Download or read book Nature and Culture in Prehistoric Amazonia written by Love Eriksen and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unknown Amazon written by Colin McEwan and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unknown Amazon offers a bold new approach towards understanding the antiquity and complexity of tropical forest civilisation in the Amazon Basin. It opens new perspectives on Amazonian Indian societies, both past and present.
Download or read book Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia written by Alf Hornborg and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A transdisciplinary collaboration among ethnologists, linguists, and archaeologists, Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia traces the emergence, expansion, and decline of cultural identities in indigenous Amazonia. Hornborg and Hill argue that the tendency to link language, culture, and biology--essentialist notions of ethnic identities--is a Eurocentric bias that has characterized largely inaccurate explanations of the distribution of ethnic groups and languages in Amazonia. The evidence, however, suggests a much more fluid relationship among geography, language use, ethnic identity, and genetics. In Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia, leading linguists, ethnographers, ethnohistorians, and archaeologists interpret their research from a unique nonessentialist perspective to form a more accurate picture of the ethnolinguistic diversity in this area. Revealing how ethnic identity construction is constantly in flux, contributors show how such processes can be traced through different ethnic markers such as pottery styles and languages. Scholars and students studying lowland South America will be especially interested, as will anthropologists intrigued by its cutting-edge, interdisciplinary approach.
Download or read book Sacred Geographies of Ancient Amazonia written by Denise P Schaan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary El Dorado—the city of gold—remains a mere legend, but astonishing new discoveries are revealing a major civilization in ancient Amazonia that was more complex than anyone previously dreamed. Scholars have long insisted that the Amazonian ecosystem placed severe limits on the size and complexity of its ancient cultures, but leading researcher Denise Schaan reverses that view, synthesizing exciting new evidence of large-scale land and resource management to tell a new history of indigenous Amazonia. Schaan also engages fundamental debates about the development of social complexity and the importance of ancient Amazonia from a global perspective. This innovative, interdisciplinary book is a major contribution to the study of human-environment relations, social complexity, and past and present indigenous societies.
Download or read book The Global Prehistory of Human Migration written by Immanuel Ness and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-08-29 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previously published as the first volume of The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, this work is devoted exclusively to prehistoric migration, covering all periods and places from the first hominin migrations out of Africa through the end of prehistory. Presents interdisciplinary coverage of this topic, including scholarship from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, genetics, biology, linguistics, and more Includes contributions from a diverse international team of authors, representing 17 countries and a variety of disciplines Divided into two sections, covering the Pleistocene and Holocene; each section examines human migration through chapters that focus on different regional and disciplinary lenses
Download or read book Parmana written by Anna Curtenius Roosevelt and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parmana: Prehistoric Maize and Manioc Subsistence along the Amazon and Orinoco argues for a reinterpretation of prehistoric subsistence in the Greater Amazonian region of South America. Based on the preliminary results of an archaeological fieldwork in Parmana of the Orinoco basin, Venezuela, the book re-evaluates some of the assumptions made by anthropologists about human adaptation and the development of aboriginal culture in Amazonia. Comprised of six chapters, this volume begins with a review of the theories of five scholars of aboriginal Amazonia in terms of logic and documentation: Julian Steward, Betty Meggers, Robert Carneiro, Donald Lathrap, and Daniel Gross. The next chapter presents an alternative theory, the hypothesis of technological change, and explains its theoretical framework. The demographic theory of cultural evolution is discussed, and its basis in general evolutionary theory is explained. Subsequent chapters focus on the empirical evidence for the hypothesis in studies of tropical resources, with emphasis on the productivity of tropical lowland soils and Amazonian faunal resources as well as the roles of maize and manioc in prehistoric Amazonian subsistence; the physical and biological characteristics of the Parmana region as an environment for prehistoric human adaptation; and the history of subsistence and population growth in prehistoric Parmana. The final chapter suggests possible directions for future research on the development of aboriginal culture in Amazonia. The book is illustrated with numerous maps, tables, and photographs, most of them never published before. This monograph should be of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists.
Download or read book Cultural Models of Nature written by Giovanni Bennardo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the ethnographic experience of the contributors, this volume explores the Cultural Models of Nature found in a range of food-producing communities located in climate-change affected areas. These Cultural Models represent specific organizations of the etic categories underlying the concept of Nature (i.e. plants, animals, the physical environment, the weather, humans, and the supernatural). The adoption of a common methodology across the research projects allows the drawing of meaningful cross-cultural comparisons between these communities. The research will be of interest to scholars and policymakers actively involved in research and solution-providing in the climate change arena.
Download or read book Language Isolates I Aikan to Kandozi Shapra written by Patience Epps and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-01-30 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides the first broadly comprehensive, typologically-informed descriptive overview of the languages of Greater Amazonia. Organized by genealogical units, the chapters provide empirically rich descriptions of the phonology and grammar of all Amazonian families and isolates for which data and descriptions exist. Volume 1 focuses on the many isolates of the region – those languages for which no extant sisters can be identified.
