These papers bring an interdisciplinary approach to bear on what is arguably the central question in the study of human social evolution: how did the simple hunting and foraging bands of the Upper Palaeolithic evolve into the institutionally complex societies of the so-called Neolithic Revolution? The contributors to this volume are leading experts from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and game theory, all of whom share a common evolutionary perspective. The ideas presented here form a major addition to the widespread current interest in evolutionary theory as applied to human behaviour.

Excavations carried out at the Late Minoan III settlement and cemetery at Mochlos in eastern Crete yielded domestic artifacts, human remains, grave goods, and ecofactual material from 31 tombs and 11 houses. These objects are cataloged, discussed, and illustrated. Radiocarbon dates for the site are also presented. The cemetery remains mirror the settlement remains, and the conclusions discuss how the two sites reflect each other. Rarely in Crete are a settlement and its cemetery both preserved, and it is extremely fortunate to be able to document both in a series of scientific excavation reports (Mochlos IIA-IIC).

Pyramids are now being found almost everywhere: in 1994 in China; then in Caral, in Peru, Southern America; then in Northern Italy and in 2005 in Bosnia. Despite their prevalence, massive pyramids remain as mysterious and controversial as ever. Though Egyptologists continue to argue that the Egyptian pyramids are tombs, no bodies have ever been discovered in them. None of the other pyramids are tombs either. Apart from the Mayan pyramids, which are much more recent, all pyramids are similar in shape, size and age. Does this mean that each culture developed this rather unique shape on its own, or does it mean that there was a truly global movement - somewhere around 3000 BC? This is the first book to explore the new landscape of pyramids found worldwide. It describes the changed nature of the pyramid debate and offers science a challenge, but equally tries to answer some of the key questions raised during the last decade of pyramid discovery. It is a series of discoveries that has changed the archaeological world and extended all our horizons.

Alasdair Whittle's new work argues powerfully for the complexity and fluidity of life in the Neolithic, through a combination of archaeological and anthropological case studies and current theoretical debate.
The book ranges from the sixth to the fourth millennium BC, and from the Great Hungarian Plain, central and western Europe and the Alpine foreland to parts of southern Britain. Familiar terms such as individuals, agency, identity and structure are dealt with, but Professor Whittle emphasises that they are too abstract to be truly useful.
Instead, he highlights the multiple dimensions which constituted Neolithic existence: the web of daily routines, group and individual identities, relations with animals, and active but varied attitudes to the past.
The result is a vivid, original and perceptive understanding of the early Neolithic which will offer insights to readers at every level.

Alasdair Whittle's new work argues powerfully for the complexity and fluidity of life in the Neolithic, through a combination of archaeological and anthropological case studies and current theoretical debate.
The book ranges from the sixth to the fourth millennium BC, and from the Great Hungarian Plain, central and western Europe and the Alpine foreland to parts of southern Britain. Familiar terms such as individuals, agency, identity and structure are dealt with, but Professor Whittle emphasises that they are too abstract to be truly useful.
Instead, he highlights the multiple dimensions which constituted Neolithic existence: the web of daily routines, group and individual identities, relations with animals, and active but varied attitudes to the past.
The result is a vivid, original and perceptive understanding of the early Neolithic which will offer insights to readers at every level.

World Prehistory: The Basics tells the compelling story of human prehistory, from our African origins to the spectacular pre-industrial civilizations and cities of the more recent past.

Written in a non-technical style by two archaeologists and experienced writers about the past, the story begins with human origins in Africa some 6 million years ago and the spread of our remote ancestors across the Old World. Then we return to Africa and describe the emergence of Homo sapiens (modern humans) over 300,000 years ago, then, much later, their permanent settlement of Europe, Eurasia, Asia, and the Americas. From hunters and foragers, we turn to the origins of farming and animal domestication in different parts of the world after about 11,000 years ago and show how these new economies changed human existence dramatically. Five chapters tell the stories of the great pre-industrial civilizations that emerged after 5000 years before present in the Old World and the Americas, their strengths, volatility, and weaknesses. These chapters describe powerful rulers and their ideologies, also the lives of non-elites. The narratives chronicle the rise and fall of civilizations, and the devastating effects of long droughts on many of them. The closing chapter poses a question: Why is world prehistory important in the modern world? What does it tell us about ourselves?

