Britain's pagan past, with its mysterious monuments, atmospheric sites, enigmatic artifacts, bloodthirsty legends, and cryptic inscriptions, is both enthralling and perplexing to a resident of the twenty-first century. In this ambitious and thoroughly up-to-date book, Ronald Hutton reveals the long development, rapid suppression, and enduring cultural significance of paganism, from the Paleolithic Era to the coming of Christianity. He draws on an array of recently discovered evidence and shows how new findings have radically transformed understandings of belief and ritual in Britain before the arrival of organized religion. Setting forth a chronological narrative, Hutton along the way makes side visits to explore specific locations of ancient pagan activity. He includes the well-known sacred sites-Stonehenge, Avebury, Seahenge, Maiden Castle, Anglesey-as well as more obscure locations across the mainland and coastal islands. In tireless pursuit of the elusive "why" of pagan behavior, Hutton astonishes with the breadth of his understanding of Britain's deep past and inspires with the originality of his insights.

The Bronze Age Civilization of Central Asia edited by Philip L. Kohl collates translated articles from soviet findings of Bronze Age and Aenolithic remains in Central Asia. Originally published in 1981, these articles include the latest discoveries at the time of publication such as the Murghab Delta sites to build a clearer picture of civilizations and settlements in Bronze Age Southern Central Asia and their history and evolution for new English audiences. This title will be of interest to students of history, archaeology and anthropology.

The importance of cultural contacts in the East Mediterranean has long been recognized and is the focus of ongoing international research. Fieldwork in the Aegean, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Levant continues to add to our understanding of the nature of this contact and its social and economic significance, particularly to the cultures of the Aegean. Despite sophisticated discussion of the archaeological evidence, in particular on the part of Aegean and Mediterranean archaeologists, there has been little systematic attempt to incorporate anthropological perspectives on materiality and exchange into archaeological narratives of this material. This book addresses that gap and integrates anthropological discourse on contact, examining exchange systems, the gift, notions of geographical distance and power, colonization, and hybridization. Furthermore, it develops a social narrative of culture contact in the Mediterranean context, illustrating the reasons communities chose to engage in international exchange, and how this impacted the construction of identities throughout the region. While traditional archaeologies in the East Mediterranean have tended to be reductive in their approach to material culture and how it was produced, used, and exchanged, this book reviews current research on material culture, focusing on issues such as the biography of objects, inalienable possessions, and hybridization - exploring how these issues can further illuminate the material world of the communities of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

The roots of our modern world lie in the civilization of Mesopotamia, which saw the development of the first urban society and the invention of writing. The cuneiform texts reveal the technological and social innovations of Sumer and Babylonia as surprisingly modern, and the influence of this fascinating culture was felt throughout the Near East. Early Mesopotamia gives an entirely new account, integrating the archaeology with historical data which until now have been largely scattered in specialist literature.

Our corporeality and immersion in the material world make us inherently spatial beings, and the fact that we all share everyday experiences in the global physical environment means that community is also spatial by nature. This book explores the relationship between the seventeenth-century townspeople of Turku, Sweden, and their urban surroundings. Riitta Laitinen offers a novel account of civil and social order in this early modern town, highlighting the central importance of materiality and spatiality and breaking down the dichotomy of public versus private life that has dominated traditional studies of the time period.

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.

The history of David's Jerusalem remains one of the most contentious topics of the ancient world. This study engages with debates about the nature of this location by examining the most recent archaeological data from the site and by exploring the relationship of these remains to claims made about David's royal center in biblical narrative. Daniel Pioske provides a detailed reconstruction of the landscape and lifeways of early 10th century BCE Jerusalem, connected in biblical tradition to the figure of David. He further explores how late Iron Age (the Book of Samuel-Kings) and late Persian/early Hellenistic (the Book of Chronicles) Hebrew literary cultures remembered David's Jerusalem within their texts, and how the remains and ruins of this site influenced the memories of those later inhabitants who depicted David's Jerusalem within the biblical narrative. By drawing on both archaeological data and biblical writings, Pioske calls attention to the breaks and ruptures between a remembered past and a historical one, and invites the reader to understand David's Jerusalem as more than a physical location, but also as a place of memory.

Many West African societies have egalitarian political systems, with non-centralised distributions of power. 'Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna' analyses a wide range of archaeological data to explore the development of such societies. The volume offers a detailed case study of the village settlement of Kirikongo in western Burkina Faso. Over the course of the first millennium, this single homestead extended control over a growing community. The book argues that the decentralization of power in the twelfth century BCE radically transformed this society, changing gender roles, public activities, pottery making and iron-working. 'Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna' will be of interest to students of political science, anthropology, archaeology and the history of West Africa.

