Why do people destroy objects and materials that are important to them? This book aims to make sense of this fascinating, yet puzzling social practice by focusing on a period in history in which such destructive behaviour reached unseen heights and complexity: the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Europe (c. 2300-500 BC). This period is often seen as the time in which a 'familiar' Europe took shape due to the rise of a metal-based economy. But it was also during the Bronze Age that massive amounts of scarce and recyclable metal were deliberately buried in the landscape and never taken out again. This systematic deposition of metalwork sits uneasily with our prevailing perception of the Bronze Age as the first 'rational-economic' period in history - and therewith - of ourselves. Taking the patterned archaeological evidence of these seemingly un-economic metalwork depositions at face value, it is shown that the 'un-economic' giving-up of metal valuables was an integral part of what a Bronze Age 'economy' was about. Based on case studies from Bronze Age Europe, this book attempts to reconcile the seemingly conflicting political and cultural approaches that are currently used to understand this pivotal period in Europe's deep history. It seems that to achieve something in society, something else must be given up. Using theories from economic anthropology, this book argues that - paradoxically - giving up that which was valuable created value. It will be invaluable to scholars and archaeologists interested in the Bronze Age, ancient economies, and a new angle on metalwork depositions.

New edition with a new Prologue by the author An Archaeology of Elmina examines a complex African settlement on the coast of present-day Ghana from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries using the archaeological record, European narratives and indigenous oral histories. Placing the site in broader context as the first European trading post in sub-Saharan Africa, Christopher DeCorse explores the developments there in light of Portuguese, Dutch, and British expansion and illustrates remarkable cultural continuity in the midst of technological change. Originally published by Smithsonian Institution Press in 2001.

This book includes description of the excavations in the East Plaza and the large acropolis-like mound to the east. all of the structures of the East Plaza are supported by a single flat surface, Platform 5D-2. Excavation revealed that the area maintained a constancy of form over time. The East Plaza served as an area for the gathering of large crowds of people. The author has identified the eastern portion of the Plaza as the principal marketplace of Tikal. University Museum Monograph, 92

The second edition of this well-known textbook on Southwestern archaeology provides a coherent and comprehensive summary of the major themes and topics central to modern interpretation and practice. This edition offers a readable and accurate representation of current debates and research in the American Southwest. It challenges readers to integrate the structure and meaning of various broad regional trends that preceded the European conquest. It covers the latest in field research and topical syntheses. It addresses curricular cultural diversity requirements, and contains new maps, line drawings, and photos.

The work of top scholars in Visigothic studies... Using all evidence available, the volume addresses the evolution of the Visigoths in early medieval history. CHOICE Indispensable for all scholars of the Visigoths. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW Books on the Visigoths and Visigothic Spain in English are rare, so this is a welcome addition to their ranks... wide-ranging collection (which) has much to offer, not just to Spanish studies but to students of late antiquity in general. CLASSICAL REVIEW Between 376 and 476 the Roman Empire in western Europe was dismantled by aggressive outsiders, barbarians' as the Romans labelled them. Chief among these were the Visigoths, a new force of previously separate Gothic and other groups from south-west France, initially settled by the Romans but subsequently, from the middle of the fifth century, achieving total independence from the failing Roman Empire, and extending their power from the Loire to the Straits of Gibraltar. These studies draw on literary and archaeological evidence to address important questions thrown up by the history of the Visigoths and of the kingdom they generated: the historical processes which led to their initial creation; the emergence of the Visigothic kingdom in the fifth century; and the government, society, culture and economy of the mature' kingdom of the sixth and seventh centuries. A valuable feature of the collection, reflecting the switch of the centre of the Visigothic kingdom from France to Spain from the beginning of the sixth century, is the inclusion, in English, of current Spanish scholarship. Dr PETER HEATHERteaches in the Department of History at University College London.

The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them.
Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world.
"There are few scholars in the world qualified to write such a book, and certainly Kramer is one of them. . . . One of the most valuable features of this book is the quantity of texts and fragments which are published for the first time in a form available to the general reader. For the layman the book provides a readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture. For the specialist it presents a synthesis with which he may not agree but from which he will nonetheless derive stimulation."--"American Journal of Archaeology"
"An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity."--"Library Journal"

A CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE The earliest rock art - in the Americas as elsewhere - is geometric or abstract. Until Early Rock Art in the American West, however, no book-length study has been devoted to the deep antiquity and amazing range of geometrics and the fascinating questions that arise from their ubiquity and variety. Why did they precede representational marks? What is known about their origins and functions? Why and how did humans begin to make marks, and what does this practice tell us about the early human mind? With some two hundred striking color images and discussions of chronology, dating, sites, and styles, this pioneering investigation of abstract geometrics on stone (as well as bone, ivory, and shell) explores its wide-ranging subject from the perspectives of ethology, evolutionary biology, cognitive archaeology, and the psychology of artmaking. The authors' unique approach instills a greater respect for a largely unknown and underappreciated form of paleoart, suggesting that before humans became Homo symbolicus or even Homo religiosus, they were mark-makers - Homo aestheticus.

