The Chalcolithic period was formative in Near Eastern prehistory, being a time of fundamental social change in craft specialization, horticulture and temple life. Gilat - a low mound, semi-communal farming settlement in the Negev desert - is one of the few Chalcolithic sanctuary sites in the Southern Levant. 'Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult' presents a critical analysis of the archaeological data from Gilat. The book brings together archaeological finds and anthropological theory to examine the role of religion in the evolution of society and the power of ritual in promoting change. This comprehensive volume, which includes artefact drawings, photographs, maps and data tables, will be of interest to students and scholars of ancient history, anthropology, archaeology, as well as biblical and religious studies.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book, first published in 1992, presents an introduction to the nature of trade and transport in antiquity through a selection of translated literary, papyrological, epigraphical and legal sources. These texts illustrate a range of aspects of ancient trade and transport: from the role of the authorities, to the status of traders, to the capacity and speed of ancient ships. It is clear that the actual means of transportation were crucial; the book illustrates the limitations of ancient transport technology and the consequences for the development of commerce. It focuses first on different aspects of transport over land and then on transport by river and concludes with a discussion of several aspects of ancient seafaring, This book is ideal for students of ancient history.

Agency theory examines the relationship between individuals or groups when one party is doing work on behalf of another. 'Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East' offers a theoretical study of agency and identity in Near Eastern archaeology, an area which until now has been largely ignored by archaeologists. The book explores how agency theory can be employed in reconstructing the meaning of spaces and material culture, how agency and identity intersect, and how the availability of a textual corpus may impact on the agency approach. Ranging from the Neolithic to the Islamic period, 'Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East' covers sites located in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. The volume includes contributions from philology, art, history, computer simulation studies, materials science, and the archaeology of settlement and architecture.

The fifth millennium BCE was a period of rapid social change. One of the key factors was the developments in technology which led to the rise of the metals industry. Archaeological finds from sites dating to the Chalcolithic period indicate the production and use of copper. 'Dawn of the Metal Age' examines a range of sites - from copper mines in Jordan and Israel to the villages of the northern Negev where copper was produced in household workshops, to a series of cave burials where a range of luxury metal goods were buried with the elite members of Chalcolithic society. Ancient technology is reconstructed from the archaeological evidence, which also illuminates the changing economic, social, religious and political environment of the time.

Burton Dassett Southend, Warwickshire investigates Southend, one of the five medieval settlements in Burton Dassett parish, Warwickshire. The summary narrative and thematic discussions (focused upon material culture, spatial organisation, buildings and economy) in this volume are supplemented by detailed stratigraphic description and specialist reports available online through the Archaeology Data Service.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England provides a unique survey of the six major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms - Kent, the East Saxons, the East Angles, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex - and their royal families, examining the most recent research in this field. Barbara Yorke moves beyond narrative accounts of the various royal houses to explain issues such as the strategies of rule, the reasons for success and failure and the dynamics of change in the office of king. Sixteen genealogical and regnal tables help to elucidate the history of the royal houses.

Archaeology, Language, and the African Past is an overview of theories and methods, a fusion of African linguistics and archaeology. Roger Blench provides a comprehensive look at the history of all African language families, incorporating the latest linguistic classifications, current evidence from archaeology, genetic research, and recorded history. This original and definitive volume examines the economic culture of the continent_from major crops and plant life to animals and livestock_from a multi-dimensional perspective. It provides students of linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology with a critical discussion on the history of African languages and the cultures they articulate.

The Routledge Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous-Colonial Interaction in the Americas brings together scholars from across the hemisphere to examine how archaeology can highlight the myriad ways that Indigenous people have negotiated colonial systems from the fifteenth century through to today. The contributions offer a comprehensive look at where the archaeology of colonialism has been and where it is heading. Geographically diverse case studies highlight longstanding theoretical and methodological issues as well as emerging topics in the field. The organization of chapters by key issues and topics, rather than by geography, fosters exploration of the commonalities and contrasts between historical contingencies and scholarly interpretations. Throughout the volume, Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors grapple with the continued colonial nature of archaeology and highlight Native perspectives on the potential of using archaeology to remember and tell colonial histories. This volume is the ideal starting point for students interested in how archaeology can illuminate Indigenous agency in colonial settings. Professionals, including academic and cultural resource management archaeologists, will find it a convenient reference for a range of topics related to the archaeology of colonialism in the Americas.

