Download or read book Mesolithic Settlement in the North Sea Basin written by Clive Waddington and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2007-12-20 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The archaeological remains at Howick consist of a Mesolithic hut site and an Early Bronze Age cist cemetery located on a modern cliff edge overlooking a small estuary. This volume is devoted solely to the reporting and interpretation of the Mesolithic remains. Three huts had been constructed on the Howick site, all on the same footprint, with no evidence to indicate a gap between these occupations, and the remains inside the hut were all consistent with its use as a habitation site. The lithic material from Howick is the most accurately dated assemblage from any British Mesolithic site and is a classic example of a narrow-blade industry. Typically for Britain these sites date from around 7500 cal BC but the Howick dates indicate an earlier start for this type of industry. The chipped stone assemblage from Howick is all made from locally occurring beach pebble flint which fits into the wider pattern of localised raw material acquisition by groups elsewhere in North-East England. A wide variety of tool types were found within the hut reflecting the diverse activities that appear to have taken place there. With such a wide range of resources on offer on a year-round basis, the site is interpreted as a base camp settlement that was used by the same group and their descendants over a period of several generations lasting for somewhere in the region of 200 years. The size of the hut indicates its use by a family-sized group. The Howick excavations have forced a rethink of the scale and nature of Mesolithic settlement in North-East England, as well as the relationship between this and other regions around the North Sea Basin. It is hoped that this work will help encourage further research into the Mesolithic of the region and its interactions with adjacent areas of upland, other North Sea Basin communities, as well as groups occupying the lands further north and south.
Download or read book Mesolithic Studies in the North Sea Basin and Beyond written by Clive Waddington and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 2007 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The North Sea has acted as both physical barrier, separating regions from each other, and as the principal means of communication between the same. This duality can also be seen in its potential to be both yielding and destructive; providing food and resources, but also being capable of causing catastrophe. These paradoxical qualities are unlikely to have been lost on our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and they remain relevant to the way that the sea is perceived today. The sixteen papers in this edited volume look at the impact the North Sea had on Northern Europe in the Mesolithic period.
Download or read book The Mesolithic in Britain written by Chantal Conneller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mesolithic in Britain proposes a new division of the Mesolithic period into four parts, each with its distinct character. The Mesolithic has previously been seen as timeless, where little changed over thousands of years. This new synthesis draws on advances in scientific dating to understand the Mesolithic inhabitation of Britain as a historical process. The period was, in fact, a time of profound change: houses, monuments, middens, long-term use of sites and regions, manipulation of the environment and the symbolic deposition of human and animal remains all emerged as significant practices in Britain for the first time. The book describes the lives of the first pioneers in the Early Mesolithic; the emergence of new modes of inhabitation in the Middle Mesolithic; the regionally diverse settlement of the Late Mesolithic; and the radical changes of the final millennium of the period. The first synthesis of Mesolithic Britain since 1932, it takes both a chronological and a regional approach. This book will serve as an essential text for anyone studying the period: undergraduate and graduate students, specialists in the field and community archaeology groups.
Download or read book Chronology and Evolution within the Mesolithic of North West Europe written by Philippe Crombé and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-12 with total page 847 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its development in 1949, radiocarbon dating has increasingly been used in prehistoric research in order to get a better grip on the chronology of sites, cultures and environmental changes. Refinement of the dating, sampling and calibration methods has continuously created new and challenging perspectives for absolute dating. In these proceedings the focus lies on the contribution of carbon-14 dates in current Mesolithic research in North-West Europe. Altogether 40 papers dealing with radiocarbon dates from 15 different countries are presented. Major themes are the typo-technological evolution of lithic and bone industries, changes in settlement patterns, burial practices, demography and subsistence, human impact on the Mesolithic environment and the neolithisation process. Some papers also deal with more methodological aspects of carbon-14 dating (e.g. calculation of various reservoir effects, the use of cumulative calibrated probability distributions), and related techniques (e.g. stable isotope analysis for palaeodiet reconstruction).
