This book proposes a different story of continuities and slow transformations in the fate of Cyprus between the late sixth and the early ninth centuries. Analysis of new archaeological evidence shows signs of a continuing link to Constantinople. Moreover, together with a reassessment of the literary evidence, archaeology and material culture help us to reappraise the impact of Arab naval raids and contextualize the confrontational episodes throughout the ebb and flow of Eastern Mediterranean history: the political influence of the Caliphate looked stronger in the second half of the seventh century, the administrative and ecclesiastical influence of the Byzantine empire was held sway from the beginning of the eighth to the twelfth century. Whereas the island retained sound commercial ties with the Umayyad Levant in the seventh and eighth centuries, at the same time politically and economically it remained part of the Byzantine sphere. This belies the idea of Cyprus as an independent province only loosely tied to Constantinople and allows us to draw a different picture of the cultural identities, political practices and hierarchy of wealth and power in Cyprus during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

This is an introduction to human prehistory written for complete beginners with a global perspective. It is written in a jargon-free style that covers 6 million years of the remote past from human origins to the first pre-industrial civilizations, balancing theoretical discussion with descriptions and analysis of major sites and cultural developments.

World Prehistory provides a unique and balanced narrative of what happened in the prehistoric past and why. The book is well worth acquiring, as it provides essential historical background to a wide variety of subjects, from written history and environmental studies to climate change. Chronological tables, numerous illustrations, guides to further reading, and stand-alone boxes on some archaeological methods, key sites, and some people of the past amplify much of the basic narrative.

This global prehistory is aimed at people with no background in archaeology, undergraduates at all levels, and participants in graduate seminars on a wide range of subjects. Numerous people with a general interest in archaeology and multidisciplinary history have acquired and enjoyed this book.

Table of Contents

Preface; Acknowledgments; A Note on Chronologies and Measurements; Part I Prehistory: 1. Introducing World Prehistory; Part II The World of the First Humans: 2 Human Origins; 3. African Exodus; Part III The Birth of the Modern World: 4 Diaspora, 5 The Origins of Food Production; 6 The Earliest Farmers; 7 Chiefs and Chiefdoms; Part IV The First States (Preindustrial Civilizations): 8 State-Organized Societies; 9 Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean World; 10 Egypt and Africa; 11 South, Southeast, and East Asia; PART V Preindustrial States in the Americas: 12 Lowland Mesoamerica; 13 Highland Mesoamerica; 14 Andean States; Epilogue; Glossary of Technical Terms; Glossary of Archaeological Sites and Cultural Terms; References; Index.

The well-known list of "cradles of civilization" primary states from which all modern nation states ultimately derive, has traditionally been limited to Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and Andean South America. However, by drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources, Robert J. Hommon demonstrates that Polynesia, with primary states in both Hawai`i and Tonga, should be added to that list. The Ancient Hawaiian State offers a history of the ancient Hawaiians' transformation of their Polynesian chiefdoms into primary state societies. The emergence of primary states is one of the most revolutionary transformations in human history, and Hawai`i's metamorphosis was so profound that in some ways the contact-era Hawaiian states bear a closer resemblance to our world than to that of their closely-related Eastern Polynesian contemporaries. In contrast to the other six regions, in which states emerged in the distant, proto- or pre-literate past, the transformation of Hawaiian states is documented in an extensive body of oral traditions preserved in written form, a rich literature of early post-contact eyewitness accounts by participants and Western visitors, as well as an extensive archaeological record. Tracing the roots and emergence of the Hawaiian states, this innovative study offers a detailed model that will advance the analysis of Polynesian political development and shed light on the nature and dynamics of primary state formation.

In this survey of the burial and settlement evidence of late Iron Age Etruria, Corinna Riva offers a new reading of the socio-political transformations that led to the formation of urban centres in Tyrrhenian Central Italy. Through a close examination of burial ritual and the material culture associated with it, Riva traces the transformations of seventh-century elite funerary practices and the structuring of political power around these practices in Etruria, arguing that the tomb became the locus for the articulation of new forms of political authority at urban centres. Challenging established views that deem contact with eastern Mediterranean regions crucial to these developments, Riva offers a radically new interpretation of the so-called Orientalizing material culture, taking a long-term perspective on local changes and east-west contact across the Mediterranean.

