Modern archaeology has amassed considerable evidence for the disposal of the dead through burials, cemeteries and other monuments. Drawing on this body of evidence, this book offers fresh insight into how early human societies conceived of death and the afterlife. The twenty-seven essays in this volume consider the rituals and responses to death in prehistoric societies across the world, from eastern Asia through Europe to the Americas, and from the very earliest times before developed religious beliefs offered scriptural answers to these questions. Compiled and written by leading prehistorians and archaeologists, this volume traces the emergence of death as a concept in early times, as well as a contributing factor to the formation of communities and social hierarchies, and sometimes the creation of divinities.

From two of the best-known archaeological writers in the trade, this outstanding resource provides a thorough survey of the key ideas in archaeology, and how they impact on archaeological thinking and method. Clearly written, and easy to follow, Archaeology: The Key Concepts collates entries written specifically by field specialists, and each entry offers a definition of the term, its origins and development, and all the major figures involved in the area. The entries include: thinking about landscape archaeology of cult and religion cultural evolution concepts of time urban societies the antiquity of humankind archaeology of gender feminist archaeology experimental archaeology multiregional evolution. With guides to further reading, extensive cross-referencing, and accessibly written for even beginner students, this book is a superb guide for anyone studying, teaching, or with any interest in this fascinating subject.

From two of the best-known archaeological writers in the trade, this outstanding resource provides a thorough survey of the key ideas in archaeology, and how they impact on archaeological thinking and method. Clearly written, and easy to follow, Archaeology: The Key Concepts collates entries written specifically by field specialists, and each entry offers a definition of the term, its origins and development, and all the major figures involved in the area. The entries include: thinking about landscape archaeology of cult and religion cultural evolution concepts of time urban societies the antiquity of humankind archaeology of gender feminist archaeology experimental archaeology multiregional evolution. With guides to further reading, extensive cross-referencing, and accessibly written for even beginner students, this book is a superb guide for anyone studying, teaching, or with any interest in this fascinating subject.

The Cambridge World Prehistory provides a systematic and authoritative examination of the prehistory of every region around the world from the early days of human origins in Africa two million years ago to the beginnings of written history, which in some areas started only two centuries ago. Written by a team of leading international scholars, the volumes include both traditional topics and cutting-edge approaches, such as archaeolinguistics and molecular genetics, and examine the essential questions of human development around the world. The volumes are organized geographically, exploring the evolution of hominins and their expansion from Africa, as well as the formation of states and development in each region of different technologies such as seafaring, metallurgy, and food production. The Cambridge World Prehistory reveals a rich and complex history of the world. It will be an invaluable resource for any student or scholar of archaeology and related disciplines looking to research a particular topic, tradition, region, or period within prehistory.

Modern archaeology has amassed considerable evidence for the disposal of the dead through burials, cemeteries and other monuments. Drawing on this body of evidence, this book offers fresh insight into how early human societies conceived of death and the afterlife. The twenty-seven essays in this volume consider the rituals and responses to death in prehistoric societies across the world, from eastern Asia through Europe to the Americas, and from the very earliest times before developed religious beliefs offered scriptural answers to these questions. Compiled and written by leading prehistorians and archaeologists, this volume traces the emergence of death as a concept in early times, as well as a contributing factor to the formation of communities and social hierarchies, and sometimes the creation of divinities.

The origins of religion and ritual in humans have been the focus of centuries of thought in archaeology, anthropology, theology, evolutionary psychology and more. Play and ritual have many aspects in common, and ritual is a key component of the early cult practices that underlie the religious systems of the first complex societies in all parts of the world. This book examines the formative cults and the roots of religious practice from the earliest times until the development of early religion in the Near East, in China, in Peru, in Mesoamerica and beyond. Here, leading prehistorians and other specialists bring a fresh approach to the early practices that underlie the faiths and religions of the world. They demonstrate the profound role of play ritual and belief systems and offer powerful new insights into the emergence of early civilization.

