On her travels she has witnessed some of the daunting and brutal challenges our ancestors had to face: mountains, deserts, oceans, changing climates, terrifying giant beasts and volcanoes. But she discovers that perhaps the most serious threat of all came from other humans. When our ancestors set out from Africa there were already two other species of human on the planet: Neanderthal in Europe and Homo erectus in Asia. Both (contrary to popular perception) were intelligent, adept at making tools and weapons and were long adapted to their environments. So, Alice asks, why did only Homo sapiens survive? Part detective story, part travelogue, and drawing on the latest genetic and archaeological discoveries, Alice examines how our ancestors evolved physically in response to these challenges, finding out how our colour, shape, size, diet, disease resistance and even athletic ability have been shaped by the range of environments that our ancestors had to survive. She also relates how astonishingly closely related we all are.

    Knowing it would make him an instant success, Brian turns to a mobster for help to get it. Dealing with the mob means things must go exactly right - or you may lose your life.You'll keep turning pages as Brian jets from Dallas to New York, London and Egypt, trying to get the world's most important document before others can snatch it.Buy this book now!

    Now, using advanced imaging technology, scientists have solved the mystery of its intricate workings. Unmatched in complexity for a thousand years, the mechanism functioned as the world's first analog computer, calculating the movements of the sun, moon, and planets through the zodiac. In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant details for the first time the hundred-year quest to decode this ancient computer. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters--ranging from Archimedes to Jacques Cousteau--and explores the deep roots of modern technology, not only in ancient Greece, but in the Islamic world and medieval Europe. At its heart, this is an epic adventure story, a book that challenges our assumptions about technology development through the ages while giving us fresh insights into history itself.

    Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology. This dazzling, cutting-edge synthesis, written for a wide audience by an archaeologist who has long been at the center of these debates, tells the scientific story of the first Americans: where they came from, when they arrived, and how they met the challenges of moving across the vast, unknown landscapes of Ice Age North America. David J. Meltzer pulls together the latest ideas from archaeology, geology, linguistics, skeletal biology, genetics, and other fields to trace the breakthroughs that have revolutionized our understanding in recent years. Among many other topics, he explores disputes over the hemisphere's oldest and most controversial sites and considers how the first Americans coped with changing global climates. He also confronts some radical claims: that the Americas were colonized from Europe or that a crashing comet obliterated the Pleistocene megafauna. Full of entertaining descriptions of on-site encounters, personalities, and controversies, this is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of how science is illuminating our past.

    Straight leg bones. Awkwardly contorted arm bones. On a hot summer day in 2005, Dr. Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution peered into an excavated grave, carefully examining the fragile skeleton that had been buried there for four hundred years. He was about fifteen years old when he died. And he was European, Owsley concluded. But how did he know? Just as forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve crimes, they use similar skills to solve the mysteries of the long-ago past. Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside the scientists investigating colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia, as well as other sites in Maryland. As you follow their investigations, she'll introduce you to what scientists believe are the lives of a teenage boy, a ship's captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official and his family, and an enslaved African girl. All are reaching beyond the grave to tell us their stories, which are written in bone.

    From stone circles and henges to long barrows and cairns, our distant ancestors adapted and shaped their monuments to all environments, leaving us the tantalizing signs of their long-forgotten lives.

    With an evolutionary perspective as its basis, this exciting book provides a framework by which the discipline can finally be coherently explored.By looking at what we know of human evolution and disease in relation to the diets that humans enjoy now and prehistorically, the book allows the reader to begin to truly understand the link between diet and disease in the Western world and move towards a greater knowledge of what can be defined as the optimal human diet.Written by a leading expert Covers all major diseases, including cancer, heart disease, obesity, stroke and dementia Details the benefits and risks associated with the Palaeolithic diet Draws conclusions on key topics including sustainable nutrition and the question of healthy eatingThis important book provides an exciting and useful insight into this fascinating subject area and will be of great interest to nutritionists, dietitians and other members of the health professions. Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists will also find much of interest within the book. All university and research establishments where nutritional sciences, medicine, food science and biological sciences are studied and taught should have copies of this title.

    The power of the Highland clans was broken. And the image of sword-wielding Highlanders charging into a hail of lead delivered by the red-coated battalions of the Hanoverian army has passed into legend. The battle was decisive - it was a turning point in British history. And yet our perception of this critical episode tends to be confused by mistaken, sometimes partisan views of the events on the battlefield. So, what really happened at Culloden? In this fascinating and original book, a team of leading historians and archaeologists reconsiders every aspect of the battle. They examine the latest historical and archaeological evidence, question every assumption, and rewrite the story of the campaign in vivid detail. This is the first time that such a distinguished team of experts has focused on a single British battle. The result is a seminal study of the subject, and it is a landmark publication of battlefield archaeology.

    Beginning with a geographical overview that explains the development of Egyptian belief systems as well as its subsequent political development, it examines methodology, the history of the discipline of Egyptology, religion, social organization, urban and rural life, and death. It also includes a section on how people of all ranks lived. Lavishly illustrated, with many unusual photographs of rarely seen sites that are seldom illustrated, this volume is suitable for use in introductory-level courses on ancient Egypt. It offers a variety of student-friendly features, including a glossary, a bibliography, and a list of sources for those who wish to further their interest in ancient Egypt.

