Download or read book Interpreting Archaeology written by Alexandra Alexandri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a forum for debate between varied approaches to the past. The authors, drawn from Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, represent many different strands of archaeology. They address the philosophical issues involved in interpretation and a desire among archaeologists to come to terms with their own subjective approaches to the material they study, a recognition of how past researchers have also imposed their own value systems on the evidence which they presented.
Download or read book Reading the Past written by Ian Hodder and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents
Download or read book Archaeological Interpretations written by Peter Eeckhout and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting studies in Andean archaeology and iconography by leading specialists in the field, this volume tackles the question of how researchers can come to understand the intangible, intellectual worlds of ancient peoples. Archaeological Interpretations is a fascinating ontological journey through Andean cultures from the fourth millennium BC to the sixteenth century, A.D. Through evidence-based case studies, theoretical models, and methodological reflections, contributors discuss the various interpretations that can be derived from the traces of ritual activity that remain in the material record. They discuss how to accurately comprehend the social significance of artifacts beyond their practical use and how to decode the symbolism of sacred images. Addressing topics including the earliest evidence of shamanism in Ecuador, the meaning of masks among the Mochicas in Peru, the value of metal in the Recuay culture, and ceremonies of voluntary abandonment among the Incas, contributors propose original and innovative ways of interpreting the rich Andean archaeological heritage. Contributors: Luis Jaime Castillo Butters | Peter Eeckhout | Christine Hastorf | Abigail Levine | Geroge F. Lau | Frank Meddens | Charles S. Stanish | Edward Swenson | Gary Urton | Francisco Valdez
Download or read book The Archaeology of Seeing written by Liliana Janik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Archaeology of Seeing provides readers with a new and provocative understanding of material culture through exploring visual narratives captured in cave and rock art, sculpture, paintings, and more. The engaging argument draws on current thinking in archaeology, on how we can interpret the behaviour of people in the past through their use of material culture, and how this affects our understanding of how we create and see art in the present. Exploring themes of gender, identity, and story-telling in visual material culture, this book forces a radical reassessment of how the ability to see makes us and our ancestors human; as such, it will interest lovers of both art and archaeology. Illustrated with examples from around the world, from the earliest art from hundreds of thousands of years ago, to the contemporary art scene, including street art and advertising, Janik cogently argues that the human capacity for art, which we share with our most ancient ancestors and cousins, is rooted in our common neurophysiology. The ways in which our brains allow us to see is a common heritage that shapes the creative process; what changes, according to time and place, are the cultural contexts in which art is produced and consumed. The book argues for an innovative understanding of art through the interplay between the way the human brain works and the culturally specific creation and interpretation of meaning, making an important contribution to the debate on art/archaeology.
Download or read book Interpreting Ground penetrating Radar for Archaeology written by Lawrence B Conyers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has become one of the standard tools in the archaeologist's array of methods, but users still struggle to understand what the images tell us. In this book—illustrated with over 200 full-color photographs—Lawrence Conyers shows how results of geophysical surveys can test ideas regarding people, history, and cultures, as well as be used to prospect for buried remains. Using 20 years of data from more than 600 GPR surveys in a wide array of settings, Conyers, one of the first archaeological specialists in GPR, provides the consumer of GPR studies with basic information on how the process works. He show how the plots are generated, what subsurface factors influence specific profiles, how the archaeologist can help the surveyor collect optimal data, and how to translate the results into useable archaeological information.
Download or read book Discovering World Prehistory written by Mark Q. Sutton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-02-27 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discovering World Prehistory introduces the general field of archaeology and highlights for students the difference between obtaining data (basic archaeology) and interpreting those data into a prehistory, a coherent model of the past. The opening section of the book covers the history, methods, and techniques of archaeology to provide a detailed examination of archaeological investigation. It highlights the excitement of archaeological discovery and how archaeologists analyze and interpret evidence. The second half covers global prehistory and shows how archaeological data is interpreted through theoretical frameworks to create a picture of the past. Starting with human evolution, chapters detail the key stages, from around the world, of prehistory, finishing with the transition to post-prehistoric societies. Including chapter overviews, highlight boxes, chapter summaries, key concepts, and suggested reading, Discovering World Prehistory is designed to support introductory courses in archaeology and allows students to experience both methods and interpretation, offering a perfect introduction to the discipline.
Download or read book Interpreting Archaeological Topography written by David Cowley and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS), or lidar, is an enormously important innovation for data collection and interpretation in archaeology. The application of archaeological 3D data deriving from sources including ALS, close-range photogrammetry and terrestrial and photogrammetric scanners has grown exponentially over the last decade. Such data present numerous possibilities and challenges, from ensuring that applications remain archaeologically relevant, to developing practices that integrate the manipulation and interrogation of complex digital datasets with the skills of archaeological observation and interpretation. This volume addresses the implications of multi-scaled topographic data for contemporary archaeological practice in a rapidly developing field, drawing on examples of ongoing projects and reflections on best practice. Twenty papers from across Europe explore the implications of these digital 3D datasets for the recording and interpretation of archaeological topography, whether at the landscape, site or artifact scale. The papers illustrate the variety of ways in which we engage with archaeological topography through 3D data, from discussions of its role in landscape archaeology, to issues of context and integration, and to the methodological challenges of processing, visualization and manipulation. Critical reflection on developing practice and implications for cultural resource management and research contextualize the case studies and applications, illustrating the diverse and evolving roles played by multi-scalar topographic data in contemporary archaeology.