The Archaeology of Difference presents a new and radically different perspective on the archaeology of cross-cultural contact and engagement. The authors move away from acculturation or domination and resistance and concentrate on interaction and negotiation by using a wide variety of case studies which take a crucially indigenous rather than colonial standpoint.

Historical Archaeology in Africa is an inquiry into historical questions that count, proposing different ways of thinking about historical archaeology. Peter Schmidt challenges readers to expand their horizons . Confronting topics of oral traditions, the role of cultural landscapes in social memory, and historical misrepresentations of various cultures, Schmidt calls for a new pathway to an enriched, more nuanced, and more inclusive historical archaeology. Allowing Africa to speak for itself without colonial interpreters, Historical Archaeology in Africa will be of interest not only to historians and archaeologists, but to all concerned with Africa's past and present.

Each person invests many of the objects in his life with his or her own unconscious meaning, each person subsequently voyages through an environment that constantly evokes the self's psychic history. Taking Freud's model of dreamwork as a model for all unconscious thinking, Christopher Bollas argues that we dreamwork ourselves into becoming who we are, and illustrates how the analyst and the patient use such unconscious processes to develop new psychic structures that the patient can use to alter his or her self experience. Building on this foundation, he goes on to describe some very special forms of self experience, including the tragic madness of women cutting themselves, the experience of a cruising homosexual in bars and bathes and the demented ferocity of the facist state of mind. An original interpreter of classical theory and clinical issues, in Being a Character Christopher Bollas takes the reader into the very texture of the psychoanalytic process.

The book details for the first time all past archaeological work in Antarctica, relating to both its use for conservation and research purposes, drawing on published, unpublished and oral information. This work has addressed historic and current scientific bases, explorers' huts, whaling stations and sealing shelters. The ongoing and long-term research on the sealing shelters and sites in the South Shetland Islands features prominently. The archaeology enables new perspectives on the impact of global modernity and empire in the Antarctic, and challenges established dominant discourses on the 'heroic' nature of human interaction with the continent. The work on sealing sites gives voice to the experiences of the sealer as a subaltern group previously largely overlooked by historical sources. This book will appeal to students and researchers in archaeology, history, and heritage as well as readers interested in the human and historical aspects of Antarctica's past and present.

This book Explores Indo-European fire rituals and sacrifices throughout history and fire in its fundamental role in rites and religious practices. Analyzes fire rituals as the unifying structure in time and space in Indo-European cultures from the Bronze Age onwards. Asks the question how and why was fire the ultimate power in culture and cosmology? Has a broad interdisciplinary audience including archaeology, ethnography, folklore, religious and Indo-European studies.

Examines mid-twentieth century American biblical archaeologists' relationship to Zionism, an aspect of their work that has been understudied.

This book Explores how the practice of nineteenth-century sex work involved a careful construction of fantasy for brothel customers. This fantasy had the potential to provide financial stability and security for the madam of the establishment, if not for the women working for them. By employing theories of embodiment, sexuality, and an archaeology of the senses, this study of the Endicott Street collection contributes a new methodological and theoretical framework for studying the archaeology of prostitution across time, space, and culture. Explores both the semi-private, "behind the scenes" narrative of sex work, as well as the semi-public, eroticized "performance space" where patrons were entertained. is for student and scholars of historical archaeology, nineteenth-century urban America, and gender studies. Students studying feminist theory and archaeology of the senses will also be interested in the contents.

Sets each of the seven wonders in their historical context, bringing together materials from ancient sources and the results of modern excavations to suggest why particular places and objects have been seen as the touchstone for human achievement.

The conventional wisdom says that the devolution of Classic Maya civilization occurred because its population grew too large and dense to be supported by primitive neotropical farming methods, resulting in debilitating famines and internecine struggles. Using research on contemporary Maya farming techniques and important new archaeological research, Ford and Nigh refute this Malthusian explanation of events in ancient Central America and posit a radical alternative theory. The authors-show that ancient Maya farmers developed ingenious, sustainable woodland techniques to cultivate numerous food plants (including the staple maize);-examine both contemporary tropical farming techniques and the archaeological record (particularly regarding climate) to reach their conclusions;-make the argument that these ancient techniques, still in use today, can support significant populations over long periods of time.

