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Not Just for Show
Beads, beadwork, and personal ornaments are made of diverse materials such as shell, bone, stones, minerals, and composite materials. Their exploration from geographical and chronological settings around the world offers a glimpse at some of the cutting edge research within the fast growing field of personal ornaments in humanities’ past. Recent studies are based on a variety of analytical procedures that highlight humankind’s technological advances, exchange networks, mortuary practices, and symbol-laden beliefs. Papers discuss the social narratives behind bead and beadwork manufacture, use and disposal; the way beads work visually, audibly and even tactilely to cue wearers and audience to their social message(s). Understanding the entangled social and technical aspects of beads require a broad spectrum of technical and methodological approaches including the identification of the sources for the raw material of beads. These scientific approaches are also combined in some instances with experimentation to clarify the manner in which beads were produced and used in past societies.
Archaeomalacology
Molluscs are the most common invertebrate remains found at archaeological sites, but archaeomalacology (the study of molluscs in archaeological contexts) is a relatively new archaeological discipline and the field of zooarchaeology is seen by many as one mainly focused on the remains of vertebrates. The papers in this volume hope to redress this balance, bringing molluscan studies into mainstream zooarchaeological and archaeological debate, and resulting in a monograph with a truly international flavour.
Natufian Foragers in the Levant
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.
The Zooarchaeology of Fats, Oils, Milk and Dairying
Fat has been cast as a villain in our modern, Western society, but for many economies, past and present, the availability of foods rich in fat could mean the difference between life and death. But fat has more to offer than nutrition; fats can be used in waterproofing, as lubrication, and as a base for other items such as perfumes and cosmetics. This variety of use means that fats have been a valuable trading commodity for thousands of years. The various ways in which fats can be utilised has important implications for the archaeological record. The physical method(s) of extracting the fat from a dead animal will leave differing signs on the carcass, while the removal of fats while an animal is alive (such as milking) has been the focus of much ethnographic research. Then there is the matter of how the fats are stored...and so on. The zooarchaeological study of fats is a complex, interdisciplinary area of archaeology. The nineteen papers in this volume represent a firm foundation for further research into the past exploitation of this heroic substance.
Personal Ornaments in Prehistory
Beads, bracelets, necklaces, pendants and many other ornaments are familiar objects that play a fundamental role in personal expression and communication. This book considers how and why the human relationship with ornaments developed and continued over tens of thousands of years, from hunter-gatherer life in the cave to urban elites, from expedient use of natural resources to complex technologies. Using evidence from archaeological sites across Turkey, the Near East and the Balkans, it explores the history of personal ornaments from their appearance in the Palaeolithic until the rise of urban centers in the Early Bronze Age and encompassing technologies ranging from stone cutting to early g...
Early Maritime Cultures in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean
This volume represents a multi-disciplinary effort to examine East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean. Multiple lines of evidence drawn from linguistics, archaeology, history, art history, and ethnography come together in novel ways to highlight different aspects of the region’s past and offer innovative avenues for future research.
Substantive Technologies at Çatalhöyük
The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey has been world famous since the 1960s when excavations revealed the large size and dense occupation of the settlement, as well as the spectacular wall paintings and reliefs uncovered inside the houses. Since 1993 an international team of archaeologists, led by Ian Hodder, has been carrying out new excavations and research, in order to shed more light on the people who inhabited the site. The present volume reports on the results of excavations in 2000-2008 that have provided a wealth of new data on the ways in which humans became increasingly engaged in their material environment such that 'things' came to play an active force in their lives. A s...
Stone Tools in Transition: From Hunter-Gatherers to Farming Societies in the Near East
This volume compiles the papers presented at the seventh edition of the Conference on PPN Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Fertile Crescent, held in Barcelona from 14 to 17 February 2012. This series of conferences/workshops started nineteen years ago - the first meeting was organised in Berlin in 1993 - and is devoted to the study of the lithic record in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East and neighbouring regions. The seventh of these conferences was organised by the Institució Milà i Fontanals (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) and the Prehistory Department (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). This volume includes a total number of 36 articles, covering...
Humans and Landscapes of Çatalhöyük
This volume in the Çatalhöyük series reports on the results of excavations from 2000 to 2008 that have provided a wealth of new data on the ways in which the Çatalhöyük settlement and environment were occupied. The first section explores how houses, open areas, and middens in the settlement were central to the daily lives of the inhabitants, integrating a wide range of different types of data at different scales. A second section examines subsistence practices of the site's inhabitants and builds up a picture of how the overall landscape was exploited and lived within. A third section studies the evidence from the skeletons of those buried inside the houses at Çatalhöyük in order to understand the health, diet, lifestyle, and activity of the inhabitants. This final section also reports on the burial practices and associations in order to build hypotheses about the social organization of those inhabiting the settlement. A complex picture emerges of a relatively decentralized society, large in size but small-scale in terms of organization, dwelling within a mosaic patchwork of environments.
Quaternary of the Levant
Over eighty contributions from leading researchers review 2.5 million years of environmental change and human cultural evolution in the Levant.
