The culmination of a project aimed at showcasing, in a systematic way, the potential of applying anthropological perspectives to classical studies, this volume highlights the fundamental contribution this approach has to make to our understanding of ancient Roman culture. Through the close study of themes such as myth, polytheism, sacrifice, magic, space, kinship, the gift, friendship, economics, animals, plants, riddles, metaphors, and images in Roman society (often in comparison with Greece) - where the texts of ancient culture are allowed to speak in their own terms and where the experience of the natives (rather than the horizon of the observer) is privileged - a rich panorama emerges of the worldview, beliefs, and deep structures that shaped and guided this culture.

This book provides an up-to-date synthesis of Aztec culture, applying interdisciplinary approaches (archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography) to reconstructing the complex and enigmatic civilization. Frances F. Berdan offers a balanced assessment of complementary and sometimes contradictory sources in unravelling the ancient way of life. The book provides a cohesive view of the Aztecs and their empire, emphasizing the diversity and complexity of social, economic, political and religious roles played by the many kinds of people we call 'Aztecs'. Concluding with three integrative case studies, the book examines the stresses, dynamics and anchors of Aztec culture and society.

An Archaeology of the British Atlantic World, 1600-1700 is the first book to apply the methods of modern-world archaeology to the study of the seventeenth-century English colonial world. Charles E. Orser, Jr explores a range of material evidence of daily life collected from archaeological excavations throughout the Atlantic region, including England, Ireland, western Africa, Native North America, and the eastern United States. He considers the archaeological record together with primary texts by contemporary writers. Giving particular attention to housing, fortifications, delftware, and stoneware, Orser offers new interpretations for each type of artefact. His study demonstrates how the archaeological record expands our understanding of the Atlantic world at a critical moment of its expansion, as well as to the development of the modern, Western world.

Nineteenth-century highland Madagascar was a place inhabited by the dead as much as the living. Ghosts, ancestors and the possessed were important historical actors alongside local kings and queens, soldiers, traders and missionaries. This book considers the challenges that such actors pose for historical accounts of the past and for thinking about questions of presence and representation. How were the dead made present, and how were they recognized or not? In attending to these multifarious encounters of the nineteenth century, how might we reflect on the ways in which our own history-writing makes the dead present? To tackle these questions, Zoe Crossland tells an anthropological history of highland Madagascar from a perspective rooted in archaeology and Peircean semiotics, as well as in landscape study, oral history and textual sources.

The popular image of Scotland is dominated by widely recognised elements of Celtic culture. But could it be that a significant non-Celtic influence on Scotland's history has been largely ignored or unknown for centuries? This book argues just such a case, maintaining that much of Scotland's history and culture from 1100 forward is Jewish. The authors provide evidence that much of the population, including several national heroes, villains, rulers, nobles, traders, merchants, bishops, guild members, burgesses, and ministers, was of Jewish descent. They describe how the ancestors of these persons originated in France and Spain and then made their way to Scotland's shores, moors, burgs and castles from the reign of Malcolm Canmore to the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition. It is proposed here that much of the traditional historical account of Scotland rests on fundamental interpretive errors, and that these errors have been perpetuated in order to manufacture and maintain an origin for Scotland that affirms its identity as a Celtic, Christian society. This equation of Scotland with Celtic culture in the popular (and academic) imagination has buried a more accurate and profound understanding of its history. The authors' wide-ranging research includes examination of census records, archaeological artifacts, castle carvings, cemetery inscriptions, religious seals, coinage, burgess and guild member rolls, noble genealogies, family crests, portraiture, and geographic place names.

This interdisciplinary study offers a systematic approach to ancient archival documents from the Near East, the Mycenean world, and classical Greece. The contributions aim to achieve a richer understanding of archival documents - by addressing questions of formal aspects of creating, writing, and storing ancient documents - and to discover how concepts of record-keeping were adapted by different ancient societies in the ancient world.

