Download or read book Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics Rethinking Temporality and Community in Eurasian Archaeology written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics re-examines the relationship between Eurasia’s past and present, demonstrating that social life in ancient Eurasia was considerably more unruly than research has traditionally allowed.

Download or read book Archaeology of Mountain Landscapes written by Arnau Garcia-Molsosa and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-10-01 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mountains contain a rich and diverse set of remnants left by human societies. They have been inhabited since prehistory and have been transformed by human activity during prehistorical and historical times, and that history defines mountain landscapes as we know them today. Archaeology of Mountain Landscapes contains twenty contributions by forty-one specialists currently researching mountain areas in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The different case studies address the subject diachronically, ranging from prehistory to modern times, and employ a variety of methodological strategies, including archaeological surveys and excavation, paleoenvironmental studies, and historical and ethnographical research. This volume demonstrates how multidisciplinary archaeological fieldwork is radically changing our vision of mountain landscapes. Viewing mountain landscapes as archaeological documents contributes to our understanding of the history of mountain environments and offers new archaeological datasets to use in the interpretation of human societies. Taken together, the essays collected here offer a comprehensive view of current research and suggest new directions for future study.

Download or read book The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus written by Catherine Kearns and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ninth to the fifth centuries BCE saw a series of significant historical transformations across Cyprus, especially in the growth of towns and in developments in the countryside. In this book, Catherine Kearns argues that changing patterns of urban and rural sedentism drove social changes as diverse communities cultivated new landscape practices. Climatic changes fostered uneven relationships between people, resources like land, copper, and wood, and increasingly important places like rural sanctuaries and cemeteries. Bringing together a range of archaeological, textual, and scientific evidence, the book examines landscapes, environmental history, and rural practices to argue for their collective instrumentality in the processes driving Iron Age political formations. It suggests how rural households managed the countryside, interacted with the remains of earlier generations, and created gathering spaces alongside the development of urban authorities. Offering new insights into landscape archaeologies, Dr Kearns contributes to current debates about society's relationships with changing environments.

Download or read book Pazyryk Culture Up in the Altai written by Katheryn M. Linduff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconsiders the archaeology of the Pazyryk, the horse-riding people of the Altai Mountains who lived in the 4th–3rd centuries BCE, in light of recent scientific studies and excavations not only in Russia but also Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China, together with new theories of landscape. Excavation of the Pazyryk burials sparked great interest because of their wealth of organic remains, including tattooed bodies and sacrificed horses, together with superb wooden carvings and colorful textiles. In view of this new research, the role of the Pazyryk Culture in the ancient globalized world can now be more focused and refined. In this synthetic study of the region, the Pazyryk Culture is set into the landscape using recent studies on climate, technology, human and animal DNA and local resources. It shows that this was a powerful, semi-sedentary, interdependent group with contacts in Eurasia to their west, and to their east in Mongolia and south in China. This book is for archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, social and economic historians as well as persons with general interests in mobile pastoralism, the emergence of complex societies, the social roles of artifacts and the diverse nature of an interconnected ancient world.

Download or read book Handbook of Ancient Afro Eurasian Economies written by Sitta Reden and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-02 with total page 954 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of the “Silk Road” that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient economic exchange in a global perspective with a strong focus on recent debates on the nature of pre-modern empires. The interdisciplinary team of Chinese, Indian and Graeco-Roman historians, archaeologists and anthropologists that has written this handbook compares different forms of economic development in agrarian and steppe regions in a period of accelerated empire formation during 300 BCE and 300 CE. It investigates inter-imperial zones and networks of exchange which were crucial for ancient Eurasian connections. Volume I provides a comparative history of the most important empires forming in Northern Africa, Europe and Asia between 300 BCE and 300 CE. It surveys a wide range of evidence that can be brought to bear on economic development in the these empires, and takes stock of the ways academic traditions have shaped different understandings of economic and imperial development as well as Silk-Road exchange in Russia, China, India and Western Graeco-Roman history.

Download or read book Systemizing the Past written by Yervand Grekyan and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-03-02 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dedicated to Pavel Avetisyan, a leading modern Armenian archaeologist with wide international recognition, 36 contributions take the reader to the fascinating world of Caucasian archaeology. The volume demonstrates the essential role of the region in shaping the prehistoric cultural landscape of the Ancient Near East.