The construction of formal measurement systems underlies the development of science and technology, economy, and new ways of understanding and explaining the world. Human societies have developed such systems in different ways in different places and at different times, and recent archaeological investigations highlight the importance of these activities for fundamental aspects of human life. The construction of measurement systems constituted new means for recognising and engaging with the material world, and their implications, and the motivations behind them, also extend beyond the material world. Developments such as the precise reckoning of the passage of time highlighted patterns and causal relationships in nature. Measurement systems have provided the structure for addressing key concerns of cosmological belief systems, as well as the means for articulating relationships between the human form, human action, and the world - and new understandings of relationships between events in the terrestrial world and beyond. The Archaeology of Measurement explores the archaeological evidence for the development of measuring activities in numerous ancient societies, as well as the implications of these discoveries for an understanding of their worlds and beliefs. Featuring contributions from a cast of internationally renowned scholars, it analyzes the relationships between measurement, economy, architecture, symbolism, time, cosmology, ritual, and religion among prehistoric and early historic societies throughout the world.

Thirteen leading archaeologists have contributed to this innovative study of the socio-political processes - notably imitation, competition, warfare, and the exchange of material goods and information - that can be observed within early complex societies, particularly those just emerging into statehood. The common aim is to explain the remarkable formal similarities that exist between institutions, ideologies and material remains in a variety of cultures characterised by independent political centres yet to be brought under the control of a single, unified jurisdiction. A major statement of the conceptual approach is followed by ten case studies from a wide variety of times and places, including Minoan Crete, early historic Greece and Japan, the classic Maya, the American Mid - west in the Hopewellian period, Europe in the Early Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, and the British Isles in the late Neolithic.

The Upper Palaeolithic era of Europe has left an abundance of evidence for symbolic activities, such as direct representations of animals and other features of the natural world, personal adornments, and elaborate burials, as well as other vestiges that are more abstract and cryptic. These behaviours are also exhibited by populations throughout the world, from the prehistoric period through to the present day. How can we interpret these activities? What do they tell us about the beliefs and priorities of the people who carried them out? How do these behaviours relate to ideologies, cosmology, and understanding of the world? What can they tell us about the emergence of ritual and religious thought? And how do the activities of humans in prehistoric Europe compare with those of their predecessors there and elsewhere? In this volume, fifteen internationally renowned scholars contribute essays that explore the relationship between symbolism, spirituality, and humanity in the prehistoric societies of Europe and traditional societies elsewhere. The volume is richly illustrated with 50 halftones and 24 colour plates.

Ranked societies are characterized by disparities in personal status that are often accompanied by the concentration of power and authority in the hands of a few dominant individuals. They stand between the sophistication of developed, states and the relative simplicity of most hunter-gatherer groups and early agriculturalists. In some places and times they represented relatively brief phases of transition to more complex forms of organization; in others they existed as stable forms of adaptation for thousands of years. They are thus of great interest for archaeologists seeking to understand the dynamics of cultural evolution.

The Greek island of Melos in the Cyclades has been inhabited for at least five thousand years. Two periods of its history are well documented: the late Bronze Age, when it supported an important urban centre at Phylakopi and the late fifth century BC, when as an independent city-state it briefly defied and was then destroyed by the expansionist power of Athens. The case of Melos is thus relevant to the understanding of the processes of early state-formation and of the integration of small-scale societies into larger political units. As the contributors to this volume show, a small island provides a very suitable area - clearly defined, self-contained - in which to examine the processes of social, cultural and economic change and the forces - sometimes gradual and almost imperceptible in their effect, sometimes sudden and dramatic - by which changes are initiated.

The Upper Palaeolithic era of Europe has left an abundance of evidence for symbolic activities, such as direct representations of animals and other features of the natural world, personal adornments, and elaborate burials, as well as other vestiges that are more abstract and cryptic. These behaviours are also exhibited by populations throughout the world, from the prehistoric period through to the present day. How can we interpret these activities? What do they tell us about the beliefs and priorities of the people who carried them out? How do these behaviours relate to ideologies, cosmology, and understanding of the world? What can they tell us about the emergence of ritual and religious thought? And how do the activities of humans in prehistoric Europe compare with those of their predecessors there and elsewhere? In this volume, fifteen internationally renowned scholars contribute essays that explore the relationship between symbolism, spirituality, and humanity in the prehistoric societies of Europe and traditional societies elsewhere. The volume is richly illustrated with 50 halftones and 24 colour plates.