This volume presents new information from a program of intensive archaeological survey and surface collection at an important Olmec and Epi-Olmec center. A dual strategy of systematic interval transect sampling and full-coverage survey of architectural features and artifact concentrations permits an evaluation of the relative effectiveness of these commonly employed methods. Auger testing in floodplain areas yielded evidence of extensive buried deposits. Distributional analysis of the surface and subsurface data documents the site's growth and decline from 900 BC to AD 900 in radiocarbon years and confirm that Tres Zapotes achieved its apogee during the Late and Terminal Formative periods (400 BCAD 300). An attribute analysis of burned earthen artifacts discriminates between daub and probable kiln remains, helping to define ceramic production loci. Interpretive chapters discuss the organization of ceramic and obsidian craft production, concluding that craft activities were mainly household based with little elite control over production. The concluding synthesis argues for weak centralization of authority of Tres Zapotes and highlights variability in the political and economic processes affecting forms of urbanism in the lowlands of Mesoamerica.

This book offers a detailed account of Inca history, society and culture through the lens of archaeology, written documents and ethnographic accounts of native Andeans. Throughout the Andes, public works ordained by the emperors of the Incas dominate and transform the natural landscape. Cities, temples and fortresses of stone, marvelously engineered roads cut through sheer mountain slopes, massive agricultural terraces and hydraulic works are emblematic of Inca power. In this book, Alan L. Kolata examines how these awesome material products came into being. What were the cultural institutions that gave impetus to the Incas' imperial ambition? What form of power did the Incas exercise over their conquered provinces, far from the imperial capital of Cuzco? How did they mobilize the staggering labor force that sustained their war machine and built their empire? What kind of perceptions and religious beliefs informed Inca worldview?

This book clarifies the advent of Liangzhu Culture and analyses the morphology, structure and internal social organization of grass-root settlements, medium-size settlements and the ancient city of Liangzhu, as well as the religious beliefs, ideology and power mechanisms represented by jade. Further, the book explains how the low-lying location and humid environment in the water-net plain area prompted the creation of man-made platforms or pillars, forming small and densely settled residential areas, and ultimately the water villages of southern China. Developments between man and nature accelerated the process of civilization, leading to the polarization of social classes and pyramid-shaped residential structures containing cities, towns and villages. Offering unique insights into the social vitality and structure of Liangzhu society, the book is one of the most important academic works on interpreting the origins of Liangzhu Civilization and investigating Chinese Civilization.

This book provides an introduction to the archaeology and history of ancient Palestine - modern Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories - from the destruction of Solomon's temple in 586 BCE to the Muslim conquest in 640 CE. Special attention is paid to the archaeology of Jerusalem and the Second Temple period, in the time of Herod the Great and Jesus. For each period, the book offers a historical background for the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East, as well as the events in Palestine. Major sites such as Masada, Caesarea Maritima and Petra are examined in archaeological and historical detail, along with the material culture - coins, pottery, glass and stone vessels - of each period. This book provides a thorough overview of the archaeology of this historically vibrant part of the world.

The Archaeology Hotspots series offers reader-friendly and engaging narratives of the archaeology in particular countries. Written by archaeological experts with a general reader in mind, each book in the series focuses on what has been found and by whom, what the controversies and scandals have been, ongoing projects, and how it all fits into a broader view of the history of the country. In Archaeology Hotspot France, Georgina Muskett provides insight into the vibrant and varied collection of archaeological sites and monuments in France. From the presence of the first humans to the royal dynasty of the Merovingians, this book takes readers into the histories, mysteries, and scandals of these illustrious sites, as well as covering the latest discoveries, early pioneers, and the innovations for which French archaeology is famous. The stunning cave art of Lascaux, the engineering excellence of the Pont-du-Gard and the amphora-laden shipwreck at Madrague de Giens are among the wealth of archaeological sites to be discovered.

