Download or read book The Death of Prehistory written by Peter R. Schmidt and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the eighteenth century, the concept of prehistory was exported by colonialism to far parts of the globe and applied to populations lacking written records. Prehistory in these settings came to represent primitive people still living in a state without civilization and its foremost index, literacy. Yet, many societies outside the Western world had developed complex methods of history making and documentation, including epic poetry and the use of physical and mental mnemonic devices. Even so, the deeply engrained concept of prehistory--deeply entrenched in European minds up to the beginning of the twenty-first century--continues to deny history and historical identify to peoples throughout the world. The fourteen essays, by notable archaeologists of the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia, provide authoritative examples of how the concept of prehistory has diminished histories of other cultures outside the West and how archaeologists can reclaim more inclusive histories set within the idiom of deep histories--accepting ancient pre-literate histories as an integral part of the flow of human history.
Download or read book The Death of Prehistory written by Peter R. Schmidt and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the eighteenth century, the concept of prehistory was exported by colonialism to far parts of the globe and applied to populations lacking written records. Prehistory in these settings came to represent primitive people still living in a state without civilization and its foremost index, literacy. Yet, many societies outside the Western world had developed complex methods of history making and documentation, including epic poetry and the use of physical and mental mnemonic devices. Even so, the deeply engrained concept of prehistory—deeply entrenched in European minds up to the beginning of the twenty-first century—continues to deny history and historical identify to peoples throughout the world. The fourteen essays, by notable archaeologists of the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia, provide authoritative examples of how the concept of prehistory has diminished histories of other cultures outside the West and how archaeologists can reclaim more inclusive histories set within the idiom of deep histories—accepting ancient pre-literate histories as an integral part of the flow of human history.
Download or read book Death Rituals and Social Order in the Ancient World written by Colin Renfrew and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, with essays by leading archaeologists and prehistorians, considers how prehistoric humans attempted to recognise, understand and conceptualise death.
Download or read book The Life and Death of Ancient Cities written by Greg Woolf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-08 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of the rise and collapse of Europe's first great urban experiment The growth of cities around the world in the last two centuries is the greatest episode in our urban history, but it is not the first. Three thousand years ago most of the Mediterranean basin was a world of villages; a world without money or writing, without temples for the gods or palaces for the mighty. Over the centuries that followed, however, cities appeared in many places around the Inland Sea, built by Greeks and Romans, and also by Etruscans and Phoenicians, Tartessians and Lycians, and many others. Most were tiny by modern standards, but they were the building blocks of all the states and empires of antiquity. The greatest--Athens and Corinth, Syracuse and Marseilles, Alexandria and Ephesus, Persepolis and Carthage, Rome and Byzantium--became the powerhouses of successive ancient societies, not just political centers but also the places where ancient art and literatures were created and accumulated. And then, half way through the first millennium, most withered away, leaving behind ruins that have fascinated so many who came after. Based on the most recent historical and archaeological evidence, The Life and Death of Ancient Cities provides a sweeping narrative of one of the world's first great urban experiments, from Bronze Age origins to the demise of cities in late antiquity. Greg Woolf chronicles the history of the ancient Mediterranean city, against the background of wider patterns of human evolution, and of the unforgiving environment in which they were built. Richly illustrated, the book vividly brings to life the abandoned remains of our ancient urban ancestors and serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of even the mightiest of cities.
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 The Archaeology of Death and Burial written by Mike Parker Pearson and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2021-09-03 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The archaeology of death and burial is central to our attempts to understand vanished societies. Through the remains of funerary rituals we can learn not only about the attitudes of prehistoric people to death and the afterlife, but also about their way of life, their social organisation and their view of the world. This ambitious book reviews the latest research in this huge and important field, and describes the sometimes controversial interpretations that have led to rapid advances in our understanding of life and death in the distant past. A unique overview and synthesis of one of the most revealing fields of research into the past, it covers archaeology's most breathtaking discoveries, from Tutankhamen to the Ice Man, and will find a keen market among archaeologists, historians and others who have a professional interest in, or general curiosity about, death and burial.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial written by Sarah Tarlow and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 921 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial reviews the current state of mortuary archaeology and its practice, highlighting its often contentious place in the modern socio-politics of archaeology. It contains forty-four chapters which focus on the history of the discipline and its current scientific techniques and methods. Written by leading, international scholars in the field, it derives its examples and case studies from a wide range of time periods, such as the middle palaeolithic to the twentieth century, and geographical areas which include Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia. Combining up-to-date knowledge of relevant archaeological research with critical assessments of the theme and an evaluation of future research trajectories, it draws attention to the social, symbolic, and theoretical aspects of interpreting mortuary archaeology. The volume is well-illustrated with maps, plans, photographs, and illustrations and is ideally suited for students and researchers.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Death written by Robert Chapman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1981-10-22 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together studies on the disposal of the dead and the archaeological research potential of found remains.
