Download or read book Early Farmers Late Foragers and Ceramic Traditions written by Dragoş Gheorghiu and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-23 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work presents the most recent views on a subject of primordial importance for all students of history: the understanding of humankind’s process of becoming, viewed through the study of the beginnings of pottery in the late forager, and early farmer societies of Europe. It is a collection of essays, by some of the prominent European scholars and young dynamic archaeologists whose works focus on the early European and Middle Eastern pottery, intended to present a new perspective on the rise of a new technology in prehistory. With the breadth, variety and novelty of the approaches presented, “Early farmers, late foragers and ceramic traditions. On the beginning of pottery in Europe” is a fascinating read for scholars, as well as for the public at large.
Download or read book Ceramics Before Farming written by Peter Jordan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A long-overdue advancement in ceramic studies, this volume sheds new light on the adoption and dispersal of pottery by non-agricultural societies of prehistoric Eurasia. Major contributions from Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia make this a truly international work that brings together different theories and material for the first time. Researchers and scholars studying the origins and dispersal of pottery, the prehistoric peoples or Eurasia, and flow of ancient technologies will all benefit from this book.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe written by Chris Fowler and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 856 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Neolithic —a period in which the first sedentary agrarian communities were established across much of Europe—has been a key topic of archaeological research for over a century. However, the variety of evidence across Europe, the range of languages in which research is carried out, and the way research traditions in different countries have developed makes it very difficult for both students and specialists to gain an overview of continent-wide trends. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides the first comprehensive, geographically extensive, thematic overview of the European Neolithic —from Iberia to Russia and from Norway to Malta —offering both a general introduction and a clear exploration of key issues and current debates surrounding evidence and interpretation. Chapters written by leading experts in the field examine topics such as the movement of plants, animals, ideas, and people (including recent trends in the application of genetics and isotope analyses); cultural change (from the first appearance of farming to the first metal artefacts); domestic architecture; subsistence; material culture; monuments; and burial and other treatments of the dead. In doing so, the volume also considers the history of research and sets out agendas and themes for future work in the field.
Download or read book Something Out of the Ordinary Interpreting Diversity in the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik and Beyond written by Luc Amkreutz and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 7000 years ago, groups of early farmers (the Linearbandkeramik, or LBK) spread over vast areas of Europe. Their cultural characteristics comprised common choices and styles of execution, with a central meaning and functionality attached to ‘doing things a certain way’, over an enormous geographical area. However, recent evidence suggests that the reality was much more varied and diverse. The central question of this book is the extent to which notions of ‘uniformity’ and ‘diversity’ have caused a wider shift in archaeological perspective. Using the LBK case study as a starting point, the volume brings together contributions by international specialists tackling the notion of cultural diversity and its explanatory power in archaeological analysis more generally. Through discussions of the domestic architecture, stone tool inventory, pottery traditions, landscape use and burial traditions of the LBK, this book provides a crucial reappraisal of the culture’s potential for adaptability and change. Papers in the second part of the volume are devoted to archaeological case studies from around the globe in which the tension between diversity and uniformity has also proved controversial, including the Near Eastern Halaf culture, the North American Mississippian, the Pacific expansion of the Lapita culture, and the European Bell Beaker phenomenon. All provide exciting theoretical and methodological contributions on how the appreciation of cultural diversity as a whole can be moved forward. These papers expose diversity and uniformity as cultural strategies, and as such provide essential reading for scholars in archaeology and anthropology, and for anyone interested in the interplay between material culture and human social change.
Download or read book The Emergence of Pottery in West Asia written by Akiri Tsuneki and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past fifty years or so early pottery complexes in the wider region of West Asia have hardly ever been investigated in their own right. Early ceramics have often been unexpected by-products of projects focussing upon much earlier aceramic or later prehistoric periods. In recent years, however, there has been a tremendous increase in research in various parts of West Asia focusing explicitly on this theme. It had generally become accepted that the adoption of pottery in West Asia happened relatively late in the history of ceramics. Several regions are now believed to have developed pottery significantly earlier. Thus, pottery occurs in Eastern Russia, in China and Japan by 16,500 cal. BC and in north Africa it is known in the 10th millennium. However, while the East Asian examples in particular do mark chronologically earlier instances, the picture in West Asia is actually rather more complex, in part because of the tyranny of the Aceramic/Ceramic Neolithic chronology. For the first time, The Emergence of Pottery in West Asia examines in detail the when, where, how and why pottery first arrived in the region? A key insight that emerges is that we must not confuse the reasons for pottery adoption with the long-term consequences. Neolithic peoples in West Asia did not adopt pottery because of the many uses and functions it would gain many centuries later and the development of ceramic technology needs to be examined in the context of its original cultural and social milieu.
