The Bronze Age Civilization of Central Asia edited by Philip L. Kohl collates translated articles from soviet findings of Bronze Age and Aenolithic remains in Central Asia. Originally published in 1981, these articles include the latest discoveries at the time of publication such as the Murghab Delta sites to build a clearer picture of civilizations and settlements in Bronze Age Southern Central Asia and their history and evolution for new English audiences. This title will be of interest to students of history, archaeology and anthropology.

The Bronze Age Civilization of Central Asia edited by Philip L. Kohl collates translated articles from soviet findings of Bronze Age and Aenolithic remains in Central Asia. Originally published in 1981, these articles include the latest discoveries at the time of publication such as the Murghab Delta sites to build a clearer picture of civilizations and settlements in Bronze Age Southern Central Asia and their history and evolution for new English audiences. This title will be of interest to students of history, archaeology and anthropology.

Situated roughly midway between the great cities of the Indus Valley and those of the Mesopotamian plains, Tepe Yahya occupies a special place in our conceptions of relations between these distant territories during the early Bronze Age. Its third-millennium levels, dating from 3000 to 2100 B.C., are particularly important.

In this definitive study, D.T. Potts describes the stratigraphy, architecture, ceramics, and chronology of the site and presents a full inventory of the small finds. Holly Pittman contributes comprehensive illustrations and a discussion of the seals and sealings, and Philip Kohl provides an analysis of the carved chlorite industry. In a foreword and afterword, project director C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky tells the story of the archaeological expedition and reflects on the contributions of the Tepe Yahya project.

This book provides an overview of Bronze Age societies of Western Eurasia through an investigation of the archaeological record. Philip L. Kohl outlines the long-term processes and patterns of interaction that link these groups together in a shared historical trajectory of development. Interactions took the form of the exchange of raw materials and finished goods, the spread and sharing of technologies, and the movements of peoples from one region to another. Kohl reconstructs economic activities from subsistence practices to the production and exchange of metals and other materials. He also examines long-term processes, such as the development of more mobile forms of animal husbandry, which were based on the introduction and large-scale utilization of oxen-drive wheeled wagons and, subsequently, the domestication and riding of horses; the spread of metalworking technologies and exploitation of new centers of metallurgical production; changes in systems of exchange from those dominated by the movement of luxury goods to those in which materials essential for maintaining and securing the reproduction of the societies participating in the exchange network accompanied and/or supplanted the trade in precious materials; and increasing evidence for militarism and political instabilities as reflected in shifts in settlement patterns, including increases in fortified sites, and quantitative and qualitative advances in weaponry. Kohl also argues forcefully that the main task of the archaeologist should be to write culture-history on a spatially and temporally grand scale in an effort to detect large, macrohistorical processes of interaction and shared development.

When political geography changes, how do reorganized or newly formed states justify their rule and create a sense of shared history for their people? Often, the essays in "Selective Remembrances "reveal, they turn to archaeology, employing the field and its findings to develop nationalistic feelings and forge legitimate distinctive national identities.
Examining such relatively new or reconfigured nation-states as Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, India, and Thailand, "Selective Remembrances" shows how states invoke the remote past to extol the glories of specific peoples or prove claims to ancestral homelands. Religion has long played a key role in such efforts, and the contributors take care to demonstrate the tendency of many people, including archaeologists themselves, to view the world through a religious lens--which can be exploited by new regimes to suppress objective study of the past and justify contemporary political actions.
The wide geographic and intellectual range of the essays in "Selective Remembrances" will make it a seminal text for archaeologists and historians.

This book provides an overview of Bronze Age societies of Western Eurasia through an investigation of the archaeological record. The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia outlines the long-term processes and patterns of interaction that link these groups together in a shared historical trajectory of development. Interactions took the form of the exchange of raw materials and finished goods, the spread and sharing of technologies, and the movements of peoples from one region to another. Kohl reconstructs economic activities from subsistence practices to the production and exchange of metals and other materials. Kohl also argues forcefully that the main task of the archaeologist should be to write culture-history on a spatially and temporally grand scale in an effort to detect large, macrohistorical processes of interaction and shared development.

After reviewing knowledge of Iron Age Iran, the authors look in detail at the highly developed social institutions of the Achaemenid Empire, most notably at state administration, agrarian relations, monetary systems, slavery and trade. A wide-ranging discussion of that culture covers such topics as the religion of the Ancient Iranians, ethnic and cultural contacts with the Achaemenid Empire, and superstitious and scientific practices in the ancient Near East during the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C.

Archaeology has often been put to political use, particularly by nationalists. This timely collection ranges from propaganda purposes served by archaeology in the Nazi state to lesser-known instances of ideological archaeology elsewhere. A distinguished group of international scholars highlights common threads in these experiences, arguing that archaeologists need to be more sophisticated about the use and abuse of their studies. The book raises cogent questions concerning not only archaeology, but also history and anthropology in general.

Archaeology has often been put to political use, particularly by nationalists. The case studies in this timely collection range from the propaganda purposes served by archaeology in the Nazi state, through the complex interplay of official dogma and academic prehistory in the former Soviet Union, to lesser-known instances of ideological archaeology in other European countries, in China, Japan, Korea and the Near East. The introductory and concluding chapters draw out some of the common threads in these experiences, and argue that archaeologists need to be more sophisticated about the use and abuse of their studies. The editors have brought together a distinguished international group of scholars. Whilst archaeologists will find that this book raises cogent questions about their own work, these problems also go beyond archaeology to implicate history and anthropology more generally.

"Nature and Antiquities" examines the relation between the natural sciences, anthropology, and archaeology in the Americas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Taking the reader across the Americas from the Southern Cone to Canada, across the Andes, the Brazilian Amazon, Mesoamerica, and the United States, the book explores the early history of archaeology from a Pan-American perspective.
The volume breaks new ground by entreating archaeologists to acknowledge the importance of ways of knowing that resulted from the study of nature in the history of archaeology. Some of the contributions to this volume trace the part conventions, practices, and concepts from natural history and the natural sciences played in the history and in the making of the discipline. Others set out to uncover, reassemble, or adjust our vision of collections that research historians of archaeology have disregarded or misrepresented - because their nineteenth-century makers would refuse to comply with today's disciplinary borders and study natural specimens and antiquities in conjunction, under the rubric of the territorial, the curious or the universal. Other contributions trace the socio-political implications of studying nature in conjunction with "indigenous peoples" in the Americas - inquiring into what it meant and entailed to comprehend the inhabitants of the American continent in and through a state of nature.