Download or read book The Archaeology of Regional Technologies written by and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology methodologically examines the relation between material culture, technology, regions, regionalisation and regional identities from a wide range of angles and perspectives. This theoretical resource for archaeologists, anthropologists, and ethnographers contains 14 essays that discuss and develop archaeological relevant understandings of technology in a regional long time perspective. This book contains ten color photographs and three black and white photographs.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Regional Technologies written by Randi Barndon and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology methodologically examines the relation between material culture, technology and regional identities from a wide range of angles and perspectives. It contains essays that develop understandings of regional technologies. What is the relation between technology, regions, regionalisation and regional identities? The contributions in this anthology approach this question by focusing on the social dimensions of technology in time and space - assessing it from different angles and perspectives, theoretically, methodologically and empirically. The archaeological and ethnographic cases that are presented stretch widely and comprise regions and periods from Fennoscandia to the north to Africa in the south, from England in the west to Finland in the east, and from the Palaeolithic up to the Middle Ages, including present pre-industrial societies. The authors deal with tacit knowledge, pedagogy, skills and a great variation of methods and approaches in order to describe and understand technological processes and regional identities. They look into regionalism and processes of continuity and change in discussions of technology and materiality in terms of long time regional similarities and variations but also micro, meso and macro scale diversity. In this way, the book serves as an important contribution to an understanding of technology as a social dimension, including power relations. By approaching technology and regions in a long time perspective it reveals the importance for apprehending and comprehending social and cultural processes in ancient societies.
Download or read book Spatial Technology and Archaeology written by David Wheatley and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and related spatial technologies have a new and powerful role to play in archaeological interpretation. Beginning with a conceptual approach to the representation of space adopted by GIS, this book examines spatial databases; the acquisition and compilation of data; the analytical compilation of data; the analytical functionality of GIS; and the creation and utilization of critical foundation data layers such as the Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The ways in which GIS can most usefully facilitate archaeological analysis and interpretation are then explored particularly as a tool for the management of archaeological resources. Formal analysis of archaeological material, and the use of trend surface, contouring and interpolation procedures are considered along with predictive modeling analysis of visibility and intervisibility. Finally there is a discussion of leading-edge issues, including three-dimensional GIS, object-oriented GIS, the relationship between GIS and 'Virtual Reality' technologies, and the integration of GIS with distributed systems and the Internet. The approach is light, and technical detail is kept to a minimum, recognizing that most readers are simply interested in using GIS effectively. The text is carefully illustrated with worked case-studies using archaeological data. Spatial Technology and Archaeology provides a single reference source for archaeologists, students, professionals, and academics in archaeology as well as those in anthropology and related disciplines.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter gatherers written by Vicki Cummings and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2014 with total page 1361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. This book provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities.
Download or read book Knowledge Networks and Craft Traditions in the Ancient World written by Katharina Rebay-Salisbury and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume investigates knowledge networks based on materials and associated technologies in Prehistoric Europe and the Classical Mediterranean. It emphasises the significance of material objects to the construction, maintenance, and collapse of networks of various forms – which are central to explanations of cultural contact and change. Focusing on the materiality of objects and on the way in which materials are used adds a multidimensional quality to networks. The properties, functions, and styles of different materials are intrinsically linked to the way in which knowledge flows and technologies are transmitted. Transmission of technologies from one craft to another is one of the main drivers of innovation, whilst sharing knowledge is enabled and limited by the extent of associated social networks in place. Archaeological research has often been limited to studying objects made of one particular material in depth, be it lithic materials, ceramics, textiles, glass, metal, wood or others. The knowledge flow and transfer between crafts that deal with different materials have often been overlooked. This book takes a fresh approach to the reconstruction of knowledge networks by integrating two or more craft traditions in each of its chapters. The authors, well-known experts and early career researchers, provide concise case studies that cover a wide range of materials. The scope of the book extends from networks of craft traditions to implications for society in a wider sense: materials, objects, and the technologies used to make and distribute them are interwoven with social meaning. People make objects, but objects make people – the materiality of objects shapes our understanding of the world and our place within it. In this book, objects are treated as clues to social networks of different sorts that can be contrasted and compared, both spatially and diachronically.
