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By Subject: Archaeology

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• eBook available August 2013

  About the Hearth

  Perspectives on the Home, Hearth and Household in the Circumpolar North

  Anderson, D. G., Wishart, R. P., & Vaté, V. (eds)

  Due to changing climates and demographics, questions of policy in the circumpolar north have focused attention on the very structures that people call home. Dwellings lie at the heart of many forms of negotiation. Based on years of in-depth research, this book presents and analyzes how the people of the circumpolar regions conceive, build, memorialize, and live in their dwellings. This book seeks to set a new standard for interdisciplinary work within the humanities and social sciences and includes anthropological work on vernacular architecture, environmental anthropology, household archaeology and demographics.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Archaeology Museum Studies Heritage Studies

• eBook available March 2021

  Agent of Change

  The Deposition and Manipulation of Ash in the Past

  Roth, B. J. & Adams, E. C. (eds)

  Ash is an important and yet understudied aspect of ritual deposition in the archaeological record of North America. Ash has been found in a wide variety of contexts across many regions and often it is associated with rare or unusual objects or in contexts that suggest its use in the transition or transformation of houses and ritual features. Drawn from across the U.S. and Mesoamerica, the chapters in this volume explore the use, meanings, and cross-cultural patterns present in the use of ash. and highlight the importance of ash in ritual closure, social memory, and cultural transformation.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General) Anthropology of Religion

• eBook available June 2018

  Archaeogaming

  An Introduction to Archaeology in and of Video Games

  Reinhard, A.

  Video games exemplify contemporary material objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture. Video games also serve as archaeological sites in the traditional sense as a place, in which evidence of past activity is preserved and has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology, and which represents a part of the archaeological record. This book serves as a general introduction to "archaeogaming"; it describes the intersection of archaeology and video games and applies archaeological method and theory into understanding game-spaces as both site and artifact.

  Subjects: Archaeology Media Studies Heritage Studies Anthropology (General)

• eBook available January 2018

  Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation

  Between Text and Practice

  Hausmair, B., Jervis, B., Nugent, R., & Williams, E. (eds)

  How can we study the impact of rules on the lives of past people using archaeological evidence? To answer this question, Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation presents case studies drawn from across Europe and the United States. Covering areas as diverse as the use of space in a nineteenth-century U.S. Army camp, the deposition of waste in medieval towns, the experiences of Swedish migrants to North America, the relationship between people and animals in Anglo-Saxon England, these case studies explore the use of archaeological evidence in understanding the relationship between rules, lived experience, and social identity.

  Subjects: Archaeology History: Medieval/Early Modern Sociology History (General)

• March 2002

  The Archaeology of Tribal Societies

  Parkinson, W. A. (ed)

  Anthropological archaeologists have long attempted to develop models that will let them better understand the evolution of human social organization. In our search to understand how chiefdoms and states evolve, and how those societies differ from egalitarian 'bands', we have neglected to develop models that will aid the understanding of the wide range of variability that exists between them. This volume attempts to fill this gap by exploring social organization in tribal - or 'autonomous village' - societies from several different ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological contexts - from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period in the Near East to the contemporary Jivaro of Amazonia.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

• eBook available December 2019

  An Archaeology of Unchecked Capitalism

  From the American Rust Belt to the Developing World

  Shackel, P. A.

  The racialization of immigrant labor and the labor strife in the coal and textile communities in northeastern Pennsylvania appears to be an isolated incident in history. Rather this history can serve as a touchstone, connecting the history of the exploited laborers to today’s labor in the global economy. By drawing parallels between the past and present – for example, the coal mines of the nineteenth-century northeastern Pennsylvania and the sweatshops of the twenty-first century in Bangladesh – we can have difficult conversations about the past and advance our commitment to address social justice issues.

  Subjects: Archaeology History (General) Political and Economic Anthropology

• June 2008

  Archives, Ancestors, Practices

  Archaeology in the Light of its History

  Schlanger, N. & Nordbladh, J. (eds)

  In line with the resurgence of interest in the history of archaeology manifested over the past decade, this volume aims to highlight state-of-the art research across several topics and areas, and to stimulate new approaches and studies in the field. With their shared historiographical commitment, the authors, leading scholars and emerging researchers, draw from a wide range of case studies to address major themes such as historical sources and methods; questions of archaeological practices and the practical aspects of knowledge production; ‘visualizing archaeology’ and the multiple roles of iconography and imagery; and ‘questions of identity’ at local, national and international levels.

  Subjects: Archaeology History (General) Heritage Studies

• eBook available February 2019

  At Home on the Waves

  Human Habitation of the Sea from the Mesolithic to Today

  King, T. J. & Robinson, G. (eds)

  Contemporary public discourses about the ocean are routinely characterized by scientific and environmentalist narratives that imagine and idealize marine spaces in which humans are absent. In contrast, this collection explores the variety of ways in which people have long made themselves at home at sea, and continue to live intimately with it. In doing so, it brings together both ethnographic and archaeological research – much of it with an explicit Ingoldian approach – on a wide range of geographical areas and historical periods.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Archaeology Environmental Studies (General)

• April 2012

  The Benefit of the Gift

  Social Organization and Expanding Networks of Interaction in the Western Great Lakes Archaic

  Hill, M. A.

