You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Heaven's Gate, a secretive group of celibate "monks" awaiting pickup by a UFO, captured intense public attention in 1997 when its members committed collective suicide. As a way of understanding such perplexing events, many have seen those who join cults as needy, lost souls, unable to think for themselves. This book, a compelling look at the cult phenomenon written for a wide audience, dispels such simple formulations by explaining how normal, intelligent people can give up years of their lives—and sometimes their very lives—to groups and beliefs that appear bizarre and irrational. Looking closely at Heaven's Gate and at the Democratic Workers Party, a radical political group of the 1970...
Animals have played a fundamental role in shaping human history, and the study of their remains from archaeological sites - zooarchaeology - has gradually been emerging as a powerful discipline and crucible for forging an understanding of our past. This Handbook offers a cutting-edge, global compendium of zooarchaeology that seeks to provide a holistic view of the role played by animals in past human cultures. Case studies from across five continents explore ahuge range of human-animal interactions from an array of geographical, historical, and cultural contexts, and also illuminate the many approaches and methods adopted by different schools and traditions instudying these relationships.
Age of Wolf and Wind provides a new introduction to the Viking Age that capitalizes on recent archaeological discoveries and breakthroughs in the application of analytical techniques from the natural sciences. Author Davide Zori, an interdisciplinary archaeologist with fieldwork experience across the Viking world, delves into key questions of the Viking Age, such as the motivations of Scandinavians to board open wooden ships to raid England and cross the North Atlantic in search of new worlds beyond Europe. Each chapter offers new conclusions about the Vikings--their views on death, their raiding tactics, their laving feasts, their forging of powerful medieval states--by juxtaposing evidence from written texts, archaeology, and new scientific analyses.
This volume originates in a conference session that took place at the 2018 International Council of Archaeozoology conference in Ankara, Turkey, entitled "Humans and Cattle: Interdisciplinary Perspectives to an Ancient Relationship." The aim of the session was to bring together zooarchaeologists and their colleagues from various other research fields working on human cattle interactions over time. The contributions in this volume reflect well the breadth of work being undertaken on the ancient relationship between humans and cattle across the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia, and from the late Pleistocene to postmedieval period. Almost all involve the study of archaeological cattle remains and use different zooarchaeological methods, but the combination of these approaches with that of ethnography, isotopes and genetics is also featured. Author Interview
The SEARCH (Sheffield Environmental and Archaeological Research Campaign in the Hebrides) project began in 1987 and covers the Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The aim of the project is to investigate how human societies adapted in the long-term to the isolated environment of the Outer Hebrides. The first major excavation on South Uist discovered that what was thought to be a shell midden at Cill Donnain was in fact a wheelhouse, a type of dwelling used in the period c.300 BC – AD 500; under which lay the remains of a Bronze Age settlement. This settlement was partly investigated by Marik Zvelebil in 1991 and then later by Mike Parker Pearson and Kate MacDonald in 2003. The site itself is situ...
Fourteen papers explore a variety of inter-disciplinary approaches to understanding the Viking past, both in Scandinavia and in the Viking diaspora. Contributions employ both traditional inter- or multi-disciplinarian perspectives such as using historical sources, Icelandic sagas and Eddic poetry and also specialised methodologies and/or empirical studies, place-name research, the history of religion and technological advancements, such as isotope analysis. Together these generate new insights into the technology, social organisation and mentality of the worlds of the Vikings. Geographically, contributions range from Iceland through Scandinavia to the Continent. Scandinavian, British and Con...
New things are forgotten old things - this rediscovery of the past is especially important in horsemanship and equestrian sports. Despite advances in sciences and technology, the physiologies and psychologies of the two principal agents, the equid and the human, have undergone relatively few changes since horse domestication. The studies collected in this volume outline such essential and recurring challenges in equestrianism as gender issues, equine identification, the use of hyperflexion and groundwork in training, as well as many others, from prehistory to this day.
Although scholars have long recognized the mythic status of bears in Indigenous North American societies of the past, this is the first volume to synthesize the vast amount of archaeological and historical research on the topic. Bears charts the special relationship between the American black bear and humans in eastern Native American cultures across thousands of years. These essays draw on zooarchaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence from nearly 300 archaeological sites from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico. Contributors explore the ways bears have been treated as something akin to another kind of human—in the words of anthropologist Irving Hallowell, “other than human pers...
This volume provides a comprehensive treatment of the Transeurasian languages. It offers detailed structural overviews of individual languages, as well as comparative perspectives and insights from typology, genetics, and anthropology. The book will be an indispensable resource for anyone interested in Transeurasian and comparative linguistics.
This book brings together scholars from many disciplines to shed light on the long history of the silk roads, to redefine it, and to demonstrate its vitality and importance. Reimagining the Silk Roads illuminates economic, spiritual, and political networks, bridging different chronologies and geographies. Richly illustrated, it explores fascinating topics, including archaeological discoveries, oceanic explorations, the movement, and impact of ideas, and the ways in which the silk roads, broadly defined, contributed to processes of globalization. Reconciling the study of land and sea routes, and paying attention to themes such as material culture, environment, trade, and the role of religious...