One of the most troubling problems in archaeology is to determine the manner and content of prehistoric thought. A fundamental challenge is to develop the theory, methodology and tools to understand human cognition. Cognitive archaeology as a subject is still in its infancy, and archaeologists are adopting a variety of approaches--literary, linguistic, and scientific. The contributors to The Ancient Mind develop a new direction in prehistoric cognitive research that is rooted in the scientific tradition and in an empirical methodology. Together, they begin to develop a science of cognitive archaeology.

The origins of religion and ritual in humans have been the focus of centuries of thought in archaeology, anthropology, theology, evolutionary psychology and more. Play and ritual have many aspects in common, and ritual is a key component of the early cult practices that underlie the religious systems of the first complex societies in all parts of the world. This book examines the formative cults and the roots of religious practice from the earliest times until the development of early religion in the Near East, in China, in Peru, in Mesoamerica and beyond. Here, leading prehistorians and other specialists bring a fresh approach to the early practices that underlie the faiths and religions of the world. They demonstrate the profound role of play ritual and belief systems and offer powerful new insights into the emergence of early civilization.

The turn of the twenty-first century has seen a new era in the cognitive and brain sciences that allows us to address the age-old question of what it means to be human from a whole new range of different perspectives. Our knowledge of the workings of the human brain increases day by day and so does our understanding of the extended, distributed, embodied and culturally mediated character of the human mind. The problem is that these major ways of thinking about human cognition and the threads of evidence that they carry with them often seem to diverge, rather than confront one another.
The Sapient Mind channels the huge emerging analytic potential of current neuroscientific research in the direction of a common integrated programme targeting the big picture of human cognitive evolution. Up to now, working in isolation, both archaeology and neuroscience have made a number of important contributions to the study of human intelligence. Archaeology, for instance has given us a good idea about where, and an approximate idea about when, Homo sapiens appeared - in Africa somewhere between 100 000 and 200 000 years ago. Neuroscience, on the other hand, has given us a good indication about where in the human brain modern human capacities (e.g. language, symbolic capacity, representational ability, theory of mind (ToM), causal belief, intentionality, sense of selfhood) can be identified and the possible neural networks and cognitive mechanisms that support them. The challenge facing us then is how do we put all these different facets and threads of evidence about the human condition back together again?
This book presents the work of leading researchers from archaeology and the brain sciences, showing how a new framework that integrates two hithero isolated disciplines can provide us with a much deeper, more informative, account of where we came from, and why we developed as we did.

New to this Edition * Updated treatment of postcolonial approaches and indigenous archaeology, with coverage of the ontological turn in archaeology, and new examples of community archaeology in southern Africa and Australia. * New discoveries and research across the globe, such as archaeological evidence of social hierarchies at the ancient city of Liangzhu, China, and recent evidence of Neanderthal art in France and Spain. * A more inclusive picture of archaeology, raising the profile of women in the discipline's history, and describing the development of archaeology in China and Japan. * In Chapter Five, updated treatment of social organization, with critical evaluations of Service's model, and new coverage of heterarchies. * New box features include: forensic archaeology; change in the Amazon; ancient microbes; paleoproteomics; Must Farm; evidence of feasting at Stonehenge; Neanderthal art; and ceramic styles and learning. * New book design, including, for each chapter, distinct introductions that offer a general overview of each topic covered.

In this account, Colin Renfrew illustrates how the most precious product of archaeology is the information that controlled and well-published excavations can give us about our shared human past. Clandestine and unpublished digging of archaeological sites for gain - ie looting - destroys the context and all hope of providing such information. It is the source of most of the antiquities that appear on the art market today - unprovenanced antiquities, the product of illicit traffic financed, knowingly or not by the collectors and museums that buy them on a no-questions-asked basis. This trade has turned London as well as other international centres into a 'thieves kitchen' where greed triumphs over serious appreciation of the past. Unless a solution is found to this ethical crisis in archaeology, our record of the past will be vastly diminished. This book attempts to lay bare the misunderstanding and hypocrisy that underlies that crisis.