Download or read book Living with the Dead in the Andes written by Izumi Shimada and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2015-05-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Andean idea of death differs markedly from the Western view. In the Central Andes, particularly the highlands, death is not conceptually separated from life, nor is it viewed as a permanent state. People, animals, and plants simply transition from a soft, juicy, dynamic life to drier, more lasting states, like dry corn husks or mummified ancestors. Death is seen as an extension of vitality. Living with the Dead in the Andes considers recent research by archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, ethnographers, and ethnohistorians whose work reveals the diversity and complexity of the dead-living interaction. The book’s contributors reap the salient results of this new research to illuminate various conceptions and treatments of the dead: “bad” and “good” dead, mummified and preserved, the body represented by art or effigies, and personhood in material and symbolic terms. Death does not end or erase the emotional bonds established in life, and a comprehensive understanding of death requires consideration of the corpse, the soul, and the mourners. Lingering sentiment and memory of the departed seems as universal as death itself, yet often it is economic, social, and political agendas that influence the interactions between the dead and the living. Nine chapters written by scholars from diverse countries and fields offer data-rich case studies and innovative methodologies and approaches. Chapters include discussions on the archaeology of memory, archaeothanatology (analysis of the transformation of the entire corpse and associated remains), a historical analysis of postmortem ritual activities, and ethnosemantic-iconographic analysis of the living-dead relationship. This insightful book focuses on the broader concerns of life and death.
Download or read book Life And Death At Paloma written by Jeffrey Quilter and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2005-02-15 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gold, pomp, and circumstances surrounded the mummies of Inca emperors, but the elaborate funerary rites at the end of prehistory were only part of a tradition that began thousands of years earlier. Life and Death at Paloma, the first in-depth treatment of burials from a preagricultural South American village, analyzes the life of its people during a revolutionary time in prehistory: the transition from a hunting-gathering-fishing way of life to a more sedentary horticultural society. Drawing upon the data that he collected as part of the University of Missouri's excavations at Paloma, Jeffrey Quilter gives us the first study of preceramic Peruvian life through his analysis of this site's graves and contents. His extensively illustrated book is also the first attempt to infer social organization from such data for this period—circa 5000 to 2500 B.C.—in Peru. In addition, he presents the only available summary and discussion of the known preceramic interments from western South America. Coastal Peru is one of the few New World regions where the early development of complex societies can be studied. Life and Death at Paloma will greatly assist such research by specialists in mortuary studies, in Andean prehistory, and in hunter-gatherer societies.
Download or read book Children Death and Burial written by Eileen Murphy and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2017-08-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children, Death and Burials assembles a panorama of studies with a focus on juvenile burials; the 16 papers have a wide geographic and temporal breadth and represent a range of methodological approaches. All have a similar objective in mind, however, namely to understand how children were treated in death by different cultures in the past; to gain insights concerning the roles of children of different ages in their respective societies and to find evidence of the nature of past adult–child relationships and interactions across the life course. The contextualisation and integration of the data collected, both in the field and in the laboratory, enables more nuanced understandings to be gained in relation to the experiences of the young in the past. A broad range of issues are addressed within the volume, including the inclusion/exclusion of children in particular burial environments and the impact of age in relation to the place of children in society. Child burials clearly embody identity and ‘the domestic child’, ‘the vulnerable child’, ‘the high status child’, ‘the cherished child’, ‘the potential child’, ‘the ritual child’ and the ‘political child’, and combinations thereof, are evident throughout the narratives. Investigation of the burial practices afforded to children is pivotal to enlightenment in relation to key facets of past life, including the emotional responses shown towards children during life and in death, as well as an understanding of their place within the social strata and ritual activities of their societies. An important new collection of papers by leading researchers in funerary archaeology, examining the particular treatment of juvenile burials in the past. In particular focuses on the expression of varying status and identity of children in the funerary archaeological record as a key to understanding the place of children in different societies.
