Download or read book Water Histories and Spatial Archaeology written by Michael J. Harrower and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a new interpretation of the spatial-political-environmental dynamics of water and irrigation in long-term histories of arid regions. It compares ancient Southwest Arabia (3500 BC–AD 600) with the American West (2000 BC–AD 1950) in global context to illustrate similarities and differences among environmental, cultural, political, and religious dynamics of water. It combines archaeological exploration and field studies of farming in Yemen with social theory and spatial technologies, including satellite imagery, Global Positioning System (GPS), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping. In both ancient Yemen and the American West, agricultural production focused not where rain-fed agriculture was possible, but in hyper-arid areas where massive state-constructed irrigation schemes politically and ideologically validated state sovereignty. While shaped by profound differences and contingencies, ancient Yemen and the American West are mutually informative in clarifying human geographies of water that are important to understandings of America, Arabia, and contemporary conflicts between civilizations deemed East and West.
Download or read book Water Histories and Spatial Archaeology written by Michael J. Harrower and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compares ancient Southwest Arabia with the American West to illustrate revealing similarities and contrasts surrounding water usage.
Download or read book A History of Water Engineering and Management in Yemen written by Ingrid Hehmeyer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A History of Water Engineering and Management in Yemen, Ingrid Hehmeyer describes the three-way relationship between water, land, and humans from ancient to medieval and premodern times. As illustrated in case studies from four sites, individual ecosystems necessitated different engineering and management approaches in order to make good use of the scarce water resources for both irrigated agriculture and domestic consumption. Material remains and written sources provide the evidence for a comprehensive examination of continuity and change; technical and managerial struggles, failures, and successes; the question of technology transfer; the impact of the religion of Islam on water use and allocation; and people’s reactions in times of severe crisis.
Download or read book Spatial Approaches in African Archaeology written by Cameron Gokee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the interplay between African archaeology and geospatial methods from three broad perspectives. First, several contributors examine the technical possibilities and limits of using satellite imagery to detect archaeological sites and model their physical environs. A second perspective is the integration of new geospatial data and methods into site- and landscape-scale analyses to better address questions about social organization and subjective experience in African pasts. A final perspective considers the interplay between geospatial technologies and community archaeology in Africa. Recognizing that GIS and RS supersede traditional divisions in African archaeology, such as different periods, geographic regions, and theoretical orientations, the chapters aim to be widely applicable. Arranged by methodological emphasis, the case studies move from technical discussions of specific geospatial tools to general applications for addressing specific sociohistorical topics. Each chapter clearly explains the links between their archaeological questions and analytical methods, as well as how their results advance our understanding of African pasts and heritage resources. Many of the chapters can serve as learning models for archaeologists who are new to GIS or curious about its applications to their work. Others represent recent advances in geospatial applications of greater interest to more seasoned GIS practitioners, demonstrating the potential for African scholarship to contribute to methodological innovations. This book is of interest to students and researchers of African and historical archaeology and anthropology. Previously published in African Archaeological Review Volume 37, issue 1, March 2020
Download or read book Water and Society from Ancient Times to the Present written by Federica Sulas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As water availability, management and conservation become global challenges, there is now wide consensus that historical knowledge can provide crucial information to address present crises, offering unique opportunities to appreciate the solutions and mechanisms societies have developed over time to deal with water in all its forms, from rainfall to groundwater. This unique collection explores how ancient water systems relate to present ideas of resilience and sustainability and can inform future strategy. Through an investigation of historic water management systems, along with the responses to, and impact of, various water-driven catastrophes, contributors to this volume present tenable solutions for the long-term use of water resources in different parts of the world. The discussion is not limited to issues of the past, seeking instead to address the resonance and legacy of water histories in the present and future. Water and Society from Ancient Times to the Present speaks to an archaeological and non-archaeological scholarly audience and will be a useful primary reference text for researchers and graduate students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including archaeology, anthropology, history, ecology, geography, geology, architecture and development studies.
Download or read book Landscape History of Hadramawt written by Michael J. Harrower and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of AIA's 2022 Anna Marguerite McCann Award for Fieldwork Reports The rugged highlands of southern Yemen are one of the less archaeologically explored regions of the Near East. This final report of survey and excavations by the Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA) Project addresses the development of food production and human landscapes, topics of enduring interest as scholarly conceptualizations of the Anthropocene take shape. Along with data from Manayzah, site of the earliest dated remains of clearly domesticated animals in Arabia, the volume also documents some of the earliest water management technologies in Arabia, thereby anchoring regional dates for the beginnings of pastoralism and of potential farming. The authors argue that the initial Holocene inhabitants of Wadi Sana were Arabian hunters who adopted limited pastoral stock in small social groups, then expanded their social collectives through sacrifice and feasts in a sustained pastoral landscape. This volume will be of interest to a wide audience of archaeologists including not only those working in Arabia, but more broadly those interested in the ancient Near East, Africa, South Asia, and in Holocene landscape histories generally.