This volume contains 12 studies on political, social, economic, and religious aspects of the history of Central Asia and Iran in the period from the fourth century B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E. by leading specialists in the field. They interpret and reconstructing the region's past based on various kinds of evidence, including literary, archaeological, linguistic, and numismatic. Some papers present the findings of recent archaeological excavations in Old Nisa and Uzbekistan for the first time.

Before the Spanish Conquest and well into the eighteenth century, Mesoamerican peoples believed that time and space were contained in earthly and heavenly receptacles that were visualized metaphorically. This circumscribed space contained the abodes of the dead. There, deities and ancestral spirits could be revived and the living could communicate with them. In Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica, Amos Megged uncovers the missing links in Mesoamerican peoples quest for their collective past. Analyzing ancient repositories of knowledge, as well as social and religious practices, he uncovers the unique procedures and formulas by which social memory was communicated and how it operated in Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest. He also explores how cherished and revived practices evolved, how they were adapted to changing circumstances, and how they helped various ethnic groups cope with the tribulations of colonization and Christianization. Megged s volume also suggests how social and cultural historians, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists can rethink indigenous representations of the past while taking into account the deep transformations in Mexican society during the colonial era."

The thousand-year-old Sanskrit classic the Bhagavatapurana, or "Stories of the Lord," is the foundational source of narratives concerning the beloved Hindu deity Krishna. For centuries pious individuals, families, and community groups have engaged specialist scholar-orators to give week-long oral performances based on this text. Seated on a dais in front of the audience, the orator intones selected Sanskrit verses from the text and narrates the story of Krishna in the local language. These sacred performances are thought to bring blessings and good fortune to those who sponsor, perform, or attend them. Devotees believe that the narratives of Krishna are like the nectar of immortality for those who can appreciate them. In recent years, these events have grown in number, scale, and popularity. Once confined to private homes or temple spaces, contemporary performances now fill vast public arenas, such as sports stadiums, and attract live audiences in the tens of thousands while being simulcast around the world. In Seven Days of Nectar, McComas Taylor uncovers the factors that contribute to the explosive growth of this tradition. He explores these events through the lens of performance theory, integrating the text with the intersecting worlds of sponsors, exponents and audiences. This innovative approach, which draws on close textual reading, philology, and ethnography, casts new light on the ways in which narratives are experienced as authentic and transformative, and more broadly, how texts shape societies.

Caribbean plantations and the forces that shaped them-slavery, sugar, capitalism, and the tropical, sometimes deadly environment-have been studied extensively. This volume turns the focus to the places and times where the rules of the plantation system did not always apply, including the interstitial spaces that linked enslaved Africans with their neighbors at other plantations. The essays also explore the lives of "poor whites," Afro-descendant members of military garrisons, and free people of color, demonstrating that binary models of black slaves and white planters do not fully encompass the diversity of identities before and after Emancipation. Employing innovative research tools and integrating data from Dominica, St. Lucia, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados, Nevis, Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands, these essays offer a deeper understanding of the complex world within and beyond the sprawling sugar estates.

Originally published in 1906, this book by celebrated Classicist Jane Ellen Harrison (1850 1928) reviews Thucydides' account of Classical Athens in the light of contemporary excavations made in the city. The text is illustrated with photographs and drawings of the archaeological findings, and alternative opinions on the city's ancient structure are also considered. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Athens, Classical archaeology or the history of Classical scholarship."

