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Books > Humanities > Archaeology > Archaeology by period / region > General
East Greek Pottery provides the only dedicated study of the pottery
created by the Greek settlers along the western coast of Turkey
between 1100 and 500 BC. The authors examine in detail significant
developments in shape, material and decoration from the emergence
of the protogeometric style in the eleventh century to the fifth
century BC, when competition from Athenian imports forced craftsmen
to use only very simple ornamentation. The twenty-three chapters
offer a comprehensive style-by-style analysis of both familiar and
lesser-known pottery types, including Grey ware, relief ware and
archaic trade amphorae.
"Like J. Eric Thompson, Carrasco has applied an informed
imagination to identify some of the ways that ideas could lie
behind material form." "A must for both professional and serious non-professional
students in Mesoamerica. Those who are interested in complex
society and urbanism in general, as well as students of comparative
religion, will find it stimulating. Most importantly, for anyone
interested in the history of ideas, the book illuminates the
tremendously powerful impact and role of a complex
deity/mythico-historical figure in shaping one of the world's great
pristine civilizations."
The Caribbean before Columbus is a new synthesis of the region's insular history. It combines the results of the authors' 55 years of archaeological research on almost every island in the three archipelagoes with that of their numerous colleagues and collaborators. The presentation operates on multiple scales: temporal, spatial, local, regional, environmental, social, and political. In addition, individual sites are used to highlight specific issues. For the first time, the complete histories of the major islands and island groups are elucidated, and new insights are gained through inter-island comparisons. The book takes a step back from current debates regarding nomenclature to offer a common foundation and the opportunity for a fresh beginning. In this regard the original concepts of series and ages provide structure, and the diversity of expressions subsumed by these concepts is embraced. Historical names, such as Taino and Lucayan, are avoided. The authors challenge the long-held conventional wisdom concerning island colonization, societal organization, interaction and transculturation, inter- and intra-regional transactions (exchange), and other basic elements of cultural development and change. The emphasis is on those elements that unite the Bahamas, Lesser Antilles, and Greater Antilles as a culture area, and also on their divergent pathways. Colonization is presented as a multifaceted wave-like process. Continuing ties to the surrounding mainland are highlighted. Interactions between residents and new colonists are recognized, with individual histories contingent on these historical interactions. New solutions are offered to the "Huecoid problem" the "Carib problem," the "Taino problem," and the evolution of social complexity, especially in Puerto Rico.These solutions required a rethinking of social organization and its expression on the landscape. There comes a time when the old foundation can no longer support the structure that was built upon it; this is that time.
Did Trajan really deserve his reputation as the embodiment of all imperial virtues? Why did Dante, writing in the Middle Ages, place him in the sixth sphere of Heaven among the Just and Temperate rulers? In this, the only biography of Trajan available in English, Julian Bennett rigorously tests the substance of this glorious reputation. Surprisingly, for a Roman emperor, Trajan comes through the test with his reputation relatively intact.
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.
Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland is the first volume to be devoted solely to the Irish Neolithic, using an innovative landscape and anthropological perspective to provide significant new insights on the period. Gabriel Cooney argues that the archaeological evidence demonstrates a much more complex picture than the current orthodoxy on Neolithic Europe, with its assumption of mobile lifestyles, suggests. He integrates the study of landscape, settlement, agriculture, material culture and burial practice to offer a rounded, realistic picture of the complexities and the realities of Neolithic lives and societies in Ireland.
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.
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.
Historians, numismatists and philologists consider fundamental aspects of 9c political and economic history. The ninth century was a period of upheaval in England, as the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex vied for supremacy, and East Anglia and Kent sought to regain their independence, with the arrival of the Vikings introducing a further element of unrest. This interdisciplinary collection of papers by historians, numismatists and philologists considers fundamental aspects of the period's political and economic history. Alliances and treaties are a central theme, political and monetary. A radical reassesment of events in London in the later ninth century is presented, prompted by a detailed examination of the numismatic evidence marshalled here along with the written sources; it is argued that the Vikings were not in control of the city prior to Alfred's "reoccupation" in AD 886. The volume includes an illustrated corpus of the coinage of Berhtwulf and another for the middle years of Alfred's reign; moneyers are identified as witnesses to charters, and the forms of their names are analysed according to the Old English dialects they represent. A listing of some 500 single coin-finds forms the basis for a discussion of the nature and extent ofmonetary use in ninth-century England. The late MARK BLACKBURN was Keeper of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; DAVID DUMVILLE is Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen. Contributors: SIMON KEYNES, THOMAS CHARLES-EDWARDS, JAMES BOOTH, MARK BLACKBURN, LORD STEWARTBY, PAUL BIBIRE, D.M. METCALF, MICHAEL BONSER
Scholars often assume that elite, or high-status tomb chapels of the Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdoms featured decorations in order to provide for the eternal needs of the deceased. However, this explanation often fails to account for the content of many such decorations. The Cosmos of Khnumhotep II offers a detailed study of the tomb chapel of Khnumhotep II. Kamrin painstakingly charts the various levels of meaning buried in the scenes, ornaments, and texts that adorn Khnumhotep II's chapel, and provides a detailed analysis of the organizational structure of the tomb. She argues that the tomb chapel should be interpreted as a model of the cosmos, integrating the realms of the living and the dead. An abundance of new evidence suggests that various cult structures may be regarded as cosmograms, schematized representations of the Egyptian cosmos that reflect the powers and operations of the universe.
This book is a study of communities that drew their identity and livelihood from their relationships with water during a pivotal time in the creation of the social, economic and political landscapes of northern Europe. It focuses on the Baltic, North and Irish Seas in the Viking Age (ad 1050-1200), with a few later examples (such as the Scottish Lordship of the Isles) included to help illuminate less well-documented earlier centuries. Individual chapters introduce maritime worlds ranging from the Isle of Man to Gotland - while also touching on the relationships between estate centres, towns, landing places and the sea in the more terrestrially oriented societies that surrounded northern Europe's main spheres of maritime interaction. It is predominately an archaeological project, but draws no arbitrary lines between the fields of historical archaeology, history and literature. The volume explores the complex relationships between long-range interconnections and distinctive regional identities that are characteristic of maritime societies, seeking to understand communities that were brought into being by their relationships with the sea and who set waves in motion that altered distant shores.
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.
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 50 new photographs, drawings, and diagrams, and packed with fascinating insights, Abu Simbel: A Short Guide to the Temples is an indispensable companion and souvenir to one of the world's great archaeological sites.
Focusing on the daily concerns and routine events of people in the past, Investigating the Ordinary argues for a paradigm shift in the way southeastern archaeologists operate. Instead of dividing archaeological work by time periods or artifact types, the essays in this volume unite separate areas of research through the theme of the everyday. Ordinary activities studied here range from flint-knapping to ceremonial crafting, from subsistence to social gatherings, and from the Paleoindian period to the nineteenth century. Contributors demonstrate that attention to everyday life can help researchers avoid overemphasizing data and jargon and instead discover connections between the people of different eras. This approach will also inspire archaeologists with ways to engage the public with their work and with the deep history of the southeastern United States. |
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