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Before Civilization
The refinement of radiocarbon dating using the information form tree-ring counts has raised serious doubts about the accepted theoretical frameowkr of European prehistory. Monuments in Central and Western Europe have proved to be considerably older than their supposed Near-Eastern forerunners, and the record must be almost completely rewritten in the light of these new dates. Before Civilsation is a preliminary attempt to do this with the help of analogies from more recent and well-documented primitive societies. The more glaring inconsistencies in the old theory are re-examined and Professor Renfrew shows convincingly how the baffling monuments of prehistoric Europe, like Stonehenge, could have been built without recourse to help from the 'more civilized' Near East.
Explaining Social Change
These papers look at the increasingly influential role of social archaeology - an area in which Colin Renfrew has been a key player. Topics covered include: the development of the human mind, trade and exchange, social change, chiefdoms and states, and the archaeology of island societies.
Archaeology and Language
In this book Colin Renfrew directs remarkable new light on the links between archaeology and language, looking specifically at the puzzling similarities that are apparent across the Indo-European family of ancient languages, from Anatolia and Ancient Persia, across Europe and the Indian subcontinent, to regions as remote as Sinkiang in China. Professor Renfrew initiates an original synthesis between modern historical linguistics and the new archaeology of cultural process, boldly proclaiming that it is time to reconsider questions of language origins and what they imply about ethnic affiliation--issues seriously discredited by the racial theorists of the 1920s and 1930s and, as a result, largely neglected since. Challenging many familiar beliefs, he comes to a new and persuasive conclusion: that primitive forms of the Indo-European language were spoken across Europe some thousands of years earlier than has previously been assumed.
Material Engagements
The subject matter of archaeology is the engagement of human beings, now and in the past, with both the natural world and the material world they have created. All aspects of human activity are potentially relevant to archaeological research, and, conversely, the ways in which others, especially artists and anthropologists, have investigated the world are of interest to archaeologists. Archaeological artefacts and sites are also used by groups and nations to establish identity, and for financial gain, both through tourism and trade in antiquities. Colin Renfrew has actively engaged with art, with politics and with the antiquities trade, and has presented his ideas to broad audiences through accessible books and television programmes, as well as championing the cause of archaeology in many public roles. The papers in this volume, which have been written by colleagues and former students on the occasion of his retirement, relate to all of these subject areas, and together give some idea of the complexity of the issues raised by critical engagements with the material world, both past and present.
Archaeology
"Sets the new standard for excellence in this field." Antiquity"
Prehistory
A brief and original prehistory of the world Prehistory covers human existence before written records, i.e. most of human existence. But it also refers to the discipline through which we scrutinize prehistoric times. PREHISTORY begins by looking at the discovery of a remote human past and the subsequent dramatic growth of the study of prehistory: early archaeology; geology; Darwin's ideas of evolution; cave paintings; fossil discoveries of human ancestors; museums and collections; radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis. Renfrew challenges the conventional assumption of an all-important 'human revolution' 40,000 years ago - when Homo Sapiens first appeared in Europe - and suggests that the key developments were much later. The author's case-studies range widely, from Orkney to the Balkans, from the Indus Valley to Peru, from Ireland to China, and provide fresh insights on landmark monuments such as the Egyptian pyramids, the Valley of the Kings, Stonehenge and the sacrificial burial pyramids at Teotihuacan in Mexico. The book closes with a fascinating chapter on the transition from Prehistory to History, on early writing systems.
Figuring it Out
These questions were posed by Paul Gauguin in a famous canvas painted in Tahiti that heralded the beginning of the modernist era. But they are also the questions asked by modern prehistorians in their quest to reconstruct the human story. In Figuring It Out, Colin Renfrew investigates the profound convergence between the two disciplines, drawing illuminating parallels between the way the modern artist seeks to understand the world by acting upon it, and the way the archaeologist seeks to understand the world through the material traces of such actions. What does the "sapient paradox" the fact that 30,000 years passed before anatomically modern humans began to change their world have to tell ...
Traces of Ancestry
In 1987, Colin Renfrew's Archaeology and Language challenged many perceptions about how one language family spread across large parts of the world. In doing so he re-invigorated an important exchange between archaeologists and historical linguists. At precisely the same time, a quite separate field, human genetics, was making considerable steps forward in the elucidation of human ancestry. These three parallel lines of enquiry into genes, words, and things have, over the ensuing two decades, entirely transformed our perceptions of the human past. This volume brings together contributors to that transformation from around the world, to honour Colin Renfrew with a series of key papers. They include a number of impressive synthetic statements, as well as case studies at the frontiers of three different branches of research. They range from global accounts of human dispersal through to archaeological, genetic and linguistic studies, illustrating what has been achieved over the past two decades, and the most promising avenues of research for the future.
The Archaeology of Measurement
Explores the archaeological evidence for the development of measuring activities in numerous ancient societies and the implications of these discoveries.
Ranking, Resource and Exchange
Ranked societies are characterized by disparities in personal status that are often accompanied by the concentration of power and authority in the hands of a few dominant individuals. They stand between the sophistication of developed, states and the relative simplicity of most hunter-gatherer groups and early agriculturalists. In some places and times they represented relatively brief phases of transition to more complex forms of organization; in others they existed as stable forms of adaptation for thousands of years. They are thus of great interest for archaeologists seeking to understand the dynamics of cultural evolution.
