The first major synthesis of African archaeobotany in decades, this book focuses on Paleolithic archaeobotany and the relationship between agriculture and social complexity. It explores the effects that plant life has had on humans as they evolved from primates through the complex societies of Africa, including Egypt, the Buganda Kingdom, southern African polities, and other regions. With over 30 contributing scholars from 12 countries and extensive illustrations, this volume is an essential addition to our knowledge of humanity's relationship with plants.

An Introduction to Native North America provides a basic introduction to the Native peoples of North America, covering what are now the United States, northern Mexico, and Canada. In this updated and revised new edition, Mark Q. Sutton has expanded and improved the existing text, adding to the case studies, updating the text with the latest research, increasing the number of images, providing more coverage of the Arctic regions, and including new perspectives, particularly those of Native peoples. The book addresses the history of research, the European invasion, and the impact of Europeans on Native societies. A final chapter introduces contemporary Native Americans, discussing issues that affect them, including religion, health, and politics. The book retains a wealth of pedological features to aid and reinforce learning. Featuring case studies of many Native American groups, as well as some eighty-four maps and images, An Introduction to Native North America is an indispensable tool to those studying the history of North America and its Native peoples.

An Introduction to Native North America provides a basic introduction to the Native peoples of North America, covering what are now the United States, northern Mexico, and Canada. In this updated and revised new edition, Mark Q. Sutton has expanded and improved the existing text, adding to the case studies, updating the text with the latest research, increasing the number of images, providing more coverage of the Arctic regions, and including new perspectives, particularly those of Native peoples. The book addresses the history of research, the European invasion, and the impact of Europeans on Native societies. A final chapter introduces contemporary Native Americans, discussing issues that affect them, including religion, health, and politics. The book retains a wealth of pedological features to aid and reinforce learning. Featuring case studies of many Native American groups, as well as some eighty-four maps and images, An Introduction to Native North America is an indispensable tool to those studying the history of North America and its Native peoples.

This book contributes to the growing body of research on the ontology of images by focusing on five main topics: ontology as a theoretical framework; the development of new concepts and methods for an ontological approach to rock art; the examination of the relationships between ontology, images and Indigenous knowledges; the development of relational models for the analysis of rock images; and the impact of ontological approaches on different rock art traditions across the world. Generating new avenues of research in ontological theory, political ontology and rock art research, this collection will be relevant to archaeologists, anthropologists, and philosophers.

A detailed history with fascinating insights and a gorgeous visual reference, this book tours the sacred Egyptian sites, from the impressive mortuary temples of the pharaohs to those dedicated to the many gods and goddesses.It includes an in-depth examination of the crucial role that religious belief and mythology played during this intriguing period of ancient history. The allure of ancient Egypt has endured over many centuries - and this authoritative volume offers further intriguing insights. It delves into the tombs, devoting chapters to the most famous burial sites: Giza, Saqqara and the Valley of the Kings, where the resting place of the boy-king Tutankhamun was discovered. The book also describes Egypt's temples, religions and myths, from the impressive mortuary temples of the pharaohs, such as Ramesses II, to elaborate funerary rituals, offerings and superstitions.With maps, chronologies and artwork supplementing more than 750 photographs, this book captures the essence of a fascinating epoch.

Museums and the Ancient Middle East is the first book to focus on contemporary exhibit practice in museums that present the ancient Middle East. Bringing together the latest thinking from a diverse and international group of leading curators, the book presents the views of those working in one particular community of practice: the art, archaeology, and history of the ancient Middle East. Drawing upon a remarkable group of case studies from many of the world's leading museums, including the British Museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ashmolean Museum, and the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, this volume describes the tangible actions curators have taken to present a previously unseen side of the Middle East region and its history. Highlighting overlaps and distinctions between the practices of national, art, and university museums around the globe, the contributors to the volume are also able to offer a unique insight into the types of challenges and opportunities facing the twenty-first century curator. Museums and the Ancient Middle East should be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of museums and heritage, archaeology, the ancient Near East, Middle Eastern studies, and ancient history. The unique insights provided by curators active in the field ensure that the book should also be of great interest to museum practitioners around the globe.

Mariam F. Ayad explores how five women were elevated to a position of supreme religious authority. Drawing on a variety of textual, iconographic, and archaeological evidence, and containing fifty-one black and white and colour illustrations, the volume discusses this often neglected subject, placing the women within the broader context of the politically volatile, turbulent seventh and eighth centuries BCE.