Download or read book Advances in Contact Linguistics written by Norval Smith and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues in multilingualism and its implications for communities and society at large, language acquisition and use, language diversification, and creative language use associated with new linguistic identities have become hot topics in both scientific and popular debates. A ubiquitous aspect of multilingualism is language contact. This book contains twelve articles that discuss specific aspects of Contact Linguistics. These articles cover a wide range of topics in the field, including creoles, areal linguistics, language mixing, and the sociolinguistic aspects of interactions with audiences. The book is dedicated to Pieter Muysken whose work on pidgin and creole languages, mixed languages, code-switching, bilingualism, and areal linguistics has been ground-breaking and inspirational for the authors in this book, as well as numerous other scholars working on the various facets of this rapidly expanding field.
Download or read book Global Ecology and Unequal Exchange written by Alf Hornborg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In modern society, we tend to have faith in technology. But is our concept of ‘technology’ itself a cultural illusion? This book challenges the idea that humanity as a whole is united in a common development toward increasingly efficient technologies. Instead it argues that modern technology implies a kind of global ‘zero-sum game’ involving uneven resource flows, which make it possible for wealthier parts of global society to save time and space at the expense of humans and environments in the poorer parts. We tend to think of the functioning of machines as if it was detached from the social relations of exchange which make machines economically and physically possible (in some areas). But even the steam engine that was the core of the Industrial Revolution in England was indissolubly linked to slave labour and soil erosion in distant cotton plantations. And even as seemingly benign a technology as railways have historically saved time (and accessed space) primarily for those who can afford them, but at the expense of labour time and natural space lost for other social groups with less purchasing power. The existence of technology, in other words, is not a cornucopia signifying general human progress, but the unevenly distributed result of unequal resource transfers that the science of economics is not equipped to perceive. Technology is not simply a relation between humans and their natural environment, but more fundamentally a way of organizing global human society. From the very start it has been a global phenomenon, which has intertwined political, economic and environmental histories in complex and inequitable ways. This book unravels these complex connections and rejects the widespread notion that technology will make the world sustainable. Instead it suggests a radical reform of money, which would be as useful for achieving sustainability as for avoiding financial breakdown. It brings together various perspectives from environmental and economic anthropology, ecological economics, political ecology, world-system analysis, fetishism theory, semiotics, environmental and economic history, and development theory. Its main contribution is a new understanding of technological development and concerns about global sustainability as questions of power and uneven distribution, ultimately deriving from the inherent logic of general-purpose money. It should be of interest to students and professionals with a background or current engagement in anthropology, sustainability studies, environmental history, economic history, or development studies.
Download or read book Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present written by Anna Roosevelt and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amazonia has long been a focus of debate about the impact of the tropical rain forest environment on indigenous cultural development. This edited volume draws on the subdisciplines of anthropology to present an integrated perspective of Amazonian studies. The contributors address transformations of native societies as a result of their interaction with Western civilization from initial contact to the present day, demonstrating that the pre- and postcontact characteristics of these societies display differences that until now have been little recognized. CONTENTS Amazonian Anthropology: Strategy for a New Synthesis, Anna C. Roosevelt The Ancient Amerindian Polities of the Amazon, Orinoco and Atlantic Coast: A Preliminary Analysis of Their Passage from Antiquity to Extinction, Neil Lancelot Whitehead The Impact of Conquest on Contemporary Indigenous Peoples of the Guiana Shield: The System of Orinoco Regional Interdependence, Nelly Arvelo-Jiménez and Horacio Biord Social Organization and Political Power in the Amazon Floodplain: The Ethnohistorical Sources, Antonio Porro The Evidence for the Nature of the Process of Indigenous Deculturation and Destabilization in the Amazon Region in the Last 300 Years: Preliminary Data, Adélia Engrácia de Oliveira Health and Demography of Native Amazonians: Historical Perspective and Current Status, Warren M. Hern Diet and Nutritional Status of Amazonian Peoples, Darna L. Dufour Hunting and Fishing in Amazonia: Hold the Answers, What are the Questions?, Stephen Beckerman Homeostasis as a Cultural System: The Jivaro Case, Philippe Descola Farming, Feuding, and Female Status: The Achuara Case, Pita Kelekna Subsistence Strategy, Social Organization, and Warfare in Central Brazil in the Context of European Penetration, Nancy M. Flowers Environmental and Social Implications of Pre- and Post-Contact Situations on Brazilian Indians: The Kayapo and a New Amazonian Synthesis, Darrell Addison Posey Beyond Resistance: A Comparative Study of Utopian Renewal in Amazonia, Michael F. Brown The Eastern Bororo Seen from an Archaeological Perspective, Irmhilde Wüst Genetic Relatedness and Language Distributions in Amazonia, Harriet E. Manelis Klein Language, Culture, and Environment: Tup¡-Guaran¡ Plant Names Over Time, William Balée and Denny Moore Becoming Indian: The Politics of Tukanoan Ethnicity, Jean E. Jackson
Download or read book Handbook of South American Archaeology written by Helaine Silverman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-04-04 with total page 1228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps the contributions of South American archaeology to the larger field of world archaeology have been inadequately recognized. If so, this is probably because there have been relatively few archaeologists working in South America outside of Peru and recent advances in knowledge in other parts of the continent are only beginning to enter larger archaeological discourse. Many ideas of and about South American archaeology held by scholars from outside the area are going to change irrevocably with the appearance of the present volume. Not only does the Handbook of South American Archaeology (HSAA) provide immense and broad information about ancient South America, the volume also showcases the contributions made by South Americans to social theory. Moreover, one of the merits of this volume is that about half the authors (30) are South Americans, and the bibliographies in their chapters will be especially useful guides to Spanish and Portuguese literature as well as to the latest research. It is inevitable that the HSAA will be compared with the multi-volume Handbook of South American Indians (HSAI), with its detailed descriptions of indigenous peoples of South America, that was organized and edited by Julian Steward. Although there are heroic archaeological essays in the HSAI, by the likes of Junius Bird, Gordon Willey, John Rowe, and John Murra, Steward states frankly in his introduction to Volume Two that “arch- ology is included by way of background” to the ethnographic chapters.
