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Offers a stunning archaeological and art historical exploration of the changing traditions of belief in pre-Bronze and Bronze Age North Asia
Many of us accept as uncontroversial the belief that the world is comprised of detached and disparate products, all of which are reducible to certain substances. Of those things that are alive, we acknowledge that some have agency while others, such as humans, have more advanced qualities such as consciousness, reason and intentionality. So deeply-seated is this metaphysical belief, along with the related distinctions we draw between subject/object, mind/body and nature/culture that many of us tacitly assume past groups approached and apprehended the world in a similar fashion. Relational Archaeologies questions how such a view of human beings, ‘other-than-human’ creatures and things aff...
Paleonutrition is the analysis of prehistoric human diets and the interpretation of dietary intake in relation to health and nutrition. As a field of study, it addresses prehistoric diets in order to determine the biological and cultural implications for individuals as well as for entire populations, placing archaeological interpretations into an anthropological context. Throughout history, and long before written records, human culture has been constantly in flux. The study of paleonutrition provides valuable insights into shifts and changes in human history, whatever their causes. This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the topic. Intended for students and professionals, it d...
“I have seen yesterday. I know tomorrow.” This inscription in Tutankhamun’s tomb summarizes The Fifth Beginning. Here, archaeologist Robert L. Kelly explains how the study of our cultural past can predict the future of humanity. In an eminently readable style, Kelly identifies four key pivot points in the six-million-year history of human development: the emergence of technology, culture, agriculture, and the state. In each example, the author examines the long-term processes that resulted in a definitive, no-turning-back change for the organization of society. Kelly then looks ahead, giving us evidence for what he calls a fifth beginning, one that started about AD 1500. Some might cal...
In The Seal Hunt: Cultures, Economies and Legal Regimes, Nikolas Sellheim offers a deep analysis of the seal hunt worldwide. He engages on a journey from the northern to the southern hemisphere and explores how the seal hunt has shaped cultures all over the world up to this day. By analysing the different national and international regimes dealing with the seal hunt, Sellheim shows how the perception of the seal and the seal hunt has changed over time and space. Focusing on the European Union and the World Trade Organization, the volume offers an account on how opposition towards the seal hunt has found its way onto the international spheres of governance and trade.
Interactions between societies are among the most powerful forces in human history. However, because they are difficult to reconstruct from archaeological data, they have often been overlooked and understudied by archaeologists. This is particularly true for hunter-gatherer societies, which are frequently seen as adapting to local conditions rather than developing in the context of large-scale networks. When Worlds Collide presents a new model for discerning interaction networks based on the archaeological record, and then applies the model to long-term change in an Arctic society. Max Friesen has adapted and expanded world-system theory in order to develop a model that explains how hunter-g...
Choice Outstanding Academic Title This volume highlights new directions in the study of social identities in past populations. Building on the field-defining research in Bioarchaeology and Identity in the Americas, contributors expand the scope of the subject regionally, theoretically, and methodologically. This collection moves beyond the previous focus on single aspects of identity by demonstrating multi-scalar approaches and by explicitly addressing intersectionality in the archaeological record. Case studies in this volume come from both New World and Old World settings, including sites in North America, South America, Asia, and the Middle East. The communities investigated range from ea...
Large accumulations of ancient shells on coastlines and riverbanks were long considered the result of garbage disposal during repeated food gatherings by early inhabitants of the southeastern United States. In this volume, Asa R. Randall presents the first new theoretical framework for examining such middens since Ripley Bullen’s seminal work sixty years ago. He convincingly posits that these ancient “garbage dumps” were actually burial mounds, ceremonial gathering places, and often habitation spaces central to the histories and social geography of the hunter-gatherer societies who built them. Synthesizing more than 150 years of shell mound investigations and modern remote sensing data...
This volume provides the most up-to-date and holistic but compact account of the peopling of the world from the perspective of language, genes and material culture, presenting a view from the Himalayas. The phylogeny of language families, the chronology of branching of linguistic family trees and the historical and modern geographical distribution of language communities inform us about the spread of languages and linguistic phyla. The global distribution and the chronology of spread of Y chromosomal haplogroups appears closely correlated with the spread of language families. New findings on ancient DNA have greatly enhanced our understanding of the prehistory and provenance of our biological ancestors. The archaeological study of past material cultures provides yet a third independent window onto the complex prehistory of our species.
First published in 2004. The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences is an annual four volume publication covering Economics, Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology. It is compiled by the British Library of Political and Economic Science under the auspices of the International Committee for Social Science Information and Documentation. Some 100,000 articles (from over 2,700 journals) and 20,000 books are scanned each year in the process of compiling the International Bibliography. Coverage is international with publications in over 70 languages from more than 60 countries. All titles are given in their original language and in English translation