Download or read book Persistent Traditions written by Luc W.S.W. Amkreutz and published by Sidestone Press. This book was released on 2013-12-19 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The adoption of agriculture is one of the major developments in human history. Archaeological studies have demonstrated that the trajectories of Neolithisation in Northwest Europe were diverse. This book presents a study into the archaeology of the communities involved in the process of Neolithisation in the Lower Rhine Area (5500-2500 cal BC). It elucidates the role played by the indigenous communities in relation to their environmental context and in view of the changes that becoming Neolithic brought about. This work brings together a comprehensive array of excavated archaeological sites in the Lower Rhine Area. Their analysis shows that the succession of Late Mesolithic, Swifterbant culture, Hazendonk group and Vlaardingen culture societies represents a continuous long-term tradition of inhabitation of the wetlands and wetland margins of this area, forming a culturally continuous record of communities in the transition to agriculture. After demonstrating the diversity of the Mesolithic, the subsequent developments regarding Neolithisation are studied from an indigenous perspective. Foregrounding the relationship between local communities and the dynamic wetland landscape, the study shows that the archaeological evidence of regional inhabitation points to long-term flexible behaviour and pragmatic decisions being made concerning livelihood, food economy and mobility. This disposition also influenced how the novel elements of Neolithisation were incorporated. Animal husbandry, crop cultivation and sedentism were an addition to the existing broad spectrum economy but were incorporated within a set of integrative strategies. For the interpretation of Neolithisation this study offers a complementary approach to existing research. Instead of arguing for a short transition based on the economic importance of domesticates and cultigens at sites, this study emphasises the persistent traditions of the communities involved. New elements, instead of bringing about radical changes, are shown to be attuned to existing hunter-gatherer practices. By documenting indications of the mentalité of the inhabitants of the wetlands, it is demonstrated that their mindset remained essentially ‘Mesolithic’ for millennia. This book is accompanied by a separate 422 page volume containing the appendices. These constitute a comprehensive inventory of 159, mostly excavated archaeological sites in the Lower Rhine Area.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Anatolia Volume IV written by Sharon R. Steadman and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-13 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fourth volume in the Archaeology of Anatolia series offers reports on the most recent discoveries from across the Anatolian peninsula. Periods covered span the Epipalaeolithic to the Medieval Age, and sites and regions range from the western Anatolian coast to Van, and on to the southeast. The breadth and depth of work reported within these pages testifies to the contributors’ dedication and love of their work even during a global pandemic period. The volume includes reviews of recent work at on-going excavations and data retrieved from the last several years of survey projects. In addition, a “State of the Field” section offers up-to-the-moment data on specialized fields in Anatolian archaeology.
Download or read book Technology of the Ancient Near East written by Jill L. Baker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-10 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peoples of the distant past lived comfortably in cities that boasted well-conceived urban planning, monumental architecture, running water, artistic expression, knowledge of mathematics and medicine, and more. Without the benefits of modern technology, they enjoyed all the accoutrements of modern civilization. Technology of the Ancient Near East brings together in a single volume what is known about the technology behind these acheivements, based on the archaeological, textual, historic, and scientific data drawn from a wide range of sources, focusing on subjects such as warfare, construction, metallurgy, ceramics and glass, water management, and time keeping. These technologies are discussed within the cultural, historic, and socio-economic contexts within which they were invented and the book emphasises these as the foundation upon which modern technology is based. In so doing, this study elucidates the ingenuity of ancient minds, offering an invaluable introduction for students of ancient technology and science.