Download or read book Mapping Water in Dominica written by Mark W. Hauser and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-05-23 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/ 9780295748733 Dominica, a place once described as “Nature’s Island,” was rich in biodiversity and seemingly abundant water, but in the eighteenth century a brief, failed attempt by colonial administrators to replace cultivation of varied plant species with sugarcane caused widespread ecological and social disruption. Illustrating how deeply intertwined plantation slavery was with the environmental devastation it caused, Mapping Water in Dominica situates the social lives of eighteenth-century enslaved laborers in the natural history of two Dominican enclaves. Mark Hauser draws on archaeological and archival history from Dominica to reconstruct the changing ways that enslaved people interacted with water and exposes crucial pieces of Dominica’s colonial history that have been omitted from official documents. The archaeological record—which preserves traces of slave households, waterways, boiling houses, mills, and vessels for storing water—reveals changes in political authority and in how social relations were mediated through the environment. Plantation monoculture, which depended on both slavery and an abundant supply of water, worked through the environment to create predicaments around scarcity, mobility, and belonging whose resolution was a matter of life and death. In following the vestiges of these struggles, this investigation documents a valuable example of an environmental challenge centered around insufficient water. Mapping Water in Dominica is available in an open access edition through the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, thanks to the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Northwestern University Libraries.
Download or read book Water and Power in Past Societies written by Emily Holt and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water, an essential resource in all cultures, is at the heart of human power structures. Utilizing a diverse range of theoretical perspectives, the contributors to Water and Power in Past Societies provide a broad introduction to the archaeology of water-related power structures. The studies herein explore the long history of water politics in human society, offering new insights into the power structures and inequalities surrounding irrigation systems, the collection of rainwater as a component of ancient industrial production, and sea water as a facilitator of communication, trade, and aggression. In addition to examining the role of different types of water in creating power relationships, the volume presents case studies from a variety of climatic regions, ranging from the very dry to the tropical. This geographical breadth facilitates cross-cultural comparison, making Water and Power in Past Societies an essential resource for instructors and students of the archaeology of water. Finally, in addition to reaching conclusions with significant implications for archaeologists and anthropologists, the volume has real contemporary relevance, often drawing explicit parallels with issues of current and future water management.
Download or read book Maps for Time Travelers written by Mark D. McCoy and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular culture is rife with movies, books, and television shows that address our collective curiosity about what the world was like long ago. From historical dramas to science fiction tales of time travel, audiences love stories that reimagine the world before our time. But what if there were a field that, through the advancements in technology, could bring us closer to the past than ever before? Written by a preeminent expert in geospatial archaeology, Maps for Time Travelers is a guide to how technology is revolutionizing the way archaeologists study and reconstruct humanity's distant past. From satellite imagery to 3D modeling, today archaeologists are answering questions about human history that could previously only be imagined. As archaeologists create a better and more complete picture of the past, they sometimes find that truth is stranger than fiction.
Download or read book Globalization in Prehistory written by Nicole Boivin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges contemporary understandings of 'globalization' by focusing on the role of non-state prehistoric societies and their vast realms of connectivity.
Download or read book Computational and Machine Learning Tools for Archaeological Site Modeling written by Maria Elena Castiello and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes a novel machine-learning based approach to answer some traditional archaeological problems, relating to archaeological site detection and site locational preferences. Institutional data collected from six Swiss regions (Zurich, Aargau, Grisons, Vaud, Geneva and Fribourg) have been analyzed with an original conceptual framework based on the Random Forest algorithm. It is shown how the algorithm can assist in the modelling process in connection with heterogeneous, incomplete archaeological datasets and related cultural heritage information. Moreover, an in-depth review of past and more recent works of quantitative methods for archaeological predictive modelling is provided. The book guides the readers to set up their own protocol for: i) dealing with uncertain data, ii) predicting archaeological site location, iii) establishing environmental features importance, iv) and suggest a model validation procedure. It addresses both academics and professionals in archaeology and cultural heritage management, and offers a source of inspiration for future research directions in the field of digital humanities and computational archaeology.
Download or read book Arabs written by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting, comprehensive history of the Arab peoples and tribes that explores the role of language as a cultural touchstone This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia. Mackintosh-Smith reveals how linguistic developments—from pre-Islamic poetry to the growth of script, Muhammad’s use of writing, and the later problems of printing Arabic—have helped and hindered the progress of Arab history, and investigates how, even in today’s politically fractured post–Arab Spring environment, Arabic itself is still a source of unity and disunity.
