This book offers an overview of the archaeological and structural evidence for one of the most vital periods of Italian history, spanning the late Roman and early medieval periods. The chronological scope covers the adoption of Christianity and the emergence of Rome as the seat of Western Christendom, the break-up of the Roman west in the face of internal decay and the settlement of non-Romans and Germanic groups, the impact of Germanic and Byzantine rule on Italy until the rise of Charlemagne and of a Papal State in the later eighth century. Presenting a detailed review and analysis of recent discoveries by archaeologists, historians, art historians, numismatists and architectural historians, Neil Christie identifies the changes brought about by the Church in town and country, the level of change within Italy under Rome before and after occupation by Ostrogoths, Byzantines and Lombards, and reviews wider changes in urbanism, rural exploitation and defence. The emphasis is on human settlement on its varied levels - town, country, fort, refuge - and the assessment of how these evolved and the changes that impacted on them. Too long neglected as a 'Dark Age', this book helps to further illuminate this fascinating and dynamic period of European history.

This authoritative volume has been revised throughout and expanded, with stunning new images and accounts of the major discoveries of recent years. Recent findings have been added to expand our understanding of the Olmecs outside of their heartland, and new research on the legacy of the Maya offers a wider and more cohesive narrative of Mexico's history. New co-author Javier Urcid has added greater coverage of Oaxaca and of Monte Alban, one of the earliest cities in Mesoamerica and the center of the Zapotec civilization, and a fully revised Epilogue discusses the survival of indigenous populations in Mexico from the Conquest up to the present. This longstanding classic now features full-colour photos of the vibrant art and architecture of ancient Mesoamerica throughout.

This book revisits one of the great problems in Mayan archeology - the apparent collapse of Classic Maya civilisation from roughly AD830-950. During this period the Maya abandoned their power centres in the southern lowlands and rather abruptly ceased the distinctive cultural practices that marked their apogee in the Classic period. Archaeological fieldwork during the past three decades, however, has uncovered enormous regional variability in the ways the Maya experienced the shift from Classic to Post-classic society, revealing a period of cultural change more complex than acknowledged by traditional models. Featuring an impressive roster of scholars, the book presents the most recent data and interpretations pertaining to this perplexing period of cultural transformation in the Maya lowlands. Although the research reveals clear interregional patterns, the contributors resist a single overarching explanation. Rather, this volume's diverse and nuanced interpretations provide a new, more properly grounded beginning for continued debate on the nature of lowland Terminal Classic Maya civilisation.

The three-thousand-year-old rock-cut temples at Abu Simbel and the story of their rescue from the rising waters of Lake Nasser in the 1960s are almost as familiar worldwide as the tale of the gold funerary mask and brief life of the boy king Tutankhamun. Yet although they are among the most celebrated, visited, and photographed archaeological sites in the world, the two temples are among the least understood by the visitor. In this lucidly written, beautifully illustrated guide, Nigel Fletcher-Jones explains the main features of both temples, discusses what they teach us about ancient Egypt during the reign of Rameses II (1265-1200 BC), and illustrates which gods and goddesses were worshipped here. With over 80 new photographs, drawings, and diagrams, and packed with fascinating insights, The Brief Guide to Abu Simbel is an indispensable companion and souvenir to one of the world's great archaeological sites.

This book provides an in-depth study of the role of religion in the evolution of societies. It melds anthropological theory and archaeological data to present one of the most comprehensive archaeological studies of the role of ritual as a vital force for promoting and consolidating social change. It is based on seven seasons of archaeological excavation at the Chalcolithic site of Gilat, a low mound, located in the fields of the Moshav Gilat, a semi-communal farming settlement in Israel's northern Negev desert. The Chalcolithic period represents the first time that well-documented chiefdom organizations can be recognized in the archaeological record of the Holy Land when institutionalized social hierarchies, craft specialization, horticulture, temple life and other fundamental social changes occurred in this part of the ancient Near East. As one of the few Chalcolithic (ca. 4500 - 3600 BC) sanctuary sites in the southern Levant, the Gilat provides a wonderful opportunity to explore the role of religion and ideology as a social force for influencing social relations and social evolution through one of the formative periods in the prehistory of the eastern Mediterranean. material evidence for the ideological sub-system of Chalcolithic culture by through careful analyses of relatively large sets of archaeological data.