    Just a handful are open to the public; many others are closed and can be visited only by scholars; still others have been hidden under villages built over the past centuries and have only recently been discovered.Written by world-renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass and illustrated with spectacular new photographs by Sandro Vannini, this new book gives an unprecedented access to these largely inaccessible tombs. It reveals some of the most exquisite examples of Egyptian art to be found anywhere in the land of the Nile, reflecting the aristocratic status of the tombs’ owners.At the heart of the book, three major chapters examine the glorious paintings and exquisitely sculpted reliefs that depict daily life on earth and life in paradise. Other chapters place the tomb owners in their historical context, explore the architecture and construction of the tombs, display the lavish burial equipment, and discuss the vital ongoing work of restoration and conservation. A reference section includes maps, plans, and a checklist of tombs.

    The place chosen to dig a massive dry dock was atop one of the largest and oldest Indian village sites ever found in the region. Yet the state continued its project, disturbing hundreds of burials and unearthing more than 10,000 artifacts at Tse-whit-zen village, the heart of the long-buried homeland of the Klallam people.Excitement at the archaeological find of a generation gave way to anguish as tribal members working alongside state construction workers encountered more and more human remains, including many intact burials. Finally, tribal members said the words that stopped the project: "Enough is enough."Soon after, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe chairwoman Frances Charles asked the state to walk away from more than $70 million in public money already spent on the project and find a new site. The state, in an unprecedented and controversial decision that reverberated around the nation, agreed.In search of the story behind the story, Seattle Times reporter Lynda V. Mapes spent more than a year interviewing tribal members, archaeologists, historians, city and state officials, and local residents and business leaders. Her account begins with the history of Tse-whit-zen village, and the nineteenth- and twentieth-century impacts of contact, forced assimilation, and industrialization. She then engages all the voices involved in the dry dock controversy to explore how the site was chosen, and how the decisions were made first to proceed and then to abandon the project, as well as the aftermath and implications of those controversial choices.This beautifully crafted and compassionate account, illustrated with nearly 100 photographs, illuminates the collective amnesia that led to the choice of the Port Angeles construction site. "You have to know your past in order to build your future," Charles says, recounting the words of tribal elders. Breaking Ground takes that teaching to heart, demonstrating that the lessons of Tse-whit-zen are teachings from which we all may benefit.A Capell Family Book

    She is perhaps the best known and most studied fossil hominid of the twentieth century, the benchmark by which other discoveries of human ancestors are judged.”–From Lucy’s LegacyIn his New York Times bestseller, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, renowned paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson told the incredible story of his discovery of a partial female skeleton that revolutionized the study of human origins. Lucy literally changed our understanding of our world and who we come from. Since that dramatic find in 1974, there has been heated debate and–most important–more groundbreaking discoveries that have further transformed our understanding of when and how humans evolved. In Lucy’s Legacy, Johanson takes readers on a fascinating tour of the last three decades of study–the most exciting period of paleoanthropologic investigation thus far. In that time, Johanson and his colleagues have uncovered a total of 363 specimens of Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy’s species, a transitional creature between apes and humans), spanning 400,000 years. As a result, we now have a unique fossil record of one branch of our family tree–that family being humanity–a tree that is believed to date back a staggering 7 million years.Focusing on dramatic new fossil finds and breakthrough advances in DNA research, Johanson provides the latest answers that post-Lucy paleoanthropologists are finding to questions such as: How did Homo sapiens evolve? When and where did our species originate? What separates hominids from the apes? What was the nature of Neandertal and modern human encounters? What mysteries about human evolution remain to be solved?Donald Johanson is a passionate guide on an extraordinary journey from the ancient landscape of Hadar, Ethiopia–where Lucy was unearthed and where many other exciting fossil discoveries have since been made–to a seaside cave in South Africa that once sheltered early members of our own species, and many other significant sites. Thirty-five years after Lucy, Johanson continues to enthusiastically probe the origins of our species and what it means to be human.

    Spanning the ancient and medieval worlds, it investigates the shared ideal of sacred kingship that emerged in the late Roman and Persian empires. This shared ideal, while often generating conflict during the four centuries of the empires' coexistence (224-642), also drove exchange, especially the means and methods Roman and Persian sovereigns used to project their notions of universal rule: elaborate systems of ritual and their cultures' visual, architectural, and urban environments. Matthew Canepa explores the artistic, ritual, and ideological interactions between Rome and the Iranian world under the Sasanian dynasty, the last great Persian dynasty before Islam. He analyzes how these two hostile systems of sacred universal sovereignty not only coexisted, but fostered cross-cultural exchange and communication despite their undying rivalry. Bridging the traditional divide between classical and Iranian history, this book brings to life the dazzling courts of two global powers that deeply affected the cultures of medieval Europe, Byzantium, Islam, South Asia, and China.