La Mina: A Royal Moche Tomb focuses on La Mina, an extraordinarily rich tomb that was looted on the north coast of Peru in 1987. The ceramic and metal objects it contained were among the most extraordinary ever produced in the Andean area, and it had the most colorfully decorated pre-Columbian burial chamber ever found in the Americas. The artifacts are now scattered throughout the world, nearly all of them held in private collections. In this work Donnan reveals how he was able to locate and document many of the tomb's contents and determine how the tomb was constructed and embellished. With more than two hundred color images of the archaeological treasures unearthed at La Mina--remarkable works in ceramic and metal that are among the greatest masterpieces of art from the ancient world--students and scholars will welcome the mystery of how careful archaeological sleuthing can piece together valuable information to recover what seemed to be unrecoverable.

This comprehensive survey of British colonial governors' houses and buildings used as state houses or capitols in the North American colonies begins with the founding of the Virginia Colony and ends with American independence. In addition to the 13 colonies that became the United States in 1783, the study includes three colonies in present-day Florida and Canada-East Florida, West Florida and the Province of Quebec-obtained by Great Britain after the French and Indian War.

This book focuses on a forgotten place-the Khami World Heritage site in Zimbabwe. It examines how professionally ascribed values and conservation priorities affect the cultural landscape when there is a disjuncture between local community and national interests, and explores the epistemic violence that often accompanied colonial heritage management and archaeology in southern Africa. The central premise is that the history of the modern Zimbabwe nation, in terms of what is officially remembered and celebrated, inevitably determines how that past is managed. It is about how places are experienced and remembered through narratives and how the loss of this heritage memory may mark the un-inheriting of place. Memory and Cultural Landscape at the Khami World Heritage Site, Zimbabwe is informed by the author's experience of living near and working at Great Zimbabwe and Khami as an archaeologist, and uses archives and traditional narratives to build a biography for this lost cultural landscape. Whereas Great Zimbabwe is a resource for the state's contentious narrative of unity, and a tool for cultural activism among communities whose cultural rights are denied through the nationalisation and globalisation heritage, at Khami, which has lost its historical gravity, there is only silence. Researchers and students of cultural heritage will find this book a much-needed case study on heritage, identity, community and landscape from an African perspective.

Originally published in 1964 these papers discuss the recovery and critical interpretation of oral traditions and written documents, problems of dating and analysis of material from archaeological sites, the use of linguistic evidence, and methods of historical reconstruction concerning techniques, art styles and changes in social organization. Consideration is also given to wider problems concerning the pre-colonial history of certain parts of Africa. Attitudes towards the study and understanding of various aspects of historical develoment both among scholars and the public are also reviewed.

First Published in 1994. This research guide was written as a comprehensive, though by no means exhaustive, survey of the literature pertinent to studying the indigenous complex societies of south central Africa. Although the paramount focus of the compilation was the archaeology of Great Zimbabwe, the author has drawn from a broad geographical area and a wider period of time than that usually associated with Zimbabwean culture in order to demonstrate the cultural background for the growth of monumental trading towns in south central Africa.

This book provides a thorough and engaging study of Plains Indian life. It covers both historical and contemporary aspects and contains wide and balanced treatment of the many different tribal groups, including Canadian and southern populations. Daniel J. Gelo draws on years of ethnographic research and emphasizes that Plains societies and cultures are continuing, living entities. The second edition has been updated to take account of recent developments and current terminology. The chapters feature a range of illustrations, maps, and text boxes, as well as summaries, key terms, and questions to support teaching and learning. It is an essential text for courses on Indians of the Great Plains and relevant for students of anthropology, archaeology, history, and Indigenous studies.

This book provides a thorough and engaging study of Plains Indian life. It covers both historical and contemporary aspects and contains wide and balanced treatment of the many different tribal groups, including Canadian and southern populations. Daniel J. Gelo draws on years of ethnographic research and emphasizes that Plains societies and cultures are continuing, living entities. The second edition has been updated to take account of recent developments and current terminology. The chapters feature a range of illustrations, maps, and text boxes, as well as summaries, key terms, and questions to support teaching and learning. It is an essential text for courses on Indians of the Great Plains and relevant for students of anthropology, archaeology, history, and Indigenous studies.