The Early Formative Olmec are central in a wide variety of debates regarding the development of Mesoamerican societies. A fundamental issue in Olmec archaeology is the nature of interregional interaction among contemporaneous societies and the possible Olmec role in it. Previous debates have often not been informed by recent research and data, often relying on materials lacking archaeological context. In order to approach these issues from new perspectives, this book introduces readers to the full spectrum of the material culture of the Olmec and their contemporaries, relying primarily on archaeological data, much of which has not been previously published. For the first time, using a standard lexicon to consider the nature of the interaction among Early Formative societies, the authors, experts in diverse regions of Mesoamerican art and archaeology, provide carefully considered contrasts and comparisons that advance the understanding of the Early Formative origins of social complexity in Mesoamerica.

Metamorphic Imagery in Ancient Chinese Art and Religion demonstrates that the concept of metamorphism was central to ancient Chinese religious belief and practices from at least the late Neolithic period through the Warring States Period of the Zhou dynasty. Central to the authors' argument is the ubiquitous motif in early Chinese figurative art, the metamorphic power mask. While the motif underwent stylistic variation over time, its formal properties remained stable, underscoring the image's ongoing religious centrality. It symbolized the metamorphosis, through the phenomenon of death, of royal personages from living humans to deceased ancestors who required worship and sacrificial offerings. Treated with deference and respect, the royal ancestors lent support to their living descendants, ratifying, and upholding their rule; neglected, they became dangerous, even malevolent. Employing a multidisciplinary approach that integrates archaeologically recovered objects with literary evidence from oracle bone and bronze inscriptions to canonical texts, all situated in the appropriate historical context, the study presents detailed analyses of form and style, and of change over time, observing the importance of relationality and the dynamic between imagery, materials and affects. This book is a significant publication in the field of early China studies, presenting an integrated conception of ancient art and religion that surpasses any other work now available.

Exposing the Maya focuses on the works of 19th-century photographers Désiré Charnay, Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon, Teobert Maler, Alfred Maudslay and Adela Breton, all of whom were masters of their craft and travelled extensively to sites in Mexico and Central America. The over 100 selected images in this volume, together with nearly 40 additional contextual images featuring sketches from travel journals, hand-coloured drawings, prints, and maps, are combined with the photographers’ own words found in their published writings, journals and letters to provide insight into their methods, context for their images, and capture the realities of field work in Mesoamerica. Accessible and highly illustrated, Exposing the Maya features rare and important early photographs of the archaeological ruins and remains of the great Mayan and Aztec civilizations of Mesoamerica, from an age that witnessed the evolution of photographic techniques and brought to life the long-faded murals and decoration of these ruins. This is an absorbing story of incredible journeys, the challenging conditions under which these pioneering photographers produced their images, and how they perceived the remnants of these ancient indigenous cultures in modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.

This book is for anyone starting out to understand the prehistoric life of Britain from the first human occupation 450,000 years ago, until the Roman conquest in AD 43. James Dyer here succeeds in bringing to life a thriving picture of the people and customs of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, based on the sometimes sparse clues presented by prehistoric archaeological sites across Britain. For many readers, Ancient Britain will provide the first chance to get to grips with the present state of our knowledge of prehistoric agriculture, settlement, trade and ritual. The rise of power, with the development of a class system at the hands of the first metal users, is charted through to the growth of wealth and the emergence of a warlike and advanced Iron Age society - a society that was nonetheless unable to withstand the might of Rome. With over 130 illustrations and photographs, including a number of specially drawn reconstructions, this highly visual book is an ideal primer for all students of prehistory and all those who are simply interested in the subject.

Ancient Complex Societies examines the archaeological evidence for the rise and functioning of politically and socially "complex" cultures in antiquity. Particular focus is given to civilizations exhibiting positions of leadership, social and administrative hierarchies, emerging and already developed complex religious systems, and economic differentiation. Case studies are drawn from around the globe, including Asia, the Mediterranean region, and the American continents. Using case studies from Africa, Polynesia, and North America, discussion is dedicated to identifying what "complex" means and when it should be applied to ancient systems. Each chapter attempts to not only explore the sociopolitical and economic elements of ancient civilizations, but to also present an overview of what life was like for the later population within each system, sometimes drilling down to individual people living their daily lives. Throughout the chapters, the authors address problems with the idea of complexity, the incomparability of cultures, and the inconsistency of archaeological and historical evidence in reconstructing ancient cultures.

This is the first comprehensive overview of gender in the ANE that deals equally with both men and women. The overviews of ANE history and contemporary gender theory make it accessible to students with no background in these areas, allowing ANE students to learn about gender, and gender studies students to access the ancient material.

This is the first comprehensive overview of gender in the ANE that deals equally with both men and women. The overviews of ANE history and contemporary gender theory make it accessible to students with no background in these areas, allowing ANE students to learn about gender, and gender studies students to access the ancient material.