    Its inhabitants lived in prosperous agricultural towns. The ubiquitous goddess figurines found in their houses and shrines have triggered intense debates about women's roles. The Lost World of Old Europe is the accompanying catalog for an exhibition at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. This superb volume features essays by leading archaeologists as well as breathtaking color photographs cataloguing the objects, some illustrated here for the first time.The heart of Old Europe was in the lower Danube valley, in contemporary Bulgaria and Romania. Old European coppersmiths were the most advanced metal artisans in the world. Their intense interest in acquiring copper, Aegean shells, and other rare valuables gave rise to far-reaching trading networks. In their graves, the bodies of Old European chieftains were adorned with pounds of gold and copper ornaments. Their funerals were without parallel in the Near East or Egypt. The exhibition represents the first time these rare objects have appeared in the United States.An unparalleled introduction to Old Europe's cultural, technological, and artistic legacy, The Lost World of Old Europe includes essays by Douglass Bailey, John Chapman, Cornelia-Magda Lazarovici, Ioan Opris and Catalin Bem, Ernst Pernicka, Dragomir Nicolae Popovici, Michel S�f�riad�s, and Vladimir Slavchev.

    These behaviours are also exhibited by populations throughout the world, from the prehistoric period through to the present day. How can we interpret these activities? What do they tell us about the beliefs and priorities of the people who carried them out? How do these behaviours relate to ideologies, cosmology, and understanding of the world? What can they tell us about the emergence of ritual and religious thought? And how do the activities of humans in prehistoric Europe compare with those of their predecessors there and elsewhere? In this volume, fifteen internationally renowned scholars contribute essays that explore the relationship between symbolism, spirituality, and humanity in the prehistoric societies of Europe and traditional societies elsewhere. The volume is richly illustrated with 50 halftones and 24 color plates.

    It is just within the boundary of the Northumberland National Park, and is a part of the World Heritage Site of Hadrian's Wall. The Wall itself was built on the whinstone ridge a mile to the north, with the fort of Housesteads two miles to the north-east, and that of Great Chesters five miles to the north-west. This book follows the site throughout its many phases of use and occupation. It explores the everyday life of those who lived and worked on the site and provides valuable new insight into the larger context of Rome's Northern Frontier: Hadrian's Wall. The translations of the Vindolanda Scrolls ('send fresh socks' etc) are also a treat!

    The editors of this volume, Robbie Ethridge and Sheri M. Shuck-Hall, argue that such a period and region of instability and regrouping constituted a “shatter zone.” In this anthology, archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists analyze the shatter zone created in the colonial South by examining the interactions of American Indians and European colonists. The forces that destabilized the region included especially the frenzied commercial traffic in Indian slaves conducted by both Europeans and Indians, which decimated several southern Native communities; the inherently fluid political and social organization of precontact Mississippian chiefdoms; and the widespread epidemics that spread across the South. Using examples from a range of Indian communities—Muskogee, Catawba, Iroquois, Alabama, Coushatta, Shawnee, Choctaw, Westo, and Natchez—the contributors assess the shatter zone region as a whole, and the varied ways in which Native peoples wrestled with an increasingly unstable world and worked to reestablish order.

    This book is the first in-depth synthesis of the Classic Maya. It is richly informed by new decipherments of hieroglyphs and decades of intensive excavation and survey. Structured by categories of person in society, it reports on kings, queens, nobles, gods, and ancestors, as well as the many millions of farmers and other figures who lived in societies predicated on sacred kingship and varying political programs. The Classic Maya presents a tandem model of societies bound by moral covenants and convulsed by unavoidable tensions between groups, all affected by demographic trends and changing environments. Focusing on the Classic heartland but referring to other zones, it will serve as the basic source for all readers interested in the civilization of the Maya.

    Obelisks--giant standing stones, invented in Ancient Egypt as sacred objects--serve no practical purpose. For much of their history their inscriptions, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, were completely inscrutable. Yet over the centuries dozens of obelisks have made the voyage from Egypt to Rome, Constantinople, and Florence; to Paris, London, and New York. New obelisks and even obelisk-shaped buildings rose as well--the Washington Monument being a noted example. Obelisks, everyone seems to sense, connote some very special sort of power. This beautifully illustrated book traces the fate and many meanings of obelisks across nearly forty centuries--what they meant to the Egyptians, and how other cultures have borrowed, interpreted, understood, and misunderstood them through the years. In each culture obelisks have taken on new meanings and associations. To the Egyptians, the obelisk was the symbol of a pharaoh's right to rule and connection to the divine. In ancient Rome, obelisks were the embodiment of Rome's coming of age as an empire. To nineteenth-century New Yorkers, the obelisk in Central Park stood for their country's rejection of the trappings of empire just as it was itself beginning to acquire imperial power. And to a twentieth-century reader of Freud, the obelisk had anatomical and psychological connotations. The history of obelisks is a story of technical achievement, imperial conquest, Christian piety and triumphalism, egotism, scholarly brilliance, political hubris, bigoted nationalism, democratic self-assurance, Modernist austerity, and Hollywood kitsch--in short, the story of Western civilization.

    Providing a thorough review of the literature on this topic, it also serves as a guide to the methods of study of bird remains from the past and covers a wide range of topics, including anatomy and osteology, taphonomy, eggs, feathers, and, bone tools. It examines the myriad ways in which people have interacted with birds in the past. The volume also includes discussion on the consumption of wild birds, the domestication of birds, cockfighting and falconry, birds in ritual and religion, and the role of birds in ecological reconstruction, providing an up-to-date survey of current knowledge on these topics. Birds will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate students interested in zooarchaeology and human-animal relations, as well as professional zooarchaeologists, archaeologists, and anthropologists interested in birds and people of the past.

