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.

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.

This book reconsiders how we can understand archaeology on a grand scale by abandoning the claims that material remains stand for the people and institutions that produced them, or that genetic change somehow caused cultural change. Our challenge is to understand the worlds that made great projects like the building of Stonehenge or Mycenae possible. The radiocarbon revolution made the old view that the architecture of Mycenae influenced the building of Stonehenge untenable. But the recent use of 'big data' and of genetic histories have led archaeology back to a worldview where 'big problems' are assumed to require 'big solutions'. Making an animated plea for bottom-up rather than top-down solutions, the authors consider how life was made possible by living in the local and materially distinct worlds of the period. By considering how people once built connections between each other through their production and use of things, their movement between and occupancy of places, and their treatment of the dead, we learn about the kinds of identities that people constructed for themselves. Stonehenge did not require an architect from Mycenae for it to be built, but the builders of Stonehenge and Mycenae would have shared a mutual recognition of the kinds of humans that they were, and the kinds of practices these monuments were once host to.

Red Army soldier, you are now on German soil. The hour of your revenge has struck. The evil dictator Joseph Stalin implores his Russian soldiers to vanquish Wittenberg, East Germany's peace after the Nazis surrender in Berlin. Major Boris Stepanovich's Soviet Military Administration terrorizes the Herman Hahn family, murdering Herman and his daughter Katrina and imprisoning his son Manfred. Herman's other daughters Indra and Marta escape imprisonment threats by leaving their Wittenberg home, and when Horst Hubel, Manfred's best friend, learns that Major Stepanovich imprisons him, he surrenders his own freedom for his friend's freedom. Before his escape from the Buchenwald Prison, Horst watches other inmates die with dignity to give him another day of life to tell their prison story to the free world.

This book sets out the evidence for burial practices in the southern and western Peloponnese of Greece during the middle Helladic and early Mycenaean periods (c. 2000-1400 BC), and to interpret the evidence in terms of human action. In the first section, the book details the scope of the research, whereas the remaining chapters present an analysis of the evidence to answer a range of generic questions on mortuary practices. The conclusions are interpreted in terms of the use of burial practices in the study of 'Mycenaean civilisation', confirming that variations in time and space suggest that a closer study of local and regional archaeologies should be a priority in future research aims. The Appendices contain detailed information on the sites that form the basis of the study. (This book will also appeal to those non-specialists with a serious interest in the region as a fascinating, archaeological reference work or 'guide'.)

This book reconsiders how we can understand archaeology on a grand scale by abandoning the claims that material remains stand for the people and institutions that produced them, or that genetic change somehow caused cultural change. Our challenge is to understand the worlds that made great projects like the building of Stonehenge or Mycenae possible. The radiocarbon revolution made the old view that the architecture of Mycenae influenced the building of Stonehenge untenable. But the recent use of 'big data' and of genetic histories have led archaeology back to a worldview where 'big problems' are assumed to require 'big solutions'. Making an animated plea for bottom-up rather than top-down solutions, the authors consider how life was made possible by living in the local and materially distinct worlds of the period. By considering how people once built connections between each other through their production and use of things, their movement between and occupancy of places, and their treatment of the dead, we learn about the kinds of identities that people constructed for themselves. Stonehenge did not require an architect from Mycenae for it to be built, but the builders of Stonehenge and Mycenae would have shared a mutual recognition of the kinds of humans that they were, and the kinds of practices these monuments were once host to.