Over 15,000 years ago, a band of hunter-gatherers became the first people to set foot in the Americas. They soon found themselves in a world rich in plants and animals, but also a world still shivering itself out of the coldest depths of the Ice Age. The movement of those first Americans was one of the greatest journeys undertaken by ancient peoples. In this book, David Meltzer explores the world of Ice Age Americans, highlighting genetic, archaeological, and geological evidence that has revolutionized our understanding of their origins, antiquity, and adaptation to climate and environmental change. This fully updated edition integrates the most recent scientific discoveries, including the ancient genome revolution and human evolutionary and population history. Written for a broad audience, the book can serve as the primary text in courses on North American Archaeology, Ice Age Environments, and Human evolution and prehistory.

Ceramic technology is a topic widely explored in archaeology, especially for its social inferences. This volume addresses the social aspects of production and the role of potters within prehistoric communities. The book focusses on the Copper Age when social complexity was incipient rather than developed, and ceramic production was not considered a formalised activity. Household and funerary pottery dated from the second half of the 4th to the end of the 3rd millennium BC unearthed from eight archaeological contexts located in the current area of Rome were analysed through a multidisciplinary study. An integrated approach of archaeometric investigation, trace analysis and experimental archaeology provided a framework of empirical data reflecting the transmission of technological choices among diverse ceramic traditions and the coexistence of different levels of expertise within productions related to household or funerary activities. Petrographic analyses, XRF and XRD, led to an understanding of the ceramic recipes, their use and the firing technology used by Copper Age potters. The reference collection of technological traces relating to forming techniques, surface treatments and comb decorations allowed characterization of the craftspeople's expertise. A potter's skill is inferred in terms of the technical investment required at each stage of production or in shaping specific ceramic vessels. In light of these data, the pottery from the Copper Age contexts of central Italy suggests a recurring association between skilled productions and socially valued goods, as the vessels used in funerary contexts demonstrate.

This significant contribution to scholarship on the Middle Paleolithic, now reissued with a new preface, traces the controversy that revolves around the bio-cultural relationships of Archaic (Neanderthal) and Modern humans at global and regional, Levantine scales. The focus of the book is on understanding the degree to which the behavioral organization of Archaic groups differed from Moderns. To this end, a case study is presented for a 44-70,000 year old, Middle Paleolithic occupation of a Jordanian rockshelter. The research, centering on the spatial analysis of artifacts, hearths and related data, reveals how the Archaic occupants of the shelter structured their activities and placed certain conceptual labels on different parts of the site. The structure of Tor Faraj is compared to site structures defined for modern foragers, in both ethnographic and archaeological contexts, to measure any differences in behavioral organization. The comparisons show very similar structures for Tor Faraj and its modern cohorts, and the implications of this finding challenge prevailing views that Archaic groups had inferior cognition and less complex behavioral-social organization than modern foragers. The study also calls into question the contention that such behaviors only emerged after the appearance of the Upper Paleolithic, dated some 10-20,000 years later than the occupation of Tor Faraj.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.

In France, the post-World War II period corresponds to a second golden age of prehistory and protohistory, thanks to the development of the CNRS and the creation of the first university chairs. Historiographie de prehistoriens et de protohistoriens francais du XX Degrees siecle presents the biographies of a wide selection of French archaeologists whose scientific work has particularly marked this period.

This volume focuses on the main methodological perspectives currently existing in studies on Iron Age fortified settlements. Current investigations can be characterised according to three methodological approaches: analytic, landscape and componential analysis. These approaches can be traced since the 70s and are found all around Europe from the Baltic regions to the Mediterranean coast. They are examples of diachronic and versatile methodological procedures in use today and applicable to different contexts of the European Iron Age. We introduce digital archaeology at the end of this paper. In each one of the chapters we shall focus not only on the theoretical perspective of the approach but also on its practical application to the study of actual fortified settlements from different geographic contexts. In conclusion, and despite the difficulties of using these methods when investigating Iron Age settlements, they seem to be as versatile as they are adaptable and they have evolved adopting new methods of tele-detection and geographic information systems which update and refresh them as current methodological approaches.