Download or read book Culture History and Convergent Evolution written by Huw S. Groucutt and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together diverse contributions from leading archaeologists and paleoanthropologists, covering various spatial and temporal periods to distinguish convergent evolution from cultural transmission in order to see if we can discover ancient human populations. With a focus on lithic technology, the book analyzes ancient materials and cultures to systematically explore the theoretical and physical aspects of culture, convergence, and populations in human evolution and prehistory. The book will be of interest to academics, students and researchers in archaeology, paleoanthropology, genetics, and paleontology. The book begins by addressing early prehistory, discussing the convergent evolution of behaviors and the diverse ecological conditions driving the success of different evolutionary paths. Chapters discuss these topics and technology in the context of the Lower Paleolithic/Earlier Stone age and Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age. The book then moves towards a focus on the prehistory of our species over the last 40,000 years. Topics covered include the human evolutionary and dispersal consequences of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition in Western Eurasia. Readers will also learn about the cultural convergences, and divergences, that occurred during the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene, such as the budding of human societies in the Americas. The book concludes by integrating these various perspectives and theories, and explores different methods of analysis to link technological developments and cultural convergence.
Download or read book Human Mobility and Technological Transfer in the Prehistoric Mediterranean written by Evangelia Kiriatzi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-24 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diverse forms of regional connectivity in the ancient world have recently become an important focus for those interested in the deep history of globalisation. This volume represents a significant contribution to this new trend as it engages thematically with a wide range of connectivities in the later prehistory of the Mediterranean, from the later Neolithic of northern Greece to the Levantine Iron Age, and with diverse forms of materiality, from pottery and metal to stone and glass. With theoretical overviews from leading thinkers in prehistoric mobilities, and commentaries from top specialists in neighbouring domains, the volume integrates detailed case studies within a comparative framework. The result is a thorough treatment of many of the key issues of regional interaction and technological diversity facing archaeologists working across diverse places and periods. As this book presents key case studies for human and technological mobility across the eastern Mediterranean in later prehistory, it will be of interest primarily to Mediterranean archaeologists, though also to historians and anthropologists.
Download or read book New Technologies for Archaeology written by Markus Reindel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-02-07 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This heavily-illustrated book covers recent developments in archaeometry and offers a multidisciplinary approach to reconstructing complex cultural histories. It also presents a detailed history of human development in South America’s Nasca region.
Download or read book Tales of the Iron Bloomery written by Bernt Rundberget and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Tales of the Iron Bloomery Bernt Rundberget argues that the ironmaking of southern Hedmark was an important basis for political developments from chiefdom to Norwegian kingdom in the period AD 700-1300.
Download or read book Building Networks Exchange of Knowledge Ideas and Materials in Medieval and Post Medieval Europe written by Jeroen Bouwmeester and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Network Analysis in Archaeology written by Society for American Archaeology. Annual Meeting and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outgrowth of a session organized for the 75th Anniversary Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology held in St. Louis, Mo., in 2010. Cf. acknowledgments.
Download or read book Cyber Archaeology and Grand Narratives written by Thomas E. Levy and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume asks how the current Information Technology Revolution influences archaeological interpretations of techno-social change. Does cyber-archaeology provide a way to breathe new life into grand narratives of technological revolution and culture change, or does it further challenge these high-level theoretical explanations? Do digital recording methods have the potential to create large, regional-scale databases to ease investigation of high-level theoretical issues, or have they simply exposed deeper issues of archaeological practice that prevent this? In short, this volume cuts beyond platitudes about the revolutionary potential of the Information Technology Revolution and instead critically engages both its possibilities and limitations. The contributions to this volume are drawn from long-term regional studies employing a cyber-archaeology framework, primarily in the southern Levant, a region with rich archaeological data sets spanning the Paleolithic to the present day. As such, contributors are uniquely placed to comment on the interface between digital methods and grand narratives of long-term techno-social change. Cyber-Archaeology and Grand Narratives provides a much-needed challenge to current approaches, and a first step toward integrating innovative digital methods with archaeological theory.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis written by Alice M. W. Hunt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume draws together topics and methodologies essential for the socio-cultural, mineralogical, and geochemical analysis of archaeological ceramic, one of the most complex and ubiquitous archaeomaterials in the archaeological record. It provides an invaluable resource for archaeologists, anthropologists, and archaeological materials scientists.