North America Before the European Invasions tells the histories of North American peoples from first migrations in the Late Glacial Age, sixteen thousand years ago or more, to the European invasions following Columbus's arrival. Contrary to invaders' propaganda, North America was no wilderness, and its peoples had developed a variety of sophisticated resource uses, including intensive agriculture and cities in Mexico and the Midwest. Written in an easy-flowing style, the book is a true history although based primarily on archeological material. It reflects current emphasis within archaeology on rejecting the notion of "pre"-history, instead combining archaeology with post-Columbian ethnographies and histories to present the long histories of North America's native peoples, most of them still here and still part of the continent's history.

The authors examine Irish prehistory from the economic, sociological and artistic viewpoints enabling the reader to comprehend the vast amount of archaeological work accomplished in Ireland over the last twenty years.

The ancient societies of western Mexico have long been understudied and misunderstood. Focusing on recent archaeological data, Ancient West Mexicos highlights the diversity and complexity of the region's pre-Hispanic cultures and argues that western Mexico was more similar to the rest of the Mesoamerican world than many researchers have believed. Chapters that treat investigations in Durango, Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit, Aguascalientes, and Michoacan draw on new evidence dating from across millennia, spanning different periods in the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Contributors analyze materials including ceramics, architectural remains, textiles, and weaving tools to discern the settlement patterns, political structures, and cosmologies of the people who lived at these sites. Featuring intriguing case studies that point to unexpected pathways to sociopolitical complexity in these and other ancient societies, these essays illustrate that the region's archaeological record can contribute meaningfully to a more nuanced picture of Mesoamerica as a whole.

Making and Growing brings together the latest work in the fields of anthropology and material culture studies to explore the differences - and the relation - between making things and growing things, and between things that are made and things that grow. Though the former are often regarded as artefacts and the latter as organisms, the book calls this distinction into question, examining the implications for our understanding of materials, design and creativity. Grounding their arguments in case studies from different regions and historical periods, the contributors to this volume show how making and growing give rise to co-produced and mutually modifying organisms and artefacts, including human persons. They attend to the properties of materials and to the forms of knowledge and sensory experience involved in these processes, and explore the dynamics of making and undoing, growing and decomposition. The book will be of broad interest to scholars in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, material culture studies, history and sociology.

This book traces connections in pre-modern Asia by looking at different worlds across geography, history and society. It examines how regions were connected by people, families, trade and politics as well as how they were maintained and remembered. The volume analyses these intersections of memory and narrative, of people and places and the routes that took people to these places, using a variety of sources. It also studies whether these intersections remain in later and present times, and their larger impact on our understanding of history. The narratives cover several journeys drawn from archaeology, texts and cultural imagination: trade routes, marts, fairs, forts, religious pilgrimages, inscriptions, calligraphy and coinages spanning diverse regions, including India-Tibet-British forays, India-Malay intersections, corporate enterprise in the Indian Ocean, impacts of slave trade in Southeast Asia shaped by the Dutch East India company, movements and migrations around Indo-Iranian borderlands and those in western and southern India. The book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of history and archaeology, cultural studies and literature.

This book presents an archaeological study of Crete in transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 to 3000 BC) within the broader South Aegean context. The study, based on the author's own fieldwork, contains a gazetteer of over 170 sites. The material from these sites will prompt archaeologists in Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to reconsider their understanding of the foundation of Bronze Age civilization in the Aegean.

This study, first published in 1978, explores the evidence for pre-Roman settlement in Britain. Four aspects of the prehistoric economy are described by the author - colonisation and clearance; arable and pastoral farming; transhumance and nomadism; and hunting, gathering and fishing. These aspects have been brought together to formulate a structure which contains the evidence more naturally than chronological schemes that depend on assumed changes in population or technology. The book draws upon environmental evidence and recent developments in archaeological fieldwork. It also provides an extensive exploration of the published literature on the subject and the scope of the evidence. Originally conceived as an 'ideas book' rather than a final synthesis, the author's intention throughout is to stimulate argument and research, and not to replace one dogma with another.

This volume, originally published in 1935, sought to reveal the significance of Scottish prehistory for the development of understanding of European prehistory. Written at a time of rapid accumulation of new relics and monuments and the insights from them, Professor Childe presented some important new data and made tentative conclusions for the future results from these finds. After an introduction to the geography of Scotland the book looks at evidence from cairns, tombs and stone circles and then addresses chronologically the evidence from Early Bronze Age to Late and onto the Iron Age, with a chapter devoted to forts, towns and castles. It ends with a discussion of what happened in the Dark Ages and addresses questions about the Celts and the Picts and the diversity of the peoples in Scotland.

This book provides an introduction to the Mediterranean world in which the early Christian apostles moved. Drawing on the geographic setting and available archaeological materials to create a sense of the contemporary environment, the book traces the 15,000 mile travels of Paul, whose world was also the world of Peter, John, and many other early Christians. The author presents a complete chronology for the major apostles based on his integration of existing histories, literary accounts, and archaeological information with new discoveries and new theories on dating New Testament events and documents. The text is lavishly illustrated and as fascinating now as when originally published in 1981.