The ancient capital of Cahokia and a series of lesser population centers developed in the Mississippi valley in North America between the eighth and fifteenth centuries AD, leaving behind an extraordinarily rich archaeological record. Cahokia's gigantic pyramids, finely crafted artifacts, and dense population mark it as the founding city of the Mississippian civilization, formerly known as the 'mound' builders. As Cahokian ideas and objects were widely sought, a cultural and religious ripple effect spread across the mid-continent and into the South. In its wake, population migrations and social upheavals transformed social life along the ancient Mississippi River. In this important new survey, Timothy Pauketat outlines the development of Mississippian civilization, presenting a wealth of archaeological evidence and advancing our understanding of the American Indians whose influence extended into the founding moments of the United States and lives on today in American archaeology.

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.

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).

Series Information:
One World Archaeology

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 catalogue accompanies an international exhibition, "First Kings of Europe," and another volume also published by the Cotsen Institute, First Kings of Europe: From Farmers to Rulers in Prehistoric Southeastern Europe, that examine the artifacts and cultures of this area from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Over several millennia, early agricultural villages gave rise to tribal kingdoms and monarchies, replacing smaller, more egalitarian social structures with complex state organizations led by royal individuals invested with power. Several hundred objects and artifacts in the exhibition are portrayed in the catalog, accompanied by introductory text and detailed entries for each item. The spectacular and highly detailed color photographs introduce us to the gold and silver ornaments, bronze and iron weaponry, rich metal hoards and magnificent ceremonial vessels that are masterpieces from this period of history. Many of them have never left their countries of origin, making the two volumes documenting them an opportunity not to miss.

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.

This volume in gender archaeology presents 19 articles which confront and illuminate issues of gender in prehistory. It considers the question of gender difference and whether it is natural or culturally constructed. The articles here, which draw on evidence from a wide range of geographic areas, aim to demonstrate how all archaeological investigation can benefit from an awareness of issues of gender. They also show how the long-term nature of archaeological research can inform the gender debate across the disciplines.;The book organizes this complex area into seven sections on key themes in gender archaeology: archaeological method and theory, human origins, division of labour, the social construction of gender, iconography and ideology, power and social hierarchies and new forms of archaeological narrative. It includes section introductions which outline the history of research on each topic and present the key points of each article. A balance of material which rewrites women into prehistory and articles which show how the concept of gender informs our understanding and interpretation of the past are also included.

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 6000 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.

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.

At last a paperback edition of this standard work on marine archaeology. Sean McGrail's study received exceptional critical acclaim when it was first published in hardback in 1987 and it is now revised and published in paperback for the first time. Professor McGrail provides an authoritative survey of water transport across Northern Europe from the Late Palaeolithic to the later Middle Ages, using evidence of excavations, but also documentary sources, iconographic and ethnographic evidence. In the process he answers such key questions as How were these boats built? What sort of environment were they used in? What speeds could they achieve? and how were they navigated?

An illustrated introduction to the prehistory of Japan, treated in its own right and not as a minor part of East Asia in general.

"Islands in Time" explores the ecological and cultural development of prehistoric island societies, considers the prehistory of the Mediterranean and offers an explanation of the effects of isolation on the development of human communities.
This study details the fundamental questions that are raised about colonization processes, the human impact on ecosystems, cultural development on islands, and the significance of inter-island and island-mainland interaction. Evidence is drawn from a broad range of Mediterranean islands, including Cyprus, Crete and the Cyclades, Malta, Lipari, Corsica and Sardinia. Developing a general theoretical model of island sociogeography, "Islands in Time" provides insight into the broader question of how island populations inter-relate with their environments.

This powerful book provides the first comprehensive overview of the intellectual roots of the worldwide environmental movement - from ancient religions and philosophies to modern science and ethics - and synthesizes them into a new philosophy of nature in which to ground our moral values and social action. It traces the origins and evolution of the dominant worldview that has built our industrial, technocratic, man-centered civilization, and brought us to the current ecological crisis. At the same time, it uncovers an alternative cultural tradition in the world's different religions and philosophies and describes how these ideas are now surfacing and coalescing to form an ecological sensibility and a new vision of nature which recognizes the inter-relatedness of all living things. Finally, this book integrates these varied traditions with modern physics and the science of ecology into a larger philosophical whole that provides the environmental movement with a comprehensive vision of an organic and sustainable society in harmony with nature. As ecological disasters continue to threaten our planet, becoming worse with every passing moment of indifference, it has become clear that we must take action. We must change our relationship with nature, and return to the days when our lives were intimately connected to and dependent upon the natural world. Nature's Web lays the foundations for that change by explaining where our complex ideas about nature come from, why they are wrong, and what we can do to change them.

Drawing on both the results of recent archaeological research and anthropological theory, leading experts synthesize current thinking on the nature of and variation within Neolithic social arrangements. The authors analyze archaeological data within a range of methodological and theoretical perspectives to reconstruct key aspects of ritual practices, labor organization, and collective social identity at the scale of the household, community, and region.

The aim of this book is to explore the changing character and social roles of stone tools of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Britain, examining the changing material and social conditions under which tools were produced, acquired, used and deposited.