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

The Penn Museum has a long and storied history of research and archaeological exploration in the ancient Middle East. This book highlights this rich depth of knowledge while also serving as a companion volume to the Museum's signature Middle East Galleries opening in April 2018. This edited volume includes chapters and integrated short, focused pieces from Museum curators and staff actively involved in the detailed planning of the new galleries. In addition to highlighting the most remarkable and interesting objects in the Museum's extraordinary Middle East collections, this volume illuminates the primary themes within these galleries (make, settle, connect, organize, and believe) and provides a larger context within which to understand them. The ancient Middle East is home to the first urban settlements in human history, dating to the fourth millennium BCE; therefore, tracing this move toward city life figures prominently in the book. The topic of urbanization, how it came about and how these early steps still impact our daily lives, is explored from regional and localized perspectives, bringing us from Mesopotamia (Ur, Uruk, and Nippur) to Islamic and Persianate cites (Rayy and Isfahan) and, finally, connecting back to life in modern Philadelphia. Through examination of topics such as landscape, resources, trade, religious belief and burial practices, daily life, and nomads, this very important human journey is investigated both broadly and with specific case studies.

This fascinating study explores how our prehistoric ancestors developed rituals from everyday life and domestic activities. Richard Bradley contends that for much of the prehistoric period, ritual was not a distinct sphere of activity. Rather it was the way in which different features of the domestic world were played out until they took on qualities of theatrical performance.
With extensive illustrated case-studies, this book examines farming, craft production and the occupation of houses, all of which were ritualized in prehistoric Europe. Successive chapters discuss the ways in which ritual has been studied, drawing on a series of examples that range from Greece to Norway and from Romania to Portugal. They consider practices that extend from the Mesolithic period to the Early Middle Ages and discuss the ways in which ritual and domestic life were intertwined.

This fascinating study explores how our prehistoric ancestors developed rituals from everyday life and domestic activities. Richard Bradley contends that for much of the prehistoric period, ritual was not a distinct sphere of activity. Rather it was the way in which different features of the domestic world were played out until they took on qualities of theatrical performance.
With extensive illustrated case-studies, this book examines farming, craft production and the occupation of houses, all of which were ritualized in prehistoric Europe. Successive chapters discuss the ways in which ritual has been studied, drawing on a series of examples that range from Greece to Norway and from Romania to Portugal. They consider practices that extend from the Mesolithic period to the Early Middle Ages and discuss the ways in which ritual and domestic life were intertwined.

In 1884 a community of Brazilians was "discovered" by the Western world. The Ecology of Power examines these indigenous people from the Upper Xingu region, a group who even today are one of the strongest examples of long-term cultural continuity. Drawing upon written and oral history, ethnography, and archaeology, Heckenberger addresses the difficult issues facing anthropologists today as they "uncover" the muted voices of indigenous peoples and provides a fascinating portrait of a unique community of people who have in a way become living cultural artifacts.

In 1884 a community of Brazilians was "discovered" by the Western world. The Ecology of Power examines these indigenous people from the Upper Xingu region, a group who even today are one of the strongest examples of long-term cultural continuity. Drawing upon written and oral history, ethnography, and archaeology, Heckenberger addresses the difficult issues facing anthropologists today as they "uncover" the muted voices of indigenous peoples and provides a fascinating portrait of a unique community of people who have in a way become living cultural artifacts.

From the Cities of the Biblical World series - a series describing the recent archaeological developments at major Biblical sites for the general reader, the student and the tourist. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, and the subsequent excavation of Khirbet Qumran, the existence of a Jewish settlement near the Dead Sea remained unsuspected by biblical scholars. Apart from one possible allusion in the Old Testament, the site is unrecorded in the Bible, and no hint emerges of the fascinating community which inhabited it in Jesus' own day. In Biblical terms it could be described as the discovery of the century, all the more remarkable because from its last occupation in AD 135 until the arrival of the archaeologists in the wake of the Scrolls' discovery, Qumran remained a well-known but little considered ruin. Philip Davies explains how the archaeological evidence helps us to interpret the writings in the scrolls, and how the writings in turn help archaeologists to understand their discoveries. The author puts the site in perspective, explaining its history and development from an early settlement, possibly in the time of King Uzziah (781-40BC), to the community which produced the famous scrolls. The only substantial corpus of Jewish literature from this time, the scrolls offer the reader an insight into the organisation of the community and its daily activities, the religious and philosophical beliefs, rituals and hopes, which characterised Judaism in the first century AD. The Scrolls have provided the only substantial corpus of Jewish literature from this age.

