Dead women litter the visual landscape of the 2000s. In this book, Clarke Dillman explains the contextual environment from which these images have arisen, how the images relate to (and sometimes contradict) the narratives they help to constitute, and the cultural work that dead women perform in visual texts.

Dead women litter the visual landscape of the 2000s. In this book, Clarke Dillman explains the contextual environment from which these images have arisen, how the images relate to (and sometimes contradict) the narratives they help to constitute, and the cultural work that dead women perform in visual texts.

Contrary to much perceived wisdom, the Sahara is a rich and varied tapestry of diverse environments that sustain an array of ecosystems. Throughout its history, the Sahara has been a stage for human evolution, with human habitation, movement and lifeways shaped by a dynamic environment of successive phases of relative humidity and aridity driven by wider global climatic changes. The nature of human utilization of the landscape has undergone many changes, from the ephemeral and ill-defined lithic scatters of the Early Holocene to the dense and complex funerary landscapes of Late Holocene Pastoral period. Generally speaking, the living have left very little trace of their existence while funerary monuments endure, stamping the landscape with a cultural timelessness that marks certain regions of the desert as "special". During the last ten years, the Western Sahara Project has undertaken large scale archaeological and environmental research that has begun to address the gaps in our knowledge of the archaeology and palaeoenvironments of Western Sahara, and to develop narratives of prehistoric cultural adaptation and change from the end of the Pleistocene to the Late Holocene and place it within its wider Saharan context. A detailed discussion of past environmental change and a presentation of results from the environmental component of the extensive survey work are provided. A typology of built stone features - monuments and funerary architecture is presented together with the results of the archaeological component of the extensive survey work, focusing on stone features, but also including discussion of ceramics and rock art and the analysis of lithic assemblages. Chapters focusing on intensive survey work in key study areas consider the landscape contexts of monuments and the results of excavation of burial cairns and artefact scatters.

The eastern Mediterranean was the centre of trade for many centuries, sitting at the junction of what are now Europe, Asia and Africa. It was the place where exotic produce and products could be traded or exchanged for things that had their origins perhaps thousands of miles away. But wherever trade takes place, a similar exchange of ideas, technology and culture also occurs. This book presents thirty papers on this very subject, looking at the ways in which we can measure the transmission of culture, and how this transmission varied across time and space. (Council for British Research in the Levant in association with Oxbow Books 2005)

Jessica is on journey. Much like her grandmothers before her, clear hearing becomes central to her life. It guides her through life's ups and downs. In Jessica's life there are plenty of those as a nurse working with people who are dying. Jessica is on a search for the meaning of the clear hearing message 'Red Sky'. The story encompasses amongst others a da Vinci robot, a volcanic eruption, and an ancient ceremony. A series of events occurs before the truth unfolds.

This book examines social change in Cyprus during the 6th to 4th millennia BC; a period that is traditionally viewed as one of prolonged cultural continuity and isolation from the mainland. Through the documentation and integration of technological practice and up-to-date climatic, ecological and environmental data, it is proposed that many of the observable differences between mainland southwest Asia and Cyprus during this period are the result of divergent adaptive strategies in response to different environmental conditions, low population density and low resource stress. The book draws upon theories in ecological and evolutionary biology and adapts it to cultural change in general. By employing a holistic approach with a focus on technological practice the book seeks to show that cultural change on Cyprus is concomitant with broadly similar cultural trajectories taken in other regions on the margins of southwest Asia. The conclusion reached is that if all of the pressures that drove cultural change on the mainland were relaxed the result would be a stable hunter-gatherer economy with a bit of farming and herding: exactly what appears to be the case on Cyprus.

The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture is a study of the notorious automobile/sports utility vehicle. Featuring more than fifteen essays, this collection analyzes the Hummer through a wide array of disciplines, including material culture, marketing and advertising, popular culture, military technology, urban planning, and political economy. It provides a complete overview of the vehicle: production, marketing aspects, and cultural significance. The only book of its kind, The Hummer is of great value to cultural studies and American studies scholars and students, as well as to any general reader with an interest in contemporary American culture.

The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture is a study of the notorious automobile/sports utility vehicle. Featuring more than fifteen essays, this collection analyzes the Hummer through a wide array of disciplines, including material culture, marketing and advertising, popular culture, military technology, urban planning, and political economy. It provides a complete overview of the vehicle: production, marketing aspects, and cultural significance. The only book of its kind, The Hummer is of great value to cultural studies and American studies scholars and students, as well as to any general reader with an interest in contemporary American culture.