Download or read book Modern Origins written by Jean-Jacques Hublin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-03-31 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last decade, Africa has taken a central position in the search for the timing and mechanisms leading to modern human origins, and the rich archaeological and human paleontological record of North Africa is critical to this search. In this volume, we bring together new research into the archaeology, human paleontology, chronology, and environmental context of modern human origins in North Africa. The result is a volume that better integrates the North African record into the modern human origins debate and at the same time highlights the research questions that are currently the focus of continued work in the area.
Download or read book A Historical Geography of Ghana written by Kwamina B. Dickson and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1969 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1969, this book presents a historical geography of Ghana from the earliest times onwards. It describes the people and their social organization, migrations, agriculture, artefacts, manufacturing and history. Numerous illustrative figures, appendices and a detailed bibliography are also provided. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Ghana and the development of historical geography.
Download or read book Frameworks for Dating Fossil Man written by Kenneth P. Oakley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to appear which correlates within a single volume the relevant data for both archeological and geological dating of human fossil remains. The author was trained both as a geologist and as a prehistorian, and has written this book first to meet the needs of archeologists wishing to learn the stratigraphical frameworks now applied to Quaternary deposits, and second to meet the needs of geologists requiring to know the terminology of Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures.
Download or read book West Africa Before the Europeans written by O. Davies and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the whole range of West African archaeology to the arrival of the Portugese on the Guinea coast. Parts of this territory are very ill-explored, and emphasis is accordingly laid on the better-known regions: Ghana, Nigeria, the middle Niger valley and Western Senegal. After introducing the geographical background and chronology, subsequent chapters deal with the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and early iron ages, ending with a brief account of the protohistoric period. Published in 1967. Includes map and topographical index.
Download or read book Biocultural Evolution written by Pandey and published by Concept Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Round Heads written by Jitka Soukopova and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-16 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Central Sahara is considered the greatest “museum” of rock art in the world, containing several thousand prehistoric and recent images. The oldest paintings, called Round Heads, originated during a humid phase in the 10th millennium before present and they were created by dark-skinned hunter-gatherers living in the Algerian and Libyan mountains. Rock shelters show mainly anthropomorphic figures with body paintings and other embellishments testifying ancient rituals and ceremonies. Only two animal species – antelope and mouflon – appear to be as important as men and women; mixed with them on the same walls, these animals had a fundamental place in the ideology of the period. Since the discovery by Europeans in the 19th century, research in the Sahara has been scarce due to the difficult working conditions and to the problematic politics associated with national permissions. The rock art and the archaeology have always been treated as separated disciplines and only rarely were the paintings associated with a material culture. They have been described and classified but not interpreted because it was considered unachievable. Using interdisciplinary studies, this book approaches the previously neglected fields of the study of Saharan rock art, and it proposes new ways to research the art and the societies that created it.
Download or read book CNRS Research written by Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Last Civilized Place written by Ronald A. Messier and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set along the Sahara's edge, Sijilmasa was an African El Dorado, a legendary city of gold. But unlike El Dorado, Sijilmasa was a real city, the pivot in the gold trade between ancient Ghana and the Mediterranean world. Following its emergence as an independent city-state controlling a monopoly on gold during its first 250 years, Sijilmasa was incorporated into empire—Almoravid, Almohad, and onward—leading to the "last civilized place" becoming the cradle of today's Moroccan dynasty, the Alaouites. Sijilmasa's millennium of greatness ebbed with periods of war, renewal, and abandonment. Today, its ruins lie adjacent to and under the modern town of Rissani, bypassed by time. The Moroccan-American Project at Sijilmasa draws on archaeology, historical texts, field reconnaissance, oral tradition, and legend to weave the story of how this fabled city mastered its fate. The authors' deep local knowledge and interpretation of the written and ecological record allow them to describe how people and place molded four distinct periods in the city's history. Messier and Miller compare models of Islamic cities to what they found on the ground to understand how Sijilmasa functioned as a city. Continuities and discontinuities between Sijilmasa and the contemporary landscape sharpen questions regarding the nature of human life on the rim of the desert. What, they ask, allows places like Sijilmasa to rise to greatness? What causes them to fall away and disappear into the desert sands?