Download or read book Grave Disturbances written by Edeltraud Aspöck and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeologists excavating burials often find that they are not the first to disturb the remains of the dead. Graves from many periods frequently show signs that others have been digging and have moved or taken away parts of the original funerary assemblage. Displaced bones and artefacts, traces of pits, and damage to tombs or coffins can all provide clues about post-burial activities. The last two decades have seen a rapid rise in interest in the study of post-depositional practices in graves, which has now developed into a new subfield within mortuary archaeology. This follows a long tradition of neglect, with disturbed graves previously regarded as interesting only to the degree they revealed evidence of the original funerary deposit. This book explores past human interactions with mortuary deposits, delving into the different ways graves and human remains were approached by people in the past and the reasons that led to such encounters. The primary focus of the volume is on cases of unexpected interference with individual graves soon after burial: re-encounters with human remains not anticipated by those who performed the funerary rites and constructed the tombs. However, a first step is always to distinguish these from natural and accidental processes, and methodological approaches are a major theme of discussion. Interactions with the remains of the dead are explored in eleven chapters ranging from the New Kingdom of Egypt to Viking Age Norway and from Bronze Age Slovakia to the ancient Maya. Each discusses cases of re-entries into graves, including desecration, tomb re-use, destruction of grave contents, as well as the removal of artefacts and human remains for reasons from material gain to commemoration, symbolic appropriation, ancestral rites, political chicanery, and retrieval of relics. The introduction presents many of the methodological issues which recur throughout the contributions, as this is a developing area with new approaches being applied to analyze post-depositional processes in graves.

Download or read book Making Journeys written by Catriona D. Gibson and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite notable explorations of past dynamics, much of the archaeological literature on mobility remains dominated by accounts of earlier prehistoric gatherer-hunters, or the long-distance exchange of materials. Refinements of scientific dating techniques, isotope, trace element and aDNA analyses, in conjunction with phenomenological investigation, computer-aided landscape modeling and GIS-style approaches to large data sets, allow us to follow the movement of people, animals and objects in the past with greater precision and conviction. One route into exploring mobility in the past may be through exploring the movements and biographies of artifacts. Challenges lie not only in tracing the origins and final destinations of objects but in the less tangible ‘in between’ journeys and the hands they passed through. Biographical approaches to artifacts include the recognition that culture contact and hybridity affect material culture in meaningful ways. Furthermore, discrete and bounded ‘sites’ still dominate archaeological inquiry, leaving the spaces and connectivities between features and settlements unmapped. These are linked to an under-explored middle-spectrum of mobility, a range nestled between everyday movements and one-off ambitious voyages. We wish to explore how these travels involved entangled meshworks of people, animals, objects, knowledge sets and identities. By crossing and re-crossing cultural, contextual and tenurial boundaries, such journeys could create diasporic and novel communities, ideas and materialities.

Download or read book Handbook of Ancient Afro Eurasian Economies written by Sitta von Reden and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-12-20 with total page 1131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of the Handbook describes different extractive economies in the world regions that have been outlined in the first volume. A wide range of economic actors – from kings and armies to cities and producers – are discussed within different imperial settings as well as the tools, which enabled and constrained economic outcomes. A central focus are nodes of consumption that are visible in the archaeological and textual records of royal capitals, cities, religious centers, and armies that were stationed, in some cases permanently, in imperial frontier zones. Complementary to the multipolar concentrations of consumption are the fiscal-tributary structures of the empires vis-à-vis other institutions that had the capacity to extract, mobilize, and concentrate resources and wealth. Larger volumes of state-issued coinage in various metals show the new role of coinage in taxation, local economic activities, and social practices, even where textual evidence is absent. Given the overwhelming importance of agriculture, the volume also analyses forms of agrarian development, especially around cities and in imperial frontier zones. Special consideration is given to road- and water-management systems for which there is now sufficient archaeological and documentary evidence to enable cross-disciplinary comparative research.