Le site neolithique de Tinqueux " la Haubette " (Marne) date du " Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain " (5000-4700 cal. BC) a livre cinq maisons, ainsi que des fosses et une structure de combustion. Les elements de la culture materielle abondants ont permis d'approfondir differentes problematiques. La premiere traite de la singularite du site en raison de sa position tres orientale dans l'aire d'extension du BVSG et sa place dans la sequence chronologique. Le second sujet porte sur la nature de l'habitat dans le reseau des sites " producteurs " ou " receveurs " qui caracterise le BVSG. Le troisieme theme aborde est celui de la provenance des matieres premieres et le quatrieme est celui des caracteristiques chronologiques internes au village. Les analyses menees sur la structuration du village et sur le mobilier archeologique ont permis de reveler un pan encore inconnu de la culture BVSG. Ainsi, la sequence chronologique fine de cette periode dans son facies regional a pu etre etablie ; comme que la periodisation interne du village. La comparaison avec des sites proches ou eloignes a ete determinante pour comprendre le rapport de cet habitat avec les sites contemporains. Elle revele une ouverture vers l'est et une forte dynamique culturelle qui se traduit par des reseaux d'influences et de circulations variees, notamment pour l'approvisionnement en matieres premieres et en produits finis.

Sustainability strives to meet the needs of the present without compromising the future, but increasingly recognizes the tradeoffs among these many needs. Who benefits? Who bears the burden? How are these difficult decisions made? Are people aware of these hard choices? This timely volume brings the perspectives of ethnography and archaeology to bear on these questions by examining case studies from around the world. Written especially for this volume, the essays by an international team of scholars offer archaeological and ethnographic examples from the southwestern United States, the Maya region of Mexico, Africa, India, and the North Atlantic, among other regions. Collectively, they explore the benefits and consequences of growth and development, the social costs of ecological sustainability, and tensions between food and military security.

Scattered throughout Western Europe are the enigmatic monumental remains of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. The most famous of these is undoubtedly Stonehenge in the south of England, however, thousands of burial cairns, stone circles, standing stones and rock carvings are found in other parts of the British Isles. For the past 30 years I have been surveying these monuments in Scotland to try and understand what their solar and lunar orientations might have meant in the beliefs of our ancient ancestors.

The subject of this book is the man of that new hemisphere which was revealed to Europe in 1492. There through all historic centuries he had lived apart, absolutely uninfluenced by any reflex of the civilisation of the Ancient World; and yet, as it appears, pursuing a course in many respects strikingly analogous to that by means of which the civilisation of Europe originated. The recognition of this is not only of value as an aid to the realisation of the necessary conditions through which man passed in reaching the stage at which he is found at the dawn of history; but it seems to point to the significant conclusion that civilisation is the development of capacities inherent in man.

The Development of an Iron Age and Roman Settlement Complex at The Park and Bowsings, near Guiting Power, Gloucestershire outlines the excavation of a small Iron Age and Roman settlement complex near Guiting Power in the Cotswolds. A relatively undefended farmstead of middle Iron Age date was abandoned, to be followed by an adjacent, more substantial, ditched enclosure of the mid to later Iron Age, which appears to have been a stronghold of higher status, with less directly agrarian associations. This latter site became dilapidated or was perhaps slighted during the latest Iron Age or early Roman period, with a Romanised farmstead developing over the traditional habitation area, thus providing evidence for occupation until the late 4th century AD. The sequence of settlement indicates social, economic, and environmental changes occurring in the area from the 'proto-Dobunnic' to late Roman periods. Excavation of pits at the site has provided the basis for experimental investigation of grain storage.

The essays in Transforming the Dead: Culturally Modified Bone in the Prehistoric Midwest explore the numerous ways that Eastern Woodland Native Americans selected, modified, and used human bones as tools, trophies, ornaments, and other objects imbued with cultural signifi cance in daily life and rituals. Transforming the Dead is a collection of essays that examines culturally modified human bones and their roles as "cultural and ritual objects" among prehistoric Eastern Woodland cultures. Previous scholarship has explored the role of human body parts in Native American cultures as trophies of war and revered ancestors. This collection discusses new evidence that human elements were also important components of daily and ritual activities across the Eastern Woodlands. The contribu tors to this volume discuss each case study within the unique regional and temporal contexts of the material, rather than seeking universal answers to how these objects were used. Most research addressing modified human bone has focused on cut marks and trauma associated with warfare, trophy taking, and burial practices. The editors and contributors of Transforming the Dead docu ment the varied and often overlooked ways that human bone was intentionally modified through drilling, incising, cutting, and polish ing for utilitarian, ornamental, spiritual, or ritual use. Examples include bracelets and gorgets to be worn, as well as musical rasps, pipe stems, masks, and protective talismans. The form and function of these ob jects are not unusual; their construction from the remains of "another" sets them apart. Through a flexible but systematic analysis of the archaeological record, the contributors bring into focus how the careful selection, modifica tion, and retention of particular bones or body parts of an individual after death offer insights into concepts of personhood, the body, life, and death among the prehistoric Native Americans in the Midwest.