Download or read book Secrets of the Sands written by Harry Thurston and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-18 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a part of Egypt so parched that decades might pass between rainstorms, amid a sea of sand, is a green island—Dakhleh, the “everlasting oasis”—that may contain the whole of human history. In this extraordinary book, an acclaimed science writer and journalist follows an international team of archaeologists as they unlock the secrets of nearly half a million years. Using high-tech methods, these scientists have made stunning finds, including indications that Dakhleh may have been the cradle of the Nile civilization that gave rise to the pharaohs and the pyramids. They have unearthed a perfect Old Kingdom town, with palaces and temples from the Golden Age, huge caches of mummies and papyri, and the world's two oldest books, and have located an entire Roman city—a Pompeii in the middle of the desert. Blending elements of adventure narrative, travelogue, and scientific mystery, Secrets of the Sands also traces on a grand historical scale the story of how humans have interacted with the changing environment, laying bare a parable with relevance to us all about the fragile balance between humankind and our world.
Download or read book North Africa Revised Edition written by Phillip Naylor and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-01-15 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North Africa has been a vital crossroads throughout history, serving as a connection between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Paradoxically, however, the region's historical significance has been chronically underestimated. In a book that may lead scholars to reimagine the concept of Western civilization, incorporating the role North African peoples played in shaping "the West," Phillip Naylor describes a locale whose transcultural heritage serves as a crucial hinge, politically, economically, and socially. Ideal for novices and specialists alike, North Africa begins with an acknowledgment that defining this area has presented challenges throughout history. Naylor's survey encompasses the Paleolithic period and early Egyptian cultures, leading readers through the pharonic dynasties, the conflicts with Rome and Carthage, the rise of Islam, the growth of the Ottoman Empire, European incursions, and the postcolonial prospects for Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara. Emphasizing the importance of encounters and interactions among civilizations, North Africa maps a prominent future for scholarship about this pivotal region. Now with a new afterword that surveys the “North African Spring” uprisings that roiled the region from 2011 to 2013, this is the most comprehensive history of North Africa to date, with accessible, in-depth chapters covering the pre-Islamic period through colonization and independence.
Download or read book Uan Tabu in the Settlement History of the Libyan Sahara written by Elena A. A. Garcea and published by All’Insegna del Giglio. This book was released on 2001-07-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uan Tabu is a rockshelter on the left bank of the central valley of the Wadi Teshuinat, which is a main ancient water course in the Tadrart Acacus mountain range. It is located in the Fezzan region, south-western Libya (Great Jamahirya). The site was discovered by Fabrizio Mori in 1960 and was re-excavated and studied by a multi-disciplinary team at the beginning of the 1990s. It has also remarkable rock art that includes paintings from the Round Head and Pastoral phases. Between 1960 and 1963, a trench was dug into the archaeological deposit at the foot of the rock wall. The results of the 1960s’ excavation have never been published before, apart from some brief notes. They are thoroughly described and discussed in the present volume. Between 1990 and 1993, the excavation was resumed and extended. The 1990s’ excavation has been preliminarily published. Further information and details are now presented and commented. A stratigraphic and cultural correlation between the two excavations is also attempted in this volume. Four main archaeological and paedological units were identified and dated. They spanned from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene. The earliest one, dating to the Pleistocene, included an Aterian techno-complex and was dated to around 61,000 years BP. Later, during the Early Holocene, a ‘pre-pastoral’ occupation occurred since the 10th millennium bp. This period was differentiated in two phases characterised by different socio-cultural systems: 1. during the Early Acacus (around 9800-8800 years bp), the site was used on a seasonal basis, probably during the dry season, for practising hunting activities; 2. during the Late Acacus (around 8800-8600 years bp), a more sedentary lifestyle was hypothesised for the inhabitants of the site. These two cultural facies comprised the upper three units. The fourth phase of occupation of the shelter was only attested to the surface of the site, but it could be still considered as an indication of the use of the site during the Late Holocene, as late as the 4th millennium bp. A dung fill in the wall of the rockshelter dated to the end of this, Late Pastoral, phase and is the only evidence for domesticated animals.
