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Throughout history, a large portion of the world's population has
lived under imperial rule. Although scholars do not always agree on
when and where the roots of imperialism lie, most would agree that
imperial configurations have affected human history so profoundly
that the legacy of ancient empires continues to structure the
modern world in many ways. Empires are best described as
heterogeneous and dynamic patchworks of imperial configurations in
which imperial power was the outcome of the complex interaction
between evolving colonial structures and various types of agents in
highly contingent relationships. The goal of this volume is to
harness the work of the "next generation" of empire scholars in
order to foster new theoretical and methodological perspectives
that are of relevance within and beyond archaeology and to
foreground empires as a cross-cultural category. This book
demonstrates how archaeological research can contribute to our
conceptualization of empires across disciplinary boundaries.
Contributors-historians, anthropologists, and
archaeologists-present numerous examples of the frontier as a
shifting zone of innovation and recombination through which
cultural materials from many sources have been unpredictably
channeled and transformed. At the same time, they reveal recurring
processes of frontier history that enable world-historical
comparison: the emergence of the frontier in relation to a core
area; the mutually structuring interactions between frontier and
core; and the development of social exchange, merger, or conflict
between previously separate populations brought together on the
frontier.
The foundational tenets of household archaeology were established
more than three decades ago by anthropological archaeologists
seeking multiscalar approaches to the archaeological record. The
study of the household as the basic unit of society and as a window
to larger social, economic, and political change reflected in the
everyday actions of individual people has since become integral to
archaeological practice. However, the subfield today remains as
diverse in theoretical underpinnings as it is in practical
applications. This volume—proceedings of a three-day conference
held at the University of Utah—revisits conceptualizations of the
household in both past and present societies, evaluates the current
place of household archaeology within the wider field of
anthropological and archaeological research, and presents the
newest technical advances implementing a household archaeological
framework. New Perspectives on Household Archaeology exhibits the
breadth and depth of studies in household archaeology currently
being undertaken, including studies on household time cycles in
Early Bronze Age Cyprus, the socio-technical aspects of barley
cultivation in Neolithic Jordan, and urban neighborhoods in the
early Indus Valley tradition. More than simply reflecting the
“state of the field,” this volume highlights the significant
contributions Near Eastern archaeologists and their eastern
Mediterranean colleagues are making to advance the study of ancient
households and to apply this information to larger questions of
sociocultural importance.
What are the political uses-and misuses-of archaeology in the
Middle East? In answering this question, the contributors to this
volume lend their regional expertise to a variety of case studies,
including the Taliban's destruction of Buddhas in Afghanistan, the
commercialization of archaeology in Israel, the training of
Egyptian archaeology inspectors, and the debate over Turkish
identity sparked by the film Troy, among other provocative
subjects. Other chapters question the ethical justifications of
archaeology in places that have "alternative engagements with the
material past." In the process, they form various views of the role
of the archaeologist, from steward of the historical record to
agent of social change. The diverse contributions to this volume
share a common framework in which the political use of the past is
viewed as a process of social discourse. According to this model,
political appropriations are seen as acts of social communication
designed to accrue benefits to particular groups. Thus the
contributors pay special attention to competing social visions and
the filters these impose on archaeological data. But they are also
attentive to the potential consequences of their own work. Indeed,
as the editors remind us, "people's lives may be affected,
sometimes dramatically, because of the material remains that
surround them." Rounding out this important volume are critiques by
two top scholars who summarize and synthesize the preceding
chapters.|What are the political uses--and misuses--of archaeology
in the Middle East? The contributors to this volume lend their
regional expertise to a variety of case studies, including the
Taliban's destruction of Buddhas in Afghanistan, the
commercialization of archaeology in Israel, and the debate over
Turkish identity sparked by the film Troy. In the process, they
form various views of the role of the archaeologist, from steward
of the historical record to agent of social change.
Despite a half century of attempts by social scientists to compare
frontiers around the world, the study of these regions is still
closely associated with the nineteenth-century American West and
the work of Frederick Jackson Turner. As a result, the very concept
of the frontier is bound up in Victorian notions of manifest
destiny and rugged individualism. The frontier, it would seem, has
been tamed. This book seeks to open a new debate about the
processes of frontier history in a variety of cultural contexts,
untaming the frontier as an analytic concept, and releasing it in a
range of unfamiliar settings. Drawing on examples from over four
millennia, it shows that, throughout history, societies have been
formed and transformed in relation to their frontiers, and that no
one historical case represents the normal or typical frontier
pattern. The contributors--historians, anthropologists, and
archaeologists--present numerous examples of the frontier as a
shifting zone of innovation and recombination through which
cultural materials from many sources have been unpredictably
channeled and transformed. At the same time, they reveal recurring
processes of frontier history that enable world-historical
comparison: the emergence of the frontier in relation to a core
area; the mutually structuring interactions between frontier and
core; and the development of social exchange, merger, or conflict
between previously separate populations brought together on the
frontier. Any frontier situation has many dimensions, and each of
the chapters highlights one or more of these, from the physical and
ideological aspects of Egypt's Nubian frontier to the military and
cultural components of Inka outposts in Bolivia to the shifting
agrarian, religious, and political boundaries in Bengal. They
explore cases in which the centripetal forces at work in frontier
zones have resulted in cultural hybridization or "creolization,"
and in some instances show how satellite settlements on the
frontiers of core polities themselves develop into new core
polities. Each of the chapters suggests that frontiers are shaped
in critical ways by topography, climate, vegetation, and the
availability of water and other strategic resources, and most also
consider cases of population shifts within or through a frontier
zone. As these studies reveal, transnationalism in today's world
can best be understood as an extension of frontier processes that
have developed over thousands of years. This book's
interdisciplinary perspective challenges readers to look beyond
their own fields of interest to reconsider the true nature and
meaning of frontiers.
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