    It will drive hundreds of thousands from their homes, many never to return. An earthquake of historical destructive power suddenly strikes from an unknown fault line in California, leaving in its wake the second most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. A flood, the like of which has not been seen for 500 years, ravages the Midwest United States, ruining crops and towns. Bizarre weather afflicts multitudes of people with hundreds of tornados striking in what is described as the "worst weather in U.S. history," immediately followed by a European heat wave described as the worst in the last 250 years. Terrorists successfully strike in another "day of infamy," and the entire financial structure of the world is shaken to its core as once mighty institutions begin to crumble. All of these terrible events would appear on the surface to be random acts of God. But, were they? The Israel Omen considers a series of historically destructive events since 1991, connected by a common thread: warnings found in ancient Hebrew writings. Are these events perhaps the telling signs of an ancient omen, the same omen ignored by Egypt some 3500 years ago resulting in the famous Biblical plagues? Did this omen return with the homecoming of the Jews to the Holy Land in 1948? As the nations of the world gather to remove the restored "Promised Land" from the Jews, the international group called the "Quartet" leading the effort eerily appears to be specifically mentioned in these ancient writings. Was the financial collapse that began in 2007 the beginning of a promised curse against the nations gathered to remove the restored "Promised Land?"

    He explores the many small outbuildings that can still be found at obscure rural farmsteads throughout the Tidewater and greater mid-Atlantic, in towns like Williamsburg and Annapolis, and at elite plantations such as Mount Vernon and Monticello. These structures were designed to support the performance of a single task: cooking food; washing clothes; smoking meat; storing last winter's ice; or keeping milk, cheese, and cream fresh. Privies and small offices are also addressed, as is the dovecote, in which doves were raised for their eggs, squab meat, feathers, and fertilizer. Often, these little buildings were clustered in such a way as to resemble a small village, knit together by similar design details and building materials: they were all constructed in weatherboards or in brick, for instance, or were arranged in a single file or positioned at the four corners of the yard.In this appealing book, featuring nearly a hundred crisp black-and-white photographs, Olmert explains how these well-made buildings actually functioned. He is riveted by the history of outbuildings: their architecture, patterns of use, folklore, and even their literary presence. In two appendixes he also considers octagonal and hexagonal structures, which had special significance, both doctrinal and cultural, in early America.Archaeologists and historians still have many questions about the design and function of outbuildings-questions that are often difficult to answer because of the ephemeral nature of these structures; they were not documented-any more than laundry rooms and storage units inspire rhapsodies today. Olmert's book, deeply grounded in scholarship, eminently readable, and profusely illustrated, takes these buildings seriously and gives them the attention they deserve.

    She knew seeing Adrian again would stir up memories, but she didn’t expect so many of them to be good, not after the mess they both made three years ago. She also didn’t expect to want to stay at the dig site on the Yucatan Peninsula. But the lure of the ancient ship and, yes, her sexy ex provide more of a draw than the white picket fence she thought she wanted. Marine archaeologist Adrian Reeves has good reason to trust no one. His former partner—and former best friend—made off with his last archaeological find. And his wife left him, frustrated by his obsession for professional revenge. Now both Mallory and his nemesis have returned, and it can’t be an accident that they’ve turned up in the middle of the most important excavation of his career. Seeing her again unearths old pain—and rekindles never-forgotten desire. Now he has to decide if he can trust Mallory again. More importantly, if he can trust himself with her. Warning: Smokin’ hot archaeologists, painful memories, breathtaking underwater scenes and a passion that won’t die.

    Using the tools and knowledge of their field, archaeologists can now determine the nature of a sacrificial ritual, compare the visible attributes of ancient deities, and map out the orientation of a temple or tomb.Professor Hale gives you a comprehensive look at specific religious archaeological sites around the world-inside caves and crypts, through vast deserts and ancient cities, from Polynesia to Mexico to the American Midwest.Studying these breathtaking sites such as Lascaux Cave, Machu Picchu, and Easter Island, you learn the points of interest that attract the attention of archaeologists and scholars, survey the principal features unearthed during the site's excavation, discover what evidence at the site reveals about the evolution of religion, and more.By the final lap of your international journey, you'll have developed a new vision of religion and its crucial role in ancient history. You'll become more attuned to spirituality's universal elements and its unique characteristics. And you'll realize just how much credit religion deserves for remarkable sites that continue to captivate us.

    Hebrew was more than just a way of transmitting information; it was a vehicle of political symbolism and self-representation. Seth L. Sanders connects the Bible's distinctive linguistic form--writing down a local spoken language--to a cultural desire to speak directly to people, summoning them to join a new community that the text itself helped call into being. Addressing the people of Israel through a vernacular literature, Hebrew texts reimagined their audience as a public. By comparing Biblical documents with related ancient texts in Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Babylonian, this book shows Hebrew's distinctiveness as a self-conscious political language. Illuminating the enduring stakes of Biblical writing, Sanders demonstrates how Hebrew assumed and promoted a source of power previously unknown in written literature: "the people" as the protagonist of religion and politics.