This two-volume set highlights the importance of Iberian shipbuilding in the centuries of the so-called first globalization (15th to 18th), in confluence with an unprecedented extension of ocean navigation and seafaring and a greater demand for natural resources (especially timber), mostly oak (Quercus spp.) and Pine (Pinus spp.). The chapters are framed in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary line of research that integrates history, Geographic Information Sciences, underwater archaeology, dendrochronology and wood provenance techniques. This line of research was developed during the ForSEAdiscovery project, which had a great impact in the academic and scientific world and brought together experts from Europe and America. The volumes deliver a state-of-the-art review of the latest lines of research related to Iberian maritime history and archaeology and their developing interdisciplinary interaction with dendroarchaeology. This synthesis combines an analysis of historical sources, the systematic study of wreck-remains and material culture related to Iberian seafaring from the 15th to the 18th centuries, and the application of earth sciences, including dendrochronology. The set can be used as a manual or work guide for experts and students, and will also be an interesting read for non-experts interested in the subject. Volume 1 focuses on the history and archaeology of seafaring and shipbuilding in the Iberian early modern world, complemented by case studies on timber trade and supply for shipbuilding, analysis of shipbuilding treatises, and the application of Geographic Information Systems and Databases (GIS) to the study of shipwrecks.

Archaeology is a vast subject - it is the study of human society everywhere in the world, from distant human origins 3-4 million years ago up to the present day. The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology brings together 35 authors - all specialists in their own fields - to explain what archaeology is really about. This is one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject and of the key debates ever attempted. It is designed to open up the world of archaeology to non-specialists and to provide an essential starting point for those who want to pursue particular topics in more depth.

This book outlines the latest research in Fanshan by the archaeologist, a man-made hathpace cemetery, on which is located the inner city of Liangzhu historical site at northwest area. There are 11 tomb locations discovered in Fanshan as built based on mutual dependency while and after excavation and were found continuously more than 1200 pieces (assemblages) of burial accessories, while at least 1100 pieces of jades were among the unearthed items. In view of the above-mentioned background, Fanshan as royal cemetery is well known for the largest number and variety of exquisite highly polished jades. In addition to prehistoric art, the work also explores the traces of Fanshan royal cemetery in conjunction with a substantial number of photos taken by expert of the historical site, restores the crucial burial objects and funeral rite as well as interprets burial accessories in different ways to discover the identity of the tomb's occupants such as social class and status and moreover the interlocking system of an organization.

This volume examines human sexuality as an intrinsic element in the interpretation of complex colonial societies. While archaeological studies of the historic past have explored the dynamics of European colonialism, such work has largely ignored broader issues of sexuality, embodiment, commemoration, reproduction, and sensuality. Recently, however, scholars have begun to recognize these issues as essential components of colonization and imperialism. This book explores a variety of case studies, revealing the multifaceted intersections of colonialism and sexuality. Incorporating work that ranges from Phoenician diasporic communities of the eighth century to Britain's nineteenth-century Australian penal colonies to the contemporary maroon community of Brazil, this volume changes the way we understand the relationship between sexuality and colonial history.

"The Earliest China" is the first archaeological book in China to translate in the dominant language of the world on the origin of Chinese ancient civilization in the Central Plains and the study of Xia dynastic culture. It shows readers all over the world the outstanding achievements in the study of the formation of early state in China and is the first English translation monograph on the birth history of the first dynasty of Hua-Xia nation from the perspective of archaeology. With the specific archaeological data on the basis of excavations and investigation conducted in recent years, this book focuses on the interpretation of the rise and development of the ancient civilization having initially appeared in the Central Plain of China and even in the Eastern Asia. The book contents include abundant manifestations of the first flourishing civilization especially at the Erlitou site along the Yi and Luo Rivers, characteristic of ultra-large capital city, palace buildings, elaborate bronze vessels, and stratified social organization. With the combination of previously literature, the original author attempts to further explain how the earliest China, a royal-powered, and large-scaled state, emerged four thousand years ago. In this book, the analysis on a comprehensive landscape of the ancient civilization prior to the Shang Dynasty leads the point of views, distinctively from the traditional historical perspectives. With a global perspective, he further compares with other significant civilizations in the world and also points out cultural communications between the early China and other external cultures in the Bronze Age. Therefore, this book, the Earliest China of English translated version, is so appropriate to be recommended to foreign scholars and sinologists, as well as everyone who has been attracted by China's charm overseas. With book contents, ideas, and thoughts that it contains, one can easily acknowledge the goals, methods, and reconstruction process of China's prehistory, so English readers will acknowledge so well about the Chinese Archaeology in the Bronze Age, which does vary in many aspects from that of European and American.