Ancient Alterity in the Andes is the first major treatment on ancient alterity: how people in the past regarded others. At least since the 1970s, alterity has been an influential concept in different fields, from art history, psychology and philosophy, to linguistics and ethnography. Having gained steam in concert with postmodernism's emphasis on self-reflection and discourse, it is especially significant now as a framework to understand the process of 'writing' and understanding the Other: groups, cultures and cosmologies. This book showcases this concept by illustrating how people visualised others in the past, and how it coloured their engagements with them, both physically and cognitively. Alterity has yet to see sustained treatment in archaeology due in great part to the fact that the archaeological record is not always equipped to inform on the subject. Like its kindred concepts, such as identity and ethnicity, alterity is difficult to observe also because it can be expressed at different times and scales, from the individual, family and village settings, to contexts such as nations and empires. It can also be said to 'reside' just as well in objects and individuals, as it may in a technique, action or performance. One requires a relevant, holistic data set and multiple lines of evidence. Ancient Alterity in the Andes provides just that by focusing on the great achievements of the ancient Andes during the first millennium AD, centred on a Precolumbian culture, known as Recuay (AD 1-700). Using a new framework of alterity, one based on social others (e.g., kinsfolk, animals, predators, enemies, ancestral dead), the book rethinks cultural relationships with other groups, including the Moche and Nasca civilisations of Peru's coast, the Chavin cult, and the later Wari, the first Andean empire. In revealing little known patterns in Andean prehistory the book illuminates the ways that archaeologists, in general, can examine alterity through the existing record. Ancient Alterity in the Andes is a substantial boon to the analysis and writing of past cultures, social systems and cosmologies and an important book for those wishing to understand this developing concept in archaeological theory.

An Archaeology of the Cosmos seeks answers to two fundamental questions of humanity and human history. The first question concerns that which some use as a defining element of humanity: religious beliefs. Why do so many people believe in supreme beings and holy spirits? The second question concerns changes in those beliefs. What causes beliefs to change? Using archaeological evidence gathered from ancient America, especially case material from the Great Plains and the pre-Columbian American Indian city of Cahokia, Timothy Pauketat explores the logical consequences of these two fundamental questions. Religious beliefs are not more resilient than other aspects of culture and society, and people are not the only causes of historical change. An Archaeology of the Cosmos examines the intimate association of agency and religion by studying how relationships between people, places, and things were bundled together and positioned in ways that constituted the fields of human experience. This rethinking theories of agency and religion provides readers with challenging and thought provoking conclusions that will lead them to reassess the way they approach the past.

The Sumerian World explores the archaeology, history and art of southern Mesopotamia and its relationships with its neighbours from c.3,000 - 2,000BC. Including material hitherto unpublished from recent excavations, the articles are organised thematically using evidence from archaeology, texts and the natural sciences. This broad treatment will also make the volume of interest to students looking for comparative data in allied subjects such as ancient literature and early religions. Providing an authoritative, comprehensive and up to date overview of the Sumerian period written by some of the best qualified scholars in the field, The Sumerian World will satisfy students, researchers, academics, and the knowledgeable layperson wishing to understand the world of southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium.

The origin and early development of social stratification is essentially an archaeological problem. The impressive advance of archaeological research has revealed that, first and foremost, the pre-eminence of stratified or class society in today's world is the result of a long social struggle. This volume advances the archaeological study of social organisation in Prehistory, and more specifically the rise of social complexity in European Prehistory. Within the wider context of world Prehistory, in the last 30 years the subject of early social stratification and state formation has been a key subject on interest in Iberian Prehistory. This book illustrates the differing forms of resistances, the interplay between change and continuity, the multiple paths to and from social complexity, and the 'failures' of states to form in Prehistory. It also engages with broader questions, such as: when did social stratification appear in western European Prehistory? What factors contributed to its emergence and consolidation? What are the relationships between the notions of social complexity, social inequality, social stratification and statehood? And what are the archaeological indicators for the empirical analysis of these issues? Focusing on Iberia, but with a permanent connection to the wider geographical framework, this book presents, for the first time, a chronologically comprehensive, up-to-date approach to the issue of state formation in prehistoric Europe.