Download or read book Before the Pharaohs written by Julian Maxwell Heath and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2021-08-04 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the Paleolithic and Neolithic communities that inhabited not only the Nile Valley and Delta, but also the Western and Eastern Deserts. The remarkable archaeology of pharaonic Egypt continues to captivate countless people worldwide but evidence for Egypt’s prehistoric or Stone Age past has been relatively neglected. This is perhaps understandable, as the archaeology of Stone Age Egypt often seems crude in comparison, and the number of works published on the subject is diminutive compared to those dealing with the revered ancient civilization that emerged in the Nile Valley some five thousand years ago. However, although less spectacular, the numerous remnants of prehistoric life found throughout Egypt represent an important chapter in the story of humanity’s distant past. They also cast compelling light on the shadowy Stone Age peoples who lived in the Nile Valley and surrounding deserts, long before the mighty monuments of the pharaohs ever existed. This book examines the fascinating archaeology of Stone Age Egypt, from its very beginnings, when early members of the human species arrived in Egypt from sub-Saharan Africa, to its end, when the impressive Naqada Culture emerged, setting in motion the processes that led to the formation of one of the world’s greatest ancient civilizations. “Before the Pharaohs is a well-written and informative study of the Egyptian stone age . . . You get the feeling reading this of being in the company of a knowledgeable and amiable tour guide.” —Beating Tsundoku
Download or read book How War Began written by Keith F. Otterbein and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have humans always fought and killed each other, or did they peacefully coexist until organized states developed? Is war an expression of human nature or an artifact of civilization? Questions about the origins and inherent motivations of warfare have long engaged philosophers, ethicists, and anthropologists as they speculate on the nature of human existence. In How War Began, author Keith F. Otterbein draws on primate behavior research, archaeological research, and data gathered from the Human Relations Area Files to argue for two separate origins. He identifies two types of military organization: one that developed two million years ago at the dawn of humankind, wherever groups of hunters met, and a second that developed some five thousand years ago, in four identifiable regions, when the first states arose and proceeded to embark upon military conquests. In careful detail, Otterbein marshals evidence for his case that warfare was possible and likely among early Homo sapiens. He argues from comparison with other primates, from Paleolithic rock art depicting wounded humans, and from rare skeletal remains embedded with weapon points to conclude that warfare existed and reached a peak in big game hunting societies. As the big game disappeared, so did warfare--only to reemerge once agricultural societies achieved a degree of political complexity that allowed the development of professional military organizations. Otterbein concludes his survey with an analysis of how despotism in both ancient and modern states spawns warfare. A definitive resource for anthropologists, social scientists, and historians, How War Began is written for all who areinterested in warfare, whether they be military buffs or those seeking to understand the past and the present of humankind. --Publlisher.
Download or read book Ancient Egypt written by Douglas J. Brewer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient Egypt is a beautifully illustrated, easy-to-read book covering the formative era of the Egyptian civilization: the age before the pyramids. Douglas Brewer shows why an awareness of the earliest phase of Egyptian history is crucial to understanding of later Egyptian culture. Beginning with a quick review of the fields of Egyptology and archaeology, Ancient Egypt takes the reader on a compelling survey of Egypt's prehistoric past. The books tours the Nile Valley to explore its impact on all aspects of life, from day-to-day living to regional politics, and introduces the reader to the Nile Valley's earliest inhabitants and the very first "Egyptians".
Download or read book Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa written by Amanuel Beyin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-08-17 with total page 2194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook showcases an Africa-wide compendium of Stone Age archaeological sites and methodological advances that have improved our understanding of hominin lifeways and biogeography in the continent. The focal time spans the Pleistocene Epoch (c. 2.5 million–11,700 years ago) during which important human traits, such as obligate bipedalism that freed the hands to engage in creative activities, a large brain relative to body size, language, and social complexity, developed in the general forms that they are found today. The handbook is the first of its kind, and it is expected to play a significant role in human evolutionary research by: ❖ Collating the African Stone Age record, which exists in a fragmented state along the lines of national boundaries and colonial experiences. ❖ Showcasing emerging conceptual and methodological advances in African Pleistocene archaeology. ❖ Providing reference datasets for teaching and researching African prehistory. ❖ Making Africa’s Stone Age record accessible to researchers and students based in Africa who may not have access to journal publications where most new field discoveries are published. The Handbook features 128 chapters, of which 116 are site entries grouped by the host countries and presented in an alphabetical order. A number of those site-related entries examine multiple archaeological localities lumped under specific projects or study areas. The rest of the contributions deal with methodological topics, such as luminescence and radiocarbon dating, field data recovery, lithic analysis, micromorphology, and hominin fossil and zooarchaeological records of Pleistocene Africa. The introductory chapter provides an historical overview of the development of Stone Age (Paleolithic) archaeology in Africa beginning in the mid-19th century, and paleoenvironmental and chronological frameworks commonly used to structure the continent’s Pleistocene record. By making a good amount of African Stone Age literature accessible to researchers and the public, we wish to promote interest in human evolutionary research in the continent and elsewhere.
Download or read book Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology written by Barbara Ann Kipfer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern, comprehensive compilation of more than 7,000 entries covering themes, concepts, and discoveries in archaeology written in nontechnical language and tailored to meet the needs of professionals, students and general readers. The main subject areas include artifacts; branches of archaeology, chronology; culture; features; flora and fauna; geography; geology; language; people; related fields; sites; structures; techniques and methods; terms and theories; and tools.
Download or read book The Silk Road Encyclopedia written by Su-il Jeong and published by Seoul Selection . This book was released on 2016-07-18 with total page 1645 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
