Download or read book Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society for written by and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies written by Lynne Kelly and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Lynne Kelly explores the role of formal knowledge systems in small-scale oral cultures in both historic and archaeological contexts. In the first part, she examines knowledge systems within historically recorded oral cultures, showing how the link between power and the control of knowledge is established. Analyzing the material mnemonic devices used by documented oral cultures, she demonstrates how early societies maintained a vast corpus of pragmatic information concerning animal behavior, plant properties, navigation, astronomy, genealogies, laws and trade agreements, among other matters. In the second part Kelly turns to the archaeological record of three sites, Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point and Stonehenge, offering new insights into the purpose of the monuments and associated decorated objects. This book demonstrates how an understanding of rational intellect, pragmatic knowledge and mnemonic technologies in prehistoric societies offers a new tool for analysis of monumental structures built by non-literate cultures.
Download or read book The Past in Prehistoric Societies written by Richard Bradley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-18 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of prehistory dates from the nineteenth century, but Richard Bradley contends that it is still a vital area for research. He argues that it is only through a combination of oral tradition and the experience of encountering ancient material culture that people were able to formulate a sense of their own pasts without written records. The Past in Prehistoric Societies presents case studies which extend from the Palaeolithic to the early Middle Ages and from the Alps to Scandinavia. It examines how archaeologists might study the origin of myths and the different ways in which prehistoric people would have inherited artefacts from the past. It also investigates the ways in which ancient remains might have been invested with new meanings long after their original significance had been forgotten. Finally, the author compares the procedures of excavation and field survey in the light of these examples. The work includes a large number of detailed case studies, is fully illustrated and has been written in an extremely accessible style.
Download or read book Economy and Society in Prehistoric Europe written by Sherratt A. Sherratt and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-07 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together a classic collection of Andrew Sherratt's work on the economic foundations of prehistoric Europe, which have put forward important new ideas about the development of farming, pastoralism, early technology and trade. In a series of contributions that have included wide-ranging syntheses and detailed local studies, he discusses their implications for the understanding of settlement-patterns, social structures, material culture, and less tangible aspects of prehistoric life such as the spread of languages and the use of narcotics.
Download or read book Gender Transformations in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies written by Julia Katharina Koch and published by . This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is dedicated to examining the role and impact of gender relations during socio-environmental transformation processes as well as matters of gender equality in archaeological academia across the globe.
Download or read book An Ethnography of the Neolithic written by Christopher Tilley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-10-30 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeological research in Sweden and Denmark has uncovered a startling array of evidence over the last 150 years, but until now there has been no comprehensive synthesis and interpretation of the material. An Ethnography of the Neolithic bridges this gap, giving an accessible and up-to-date analysis of a wide range of evidence, from landscapes to monumental tombs to portable artifacts. Christopher Tilley also uses this material as a basis for a provocative and novel reconstruction of late Mesolithic and earlier Neolithic societies in southern Scandinavia, over a period of 3,000 years. His skilful integration of archaeological evidence with new anthropological approaches makes this book an original contribution to an important topic, whose significance stretches outside Scandinavia, and beyond the Neolithic.
Download or read book Subsistence and Society in Prehistory written by Alan K. Outram and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-24 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains how recent scientific advances have revolutionised our understanding of prehistoric diet, economy and society.
Download or read book The Power of Ritual in Prehistory written by Brian Hayden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-13 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secret societies in tribal societies turn out to be key to understanding the origins of social inequalities and state religions.
Download or read book Artisans Rule written by Ina Miloglav and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Craft production and its significance for understanding social relations are one of the essential topics in prehistoric archaeology. Standardization of raw materials, products, and manufacturing procedures, and the presence or absence of specialized artisans still challenge scholars engaged in the studies of technology, social archaeology, exchange and distribution networks and economy in the past. In this volume, seven case studies covering a chronological span from the Neolithic to La Tène Europe explore the notions of standardization and specialization, the nature of their interrelationship, the methods for assessing their presence in the archaeological record, and their significance for the reconstruction of social relations and emergence of social complexity, while two ethnoarchaeological studies focus on the organization of production and methods of estimation of a number of artisans. This volume brings together research from prominent scholars, based on different theoretical perspectives, thus giving new insight into the fundamental issues related to artisans and their crafts.
Download or read book Prehistory written by Chris Gosden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent archaeological discoveries from China and central Asia have changed our understanding of how human civilization developed in the period of some 4 million years before the start of written history. In this new edition of his Very Short Introduction, Chris Gosden explores the current theories on the ebb and flow of human cultural variety.
Download or read book Indigenous Heritage and Rock Art written by Carole Charette and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prof. Daniel Arsenault, a leading exponent of Canadian Shield rock art, sadly passed away in 2016. This book contains 14 thought-provoking chapters dealing with Daniel’s first love—the archaeology of artistic endeavour. It provides the reader with new ideas about the interpretation and dating of rock art, ethnography, heritage and material culture.
