Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Star Carr
Star Carr is one of the most famous and important prehistoric sites in Europe. Dating from the early Mesolithic period, over 10,000 years ago, the site has produced a unique range of artefacts and settlement evidence. First excavated in 1949-51 by Professor Grahame Clark of Cambridge University, the site was buried in a deep layer of peat on the edge of prehistoric Lake Flixton. The peat has preserved an incredible collection of organic artefacts, including bone, wood and antler, as well as thousands of flint tools. This has allowed archaeologists to build up a detailed picture of life on the edge of the lake around 9000 BC. New excavations have now revealed the remains of what may be the earliest house ever found in Britain, and have shown that the settlement stretched for several hundred metres along the lake shore. This book tells the story of the discovery of Star Carr, and brings it up-to-date with details of the current excavations. It also discusses other important Mesolithic sites in Britain and Europe and how these are transforming our view of life after the Ice Age.
Mesolithic Studies at the Beginning of the 21st Century
The term 'Mesolithic' was born in the nineteenth century from the need to label a 'hiatus' period and was not generally accepted as a useful term by many scholars until around fifty years later. It has been championed by some, but still concerns others because of the difficulty of defining what it represents. This volume highlights the enthusiasm for Mesolithic studies in the 21st century and the feeling that there is a need to explore the many facets of Mesolithic lifeways. Approaches are now moving away from the traditional Mesolithic canon that seems to have been based on a particular set of biological and/or ecological perspectives and are now looking for new directions and new theoretical arenas which can only help stimulate Mesolithic debate. The papers in this volume take a range of approaches to a period that has largely been devoid of explicit theoretical discussion. They deconstruct and explore a broad variety of subjects, including mobility, complexity, seasonality, death & burial, gender & sexuality, social relations, music, human agency, ethnoarchaeology and emotion.
The Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Small Scale Economies
Most research into humans' impact on the environment has focused on large-scale societies; a corollary assumption has been that small scale economies are sustainable and in harmony with nature. The contributors to this volume challenge this notion, revealing how such communities shaped their environment—and not always in a positive way. Offering case studies from around the world—from Brazil to Japan, Denmark to the Rocky Mountains—the chapters empirically demonstrate the substantial transformations of the surrounding landscape made by hunter-gatherer and limited horticultural societies. Summarizing previous research as well as presenting new data, this book shows that the environmental impact and legacy of societies are not always proportional their size. Understanding that our species leaves a footprint wherever it has been leads to both a better understanding of our prehistoric past and to deeper implications for our future relationship to the world around us.
Shell Middens in Atlantic Europe
Based on a workshop on shell middens in Atlantic Europe, held in the Kings Manor at the University of York in September 2005.
Fishing
"Before prehistoric humans began to cultivate grain, they had three main methods of acquiring food: hunting, gathering, and fishing. Hunting and gathering are no longer economically important, having been replaced by their domesticated equivalents, ranching and farming. But fishing, humanity's last major source of food from the wild, has grown into a worldwide industry on which we have never been more dependent. In this history of fishing--not as sport but as sustenance--archaeologist and writer Brian Fagan argues that fishing rivaled agriculture in its importance to civilization. [He] tours archaeological sites worldwide to show ... how fishing fed the development of cities, empires, and ultimately the modern world"--Jacket flaps.
Land and People
This volume is derived, in concept, from a conference held in honour of John Evans by the School of History and Archaeology and The Prehistoric Society at Cardiff University in March 2006. It brings together papers that address themes and landscapes on a variety of levels. They cover geographical, methodological and thematic areas that were of interest to, and had been studied by, John Evans. The volume is divided into five sections, which echo themes of importance in British prehistory. They include papers on aspects of environmental archaeology, experiments and philosophy; new research on the nature of woodland on the chalklands of southern England; coasts and islands; people, process and ...
The Archaeology of Britain
The Archaeology of Britain is the only concise and up-to-date introduction to the archaeological record of Britain from the reoccupation of the landmass by Homo sapiens during the later stages of the most recent Ice Age until last century. This fully revised second edition extends its coverage, including greater detail on the first millennium AD beyond the Anglo-Saxon domain, and into recent times to look at the archaeological record produced by Britain’s central role in two World Wars and the Cold War. The chapters are written by experts in their respective fields. Each is geared to provide an authoritative but accessible introduction, supported by numerous illustrations of key sites and ...
Archaeological Chemistry
Highlighting its broad, multidisciplinary nature, this volume presents new research and applications in the field of archaeological chemistry, which focuses on the application of chemical techniques to the study of the material remains of the cultures of historical or prehistorical peoples. Consisting of 18 chapters written by a diverse collection of international authors, this volume highlights new research in archaeological chemistry, and shows how the field combines aspects of analytical chemistry, history, archaeology, and materials science. Current efforts to include archaeological chemistry in science education are also presented. As this book utilizes current scientific advances to better understand our past, it will be of broad general interest to the chemical, archaeological, and historical communities.
Human Transformations of the Earth
This book charts and explains how human activities have shaped and altered the development of soils in many parts of the world, taking advantage of five decades of soil analytical work in many archaeological landscapes from around the globe. The core of this volume describes and illustrates major transformations of soils and the processes involved in these that have occurred during the Holocene and how these relate to human activities as much as natural causes and trajectories of development, right up to the present day. This is done in two ways: first by examining a number of major processes and impacts on the landscape such as Holocene warming and the development of woodland, clearance and agricultural activities, and second by examining the trajectories of these changes in soil systems in different palaeo-environmental situations in several diverse parts of the world. The transformations identified are relevant to prevalent themes of today such as over-development and soil, land and environmental degradation and resilience. The studies articulated relate to Britain, southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean basin, East Africa, northern India and Peru in South America.
Human Impacts on Ancient Marine Ecosystems
Archaeological data now show that relatively intense human adaptations to coastal environments developed much earlier than once believed—more than 125,000 years ago. With our oceans and marine fisheries currently in a state of crisis, coastal archaeological sites contain a wealth of data that can shed light on the history of human exploitation of marine ecosystems. In eleven case studies from the Americas, Pacific Islands, North Sea, Caribbean, Europe, and Africa, leading researchers working in coastal areas around the world cover diverse marine ecosystems, reaching into deep history to discover how humans interacted with and impacted these aquatic environments and shedding new light on our understanding of contemporary environmental problems.