Download or read book The Native Languages of South America written by Loretta O'Connor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In South America indigenous languages are extremely diverse. There are over one hundred language families in this region alone. Contributors from around the world explore the history and structure of these languages, combining insights from archaeology and genetics with innovative linguistic analysis. The book aims to uncover regional patterns and potential deeper genealogical relations between the languages. Based on a large-scale database of features from sixty languages, the book analyses major language families such as Tupian and Arawakan, as well as the Quechua/Aymara complex in the Andes, the Isthmo-Colombian region and the Andean foothills. It explores the effects of historical change in different grammatical systems and fills gaps in the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) database, where South American languages are underrepresented. An important resource for students and researchers interested in linguistics, anthropology and language evolution.
Download or read book Approaches to Measuring Linguistic Differences written by Lars Borin and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume collects contributions addressing different aspects of the measurement of linguistic differences, a topic which probably is as old as language itself but at the same time has acquired renewed interest over the last decade or so, reflecting a rapid development of data-intensive computing in all fields of research, including linguistics.
Download or read book Landesque Capital written by N Thomas Håkansson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive, global treatment of landesque capital, a widespread concept used to understand anthropogenic landscapes that serve important economic, social, and ritual purposes. Spanning the disciplines of anthropology, human ecology, geography, archaeology, and history, chapters combine theoretical rigor with in-depth empirical studies of major landscape modifications from ancient to contemporary times. They assess not only degradation but also the social, political, and economic institutions and contexts that make sustainability possible. Offering tightly edited, original contributions from leading scholars, this book will have a lasting influence on the study long-term human-environment relations in the human and natural sciences.
Download or read book Rethinking the Andes Amazonia Divide written by Adrian J. Pearce and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2020-10-21 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nowhere on Earth is there an ecological transformation so swift and so extreme as between the snow-line of the high Andes and the tropical rainforest of Amazonia. The different disciplines that research the human past in South America have long tended to treat these two great subzones of the continent as self-contained enough to be taken independently of each other. Objections have repeatedly been raised, however, to warn against imagining too sharp a divide between the people and societies of the Andes and Amazonia, when there are also clear indications of significant connections and transitions between them. Rethinking the Andes–Amazonia Divide brings together archaeologists, linguists, geneticists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians and historians to explore both correlations and contrasts in how the various disciplines see the relationship between the Andes and Amazonia, from deepest prehistory up to the European colonial period. The volume emerges from an innovative programme of conferences and symposia conceived explicitly to foster awareness, discussion and co-operation across the divides between disciplines. Underway since 2008, this programme has already yielded major publications on the Andean past, including History and Language in the Andes (2011) and Archaeology and Language in the Andes (2012).
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines written by Timothy Insoll and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-13 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Figurines dating from prehistory have been found across the world but have never before been considered globally. The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines is the first book to offer a comparative survey of this kind, bringing together approaches from across the landscape of contemporary research into a definitive resource in the field. The volume is comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible, with dedicated and fully illustrated chapters covering figurines from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia and the Pacific laid out by geographical location and written by the foremost scholars in figurine studies; wherever prehistoric figurines are found they have been expertly described and examined in relation to their subject matter, form, function, context, chronology, meaning, and interpretation. Specific themes that are discussed by contributors include, for example, theories of figurine interpretation, meaning in processes and contexts of figurine production, use, destruction and disposal, and the cognitive and social implications of representation. Chronologically, the coverage ranges from the Middle Palaeolithic through to areas and periods where an absence of historical sources renders figurines 'prehistoric' even though they might have been produced in the mid-2nd millennium AD, as in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The result is a synthesis of invaluable insights into past thinking on the human body, gender, identity, and how the figurines might have been used, either practically, ritually, or even playfully.