Providing a simple, but entertaining and stimulating, account of the prehistoric past from human origins to today from a global perspective, World Prehistory: The Basics is the ideal guide to the story of our early human past and its relevance to the modern world.

Table of Contents

1. Beginnings (c. 6 to 2 Ma); 2. Out of Africa (c. 2 Ma and later); 3. Enter Homo sapiens (c. 300,000 years ago and later); 4. Modern humans in the north (c. 50,000 to 12,000 years ago); 5. After the ice (c. 15,000 years ago and later); 6. Farmers and herders (c. 10,000 BCE and later); 7. Villages, towns, and chiefs (after about 8,000 BCE); 8. Sumerians and Assyrians (c. 3100 to 612 BCE); 9. By Nile and Indus (c. 3100 to 30 BCE); 10. China and Southeast Asia (after 5250 BCE to 1532 CE); 11. Mesoamerica (c. 1500 BCE to 1532 CE); 12. Andean civilizations (3000 BCE to 1532 CE); 13. Epilogue

Where do we find the world's very first art? When, and why, did people begin experimenting with different materials, forms and colours? Were our once-cousins, the Neanderthals, also capable of creating art? Prehistorians have been asking these questions of our ancestors for decades, but only very recently, with the development of cutting-edge scientific and archaeological techniques, have we been able to piece together the first chapter in the story of art. Overturning the traditional Eurocentric vision of our artistic origins, which has focused almost exclusively on the Franco-Spanish cave art, Paul Bahn and Michel Lorblanchet take the reader on a search for the earliest art across the whole world. They show that our earliest ancestors were far from being the creatively impoverished primitives of past accounts, and Europe was by no means the only 'cradle' of art; the artistic impulse developed in the human mind wherever it travelled. The long universal history of art mirrors the development of humanity.

The idea of prehistory dates from the nineteenth century, but Richard Bradley contends that it is still a vital area for research. He argues that it is only through a combination of oral tradition and the experience of encountering ancient material culture that people were able to formulate a sense of their own pasts without written records.
The Past in Prehistoric Societies presents case studies which extend from the Palaeolithic to the early Middle Ages and from the Alps to Scandinavia. It examines how archaeologists might study the origin of myths and the different ways in which prehistoric people would have inherited artefacts from the past. It also investigates the ways in which ancient remains might have been invested with new meanings long after their original significance had been forgotten. Finally, the author compares the procedures of excavation and field survey in the light of these examples.
The work includes a large number of detailed case studies, is fully illustrated and has been written in an extremely accessible style.

Going West? uses the latest data to question how the Neolithic way of life was diffused from the Near East to Europe via Anatolia. The transformations of the 7th millennium BC in western Anatolia undoubtedly had a significant impact on the neighboring regions of southeast Europe. Yet the nature, pace and trajectory of this impact needs still to be clarified. Archaeologists searched previously for similarities in prehistoric, especially Early Neolithic, material cultures on both sides of the Sea of Marmara. Recent research shows that although the isthmi of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus connect Asia Minor and the eastern Balkans, they apparently did not serve as passageways for the dissemination of Neolithic innovations. Instead, the first permanent settlements are situated near the Aegean coast of Thrace and Macedonia, often occurring close to the mouths of big rivers in secluded bays. The courses and the valleys of rivers such as the Maritsa, Strymon and Axios, were perfect corridors for contact and exchange.Using previous studies as a basis for fresh research, this volume presents exciting new viewpoints by analyzing recently discovered materials and utilising interdisciplinary investigations with the application of modern research methods. The seventeen authors of this book have dedicated their research to a renewed evaluation of an old problem: namely, the question of how the complex transformations at the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic can be explained. They have focused their studies on the vast area of the eastern Balkans and the Pontic region between the Bosporus and the rivers Strymon, Danube and Dniestr. Going West? thus offers an overview of the current state of research concerning the Neolithisation of these areas, considering varied viewpoints and also providing useful starting points for future investigations.

