Download or read book A Companion to South Asia in the Past written by Gwen Robbins Schug and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-04-13 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to South Asia in the Past provides the definitive overview of research and knowledge about South Asia’s past, from the Pleistocene to the historic era in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, provided by a truly global team of experts. The most comprehensive and detailed scholarly treatment of South Asian archaeology and biological anthropology, providing ground-breaking new ideas and future challenges Provides an in-depth and broad view of the current state of knowledge about South Asia’s past, from the Pleistocene to the historic era in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal A comprehensive treatment of research in a crucial region for human evolution and biocultural adaptation A global team of scholars together present a varied set of perspectives on South Asian pre- and proto-history

Download or read book Holocene Foragers of North India written by John R. Lukacs and published by British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited. This book was released on 2016 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh and innovative approach to the skeletal biology of prehistoric South Asians is presented in this volume. It is the first comprehensive bioarchaeological study of an early Holocene human skeletal series from the Gangetic Plain of North India. New methods and techniques reveal insightful perspectives on the biological adaptations and affinities of the aceramic foragers from Mesolithic Damdama (ca. 8800 BP). Attention is given to archaeological context and to the geological and ecological setting in which these semi-nomadic, microlithic hunters lived and foraged. The integrative analysis of skeletal preservation includes documenting bone micro-structure and chemical composition, and a taphonomic approach to skeletal representation. Diverse methods of age and sex determination provide a firm basis for paleo-demographic analysis. Multivariate statistics refine the precision of: sex determination, stature estimation, and calculation of bio-distance from cranial and dental attributes. The large skeletal sample facilitates both statistical assessment of traits by sex within the Damdama series, and inter-site comparison of traits with nearby Mesolithic series and with key prehistoric samples from India and Pakistan. Prevalence of pathological lesions provides evidence of health and nutrition, while skeletal markers of activity yield insight into patterns of habitual behavior. These new data from Mesolithic Damdama contribute significantly to theoretical issues in anthropology, including health and subsistence, skeletal robusticity, and biological adaptation to a subtropical riparian environment. With contributions by M.C. Gupta, V.D. Misra, Greg C. Nelson, and G. Robbins Schug.

Download or read book Ideas and Images A Historical Interpretation of Eastern Vindhyan Rock Art India written by Ajay Pratap and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2024-06-13 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the development of symbols and signs informing scripts, mainly the idea of coding thoughts through symbols and images, has always been uniquely ‘historical.’ Rock art abuts and occupies long periods of time in which the translation of indigenous thoughts was perfected through numerous mnemonic practices.

Download or read book Skeletal Variation and Adaptation in Europeans written by Christopher B. Ruff and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive analysis of changes in body form and skeletal robusticity from the Terminal Pleistocene through the Holocene, leading to the modern European human phenotype. Skeletal Variation and Adaptation in Europeans: Upper Paleolithic to the Twentieth Century brings together for the first time the results of an unprecedented large-scale investigation of European skeletal remains. The study was conducted over ten years by an international research team, and includes more than 2,000 skeletons spanning most of the European continent over the past 30,000 years, from the Early Upper Paleolithic to the 20th century. This time span includes environmental transitions from foraging to food production, small-scale to large-scale urban settlements, increasing social stratification and mechanization of labor, and climatic changes. Alterations in body form and behavior in response to these transitions are reconstructed through osteometric and biomechanical analyses. Divided into four sections, the book includes an introduction to the project and comprehensive descriptions of the methods used; general continent-wide syntheses of major trends in body size, shape, and skeletal robusticity; detailed regional analyses; and a summary of results. It also offers a full data set on an external website. Brings together data from an unprecedented large-scale study of human skeletal and anatomical variations Includes appendix of specific information from each research site Synthesizes data from spatial, temporal, regional, and geographical perspectives Skeletal Variation and Adaptation in Europeans will be a valuable resource for bioarchaeologists, palaeoanthropologists, forensic anthropologists, medical historians, and archaeologists at both the graduate and post-graduate level.