This study looks at the processes whereby archaeology became a formal academic subject in which degrees are awarded, and the pioneering role played by Cambridge University in this. More particularly it traces the careers of three Cambridge archaeologists crucial to this process, Miles Burkitt, Dorothy Garrod and Grahame Clark, looking at both their expeditions and excavations and their contributions to teaching and theoretical issues. Appendices publish the transcripts of interviews with archaeologists discussing their experiences of this time and of the personalities which encapsulated it.

Xinjiang was an important area for connections between the east and west of Central Asia, most notably in terms of metallurgical innovations and metal objects. This study of the later prehistory of the region, and of the Andronovo Culture of the second millennium BC, focuses on typological studies and analyses of early metal artefacts and of metallurgical processes, especially mining and smelting. The question of the diffusion and influence of innovations and styles of objects are considered in terms of the relationships between Xinjiang and its neighbours.

The construction of formal measurement systems underlies the development of science and technology, economy, and new ways of understanding and explaining the world. Human societies have developed such systems in different ways in different places and at different times, and recent archaeological investigations highlight the importance of these activities for fundamental aspects of human life. The construction of measurement systems constituted new means for recognising and engaging with the material world, and their implications, and the motivations behind them, also extend beyond the material world. Developments such as the precise reckoning of the passage of time highlighted patterns and causal relationships in nature. Measurement systems have provided the structure for addressing key concerns of cosmological belief systems, as well as the means for articulating relationships between the human form, human action, and the world - and new understandings of relationships between events in the terrestrial world and beyond. The Archaeology of Measurement explores the archaeological evidence for the development of measuring activities in numerous ancient societies, as well as the implications of these discoveries for an understanding of their worlds and beliefs. Featuring contributions from a cast of internationally renowned scholars, it analyzes the relationships between measurement, economy, architecture, symbolism, time, cosmology, ritual, and religion among prehistoric and early historic societies throughout the world.

This is the second volume of Catherine Perles's study of the chipped/flaked stone tools found at Franchthi Cave, the first of its kind in Greek archaeology, if not in the whole of southeastern European prehistory. In French."

Fully updated with a wealth of exciting new interviews and inspiring images, the 2nd edition of "Developing a Fashion Collection" is a must-read for every aspiring fashion designer, and covers everything the fashion student needs to know before designing their own collections."Developing a Fashion Collection "focuses on the process of designing a collection, and explores different types of research, fabric sourcing, the key roles within a design team and the many sources of inspiration available to designers. Different market levels from ready-to-wear to online shopping are covered in-depth, and are given real-world context through insightful interviews with practising contemporary designers. Collections for niche markets, including knitwear, childrenswear and footwear are also discussed. This fully updated 2nd edition of "Developing a Fashion Collection" features a vast range of exciting new interviews with high-profile international contemporary fashion designers, including Sister by Sibling, Holly Fulton, Todd Lynn, thefuturelaboratory, People Tree, Leutton Postle and Insley & Nash.

The Salisbury Hoard is the most remarkable hoard of prehistoric metalwork ever found in Britain, but knowledge of it was almost lost with artefacts scattered by metal-detectorists, dealers, auction houses and collectors. Thanks, however, to the dogged persistence of Dr Stead well over half the hoard has now been recovered and acquired by the British Museum, where it will be displayed as one of the most important finds of the century. Ian Stead's first-hand account has been widely hailed as one of the most riveting books on archaeology ever published.

An account of the different ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body, from prehistory to the present. An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind as embodied, extended, and distributed rather than brain-bound or "all in the head." This shift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition and material culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and anthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case studies, he considers how those ways might have changed from earliest prehistory to the present. Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory definitively adds materiality-the world of things, artifacts, and material signs-into the cognitive equation. His account not only questions conventional intuitions about the boundaries and location of the human mind but also suggests that we rethink classical archaeological assumptions about human cognitive evolution.