Download or read book Quaternary of the Levant written by Yehouda Enzel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over eighty contributions from leading researchers review 2.5 million years of environmental change and human cultural evolution in the Levant.
Download or read book The Pitted Ware Culture on Djursland written by Lutz Klassen and published by Aarhus Universitetsforlag. This book was released on 2020-03-12 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between ca. 3000 and 2800 BC, the Pitted Ware Culture of northeast European descent spread to the northeastern parts of Denmark. Here, by far the best archaeological evidence is known from the Djursland peninsula in eastern Jutland. This volume presents 12 individual papers that present the available finds from the key site of Kainsbakke as well as number of other excavated and not excavates sites. Besides artefacts, the faunal and botanical remains are dealt with in a comprehensive matter. Several papers are devoted to scientific analyses of chronology as well as the provenance of artefacts and selected faunal remains. On this basis, the Pitted Ware culture in Djursland is interpreted as a group that emerged locally from Funnel Beaker culture predecessors. This group choose to distinguish itself from its Funnel Beaker neighbours by giving itself a unique identity. This identity can be understood as a combination of Pitted Ware traits in material culture and ritual conduct obtained through close contact with Neolithic groups on the west coast of Sweden with elements derived from contemporaneous Funnel Beaker groups in other parts of Denmark.
Download or read book Concluding the Neolithic written by Arkadiusz Marciniak and published by Lockwood Press. This book was released on 2019-12-15 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second half of the seventh millennium BC saw the demise of the previously affluent and dynamic Neolithic way of life. The period is marked by significant social and economic transformations of local communities, as manifested in a new spatial organization, patterns of architecture, burial practices, and in chipped stone and pottery manufacture. This volume has three foci. The first concerns the character of these changes in different parts of the Near East with a view to placing them in a broader comparative perspective. The second concerns the social and ideological changes that took place at the end of Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic that help to explain the disintegration of constitutive principles binding the large centers, the emergence of a new social system, as well as the consequences of this process for the development of full-fledged farming communities in the region and beyond. The third concerns changes in lifeways: subsistence strategies, exploitation of the environment, and, in particular, modes of procurement, consumption, and distribution of different resources.
Download or read book 6000 BC written by Peter F. Biehl and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-05 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a comprehensive review of archaeological and environmental data between Syria and the Balkans around 6000 BC.
Download or read book Paths Towards a New World written by Mats Larsson and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the approximately 6,500 years from the beginning of the Late Mesolithic to the transition to the Bronze Age, Mats Larsson takes the reader on a journey through the development of Swedish prehistoric society and culture set against the backdrop of climatic and landscape change. Using examples selected from a wealth of archaeological sites, artefacts and palaeo-environmental studies he explores a series of chronological themes: such as how the relationship between land and water influenced people’s lives in many ways and the development of often long-distance cultural and exchange networks, as reflected in the occurrence of ‘foreign’ stone axes, flint, copper and pottery. He describes how innovations, such as the introduction of agriculture, spread rapidly during the Neolithic, incorporating characteristics of extensive northern European cultural groups, beginning with the Funnel Beaker Culture with its array of distinctive objects, settlements and burial monuments, while retaining some specific regional and local expressions in material culture. Later, certain characteristics of the Pitted Ware Culture, such as specific types of pottery decoration, were taken up in some areas while the emergence of some regional groups can be seen as a step in the ideological and social changes that led to what we today call the Battle Axe Culture. Towards the end of the Stone Age the battle axe was replaced by the dagger as a symbol of the male warrior as a more stable society emerged in many parts of the country, concentrated around large farms with longhouses. It was only at this late stage that agriculture and the raising of livestock gained a firm hold, and the landscape was opened up permanently.
Download or read book Eastern Mediterranean Port Cities written by Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-28 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys the historical development, current problems and likely prospects for Eastern Mediterranean port cities, providing contributions from scholars from various disciplines, such as archaeologists, historians, economists, urban planners and architects. By studying the city of Mersin and the surrounding area, it offers insights into the changing nature of Eastern Mediterranean port cities. The first part of the book discusses the approaches to the Mediterranean World, from the late prehistory to the present, and questions the implications of the values inherited from the past for a sustainable future. The second part then examines the social structure of Eastern Mediterranean port cities presenting an in-depth study of different ethnic groups and communities. In the third part the changing physical structure of these cities is elucidated from the perspectives of archaeology, architecture, and urban planning. The last part focuses on urban memory through a detailed study based on live recordings of original accounts by the local people. The book benefits prospective researchers in the field of Mediterranean studies, archaeology, history, economic history, architecture and urban planning.