The First Signs is the first-ever exploration of the little-known geometric images that accompany most cave art around the world-the first indications of symbolic meaning, intelligence, and language. Join renowned archaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger on an Indiana Jones-worthy adventure from the open-air rock art sites of northern Portugal to the dark depths of a remote cave in Spain that can only be reached by sliding face-first through the mud. Von Petzinger looks past the beautiful horses, powerful bison, graceful ibex, and faceless humans in the ancient paintings. Instead, she's obsessed with the abstract geometric images that accompany them, the terse symbols that appear more often than any other kinds of figures-signs that have never really been studied or explained until now. Part travel journal, part popular science, part personal narrative, von Petzinger's groundbreaking book starts to crack the code on the first form of graphic communication. It's in her blood, as this talented scientist's grandmother served as a code-breaker at Bletchley. Discernible patterns emerge that point to abstract thought and expression, and for the first time, we can begin to understand the changes that might have been happening inside the minds of our Ice Age ancestors-offering a glimpse of when they became us.

The volume integrates multiple data sources, including ethnographic, archaeological or SIA (stable isotopic analysis) to provide new insights on a number of heavily understudied global locations.

Every generation has its own view of Stonehenge, but rarely do these interpretations relate to the physical, ecological, economic and social realities of the monument and its prehistoric past. In "The Making of Stonehenge" Rodney Castleden provides a far more comprehensive sense of Stonehenge--both in relation to the similar sites nearby and in terms of its uses. First describing those elements which made possible the assembly of this vast stone circle, Castleden also speculates about the society which undertook the enormous task of transporting and raising these giant vertical stones.
Castleden suggests that there is no one "meaning" or "purpose" for Stonehenge, but that from its very beginning it has filled a variety of needs. The Romans saw it as a center of resistance; the antiquaries who "rediscovered" it in the 17th century believed it gave them insight into the nation's past. Archaeologists see it as a subject for rational, scientific investigation; the National Trust and English Heritage view it as an unfailing tourist attraction; and UNESCO has declared it a World Heritage Site, the cultural property of the whole of humanity. Castleden examines how the ancient reality of Stonehenge has been lost amid these competing views, and considers the consequences of Stonehenge's continual mythologization and reappropriation.

Shaped by cartoons and museum dioramas, our vision of Paleolithic times tends to feature fur-clad male hunters fearlessly attacking mammoths while timid women hover fearfully behind a boulder. Recent archaeological research has shown that this vision bears little relation to reality. J. M. Adovasio and Olga Soffer, two of the world's leading experts on perishable artifacts such as basketry, cordage, and weaving, present an exciting new look at prehistory. With science writer Jake Page, they argue that women invented all kinds of critical materials, including the clothing necessary for life in colder climates, the ropes used to make rafts that enabled long-distance travel by water, and nets used for communal hunting. Even more important, women played a central role in the development of language and social life in short, in our becoming human. In this eye-opening book, a new story about women in prehistory emerges with provocative implications for our assumptions about gender today.

Report of a key survey of archaeological sites in the southern toe of Italy to discover Neolithic sites and documenting prehistoric trade in obsidian.

Contents:
Note on the use of radiocarbon dates Acknowledgements 1. Megaliths and Society, an Introduction 2. Centres of Production and Spheres of Interaction: Stone Axe Exchange in the Armorican Neolithic 3. Long Mounds and Giant Menhirs: Ritual Landscapes of the First Farmers. 4. Monuments in a Coastal Landscape: Passage Graves of the Armorican Littoral. 5. Statements of Power and Symbols of Wealth: the Great Mounds and Alignments of the Carnac Region 6. Land for the Living, Tombs for the Dead: Burial Monuments of the Late Neolithic. 7. Sealing the Tombs: the abandonment of Megaliths. 8. Conclusion: Ritual Landscapes and Social Structure in the Armorican Neolithic

The Iron Age in Northern Britain examines the archaeological evidence for earlier Iron Age communities from the southern Pennines to the Northern and Western Isles and the impact of Roman expansion on local populations, through to the emergence of historically-recorded communities in the post-Roman period. The text has been comprehensively revised and expanded to include new discoveries and to take account of advanced techniques, with many new and updated illustrations. The volume presents a comprehensive picture of the 'long Iron Age', allowing readers to appreciate how perceptions of Iron Age societies have changed significantly in recent years. New material in this second edition also addresses the key issues of social reconstruction, gender, and identity, as well as assessing the impact of developer-funded archaeology on the discipline. Drawing on recent excavation and research and interpreting evidence from key studies across Scotland and northern England, The Iron Age in Northern Britain continues to be an accessible and authoritative study of later prehistory in the region.

Spatial variation and patterning in the distribution of artefacts are topics of fundamental significance in Balkan archaeology. For decades, archaeologists have classified spatial clusters of artefacts into discrete "cultures", which have been conventionally treated as bound entities and equated with past social or ethnic groups. This timely volume fulfils the need for an up-to-date and theoretically informed dialogue on group identity in Balkan prehistory. Thirteen case studies covering the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age and written by archaeologists conducting fieldwork in the region, as well as by ethnologists with a research focus on material culture and identity, provide a robust foundation for exploring these issues. Bringing together the latest research, with a particular intentional focus on the central and western Balkans, this collection offers original perspectives on Balkan prehistory with relevance to the neighbouring regions of Eastern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean and Anatolia. Balkan Dialogues challenges long-established interpretations in the field and provides a new, contextualised reading of the archaeological record of this region.