Download or read book Technology and Social Change in Belgic Gaul written by Elizabeth G. Hamilton and published by University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. This book was released on 1996-01-29 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of technology and changes in technical processes can be as revealing of culture and culture change as the study of stylistic changes in artifacts. This study focuses on the remains of over 400 years of copper-base metal artifacts and metalworking from excavations of a mint foundry/workshop at the Late Iron Age and Roman site of the Titelberg, Luxembourg. Using metallographic and metallurgical analysis, the author demonstrates the earliest known use of brass in transalpine Europe, documents changing patterns of alloy use over time, and notes the creation and disappearance of two different sociotechnical systems. MASCA Vol. 13

Download or read book Dun Ailinne written by Susan A. Johnston and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The site of Dún Ailinne is one of four major ritual sites from the Irish Iron Age, each said to form the center of a political kingdom and thus described as "royal." Excavation has produced artifacts ranging from the Neolithic (about 5,000 years ago) through the later Iron Age (fourth century CE), when the site was the focus of repeated rituals, probably related to the creation and maintenance of political hegemony. A series of timber structures were built and replaced as each group of leaders sought to claim ancient descent from a deep past and still create something unique and lasting. Pam J. Crabtree and Ronald Hicks provide analyses on, respectively, biological remains and Dún Ailinne's role in folklore, myth, and the sacred landscape, while Katherine Moreau examines bronze and iron artifacts and Elizabeth Hamilton, slag.

Download or read book Dawn of the Metal Age written by Jonathan M. Golden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fifth millennium BCE was a period of rapid social change. One of the key factors was the developments in technology which led to the rise of the metals industry. Archaeological finds from sites dating to the Chalcolithic period indicate the production and use of copper. 'Dawn of the Metal Age' examines a range of sites - from copper mines in Jordan and Israel to the villages of the northern Negev where copper was produced in household workshops, to a series of cave burials where a range of luxury metal goods were buried with the elite members of Chalcolithic society. Ancient technology is reconstructed from the archaeological evidence, which also illuminates the changing economic, social, religious and political environment of the time.

Download or read book The Archaeology and Material Culture of the Babylonian Talmud written by Markham J. Geller and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Babylonian Talmud remains the richest source of information regarding the material culture and lifestyle of the Babylonian Jewish community, with additional data now supplied by Babylonian incantation bowls. Although archaeology has yet to excavate any Jewish sites from Babylonia, information from Parthian and Sassanian Babylonia provides relevant background information, which differs substantially from archaeological finds from the Land of Israel. One of the key questions addresses the amount of traffic and general communications between Jewish Babylonia and Israel, considering the great distances and hardships of travel involved.

Download or read book European Metals in Native Hands written by Kathleen L. Ehrhardt and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2005-02-27 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first detailed analysis of Native metalworking in the Protohistoric/Contact Period From the time of their earliest encounters with European explorers and missionaries, Native peoples of eastern North America acquired metal trinkets and utilitarian items and traded them to other aboriginal communities. As Native consumption of European products increased, their material culture repertoires shifted from ones made up exclusively of items produced from their own craft industries to ones substantially reconstituted by active appropriation, manipulation, and use of foreign goods. These material transformations took place during the same time that escalating historical, political, economic, and demographic influences (such as epidemics, new types of living arrangements, intergroup hostilities, new political alliances, missionization and conversion, changes in subsistence modes, etc.) disrupted Native systems. Ehrhardt's research addresses the early technological responses of one particular group, the Late Protohistoric Illinois Indians, to the availability of European-introduced metal objects. To do so, she applied a complementary suite of archaeometric methods to a sample of 806 copper-based metal artifacts excavated from securely dated domestic contexts at the Illiniwek Village Historic Site in Clark County, Missouri. Ehrhardt's scientific findings are integrated with observations from historical, archaeological, and archival research to place metal use by this group in a broad social context and to critique the acculturation perspective at other Contact Period sites. In revealing actual Native practice, from material selection and procurement to ultimate discard, the author challenges technocentric explanations for Native material and cultural change at contact.

Download or read book Ban Chiang Northeast Thailand Volume 2A written by Joyce C. White and published by University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. This book was released on 2018-11-09 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence and adoption of metallurgy is one of the seminal topics of investigation in the history of archaeology, particularly in the history of archaeological research in Southeast Asia. The site of Ban Chiang, Thailand, is a central site in debates surrounding the chronology and significance of early metallurgy in the region. This book is the first in a series of four volumes that review the contributions of Ban Chiang and three related sites in northeast Thailand excavated by the Penn Museum to an understanding early metallurgy in Thailand. As the study of archaeometallurgy is a complex topic that draws on numerous technical and social science disciplines, this introductory volume presents in several chapters the background needed to assess the metal and related evidence presented in the subsequent volumes in this series. A history of perspectives on the role of metals in ancient societies generally and Southeast Asia, specifically, is provided. Other chapters debunk the conventional paradigm for understanding metals and society and provide current theoretical perspectives and new paradigms for the study of ancient metals. The geological basis for the presence and location of metal ore resources in the region is reviewed. The final chapter presents a technical overview of ways material properties of ancient metals may be studied. While providing a background to the study of metals at Ban Chiang, the volume also reviews, synthesizes, and repositions the method and theory for the study of archaeometallurgy generally. Thai Archaeology Monograph Series, 2A; University Museum Monograph, 149

Download or read book Brass from the Past written by Vanda Morton and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brass from the Past follows the evolution of brass from its earliest forms around 2500 BC through to industrialised production in the eighteenth century, telling the story in the context of the people, economies, cultures, trade and technologies that have themselves defined the alloy and its spread around the world.