    Nothing else approaches its vast scale: a land wall running 73 miles from east to west and a sea wall stretching at least 26 miles down the Cumbrian coast. Many of its forts are as large as Britain's most formidable medieval castles, and the wide ditch dug to the south of the Wall, the vallum, is larger than any surviving prehistoric earthwork. Built in a ten-year period by more than 30,000 soldiers and labourers at the behest of an extraordinary emperor, the Wall consisted of more than 24 million stones, giving it a mass greater than all the Egyptian pyramids put together. At least a million people visit Hadrian's Wall each year and it has been designated a World Heritage Site. In this new book, based on literary and historical sources as well as the latest archaeological research, Alistair Moffat considers who built the Wall, how it was built, why it was built, and how it affected the native peoples who lived in its mighty shadow. The result is a unique and fascinating insight into one of the Wonders of the Ancient World.

    As both the burial place of the first kings of Egypt and a cult center for Osiris, god of the dead, this sacred area has long tantalized archaeologists with incredible finds.With over forty years’ experience of excavation and research at Abydos, David O’Connor is in an unrivaled position to provide the most authoritative and up-to-date account of this unique Egyptian site. Here, for the first time, Professor O’Connor not only explains the complex history of Abydos but also vividly evokes the power that the sacred landscape held for contemporary Egyptians. This beautifully illustrated book will be of interest to anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of one of the greatest civilizations in world history.

    Fakes and forgeries run rampant in the Mesoamerican art collections of international museums and private individuals. Authors Nancy Kelker and Karen Bruhns examine the phenomenon in this eye-opening volume. They discuss the most commonly forged classes and styles of artifacts, many of which were being duplicated as early as the 19th century. More important, they describe the system whereby these objects get made, purchased, authenticated, and placed in major museums as well as the complicity of forgers, dealers, curators, and collectors in this system. Unique to this volume are biographies of several of the forgers, who describe their craft and how they are able to effectively fool connoisseurs and specialists. An important, accessible introduction to pre-Columbian art fraud for archaeologists, art historians, and museum professionals alike. A parallel volume by the same authors discusses fakes in Andean archaeology.

    Although his architectural work and its influence have been well documented, less attention has been paid to his work on gardens. His most famous garden is the one he created for himself at his estate, Lunuganga, and it is matched only by the nearby garden of his brother, Bevis, who was also an architect and designer.

    The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology provides an introduction to the world of these ancient documents and literary texts, ranging from the raw materials of writing to the languages used, from the history of papyrology to its future, and from practical help in reading papyri to frank opinions about the nature of the work of papyrologists. This volume, the first major reference work on papyrology written in English, takes account of the important changes experienced by the discipline within especially the last thirty years. Including new work by twenty-seven international experts and more than one hundred illustrations, The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology will serve as an invaluable guide to the subject.

    

    This book charts the flow of India's grassroots archaeological history in all its continuities and diversitiesfrom its Palaeolithic beginnings to AD 300 when early historic India assumed its basic form.The book reconstructs the historical development of human-natural resource interaction in the subcontinent in a lucid style with maps, illustrations, and tables. This second edition contains a new afterword, which discusses all new ideas and discoveries in Indian Archaeology between 1998 and 2008.Written by an expert on Indian archaeology, this book would be indispensable for students and specialists of archaeology and early South Asian history.

    In Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World, Valerie L. Garver offers a fresh appraisal of the cultural and social history of eighth- and ninth-century women. Examining changes in women's lives and in the ways others perceived women during the early Middle Ages, she shows that lay and religious women, despite their legal and social constrictions, played integral roles in Carolingian society.Garver's innovative book employs an especially wide range of sources, both textual and material, which she uses to construct a more complex and nuanced impression of aristocratic women than we've seen before. She looks at the importance of female beauty and adornment; the family and the construction of identities and collective memory; education and moral exemplarity; wealth, hospitality and domestic management; textile work, and the lifecycle of elite Carolingian women.Her interdisciplinary approach makes deft use of canons of church councils, chronicles, charters, polyptychs, capitularies, letters, poetry, exegesis, liturgy, inventories, hagiography, memorial books, artworks, archaeological remains, and textiles. Ultimately, Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World underlines the centrality of the Carolingian era to the reshaping of antique ideas and the development of lasting social norms.

    It includes a definitive list, photographs, drawings and description of the motifs and sets the discovery in its archaeological and geological context.

    The integration of biological and mortuary data results in new approaches to the construction of social identity."--Dale L. Hutchinson, University of North CarolinaBioarchaeology and Identity in the Americas represents an important shift in the interpretation of skeletal remains in the Americas. Until recently, bioarchaeology has focused on interpreting and analyzing populations. The contributors here look to examine how individuals fit into those larger populations.The overall aim is to demonstrate how bioarchaeologists can uniquely contribute to our understanding of the formation, representation, and repercussions of identity. The contributors combine historical and archaeological data with population genetic analyses, biogeochemical analyses of human tooth enamel and bones, mortuary patterns, and body modifications. With case studies drawn from North, Central, and South American mortuary remains from AD 500 to the Colonial period, they examine a wide range of factors that make up identity, including ethnicity, age, gender, and social, political, and religious constructions.By adding a valuable biological element to the study of culture--a topic traditionally associated with social theorists, ethnographers, and historical archaeologies--this volume highlights the importance of skeletal evidence in helping us better understand our past.