  Archaeological data from the Late Archaic (4000-2000 years ago) in the Western Great Lakes are analyzed to understand the production and movement of copper and lithic exchange materials. Also considered in this volume are access to and benefits from exchange networks, as well as social changes accompanying the development of extensive, continental scale, exchange systems of interaction in this period.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

• eBook available August 2020

  Blurring Timescapes, Subverting Erasure

  Remembering Ghosts on the Margins of History

  Surface-Evans, S., Garrison, A. E. & Supernant, K. (eds)

  What happens when we blur time and allow ourselves to haunt or to become haunted by ghosts of the past? Drawing on archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data, Blurring Timescapes, Subverting Erasure demonstrates the value of conceiving of ghosts not just as metaphors, but as mechanisms for making the past more concrete and allowing the negative specters of enduring historical legacies, such as colonialism and capitalism, to be exorcised.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General) Memory Studies Heritage Studies

• eBook available November 2019

  Born a Slave, Died a Pioneer

  Nathan Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend

  Mallios, S.

  Few people in the history of the United States embody ideals of the American Dream more than Nathan Harrison. His is a story with prominent themes of overcoming staggering obstacles, forging something-from-nothing, and evincing gritty perseverance. In a lifetime of hard-won progress, Harrison survived the horrors of slavery in the Antebellum South, endured the mania of the California Gold Rush, and prospered in the rugged chaos of the Wild West. This book uses spectacular recent discoveries from the Nathan Harrison cabin site to offer new insights and perspectives into this most American biography.

  Subjects: Archaeology Heritage Studies History (General) Anthropology (General)

• eBook available October 2020

  Captives, Colonists and Craftspeople

  Material Culture and Institutional Power in Malta, 1600–1900

  Palmer, R.

  Over the course of four centuries, the island of Malta underwent several significant political transformations, including its roles as a Catholic bastion under the Knights of St. John between 1530 and 1798, and as a British maritime hub in the nineteenth century. This innovative study draws on both archival evidence and archeological findings to compare slavery and coerced labor, resource control, globalization, and other historical phenomena in Malta under the two regimes: one feudal, the other colonial. Spanning conventional divides between the early and late modern eras, Russell Palmer offers here a rich analysis of a Mediterranean island against a background of immense European and global change.

  Subjects: Colonial History Archaeology

• eBook available September 2011

  Civilizations Beyond Earth

  Extraterrestrial Life and Society

  Vakoch, D. A. & Harrison, A. A. (eds)

  Astronomers around the world are pointing their telescopes toward the heavens, searching for signs of intelligent life. If they make contact with an advanced alien civilization, how will humankind respond? In thinking about first contact, the contributors to this volume present new empirical and theoretical research on the societal dimensions of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Archaeologists and astronomers explore the likelihood that extraterrestrial intelligence exists, using scientific insights to estimate such elusive factors as the longevity of technological societies. Sociologists present the latest findings of novel surveys, tapping into the public’s attitudes about life beyond Earth to show how religion and education influence beliefs about extraterrestrials. Scholars from such diverse disciplines as mathematics, chemistry, journalism, and religious studies offer innovative solutions for bridging the cultural gap between human and extraterrestrial civilizations, while recognizing the tremendous challenges of communicating at interstellar distances. At a time when new planets are being discovered around other stars at an unprecedented rate, this collection provides a much needed guide to the human impact of discovering we are not alone in the universe.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Sociology Archaeology

• eBook available June 2020

  Communities and Place

  A Thematic Approach to the Histories of LGBTQ Communities in the United States

  Crawford-Lackey, K. & Springate, M. E. (eds)

  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have established gathering spaces to find acceptance, form social networks, and unify to resist oppression. Framing the emergence of queer enclaves in reference to place, this volume explores the physical and symbolic spaces of LGBTQ Americans. Authors provide an overview of the concept of “place” and its role in informing identity formation and community building. The book also includes interactive project prompts, providing opportunities to practically apply topics and theories discussed in the chapters.

  Subjects: Archaeology Heritage Studies

• August 2018

  Communities, Landscapes, and Interaction in Neolithic Greece

  Sarris, A., Kalogiropoulou, E., Kalayci, T., & Karimali, E. (eds)

  The last three decades have witnessed a period of growing archaeological activity in Greece that have enhanced our awareness of the diversity and variability of ancient communities. New sites offer rich datasets from many aspects of material culture that challenge traditional perceptions and suggest complex interpretations of the past. This volume provides a synthetic overview of recent developments in the study of Neolithic Greece and reconsiders the dynamics of human-environment interactions while recording the growing diversity in layers of social organization. It fills an essential lacuna in contemporary literature and enhances our understanding of the Neolithic communities in the Greek Peninsula.

  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available February 2020

  Cultural Resource Management

  A Collaborative Primer for Archaeologists

  King, T. F. (ed)

  Stressing the interdisciplinary, public-policy oriented character of Cultural Resource Management (CRM), which is not merely “applied archaeology,” this short, relatively uncomplicated introduction is aimed at emerging archaeologists. Drawing on fifty-plus years’ experience, and augmented by the advice of fourteen collaborators, Cultural Resource Management explains what “CRM archaeologists” do, and explores the public policy, ethical, and pragmatic implications of doing it for a living.

  Subjects: Archaeology Heritage Studies

• April 2003

  Discerning Palates of the Past

  An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Crop Cultivation and Plant Usage in India

  Reddy, S. N.

  This book analyzes the agricultural and pastoral infrastructure of the Mature and Late Harappan cultures (ca. 2500-1700 BC) of northwest India. The economic role of drought-resistant millet crops is reconstructed using ethnographic studies of crop processing, palaeoethnobotany, and carbon isotope analysis. Reddy reveals that simply recovering crop seeds from archaeological contexts does not confirm local crop cultivation, and she suggests that agricultural production of millet crops for human food and for animal fodder may have been economically interwoven in the Harappan civilization. New directions are provided for discerning archaeologically how pastoralism and agriculture may be integrated in complex economic systems.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

• December 1992

  The Dutch Hunebedden

  Megalithic Tombs of the Funnel Beaker Culture

  Bakker, J. A.

