Download or read book Complex Polities in the Ancient Tropical World written by Elisabeth A. Bacus and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Cambridge World Prehistory written by Colin Renfrew and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-09 with total page 5256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge World Prehistory provides a systematic and authoritative examination of the prehistory of every region around the world from the early days of human origins in Africa two million years ago to the beginnings of written history, which in some areas started only two centuries ago. Written by a team of leading international scholars, the volumes include both traditional topics and cutting-edge approaches, such as archaeolinguistics and molecular genetics, and examine the essential questions of human development around the world. The volumes are organised geographically, exploring the evolution of hominins and their expansion from Africa, as well as the formation of states and development in each region of different technologies such as seafaring, metallurgy and food production. The Cambridge World Prehistory reveals a rich and complex history of the world. It will be an invaluable resource for any student or scholar of archaeology and related disciplines looking to research a particular topic, tradition, region or period within prehistory.
Download or read book Understanding Early Civilizations written by Bruce G. Trigger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-05-05 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sample Text
Download or read book Warfare in Cultural Context written by Axel E. Nielsen and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Warfare is a constant in human history. Contributors to this book contend that agency and culture, inherited values and dispositions (such as religion and other cultural practices), beliefs, and institutions are always woven into the conduct of war. Using archaeological and ethnohistorical data from various parts of the world, the contributors explore the multiple avenues for the cultural study of warfare that these ideas make possible. Contributions focus on cultural aspects of warfare in Mesoamerica, South America, North America, and Southeast Asia.
Download or read book Collective Action in the Formation of Pre Modern States written by Richard Blanton and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropological archaeology and other disciplines concerned with the formation of early complex societies are undergoing a theoretical shift. Given the need for new directions in theory, the book proposes that anthropologists look to political science, especially the rational choice theory of collective action. The authors subject collective action theory to a methodologically rigorous evaluation using systematic cross-cultural analysis based on a world-wide sample of societies.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology written by Francesco Menotti and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 970 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook sets out the key issues and debates in the theory and practice of wetland archaeology which has played a crucial role in studies of our past. Due to the high quantity of preserved organic materials found in humid environments, the study of wetlands has allowed archaeologists to reconstruct people's everyday lives in great detail.
Download or read book The Maya Forest Garden written by Anabel Ford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conventional wisdom says that the devolution of Classic Maya civilization occurred because its population grew too large and dense to be supported by primitive neotropical farming methods, resulting in debilitating famines and internecine struggles. Using research on contemporary Maya farming techniques and important new archaeological research, Ford and Nigh refute this Malthusian explanation of events in ancient Central America and posit a radical alternative theory. The authors-show that ancient Maya farmers developed ingenious, sustainable woodland techniques to cultivate numerous food plants (including the staple maize);-examine both contemporary tropical farming techniques and the archaeological record (particularly regarding climate) to reach their conclusions;-make the argument that these ancient techniques, still in use today, can support significant populations over long periods of time.
Download or read book Of Rocks and Water written by mr Harman?ah and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People are drawn to places where geology performs its miracles: ice-cold spring waters gushing from the rock, mysterious caves which act as conduits for ancestors and divinities traveling back and forth to the underworld, sacred bodies of water where communities make libations and offer sacrifices. This volume presents a series of archaeological landscapes from the Iranian highlands to the Anatolian Plateau, and from the Mediterranean borderlands to Mesoamerica. Contributors all have a deep interest in the making and the long-term history of unorthodox places of human interaction with the mineral world, specifically the landscapes of rocks and water. Working with rock reliefs, sacred springs and lakes, caves, cairns, ruins and other meaningful places, they draw attention to the need for a rigorous field methodology and theoretical framework for working with such special places. At a time when network models, urban-centered and macro-scale perspectives dominate discussions of ancient landscapes, this unusual volume takes us to remote, unmappable places of cultural practice, social imagination and political appropriation. It offers not only a diverse set of case studies approaching small meaningful places in their special geological grounding, but also suggests new methodologies and interpretive approaches to understand places and the processes of place-making.