Presenting the most current research and thinking on prehistoric archaeology in the Southeast, this volume reexamines some of Florida's most important Paleoindian sites and discusses emerging technologies and methods that are necessary knowledge for archaeologists working in the region today. Using new analytical methods, contributors explore fresh perspectives on sites including Old Vero, Guest Mammoth, Page-Ladson, and Ray Hole Spring. They discuss the role of hydrology?rivers, springs, and coastal plain drainages?in the history of Florida's earliest inhabitants. They address both the research challenges and the unique preservation capacity of the state's many underwater sites, suggesting solutions for analyzing corroded lithic artifacts and submerged midden deposits. Looking towards future research, archaeologists discuss strategies for finding additional pre-Clovis and Clovis-era sites offshore on the southeastern continental shelf. The search is important, these essays show, because Florida's prehistoric sites hold critical data for the debate over the nature and timing of the first human colonization of the Western Hemisphere. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

The Steven C. Minkin (Union Chapel) Paleozoic Footprint Site ranks among the most important fossil sites in the world today, and Footprints in Stone recounts the accidental revelation of its existence and detailed findings about its fossil record. Currently 2,500 miles from the equator and more than 250 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, the Minkin site was a swampy tropical forest adjacent to a tidal flat during the Coal Age or Carboniferous Period more than 300 million years ago. That fecund strand of sand and mud at the ocean's edge teemed with the earth's earliest reptiles as well as amphibians, fish, horseshoe crabs, spiders, jumping insects, and other fascinating organisms. Unlike dinosaurs and other large animals whose sturdy bodies left hard fossil records, most of these small, soft-bodied creatures left no concrete remains. But they did leave something else. Preserved in the site's coal beds along with insect wings and beautifully textured patterns of primeval plants are their footprints, fossilized animal tracks from which modern paleontologists can glean many valuable insights about their physical anatomies and behaviors. The paleontological examination of fossil tracks is now the cutting-edge of contemporary scholarship, and the Minkin site is the first and largest site of its kind in eastern North America. Discovered by a local high school science teacher, the site provides both professional and amateur paleontologists around the world with a wealth of fossil track samples along with an inspirational story for amateur explorers and collectors. Authoritative and extensively illustrated, Footprints in Stone brings together the contributions of many geologists and paleontologists who photographed, documented, and analyzed the Minkin site's fossil trackways. An engrossing tale of its serendipitous discovery and a detailed study of its fossil records, Footprints in Stone is a landmark publication in the history of paleontology.

The publication of the Hagia Photia Cemetery is planned in three volumes. The first volume, which has already been published (Davaras and Betancourt 2004), presented the tomb groups and the architecture. The second volume about the excavation of the Hagia Photia cemetery focuses on the pottery. The third volume will present the obsidian, stone finds, metal objects, and other discoveries. The Early Minoan I tombs at Hagia Photia included the largest assemblage of vessels in Cycladic style known from Crete as well as vases from production workshops in Crete. The pottery is extremely important for several reasons, including the definition of the EM I ceramic styles that were being used as funerary offerings in this part of Crete, the establishment of the chronological synchronisms between Crete and the Cyclades, and information on the history of the Minoan pottery industry. When compared with other deposits from EM I Crete, the pottery helps to establish a better understanding of the ceramic development within the first Minoan time period.