  Hunebedden are the megalithic tombs of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture in the Netherlands. Jan Albert Bakker is one of the few archaeologists in Holland to have excavated a Dutch megalithic tomb, and here he not only draws on and presents the knowledge acquired through excavations, but gives also an overview of the history of Dutch megalithic tomb investigations and an abundantly illustrated compendium of data on all the known megalithic tombs in Holland.

  Subject: Archaeology

• March 1996

  Emergent Complexity

  The Evolution of Intermediate Societies

  Arnold, J. E.

  Serious interest in the evolution and dynamics of intermediate societies has grown by leaps and bounds during the past decade. The purpose of this volume is to suggest new ways to model the many stimuli and processes by which cultural complexity emerges, emphasizing major organizational changes, not the appearance and disappearance of specific traits. All contributors share the view that it is time to fundamentally reconsider a variety of ideas about the emergence of complex organization. Their chapters present data from a broad range of case studies, including the Northwest Coast and British Columbia Plateau, California, the Plains, the Mississippian Southeast, the American Southwest, Spain, and Northern Europe.

  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available July 2020

  An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology

  Raising the Dead with Agent-Based Models, Archaeogaming and Artificial Intelligence

  Graham, S.

  The use of computation in archaeology is a kind of magic, a way of heightening the archaeological imagination. Agent-based modelling allows archaeologists to test the ‘just-so’ stories they tell about the past. It requires a formalization of the story so that it can be represented as a simulation; researchers are then able to explore the unintended consequences or emergent outcomes of stories about the past. Agent-based models are one end of a spectrum that, at the opposite side, ends with video games. This volume explores this spectrum in the context of Roman archaeology, addressing the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of a formalized approach to computation and archaeogaming.

  Subjects: Archaeology Media Studies Heritage Studies Anthropology (General)

• January 2001

  Ethnoarchaeology of Andean South America

  Contributions to Archaeological Method and Theory

  Kuznar, L. A. (ed)

  Andean South America offers significant anthropological insights into highland and arid zone adaptations, including pastoralist economy and ecology, settlement patterns, site formation processes, tool manufacture, and the cultural meanings of landscapes. The papers in this volume present detailed studies of highland and lowland pastoralists and horticulturalists, taphonomy, and sacred landscapes. The epistomological foundations of ethnoarchaeology, archaeological uses of ethnoarchaeology, and the relationship between environment and culture are key theoretical themes. This volume will be of use to anyone who studies human adaptations to highland or arid environments, and to those interested in pastoral societies, as well as Andean South America.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

• October 2019

  Experiencing Archaeology

  A Laboratory Manual of Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Minilabs for Introductory Archaeology

  Homsey-Messer, L., Michaud, T., Lockard Reed, A., & Bobo, V.

  This unique workbook provides the opportunity for students to complete a variety of labs using items found on hand. It is perfectly suited for teaching beyond the traditional classroom, in remote learning environments and with large class sizes.

  From creating complex stratigraphy with piles of clothes, to illustrating optimal forging theory with nothing more than a handful of coins, as well as activities based on writing, drawing, and provided cutout sheets, there are many ways to use this book for online 'at home' lab classes.

  Today, many general-education archaeology courses are large, lecture-style class formats that present a challenge to providing students, particularly non-majors, with opportunities to learn experientially. This laboratory-style manual compiles a wide variety of uniquely designed, hands-on classroom activities to acquaint advanced high school and introductory college students to the field of archaeology. Ranging in length from five to thirty minutes, activities created by archaeologists are designed to break up traditional classroom lectures, engage students of all learning styles, and easily integrate into large classes and/or short class periods that do not easily accommodate traditional laboratory work.

  Subject: Archaeology

• October 2019

  Experiencing Archaeology

  A Laboratory Manual of Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Minilabs for Introductory Archaeology, Instructor's Edition

  Homsey-Messer, L., Michaud, T., Lockard Reed, A., & Bobo, V.

  This unique workbook provides the opportunity for students to complete a variety of labs using items found on hand. It is perfectly suited for teaching beyond the traditional classroom, in remote learning environments and with large class sizes.

  From creating complex stratigraphy with piles of clothes, to illustrating optimal forging theory with nothing more than a handful of coins, as well as activities based on writing, drawing, and provided cutout sheets, there are many ways to use this book for online 'at home' lab classes.

  Today, many general-education archaeology courses are large, lecture-style class formats that present a challenge to providing students, particularly non-majors, with opportunities to learn experientially. This laboratory-style manual compiles a wide variety of uniquely designed, hands-on classroom activities to acquaint advanced high school and introductory college students to the field of archaeology. This Instructor's Edition provides detailed explanations for activities ranging in length from five to thirty minutes that are designed to break up traditional classroom lecture, and easily integrate into large classes and/or short class periods that do not easily accommodate traditional laboratory work.

  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available March 2012

  Extreme Collecting

  Challenging Practices for 21st Century Museums

  Were, G. & King, J. C. H. (eds)

  By exploring the processes of collecting, which challenge the bounds of normally acceptable practice, this book debates the practice of collecting ‘difficult’ objects, from a historical and contemporary perspective; and discusses the acquisition of objects related to war and genocide, and those purchased from the internet, as well as considering human remains, mass produced objects and illicitly traded antiquities. The aim is to apply a critical approach to the rigidity of museums in maintaining essentially nineteenth-century ideas of collecting; and to move towards identifying priorities for collection policies in museums, which are inclusive of acquiring ‘difficult’ objects. Much of the book engages with the question of the limits to the practice of collecting as a means to think through the implementation of new strategies.

