The Evolution of Social Institutions
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 662

The Evolution of Social Institutions

This book presents a novel and innovative approach to the study of social evolution using case studies from the Old and the New World, from prehistory to the present. This approach is based on examining social evolution through the evolution of social institutions. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a vast number of social institutions that are constantly interacting and changing. As a result, the structure of society as a whole is also evolving and changing. The authors posit that the combination of evolving social institutions explains the non-linear character of social evolution and that ...

After Dark
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 313

After Dark

After Dark explores the experience of nighttime within ancient urban settings. Contributors present material evidence related to how ancient people manipulated and confronted darkness and night in urban landscapes, advancing our knowledge of the archaeology of cities, the archaeology of darkness and night, and lychnology (the study of ancient lighting devices). Sensory archaeology focuses on the sensual experience of the nocturnal environment—the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of an ancient city—and the multi-faceted stimuli that diverse urban populations experienced in the dark. Contributors investigate night work—for example, standing guard or pursuing nocturnal trades—an...

The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 528

The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age

"In 1996, the University of Alabama Press published a prodigious benchmark volume, The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast, edited by David G. Anderson and Kenneth E. Sassaman. It was the first to provide a state-by-state record of the Paleolithic and early Archaic eras (to approximately 8,000 years ago) in this region as well as models to interpret data excavated from those eras. It summarized what was known of the peoples who lived in the Southeast when ice sheets covered the northern part of the continent and mammals such as elephants, saber-toothed tigers, and ground sloths roamed the landscape. In the United States, the Southeast has some of most robust data on these eras. The Ameri...

New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 283

New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery

In this volume, contributors show how stylistic and iconographic analyses of Mississippian imagery provide new perspectives on the beliefs, narratives, public ceremonies, ritual regimes, and expressions of power in the communities that created the artwork. Exploring various methodological and theoretical approaches to pre-Columbian visual culture, these essays reconstruct dynamic accounts of Native American history across the U.S. Southeast.  These case studies offer innovative examples of how to use style to identify and compare artifacts, how symbols can be interpreted in the absence of writing, and how to situate and historicize Mississippian imagery. They examine designs carved into s...

Federal Correctional Institution, Northumberland County
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 844

Federal Correctional Institution, Northumberland County

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2001
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  • Publisher: Unknown

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Entangled Worlds
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 1320

Entangled Worlds

Leading historians and archaeologists offer a comprehensive introduction to the increasingly entangled worlds that spanned the globe between 600 and 1350 CE. The period between the seventh and fourteenth centuries is hardly thought of as an era of globalization. Entire societies in the Americas, Australia, and Oceania developed in relative isolation from other parts of the world. Even on the interconnected landmass of Eurafrasia, many people had little to do with processes of transregional exchange. Yet the period 600–1350 CE in fact witnessed an explosion of connectivity amid the consolidation of sophisticated approaches to human organization. Flows of people, goods, and ideas across regi...

Changing Consumption Patterns on a Mid-nineteenth Century Illinois Farmstead
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 132

Changing Consumption Patterns on a Mid-nineteenth Century Illinois Farmstead

"Investigations conducted under the auspices of the State of Illinois Department of Transportation."

AAA Guide
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 580

AAA Guide

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 1993
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  • Publisher: Unknown

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New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 430

New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2019-08-05
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  • Publisher: Routledge

The future of humanity is urban, and knowledge of urbanism’s deep past is critical for us all to navigate that future. The time has come for archaeologists to rethink this global phenomenon by asking what urbanism is and, more to the point, was. Can we truly understand ancient urbanism by only asking after the human element, or are the properties and qualities of landscapes, materials, and atmospheres equally causal? The nine authors of New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms seek less anthropocentric answers to questions about the historical relationships between urbanism and humanity in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. They analyze the movements and flows of materials, things, phenomena, and b...

Guide
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 682

Guide

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2002
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  • Publisher: Unknown

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