Download or read book Roman Seas written by Justin Leidwanger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: That seafaring was fundamental to Roman prosperity in the eastern Mediterranean is beyond doubt, but a tendency by scholars to focus on the grandest long-distance movements between major cities has obscured the finer and varied contours of maritime interaction. This book offers a nuanced archaeological analysis of maritime economy and connectivity in the Roman east. Drawing together maritime landscape studies and network analysis, Roman Seas takes a bottom-up view of the diverse socioeconomic conditions and seafaring logistics that generated multiple structures and scales of interaction. The material record of shipwrecks and ports along a vital corridor from the southeast Aegean across the northeast Mediterranean provides a case study of regional exchange and communication based on routine sails between simple coastal harbors. Rather than a single well-integrated and persistent Mediterranean network, multiple discrete and evolving regional and interregional systems emerge. This analysis sheds light on the cadence of economic life along the coast, the development of market institutions, and the regional continuities that underpinned integration-despite imperial fragmentation-between the second century BCE and the seventh century CE. Roman Seas advances a new approach to the synthesis of shipwreck and other maritime archaeological and historical economic data, as well as a path through the stark dichotomies-either big commercial voyages or small-scale cabotage-that inform most paradigms of Roman connectivity and trade. The result is a unique perspective on ancient Mediterranean trade, seafaring, cultural interaction, and coastal life.
Download or read book Local Societies in Bronze Age Northern Europe written by Nils Anfinset and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to understand the process of the Bronze Age societies of Northern Europe which are often regarded as the periphery and a bleak contrast to the Central European Bronze Age. The Bronze Age is the first "globalised" period with new types of societies and new modes of exchange and trade. In this context there is considerable local variation and diversity within the Bronze Age societies of Northern Europe which is poorly understood, although there have been advances and changes in this research. Therefore this book challenges some of the mainstream opinions on the Bronze Age of Northern Europe, and focus on local and regional aspects. This is done by a series of articles from significant contributors that deal with these issues on theoretical and empirical levels, with regards to differences, cultural dualism, boundaries, regions and regionality in a period of increased "globalisation". The result is a movement away from local and regional aspects toward communications, travels and contacts between northern Europe and the greater world, not only towards Central Europe and the Near East but also towards the east. Northern/Arctic Europe is often left out in these discussions, and this book will contribute to this greater picture of the Bronze Age world.
Download or read book Archaeological Approaches to Technology written by Heather Margaret-Louise Miller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is designed for upper-division undergraduate and graduate level archaeology students taking courses in ancient technologies, archaeological craft production, material culture, the history of technology, archaeometry, and field methods. This text can also serve as a general introduction and a reference for archaeologists, material culture specialists in socio-cultural disciplines, and engineers/scientists interested in the backgrounds and histories of their disciplines. The study of ancient technologies, that is, the ways in which objects and materials were made and used can reveal insights into economic, social, political, and ritual realms of the past. This book summarizes the current state of ancient technology studies by emphasizing methodologies, some major technologies, and the questions and issues that drive archaeologists in their consideration of these technologies. It shows the ways that technology studies can be used by archaeologists working anywhere, on any type of society and it embraces an orientation toward the practical, not the philosophical. It compares the range of pre-industrial technologies, from stone tool production, fiber crafts, wood and bone working, fired clay crafts, metal production, and glass manufacture. It includes socially contextualized case studies, as well as general descriptions of technological processes. It discusses essential terminology (technology, material culture, chaine operatoire, etc.), primarily from the perspective of how these terms are used by archaeologists.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Rural Life written by Miriam Müller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Rural Life brings together the latest research on peasantry in medieval Europe. The aim is to place peasants – as small-scale agricultural producers – firmly at the centre of this volume, as people with agency, immense skill and resilience to shape their environments, cultures and societies. This volume examines the changes and evolutions within village societies across the medieval period, over a broad chronology and across a wide geography. Rural structures, families and hierarchies are examined alongside tool use and trade, as well as the impact of external factors such as famine and the Black Death. The contributions offer insights into multidisciplinary research, incorporating archaeological as well as landscape studies alongside traditional historical documentary approaches across widely differing local and regional contexts across medieval Europe. This book will be an essential reference for scholars and students of medieval history, as well those interested in rural, cultural and social history.