Download or read book Xiongnu written by Bryan K Miller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book raises the case of the world's first nomadic empire, the Xiongnu, as a prime example of the sophisticated developments and powerful influence of nomadic regimes. Launching from a reconceptualization of the social and economic institutions of mobile pastoralists, the collective chapters trace the course of the Xiongnu Empire from before its initial rise, traversing the wars that challenged it and the reformations that made it stronger, to the legacy left after its eventual fall. Xiongnu expounds the economic practices and social conventions of steppe herders as fertile foundations for institutions and infrastructure of empire, and renders a model of "empires of mobilities," which engaged the control less of towns and territories and more of the movements of communities and capital to fuel their regimes. By weaving together archaeological examinations with historical investigations, Bryan K. Miller presents a more complex and nuanced narrative of how an empire based firmly in the steppe over two thousand years ago managed to formulate a robust political economy and a complex political matrix that capitalized on mobilities and alternative forms of political participation, and allowed the Xiongnu to dominate vast realms of central Eurasia and leave lasting geopolitical effects on the many worlds around them.

Download or read book Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA written by Daniel Strand and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-07-02 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive critical analysis of the practices and consequences of ancient DNA research. This edited collection, Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA, presents a critical enquiry into the much-hyped “ancient DNA revolution” in archaeology. Offering the first comprehensive and in-depth scholarly analysis of the practices and effects of archaeogenetics, editors Daniel Strand, Anna Källén, and Charlotte Mulcare, along with other renowned scholars from Europe and the United States, address a host of questions, such as: What happens with our understanding of the past when archaeology is married to genetic science? What cultural forms and historical narratives are generated by ancient DNA (aDNA) research, and what energies could they unleash? Taking a multidisciplinary and multisite approach to the topic, these essays offer important insights into the epistemological, ethical, and political consequences around and beyond the scientific analysis of aDNA. As such, Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA provides a timely and much-needed critical engagement with the rapidly growing field of aDNA research—a field that, while already having a notable impact on how we view the past in research, museums, and popular media—had not yet been subject to thorough critical scrutiny. Contributors Ruth Amstutz, Chip Colwell, Magnus Fiskesjö, K. Ann Horsburgh, Anna Källén, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Amade M’charek, Charlotte Mulcare, Andreas Nyblom, Venla Oikkonen, Mélanie Pruvost, Marianne Sommer, Daniel Strand

Download or read book People of Anatolia written by Benjamin Irvine and published by British Institute at Ankara. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People of Anatolia: Past, Current and Future Research in the Biological Anthropology of Türkiye brings together, in one complete volume, some of the current research foci and trends of biological anthropology in Türkiye. The papers within this edited volume cover a multitude of topics, many of which complement and enhance each other, helping to demonstrate the strength and variety of research currently being performed in Türkiye by both domestic and foreign researchers. Furthermore, several of these papers examine large scale diachronic changes and highlight the importance of such holistic approaches and methodological considerations, and new trends in modern research by considering large scale patterns through time and space and the ‘bigger’ picture. For example, the application of multiple, more traditional macroscopic, biological anthropological analyses in conjunction with more modern techniques, such as biomolecular analyses. Biological anthropology in Türkiye has developed markedly since the days of primarily analyzing skeletal and dental morphometrics of the skeleton and investigating race. This is particularly true since the 1990s when studies have examined skeletal remains from Anatolia within wider bioarchaeological contexts and research questions. Research agendas have accelerated particularly in the last decade with the introduction and application of new methodologies, including quantifiable scientific techniques which has increased the ability to not only tackle existing and earlier research questions with more specificity and in more depth, but also enables us to tackle a greater variety of research questions, as well as stimulating new ones. This volume demonstrates how complementary, as well as large-scale diachronic studies enhance our knowledge not only of changes in human behavior and human-environment interactions through time, but also how these changes affected people at the individual, population, regional and pan-regional levels. One of the key messages from this edited volume, as a whole, is that multi-faceted and holistic approaches to exploring particular research agendas are both important and essential. While the individual papers in this volume may not necessarily always employ a multi-faceted or holistic approach, the combined reading of them does so. The types of data and information contained in the papers of this edited volume, therefore, will be of great interest and importance to the wider archaeological community in general. But particularly to Turkish students of archaeology, as well as Turkish/Türkiye-based and research focused archaeologists and specialists of biological anthropology and bioarchaeology and its sub-disciplines.