Charlemagne and Rome is a wide-ranging exploration of cultural politics in the age of Charlemagne. It focuses on a remarkable inscription commemorating Pope Hadrian I who died in Rome at Christmas 795. Commissioned by Charlemagne, composed by Alcuin of York, and cut from black stone quarried close to the king's new capital at Aachen in the heart of the Frankish kingdom, it was carried to Rome and set over the tomb of the pope in the south transept of St Peter's basilica not long before Charlemagne's imperial coronation in the basilica on Christmas Day 800. A masterpiece of Carolingian art, Hadrian's epitaph was also a manifesto of empire demanding perpetual commemoration for the king amid St Peter's cult. In script, stone, and verse, it proclaimed Frankish mastery of the art and power of the written word, and claimed the cultural inheritance of imperial and papal Rome, recast for a contemporary, early medieval audience. Pope Hadrian's epitaph was treasured through time and was one of only a few decorative objects translated from the late antique basilica of St Peter's into the new structure, the construction of which dominated and defined the early modern Renaissance. Understood then as precious evidence of the antiquity of imperial affection for the papacy, Charlemagne's epitaph for Pope Hadrian I was preserved as the old basilica was destroyed and carefully redisplayed in the portico of the new church, where it can be seen today. Using a very wide range of sources and methods, from art history, epigraphy, palaeography, geology, archaeology, and architectural history, as well as close reading of contemporary texts in prose and verse, this book presents a detailed 'object biography', contextualising Hadrian's epitaph in its historical and physical setting at St Peter's over eight hundred years, from its creation in the late eighth century during the Carolingian Renaissance through to the early modern Renaissance of Bramante, Michelangelo, and Maderno.

A history of women prophets from medieval saints to radical Protestants. Diane Watt sets aside the conventional hiatus between the medieval and early modern periods in her study of women's prophecy, following the female experience from medieval sainthood to radical Protestantism. The English women prophets and visionaries whose voices are recovered here all lived between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries and claimed, through the medium of trances and eucharistic piety, to speak for God. They include Margery Kempe and the medieval visionaries, Elizabeth Barton (the Holy Maid of Kent), the Reformation martyr Anne Askew and other godly women described in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, and Lady Eleanor Davies as an example of a woman prophetof the Civil War. The strategies women devised to be heard and read are exposed, showing that through prophecy they were often able to intervene in the religious and political discourse of the their times: the role of God's secretary gave them the opportunity to act and speak autonomously and publicly. Winner of Foster Watson Memorial Gift for 1998. Professor Diane Watt is Head of the School of English and Languages, University of Surrey.

The study of specialized craft production has a long tradition in archaeological research. Through analyses of material remains and the contexts of their production and use, archaeologists can examine the organization of craft production and the economic and political status of craft producers. This study combines archaeological and historical evidence from the author's twenty years of fieldwork at the imperial capital of Vijayanagara to explore the role and significance of craft production in the city's political economy of the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. By examining a diverse range of crafts from poetry to pottery, Sinopoli evaluates models of craft production and expands upon theoretical and historical understandings of empires in general and Vijayanagara in particular. It is the most broad-ranging study of craft production in South Asia, or in any other early state empire.

For over half a millennium, the megalithic ruins of Tiwanaku in the highlands of the Andes mountains have stood as proxy for the desires and ambitions of various empires and political agendas; in the last hundred years, scholars have attempted to answer the question "What was Tiwanaku?" by examining these shattered remains from a distant preliterate past.This volume contains twelve papers from senior scholars, whose contributions discuss subjects from the farthest points of the southern Andes, where the iconic artifacts of Tiwanaku appear as offerings to the departed, to the heralded ruins weathered by time and burdened by centuries of interpretation and speculation. Visions of Tiwanaku stays true to its name by providing a platform for each scholar to present an informed view on the nature of this enigmatic place that seems so familiar, yet continues to elude understanding by falling outside our established models for early cities and states.