  Subjects: Museum Studies Archaeology

• December 1999

  Folsom Lithic Technology

  Explorations in Structure and Variation

  Amick, D. S. (ed)

  This book offers a series of studies focused on the analysis of stone tool technology of the Folsom Culture. The analyses presented here use comparative methods to identify patterns of lithic assemblage structure and variation that provide insights into the organization of Folsom technology and lifeways, considering multiple aspects of Folsom technology including: tool manufacture and reduction system modeling, studies of raw material variation, use-wear, technological variation in weaponry assemblages, and the organization of technology. They thus contribute substantially to a growing understanding of the patterns and processes in Folsom technology and the causes of diversity within Folsom lithic assemblages.

  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available January 2017

  Food Research

  Nutritional Anthropology and Archaeological Methods

  Chrzan, J. & Brett, J. (eds)

  Biocultural and archaeological research on food, past and present, often relies on very specific, precise, methods for data collection and analysis. These are presented here in a broad-based review. Individual chapters provide opportunities to think through the adoption of methods by reviewing the history of their use along with a discussion of research conducted using those methods. A case study from the author's own work is included in each chapter to illustrate why the methods were adopted in that particular case along with abundant additional resources to further develop and explore those methods.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Food & Nutrition Archaeology

• eBook available September 2020

  Going Forward by Looking Back

  Archaeological Perspectives on Socio-Ecological Crisis, Response, and Collapse

  Riede, F. & Sheets, P. (eds)

  Catastrophes are on the rise due to climate change, as is their toll in terms of lives and livelihoods as world populations rise and people settle into hazardous places. While disaster response and management are traditionally seen as the domain of the natural and technical sciences, awareness of the importance and role of cultural adaptation is essential. This book catalogues a wide and diverse range of case studies of such disasters and human responses. This serves as inspiration for building culturally sensitive adaptations to present and future calamities, to mitigate their impact, and facilitate recoveries.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General) Environmental Studies (General) Applied Anthropology

• eBook available November 2020

  The Helmand Baluch

  A Native Ethnography of the People of Southwest Afghanistan

  Amiri, G. R.

  In the 1970s, in his capacity as government representative from the Afghan Institute of Archaeology, Ghulam Rahman Amiri accompanied a joint Afghan-US archaeological mission to the Sistan region of southwest Afghanistan. The results of his work were published in Farsi as a descriptive ethnographic monograph. The Helmand Baluch is the first English translation of Amiri’s extraordinary encounters. This rich ethnography describes the cultural, political, and economic systems of the Baluch people living in the lower Helmand River Valley of Afghanistan. It is an area that has received little study since the early 20th Century, yet is a region with a remarkable history in one of the most volatile territories in the world.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Archaeology

• eBook available September 2017

  House of the Waterlily

  A Novel of the Ancient Maya World

  Carmean, K.

  Set in the Maya civilization’s Late Classic Period House of the Waterlily is a historical novel centered on Lady Winik, a young Maya royal. Through tribulations that mirror the political calamities of the Late Classic world, Winik’s personal story immerses the reader not only in her daily life, but also in the difficult decisions Maya men and women must have faced as they tried to navigate a rapidly changing world. Kelli Carmean’s novel brings to life a people and an era remote from our own, yet recognizably human all the same.

  Subjects: Archaeology Literary Studies Memory Studies Anthropology (General)

• July 2006

  Household Archaeology on the Northwest Coast

  Sobel, E. A., Gahr, D. A. T., & Ames, K. A. (eds)

  Since the late 1970s, household archaeology has become a key theoretical and methodological framework for research on the development of permanent social inequality and complexity, as well as for understanding the social, political and economic organization of chiefdoms and states. This volume is the cumulative result of more than a decade of research focusing on household archaeology as a means to gain understanding of the evolution of social complexity, regardless of underlying economy.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

• December 1993

  Human Adaptation at Grasshopper Pueblo, Arizona

  Social and Ecological Perspectives

  Ezzo, J. A.

  A detailed study of the bone chemistry of individuals buried at the 14th century Grasshopper Pueblo site is presented in this volume. A wide range of elements were measured from these skeletons as indicators of diet, stress, and nutrition; these elements were related to parameters of age, sex, social differences, space, time, environmental change, and possible resource depletion. The major relationships were found to be with sex, space, and time, with significant changes in male and female diets over time, but also with patterned spatial differences in burials, suggesting household differences in access to food. This is a data-rich study which provides much information for social and economic reconstructions of prehistoric Pueblo adaptation to their environment.

  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available December 2010

  Human Diet and Nutrition in Biocultural Perspective

  Past Meets Present

  Moffat, T. & Prowse, T. (eds)

  There are not many areas that are more rooted in both the biological and social-cultural aspects of humankind than diet and nutrition. Throughout human history nutrition has been shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces, and in turn, access to food and nutrition has altered the course and direction of human societies. Using a biocultural approach, the contributors to this volume investigate the ways in which food is both an essential resource fundamental to human health and an expression of human culture and society. The chapters deal with aspects of diet and human nutrition through space and time and span prehistoric, historic, and contemporary societies spread over various geographical regions, including Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia to highlight how biology and culture are inextricably linked.

  Subjects: Food & Nutrition Anthropology (General) Archaeology

• eBook available November 2019

  Identities and Place

  Changing Labels and Intersectional Communities of LGBTQ and Two-Spirit People in the United States

  Crawford-Lackey, K. & Springate, M. E. (eds)

  With a focus on historic sites, this volume explores the recent history of non- heteronormative Americans from the early twentieth century onward and the places associated with these communities. Authors explore how queer identities are connected with specific places: places where people gather, socialize, protest, mourn, and celebrate. The focus is deeper look at how sexually variant and gender non-conforming Americans constructed identity, created communities, and fought to have rights recognized by the government. Each chapter is accompanied by prompts and activities that invite readers to think critically and immerse themselves in the subject matter while working collaboratively with others.