Download or read book Biological Distance Analysis written by Marin A. Pilloud and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2016-07-08 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological Distance Analysis: Forensic and Bioarchaeological Perspectives synthesizes research within the realm of biological distance analysis, highlighting current work within the field and discussing future directions. The book is divided into three main sections. The first section clearly outlines datasets and methods within biological distance analysis, beginning with a brief history of the field and how it has progressed to its current state. The second section focuses on approaches using the individual within a forensic context, including ancestry estimation and case studies. The final section concentrates on population-based bioarchaeological approaches, providing key techniques and examples from archaeological samples. The volume also includes an appendix with additional resources available to those interested in biological distance analyses. - Defines datasets and how they are used within biodistance analysis - Applies methodology to individual and population studies - Bridges the sub-fields of forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology - Highlights current research and future directions of biological distance analysis - Identifies statistical programs and datasets for use in biodistance analysis - Contains cases studies and thorough index for those interested in biological distance analyses

Download or read book The Anthropology of Modern Human Teeth written by G. Richard Scott and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All humans share certain components of tooth structure, but show variation in size and morphology around this shared pattern. This book presents a worldwide synthesis of the global variation in tooth morphology in recent populations. Research has advanced on many fronts since the publication of the first edition, which has become a seminal work on the subject. This revised and updated edition introduces new ideas in dental genetics and ontogeny and summarizes major historical problems addressed by dental morphology. The detailed descriptions of 29 dental variables are fully updated with current data and include details of a new web-based application for using crown and root morphology to evaluate ancestry in forensic cases. A new chapter describes what constitutes a modern human dentition in the context of the hominin fossil record.

Download or read book Age Estimation written by Joe Adserias-Garriga and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-04-12 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Age Estimation: A Multidisciplinary Approach is the only reference in the field covering all techniques and methods involving age estimation from different perspectives in just one volume. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of age estimation: aging the living and the dead, human rights, and skeletal, dental, histological and biochemical techniques and methods available. Each chapter is written by internationally known expert contributors. Age Estimation: A Multidisciplinary Approach is a one of a kind resource for those involved in estimating the age of the living and the dead.

Download or read book Issues in Anthropology Evolution and Development 2013 Edition written by and published by ScholarlyEditions. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues in Anthropology, Evolution, and Development: 2013 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ book that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Paleontology. The editors have built Issues in Anthropology, Evolution, and Development: 2013 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Paleontology in this book to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Anthropology, Evolution, and Development: 2013 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Download or read book Climate Change An Archaeological Study written by John D. Grainger and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-12-14 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How prehistoric humans coped with the end of the last Ice Age—and catastrophic global warming. Global warming is among the most urgent problems facing the world today. Yet many commentators, and even some scientists, discuss it with reference only to the changing climate of the last century or so. John Grainger takes a longer view and draws on the archaeological evidence to show how our ancestors faced up to the ending of the last Ice Age, arguably a more dramatic climate change crisis than the present one. Ranging from the Paleolithic down to the development of agriculture in the Neolithic, the author shows how human ingenuity and resourcefulness allowed them to adapt to the changing conditions in a variety of ways as the ice sheets retreated and water levels rose. Different strategies, from big game hunting on the ice, nomadic hunter gathering, sedentary foraging, and finally farming, were developed in various regions in response to local conditions as early man colonized the changing world. The human response to climate change was not to try to stop it, but to embrace technology and innovation to cope with it.

Download or read book Forager Traders in South and Southeast Asia written by Kathleen D. Morrison and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-12-05 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In both South and Southeast Asia, many upland groups make a living - in whole or part - through gathering and hunting, producing not only subsistence goods but commodities destined for regional and even world markets. These forager-traders have had an ambiguous position in ethnographic analysis, variously represented as relics, degraded hunter-gatherers, or recent upstarts. Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia adopts a multidisciplinary approach to these groups, presenting a series of comparative case-studies that analyse the long-term histories of hunting, gathering, trading, power relations, and regional social and biological interactions in this critical region. This book is a fascinating and important addition to the current revisionist debate, and a unique attempt to re-conceptualize our knowledge of forager-traders within the surrounding context of complex polities, populations and economies in South and Southeast Asia.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter gatherers written by Vicki Cummings and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 1361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies, undertaking detailed regional and thematic case-studies that span the archaeology, history and anthropology of hunter gatherers, concluding with an in-depth review of the main opportunities, research questions, and moral obligations that lie ahead.