Encompassing a landmass greater than the rest of the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean combined, the Arabian peninsula remains one of the last great unexplored regions of the ancient world. This book provides the first extensive coverage of the archaeology of this region from c. 9000 to 800 BC. Peter Magee argues that a unique social system, which relied on social cohesion and actively resisted the hierarchical structures of adjacent states, emerged during the Neolithic and continued to contour society for millennia later. The book also focuses on how the historical context in which Near Eastern archaeology was codified has led to a skewed understanding of the multiplicity of lifeways pursued by ancient peoples living throughout the Middle East.

eng-CADuring his spare time, William Baker Nickerson investigated sites from New England to the Midwest and into the Canadian Prairies. In the course of exploration, he created an elegant and detailed record of discoveries and developed methods which later archaeologists recognized as being ahead of their time. By middle age, he was en route to becoming a professional contract archaeologist. However, after a very good start, during World War I archaeological commissions disappeared and failed to recover for many years afterward. Consequently, in spite of heroic efforts, Nickerson was unable to restore his scientific career and died in obscurity. His life story spans the transition of North American archaeology from museums and historical societies to universities, throwing light on a phase of history that is little known.

This volume investigates how the structure and use of space developed and changed in cities, and examines the role of different societal groups in shaping urbanism. Culturally and chronologically diverse case studies provide a basis to examine recent theoretical and methodological shifts in the archaeology of ancient cities. The book's primary goal is to examine how ancient cities were made by the people who lived in them. The authors argue that there is a mutually constituting relationship between urban form and the actions and interactions of a plurality of individuals, groups, and institutions, each with their own motivations and identities. Space is therefore socially produced as these agents operate in multiple spheres.

Artifacts are hybrids, both natural and cultural. They are also an essential component in the process of human evolution. In recent years, a wide range of disciplines, including cognitive science, sociology, art history, and anthropology, have all grappled with the nature of artifacts, leading to the emergence of a renewed interdisciplinary focus on material culture. The Reality of Artifacts: An Archaeological Perspective develops an argument for the artifact as a status conferred by human engagement with material. On this basis, artifacts are considered first in terms of their relationship to concepts and cognitive functions, and then to the physical body and sense of self. The book builds on and incorporates the latest developments in archaeological research, particularly from the archaeology of human evolution, and integrates this wealth of new archaeological data with new research in fields such as cognitive science, haptics, and material culture studies. Making the latest research available for the general reader interested in material culture, while also providing archaeologists with new theoretical perspectives built on a synthesis of interdisciplinary research, this book is suitable for courses taught at both graduate and undergraduate students, and is broadly accessible.

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed by regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies-from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations-and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.

This new edition of Living with the Ancestors contains an entirely new introduction that synthesizes scholarship on ancestralizing practices that has emerged since the 1995 publication of the first edition, which was heralded in Ethnohistory as 'a gem' by Robert M. Carmack. Ancestor veneration in the Maya region traditionally was associated with divine kingship and royal genealogies. In this study, the author challenges this assumption and presents a strong case for agrarian and Preclassic antecedents to the practice of remembering and celebrating forebears and curating their remains close to the dwelling. Integrating archaeological, epigraphic, ethnohistoric and ethnographic information, the author places ancestors within the larger social landscape of fields, orchards and gardens. The many registers of significance on which ancestralizing practices resonate are examined in detail - including spirituality, land tenure patterns, kin relations, and charters of rulership, to name just a few. Although case material is drawn from the Maya region, anyone interested in ancestor veneration will find intriguing material in this study.