The idea of prehistory dates from the nineteenth century, but Richard Bradley contends that it is still a vital area for research. He argues that it is only through a combination of oral tradition and the experience of encountering ancient material culture that people were able to formulate a sense of their own pasts without written records.
The Past in Prehistoric Societies presents case studies which extend from the Palaeolithic to the early Middle Ages and from the Alps to Scandinavia. It examines how archaeologists might study the origin of myths and the different ways in which prehistoric people would have inherited artefacts from the past. It also investigates the ways in which ancient remains might have been invested with new meanings long after their original significance had been forgotten. Finally, the author compares the procedures of excavation and field survey in the light of these examples.
The work includes a large number of detailed case studies, is fully illustrated and has been written in an extremely accessible style.

The subject of the present volume, in essence is the hand and hand's extensions. We cannot insist too strongly that in the evolution of life the "decisive moment" arrived when a living being - who became man - adopted the erect attitude, thus freeing his hands, and when the industrious activity was inauguarted which this freedom made possible. In the use of the hand as an instrument, we have the manifestation of an important physical progress and the promise of further progress.

K'Oben traces the Maya kitchen and its associated hardware, ingredients, and cooking styles from the earliest times for which we have archaeological evidence through today's culinary tourism in the area. It focuses not only on what was eaten and how it was cooked, but the people involved: who grew or sourced the foods, who cooked them, who ate them. Additionally, the authors examine how Maya foodways and the people involved fit into the social system, particularly in how food is incorporated into culture, economy, and society. The authors provide a detailed literature review of hard-to-find sources including: out of print centuries old cookbooks, archaeological field notes, ethnographies and ethnohistories out of circulation and not available in English, thesis documents only available in Spanish and in university archives as well as current field research on the Maya. The more recent Maya foodways can be studied from cookbooks, ethnographies and ethnohistorical documentation. Between the two of us, we have assembled a small but representative collection of cookbooks, some self-published and rare, that were available in Merida and elsewhere in Mexico during the late 20th century. Some are quite old, and all reflect local traditional foodways. Geographically, the book concentrates on Yucatan, Tabasco and Chiapas in Mexico, but will include Pre-Classic and Classic evidence from Guatemala and El Salvador, whose foodways are influenced by Maya traditions.

Since prehistoric times, Andean societies have been organized around the ayllu, a grouping of real or ceremonial kinspeople who share labor, resources, and ritual obligations. Many Andean scholars believe that the ayllu is as ancient as Andean culture itself, possibly dating back as far as 6000 B.C., and that it arose to alleviate the hardships of farming in the mountainous Andean environment. In this boldly revisionist book, however, William Isbell persuasively argues that the ayllu developed during the latter half of the Early Intermediate Period (around A.D. 200) as a means of resistance to the process of state formation. Drawing on archaeological evidence, as well as records of Inca life taken from the chroniclers, Isbell asserts that prehistoric ayllus were organized around the veneration of deceased ancestors, whose mummified bodies were housed in open sepulchers, or challups, where they could be visited by descendants seeking approval and favors. By charting the temporal and spatial distribution of chullpa ruins, Isbell offers a convincing new explanation of where, when, and why the ayllu developed.

Before Writing gives a new perspective on the evolution of communication. It points out that when writing began in Mesopotamia it was not, as previously thought, a sudden and spontaneous invention. Instead, it was the outgrowth of many thousands of years' worth of experience at manipulating symbols.

In Volume I: From Counting to Cuneiform, Denise Schmandt-Besserat describes how in about 8000 B.C., coinciding with the rise of agriculture, a system of counters, or tokens, appeared in the Near East. These tokens--small, geometrically shaped objects made of clay--represented various units of goods and were used to count and account for them. The token system was a breakthrough in data processing and communication that ultimately led to the invention of writing about 3100 B.C. Through a study of archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Schmandt-Besserat traces how the Sumerian cuneiform script, the first writing system, emerged from a counting device.