Download or read book Prehistoric rock art in Scandinavia written by Courtney Nimura and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scandinavia is home to prolific and varied rock art images among which the ship motif is prominent. Because of this, the rock art of Scandinavia has often been interpreted in terms of social ritual, cosmology, and religion associated with the maritime sphere. This comprehensive review is based on the creation of a Scandinavia-wide GIS database for prehistoric rock art and reexamines theoretical approaches and interpretations, in particular with regard to the significance of the ship and its relationship to a maritime landscape Discussion focuses on material agency as a means to understanding the role of rock art within society. Two main theories are developed. The first is that the sea was fundamental to the purpose and meaning of rock art, especially in the Bronze Age and, therefore, that sea-level/shoreline changes would have inspired a renegotiation of the relationship between the rock art sites and their intended purpose. The fundamental question posed is: would such changes to the landscape have affected the purpose and meaning of rock art for the communities that made and used these sites? Various theories from within and outside of archaeology are drawn on to examine environmental change and analyze the rock art, led to second theory: that the purpose of rock art might have been altered to have an effect on the disappearing sea. The general theory that rock art would have been affected by environmental change was discussed in tandem with existing interpretations of the meaning and purpose of rock art. Imbuing rock art with agency means that it could be intertwined in an active web of relations involving maritime landscapes, shoreline displacement and communities. Though created in stone and fixed in time and place, rock art images have propagated belief systems that would have changed over time as they were re-carved, abandoned and used by different groups of inhabitants. In the thousands of years rock art was created, it is likely that shoreline displacement would have inspired a renegotiation of the purpose and meaning of the imagery situated alongside the Scandinavian seas. This journey through a prehistoric Scandinavian landscape will lead us into a world of ancient beliefs and traditions revolving around this extraordinary art form.
Download or read book Swifterbant Stones written by Izabel Devriendt and published by Barkhuis. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this research the stone and flint artefacts of the site Swifterbant are analysed. Attention is focussed on the Neolithic occupation phase of the prehistoric creek system (c. 4300 - 4000 cal BC) where archaeological traces were found on several levee and river dune sites. This study shows that there is a larger variability in site types than originally presumed. It is established that these sites are all part of one settlement system in which they all had a different function. This thesis comprises a monograph on the research history of the site and the different aspects of the lithic research such as typological analysis, technological attribute analysis, raw material analysis and use-wear analysis, in combination with a detailed inventory (catalogue). All this leads to new insights into the use of lithic artefacts. The importance of stone tool morphology, the selective gathering of stone tool blanks or the use of two different flint production sequences are but a few of these interesting aspects. Other topics concern tool function, mobility, raw material access and use, cultural markers and social identity. In combining the results from this research with that of other Swifterbant sites a better understanding of the different aspects of prehistoric stone and flint industries is gained.
Download or read book Swifterbant S4 the Netherlands written by D.C.M. Raemaekers and published by Barkhuis. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication presents the results of the 2005-2007 excavations at Swifterbant S4, carried out by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology. S4 is a well-preserved Neolithic wetland site (c. 4300-4000 cal. BC) located within the Swifterbant river system in the Netherlands. We present the landscape setting, the various finds categories and the spatial patterns with three research themes in mind. Theme 1 concerns the environmental setting, subsistence and site function. We conclude that the Swifterbant hunter-gatherer-farmers exploited a mosaic-type landscape. Theme 2 deals with developments in site function during the occupation and exploitation history of the site. This analysis leads to the observation that episodes of cultivation and settlement alternated at S4. Theme 3, the use of space, was difficult to study due to the fragmented nature of the excavation plan. This site monograph makes Swifterbant S4 the most comprehensively published site of the Swifterbant river system.