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 469 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 Making One s Way in the World written by Martin Bell and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book draws on the evidence of landscape archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies, ethnohistory and animal tracking to address the neglected topic of how we identify and interpret past patterns of movement in the landscape. It challenges the pessimism of previous generations which regarded prehistoric routes such as hollow ways as generally undatable. The premise is that archaeologists tend to focus on ‘sites’ while neglecting the patterns of habitual movement that made them part of living landscapes. Evidence of past movement is considered in a multi-scalar way from the individual footprint to the long distance path including the traces created in vegetation by animal and human movement. It is argued that routes may be perpetuated over long timescales creating landscape structures which influence the activities of subsequent generations. In other instances radical changes of axes of communication and landscape structures provide evidence of upheaval and social change. Palaeoenvironmental and ethnohistorical evidence from the American North West coast sets the scene with evidence for the effects of burning, animal movement, faeces deposition and transplantation which can create readable routes along which are favoured resources. Evidence from European hunter-gatherer sites hints at similar practices of niche construction on a range of spatial scales. On a local scale, footprints help to establish axes of movement, the locations of lost settlements and activity areas. Wood trackways likewise provide evidence of favoured patterns of movement and past settlement location. Among early farming communities alignments of burial mounds, enclosure entrances and other monuments indicate axes of communication. From the middle Bronze Age in Europe there is more clearly defined evidence of trackways flanked by ditches and fields. Landscape scale survey and excavation enables the dating of trackways using spatial relationships with dated features and many examples indicate long-term continuity of routeways. Where fields flank routeways a range of methods, including scientific approaches, provide dates. Prehistorians have often assumed that Ridgeways provided the main axes of early movement but there is little evidence for their early origins and rather better evidence for early routes crossing topography and providing connections between different environmental zones. The book concludes with a case study of the Weald of South East England which demonstrates that some axes of cross topographic movement used as droveways, and generally considered as early medieval, can be shown to be of prehistoric origin. One reason that dryland routes have proved difficult to recognise is that insufficient attention has been paid to the parts played by riverine and maritime longer distance communication. It is argued that understanding the origins of the paths we use today contributes to appreciation of the distinctive qualities of landscapes. Appreciation will help to bring about effective strategies for conservation of mutual benefit to people and wildlife by maintaining and enhancing corridors of connectivity between different landscape zones including fragmented nature reserves and valued places. In these ways an understanding of past routeways can contribute to sustainable landscapes, communities and quality of life
Download or read book Prehistoric Britain written by Timothy Darvill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-07-02 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Britain has been inhabited by humans for over half a million years, during which time there were a great many changes in lifestyles and in the surrounding landscape. This book, now in its second edition, examines the development of human societies in Britain from earliest times to the Roman conquest of AD 43, as revealed by archaeological evidence. Special attention is given to six themes which are traced through prehistory: subsistence, technology, ritual, trade, society, and population. Prehistoric Britain begins by introducing the background to prehistoric studies in Britain, presenting it in terms of the development of interest in the subject and the changes wrought by new techniques such as radiocarbon dating, and new theories, such as the emphasis on social archaeology. The central sections trace the development of society from the hunter-gatherer groups of the last Ice Age, through the adoption of farming, the introduction of metalworking, and on to the rise of highly organized societies living on the fringes of the mighty Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. Throughout, emphasis is given to documenting and explaining changes within these prehistoric communities, and to exploring the regional variations found in Britain. In this way the wealth of evidence that can be seen in the countryside and in our museums is placed firmly in its proper context. It concludes with a review of the effects of prehistoric communities on life today. With over 120 illustrations, this is a unique review of Britain's ancient past as revealed by modern archaeology. The revisions and updates to Prehistoric Britain ensure that this will continue to be the most comprehensive and authoritative account of British prehistory for those students and interested readers studying the subject.
Download or read book A Welsh Landscape through Time written by Jane Kenney and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Holy Island is a small island just off the west coast of Anglesey, North Wales, which is rich in archaeology of all periods. Between 2006 and 2010, archaeological excavations in advance of a major Welsh Government development site, Parc Cybi, enabled extensive study of the islands past. Over 20 hectares were investigated, revealing a busy and complex archaeological landscape, which could be seen evolving from the Mesolithic period through to the present day. Major sites discovered include an Early Neolithic timber hall aligned on an adjacent chambered tomb and an Iron Age settlement, the development of which is traced by extensive dating and Bayesian analysis. A Bronze Age ceremonial complex, along with the Neolithic tomb, defined the cultural landscape for subsequent periods. A long cist cemetery of a type common on Anglesey proved, uncommonly, to be late Roman in date, while elusive Early Medieval settlement was indicated by corn dryers. This wealth of new information has revolutionised our understanding of how people have lived in, and transformed, the landscape of Holy Island. Many of the sites are also significant in a broader Welsh context and inform the understanding of similar sites across Britain and Ireland.