Download or read book City Citizen Citizenship 400 1500 written by Els Rose and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Power of Nature written by Monica L. Smith and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Power of Nature archaeologists address the force and impact of nature relative to human knowledge, action, and volition. Case studies from around the world focusing on different levels of sociopolitical complexity—ranging from early agricultural societies to states and empires—address the ways in which nature retains the upper hand in human agentive environmental discourse, providing an opportunity for an insightful perspective on the current anthropological emphasis on how humans affect the environment. Climatic events, pathogens, and animals as nonhuman agents, ranging in size from viruses to mega-storms, have presented our species with dynamic conditions that overwhelm human capacities. In some cases, people have modified architecture to deal with a constant onslaught of storms, as in Japan or the Caribbean; in other cases, they have welcomed the occasional natural disaster as a chance to start fresh or to put into place new ideas and practices, as in the case of ancient Roman cities. Using the concept of “agency” as one in which multiple sentient and nonhuman actors interact in a landscape, and exploring locations such as the Caribbean, the Pacific, South Asia, the Andes, the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, North America, and the Arctic, the authors provide compelling explanations of the effect of an entire realm of natural powers that beset human societies past and present—from storms, earthquakes, and fires to vegetation, domestic animals, and wild birds. Throughout, the emphasis is on the philosophical and engineering adjustments that people make to stay resilient when facing the perpetual changes of the natural world. Using an archaeological perspective, The Power of Nature illustrates and analyzes the many ways that people do not control their environments. It will be of interest to archaeologists, as well as scholars in science, biology, botany, forestry, urban studies, and disaster management. Contributors: Steven Ammeran, Traci Ardren, Katelyn J. Bishop, Karen Mohr Chávez, Sergio Chávez, Stanislava Chávez, Emelie Cobb, Jago Cooper, Harper Dine, Chelsea Fisher, Jennifer Huebert, Dale L. Hutchinson, Sara L. Juengst, Kanika Kalra, François Oliva, Matthew C. Peros, Jordan Pickett, Seth Quintus, John Robb, Monica L. Smith, Jillian A. Swift, Silvia Tomášková, Kyungsoo Yoo
Download or read book The Evolution of Social Institutions written by Dmitri M. Bondarenko and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-12 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a novel and innovative approach to the study of social evolution using case studies from the Old and the New World, from prehistory to the present. This approach is based on examining social evolution through the evolution of social institutions. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a vast number of social institutions that are constantly interacting and changing. As a result, the structure of society as a whole is also evolving and changing. The authors posit that the combination of evolving social institutions explains the non-linear character of social evolution and that every society develops along its own pathway and pace. Within this framework, society should be seen as the result of the compound effect of the interactions of social institutions specific to it. Further, the transformation of social institutions and relations between them is taking place not only within individual societies but also globally, as institutions may be trans-societal, and even institutions that operate in one society can arise as a reaction to trans-societal trends and demands. The book argues that it may be more productive to look at institutions even within a given society as being parts of trans-societal systems of institutions since, despite their interconnectedness, societies still have boundaries, which their members usually know and respect. Accordingly, the book is a must-read for researchers and scholars in various disciplines who are interested in a better understanding of the origins, history, successes and failures of social institutions.
Download or read book Raman Spectroscopy in Archaeology and Art History written by Howell G. M. Edwards and published by Royal Society of Chemistry. This book was released on 2005 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Raman Spectroscopy in Archaeology and Art History highlights the important contributions Raman spectroscopy makes as a non-destructive method for characterising the chemical composition and structure and in determining the provenance and authenticity of objects of archaeological and historical importance. It brings together studies from diverse areas and represents the first dedicated work on the use of this technique in this increasingly important field. Coverage includes: An Introduction to Raman Spectroscopy, including practical aspects of Raman spectroscopy and complementary techniques; Dyes and Pigments; Artefacts; Biological Materials and Degradation; Jewellery and Precious Stones. The book contains a broad selection of real-world examples in the form of case studies to provide the reader with a true appreciation of the procedures that need to be invoked to derive spectroscopic information from some of the most challenging specimens and systems. Colour illustrations of objects of investigation and a database of 72 Raman spectra of relevant minerals are included. With its extensive examples, Raman Spectroscopy in Archaeology and Art History will be of particular interest to specialists in the field, including researchers and scientific/conservation staff in museums. Academics will find it an invaluable reference to the use of Raman spectroscopy.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Human Environment Interactions written by Daniel Contreras and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impacts of climate change on human societies, and the roles those societies themselves play in altering their environments, appear in headlines more and more as concern over modern global climate change intensifies. Increasingly, archaeologists and paleoenvironmental scientists are looking to evidence from the human past to shed light on the processes which link environmental and cultural change. Establishing clear contemporaneity and correlation, and then moving beyond correlation to causation, remains as much a theoretical task as a methodological one. This book addresses this challenge by exploring new approaches to human-environment dynamics and confronting the key task of constructing arguments that can link the two in concrete and detailed ways. The contributors include researchers working in a wide variety of regions and time periods, including Mesoamerica, Mongolia, East Africa, the Amazon Basin, and the Island Pacific, among others. Using methodological vignettes from their own research, the contributors explore diverse approaches to human-environment dynamics, illustrating the manifold nature of the subject and suggesting a wide variety of strategies for approaching it. This book will be of interest to researchers and scholars in Archaeology, Paleoenvironmental Science, Ecology, and Geology.
