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A volume of papers from a conference held by the McDonald Institute in Cambridge, 1993. The aim of the conference was to address key issues in the development of intelligence and cognitive capacities though the course of human evolution. It did this by invoking theoretical perspectives from a broad range of relevant disciplines - psychology, ethology and primate behaviour, neurology, child development, artificial intelligence and, of course, archaeology. The volume contains the papers presented at the conference, revised and updated in the light of post-conference discussions. It provides the most comprehensive review available of current approaches to 'modelling' the evolution of intelligence and congnition in early human popoulations. Seventeen papers by Colin Renfrew, Richard W. Byrne, Robert A. Foley, Steven Mithen, J. A. J. Gowlett, Frederic Joulian, James Russell, Christopher Longuet-Higgins, David Erdal, Andrew Whiten, P. C. Lee, Peter G. Grossenbacher, K. A. Robson Brown, Leslie C. Aiello, Elizabeth Whitcombe, Angela C. Roberts, Peter Collins and Trevor W. Robbins.
This volume outlines and illustrates the importance of considering social contexts of food consumption in interpretations of past and present human societies, giving a new twist to the old adage 'You are what you eat'. What we eat, how we eat, are and always have been fundamental to the structuring of social life, both in the past and in the present. The remains of food are also among the most common archaeological finds. The papers in this volume explore and develop ways of using food to write social history; they move beyond taphonomic and economic properties of 'subsistence resources' to examine the social background and cultural contexts of food preparation and consumption. Contributions break new ground in method and interpretation in case studies spanning the Palaeolithic to the Present, and from the Amazon to the Arctic. This volume will thus be essential reading for all archaeologists, anthropologists and social historians interested in the prehistory and history of food consumption.
Explores the archaeological evidence for the development of measuring activities in numerous ancient societies and the implications of these discoveries.
The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, cultural change and collapse in prehistory, 2013-18), led by Caroline Malone (Queens University Belfast) has explored issues of environmental fragility and Neolithic social resilience and sustainability during the Holocene period in the Maltese Islands. This, the first volume of three, presents the palaeo-environmental story of early Maltese landscapes. The project employed a program of high-resolution chronological and stratigraphic investigations of the valley systems on Malta and Gozo. Buried deposits extracted through coring and geoarchaeological study yielded rich and chronologically c...
The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013-18) led by Caroline Malone (Queen's University Belfast) has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta, and its antecedents and successors through investigation of archaeological sites and monuments. This, the second volume of three, presents the results of excavations at four temple sites and two settlements, together with analysis of chronology, economy and material culture. The project focused on the integration of three key strands of Malta's early human history (environmental change, human settlement and population) set again...
Conference proceedings presenting the first opportunity for leading figures in the burgeoning area of archaeological research in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq to gather and present all the key new projects which are revolutionising our understanding of the region.
Archaeoacoustics focuses on the role of sound in human behaviour, from earliest times up to the development of mechanical detection and recording devices in the 19th century. Recent calls for an `archaeology of the senses' have served as a timely, even overdue reminder that the past which we experience - and which others have experienced before us - is multisensory, drawing not only upon the primary field of vision, but also on touch, smell and hearing. Megalithic tombs, Palaeolithic painted caves, Romanesque churches and prehistoric rock shelters all present specific sound qualities which offer clues as to how they may have been designed and used. Voices resonate, external noises are subdue...
"For more than a century, scholars have critiqued, misinterpreted, and bickered about Marx's concept of mode of production. Modes of Production and Archaeology cuts through the dense and thorny intellectual thicket that grew up from these debates. The book presents an easily understood discussion of Marx's concepts and demonstrates how archaeologists can analyze modes of production to explain long term patterns in cultural change."-Randall McGuire, author of Archaeology as Political Action "Shows clearly how historical materialist ideas and concepts are productive in developing the theory and practice of archaeology."-Robert Chapman, author of Archaeologies of Complexity "Covers a huge range...
The Assyrian empire was in its day the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Building on the expansion of the Middle Assyrian state in the late second millennium BC, the opening centuries of the first millennium witnessed a resurgence which led to the birth of a true empire whose limits stretched from Egypt to Iran and from Anatolia to the Persian Gulf. While the Assyrian imperial capital cities have long been the focus of archaeological exploration, it is only in recent decades that the peripheral areas have been the subject of sustained research. This volume sets out to synthesize the results of this research, bringing together the outcomes of key investigations from across the empire. ...
Drawing its numerous examples from Britain and beyond, Archaeological Investigation explores the procedures used in field archaeology travelling over the whole process from discovery to publication. Divided into four parts, it argues for a set of principles in part one, describes work in the field in part two and how to write up in part three. Part four describes the modern world in which all types of archaeologist operate, academic and professional. The central chapter ‘Projects Galore’ takes the reader on a whirlwind tour through different kinds of investigation including in caves, gravel quarries, towns, historic buildings and underwater. Archaeological Investigation intends to be a c...