This is the third in a series of four volumes that are intended to present a complete Corpus of all the church buildings, of both the Western and the Oriental rites, built, rebuilt or simply in use in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem between the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099 and the loss of Acre in 1291. This volume deals exclusively with Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom from 1099 to 1187, leaving the churches of Acre and Tyre to be covered in the fourth and final volume. The Corpus will be an indispensable work of reference to all those concerned with the medieval topography and archaeology of the Holy Land, with the history of the church in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, with medieval pilgrimage to the Holy Places, and with the art and architecture of the Latin East.

Drawing on archaeological, historical, theological, scientific and folkloric sources, Sarah Tarlow's interdisciplinary study examines belief as it relates to the dead body in early modern Britain and Ireland. From the theological discussion of bodily resurrection to the folkloric use of body parts as remedies, and from the judicial punishment of the corpse to the ceremonial interment of the social elite, this book discusses how seemingly incompatible beliefs about the dead body existed in parallel through this tumultuous period. This study, which is the first to incorporate archaeological evidence of early modern death and burial from across Britain and Ireland, addresses new questions about the materiality of death: what the dead body means, and how its physical substance could be attributed with sentience and even agency. It provides a sophisticated original interpretive framework for the growing quantities of archaeological and historical evidence about mortuary beliefs and practices in early modernity.

Recent archaeological discoveries, including manuscripts, have shed new light on China's history, in particular Qin and Han (221 BCE-220 CE), this volume's main focus. They make possible a deeper account of the growth of cities and of the spread of Chinese influence over distant areas. This book provides the first comprehensive survey of recent developments, evaluating the newly-found evidence in the light of earlier conclusions from China, Japan, Europe and America. Through cross-cultural comparisons and a close study of both the excavated and received literature, new conclusions are presented with respect to relatively understudied topics, such as gender, history of science, and modes of persuasion, while challenging the 'common wisdom' in such fields as Buddhism, Daoism and social history. Thus the volume provides a supplement to Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of China (1986) and shows how subsequent archaeology has enriched our perception of China's history in this period.

The Art and Archaeology of Bodily Adornment examines the significance of adornment to the shaping of identity in mortuary contexts within Central and East Asia and brings these perspectives into dialogue with current scholarship in other worldwide regions. Adornment and dress are well-established fields of study for the ancient world, particularly with regard to Europe and the Americas. Often left out of this growing discourse are contributions from scholars of Central and East Asia. The mortuary contexts of focus in this volume represent unique sites and events where identity was visualized, and often manipulated and negotiated, through material objects and their placement on and about the deceased body. The authors examine ornaments, jewelry, clothing, and hairstyles to address questions of identity construction regarding dimensions such as gender and social and political status, and transcultural exchange from burials of prehistoric and early historical archaeological sites in Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. In both breadth and depth, this book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the archaeology, art, and history of Central and East Asia, as well as anyone interested in the general study of dress and adornment.

Studies of the customs and beliefs of barbarian peoples who migrated westwards and settled in Western Europe from the close of the Roman empire to the ninth century. The decline of the Roman Empire was compounded by the spread westwards of tribes from Eastern Europe, settling areas from which the indigenous populations had been cleared by the spread of the power of Rome; those populations themselves, notably the Celts, were pushed to the fringes of the former empire. These migrations of barbarian peoples between the fourth and ninth centuries left no historical record in the accepted sense, but it is the recovery of the customs and beliefs of these populations that forms the common purpose of the studies in this book, for during these centuries the traits and attitudes developed which are at the root of present-day Europe: feudalism, the statuslevel achieved by the merchant class, the beginnings of an ideology that led to the separation of church and state, the demise of slavery as an inefficient mode of production, the origin of national identities. The late GIORGIO AUSENDA taught at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress, San Marino. Contributors: GIORGIO AUSENDA, JULIAN D. RICHARDS, JOHN HINES, DAVID TURTON, ROSS BALZARETTI, DENNIS H. GREEN, SVEN SCHUETTE, DAVID N. DUMVILLE, MORTEM AXBOE, IAN N. WOOD