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The importance of cultural contacts in the East Mediterranean has
long been recognized and is the focus of ongoing international
research. Fieldwork in the Aegean, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Levant
continues to add to our understanding of the nature of this contact
and its social and economic significance, particularly to the
cultures of the Aegean. Despite sophisticated discussion of the
archaeological evidence, in particular on the part of Aegean and
Mediterranean archaeologists, there has been little systematic
attempt to incorporate anthropological perspectives on materiality
and exchange into archaeological narratives of this material. This
book addresses that gap and integrates anthropological discourse on
contact, examining exchange systems, the gift, notions of
geographical distance and power, colonization, and hybridization.
Furthermore, it develops a social narrative of culture contact in
the Mediterranean context, illustrating the reasons communities
chose to engage in international exchange, and how this impacted
the construction of identities throughout the region. While
traditional archaeologies in the East Mediterranean have tended to
be reductive in their approach to material culture and how it was
produced, used, and exchanged, this book reviews current research
on material culture, focusing on issues such as the biography of
objects, inalienable possessions, and hybridization - exploring how
these issues can further illuminate the material world of the
communities of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.
The importance of cultural contacts in the East Mediterranean has
long been recognized and is the focus of ongoing international
research. Fieldwork in the Aegean, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Levant
continues to add to our understanding of the nature of this contact
and its social and economic significance, particularly to the
cultures of the Aegean. Despite sophisticated discussion of the
archaeological evidence, in particular on the part of Aegean and
Mediterranean archaeologists, there has been little systematic
attempt to incorporate anthropological perspectives on materiality
and exchange into archaeological narratives of this material. This
book addresses that gap and integrates anthropological discourse on
contact, examining exchange systems, the gift, notions of
geographical distance and power, colonization, and hybridization.
Furthermore, it develops a social narrative of culture contact in
the Mediterranean context, illustrating the reasons communities
chose to engage in international exchange, and how this impacted
the construction of identities throughout the region. While
traditional archaeologies in the East Mediterranean have tended to
be reductive in their approach to material culture and how it was
produced, used, and exchanged, this book reviews current research
on material culture, focusing on issues such as the biography of
objects, inalienable possessions, and hybridization - exploring how
these issues can further illuminate the material world of the
communities of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.
Plants Matter explores how plants and people live together. This is
not only a book about the importance of plants and how people use
them, but it argues also that knowing the world is achieved-with
plants. In addition to populating the landscape, plants alter human
physiology in multiple material ways, through gatherings or through
sensorial conversations using the chemistry of taste, perfume,
colour, sound and textures. The chapters gathered in this volume
offer a range of interdisciplinary perspectives that use
ethnographic and ethnobotanical information to explore how the
behaviours and capacities of certain plants around the world have
enticed, excited and even seduced people to pay attention.
From remote antiquity to contemporary contexts, food and the
'stuff' of food remains central to people's daily experiences as
well as their sense and expression of identity. This volume
explores the materiality of foodstuffs past and present, examining
humanity's intriguingly complex relationships with, and experiences
of, food. The book also makes a fresh contribution to our
understanding of materiality through a novel focus on material
culture, analysing objects used to prepare, wrap, serve and consume
food and the tactile experiences involved in its production and
consumption. Considering a wide range of cultures, spanning from
ancient China to modern-day Kenya, this broad collection of
interdisciplinary chapters reveal the multiple interplays between
foods, bodies, material worlds, rituals and embodied knowledge that
emerge from these encounters and which, in turn, shape the material
culture of food. Exploring the Materiality of Food 'Stuffs' makes
an important contribution to this burgeoning field and will be of
interest to archaeologists and anthropologists working in the key
area of food research.
From remote antiquity to contemporary contexts, food and the
'stuff' of food remains central to people's daily experiences as
well as their sense and expression of identity. This volume
explores the materiality of foodstuffs past and present, examining
humanity's intriguingly complex relationships with, and experiences
of, food. The book also makes a fresh contribution to our
understanding of materiality through a novel focus on material
culture, analysing objects used to prepare, wrap, serve and consume
food and the tactile experiences involved in its production and
consumption. Considering a wide range of cultures, spanning from
ancient China to modern-day Kenya, this broad collection of
interdisciplinary chapters reveal the multiple interplays between
foods, bodies, material worlds, rituals and embodied knowledge that
emerge from these encounters and which, in turn, shape the material
culture of food. Exploring the Materiality of Food 'Stuffs' makes
an important contribution to this burgeoning field and will be of
interest to archaeologists and anthropologists working in the key
area of food research.
Body Matters approaches the material world directly; it seeks to
remind people that they are the matter of their bodies. This volume
offers an assortment of contributions from anthropology,
archaeology and medieval studies, with case studies from northern
Europe, the Near East, East Africa and Amazonia, which variously
draw attention to the multiple shifting materials that comprise,
impact upon and co-create human bodies. This lively collection
foregrounds myriad material influences interacting with and shaping
the human body; the chapters come together to illustrate the
fundamental fleshy, bony, suppurating, leaky and oozing physicality
of being human. Ultimately, by reminding readers of their
indisputable materiality, Body Matters seeks to draw people and the
rest of the material world together to illustrate that bodies not
only seep into (and are part of) the landscape, but equally that
people and the material world are inextricably co-constitutive.
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