The feminist, medievalist and political theorist Lina Eckenstein (1857-1931) spent the excavation seasons from 1903 to 1906 working with Flinders Petrie (whose wife Hilda was a close friend) at Saqqara, Abydos and elsewhere. This 1921 publication was inspired by her experiences at the site of Serabit in the Sinai peninsula (Petrie's account of the excavation is also reissued in this series). Eckenstein describes it as a 'little history which will, I trust, appeal to those who take an interest in the reconstruction of the past and in the successive stages of religious development'. The narrative begins in the prehistoric period, suggesting that the inhospitable landscape (caused by ancient deforestation) and climate dissuaded large-scale permanent settlement until the first hermit and monastic communities of the Christian era (although the Egyptians had been drawn there by resources of turquoise and copper), and continues down to the nineteenth century.

Multi-disciplinary with a wide geographical range.

Large-scale disasters mobilize heritage professionals to a narrative of heritage-at-risk and a standardized set of processes to counter that risk. Trinidad Rico's critical ethnography analyses heritage practices in the aftermath of the tsunami that swamped Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in 2004 and the post-destruction narratives that accompanied it, showing the sociocultural, historical, and political agendas these discourses raise. Countering the typical Western ideology and practice of ameliorating heritage-at-risk were local, post-colonial trajectories that permitted the community to construct its own meaning of heritage. This book documents the emergence of local heritage places, practices, and debates countering the globalized versions embraced by the heritage professions offering a critical paradigm for post-destruction planning and practice that incorporates alternative models of heritage. Constructing Deconstruction will be of value to scholars, professionals, and advanced students in Heritage Studies, Anthropology, Geography, and Disaster Studies.

The Hittite language is the earliest preserved member of the Indo-European family of languages. It was written on clay tablets in central Asia Minor over a five hundred year span (ca. 1650-1180 B.C.) which witnessed the rise, the floruit, and the decline of many political powers in the Near East. The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CHD) is a comprehensive, bilingual Hittite-English dictionary. The CHD is not just a list of words and their meanings, but rather a dictionary that reflects and illustrates the ideas and material world of Hittite society through its lexicon. Published letter by letter, the CHD is a long-term project and the result of a painstaking process of cultural, historical, and lexical investigation for all those interested in Hittite culture and history. The CHD is the only such project in the English speaking world.

When the Umayyads, the first Islamic dynasty, rose to power shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632), the polity of which they assumed control had only recently expanded out of Arabia into the Roman eastern Mediterranean, Iraq and Iran. A century later, by the time of their downfall in 750, the last Umayyad caliphs governed the largest empire that the world had seen, stretching from Spain in the West to the Indus valley and Central Asia in the East. By then, their dynasty and the ruling circles around it had articulated with increasing clarity the public face of the new monotheistic religion of Islam, created major masterpieces of world art and architecture, some of which still stand today, and built a state apparatus that was crucial to ensuring the continuity of the Islamic polity. Within the vast lands under their control, the Umayyads and their allies ruled over a mosaic of peoples, languages and faiths, first among them Christianity, Judaism and the Ancient religion of Iran, Zoroastrianism. The Umayyad period is profoundly different from ours, yet it also resonates with modern concerns, from the origins of Islam to dynamics of cultural exchange. Editors Alain George and Andrew Marsham bring together a collection of essays that shed new light on this crucial period. Power, Patronage, and Memory in Early Islam elucidates the ways in which Umayyad elites fashioned and projected their self-image, and how these articulations, in turn, mirrored their own times. The authors, combining perspectives from different disciplines, present new material evidence, introduce fresh perspectives about key themes and monuments, and revisit the nature of the historical writing that shaped our knowledge of this period.

The twenty-five papers in this volume arise from a conference jointly organised by the British Archaeological Association and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. They explore the making of art and architecture in Latin Europe and the Mediterranean between c. 1000 and c. 1250, with a particular focus on questions of patronage, design and instrumentality. No previous studies of patterns of artistic production during the Romanesque period rival the breadth of coverage encompassed by this volume - both in terms of geographical origin and media, and in terms of historical approach. Topics range from case studies on Santiago de Compostela, the Armenian Cathedral in Jerusalem and the Winchester Bible to reflections on textuality and donor literacy, the culture of abbatial patronage at Saint-Michel de Cuxa and the re-invention of slab relief sculpture around 1100. The volume also includes papers that attempt to recover the procedures that coloured interaction between artists and patrons - a serious theme in a collection that opens with 'Function, condition and process in eleventh-century Anglo-Norman church architecture' and ends with a consideration of 'The death of the patron'.