    Bible in hand, he takes readers on a stunning tour through the places Jesus lived, worked, and suffered—Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, Jerusalem—to give a concrete and colorful sense of the historical Jesus and the world he knew.Along the way, archaeologists reveal to Hesemann a host of little-known discoveries, from the apostles' boat to Herod's palace to what might be the sites of Jesus' miracles. This book brings readers face-to-face with the mystery of the Incarnation—a God who, if Scripture is right, became man and lived among us. Pack your bag and follow closely as Michael Hesemann retraces the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth.

    From the Egypt of the pharaohs through the democracies of Greece to the fall of Imperial Rome, this handsome volume reflects the perennial Blue Guides’ strengths in erudition and research.

    This so-called 'Minoan' eruption triggered tsunamis that devastated coastal settlements in the region, and on Santorini it left behind a Bronze Age Pompeii, which is currently being excavated. Thriving Bronze Age settlements on the island - rich in colorful wall paintings and highly sophisticated pottery - were buried under thick layers of volcanic ash. The ejection of an immense volume of dust into the atmosphere also altered global climate for several years. The author, a well-known geologist, blends the thrill of scientific discovery with a popular presentation of the geology, archeology, history, peoples, and environmental settings of the island group of Santorini. He not only gives a comprehensive overview of the volcanic island and its past, but also reports on the latest discoveries: The finding, for example, of the olive trees which had been buried alive by the Minoan eruption has made it possible now to give a direct and precise radiocarbon date for the volcanic catastrophe. Furthermore, he seeks to assign certain geological structures, such as faulted rocks, red lavas and harbor sites, as depicted on the Bronze Age frescos from Santorini, to still-existing details in the Santorini landscape of today. Excellent color photographs and illustrations along with easily understandable scientific and historic details will make this book highly appealing to a wide audience. It will also be useful as a supplementary text for introductory courses in earth and atmospheric science, geology, volcanology, and paleoclimatology, as well as ancient history and archeology.

    Through a thematic investigation of archaeological patterns ranging from monument construction and use and production and consumption of metals to the nature of mobility among societies, the essays in this volume provide the most up-to-date thinking on social and cultural change in prehistoric Eurasia. Collectively, they challenge broader theoretical trends in Anglo-American archaeology, which have traditionally favored comparative studies of sedentary agricultural societies over mobile pastoralist or agro-pastoralist communities. By highlighting the potential and limitations of comparative studies of social complexity, this volume sets the agenda for future studies of this region of the world. It emphasizes how the unique nature of early steppe societies can contribute to more comprehensive interpretations of social trajectories in world prehistory.

    They were nonetheless one of the longest-lasting, for their state survived Charlemagne's conquest in 774, and was the core of the medieval kingdom of Italy. The incompleteness of their conquest of Italy was also one of the root causes of Italian division for over 1300 years after their arrival. But they present a challenge to the historian, for most of the evidence for them dates to the last half-century of their independence, up to 774, a period in which Langobard Italy was a coherent and apparently tightly-governed state by early medieval standards. How they reached this from the incoherent and disorganised situation visible in late sixth-century Italy is still a matter of debate. The historians and archaeologists who contribute to this volume discuss Langobard archaeology and material culture both before and after their invasion, Langobard language, political organisation, the church, social structures, family structures, and urban economy. It is thus an important and up to date starting point for future research on early medieval Italy. Contributors: G. AUSENDA, S. BARNISH, S. BRATHER, T.S. BROWN, N. CHRISTIE, M. COSTAMBEYS, P. DELOGU, D. GREEN, W. HAUBRICHS, J. HENNING, B. WARD-PERKINS, C. WICKHAM.

    Imagining themselves as nation builders, they understood the importance of a plan for the economic structure of the Confederacy. The traditional view assumes that Confederate slave-based agrarianism went hand in hand with a natural hostility toward industry and commerce. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, John Majewski's analysis finds that secessionists strongly believed in industrial development and state-led modernization. They blamed the South's lack of development on Union policies of discriminatory taxes on southern commerce and unfair subsidies for northern industry. Majewski argues that Confederates' opposition to a strong central government was politically tied to their struggle against northern legislative dominance. Once the Confederacy was formed, those who had advocated states' rights in the national legislature in order to defend against northern political dominance quickly came to support centralized power and a strong executive for war making and nation building.

    It describes the key events in Roman history, and offers fascinating insights into Roman life and culture as they changed and developed over the centuries.