Download or read book Historical Ecologies Heterarchies and Transtemporal Landscapes written by Celeste Ray and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interlacing varied approaches within Historical Ecology, this volume offers new routes to researching and understanding human–environmental interactions and the heterarchical power relations that shape both socioecological change and resilience over time. Historical Ecology draws from archaeology, archival research, ethnography, the humanities and the biophysical sciences to merge the history of the Earth’s biophysical system with the history of humanity. Considering landscape as the spatial manifestation of the relations between humans and their environments through time, the authors in this volume examine the multi-directional power dynamics that have shaped settlement, agrarian, monumental and ritual landscapes through the long-term field projects they have pursued around the globe. Examining both biocultural stability and change through the longue durée in different regions, these essays highlight intersectionality and counterpoised power flows to demonstrate that alongside and in spite of hierarchical ideologies, the daily life of power is heterarchical. Knowledge of transtemporal human–environmental relationships is necessary for strategizing socioecological resilience. Historical Ecology shows how the past can be useful to the future.

Download or read book Identity in Persian Egypt written by Bob Becking and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Bob Becking provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the origins, lives, and eventual fate of the Yehudites, or Judeans, at Elephantine, framed within the greater history of the rise and fall of the Persian Empire. The Yehudites were among those mercenaries recruited by the Persians to defend the southwestern border of the empire in the fifth century BCE. Becking argues that this group, whom some label as the first “Jews,” lived on the island of Elephantine in relative peace with other ethnic groups under the aegis of the pax persica. Drawing on Aramaic and Demotic texts discovered during excavations on the island and at Syene on the adjacent shore of the Nile, Becking finds evidence of intermarriage, trade cooperation, and even a limited acceptance of one another’s gods between the various ethnic groups at Elephantine. His analysis of the Elephantine Yehudites’ unorthodox form of Yahwism provides valuable insight into the group’s religious beliefs and practices. An important contribution to the study of Yehudite life in the diaspora, this accessibly written and sweeping history enhances our understanding of the varieties of early Jewish life and how these contributed to the construction of Judaism.

Download or read book The Graeco Bactrian and Indo Greek World written by Rachel Mairs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a thorough conspectus of the field of Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek studies, mixing theoretical and historical surveys with critical and thought-provoking case studies in archaeology, history, literature and art. The chapters from this international group of experts showcase innovative methodologies, such as archaeological GIS, as well as providing accessible explanations of specialist techniques such as die studies of coins, and important theoretical perspectives, including postcolonial approaches to the Greeks in India. Chapters cover the region’s archaeology, written and numismatic sources, and a history of scholarship of the subject, as well as culture, identity and interactions with neighbouring empires, including India and China. The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World is the go-to reference work on the field, and fulfils a serious need for an accessible, but also thorough and critically-informed, volume on the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms. It provides an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the Hellenistic East.

Download or read book Dispersals and Diversification written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dispersals and diversification offers linguistic and archaeological perspectives on the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Two chapters discuss the early phases of the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European from an archaeological perspective, integrating and interpreting the new evidence from ancient DNA. Six chapters analyse the intricate relationship between the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, probably the first one to separate, and the remaining branches. Three chapters are concerned with the most important unsolved problems of Indo-European subgrouping, namely the status of the postulated Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Armenian subgroups. Two chapters discuss methodological problems with linguistic subgrouping and with the attempt to correlate linguistics and archaeology. Contributors are David W. Anthony, Rasmus Bjørn, José L. García Ramón, Riccardo Ginevra, Adam Hyllested, James A. Johnson, Kristian Kristiansen, H. Craig Melchert, Matthew Scarborough, Peter Schrijver, Matilde Serangeli, Zsolt Simon, Rasmus Thorsø, Michael Weiss.

Download or read book The Archaeology of the Caucasus written by Antonio Sagona and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This conspectus brings together in an accessible and systematic manner a dizzy array of archaeological cultures situated between several worlds.