After Discourse is an interdisciplinary response to the recent trend away from linguistic and textual approaches and towards things and their affects. The new millennium brought about serious changes to the intellectual landscape. Favoured approaches associated with the linguistic and the textual turn lost some of their currency, and were followed by a new curiosity and concern for things and their natures. Gathering contributions from archaeology, heritage studies, history, geography, literature and philosophy, After Discourse offers a range of reflections on what things are, how we become affected by them, and the ethical concerns they give rise to. Through a varied constellation of case studies, it explores ways of dealing with matters which fall outside, become othered from, or simply cannot be grasped through perspectives derived solely from language and discourse. After Discourse provides challenging new perspectives for scholars and students interested in other-than-textual encounters between people and the objects with which we share the world.

This volume draws together richly textured and deeply empirical accounts of rice and how its cultivation in the Carolina low country stitch together a globe that maps colonial economies, displacement, and the creative solutions of enslaved people conscripted to cultivate its grain. If sugar fueled the economic hegemony of North Europe in the 18th and 19th century, rice fed it. Nowhere has this story been a more integral part of the landscape than Low Country of the coasts of Georgia, South and North Carolina. Rice played a key role in the expansion of slavery in the Carolinas during the 18th century as West African captives were enslaved, in part for their expertise in growing rice. Contributors to this volume explore the varied genealogies of rice cultivation in the Low Country through archaeological, anthropological, and historical research. This multi-sited volume draws on case studies from Guinea, Sierra Leone, and South Carolina, the Caribbean and India to both compare and connect these disparate regions. Through these studies the reader will learn how the rice cultivation knowledge of untold numbers of captive Africans contributed to the development of the Carolinas and by extension, the United States and Europe. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Atlantic Studies.

Cultural Heritage Management and Indigenous People in the North of Colombia explores indigenous people's struggle for territorial autonomy in an aggressive political environment and the tensions between heritage tourism and Indigenous rights. South American cases where local communities, especially Indigenous groups, are opposed to infrastructure projects, are little known. This book lays out the results of more than a decade of research in which the resettlement of a pre-Columbian village has been documented. It highlights the difficulty of establishing the link between archaeological sites and objects, and Indigenous people due to legal restrictions. From a decolonial framework, the archaeology of Pueblito Chairama (Teyku) is explored, and the village stands as a model to understand the broader picture of the relationship between Indigenous people and political and economic forces in South America. The book will be of interest to researchers in Archaeology, Anthropology, Heritage and Indigenous Studies who wish to understand the particularities of South American repatriation cases and Indigenous archaeology in the region.

For many archaeologists, Iberia is the last great unknown region in Europe. Although it occupies a crucial position between South-Western Europe and North Africa, academic attention has traditionally been focused on areas like Greece or Italy. However Iberia has an equally rich cultural heritage and archaeological tradition. This ground-breaking volume presents a sample of the ways in which archaeologists have applied theoretical frameworks to the interpretation of archaeological evidence, offering new insights into the archaeology of both Iberia and Europe from prehistoric time through to the tenth century. The contributors to this book are leading archaeologists drawn from both countries. They offer innovative and challenging models for the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Early Medieval and Islamic periods. A diverse range of subjects are covered including urban transformation, the Iron Age peoples of Spain, observations on historiography and the origins of the Arab domains of Al-Andalus. It is essential reading for advanced undergraduates and those researching the archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula.

Working with and for Ancestors examines collaborative partnerships that have developed around the study and care of Indigenous ancestral human remains. In the interest of reconciliation, museums and research institutions around the world have begun to actively seek input and direction from Indigenous descendants in establishing collections care and research policies. However, true collaboration is difficult, time-consuming, and sometimes awkward. By presenting examples of projects involving ancestral remains that are successfully engaged in collaboration, the book provides encouragement for scientists and descendant communities alike to have open and respectful discussions around the research and care of ancestral human remains. Key themes for discussion include new approaches to the care for ancestors; the development of culturally sensitive museum policies; the emergence of mutually beneficial research partnerships; and emerging issues such as those of intellectual property, digital data, and alternatives to destructive analyses. Critical discussions by leading scholars also identify the remaining challenges in the repatriation process and offer a means to continue moving forward. This volume will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary audience interested in collaborative research and management strategies that are aimed at developing mutually beneficial relationships between researchers and descendant communities. This includes students and researchers in archaeology, anthropology, museums studies, and Indigenous communities.