The study of the Neolithic transition constitutes a major theme in prehistoric research. The process of economic change, from foraging to farming, involved one of the main transformations in human behavior patterns. This volume focuses on investigating the neolithization process at the periphery of one of the main routes in the expansion of the Neolithic in Europe: the Western Mediterranean region. Recent advances in radiocarbon dating, mathematical and computational models, archaeometric analysis and biomolecular techniques, together with new archaeological discoveries, provide novel insights into this topic. This volume is organized into five sections: * new discoveries and new ideas about the Mediterranean Neolithic * reconstructing times and modeling processes * landscape interaction: farming and herding * dietary subsistence of early farming communities * human dispersal mechanisms and cultural transmission This volume will also provide new empirical data to help readers assess different theoretical frameworks and narratives which underlie the models proposed to explain the expansion of farming from the Middle East into Europe.

The area of the Judean Foothills – the biblical Shephelah – has in recent years become one of the most intensively excavated regions in the world. Numerous projects, at sites of different types and utilizing various methodological approaches, are actively excavating in this region. Of particular importance are the discoveries dating to the Iron Age, a period when this region was a transition zone between various cultures—Philistine, Canaanite, Judahite, and Israelite. The current volume includes reports from eight of the excavations currently being conducted in the region (Azekah, Beth Shemesh, Gezer, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Tel Burna, Tel Halif, Tell es-Safi/Gath, and Tel Zayit), as well as a general study of the region by Ido Koch. The importance of this volume lies not only in the fact that it collects up-to-date reports on most of the current excavations in the region but also demonstrates the lively, at times even boisterous, scholarly discussions taking place on various issues relating to the archaeology and history of the Iron Age Shephelah and its immediate environs. This volume serves as an excellent introduction to current research on the Iron Age in this crucial zone and also serves as a reflection of current trends, methodologies, and approaches in the archaeology of the Southern Levant.

This book brings to complete and final publication two past excavations conducted at the site of Ramat Raḥel. A major part of the report is devoted to publishing the results of Yohanan Aharoni’s long-term excavation project at the site during the years 1954, 1956, 1959–1962. The renewal of excavations at the site in 2004 triggered the need to reevaluate the site’s architecture and stratigraphy, and from that the idea to publish this report was born.

Il sito della Rocca di Oratino: dieci anni di ricerche presenta i risultati delle ricerche condotte a partire dal 2005 nel sito dell'eta del Bronzo di Oratino - La Rocca (Campobasso), posto sull'alta valle del fiume Biferno, in posizione strategica lungo un'importante via di penetrazione che dalla costa adriatica permette di risalire verso le zone interne verso il massiccio del Matese, ai piedi di un alto sperone roccioso che caratterizza ancora oggi il paesaggio. Con questo volume vengono presentati i dati relativi agli ultimi livelli di frequentazione dell'insediamento, da porsi in un momento avanzato del Subappenninico (XII sec. a.C.). Questi sono caratterizzati dalla presenza di una serie di piastre di cottura e focolari, legati ad attivita connesse con l'uso del fuoco, orientate alla preparazione e al consumo degli alimenti. Sono inclusi gli studi sulle diverse categorie di manufatti rinvenuti, tra cui le ceramiche, i concotti e i manufatti in litica scheggiata, oltre ai resti bioarcheologici, in particolare paelobotanici, che possono oggi confluire in una ricerca multidisciplinare. L'analisi integrata dei dati a disposizione (dati di scavo, studio funzionale delle ceramiche, determinazione dei resti bioarcheologici e distribuzione spaziale di questi e di altri manufatti) permette di formulare alcune ipotesi legate al funzionamento delle strutture di fuoco e alla gestione dello spazio, in un'area aperta posta in una zona marginale del sito.

