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Presents a collection of information concerning the care and conservation of human remains in museums and academic institutions.
In our society it has long been believed that art serves very little social purpose. Evolutionary anthropologists, however, are examining a potential role for art in human evolution. Kathryn Coe looks to the visual arts of traditional societies for clues. Because they are passed down from previous generations, traditional art forms such as body decoration, funeral ornaments, and ancestral paintings offer ways to promote social relationships among kin and codescendants of a common ancestor. Mothers used art forms to anchor themselves and their kin to the father and his kin, and to promote the survival and reproductive success of kin and descendants. Individuals who abided by this strategy, ac...
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The core subject matter of bioarchaeology is the lives of past peoples, interpreted anthropologically. Human remains, contextualized archaeologically and historically, form the unit of study. Integrative and frequently inter-disciplinary, bioarchaeology draws methods and theoretical perspectives from across the sciences and the humanities. Bioarchaeology: The Contextual Study of Human Remains focuses upon the contemporary practice of bioarchaeology in North American contexts, its accomplishments and challenges. Appendixes, a glossary and 150 page bibliography make the volume extremely useful for research and teaching.
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...
The Encyclopaedia fills a gap in both the history of science and in cultural stud ies. Reference works on other cultures tend either to omit science completely or pay little attention to it, and those on the history of science almost always start with the Greeks, with perhaps a mention of the Islamic world as a trans lator of Greek scientific works. The purpose of the Encyclopaedia is to bring together knowledge of many disparate fields in one place and to legitimize the study of other cultures' science. Our aim is not to claim the superiority of other cultures, but to engage in a mutual exchange of ideas. The Western aca demic divisions of science, technology, and medicine have been united ...
This first comprehensive work on women in precolumbian American cultures describes gender roles and relationships in North, Central, and South America from 12,000 B.C. to the 1500s A.D. Utilizing many key archaeological works, Karen Olsen Bruhns and Karen E. Stothert redress some of the long-standing male bias in writing about ancient Native American lifeways. Bruhns and Stothert focus on several of the most thought-provoking areas of study in the Americas: the origins of agriculture, the development of complex societies, the evolution of religious systems, and the interpretation of art and mortuary materials. The authors pay particular attention to the problems of interpreting archaeological remains and the uses of historic and ethnographic evidence in reconstructing the past.
Despite its extreme climate, the North American Arctic holds a complex archaeological record of global significance. In this volume, leading researchers provide comprehensive coverage of the region's cultural history, addressing issues as diverse as climate change impacts on human societies, European colonial expansion, and hunter-gatherer adaptations and social organization.
Methodologies and legislative frameworks regarding the archaeological excavation, retrieval, analysis, curation and potential reburial of human skeletal remains differ throughout the world. As work forces have become increasingly mobile and international research collaborations are steadily increasing, the need for a more comprehensive understanding of different national research traditions, methodologies and legislative structures within the academic and commercial sector of physical anthropology has arisen. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeological Human Remains and Legislation provides comprehensive information on the excavation of archaeological human remains and the law through 62 indivi...