  Subjects: Archaeology Heritage Studies

• January 2001

  In the Mind's Eye

  Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Evolution of Human Cognition

  Nowell, A. (ed)

  The last decade has witnessed a sophistication and proliferation in the number of studies focused on the evolution of human cognition, reflecting a renewed interest in the evolution of the human mind in anthropology and in many other disciplines. The complexity and enormity of this topic requires the coordinated efforts of many researchers. This volume brings together the disciplines of palaeontology, psychology, anatomy, and primatology. Together, they address a number of issues, including the evolution of sex differences in spatial cognition, the role of archaeology in the cognitive sciences, the relationships between brain size, cranial reorganization and hominid cognition, and the role of language and information processing in human evolution.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

• eBook available June 2019

  Invisible Founders

  How Two Centuries of African American Families Transformed a Plantation into a College

  Rainville, L.

  Literal and metaphorical excavations at Sweet Briar College reveal how African American labor enabled the transformation of Sweet Briar Plantation into a private women’s college in 1906. This volume tells the story of the invisible founders of a college founded by and for white women. Despite being built and maintained by African American families, the college did not integrate its student body for sixty years after it opened. In the process, Invisible Founders challenges our ideas of what a college “founder” is, restoring African American narratives to their deserved and central place in the story of a single institution — one that serves as a microcosm of the American South.

  Subjects: Archaeology History (General) Educational Studies Heritage Studies

• December 1996

  The Iron Gates Mesolithic

  Radovanovic, I.

  The Mesolithic sites in the Iron Gates Gorge of the Danube River, between Yugoslavia and Romania are reviewed in this volume. The important sites of Lepenski Vir, Vlasac, Padina, and Hajducka Vodenica are among the many covered in this comprehensive work. The author offers fundamental re-analyses and interpretations of stratigraphies, relative and absolute chronologies, architecture and settlement organization, the placement and styles of altars and sculptural elements, the chipped and polished stone industries, the bone and antler artifacts, the mortuary practices, ecology, and social organization of this remarkable archaeological culture. All of these materials, analyses, and interpretations are ultimately placed both within their broader, European archaeological context, and in an explicit theoretical framework.

  Subject: Archaeology

• January 2018

  Island Historical Ecology

  Socionatural Landscapes of the Eastern and Southern Caribbean

  Siegel, P. (ed)

  In the first book-length treatise on historical ecology of the West Indies, Island Historical Ecology addresses Caribbean island ecologies from the perspective of social and cultural interventions over approximately eight millennia of human occupations. Environmental coring carried out in carefully selected wetlands allowed for the reconstruction of pre-colonial and colonial landscapes on islands between Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Comparisons with well-documented patterns in the Mediterranean and Pacific islands place this case study into a larger context of island historical ecology.

  Subjects: Archaeology Environmental Studies (General) Anthropology (General)

• December 1993

  Islands in the Interior

  The Dynamics of Prehistoric Adaptations Within the Arid Zone of Australia

  Veth, P. M.

  In this book, Veth develops a model of settlement and subsistence in the Western Desert of Australia, drawing on his own archaeological investigations, as well as ethnographic and environmental data. Building on this model, he concludes with a plausible reconstruction of the colonization of the harsh, arid interior of this continent.

  Subject: Archaeology

• June 2011

  The Lives of Chinese Objects

  Buddhism, Imperialism and Display

  Tythacott, L.

  This is the biography of a set of rare Buddhist statues from China. Their extraordinary adventures take them from the Buddhist temples of fifteenth-century Putuo – China’s most important pilgrimage island – to their seizure by a British soldier in the First Opium War in the early 1840s, and on to a starring role in the Great Exhibition of 1851. In the 1850s, they moved in and out of dealers’ and antiquarian collections, arriving in 1867 at Liverpool Museum. Here they were re-conceptualized as specimens of the ‘Mongolian race’ and, later, as examples of Oriental art. The statues escaped the bombing of the Museum during the Second World War and lived out their existence for the next sixty years, dismembered, corroding and neglected in the stores, their histories lost and origins unknown.

  As the curator of Asian collections at Liverpool Museum, the author became fascinated by these bronzes, and selected them for display in the Buddhism section of the World Cultures gallery. In 2005, quite by chance, the discovery of a lithograph of the figures on prominent display in the Great Exhibition enabled the remarkable lives of these statues to be reconstructed.

  Subjects: Museum Studies History (General) Archaeology

• eBook available April 2019

  Magical House Protection

  The Archaeology of Counter-Witchcraft

  Hoggard, B.

  Belief in magic and particularly the power of witchcraft was once a deep and enduring presence in popular culture; people created and concealed many objects to protect themselves from harmful magic. Detailed are the principal forms of magical house protection in Britain and beyond from the fourteenth century to the present day. Witch-bottles, dried cats, horse skulls, written charms, protection marks and concealed shoes were all used widely as methods of repelling, diverting or trapping negative energies. Many of these practices and symbols can be found around the globe, demonstrating the universal nature of efforts by people to protect themselves from witchcraft.

  Subjects: Archaeology History (General) Anthropology of Religion

• eBook available April 2021

  Making Scenes

  Global Perspectives on Scenes in Rock Art

  Davidson, I. & Nowell, A. (eds)

  Dating back to at least 50,000 years ago, rock art is one of the oldest forms of human symbolic expression. Geographically, it spans all the continents on Earth. Scenes are common in some rock art, and recent work suggests that there are some hints of expression that looks like some of the conventions of western scenic art. In this unique volume examining the nature of scenes in rock art, researchers examine what defines a scene, what are the necessary elements of a scene, and what can the evolutionary history tell us about storytelling, sequential memory, and cognitive evolution among ancient and living cultures?