Theory in Africa, Africa in Theory explores the place of Africa in archaeological theory, and the place of theory in African archaeology. The centrality of Africa to global archaeological thinking is highlighted, with a particular focus on materiality and agency in contemporary interpretation. As a means to explore the nature of theory itself, the volume also addresses differences between how African models are used in western theoretical discourse and the use of that theory within Africa. Providing a key contribution to theoretical discourse through a focus on the context of theory-building, this volume explores how African modes of thought have shaped our approaches to a meaningful past outside of Africa. A timely intervention into archaeological thought, Theory in Africa, Africa in Theory deconstructs the conventional ways we approach the past, positioning the continent within a global theoretical discourse and blending Western and African scholarship. This volume will be a valuable resource for those interested in the archaeology of Africa, as well as providing fresh perspectives to those interested in archaeological theory more generally.

Correcting the notion that French influence in the Americas was confined mostly to Quebec and New Orleans, this collection reveals a wide range of vibrant French-speaking communities in the Americas both during and long after the end of French colonial rule. Analyzing artifacts including clay pipes, colonoware, and food remains alongside a rich body of historical records, contributors focus on how French descendants impacted North America, the Caribbean, and South America even after 1763. They argue that communities do not need to be located in French colonies or contain French artifacts to be considered Francophone, and they show that many Francophone groups were composed of a complex mix of ethnic French, Metis, Native Americans, and African Americans. This volume emphasizes that French colonists and their descendants have played an important role in New World histories.

Who are the Europeans? Where did they come from? In recent years scientific advances have yielded a mass of new data, turning cherished ideas upside down. The idea of migration in prehistory, so long out of favour, is back on the agenda. Visions of continuity now have to give way to a more dynamic view of Europe's past, with one wave of migration followed by another, from the first human arrivals to the Vikings. This pioneering book brings together for the first time the latest genetic evidence and combines it with archaeology and linguistics to produce a new history of Europe.

A timely synthesis of the latest research and perspectives on ancient Maya economics, this volume illuminates the sophistication and intricacy of economic systems in the Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic periods. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines move beyond paradigms of elite control and centralized exchange to focus on individual agency, highlighting production and exchange that took place at all levels of society. Case studies draw on new archaeological evidence from rural households and urban marketplaces to reconstruct the trade networks for tools, ceramics, obsidian, salt, and agricultural goods throughout the empire. They also describe the ways household production integrated with community, regional, and interregional markets. Redirecting the field of ancient Maya economic studies away from simplistic characterizations of the past by fully representing the range of current views on the subject, this volume delves deeply into multiple facets of a complex, interdependent material world. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

This book synthesizes in-depth bioarchaeological research into diet, subsistence regimes, and nutrition-and corresponding insights into adaptation, suffering, and resilience-among indigenous north-coastal Peruvian communities from early agricultural through European colonial periods. The Spanish invasion and colonization of Andean South America left millions dead, landscapes transformed, and traditional ways of life annihilated. However, the nature and magnitude of these changes were far from uniform. By the time the Spanish arrived, over four millennia of complex societies had emerged and fallen, and in the 16th century, the region was home to the largest and most expansive indigenous empire in the western hemisphere. Decades of Andean archaeological and ethnohistorical research have explored the incredible sophistication of regional agropastoral traditions, the importance of food and feasting as mechanisms of control, and the significance of maritime economies in the consolidation of complex polities. Bioarchaeology is particularly useful in studying these processes. Beyond identifying what resources were available and how they were prepared, bioarchaeological methods provide unique opportunities and humanized perspectives to reconstruct what individuals actually ate, and whether their diets changed within their own lifespans.

This book is one of the first to systematically explore cultural interactions between the Northern Zone of China and the Eurasian Steppe, with a focus on the formation process of the Xiongnu Confederation and the Silk Road. Combining partition and staging analyses, the authors adopt a broad perspective, viewing the Northern Zone as part of the Eurasian Steppe and combining history with culture by investigating the spread of bronze artifacts. In addition, with more than three hundred figures and color photographs, it offers readers a uniquely grand panorama of two thousand years of cultural interactions between the Northern Zone of China and the Eurasian Steppe.