    Until now, however, no introductory treatment has presented the subject in a form that was quantitatively explicit and yet easy to follow. Designed as an introduction to undergraduate and graduate students new to the subject, and as a refresher for professionals seeking to broaden their command, Hunter-Gatherer Foraging: Five Simple Models presents the five foraging models that lend themselves best to hunter-gatherer application: diet breadth, linear programming, front- versus back-loaded resources, technological investment, and field processing. Each chapter begins with a hypothetical hunter-gatherer problem and takes the reader through the steps needed to state such problems in quantitative form and solve them. Exercises (with answers) at the end of each chapter reinforce key concepts and methodology. From the reviews . . . "[A] fine volume that does just what it claims to. The style is informal, often humorous, and it will clearly work well in a classroom of advanced undergraduates or graduate students. The flow and clarity of the discussions almost makes one forget that this is math that they're trying to master. . . . [A]nyone with a serious interest in hunter-gatherers, prehistoric subsistence, and resource provisioning will want to own a copy." Mark E. Basgall in Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology "This book is the first of its kind to provide a suite of tools applicable to many ethnographic and archaeological foraging problems. Anyone . . . involved in human behavioral ecology should work through this book. It is certainly required reading for any student of the discipline, and as it finds its way into the classroom and onto the desks of practitioners, it is sure to become a classic." Brian F. Codding in California Archaeology "[A]n excellent primer on a group of models that . . . played an important role in the development of hunter-gatherer and ecological studies in anthropology . . . . The examples, sample problems, and touch of humor as the mod els are explained make the book ideal for use . . . with either advanced undergraduates, graduate students, or for anyone wishing for a quick reminder of the math behind the models." Susan K. Harris in American Antiquity "[A] laboratory manual to teach mathematical models to people interested in Optimal Foraging Theory. . . . [T]he book will be useful for graduate seminars to teach details of how foraging societies maximize returns in manipulating the variability in resources of their exploitation territories." Andrew B. Smith in Journal of Human Evolution "[T]his . . . small book . . . could be used well as an adjunct or ancillary text for a n umber of different courses in quantitative methods, hunter-gatherers, or foraging economy. . . . [I]t succeeds overall very well and very nicely in what it aims to do." Robert Whallon in Journal of Anthropological Research "This book would make an excellent accompaniment to many anthropology and archaeology courses, both at high school and college levels. . . . There is a lot of well-written material crammed into this little book! I highly recommend it for anyone interested not only directly with hunter-gatherer research, but for anyone who wonders how-we-know what we think we know about ancient day-to-day life." Ira R. Wishoff in The Dirt Brothers (http: //dirtbrothers.org/) Prepublication praise . . . "This volume presents exercises designed to convey foraging models in a hands-on manner. An excellent resource for upper-division undergraduate and graduate-level classes focused on topics ranging from analytical models in anthropology/archaeology to hunter-gatherers." Gary M. Feinman, The Field Museum "Anyone who has tried to teach students the various models used in behavioral ecology will find this book a welcome relief. Written by an authority who understands both theory and application, the book's examples and exercises show the models' potentials and limitations. As a step-by-step guide, it is an indispensable supplement to a variety of classes." Robert L. Kelly, University of Wyoming "A compact, consistently informative, and exemplary primer for beginners and experts alike. Bettinger's inviting and lucid style, multiple examples, and transparent math will make this short book an instant classic, the well-worn companion of anyone interested in prehistoric subsistence and lifeways." Bruce Winterhalder, University of California, Davis

    This book is the first to address this important subject. A diverse spectrum of scholars covers a wide range of topics: from the revelation of Islam in the 7th century to today’s conservation and development issues, from watering oases in the Moroccan desert to the flooded plains of Bengal. Copiously illustrated with beautiful color photographs and newly drawn plans and maps, this book  will provoke readers to appreciate and acknowledge the essential, if often invisible and transitory, roles that water played in the arts of the Islamic lands and beyond.

    The book explores the historical transformations of the art, with psychological interpretations of major artists, the legends which followed them, and analysis of their oeuvres. It also probes the unusual lateral dimensions of Burmese painting, where one thousand years of tradition have continued to survive and shape a rich corpus of largely unknown work.Renard links the traditional roots of Burmese painting in India with later influences from China, Thailand, Britain, Northern Europe, and America. Burma is an isolated country, but its art has been a major wellspring of inspiration in Southeast Asia. Today, the country struggles to reconcile complex pressures, and Ranard digs deeply to uncover these layers of conflict as reflected in Burmese painting.

    For thousands of years, this region has been inhabited by hunters and pastoral nomads who erected great stone altars, burial mounds, standing stones and stone images in the valleys through which they moved; they left behind them huge concentrations of rock art in the high valleys-images that effectively recount their lives.

    Seeking to understand the conditions that led to the development of a variety of cognitive processes during evolution, it uses evidence from empirical studies and offers theoretical speculations about the evolution of modern thinking as well. The volume draws from the fields of archaeology and neuropsychology, which traditionally have shared little in the way of theories and methods, even though both disciplines provide crucial pieces to the puzzle of the emergence and evolution of human cognition. The twelve essays, written by an international team of scholars, represent an eclectic array of interests, methods, and theories about evolutionary cognitive archaeology. Collectively, they consider whether the processes in the development of human cognition simply made a better use of anatomical and cerebral structures already in place at the beginning of hominization. They also consider the possibility of an active role of hominoids in their own development and query the impact of hominoid activity in the emergence of new cognitive abilities.