Download or read book Redefining Technology in Bronze Age Transcaucasia written by Laura Anne Tedesco and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Deconstructing the Celts written by Stephen D. Jones and published by British Archaeological Reports International Series. This book was released on 2001 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jones takes an ecological approach to the La Tene archaeology of the Auvergne people of central France. Based on archaeological data and theory he looks at landuse, modes of production, socio-economic organisation and the sites themselves to reveal aspects of the political and economic stratification and degree of centralisation of this late Iron Age society.

Download or read book Technologies of Enchantment written by Duncan Garrow and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Celtic art includes some of the most famous archaeological artefacts in the British Isles, such as the Battersea shield or the gold torcs from Snettisham, it has often been considered from an art historical point of view. Technologies of Enchantment? Exploring Celtic Art attempts to connect Celtic art to its archaeological context, looking at how it was made, used, and deposited. Based on the first comprehensive database of Celtic art, it brings together current theories concerning the links between people and artefacts found in many areas of the social sciences. The authors argue that Celtic art was deliberately complex and ambiguous so that it could be used to negotiate social position and relations in an inherently unstable Iron Age world, especially in developing new forms of identity with the coming of the Romans. Placing the decorated metalwork of the later Iron Age in a long-term perspective of metal objects from the Bronze Age onwards, the volume pays special attention to the nature of deposition and focuses on settlements, hoards, and burials -- including Celtic art objects' links with other artefact classes, such as iron objects and coins. A unique feature of the book is that it pursues trends beyond the Roman invasion, highlighting stylistic continuities and differences in the nature and use of fine metalwork.

Download or read book The Social Context of Technology written by Leo Webley and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Social Context of Technology explores non-ferrous metalworking in Britain and Ireland during the Bronze and Iron Ages (c. 2500 BC to 1st century AD). Bronze-working dominates the evidence, though the crafting of other non-ferrous metals – including gold, silver, tin and lead – is also considered. Metalwork has long played a central role in accounts of European later prehistory. Metals were important for making functional tools, and elaborate decorated objects that were symbols of prestige. Metalwork could be treated in special or ritualised ways, by being accumulated in large hoards or placed in rivers or bogs. But who made these objects? Prehistoric smiths have been portrayed by some as prosaic technicians, and by others as mystical figures akin to magicians. They have been seen both as independent, travelling ‘entrepreneurs’, and as the dependents of elite patrons. Hitherto, these competing models have not been tested through a comprehensive assessment of the archaeological evidence for metalworking. This volume fills that gap, with analysis focused on metalworking tools and waste, such as crucibles, moulds, casting debris and smithing implements. The find contexts of these objects are examined, both to identify places where metalworking occurred, and to investigate the cultural practices behind the deposition of metalworking debris. The key questions are: what was the social context of this craft, and what was its ideological significance? How did this vary regionally and change over time? As well as elucidating a key aspect of later prehistoric life in Britain and Ireland, this important examination by leading scholars contributes to broader debates on material culture and the social role of craft.

Download or read book Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World written by Michael J. Rowlands and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1987-10-22 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collaborative volume is concerned with long-term social change. Envisaging individual societies as interlinked and interdependent parts of a global social system, the aim of the contributors is to determine the extent to which ancient societies were shaped over time by their incorporation in - or resistance to - the larger system. Their particular concern is the dependent relationship between technically and socially more developed societies with a strong state ideology at the centre and the simpler societies that functioned principally as sources of raw materials and manpower on the periphery of the system. The papers in the first part of the book are all concerned with political developments in the Ancient Near East and the notion of a regional system as a framework for analysis. Part 2 examines the problems of conceptualising local societies as discrete centres of development in the context of both the Near East and prehistoric Europe during the second millennium BC. Part 3 then presents a comprehensive analytical study of the Roman Empire as a single system showing how its component parts often relate to each other in uneven, even contradictory, ways.

Download or read book The Roman Impact on the Economy of the Lower Germanic Limes Region written by Erik Timmerman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-09-25 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable economic performance of the Roman Empire is now widely acknowledged. Yet there is still much debate about its interpretation. Although this debate is mainly conducted at the empire-wide level, regional syntheses are indispensable to its further advancement. This book contributes to that purpose by providing a comprehensive account of the Roman impact on the economy of the Lower Germanic Limes region. By drawing on a large number of scattered publications and (archaeological) datasets, the work demonstrates that Roman rule also led to important economic developments in a part of the empire that was remote from its Mediterranean heartland.

Download or read book Metals and Mines written by Susan La Niece and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited work focuses on the study of metallurgy. It features selected papers from the conference 'Metallurgy: A Touchstone for Cross-Cultural Interaction' held at the British Museum 28-30 April 2005 to celebrate the career of Paul Craddock during his 40 years at the British Museum.

Download or read book Exploring the Role of Analytical Scale in Archaeological Interpretation written by James R. Mathieu and published by BAR International Series. This book was released on 2004 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These eight papers, plus an introduction and two final discussions, grew from a symposium held at the Society for Americal Archaeology in Philadelphia in 2000, which discussed the effect on analytical scale on the interpretation of the archaeological record. In other words, the contributors debate the validity of archaeologists' choices regarding the limits of their research area, such as geographical and temporal limitations, and the size of the material discussed, ranging from a complete castle or settlement to a few finds. The case studies are broad in their range, including early European farming, the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, the uses of archaeometry, early Anglo-Saxon East Anglia, Late Antique Volterra and early medieval European cities.

Download or read book Archaeological Sciences 1999 written by Kate Robson-Brown and published by British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited. This book was released on 2003 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These 13 papers which are taken from a conference held in Bristol in 1999, present new research from within the archaeological sciences. They cover a wide range of approaches and issues including strategies for sampling for phosphorus in graves, analysing post-depositional disturbance by animals, GPS survey and 3-D computer modelling and aspects of dating, diet and dental pathology.