Download or read book Diversity and Complexity in Prehistoric Maritime Societies written by Bruce J. Bourque and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New England archaeology has not always been everyone's cup of tea; only late in the Golden of nineteenth-century archaeology, as archaeology's focus turned westward, did a few pioneers look northward as well, causing a brief flurry of investigation and excavation. Between 1892 and 1894, Charles C. Willoughby did some exemplary excavations at three small burial sites in Bucksport, Orland, and Ellsworth, Maine, and made some models of that activity for exhibition at the Chicago World's Fair. These activities were encouraged by E Putnam, director of the Harvard Peabody Museum and head of anthropology at the "Columbian" Exposition. Even earlier, another director of the Peabody, Jeffries Wyman, spawned some real interest in the shellheaps of the Maine coast, but that did not last very long. Twentieth-century New England archaeology, specifically in Maine, was--for its first fifty years--rather low key too, with short-lived but important activity by Arlo and Oric (a Bates Harvard student) prior to World War Later, I. another Massachusetts institution, the Peabody Foundation at Andover, took some minor but responsible steps toward further understanding of the area's prehistoric past.
Download or read book Neolithic Stone Extraction in Britain and Europe written by Peter Topping and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new title in the acclaimed Prehistoric Society Research Papers series focuses on the introduction of Neolithic extraction practices across Europe through to the Atlantic periphery of Britain and Ireland. The key research questions are when and why these practices were adopted, and what role extraction sites played in Neolithic society. Neolithic mines and quarries have frequently been seen as fulfilling economic roles linked to the expansion of the Neolithic economy. However, this ignores the fact that many communities chose to selectively dig for certain types of stone in preference to others, and why the products from these sites were generally deposited in special places such as wetlands. To address this question, 168 near-global ethnographic studies were analysed to identify common trends in traditional extraction practises to produce robust statistics about their motivations and material signatures. Repeated associations emerged between storied locations, the organisation of extraction practises, long-distance distribution of products, and the material evidence such activities left behind. This suggests that we can now probably identify mythologised/storied sites, seasonality, ritualised extraction, and the uselife of extraction site products. The ethnographic model was tested against data from 223 near-global archaeological extraction sites which confirmed a similar patterning in both material records, suggesting it can be used to interpret broad trends in many cross-cultural contexts and time periods. Finally, the new ethnoarchaeological model has been used to analyse the social context of 79 Neolithic flint mine and 51 axe quarry excavations in Britain and Ireland, and to review their European origins. The evidence which emerges confirms the pivotal role played by Neolithic extraction practices in European Neolithisation, and that the interaction of indigenous foragers with migrant miner/farmers in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere was fundamental to the adoption of the new agro-pastoral lifestyle.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Prehistoric Arabia written by Peter Magee and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encompassing a landmass greater than the rest of the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean combined, the Arabian peninsula remains one of the last great unexplored regions of the ancient world. This book provides the first extensive coverage of the archaeology of this region from c.9000 to 800 BC. Peter Magee argues that a unique social system, which relied on social cohesion and actively resisted the hierarchical structures of adjacent states, emerged during the Neolithic and continued to contour society for millennia later. The book also focuses on how the historical context in which Near Eastern archaeology was codified has led to a skewed understanding of the multiplicity of lifeways pursued by ancient peoples living throughout the Middle East.
Download or read book Food Cuisine and Society in Prehistoric Greece written by Paul Halstead and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food and drink, along with the material culture involved in their consumption, can signify a variety of social distinctions, identities and values. Thus, in Early Minoan Knossos, tableware was used to emphasize the difference between the host and the guests, and at Mycenaean Pylos the status of banqueters was declared as much by the places assigned to them as by the quality of the vessles form which they ate and drank. The ten contributions to this volume highlight the extraordinary opportunity for multi-disciplinary research in this area.
Download or read book Prehistory written by Colin Renfrew and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2008-08-19 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Prehistory, the award-winning archaeologist and renowned scholar Colin Renfrew covers human existence before the advent of written records–which is to say, the overwhelming majority of our time here on earth. But Renfrew also opens up to discussion, and even debate, the term “prehistory” itself, giving an incisive, concise, and lively survey of the past, and how scholars and scientists labor to bring it to light. Renfrew begins by looking at prehistory as a discipline, particularly how developments of the past century and a half–advances in archaeology and geology; Darwin’s ideas of evolution; discoveries of artifacts and fossil evidence of our human ancestors; and even more enlightened museum and collection curatorship–have fueled continuous growth in our knowledge of prehistory. He details how breakthroughs such as radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have helped us to define humankind’s past–how things have changed–much more clearly than was possible just a half century ago. Answers for why things have changed, however, continue to elude us, so Renfrew discusses some of the issues and challenges past and present that confront the study of prehistory and its investigators. In the book’s second part, Renfrew shifts the narrative focus, offering a summary of human prehistory from early hominids to the rise of literate civilization that is refreshingly free from conventional wisdom and grand “unified” theories. The author’s own case studies encompass a vast geographical and chronological range–the Orkney Islands, the Balkans, the Indus Valley, Peru, Ireland, and China–and help to explain the formation and development of agriculture and centralized societies. He concludes with a fascinating chapter on early writing systems, “From Prehistory to History.” In this invaluable, brief account of human development prior to the last four millennia, Colin Renfrew delivers a meticulously researched and passionately argued chronicle about our life on earth, and our ongoing quest to understand it.
Download or read book Warfare Violence and Slavery in Prehistory written by Michael Parker Pearson and published by British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited. This book was released on 2005 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proceedings of a Prehistoric Society conference at Sheffield University
