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This book tracks the development of social complexity in Ireland from the late prehistoric period on into the Middle Ages. Using a range of methods and techniques, particularly data from settlement patterns, Blair Gibson demonstrates how Ireland evolved from constellations of chiefdoms into a political entity bearing the characteristics of a rudimentary state. This book argues that early medieval Ireland's highly complex political systems should be viewed as amalgams of chiefdoms with democratic procedures for choosing leaders rather than kingdoms. Gibson explores how these chiefdom confederacies eventually transformed into recognizable states over a period of 1,400 years.
An interdisciplinary group of contributors to this volume re-examine the structure and political development of Celtic states scattered across present-day Europe.
During HaA-HaB, many settlements were established in Silesia and in the central part of Poland, and their stability seems to be confirmed by the existence of regional groups and subgroups, by long-lasting colonies, and by long-used burial grounds, located at large settlements. At the end of HaB, many pre-Scythian elements occurred in this area, only partly influenced by the Cimmerians . During that period the peoples living north of the Carpathian and Sudeten Mountains remained very dependent on the productive and cultural circle south of the Carpathians, with which they maintained strong connections . The Lusatian settlement zone , apart from its increasing internal stability, also tended t...
Ancient Samnium focuses on the region of Samnium in Italy, combining written and archaeological evidence to form a new understanding of its ancient inhabitants during the last six centuries BC, how they identified themselves, how they developed unique forms of social and political organisation, and how they became entangled with Rome's expanding power and the impact that this had on their daily lives.
Offering a wide and expansive new treatment of the role water played in the lives of people across the Roman world, papers consider ports and their lighthouses; water engineering, whether for canals in the north-west provinces, or for the digging of wells for drinking water; baths for swimming; and spas.
This book examines human conflict throughout history, the reasons behind the struggles, and why it persists. The volume delves into the causes of human conflict and what can be done about them. Based on detailed descriptions that support insightful interpretations, the book explores significant historical events in the course of human history. By pursuing a “web of violence” approach, it raises and answers questions about the sources of conflict and how it may or may not be resolved through investigations into human agency and practice. It evaluates lessons learned concerning human conflict, violence, and warfare. To illustrate these lessons, the book presents a broad geographical and temporal set of data, including research on the time of Neanderthals in Europe (20-30 thousand years ago); the Late Neolithic civilization on the Mediterranean (6-8 thousand years ago); medieval Ireland; contemporary history of the Western Dani peoples of West Papua; and, finally, recent issues in Brazil, Congo, and Kenya.
V. Gordon Childe was the first scholar to attempt a broad and sustained socioeconomic analysis of the archaeology of the ancient world in terms that, today, could be called explanatory. To most, he was remembered only as a diligent synthesizer whose whole interpretation collapsed when its chronology was demolished. There was little recognition of his insistence that the emergence of craft specialists, and their very variable roles in the relations of production, were crucial to an understanding of social evolution. The interrelationship between sociopolitical complexity and craft production is a critical one, so critical that one might ask, just how complex would any society have become with...
The forty-two chapters in this book consider Yeats's early toil, his practical and esoteric concerns as his career developed, his friends and enemies, and how he was and is understood. This Handbook brings together critics and writers who have considered what Yeats wrote and how he wrote, moving between texts and their contexts in ways that will lead the reader through Yeats's multiple selves as poet, playwright, public figure, and mystic. It assembles a variety of views and adds to a sense of dialogue, the antinomian or deliberately-divided way of thinking that Yeats relished and encouraged. This volume puts that sense of a living dialogue in tune both with the history of criticism on Yeats and also with contemporary critical and ethical debates, not shirking the complexities of Yeats's more uncomfortable political positions or personal life. It provides one basis from which future Yeats scholarship can continue to participate in the fascination of all the contributors here in the satisfying difficulty of this great writer.
The Druids and the Arthurian legends are all most of us know about early Britain, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (4500 BC-AD 43). Drawing on archaeological discoveries and medieval Welsh texts like the Mabinogion, this book explores the religious beliefs of the ancient Britons before the coming of Christianity, beginning with the megaliths--structures like Stonehenge--and the role they played in prehistoric astronomy. Topics include the mysterious Beaker people of the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age evidence of the Druids, the Roman period and the Dark Ages. The author discusses the myths of King Arthur and what they tell us about paganism, as well as what early churches and monasteries reveal about the enigmatic Druids.
This volume provides an in-depth study of tribal life in the Near East in the 19th century, exploring how tribes shaped society, economy and politics in the desert, as well as in villages and towns. Until the First World War Near Eastern society was tribally organized. Particularly in the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, where the Ottoman empire was weak, large and powerful tribes such as Anaze, Beni Sakhr and Shammar interacted and competed for control of the land, the people and the economy. The main sources for this study are travel accounts of 19th century adventurers and explorers. Their travels, on horseback, on camel or on foot opened a fascinating window on a world with an ideology ...