Download or read book Settlement Society and Cognition in Human Evolution written by Fiona Coward and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-26 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a landscape narrative of early hominin evolution, linking conventional material and geographic aspects of the early archaeological record with wider and more elusive social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes. It seeks to move beyond a limiting notion of early hominin culture and behaviour as dictated solely by the environment to present the early hominin world as the outcome of a dynamic dialogue between the physical environment and its perception and habitation by active agents. This international group of contributors presents theoretically informed yet empirically based perspectives on hominin and human landscapes.
Download or read book Applications of Palaeontology written by Robert Wynn Jones and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-18 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Palaeontology, the scientific study of fossils, has developed from a descriptive science to an analytical science used to interpret relationships between Earth and life history. This book provides a comprehensive and thematic treatment of applied palaeontology, covering the use of fossils in the ordering of rocks in time and in space, in biostratigraphy, palaeobiology and sequence stratigraphy. Robert Wynn Jones presents a practical workflow for applied palaeontology, including sample acquisition, preparation and analysis, and interpretation and integration. He then presents numerous case studies that demonstrate the applicability and value of the subject to areas such as petroleum, mineral and coal exploration and exploitation, engineering geology and environmental science. Specialist applications outside of the geosciences (including archaeology, forensic science, medical palynology, entomopalynology and melissopalynology) are also addressed. Abundantly illustrated and referenced, Applications of Palaeontology provides a user-friendly reference for academic researchers and professionals across a range of disciplines and industry settings.
Download or read book Hunter Gatherer Ireland written by Graeme Warren and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the Irish Mesolithic - the period after the end of the last Ice Age when Ireland was home to hunter-gatherer communities, mostly from about 10,000-6,000 years ago. At this time, Ireland was an island world, with striking similarities and differences to its European neighbours - not least in terms of the terrestrial ecology created by its island status. To understand the communities of hunter-gatherers who lived there, it is essential that we consider the connections established between people and the other beings and materials with which they shared the world and through which they grew into it. Understanding the Mesolithic means paying attention to the animals, plants, spirits and things with which hunting and gathering groups formed kinship relationships and in collaboration with which they experienced life. The book closes with a reflection on hunting and gathering in Ireland today. The overriding aim of the book is to provide a point of entry into the lives of the Irish Mesolithic, to show the different ways in which people have lived on this island, and to show how we might narrate those lives.
Download or read book North Sea Archaeologies written by Robert Van de Noort and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative study offers an up-to-date analysis of the archaeology of the North Sea. Robert Van de Noort traces the way people engaged with the North Sea from the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 BC, to the close of the Middle Ages, about AD 1500. Van de Noort draws upon archaeological research from many countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and France, and addresses topics which include the first interactions of people with the emerging North Sea, the origin and development of fishing, the creation of coastal landscapes, the importance of islands and archipelagos, the development of seafaring ships and their use by early seafarers and pirates, and the treatments of boats and ships at the end of their useful lives.
Download or read book Hunters Fishers and Foragers in Wales written by Malcolm Lillie and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-07-31 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Malcolm Lillie presents a major new holistic appraisal of the evidence for the Mesolithic occupation of Wales. The story begins with a discourse on the Palaeolithic background. In order to set the entire Mesolithic period into its context, subsequent chapters follow a sequence from the palaeoenvironmental background, through a consideration of the use of stone tools, settlement patterning and evidence for subsistence strategies and the range of available resources. Less obvious aspects of hunter-forager and subsequent hunter-fisher-forager groups include the arenas of symbolism, ritual and spirituality that would have been embedded in everyday life. The author here endeavors to integrate an evaluation of these aspects of Mesolithic society in developing a social narrative of Mesolithic lifeways throughout the text in an effort to bring the past to life in a meaningful and considered way. The term ‘hunter-fisher-foragers’ implies a particular combination of subsistence activities, but whilst some groups may well have integrated this range of economic activities into their subsistence strategies, others may not have. The situation in coastal areas of Wales, in relation to subsistence, settlement and even spiritual matters would not necessarily be the same as in upland areas, even when the same groups moved between these zones in the landscape. The volume concludes with a discussion of the theoretical basis for the shift away from the exploitation of wild resources towards the integration of domesticates into subsistence strategies, i.e. the shift from food procurement to food production, and assesses the context of the changes that occurred as human groups re-orientated their socioeconomic, political and ritual beliefs in light of newly available resources, influences from the continent, and ultimately their social condition at the time of ‘transition’.
