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“How true is it?” is a common refrain of patrons coming out of movie theatres after the latest film on pirates, Vikings, or mummies. While Hollywood usurps the past for its own entertainment purposes, archaeologists and historians know a lot about many of these subjects, digging up stories often more fascinating than the ones projected on screen. This distinguished group of archaeologists select key subjects and genres used by Hollywood and provide the historical and archaeological depth that a movie cannot—what really happened in history. Topics include Egypt, the Wild West, Civil War submarines, Vikings, the Titanic, and others. The book should be of interest to introductory archaeology and American history classes, courses on film and popular culture, and to a general audience. Alternate Selection, History Book Club.
This is the first summary of archaeological contributions to our understanding of the War of 1812 by examining recent excavations and field surveys on fortifications, encampments, landscapes, shipwrecks, and battles in the different regions of the United States and Canada.
This distinguished group of archaeologists select key subjects and genres used by Hollywood and provide the historical and archaeological depth that a movie cannot--what really happened in history. Topics include Egypt, the Wild West, Civil War submarines, Vikings, the Titanic, and others.
The Donner Party is almost inextricably linked with cannibalism. In truth, we know remarkably little about what actually happened to the starving travelers stranded in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846–47. Combining the approaches of history, ethnohistory, archaeology, bioarchaeology, and social anthropology, this innovative look at the Donner Party’s experience at the Alder Creek Camp offers insights into many long-unsolved mysteries. Centered on archaeological investigations in the summers of 2003 and 2004 near Truckee, California, the book includes detailed analyses of artifacts and bones that suggest what life was like in this survival camp. Microscopic investigations of tiny b...
In popular mythology, the Overland Trail is typically a triumphant tale, with plucky easterners crossing the Plains in caravans of covered wagons. But not everyone reached Oregon and California. Some 6,600 migrants perished along the way and were buried where they fell, often on Indigenous land. As historian Sarah Keyes illuminates, their graves ultimately became the seeds of U.S. expansion. By the 1850s, cholera epidemics, ordinary diseases, and violence had remade the Trail into an American burial ground that imbued migrant deaths with symbolic power. In subsequent decades, U.S. officials and citizens leveraged Trail graves to claim Native ground. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples pointed to t...
New scholarship provides insights into the archaeology and cultural history of African American life from a collection of sites in the Mid-Atlantic
Documentary filmmaker Peter Pepe and historical archaeologist Joseph W. Zarzynski provide a concise guide to filmmaking designed to help archaeologists navigate the unfamiliar world of documentary film. They offer a step-by-step description of the process of making a documentary, everything from initial pitches to production companies to final cuts in the editing. Using examples from their own award-winning documentaries, they focus on the needs of the archaeologist: Where do you fit in the project? What is expected of you? How can you help your documentarian partner? The authors provide guidance on finding funding, establishing budgets, writing scripts, interviewing, and numerous other tasks required to produce and distribute a film. Whether you intend to sell a special to National Geographic or churn out a brief clip to run at the local museum, read this book before you start.