Download or read book Interpreting the Landscape written by Michael Aston and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most places in Britain have had a local history written about them. Up until this century these histories have addressed more parochial issues, such as the life of the manor, rather than explaining the features and changes in the landscape in a factual manner. Much of what is visible today in Britain's landscape is the result of a chain of social and natural processes, and can be interpreted through fieldwork as well as from old maps and documents. Michael Aston uses a wide range of source material to study the complex and dynamic history of the countryside, illustrating his points with aerial photographs, maps, plans and charts. He shows how to understand the surviving remains as well as offering his own explanations for how our landscape has evolved.
Download or read book The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial Patterning written by Ellen M. Kroll and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1991-02-28 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigations of archaeological intrasite spatial patterns have generally taken one of two directions: studies that introduced and explored methods for the analysis of archaeological spatial patterns or those that described and analyzed the for mation of spatial patterns in actuaiistic-ethnographic, experimental, or natu ral-contexts. The archaeological studies were largely quantitative in nature, concerned with the recognition and definition of patterns; the actualistic efforts were often oriented more toward interpretation, dealing with how patterns formed and what they meant. Our research group on archaeological spatial analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been working for several years on both quantitative and interpretive problems. Both lines of investigation are closely related and are important complements. In order to demonstrate the convergence of archaeological and actualistic studies for the understanding of intrasite spatial patterns, we organized a sympo sium at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology in Toronto, Canada, in May 1987. The symposium, titled "The Interpretation of Stone Age Archaeological Spatial Patterns," was organized into two sessions. The six papers presented in the morning session, five of which comprise Part I of this volume, focused on ethnoarchaeological and experimental research. Michael Schiffer was the discussant for this half of the symposium. Our intention for the ethnoarchaeological contributions to the symposium and volume was the delin eation of some of the significant accomplishments achieved thus far by actualistic studies regarding the formation of spatial patterns.
Download or read book Landscape Archaeology written by Rebecca Yamin and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the editors note, "This volume includes many searching looks at the landscape, not just to understand ourselves, but to understand the context for other peoples' lives in other times, to unravel the landscapes they created and explain the meanings embedded in them.".
Download or read book Bioarchaeology written by Clark Spencer Larsen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A synthetic treatment of the study of human remains from archaeological contexts for current and future generations of bioarchaeologists.
Download or read book Interpreting Archaeology written by Neil Falkner and published by Arcturus Publishing. This book was released on 2023-02-01 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeology can shed light on the rise and fall of empires, the march of technology, the nature of past societies, the development of arts and culture, the course of warfare, and much more. Yet what gives it its greatest value is its ability to illuminate the area in which written records fall short - the everyday lives of ordinary people. Interpreting Archaeology uses a wide array of evidence, including artefacts as varied as humble ceramic pots, imposing monuments, and genetic data, to tell the human story from a new angle. Beginning with the discoveries that have reshaped our understanding of hominin evolution and the spread of Homo sapiens across the globe, Neil Faulkner has charted a fascinating journey through the past, taking in everything from the rise of the world's first great civilizations to the establishment of hierarchies, the development of art and religion, and the causes of warfare along the way.
Download or read book Interpreting Silent Artefacts Petrographic Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics written by Patrick Sean Quinn and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2010-01-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a range of petrographic case studies as applied to archaeological problems, primarily in the field of pottery analysis, i.e. ceramic petrography.
Download or read book Race and Practice in Archaeological Interpretation written by Charles E. Orser, Jr. and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-04-19 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars who investigate race—a label based upon real or perceived physical differences—realize that they face a formidable task. The concept has been contested and condoned, debated and denied throughout modern history. Presented with the full understanding of the complexity of the issue, Race and Practice in Archaeological Interpretation concentrates on the archaeological analysis of race and how race is determined in the archaeological record. Most archaeologists, even those dealing with recent history, have usually avoided the subject of race, yet Charles E. Orser, Jr., contends that its study and its implications are extremely important for the science of archaeology. Drawing upon his considerable experience as an archaeologist, and using a combination of practice theory as interpreted by Pierre Bourdieu and spatial theory as presented by Henri Lefebvre, Orser argues for an explicit archaeology of race and its interpretation. The author reviews past archaeological usages of race, including a case study from early nineteenth-century Ireland, and explores the way race was used to form ideas about the Mound Builders, the Celts, and Atlantis. He concludes with a proposal that historical archaeology—cast as modern-world archaeology—should take the lead in the archaeological analysis of race because its purview is the recent past, that period during which our conceptions of race developed.
Download or read book Ideology Power and Prehistory written by Theoretical Archaeology Group (England). Conference and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984-05-03 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book starts from the premise that methodology has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory.
Download or read book Archaeology After Interpretation written by Benjamin Alberti and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new generation of archaeologists has thrown down a challenge to post-processual theory, arguing that characterizing material symbols as arbitrary overlooks the material character and significance of artifacts. This volume showcases the significant departure from previous symbolic approaches that is underway in the discipline. It brings together key scholars advancing a variety of cutting edge approaches, each emphasizing an understanding of artifacts and materials not in terms of symbols but relationally, as a set of associations that compose people’s understanding of the world. Authors draw on a diversity of intellectual sources and case studies, paving a dynamic road ahead for archaeology as a discipline and theoretical approaches to material culture.
Download or read book Presenting Archaeology to the Public written by John H. Jameson and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 1997 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the face of increasing public interest and demand for information, archaeologists are collaborating with historians, museum curators, and exhibit designers to devise the best strategies for translating archaeological information to the public. This book opens doors for public involvement. It highlights successful case studies in which specialists have provided with the opportunity and necessary tools for learning about archaeology. Little Big Horn, Sabino Canyon, Monticello, and Poplar Forest are just a few of the historical sites featured.