Download or read book Ireland s First Settlers written by Peter Woodman and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ireland’s First Settlers tells the story of the archaeology and history of the first continuous phase of Ireland’s human settlement. It combines centuries of search and speculation about human antiquity in Ireland with a review of what is known today about the Irish Mesolithic. This is, in part, provided in the context of the author’s 50 years of personal experience searching to make sense of what initially appeared to be little more than a collection of beach rolled and battered flint tools. The story is embedded in how the island of Ireland, its position, distinct landscape and ecology impacted on when and how Ireland was colonized. It also explores how these first settlers evolved their technologies and lifeways to suit the narrow range of abundant resources that were available. The volume concludes with discussions on how the landscape should be searched for the often ephemeral traces of these early settlers and how sites should be excavated. It asks what we really know about the thoughts and life of the people themselves and what happened to them as farming began to be introduced.
Download or read book Visual Heritage in the Digital Age written by Eugene Ch'ng and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heritage is everywhere, and an understanding of our past is increasingly critical to the understanding of our contemporary cultural context and place in global society. Visual Heritage in the Digital Age presents the state-of-the-art in the application of digital technologies to heritage studies, with the chapters collectively demonstrating the ways in which current developments are liberating the study, conservation and management of the past. Digital approaches to heritage have developed significantly over recent decades in terms of both the quantity and range of applications. However, rather than merely improving and enriching the ways in which we understand and engage with the past, this technology is enabling us to do this in entirely new ways. The chapters contained within this volume present a broad range of technologies for capturing data (such as high-definition laser scanning survey and geophysical survey), modelling (including GIS, data fusion, agent-based modelling), and engaging with heritage through novel digital interfaces (mobile technologies and the use of multi-touch interfaces in public spaces). The case studies presented include sites, landscapes and buildings from across Europe, North and Central America, and collections relating to the ancient civilisations of the Middle East and North Africa. The chronological span is immense, extending from the end of the last ice age through to the twentieth century. These case studies reveal new ways of approaching heritage using digital tools, whether from the perspective of interrogating historical textual data, or through the applications of complexity theory and the modelling of agents and behaviours. Beyond the data itself, Visual Heritage in the Digital Age also presents fresh ways of thinking about digital heritage. It explores more theoretical perspectives concerning the role of digital data and the challenges that are presented in terms of its management and preservation.
Download or read book Europe s Lost World written by Vincent L. Gaffney and published by Council for British Archaeology. This book was released on 2009 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This excellent book, which deserves a wide readership, reports on the work of the North Sea Palaeolandscapes Project, which has been researching the fascinating lost landscape of Doggerland which until the end of the last Ice Age connected Britain to the continent in the North Sea area. It aims to make the findings available to a general readership, and show just how impressive they have been, with nearly 23,000km2 mapped. The techniques used to reconstruct the landscape are explained, and conclusions and speculation about the climate and vegetation of the area in the Mesolithic offered. It also tells the story of the rediscovery of Doggerland, and the Mesolithic landscape more generally, from the pioneering work of Clement Reid in the nineteenth century, to the research of Grahame Clark and Bryony Coles in the twentieth. It's also worth pointing out just how well produced and illustrated the book is, and one can only hope that it can spark public interest in a comparatively little known phase of our prehistory.
Download or read book Star Carr Volume 2 written by Nicky Milner and published by White Rose University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume of Star Carr provides detail on specific areas of research around the Star Carr site, one of the most important Mesolithic sites in Europe. Discovered in the late 1940s by John Moore and then excavated by Grahame Clark from 1949-1951, the site is famous in the archaeological world for its wealth of rare organic remains including significant wooden artefacts. The 2003-2015 excavations directed by Conneller, Milner and Taylor explored how the site was used. In use for around 800 years, the Star Carr site is much larger and more complex than ever imagined. This volume looks in detail at focused areas of research, including: wooden artefacts; antler headdresses; structures; environmental and climate change data; plant and animal remains found at the site; and sediment data.