Three theories vie to explain the causes, characteristics and chronology behind the emergence of Iron Age Cypriot city-kingdoms: Achaean, Phoenician and autochthonous. Privileged by scholars until as recently as the 1980s, the first linked the emergence of the Cypriot city-state to the great Achaean migrations at the end of the second millennium. Epic foundation myths, telling of cities founded by Achaean heroes returning from Troy, were seen as fabled versions of events unfolding ostensibly at the outset of the Iron Age. The writings of D.W. Rupp cast doubt on the Achaean theory, by placing these developments at a much later date (8th c. BCE) and tracing their origins to the growing influence of the Phoenicians. This hypothesis was hotly contested, giving rise to a third theory, according to which the Cypriot Iron Age was essentially a continuation of the island's Bronze Age civilisation. The latter theory now holds sway and is scarcely ever contested. The Cypriot city-kingdoms that we observe in the historical period (7th-4th c. BCE) are said to have arisen, after a few decades of instability, as early as the 11th century. Their political and administrative structures would have undergone little more than consolidation in the 8th century, before enjoying their floruit during the Archaic and Classical periods and finally disappearing amid the Wars of the Diadochi at the start of the Hellenistic period. By recasting these developments within the broader context of the re-emergence of state structures in the eastern Mediterranean, La naissance des cites-royaumes cypriotes reassesses the arguments advanced by champions of the received theory. It likewise situates the phenomenon within a firmer theoretical (i.e. anthropological) framework, intended to establish well-defined distinctions. Furthermore, it proposes a shared typology that can accommodate other political entities, traces of which are found throughout the Geometric period (11th-8th c. BCE). Not only does the archaeological evidence compel us to question whether events unfolded as suggested, it reinforces a more nuanced variant of the Phoenician theory. Various state markers, though abundant in the 8th century (Cypro-Geometric III), seem indeed conspicuously absent during Cypro-Geometric I and II. Excavations at one such city-state, the palace of Amathus, have yielded compelling indications as to when a lasting dynasty originally arose. From them, we can surmise that the Kingdom of Amathus was the first of its kind. While the process no doubt took several decades, under no circumstances did it occur before the 9th century BCE. This coincides, moreover, with the wave of resurgent state-building that swept the eastern Mediterranean and engulfed even more westerly regions like the Aegean.

Kef Zoura D and Ain Misteheyia are stratified Capsian escargotieres (one openair, the other a rockshelter) in the Telidjene Basin, Eastern Algeria. They were excavated in the 1970s but have remained incompletely published. The sites are the only modern excavations of a Capsien Typique/Capsien Superieur sequence, demonstrating that this is indeed a chronological progression related to the 8200 cal BP climate event. The technological (introduction of pressure flaking), palaeoeconomic and palaeoecological changes related to this event are examined in these contributions.

As the Ice Age came to an end, North America lost a stunning variety of animals. Mammoths, mastodons, ground-dwelling sloths the size of elephants, beavers the size of bears, pronghorn antelope the size of poodles, llamas, and carnivores to chase them-sabertooth cats, dire wolves, American lions and cheetahs; these and many more were gone by 10,000 years ago. Giant Sloths and Sabertooth Cats surveys all these animals, with a particular focus on the Great Basin. The book also explores the major attempts to explain the extinctions. Because some believe that they were due to the activities of human hunters, the author also reviews the archaeological evidence left by the earliest known human occupants of the Great Basin, showing that people were here at the same time and in the same places as many of the extinct animals. Were these animals abundant in the Great Basin? A detailed analysis of the distinctive assemblages of plants that now live in this region leads to a surprising, and perhaps controversial, conclusion about those abundances.

This volume focuses on the beginning and development of the Neolithic in the territories near the final section of the Vinalopo river, and deals with the following matters through several chapters. The book presents in detail new information generated in the final section of the Vinalopo river. It studies the Neolithic materials from La Alcudia (Elche), their location, and makes a comparative analysis about the catchment area. This study shows that, both in this case and in Limoneros II and Cova de les Aranyes, the location was chosen according to the way of life of these first farmers. Regarding Limoneros II, it presents an initial preview of the urgent excavation carried out by the company Alebus Patrimonio Historico S.L., which has allowed the documentation of a new settlement from the Early Neolithic. The book also presents the results of the excavation carried out in Cova de les Aranyes by M.S. Hernandez Perez and A. Guilabert Mas in the first years of the 21st century, and the study of the documented materials in this excavation and some previous ones. Next, it presentd the information collected from El Alteron, a site that was discovered as the result of an urgent excavation, made of different negative structures that suggest a settlement in the 5th millennium cal BC at the foot of the sierra of Crevillente. On the other hand, the surveys carried out in the sierra of Santa Pola discovered several sites and excavated activity areas located near the coastline, linked to the use of marine resources. Finally, also as the result of an urgent excavation campaign, it was possible to document in Galanet a wide amount of negative structures. The palynological and carpological studies, the datings, and the analysis of the materiality of artefacts, suggest a site similar to a field of silos dating from the beginning of the 3rd millennium cal BC, located in the Barranco of San Anton, which runs parallel to the Vinalopo river.