The Archaeology of Movement discusses movement in the past, including the relationships between mobility and place, moving bodies and material culture, and the challenges of studying past movement. Drawing on a wide range of examples and different archaeological practices, The Archaeology of Movement provides an introduction for those interested in thinking about past movement beyond the ‘fact of mobility’. Almost since the beginning of the modern discipline of archaeology, movement has played a role in helping to shape our understanding of the past. However, the issue of movement is complicated, and where it sits in relation to other indicators of the past is problematic. Until now it has received less serious scrutiny than it merits. This book seeks to address this lacuna by placing movement at the centre of our investigations into the archaeological record. The Archaeology of Movement is an excellent introduction for archaeologists, anthropologists, cultural geographers, and students interested in the ways movement has shaped our understanding of history and the archaeological record.

The Archaeology of Movement discusses movement in the past, including the relationships between mobility and place, moving bodies and material culture, and the challenges of studying past movement. Drawing on a wide range of examples and different archaeological practices, The Archaeology of Movement provides an introduction for those interested in thinking about past movement beyond the 'fact of mobility'. Almost since the beginning of the modern discipline of archaeology, movement has played a role in helping to shape our understanding of the past. However, the issue of movement is complicated, and where it sits in relation to other indicators of the past is problematic. Until now it has received less serious scrutiny than it merits. This book seeks to address this lacuna by placing movement at the centre of our investigations into the archaeological record. The Archaeology of Movement is an excellent introduction for archaeologists, anthropologists, cultural geographers, and students interested in the ways movement has shaped our understanding of history and the archaeological record.

This volume reports on the excavation of Guil aquitz cave in Oaxaca, a site that provides important evidence for the earliest plant domestication in the New World. Stratigraphic studies, examinations of artifactual and botanical remains, simulations, and an imaginative reconstruction make this a model project of processual archaeology.

Conditioned by local ways of knowing and doing, Great Zimbabwe develops a new interpretation of the famous World Heritage site of Great Zimbabwe. It combines archaeological knowledge, including recent material from the author's excavations, with native concepts and philosophies. Working from a large data set has made it possible, for the first time, to develop an archaeology of Great Zimbabwe that is informed by finds and observations from the entire site and wider landscape. In so doing, the book strongly contributes towards decolonising African and world archaeology. Written in an accessible manner, the book is aimed at undergraduate students, graduate students, and practicing archaeologists both in Africa and across the globe. The book will also make contributions to the broader field such as African Studies, African History, and World Archaeology through its emphasis on developing synergies between local ways of knowing and the archaeology.

CONTENTS: THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF OMAN AND THE GULF: Peter Magee, New chronometric data defining the Iron Age II period in south-eastern Arabia; Vincent Charpentier, Philippe Marquis & Eric Pelle, La necropole et les derniers horizons Ve millenaire du site de Gorbat al-Mahar (Suwayh, SWY-1, Sultanat d'Oman): premiers resultats; Jutta Haser, Archaeological results of the 1999 and 2000 survey campaigns in Wadi Bani Awf and the region of al-Hamra (Central Oman); Cecile Monchablon, Remy Crassard, Olivia Munoz, Herve Guy, Gaelle Bruley-Chabot & Serge Cleuziou, Excavations at Ra's al-Jinz RJ-1: stratigraphy without tells; Tom Vosmer, The Magan Boat Project: a process of discovery, a discovery of process; Anne Benoist, Michel Mouton & Jeremie Schiettecatte, The artefacts from the fort at Mleiha: distribution, origins, trade and dating; Ali Tigani ElMahi & Moawiyah Ibrahim, Two seasons of investigations at Manal site in the Wadi Samayil area, Sultanate of Oman; Soumyen Bandyopadhyay & Magda Sibley, The distinctive typology of central Omani mosques: its nature and antecedents; Caesar E. Farah, Anglo-Ottoman confrontation in the Persian Gulf in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; COMPARATIVE WATER SYSTEMS: Miquel Barcelo, Julian Ortega, Arcadi Piera & Josep Torro, The Search for the Hararah asdad in the area of Zafar, Governorate of Ibb, Yemen; Helena Kirchner, Ma'jil: a type of hydraulic system in Yemen and in al-Andalus?; THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF PRE-ISLAMIC YEMEN: T.J. Wilkinson, The organization of settlement in highland Yemen during the Bronze and Iron Ages; Frank Braemer, Serge Cleuziou & Tara Steimer, Dolmen-like structures: some unusual funerary monuments in Yemen; William D. Glanzman, An examination of the building campaign of Yada il Dharih bin Sumhu'alay, mukarrib of Saba', in light of recent archaeology; Jean-Francois Breton, Preliminary notes on the development of Shabwa; Christian Darles, Les fortifications de Shabwa, capitale du royaume de Hadramawt; Jan Retsoe, When did Yemen become Arabia felix?; The epigraphy of pre-Islamic Yemen; Joseph L. Daniels, Landscape graffiti in the Dhamar Plains and its relation to mountain-top religious practice; Serguei A. Frantsouzof, The Hadramitic funerary inscription from the cave-tomb at al-Rukbah (Wadi Ghabr, Inland Hadramawt) and burial ceremonies in ancient Hadramawt; Peter Stein, The inscribed wooden sticks of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich; Mohammed Maraqten, Some notes on Sabaic epistolography; YEMEN IN THE ISLAMIC PERIOD: A. Rougeulle, Excavations at Sharmah, Hadramawt the 2001 and 2002 seasons; Noha Sadek, a'izz, capital of the Rasulid dynasty in Yemen; ETHNOGRAPHY IN YEMEN: Vitaly Naumkin & Victor Porkhomovsky, Oral poetry in the Soqotran socio-cultural context. The case of the ritual song The girl and the jinn; Miranda Morris, The Soqotra Archipelago: concepts of good health and everyday remedies for illness; Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper, Children's attire in early 20th-century San'a' as a socio-cultural paradigm. Orders from Archaeopress.