In Volume II: A Catalog of Near Eastern Tokens, Schmandt-Besserat presents the primary data on which she bases her theories. These data consist of several thousand tokens, catalogued by country, archaeological site, and token types and subtypes. The information also includes the chronology, stratigraphy, museum ownership, accession or field number, references to previous publications, material, and size of the artifacts. Line drawings and photographs illustrate the various token types.

The period from 6500 to 2500 BC was one of the most dynamic eras of the prehistory of south-eastern Europe, for it saw many fundamental changes in the ways in which people lived their lives. This up-to-date and authoritative synthesis both describes the best excavated relevant Balkan sites and interprets long-term trends in the central themes of settlement, burial, material culture and economy. Prominence is given to the ways people organized themselves, the houses and landscapes where they lived and the objects, plants and animals that they kept. The key developments are seen as the creation of new social environments through the construction of houses and villages, and a new materiality of life which filled the built environment with a wide variety of objects. Against the prevailing trends in European prehistory, the author argues for a prehistoric past riven with tension and conflict, where hoarding and exclusion of people was just as frequent as sharing and helping. "Balkan Prehistory" provides a much-needed guide to a period which has previously been inaccessible to western scholars.;It should be a useful resource for undergraduates, advanced students and scholars.

Douglass Bailey's volume fills the huge gap that existed for a comprehensive synthesis, in English, of the archaeology of the Balkans between 6,500 and 2,000 BC; much research on the prehistory of Eastern Europe was inaccessible to a western audience before now, because of linguistic barriers.
Bailey argues against traditional interpretations of the period, which focus on the origins of agriculture and animal breeding. He demonstrates that this was a period when monumental social and material changes occurred in the lives of the people in this region, with new technologies and ways of displaying identity.
Balkan Prehistory will be required reading for everyone studying the Neolithic, Copper and early Bronze Ages of Eastern Europe.

This book employs contemporary theoretical perspectives to investigate the Neolithic period in southern britain. It is a fully reworked edition of the author's Rethinking the Neolithic (1991).

This text presents an investigation of the period 4000 - 2200 BC. Whilst examining the archaeological data of this region, the book exposes the assumptions and prejudices which have shaped archaeologists' accounts of the distant past, and presents fresh interpretations informed by social theory, anthropology and critical hermeneutics. The book is a fully reworked and updated edition of the the book "Rethinking the Neolithic", which provoked much heated debate on publication, especially in providing alternative ways of interpreting archaeological evidence.

The causewayed enclosures of the neolithic era were the first monumental structures in the British Isles. But the uses to which these vast concentric rings of raised walkways were put remains confused. Archaeological evidence suggests that these sites had many different, and often contradictory functions, and there may have been other uses for which no evidence survives. How can archaeologists present an effective interpretation, with the consciousness that both their own subjectivity, and the variety of conflicting views will determine their approach. Because these sites have become a focus for so much controversy, the problem of presenting them to the public assumes a critical importance. The authors raise central issues which occur in all archaeological interpretation, especially in sites that have been put to a variety of uses over time. The authors have not tried to provide a comprehensive review of the archaeology of all these causewayed sites in Britain, but rather to use them as case studies in the development of an arcaheological interpretation. These techniques and approaches can be applied to sites of many periods.

This is the first book-length treatment of Neolithic burial in Britain to focus primarily on cave evidence. It interprets human remains from forty-eight caves and compares them to what we know of Neolithic collective burial elsewhere in Britain and Europe. It reviews the archaeology of these cave burials and treats them as important evidence for the study of mortuary practice. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, anthropology, osteology and cave science, the book demonstrates that cave burial was one of the earliest elements of the British Neolithic. It also shows that Early Neolithic cave-burial practice was highly varied, with many similarities to other burial rites. However, by the Middle Neolithic, a funerary practice which was specific to caves had developed. -- .