Download or read book Geochemical Evidence for Long Distance Exchange written by Michael D. Glascock and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2002-12-30 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies of prehistoric exchange of goods provide information about the types of economic interaction, social organization, or political structures in which prehistoric peoples were engaged. Long-distance exchange is a special situation where the materials exchanged crossed significant boundaries, whether they were geographic, social, political, or otherwise. By examining the types and quantities of goods exchanged, along with the directions and distances they moved, archaeologists are able to examine the dynamic properties of exchange systems, i.e., how they operate and why they undergo change. The purpose of this volume is to present a number of case studies of long-distance exchange from around the world which demonstrate the use of geochemical analysis of artifacts to find evidence of exchange. More important than the use of analytical technique employed or the types of artifacts studied are the interpretations themselves which illustrate that exchange studies are maturing and helping archaeologists to develop more accurate models of exchange.
Download or read book Where Do Cities Come From and Where Are They Going To Modelling Past and Present Agglomerations to Understand Urban Ways of Life written by Francesca Fulminante and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2021-01-25 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last decade, there has been a surge of interest in urbanization and economic development, sparked by the realization that making urban life sustainable is one of the greatest challenges facing us in the 21st century (this is now one of the core sustainable development goals of the United Nations). This has exerted considerable pressure on researchers to come up with more scientific ways of studying urbanism and economic activity over the long run, which has resulted not only in the development of new theoretical frameworks, but also in the collection of vast amounts of data from a range of settings. This has led to the realization that, although there are significant differences between settlements in different settings, there are nonetheless important regularities and commonalities between a diverse group of settlements in range of geographical and historical contexts, including both ancient and modern ones. This suggests that a common feature of settlements is their ability to generate increased social connectivity, greater division of labour and specialization, and enhanced technological invention and innovation, albeit with costs to levels of equality, quality of life, and standards of living, as well as impacts on the environment, which cannot be separated from the emergence of confederations and states and the creation of settlement systems, hierarchies and networks. We believe that this field of enquiry now stands at a critical juncture. Although it is now feasible to talk about many aspects of ancient and modern urbanism with relative confidence, such as the numbers of cities or their sizes, much of the discussion of these themes within historical and archaeological circles has been on a discursive or qualitative level, while it is often difficult to harmonize the different models that have been applied to date into a consistent empirical and theoretical framework. A new approach to settlements throughout different contexts should now be within our grasp, however, thanks to both the ease with which information can be disseminated and the facilities that recent developments in IT offer us to model, analyse, and statistically test data.
Download or read book Handbook of Landscape Archaeology written by Bruno David and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 80 archaeologists from four continents create a benchmark volume of the ideas and practices of landscape archaeology, covering the theoretical and the practical, the research and conservation, and encasing the term in a global framework.
Download or read book Southeast Asia written by Peter Bellwood and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive and absorbing book traces the cultural history of Southeast Asia from prehistoric (especially Neolithic, Bronze-Iron age) times through to the major Hindu and Buddhist civilizations, to around AD 1300. Southeast Asia has recently attracted archaeological attention as the locus for the first recorded sea crossings; as the region of origin for the Austronesian population dispersal across the Pacific from Neolithic times; as an arena for the development of archaeologically-rich Neolithic, and metal using communities, especially in Thailand and Vietnam, and as the backdrop for several unique and strikingly monumental Indic civilizations, such as the Khmer civilization centred around Angkor. Southeast Asia is invaluable to anyone interested in the full history of the region.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Prehistory written by Peter N. Peregrine and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 893 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: temporal dimension. Major traditions are The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents an attempt to provide basic information also defined by a somewhat different set of on all archaeologically known cultures, sociocultural characteristics than are eth covering the entire globe and the entire nological cultures. Major traditions are prehistory of humankind. It is designed as defined based on common subsistence a tool to assist in doing comparative practices, sociopolitical organization, and research on the peoples of the past. Most material industries, but language, ideology, of the entries are written by the world's and kinship ties play little or no part in foremost experts on the particular areas their definition because they are virtually and time periods. unrecoverable from archaeological con The Encyclopedia is organized accord texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and ing to major traditions. A major tradition kinship ties are central to defining ethno is defined as a group of populations sharing logical cultures. similar subsistence practices, technology, There are three types of entries in the and forms of sociopolitical organization, Encyclopedia: the major tradition entry, which are spatially contiguous over a rela the regional subtradition entry, and the tively large area and which endure tempo site entry. Each contains different types of rally for a relatively long period. Minimal information, and each is intended to be areal coverage for a major tradition can used in a different way.
