Since taking their first steps on this planet, humans have changed the environment around them. Anthropocene: A New Introduction to World Prehistory tells the comprehensive story of human prehistory through the lens of anthropogenic environmental change. Each chapter explains how and why ancient humans transformed the Earth, linking prehistory to today's greatest global challenge. As they explore this record of the world's early people and societies, authors Joy McCorriston and Julie Field reject the traditional account of cultural evolution, instead presenting a thematic organization that highlights our Anthropocene narrative. Chapters are devoted to cities and agriculture, but also to such topics as technology, extinction, food production, writing and extractivism. Chapter 9, 'Individuals and Identity,' considers human identity and agency in more recent eras, and the book ends with a contemporary chapter that takes a hopeful look at the future.

The rugged highlands of southern Yemen are one of the less archaeologically explored regions of the Near East. This final report of survey and excavations by the Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA) Project addresses the development of food production and human landscapes, topics of enduring interest as scholarly conceptualizations of the Anthropocene take shape. Along with data from Manayzah, site of the earliest dated remains of clearly domesticated animals in Arabia, the volume also documents some of the earliest water management technologies in Arabia, thereby anchoring regional dates for the beginnings of pastoralism and of potential farming. The authors argue that the initial Holocene inhabitants of Wadi Sana were Arabian hunters who adopted limited pastoral stock in small social groups, then expanded their social collectives through sacrifice and feasts in a sustained pastoral landscape. This volume will be of interest to a wide audience of archaeologists including not only those working in Arabia, but more broadly those interested in the ancient Near East, Africa, South Asia, and in Holocene landscape histories generally.

In this book, Joy McCorriston examines the continuity of traditions over millennia in the Near East. Tracing the phenomenon of pilgrimage in pre-Islamic Arabia up through the development of the Hajj, she defines its essential characteristics and emphasizes the critical role that pilgrimage plays in enabling and developing socioeconomic transactions. Indeed, the social identities constructed through pilgrimage are key to understanding the long-term endurance of the phenomenon. In the second part of the book, McCorriston turns to the household, using cases of ancient households in Mesopotamian societies, both in the private and public spheres. Her conclusions tie together broader theoretical implications generated by the study of the two phenomena and offer a new paradigm for archaeological study, which has traditionally focused on transitions to the exclusion of continuity of traditions.

In this book, Joy McCorriston examines the continuity of traditions over millennia in the Near East. Tracing the phenomenon of pilgrimage in pre-Islamic Arabia up through the development of the Hajj, she defines its essential characteristics and emphasizes the critical role that pilgrimage plays in enabling and developing socioeconomic transactions. Indeed, the social identities constructed through pilgrimage are key to understanding the long-term endurance of the phenomenon. In the second part of the book, McCorriston turns to the household, using cases of ancient households in Mesopotamian societies, both in the private and public spheres. Her conclusions tie together broader theoretical implications generated by the study of the two phenomena and offer a new paradigm for archaeological study, which has traditionally focused on transitions to the exclusion of continuity of traditions.