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This compilation of original research articles highlight the important cross-regional, cross-chronological, and comparative approaches to political and economic landscapes in ancient South Asia and its neighbors. Focusing on the Indus Valley period and Iron Age India, this volume incorporates new research in South Asia within the broader universe of archaeological scholarship. Contributions focus on four major themes: reinterpreting material culture; identifying domains and regional boundaries; articulating complexity; and modeling interregional interaction. These studies develop theoretical models that may be applicable researchers studying cultural complexity elsewhere in the world.
Written by eminent scholars in the field, this edited volume is the first to treat in a comprehensive manner the archaeology of metallurgy's origins, focusing specifically on initial uses of copper and bronze, as well as the coming of iron across Asia from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Far East. It is a volume that should serve for some time to come as the source of the fundamental information upon which larger interpretations of metallurgical developments in Asia will be grounded. MASCA research papers, Vol. 16 University Museum Monograph, 89
Located in the Mewar region of Rajasthan, India, Gilund is the largest known site of the Ahar-Banas Cultural Complex, a large agropastoral group that was contemporaneous with and flanked by the Indus Civilization. Occupied during the Chalcolithic and Early Historic periods, the ancient site of Gilund holds significant clues to understanding third millennium B.C.E cultural interactions in South Asia and beyond. Excavations at Gilund provides a full analysis of the artifacts recovered during the five-year excavation project conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and Deccan College. The excavators investigated the regional development of early farming villages, their shifting subsistence p...
The book examines Sarasvati’s origin, the course of her flow and the place of her disappearance in a holistic manner. Based on a close analysis of texts from the early Rig-Veda to the Brahmanas and the Puranas, it discusses different view-points in a balanced perspective and attempts to drive the discussions towards the emergence of a consensus view. The author delineates the various phases of Sarasvati’s evolution to establish her unique status and emphasise her continued relevance in the Hindu tradition. The book argues that the practice of pilgrimage further evolved after its association with the river Sarasvati who was perceived as divinity personified in Hindu tradition.
Assessing key questions such as who the foreigners and outsiders in ancient Maya societies were and how was the foreign a generative component of identity, Foreigners Among Us reassess the arrival of foreigners as part of archaeological understandings of Pre-Columbian Maya and questions not only who these foreigners might have been but who were making such designations of difference in the first place. Drawing from identity studies, standpoint theory, and ideas on alterity, Foreigners Among Us highlights the diverse ways being foreign was constituted, imitated, and marked – from quotidian practices of making corn tortillas to ceremonial acts between king and captive and their memorializati...
This volume brings together a wide spectrum of new approaches to ancient Maya studies in an innovative exploration of how the Preclassic and Classic Maya shaped their world. Moving beyond the towering temples and palaces typically associated with the Maya civilization, contributors present unconventional examples of monumental Maya landscapes. Featuring studies from across the central Maya lowlands, Belize, and the northern and central Maya highlands and spanning over 10,000 years of human occupation in the region, these chapters show how the word “monumental” can be used to describe natural and constructed landscapes, political and economic landscapes, and ritual and sacred landscapes. ...
Killing Civilization uses case studies from across the modern and ancient world to develop a new model of incipient urbanism and its consequences.
Since the eighteenth century, the concept of prehistory was exported by colonialism to far parts of the globe and applied to populations lacking written records. Prehistory in these settings came to represent primitive people still living in a state without civilization and its foremost index, literacy. Yet, many societies outside the Western world had developed complex methods of history making and documentation, including epic poetry and the use of physical and mental mnemonic devices. Even so, the deeply engrained concept of prehistory--deeply entrenched in European minds up to the beginning of the twenty-first century--continues to deny history and historical identify to peoples throughout the world. The fourteen essays, by notable archaeologists of the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia, provide authoritative examples of how the concept of prehistory has diminished histories of other cultures outside the West and how archaeologists can reclaim more inclusive histories set within the idiom of deep histories--accepting ancient pre-literate histories as an integral part of the flow of human history.
Describes the metallography and microstructure of ancient metals with several case studies included. The first volume in this series is devoted to the alloys of copper with silver, lead, tin, zinc, antimony and arsenic.
This book analyses the trade system in Ladakh (India), a busy entrepôt for Silk Route trade between Central and South Asia. The author's research combines anthropological, historical, and archaeological methods of investigation to present a cultural history of South/Central Asia.