Series Information:
One World Archaeology

We live in a world surrounded by remarkable cultural achievements of human kind. Almost every day we hear of new innovations in technology, in medicine and in the arts which remind us that humans are capable of remarkable creativity. But what is human creativity? The modern world provides a tiny fraction of cultural diversity and the evidence for human creativity, far more can be seen by looking back into prehistory. The book examines how our understanding of human creativity can be extended by exploring this phenomenon during human evolution and prehistory. The book offers unique perspectives on the nature of human creativity from archaeologists who are concerned with long term patterns of cultural change and have access to quite different types of human behaviour than that which exists today. It asks whether humans are the only creative species, or whether our extinct relatives such as Homo habilis and the Neanderthals also displayed creative thinking. It explores what we can learn about the nature of human creativity from cultural developments during prehistory, such as changes in the manner in which the dead were buried, monuments constructed, and the natural world exploited. In doing so, new light is thrown on these cultural developments and the behaviour of our prehistoric ancestors. By examining the nature of creativity during human evolution and prehistory these archaeologists, supported by contributions from psychology, computer science and social anthropology, show that human creativity is a far more diverse and complex phenomena than simply flashes of genius by isolated individuals. Indeed they show that unless perspectives from prehistory are taken into account, our understanding of human creativity will be limited and incomplete.

Just as modern societies interpret ancient monuments and incorporate them in their political and cultural life, so people in the past often re-used their own monuments and places. Illustrated with plates and photographs and including articles by international specialists, this book should appeal to graduates, academics and anyone curious about the re-use of ancient monuments right up to the present day.

The human race is on a 10,000 year urban adventure. Our ancestors wandered the planet or lived scattered in villages, yet by the end of this century almost all of us will live in cities. But that journey has not been a smooth one and urban civilizations have risen and fallen many times in history. The ruins of many of them still enchant us. This book tells the story of the rise and fall of ancient cities from the end of the Bronze Age to the beginning of the Middle Ages. It is a tale of war and politics, pestilence and famine, triumph and tragedy, by turns both fabulous and squalid. Its focus is on the ancient Mediterranean: Greeks and Romans at the centre, but Phoenicians and Etruscans, Persians, Gauls, and Egyptians all play a part. The story begins with the Greek discovery of much more ancient urban civilizations in Egypt and the Near East, and charts the gradual spread of urbanism to the Atlantic and then the North Sea in the centuries that followed. The ancient Mediterranean, where our story begins, was a harsh environment for urbanism. So how were cities first created, and then sustained for so long, in these apparently unpromising surroundings? How did they feed themselves, where did they find water and building materials, and what did they do with their waste and their dead? Why, in the end, did their rulers give up on them? And what it was like to inhabit urban worlds so unlike our own - cities plunged into darkness every night, cities dominated by the temples of the gods, cities of farmers, cities of slaves, cities of soldiers. Ultimately, the chief characters in the story are the cities themselves. Athens and Sparta, Persepolis and Carthage, Rome and Alexandria: cities that formed great families. Their story encompasses the history of the generations of people who built and inhabited them, whose short lives left behind monuments that have inspired city builders ever since - and whose ruins stand as stark reminders to the 21st century of the perils as well as the potential rewards of an urban existence.

The Neolithic period, when agriculture began and many monuments - including Stonehenge - were constructed, is an era fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities. Students of prehistory have long found the highly theoretical interpretations of the period perplexing and contradictory. Starting in the Mesolithic and carrying his analysis through to the late Bronze Age, Richard Bradley sheds light on this complex period and the changing consciousness of these prehistoric peoples. The book studies the importance of monuments tracing their history from their first creation to over 60000 years later. Part one discusses how monuments first developed and their role in developing a new sense of time and space among the inhabitants of prehistoric Europe. Other features of the prehistoric landscape - such as mounds and enclosures - across continental Europe are also examined. Part two studies how such monuments were modified and reinterpreted to suit the changing needs of society through a series of detailed case studies.