  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available November 2018

  The Man Who Invented Aztec Crystal Skulls

  The Adventures of Eugène Boban

  MacLaren Walsh, J. & Topping, B.

  Eugène Boban began life in humble circumstances in Paris, traveled to the California Gold Rush, and later became a recognized authority on pre-Columbian cultures.  He also invented an entire category of archaeological artifact: the Aztec crystal skull. By his own admission, he successfully “palmed off” a number of these crystal skulls on the curators of Europe’s leading museums. How could that happen, and who was this man? Detailed are the travels, self-education, and archaeological explorations of Eugène Boban; this book also explores the circumstances that allowed him to sell fakes to museums that would remain undetected for over a century.

  Subjects: Museum Studies Archaeology

• January 2003

  Migration Control in the North-atlantic World

  The Evolution of State Practices in Europe and the United States from the French Revolution to the Inter-War Period

  Fahrmeir, A., Faron, O. & Weil, P. (eds)

  The migration movements of the 20th century have led to an increased interest in similarly dramatic population changes in the preceding century. The contributors to this volume - legal scholars, sociologists, political scientist and historians - focus on migration control in the 19th century, concentrating on three areas in particular: the impact of the French Revolution on the development of modern citizenship laws and on the development of new forms of migration control in France and elsewhere; the theory and practice of migration control in various European states is examined, focusing on the control of paupers, emigrants and "ordinary" travelers as well as on the interrelationship between the different administrative levels - local, regional and national - at which migration control was exercised. Finally, on the development of migration control in two countries of immigration: the United States and France. Taken altogether, these essays demonstrate conclusively that the image of the 19th century as a liberal era during which migration was unaffected by state intervention is untenable and in serious need of revision.

  Subjects: Refugee and Migration Studies Archaeology

• eBook available May 2017

  The Mirror of the Medieval

  An Anthropology of the Western Historical Imagination

  Fazioli, K. P.

  Since its invention by Renaissance humanists, the myth of the “Middle Ages” has held a uniquely important place in the Western historical imagination. Whether envisioned as an era of lost simplicity or a barbaric nightmare, the medieval past has always served as a mirror for modernity. This book gives an eye-opening account of the ways various political and intellectual projects—from nationalism to the discipline of anthropology—have appropriated the Middle Ages for their own ends. Deploying an interdisciplinary toolkit, author K. Patrick Fazioli grounds his analysis in contemporary struggles over power and identity in the Eastern Alps, while also considering the broader implications for scholarly research and public memory.

  Subjects: History: Medieval/Early Modern Theory and Methodology Archaeology

• eBook available December 2019

  Mixed Harvest

  Stories from the Human Past

  Swigart, R.

  In unforgettable stories of the human journey, a combination of storytelling and dialogue underscore an excavation into the deep past of human development and its consequences. Through a first encounter between a Neanderthal woman and the Modern Human she called Traveler, to the emergence and destruction of the world’s first cities, Mixed Harvest tells the tale of the Sedentary Divide, the most significant event since modern humans emerged. Rob Swigart’s latest work humanizes the rapid transition to agriculture and pastoralism with a grounding in the archaeological record.

  Subjects: Archaeology Literary Studies Memory Studies Anthropology (General)

• December 1994

  Mobile Farmers

  An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Settlement Organization Among the Raramuri of Northwestern Mexico

  Graham, M.

  This ethnoarchaeological study of the settlements of the Rarámuri focuses primarily on their mobility strategy. This group presents a case where the common equation of agriculturalists = sedentary, and hunter-gatherers = mobile is broken. The Rarámuri are agriculturalists with a pattern of mobility between two or more settlements during the course of any year. Graham provides not only a description of this unusual pattern of mobility by a farming group, but also a number of insights and suggestions on how archaeologists can detect a mobile lifestyle in the residential areas of prehistoric agriculturalists

  Subject: Archaeology

• December 2013

  Natufian Foragers in the Levant

  Terminal Pleistocene Social Changes in Western Asia

  Bar-Yosef, O. & Calla, F. R.

  This large volume presents virtually all aspects of the Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture in a series of chapters that cover recent results of field work, analyses of materials and sites, and synthetic or interpretive overviews of various aspects of this important prehistoric culture.

  Subject: Archaeology

• December 1995

  The Origins of Complex Societies in Late Prehistoric Iberia

  Lillios, K. T.

  A series of papers by a wide range of authors from different countries and backgrounds focuses firmly on the question of the origin and development of social complexity, from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age, in Iberia writ large. A wide range of specific topics is covered with this specific focus, from results of field projects, laboratory analyses, and theoretical overviews.

  Subject: Archaeology

• October 2019

  Playing with the Past

  Exploring Values in Heritage Practice

  Clark, K.

  Heritage is all around us, not just in monuments and museums, but in places that matter, in the countryside and in collections and stories. It touches all of us. How do we decide what to preserve? How do we make the case for heritage when there are so many other priorities? Playing with the Past is the first ever action-learning book about heritage. Over eighty creative activities and games encompass the basics of heritage practice, from management and decisionmaking to community engagement and leadership. Although designed to ‘train the trainers’, the activities in the book are relevant to anyone involved in caring for heritage.

  Subjects: Museum Studies Heritage Studies Archaeology

• eBook available September 2019

  Preservation and Place

  Historic Preservation by and of LGBTQ Communities in the United States

  Crawford-Lackey, K. & Springate, M. E. (eds)

  Significant historic and archaeological sites affiliated with two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history in the United States are examined in this unique volume. The importance of the preservation process in documenting and interpreting the lives and experiences of queer Americans is emphasized. The book features chapters on archaeology and interpretation, as well as several case studies focusing on queer preservation projects. The accessible text and associated activities create an interactive and collaborative process that encourages readers to apply the material in a hands-on setting.