The Germania of Tacitus is the most extensive account of the ancient Germans written during the Roman period. This new translation, introduction, and commentary provides an up-to-date guide to the relevant literary and archaeological evidence, and discusses the methodological issues involved in understanding this important historical source.

In 1798, young French general Napoleon Bonaparte entered Egypt with a veteran army and a specialist group of savants-scientists, engineers, and artists-his aim being not just conquest, but the rediscovery of the lost Nile kingdom. A year later, in the ruins of an old fort in the small port of Rosetta, the savants made a startling discovery: a large, flat stone, inscribed in Greek, demotic Egyptian, and ancient hieroglyphics. This was the Rosetta Stone, key to the two-thousand-year mystery of hieroglyphs, and to Egypt itself. Two years later, French forces retreated before the English and Ottoman armies, but would not give up the stone. Caught between the opposing generals at the siege of Alexandria, British special agents went in to find the Rosetta Stone, rescue the French savants, and secure a fragile peace treaty. Discovery at Rosetta uses French, Egyptian, and English eyewitness accounts to tell the complete story of the discovery, decipherment, and capture of the Rosetta Stone, investigating the rivalries and politics of the time, and the fate of the stone today.

Originally published in 1981, The Origins of Open Field Agriculture looks at the problems connected with open field agriculture - the origins of strip cultivation, the three-field system, the adaptation of 'Celtic' fields, and the development of ploughing techniques. The book looks at the challenges to traditional ideas on the origins of settlement and their associated economy, and casts new light on understandings of village development. The book suggests that conventional views of the nucleated village, in the midst of open field strips as a product of the Anglo-Saxon migration, is no longer tenable. The book brings together the work of distinguished archaeologists, historians, and historical geographers and opens up a new perspective on the early development of medieval agriculture.

The Continental Saxons developed from a subsistence economy, practiced up to the Carolingian conquest in the late eighth century, to become rulers of the Holy Roman Empire a little over a century and a half later. A historian introduces the topic, evaluating the reliability of the sources. Archaeologists then describe the living conditions, especially along the coast where villages have been excavated, and social customs revealed by grave-goods. Legal procedures are inferred from surviving evidence, and the regional economy, based on agriculture and animal husbandry, is reconstructed through the study of vegetable remains and pollen analysis. The birth of urban communities, stimulated by monastic settlements and trade, is followed through archaeological evidence; study of visual art-forms is based on analysis of grave-goods; and in the absence of surviving evidence for poetry, a Carolingian eulogical poem is discussed. Also discussed are Saxon political relations prior to and during the Carolingian conquest; the few signs of traditional religion that can be gleaned from the 'Lives' of missionaries; and Christianity and the activity of religious orders, which eventually brought about the conversion of the Saxons and the introduction of written culture.

Originally published in 1987, Human Evolution looks at theories of the evolution of human behaviour (contemporary at the time of publication). The book reviews competing theories of psychological and social evolution and provides a detailed historical introduction to the subject. A key theoretical concern which emerges in the book includes the psychological significance of the human evolution issue itself. The period of human evolution covered ranges from the demise of the Miocene hominoids, to the emergence of 'civilization'. Topics covered include: functions of 'origin myths', history of the study of human evolution, methods and data-bases, theories of the nature of 'hominisation', origins of bipedalism, language and tool-use, theories of social evolution, theories of cave art and the spread of Homo sapiens to America and Australia.

Originally published in 1987 Rates of Evolution is an edited collection drawn from a symposium convened to bring together palaeontologists, geneticists, molecular biologists and developmental biologists to examine some aspects of the problem of evolutionary rates. The book asks questions surrounding the study of evolution, such as did large morphological changes really occur rapidly at various times in the geological past, or is the fossil record too imperfect to be of value in assessing rates of morphological change? What is the measure of 'rapid' change? Is stasis at any taxonomic level established? Is it possible to relate genomic and morphological change? What is the role of regulatory and executive genes in controlling evolutionary change? Does the transfer of genetic material between different taxa provide the possibility of increasing evolutionary rates? Featuring contributions from leading researchers, this book will interest anthropologists, palaeontology and scientists of evolution and genetics.

Originally published in 1915, The Natural Theology of Evolution looks at the concept of natural theology, examining the argument for the existence of God based on reason and ordinary experiences of nature. The book looks at natural theology in light of Darwin's theory of evolution, and how this important discovery affected belief in intelligent design. The book argues that the discovery of evolution, far from diminishing the existence of God, provides stronger proof for an intelligently designed earth and therefore the existence of God. This book provides a unique and interesting take on the debates surrounding evolution in the late 19th and early 20th century. It will be of interest to philosophers, historians of religion and natural historians alike.