Download or read book Climate Changes in the Holocene written by Eustathios Chiotis and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights climate as a complex physical, chemical, biological, and geological system, in perpetual change, under astronomical, predominantly, solar control. It has been shaped to some degree through the past glaciation cycles repeated in the last three million years. The Holocene, the current interglacial epoch which started ca. 11,700 years ago, marks the transition from the Stone Age to the unprecedented cultural evolution of our civilization. Significant climate changes have been recorded in natural archives during the Holocene, including the rapid waning of ice sheets, millennial shifting of the monsoonal fringe in the northern hemisphere, and abrupt centennial events. A typical case of severe environmental change is the greening of Sahara in the Early Holocene and the gradual desertification again since the fifth millennium before present. Climate Changes in the Holocene: Impact, Adaptation, and Resilience investigates the impact of natural climate changes on humans and civilization through case studies from various places, periods, and climates. Earth and human society are approached as a complex system, thereby emphasizing the necessity to improve adaptive capacity in view of the anthropogenic global warming and ecosystem degradation. Features: Written by distinguished experts, the book presents the fundamentals of the climate system, the unparalleled progress achieved in the last decade in the fields of intensified research for improved understanding of the carbon cycle, climate components, and their interaction. Presents the application of paleoclimatology and modeling in climate reconstruction. Examines the new era of satellite-based climate monitoring and the prospects of reduced carbon dioxide emissions.
Download or read book Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology written by Charles Golden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the current state of Maya archaeology by focusing on the history of the field for the last 100 years, present day research, and forward looking prescription for the direction of the field.
Download or read book Excavating Asian History written by Norman Yoffee and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although history and archaeology each seek to elucidate the past, both sets of data are incomplete and ambiguous and thus open to multiple readings that invite contradictory interpretations of human activity. This is particularly true when scholars of each field ignore or fail to understand research in the other discipline. Excavating Asian History contains case studies and theoretical articles that show how archaeologists have been investigating historical, social, and economic organizations and that explore the relationship between history and archaeology in the study of pre-modern Asia. These contributions consider biases in both historical and archaeological data that have occasioned rival claims to knowledge in the two disciplines. Ranging widely across the region from the Levant to China and from the third millennium BC to the second millennium AD, they demonstrate that archaeological and historical studies can complement each other and should be used in tandem. The contributors are leading historians and archaeologists of Asia who present data, issues, and debates revolving around the most recent research on the ancient Near East, early Islam, India, China, and Southeast Asian states. Their chapters illustrate the benefits of interdisciplinary investigations and show in particular how archaeology is changing our understanding of history. Commentary chapters by Miriam Stark and Philip Kohl add new perspectives to the findings. By showing the evolving relationship between those who study archaeological material and those who investigate textual data, Excavating Asian History offers practical demonstrations of how research has been and must continue to be structured.
Download or read book Remote Sensing in Archaeology written by James R. Wiseman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-06-04 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeology has been transformed by technology that allows one to ‘see’ below the surface of the earth. This work illustrates the uses of advanced technology in archaeological investigation. It deals with hand-held instruments that probe the subsurface of the earth to unveil layering and associated sites; underwater exploration and photography of submerged sites and artifacts; and the utilization of imaging from aircraft and spacecraft to reveal the regional setting of archaeological sites and to assist in cultural resource management.