The classic images of Iranian nomads in circulation today and in years past suggest that Western awareness of nomadism is a phenomenon of considerable antiquity. Though nomadism has certainly been a key feature of Iranian history, it has not been in the way most modern archaeologists have envisaged it. Nomadism in Iran recasts our understanding of this "timeless" tradition. Far from constituting a natural adaptation on the Iranian Plateau, nomadism is a comparatively late introduction, which can only be understood within the context of certain political circumstances. Since the early Holocene, most, if not all, agricultural communities in Iran had kept herds of sheep and goat, but the communities themselves were sedentary: only a few of their members were required to move with the herds seasonally. Though the arrival of Iranian speaking groups, attested in written sources beginning in the time of Herodutus, began to change the demography of the plateau, it wasn't until later in the eleventh century that an influx of Turkic speaking Oghuz nomadic groups-"true" nomads of the steppe-began the modification of the demography of the Iranian Plateau that accelerated with the Mongol conquest. The massive, unprecedented violence of this invasion effected the widespread distribution of largely Turkic-speaking nomadic groups across Iran. Thus, what has been interpreted in the past as an enduring pattern of nomadic land use is, by archaeological standards, very recent. Iran's demographic profile since the eleventh century AD, and more particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has been used by some scholars as a proxy for ancient social organization. Nomadism in Iran argues that this modernist perspective distorts the historical reality of the land. Assembling a wealth of material in several languages and disciplines, Nomadism in Iran will be invaluable to archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Between 1900 and 1901, the Hungarian-born archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) made the first of several significant trips through Central Asia. In 1903, he published this account of his journey from Calcutta to London via the deserts of Chinese Turkestan. The text is richly illustrated with photographs of locations on the route followed by Stein's party, as well as of the people they encountered and many of the artefacts they excavated in the vicinity of the ancient oasis town of Khotan. Stein intended his book to be accessible to non-specialists, and his descriptions of the many important archaeological discoveries, such as Sanskrit texts of Buddhist scriptures, are interspersed with compelling human details and anecdotes about traversing the challenging terrain of eastern Central Asia. The work of an indefatigable explorer, this book sheds light on the spread of Graeco-Buddhist culture along the Silk Route.

This volume is an important contribution to knowledge of the bioarchaeology of the Argentine Pampas. The author develops a rigorous application of different and actualized methodologies that improve the comprehension of a very rich bioachaeological record of hunter-gatherers, including problems of conservation conditions. The results obtained from the authors data (in part collected from Pampas cemeteries and a study of demographic questions) open a new perspective for our knowledge of these ancient societies.

The Archaeology and Ethnography of Central Africa provides the first detailed description of the prehistory of the Loango coast of west-central Africa over the course of more than 3,000 years. The archaeological data presented in this volume comes from a pivotal area through which, as linguistic and historical reconstructions have long indicated, Bantu-speaking peoples expanded before reaching eastern and southern Africa. Despite its historical importance, the prehistory of the Atlantic coastal regions of west-central Africa has until now remained almost unknown. James Denbow offers an imaginative approach to this subject, integrating the scientific side of fieldwork with the interplay of history, ethnography, politics, economics, and personalities. The resulting 'anthropology of archaeology' highlights the connections between past and present, change and modernity, in one of the most inaccessible and poorly known regions of west-central and southern Africa.

Before abandoning archaeology for politics, Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817 94) carried out major excavations in Mesopotamia between 1845 and 1851, uncovering important evidence of ancient Assyrian civilisation. Although he originally believed that Nimrud was Nineveh, he later confirmed that Kuyunjik was the location of the ancient city. First published in 1849, this two-volume work is a mixture of excavation report, ancient history, anthropology and travel writing. Layard's excitement at the extent and importance of the finds as soon as digging commenced is clearly conveyed, and he places Mesopotamian history in the context of the more familiar biblical and classical worlds. His Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853) is also reissued in this series. Volume 1 covers the background to the excavations, the first discoveries, and the difficulties with Arab authorities and local workmen. Also included are observations on the inhabitants, culture and history of the region."

Before abandoning archaeology for politics, Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817 94) carried out major excavations in Mesopotamia between 1845 and 1851, uncovering important evidence of ancient Assyrian civilisation. Although he originally believed that Nimrud was Nineveh, he later confirmed that Kuyunjik was the location of the ancient city. First published in 1849, this two-volume work is a mixture of excavation report, ancient history, anthropology and travel writing. Layard's excitement at the extent and importance of the finds as soon as digging commenced is clearly conveyed, and he places Mesopotamian history in the context of the more familiar biblical and classical worlds. His Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853) is also reissued in this series. Illustrated with reproductions of monumental sculptures, smaller finds and excavation plans, Volume 2 follows the progress of digs at a number of sites. The volume's latter part covers the history, culture and customs of the ancient Assyrians."

Originally published in 1927, this book was formed from the results of numerous researches into the past history of man in the East Anglian region. The text presents a detailed account of its subject, reflecting the view that 'There is, perhaps, no part of the world richer in the remains of our remote ancestors than that of Suffolk and Norfolk'. Numerous illustrations and photographs are included throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in archaeology and the human prehistory of East Anglia.