The myriad ways in which colour and light have been adapted and applied in the art, architecture, and material culture of past societies is the focus of this interdisciplinary volume. Light and colour's iconographic, economic, and socio-cultural implications are considered by established and emerging scholars including art historians, archaeologists, and conservators, who address the variety of human experience of these sensory phenomena. In today's world it is the norm for humans to be surrounded by strong, artificial colours, and even to see colour as perhaps an inessential or surface property of the objects around us. Similarly, electric lighting has provided the power and ability to illuminate and manipulate environments in increasingly unprecedented ways. In the context of such a saturated experience, it becomes difficult to identify what is universal, and what is culturally specific about the human experience of light and colour. Failing to do so, however, hinders the capacity to approach how they were experienced by people of centuries past. By means of case studies spanning a broad historical and geographical context and covering such diverse themes as architecture, cave art, the invention of metallurgy, and medieval manuscript illumination, the contributors to this volume provide an up-to-date discussion of these themes from a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective. The papers range in scope from the meaning of colour in European prehistoric art to the technical art of the glazed tiles of the Shah mosque in Isfahan. Their aim is to explore a multifarious range of evidence and to evaluate and illuminate what is a truly enigmatic topic in the history of art and visual culture.

Inca Apocalypse develops a new perspective on the European invasions of the Inca realm, and the way that the Spanish transformation of the Andes relates to broader changes occurring in the transition from medieval to early modern Europe. The book is structured to foreground some of the parallels in the imperial origins of the Incas and Spain, as well as some of the global processes affecting both societies during the first century of their interaction. The Spanish conquest of the Inca empire was more than a decisive victory at Cajamarca in 1532-it was an uneven process that failed to bring to pass the millenarian vision that set it in motion, yet it succeeded profoundly in some respects. The Incas and their Andean subjects were not passive victims of colonization, and indigenous complicity and resistance actively shaped Spanish colonial rule. As it describes the transformation of the Inca world, Inca Apocalypse attempts to build a more global context than previous accounts of the Spanish Conquest, and it seeks not to lose sight of the parallel changes occurring in Europe as Spain pursued state projects that complemented the colonial endeavors in the Americas. New archaeological and archival research makes it possible to frame a familiar story from a larger historical and geographical scale than has typically been considered. The new text will have solid scholarly foundations but a narrative intended to be accessible to non-academic readers.

This book reveals how the ancient Maya - and their buildings, ideas, objects and identities - have been perceived, portrayed and exploited over 500 years in the Americas, Europe and beyond. Engaging in interdisciplinary analysis, the book summarizes ancient Maya art and history from the Preclassic period to the Spanish invasion, as well as the history of engagement with the ancient Maya, from Spanish invaders in the sixteenth century, to later explorers and archaeologists, taking in scientific literature, visual arts, architecture, world's fairs and Indigenous activism. It also looks at the decipherment of Maya inscriptions, Maya museum exhibitions and artists' responses, and contemporary Maya people's engagements with their ancestral past. Featuring the latest research, this book will interest scholars as well as general readers who wish to know more about this ancient, fascinating culture.

The Archaeology of the Spanish Civil War offers the first comprehensive account of the Spanish Civil War from an archaeological perspective, providing an alternative narrative on one of the most important conflicts of the twentieth century, widely seen as a prelude to the Second World War. Between 1936 and 1939, totalitarianism and democracy, fascism and revolution clashed in Spain, while the latest military technologies were being tested, including strategic bombing and combined arms warfare, and violence against civilians became widespread. Archaeology, however, complicates the picture as it brings forgotten actors into play: obsolete weapons, vernacular architecture, ancient structures (from Iron Age hillforts to sheepfolds), peasant traditions, and makeshift arms. By looking at these things, another story of the war unfolds, one that pays more attention to intimate experiences and anonymous individuals. Archaeology also helps to clarify battles, which were often chaotic and only partially documented, and to understand better the patterns of political violence, whose effects were literally buried for over 70 years. The narrative starts with the coup against the Second Spanish Republic on 18 July 1936, follows the massacres and battles that marked the path of the war, and ends in the early 1950s, when the last forced labor camps were closed and the anti-Francoist guerrillas suppressed. The book draws on 20 years of research to bring together perspectives from battlefield archaeology, archaeologies of internment, and forensics. It will be of interest to anybody interested in historical and contemporary archaeology, human rights violations, modern military history, and negative heritage.