Focusing on sites of key significance and the world's first civilizations, Ancient Lives is an accessible and engaging textbook which introduces complete beginners to the fascinating worlds of archaeology and prehistory. Drawing on their impressive combined experience of the field and the classroom, the authors use a jargon-free narrative style to enliven the major developments of more than 3 million years of human culture. First introducing the basic principles, methods, and theoretical approaches of archaeology, the book then provides a summary of world prehistory from a global perspective. This latest edition provides an up-to-date account of human evolution and the origins of modern humans. It explores the reality of life in the prehistoric world. Later chapters describe the development of agriculture and animal domestication, and the emergence of cities, states, and preindustrial civilizations in widely separated parts of the world. Our knowledge of these is changing thanks to revolutionary developments in LIDAR (light detection and ranging) technology and other remote-sensing devices. With this new edition updated to reflect the latest discoveries and research in the discipline, Ancient Lives continues to be a comprehensive and essential introduction to archaeology. It will be ideal for students looking for an accessible guide to the subject.

Biblical Zoara is located in the Ghor as-Safi, precisely at the lowest place on earth. Its environmental and cultural history is therefore unique. During two decades, an archaeological project was conducted which discovered many significant finds of human occupations spanning some 12,000 years. These have been meticulously studied and the results are now presented here in Volume I. Volume II will follow and will complete and complement Volume I.

From gods, heroes, and monsters to Druids, sorcerers, and talking animals, Celtic Myths explores every aspect of Irish and Welsh myths in this appealing and authoritative guide. Besides vividly retelling the tales, Miranda Aldhouse-Green brings her expertise in the archaeology of the Iron Age and particularly shamanism to bear on the mythical world she describes, with evidence as diverse as the Gundestrup Cauldron and the famous bog bodies. Starting with a discussion of how myths are transmitted and by whom, Aldhouse-Green continues with an account of Irish and Welsh myths, their key actors and motifs, and themes such as heroes, animals, women, environment, and the Otherworld. The book concludes with a look at the influence of monastic chroniclers on the tales, which they preserved and adapted. Boxed features, quotes from primary texts and contemporary sources, two-color illustrations, photographs, and drawings all come together to create a comprehensive guide for anyone interested in Celtic history or the history of myth as well as anyone who simply loves a good story.

In 2008, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Council for British Archaeologys Wessex group, archaeologists gathered in Southampton to review what we have learnt from the huge amount of research carried out in the region during the past 50 years and to identify the challenges for the next half-century. The conference was also a chance for those involved to tell the exciting story of discovery from their own, personal angle. The contributors to this volume include many of the UKs most influential archaeologists of the later 20th century, making this book an overview not only of the history of Wessex, but of the development of archaeological thinking and techniques during this period. Interspersed amongst these papers are profiles of the regions most influential sites and the memories of some of its leading characters.