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, has been called the Stonehenge of North America. Its spectacular pueblos, or great houses, are world famous and have attracted the attention of archaeologists for more than a century. Beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs, Chaco Canyon draws on the very latest research on Chaco and its environs to tell the remarkable story of the people of the canyon, from foraging bands and humble farmers to the elaborate society that flourished between the tenth and twelfth centuries A.D. Brian Fagan is a master story teller, and he weaves the latest discoveries into a compelling narrative of people living in a harsh, unpredictable environment. Indeed, this is not a story about artifacts and dusty digs, but a riveting narrative of people in the distant past, going about their daily business, living and dying, loving, raising children, living in plenty and in hunger, pondering the cosmos, and facing the unpredictable challenges of the environment. Drawing on rare access to the records of the Chaco Synthesis Project, Fagan reveals a society where agriculture and religion went hand-in-hand, where the ritual power of Chaco's leaders drew pilgrims from distant communities bearing gifts. He describes the lavish burials in the heart of Pueblo Bonito, which offer clues about the identity of Chaco's shadowy leaders. And he explores the enduring mystery of Chaco's sudden decline in the face of savage drought and shows how its legacy survives into modern times. Here then is the first authoritative account of the Chaco people written for a general audience, lending a fascinating human face to one of America's most famous archaeological sites.

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists. The volume spans from as early as 10,000 cal. bp to the modern era, analysing the relationship between material culture, cultural change, and the complex connectivities between communities and groups. In considering social practices shared between different historic groups, and also the expression of their respective identities, the papers in this volume illustrate the potential of globalization thinking to bridge the local and global in material culture analysis. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization is the first such volume to take a world archaeology approach, on a multi-period basis, in order to bring together the scope of evidence for the significance of material culture in the processes of globalization. This work thus also provides a means to understand how material culture studies can be utilised to assess the impact of global engagement in our contemporary world. As such, it will appeal to archaeologists and historians as well as social science researchers interested in the origins of globalization.

Motherhood is a subject that has largely been ignored by archaeologists who focus on gender and history-until now. Using archaeological materials recovered from a housesite in Mobile, Alabama, Laurie Wilkie explores how one extended African-American family engaged with competing and conflicting mothering ideologies in the post-Emancipation South. The female head of this household, Lucrecia Perryman, turned to midwifery to support her family and as a midwife, became a vehicle for transmitting cultural, social and political knowledge regarding mothering performance and practice to the broader African-American community.

Motherhood is a subject that has largely been ignored by archaeologists who focus on gender and history-until now. Using archaeological materials recovered from a housesite in Mobile, Alabama, Laurie Wilkie explores how one extended African-American family engaged with competing and conflicting mothering ideologies in the post-Emancipation South. The female head of this household, Lucrecia Perryman, turned to midwifery to support her family and as a midwife, became a vehicle for transmitting cultural, social and political knowledge regarding mothering performance and practice to the broader African-American community.

Crystal skulls, imaginative codices, dubious Olmec heads and cute Colima dogs. Fakes and forgeries run rampant in the Mesoamerican art collections of international museums and private individuals. Authors Nancy Kelker and Karen Bruhns examine the phenomenon in this eye-opening volume. They discuss the most commonly forged classes and styles of artifacts, many of which were being duplicated as early as the 19th century. More important, they describe the system whereby these objects get made, purchased, authenticated, and placed in major museums as well as the complicity of forgers, dealers, curators, and collectors in this system. Unique to this volume are biographies of several of the forgers, who describe their craft and how they are able to effectively fool connoisseurs and specialists. An important, accessible introduction to pre-Columbian art fraud for archaeologists, art historians, and museum professionals alike. A parallel volume by the same authors discusses fakes in Andean archaeology.

Foraging bands were the quintessential form of human social organization for the most of prehistory. Current arguments rage on the genesis of the contemporary descendants of these hunter-gatherers and their applicability to our understanding of lifeways before agriculture and domestication of animals. Sibel Barut Kusimba addresses this debate by synthesizing the archaeological evidence in Africa from the Middle Stone Age to the present, where the greatest time depth of foraging cultures can be traced. She develops a comprehensive picture of these foundational human societies, their social and technological adaptations to environmental conditions, and the impact of interaction from later economic systems on their lifeways. The book should be of importance to both cultural and archaeological anthropologists and their students.