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Bringing Down the Iron Curtain
Since the fall of communism, archaeological research in Central and Eastern European countries has seen a large influx of new projects and ideas, fueled by bilateral contacts, Europe-wide circulation of scholars and access to research literature. This volume is the first study which relates these issues specifically to Bronze Age Archaeology.
Human Conflict from Neanderthals to the Samburu: Structure and Agency in Webs of Violence
This book examines human conflict throughout history, the reasons behind the struggles, and why it persists. The volume delves into the causes of human conflict and what can be done about them. Based on detailed descriptions that support insightful interpretations, the book explores significant historical events in the course of human history. By pursuing a “web of violence” approach, it raises and answers questions about the sources of conflict and how it may or may not be resolved through investigations into human agency and practice. It evaluates lessons learned concerning human conflict, violence, and warfare. To illustrate these lessons, the book presents a broad geographical and temporal set of data, including research on the time of Neanderthals in Europe (20-30 thousand years ago); the Late Neolithic civilization on the Mediterranean (6-8 thousand years ago); medieval Ireland; contemporary history of the Western Dani peoples of West Papua; and, finally, recent issues in Brazil, Congo, and Kenya.
How Religion Evolved
"For as long as history has been with us, religion has been a feature of human life. There is no known culture for which we have an ethnographic or an archaeological record that does not have some form of religion. Even in the secular societies that have become more common in the past few centuries, there are people who consider themselves religious and aspire to practise the rituals of their religion. These religions vary in form, style and size from small cults numbering a few hundred people centred around a charismatic leader to worldwide organizations numbering tens, or even hundreds, of millions of adherents with representations in every country. Some, like Buddhism, take an individualistic stance (your salvation is entirely in your own hands), some like the older Abrahamic religions view salvation as more of a collective activity through the performance of appropriate rituals, and a few (Judaism is one) have no formal concept of an afterlife. Some like Christianity and Islam believe in a single all- powerful God,
Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe
This book contends that Indo-European languages came to Greece, central Europe, southern Scandinavia and northern Italy no earlier than ca. 1600 BC, brought by the first military men whom Europeans had seen. That the Greek, Keltic, Italic and Germanic sub-groups of Indo-European originated in the middle of the second millennium BC is a controversial idea. Most Indo-Europeanists date the origin a thousand years earlier, and some archaeologists would place it before 5000 BC, as agriculture spread through Europe. Here Robert Drews argues that the Indo-European languages came into Europe via military conquests, and that militarism – a man’s pride in his weapons and in his status as a warrior - began with the employment of horse-drawn chariots in battle.
Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World
Modern archaeology has amassed considerable evidence for the disposal of the dead through burials, cemeteries and other monuments. Drawing on this body of evidence, this book offers fresh insight into how early human societies conceived of death and the afterlife. The twenty-seven essays in this volume consider the rituals and responses to death in prehistoric societies across the world, from eastern Asia through Europe to the Americas, and from the very earliest times before developed religious beliefs offered scriptural answers to these questions. Compiled and written by leading prehistorians and archaeologists, this volume traces the emergence of death as a concept in early times, as well as a contributing factor to the formation of communities and social hierarchies, and sometimes the creation of divinities.
Feast, Famine or Fighting?
The advent of social complexity has been a longstanding debate among social scientists. Existing theories and approaches involving the origins of social complexity include environmental circumscription, population growth, technology transfers, prestige-based and interpersonal-group competition, organized conflict, perennial wartime leadership, wealth finance, opportunistic leadership, climatological change, transport and trade monopolies, resource circumscription, surplus and redistribution, ideological imperialism, and the consideration of individual agency. However, recent approaches such as the inclusion of bioarchaeological perspectives, prospection methods, systematically-investigated archaeological sites along with emerging technologies are necessarily transforming our understanding of socio-cultural evolutionary processes. In short, many pre-existing ways of explaining the origins and development of social complexity are being reassessed. Ultimately, the contributors to this edited volume challenge the status quo regarding how and why social complexity arose by providing revolutionary new understandings of social inequality and socio-political evolution.
Testing the Canon of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology
This book considers the "Greatest Hits" of ancient Near Eastern art and archaeology, including canonical objects, sites, and monuments from Egypt, the Levant, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, from the prehistoric era through the Classical period. Gansell, Shafer, and their contributors investigate the factors that have made these historical artifacts so well known for so long. By questioning the canon, this book allows readers to better reflect on the range of ancientNear Eastern culture and revise the canon so it can accommodate new discoveries, represent the values of heritage communities, and remain relevant to contemporary and future audiences.
Snakes, Birds and Dreams
Snakes. Birds and Dreams: Gobekli Tepe and Caduceus By: Toru Nakamura PhD An international economist, Toru Nakamura, PhD has served in consulting and executive roles advising many private and public organizations around the world. Sharing a wide-ranging view is necessary to the future of our troubled world. However, too many social scientists have become increasingly specialized, paying little attention to what other disciplines are discovering and are losing a humanist perspective. In the process, they ignore the imagination and the importance of virtues like love or trust to bind us together. As the twenty-first century began, Dr. Nakamura began to visit some ruins of the world. He was awestruck at the prehistoric ruins called Göbekli Tepe, which was unearthed in the mid-1990s in southeastern Turkey. Later, Dr. Nakamura learned that the Greek symbol of the caduceus, a wand topped with wings and two entwined snakes, likely originated at this remarkable prehistoric site. There, as the last Ice Age was ending, the human imagination that led to the birth of civilization burst out.
Cattle and People
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
Fragments of the Bronze Age
The destruction and deposition of metalwork is a widely recognised phenomenon across Bronze Age Europe. Weapons were decommissioned and thrown into rivers; axes were fragmented and piled in hoards; and ornaments were crushed, contorted and placed in certain landscapes. Interpretation of this material is often considered in terms of whether such acts should be considered ritual offerings, or functional acts for storing, scrapping and recycling the metal. This book approaches this debate from a fresh perspective, by focusing on how the metalwork was destroyed and deposited as a means to understand the reasons behind the process. To achieve this, this study draws on experimental archaeology, as...
