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Recent developments in aDNA has reshaped our understanding of later European prehistory, and at the same time also opened up for more fruitful collaborations between archaeologists and historical linguists. Two revolutionary genetic studies, published independently in Nature, 2015, showed that prehistoric Europe underwent two successive waves of migration, one from Anatolia consistent with the introduction of agriculture, and a later influx from the Pontic-Caspian steppes which without any reasonable doubt pinpoints the archaeological Yamnaya complex as the cradle of (Core-)Indo-European languages. Now, for the first time, when the preliminaries are clear, it is possible for the fields of ge...
This book provides unique insights into Late Neolithic life, its organization and its economy, made possible by an altogether exceptional collection of recent archaeological findings in South Scandinavia from longhouses with sunken floors dating from this period. Through analysis and interpretation of these comprehensive materials, Danish archaeologist John Simonsen presents brand new findings essential for many wider interpretations of this crucial and fascinating transitional period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age (c. 2350- c. 1600 BC). The basic materials presented and discussed in Daily Life at the Turn of the Neolithic were mainly found during new archaeological excavations in the central part of the Limfjord region of Denmark, but, in terms of the wider perspectives and considerations, often relate to the entire region and in several respects also to South Scandinavia - and beyond.
Rising above the northern Michigan landscape, prehistoric burial mounds and impressive circular earthen enclosures bear witness to the deep history of the region’s ancient indigenous peoples. These mounds and earthworks have long been treated as isolated finds and have never been connected to the social dynamics of the time in which they were constructed, a period called Late Prehistory. In Mound Builders and Monument Makers of the Northern Great Lakes, 1200–1600, Meghan C. L. Howey uses archaeology to make this connection. She shows how indigenous communities of the northern Great Lakes used earthen structures as gathering places for ritual and social interaction, which maintained conne...
This book evaluates the evidence for indirect connections between the Aegean and the Indus extending back to the third and fourth millennia BCE, particularly commodities such as tin and lapis lazuli, and discusses recently discovered objects, new methods of materials analysis techniques and topics, as well as iconographic investigation.
This book presents a reassessment of the governmental systems of the Late Babylonian period—specifically those of the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian empires—and provides evidence demonstrating that these are among the first to have developed an early form of administrative law. The present study revolves around a particular expression that, in its most common form, reads ḫīṭu ša šarri išaddad and can be translated as “he will be guilty (of an offense) against the king.” The authors analyze ninety-six documents, thirty-two of which have not been previously published, discussing each text in detail, including the syntax of this clause and its legal consequences, which involve...
Ancient Scandinavia provides a comprehensive overview of the archaeological history of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
This book provides the first extensive coverage of the archaeology of the Arabian peninsula from c. 9000 to 800 BC. Providing a wealth of detail on the environmental and archaeological record, it argues that this ancient region was in many ways very different from the surrounding states in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It examines the adaptation of humans to Arabia's environment and the eventual formation of a unique society that flourished for millennia.
The title “Queen of the Arabs” is applied in Neo-Assyrian texts to five women from the Arabian Peninsula. These women led armies, offered tribute, and held religious roles in their communities from 738 to approximately 651 BCE. This book discusses what the title meant to the women who carried it and to the Assyrians who wrote about them. Whereas previous scholarship has considered the Queens of the Arabs in relation to the military and economic history of the Neo-Assyrian empire, Eleanor Bennett focuses on identity, using gender theory to locate points of the women’s alterity in Assyrian sources and to analyze how Assyrian cultural norms influenced the treatment of the “Queens of the...
This book publishes 323 handcopies of cuneiform tablets found in the academic papers of W. G. Lambert (1926–2011), one of the foremost Assyriologists of the twentieth century. Prepared by A. R. George and Junko Taniguchi, it completes a two-part edition of Lambert’s previously unpublished handcopies. Written by Babylonian and Assyrian scribes in ancient Mesopotamia, the texts collected here are organized by genre and presented with a descriptive catalogue and indexes. The contents include omen literature, divinatory rituals, religious texts, a scribal parody of Babylonian scholarship, theological and religious texts, lexical lists, god lists, and a small group of miscellaneous texts of v...