  Subjects: Archaeology Heritage Studies

• eBook available February 2019

  Public Engagement and Education

  Developing and Fostering Stewardship for an Archaeological Future

  Erdman, K. M. (ed)

  The world’s collective archaeological heritage is threatened by war, development, poverty, climate change, and ignorance. To protect our collective past, archaeologists must involve the general public through interpersonal experiences that develop an interest in the field at a young age and foster that interest throughout a person’s life. Contributors to this volume share effective approaches for engaging and educating learners of all ages about archaeology and how one can encourage them to become stewards of the past. They offer applied examples that are not bound to specific geographies or cultures, but rather, are approaches that can be implemented almost anywhere.

  Subjects: Archaeology Educational Studies

• February 2017

  Research Methods for Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition

  Volumes I-III

  Chrzan, J. & Brett, J. (eds)

  The dramatic increase in all things food in popular and academic fields during the last two decades has generated a diverse and dynamic set of approaches for understanding the complex relationships and interactions that determine how people eat and how diet affects culture.  These volumes offer a comprehensive reference for students and established scholars interested in food and nutrition research in Nutritional and Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology, Food Studies and Applied Public Health.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Food & Nutrition Archaeology

• November 2013

  Science, Seti, and Mathematics

  DeVito, C. L.

  Mathematics is as much a part of our humanity as music and art. And it is our mathematics that might be understandable, even familiar, to a distant race and might provide the basis for mutual communication. This book discusses, in a conversational way, the role of mathematics in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The author explores the science behind that search, its history, and the many questions associated with it, including those regarding the nature of language and the philosophical/psychological motivation behind this search.

  Subjects: Archaeology Cultural Studies (General)

• December 1993

  Settlement, Economy, and Cultural Change at the End of the European Iron Age

  Excavations at Kelheim in Bavaria, 1987-1992

  Wells, P. S.

  This volume presents preliminary results of excavation at the Late Iron Age oppidum settlement of Kelheim. The volume is divided into four main sections. The first explains the reasons for investigations at Kelheim. The second presents the results of the excavations, regarding both settlement features and artifact distribution. The third includes special studies of several categories of materials, as well as discussion of the chronology of the occupation and presentation of the results of the landscape survey. The final section addresses some major questions about late prehistoric Europe from the perspective of these excavations and the analytical results. It presents investigations into ritual behavior in the Kelheim region and uses this theme to argue for strong continuity of tradition from prehistoric times into the Middle Ages.


  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available October 2018

  Social DNA

  Rethinking Our Evolutionary Past

  Martin, M. K.

  What set our ancestors off on a separate evolutionary trajectory was the ability to flex their reproductive and social strategies in response to changing environmental conditions. Exploring new cross-disciplinary research that links this capacity to critical changes in the organization of the primate brain, Social DNA presents a new synthesis of ideas on human social origins – challenging models that trace our beginnings to traits shaped by ancient hunting economies, or to genetic platforms shared with contemporary apes.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Archaeology

• eBook available September 2019

  The Sound of Silence

  Indigenous Perspectives on the Historical Archaeology of Colonialism

  Äikäs, T. & Salmi, A.-K. (eds)

  Colonial encounters between indigenous peoples and European state powers are overarching themes in the historical archaeology of the modern era, and postcolonial historical archaeology has repeatedly emphasized the complex two-way nature of colonial encounters. This volume examines common trajectories in indigenous colonial histories, and explores new ways to understand cultural contact, hybridization and power relations between indigenous peoples and colonial powers from the indigenous point of view. By bringing together a wide geographical range and combining multiple sources such as oral histories, historical records, and contemporary discourses with archaeological data, the volume finds new multivocal interpretations of colonial histories.

  Subjects: Archaeology Colonial History Memory Studies Anthropology (General)

• eBook available March 2018

  The Southeast Asia Connection

  Trade and Polities in the Eurasian World Economy, 500 BC–AD 500

  Chew, S. C.

  The contribution of Southeast Asia to the world economy (during the late prehistoric and early historic periods) has not received much attention. It has often been viewed as a region of peripheral entrepôts, especially in the early centuries of the current era. Recent archaeological evidence revealed the existence of established and productive polities in Southeast Asia in the early parts of the historic period and earlier. This book recalibrates these interactions of Southeast Asia with other parts of the world economy, and gives the region its due instead of treating it as little more than of marginal interest.

  Subjects: Archaeology History (General) Political and Economic Anthropology

• March 1993

  Spatial Boundaries and Social Dynamics

  Case Studies from Food-Producing Societies

  Holl, A. & Levey, T. E. (eds)

  The papers in this volume examine the sociocultural, socioeconomic and environmental factors that condition spatial patterning of human behavior in food-producing (both agricultural and pastoral) societies. The spatially patterned material manifestations of that behavior are considered in the light of archaeological and ethnographical examples. Archaeological and ethnographic data sources are drawn primarily from Africa, as well as the ancient Near East.

  Subjects: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

• December 1996

  Stone Tools and Mobility in the Illinois Valley

  From Hunter-Gatherer Camps to Agricultural Villages

  Odell, G. H.

  A detailed comparative analysis of standardized lithic data from 10 Illinois Valley components spanning 7500 years from the Early Archaic through the Mississippian is presented in this volume―perhaps the first time that such a comprehensive set of lithic variables has been analyzed for the entire Holocene of a region. A major part of this study constitutes the most extensive application of low-power lithic use-wear analysis to be found in the literature, accompanied by full discussion of the technique and a suite of new experimental data. The results provide significant information on prehistoric mobility and technological organization in mid-continental North America, revealing clearly for the first time a number of significant behavioral trends.