Download or read book The Public Archaeology of Death written by Howard Williams and published by Equinox Publishing (UK). This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword / Jodie Lewis -- Dead relevant : introducing the public archaeology of death / Howard Williams -- The St Patrick's Chapel excavation project : public engagement with the rescue excavation of an early medieval cemetery in south west Wales / Marion Shiner, Katie A. Hemer and Rhiannon Comeau -- Death's diversity : the case of Llangollen Museum / Suzanne Evans and Howard Williams -- Displaying the deviant : Sutton Hoo's Sand people / Madeline Walsh and Howard Williams -- Grave expectations : burial posture in popular and museum representations / Sian Mui -- Photographing the dead : images in public mortuary archaeology / Chiara Bolchini -- Death on canvas : artistic reconstructions in Viking age mortuary archaeology / Leszek Gardeła -- Envisioning cremation : art and archaeology / Aaron Watson and Howard Williams -- Controversy surrounding human remains from the First World War / Sam Munsch -- Here lies "ZOMBIESLAYER2000", may he rest in pieces : mortuary archaeology in MMOS, MMORPGS, and MOBAS / Rachael Nicholson -- Death's drama : mortuary practice in Vikings season 1-4 / Howard Williams -- Afterword / Karina Croucher
Download or read book A History of Death in 17th Century England written by Ben Norman and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-11-13 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the constant confrontation with mortality the English experienced in a time of plague, smallpox, civil war, and other calamities. In the lives of the rich and poor alike in seventeenth-century England, death was a hovering presence, much more visible in everyday existence than it is today. It is a highly important and surprisingly captivating part of the epic story of England during the turbulent years of the 1600s. This book guides readers through the subject using a chronological approach, as would have been experienced by those living in the country at the time, beginning with the myriad causes of death, including rampant disease, war, and capital punishment, and finishing with an exploration of posthumous commemoration, including mass interments in times of disease, the burial of suicides, and the unconventional laying to rest of English Catholics. Although the people of the seventeenth century did not fully realize it, when it came to the confrontation of mortality they were living in wildly changing times.
Download or read book Transformation Through Destruction written by David R. Fontijn and published by Sidestone Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over a 1000 tiny bronze artefacts were found alongside the remains of a man in a Dutch barrow that was excavated in laboratory conditions. The objects had been dismantled and taken apart, all to be destroyed by fire in what appears to have been a pars pro toto burial. In essence, a person and a place were being transformed through destruction. Based on the meticulous excavation and a range of specialist and comprehensive studies of finds, a prehistoric burial ritual now can be brought to life in surprising detail. This Iron Age community used extraordinary objects that find their closest counterpart in the elite graves of the Hallstatt culture in Central Europe.
Download or read book Flag Fen written by Francis Pryor and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Francis Pryor has been working at the late Bronze Age site of Flag Fen, near Peterborough, for over thirty years and, during that time, it has emerged as one of the most important and most understood prehistoric landscapes in Britain.
Download or read book Staging Death written by Anastasia Dakouri-Hild and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Places are social, lived, ideational landscapes constructed by people as they inhabit their natural and built environment. An ‘archaeology of place’ attempts to move beyond the understanding of the landscape as inert background or static fossil of human behaviour. From a specifically mortuary perspective, this approach entails a focus on the inherently mutable, transient and performative qualities of 'deathscapes': how they are remembered, obliterated, forgotten, reworked, or revisited over time. Despite latent interest in this line of enquiry, few studies have explored the topic explicitly in Aegean archaeology. This book aims to identify ways in which to think about the deathscape as a cross between landscapes, tombs, bodies, and identities, supplementing and expanding upon well explored themes in the field (e.g. tombs as vehicles for the legitimization of power; funerary landscapes as arenas of social and political competition). The volume recasts a wealth of knowledge about Aegean mortuary cultures against a theoretical background, bringing the field up to date with recent developments in the archaeology of place.
Download or read book The Young Oxford Book of the Prehistoric World written by Jill Bailey and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000-12-14 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prehistoric life presented in order of geological epochs.