Download or read book Climate Changes in the Holocene written by Eustathios Chiotis and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights climate as a complex physical, chemical, biological, and geological system, in perpetual change, under astronomical, predominantly, solar control. It has been shaped to some degree through the past glaciation cycles repeated in the last three million years. The Holocene, the current interglacial epoch which started ca. 11,700 years ago, marks the transition from the Stone Age to the unprecedented cultural evolution of our civilization. Significant climate changes have been recorded in natural archives during the Holocene, including the rapid waning of ice sheets, millennial shifting of the monsoonal fringe in the northern hemisphere, and abrupt centennial events. A typical case of severe environmental change is the greening of Sahara in the Early Holocene and the gradual desertification again since the fifth millennium before present. Climate Changes in the Holocene: Impact, Adaptation, and Resilience investigates the impact of natural climate changes on humans and civilization through case studies from various places, periods, and climates. Earth and human society are approached as a complex system, thereby emphasizing the necessity to improve adaptive capacity in view of the anthropogenic global warming and ecosystem degradation. Features: Written by distinguished experts, the book presents the fundamentals of the climate system, the unparalleled progress achieved in the last decade in the fields of intensified research for improved understanding of the carbon cycle, climate components, and their interaction. Presents the application of paleoclimatology and modeling in climate reconstruction. Examines the new era of satellite-based climate monitoring and the prospects of reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Download or read book Ancestral DNA Human Origins and Migrations written by Rene J. Herrera and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancestral DNA, Human Origins, and Migrations describes the genesis of humans in Africa and the subsequent story of how our species migrated to every corner of the globe. Different phases of this journey are presented in an integrative format with information from a number of disciplines, including population genetics, evolution, anthropology, archaeology, climatology, linguistics, art, music, folklore and history. This unique approach weaves a story that has synergistic impact in the clarity and level of understanding that will appeal to those researching, studying, and interested in population genetics, evolutionary biology, human migrations, and the beginnings of our species. - Integrates research and information from the fields of genetics, evolution, anthropology, archaeology, climatology, linguistics, art, music, folklore and history, among others - Presents the content in an entertaining and synergistic style to facilitate a deep understanding of human population genetics - Informs on the origins and recent evolution of our species in an approachable manner

Download or read book Violence and Warfare among Hunter Gatherers written by Mark W Allen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did warfare originate? Was it human genetics? Social competition? The rise of complexity? Intensive study of the long-term hunter-gatherer past brings us closer to an answer. The original chapters in this volume examine cultural areas on five continents where there is archaeological, ethnographic, and historical evidence for hunter-gatherer conflict despite high degrees of mobility, small populations, and relatively egalitarian social structures. Their controversial conclusions will elicit interest among anthropologists, archaeologists, and those in conflict studies.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Prehistory written by Peter N. Peregrine and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2003-03-31 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents temporal dimension. Major traditions are an attempt to provide basic information also defined by a somewhat different set of on all archaeologically known cultures, sociocultural characteristics than are eth covering the entire globe and the entire nological cultures. Major traditions are prehistory ofhumankind. It is designed as defined based on common subsistence a tool to assist in doing comparative practices, sociopolitical organization, and research on the peoples of the past. Most material industries. but language, ideology, of the entries are written by the world's and kinship tics play little or no part in foremost experts on the particular areas their definition because they are virtually and lime periods. unrecoverable from archaeological con The Encyclopedia is organized accord· texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and ing to major traditions. A major tradition kinship ties arc central to defining ethno is defined as a group ofpopulations sharing logical cultures. similar subsistence practices. technology, There are three types of entries in the and forms oj sociopolitical organizati01I, Encyclopedia: the major tradition entry.

Download or read book Dental Cementum in Anthropology written by Stephan Naji and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-10 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tooth enamel and dentin are the most studied hard tissues used to explore hominin evolution, life history, diet, health, and culture. Surprisingly, cementum (the interface between the alveolar bone and the root dentin) remains the least studied dental tissue even though its unique growth, which is continuous throughout life, has been acknowledged since the 1950s. This interdisciplinary volume presents state-of-the-art studies in cementum analysis and its broad interpretative potential in anthropology. The first section focuses on cementum biology; the second section presents optimized multi-species and standardized protocols to estimate age and season at death precisely. The final section highlights innovative applications in zooarchaeology, paleodemography, bioarchaeology, paleoanthropology, and forensic anthropology, demonstrating how cementochronology can profoundly affect anthropological theories. With a wealth of illustrations of cementum histology and accompanying online resources, this book provides the perfect toolkit for scholars interested in studying past and current human and animal populations.

Download or read book Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics written by David G. Anderson and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2011-07-28 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Middle Holocene epoch (8,000 to 3,000 years ago) was a time of dramatic changes in the physical world and in human cultures. Across this span, climatic conditions changed rapidly, with cooling in the high to mid-latitudes and drying in the tropics. In many parts of the world, human groups became more complex, with early horticultural systems replaced by intensive agriculture and small-scale societies being replaced by larger, more hierarchial organizations. Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics explores the cause and effect relationship between climatic change and cultural transformations across the mid-Holocene (c. 4000 B.C.). - Explores the role of climatic change on the development of society around the world - Chapters detail diverse geographical regions - Co-written by noted archaeologists and paleoclimatologists for non-specialists