  Subject: Archaeology

• January 2001

  Subsistence-Settlement Systems and Intersite Variability in the Moroiso Phase of the Early Jomon Period of Japan

  Habu, J.

  This book examines the settlement patterns and intersite variability in lithic assemblages of Early Jomon (ca. 5000 BP) hunter-gatherers in Japan. A model is proposed that links regional settlement patterns and intersite lithic assemblage variability to residential mobility. The results of this study suggest that the Early Jomon people were not sedentary, as previously assumed, but instead moved their residential basis seasonally. The implications of this result are discussed in the context of the development of hunter-gatherer cultural complexity in general and the course of Japanese prehistory in particular.

  Subject: Archaeology

• December 2007

  Telling Children About the Past

  An Interdisciplinary Perspective

  Galanidou, N. & Dommasnes, L. H. (eds)

  This book brings together archeologists, historians, psychologists, and educators from different countries and academic traditions to address the many ways that we tell children about the (distant) past. Knowing the past is fundamentally important for human societies, as well as for individual development. The authors expose many unquestioned assumptions and preformed images in narratives of the past that are routinely presented to children. The contributors both examine the ways in which children come to grips with the past and critically assess the many ways in which contemporary societies and an increasing number of commercial agents construct and use the past.

  Subjects: Archaeology Educational Studies Heritage Studies

• eBook available June 2020

  Timber, Sail, and Rail

  An Archaeology of Industry, Immigration, and the Loma Prieta Mill

  Meniketti, M.

  While taking a critical look at the labor and social issues related to timber, the story of labor, immigration, and development around the San Francisco Bay region is told through the lens of an archaeological case study of a major player of the timber industry between 1885 and 1920. Timber, Sail, and Rail recounts the mill operations and broadly examines its intersections with other industries, such as shipping, brick manufacture, rail companies, lime production, and other lesser enterprises. Three seasons of archaeological fieldwork, as well as ethnography and regional archival work, are examined to emphasize technological and labor components at the historic Loma Prieta mill.

  Subjects: Archaeology History (General) Transport Studies

• August 2013

  Understanding Cultural Transmission in Anthropology

  A Critical Synthesis

  Ellen, R., Lycett, S. J., & Johns, S. E. (eds)

  The concept of "cultural transmission" is central to much contemporary anthropological theory, since successful human reproduction through social systems is essential for effective survival and for enhancing the adaptiveness of individual humans and local populations. Yet, what is understood by the phrase and how it might best be studied is highly contested. This book brings together contributions that reflect the current diversity of approaches - from the fields of biology, primatology, palaeoanthropology, psychology, social anthropology, ethnobiology, and archaeology - to examine social and cultural transmission from a range of perspectives and at different scales of generalization. The comprehensive introduction explores some of the problems and connections. Overall, the book provides a timely synthesis of current accounts of cultural transmission in relation to cognitive process, practical action, and local socio-ecological context, while linking these with explanations of longer-term evolutionary trajectories.

  Subjects: Theory and Methodology Archaeology

• eBook available January 2021

  Unlocking the Love-Lock

  The History and Heritage of a Contemporary Custom

  Houlbrook, C.

  A padlock is a mundane object, designed to fulfil a specific – and secular – purpose. A contemporary custom has given padlocks new significance. This custom is ‘love-locking’, where padlocks are engraved with names and attached to bridges in declaration of romantic commitment. This custom became popular in the 2000s, and its dissemination was rapid, geographically unbound, and highly divisive, with love-locks emerging in locations as diverse as Paris and Taiwan; New York and Seoul; Melbourne and Moscow. This book explores the worldwide popularity of the love-lock as a ritual token of love and commitment by considering its history, symbolism, and heritage.

  Subjects: Heritage Studies Archaeology Museum Studies Cultural Studies (General)

• December 1993

  Villages in the Steppe

  Late Neolithic Settlement and Subsistence in the Balikh Valley, Northern Syria

  Akkermans, P. M.

  In this book, Akkermans provides a systematic overview of the Halaf culture in the Syrian portion of the valley of the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates. Following a broad exposition of the geography of the region, excavation results, definition of chronological periods within the Halaf, and patterns of site distributions, interpretive questions are explored. These include site types and the problems of determining site hierarchies, the nature of Halaf subsistence, and the role of exchange in the Halaf culture.

  Subject: Archaeology

• eBook available March 2018

  World Heritage Craze in China

  Universal Discourse, National Culture, and Local Memory

  Yan, H.

  There is a World Heritage Craze in China. China claims to have the longest continuous civilization in the world and is seeking recognition from UNESCO. This book explores three dimensions of the UNESCO World Heritage initiative with particular relevance for China: the universal agenda, the national practices, and the local responses. With a sociological lens, this book offers comprehensive insights into World Heritage, as well as China’s deep social, cultural, and political structures.

  Subjects: Heritage Studies Archaeology Sociology Travel and Tourism

• eBook available April 2016

  World Heritage on the Ground

  Ethnographic Perspectives

  Brumann, C. & Berliner, D. (eds)

  The UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972 set the contemporary standard for cultural and natural conservation. Today, a place on the World Heritage List is much sought after for tourism promotion, development funding, and national prestige. Presenting case studies from across the globe, particularly from Africa and Asia, anthropologists with situated expertise in specific World Heritage sites explore the consequences of the World Heritage framework and the global spread of the UNESCO heritage regime. This book shows how local and national circumstances interact with the global institutional framework in complex and unexpected ways. Often, the communities around World Heritage sites are constrained by these heritage regimes rather than empowered by them.

  Subjects: Anthropology (General) Heritage Studies Archaeology Museum Studies