    Fakes and forgeries run rampant in the Andean art collections of international museums and private individuals. Authors Karen Bruhns and Nancy Kelker examine the phenomenon in this eye-opening volume. They discuss the most commonly forged classes and styles of artifacts, many of which were being duplicated as early as the 19th century. More important, they describe the system whereby these objects get made, purchased, authenticated, and placed in major museums as well as the complicity of forgers, dealers, curators, and collectors in this system. Unique to this volume are biographies of several of the forgers, who describe their craft and how they are able to effectively fool connoisseurs and specialists. This is an important accessible introduction to pre-Columbian art fraud for archaeologists, art historians, and museum professionals alike. A parallel volume by the same authors discusses fakes in Mesoamerican archaeology.

    It was also during this period that the Cholas initiated links with Song China. Concurrently, the Southeast Asian polity of Sriwijaya had, through its Sumatran and Malayan ports, come to occupy a key position in East-West maritime trade, requiring engagement with both Song China to the north and the Chola kingdom to its west. The apparently friendly relations pursued were, however, to be disrupted in 1025 by Chola naval expeditions against fourteen key port cities in Southeast Asia. This volume examines the background, course and effects of these expeditions, as well as the regional context of the events. It brings to light many aspects of this key period in Asian history. Unprecedented in the degree of detail assigned to the story of the Chola expeditions, this volume is also unique in that it includes translations of the contemporary Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions relating to Southeast Asia and of the Song dynasty Chinese texts relating to the Chola Kingdom.

    Explores the significance of the first Apollo moon landing and how the countless books, films, and products associated with factual space fiction had an affect on popular culture and artistic practice, but not social sciences and humanities Investigates how a topic is hugely important in popular culture, but almost invisible in the academy, and how it makes us want to ask questions about visibility, or perhaps self-censorshipEvaluates how little impact the space age actually had on the social sciences and humanities - partly because its combination of military-industrial cold war politics, combined with patriarchy and big science, sits uneasily with contemporary thought in these areasProvides an interdisciplinary collection of essays on various aspects of NASA, the moon landing, and the commercialization of space generallyThe book travels from hard engineering to space romance, echoing the variety of attempts to blur science and culture

    To draw a unique portrait of this art in a single work is a formidable undertaking due to the great plurality of traditions spanning different countries and regions over various epochs. Furthermore, the variability in the state of conservation of Buddhist monuments and their decorations provides additional challenges. The book is not only a visual feast but also a far-reaching introduction to Buddhist beliefs and practices.

    This volume expands those traditional categories to include such concerns as gladiatorial-like boxing combats, investiture rites, trophy-head taking and display, dark shamanism, and the subjective pain inherent in acts of violence. Each author examines organized violence as a set of practices grounded in cultural understandings, even when the violence threatens the limits of those understandings. The authors scrutinize the representation of, and relationships between, different types of organized violence, as well as the implications of those activities, which can include the unexpected, such as violence as a means of determining and curing illness, and the use of violence in negotiation strategies.

    Presented as a cancionero, or anthology, in the mode of New Spain, the ballads show a reordering—but not an abandonment—of classic Aztec values. In the careful reading of John Bierhorst, the ballads reveal in no uncertain terms the pre-conquest Aztec belief in the warrior’s paradise and in the virtue of sacrifice. This volume contains an exact transcription of the thirty-six Nahuatl song texts, accompanied by authoritative English translations. Bierhorst includes all the numerals (which give interpretive clues) in the Nahuatl texts and also differentiates the text from scribal glosses. His translations are thoroughly annotated to help readers understand the imagery and allusions in the texts. The volume also includes a helpful introduction and a larger essay, “On the Translation of Aztec Poetry,” that discusses many relevant historical and literary issues. In Bierhorst’s expert translation and interpretation, Ballads of the Lords of New Spain emerges as a song of resistance by a conquered people and the recollection of a glorious past.

    This book is an attempt to redress these issues. By shifting the theoretical focus away from questions of state evolution to state interaction, the authors develop anthropological models for understanding how ancient states interacted with one another and with societies of different scales of economic and political organization. One of their goals has been to identify a theoretical middle ground that is neither dogmatic nor dismissive. The result is an innovative approach to modeling social interaction that will be helpful in exploring the relationship between social processes that occur at different geographic scales and over different temporal durations. The scholars who participated in the SAR Advanced Seminar that resulted in this book used a particular geographic and temporal context as a case study for developing anthropological models of interaction that are cross-cultural in scope but still deal well with the idiosyncrasies of specific culture histories.

    Paleoclimate archives obtained through field investigations, ocean sediment coring expeditions, ice sheet coring programs, and other projects allow scientists to reconstruct climate change over much of earth's history.When combined with computer model simulations, paleoclimatic reconstructions are used to test hypotheses about the causes of climatic change, such as greenhouse gases, solar variability, earth's orbital variations, and hydrological, oceanic, and tectonic processes. This book is a comprehensive, state-of-the art synthesis of paleoclimate research covering all geological timescales, emphasizing topics that shed light on modern trends in the earth's climate. Thomas M. Cronin discusses recent discoveries about past periods of global warmth, changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, abrupt climate and sea-level change, natural temperature variability, and other topics directly relevant to controversies over the causes and impacts of climate change. This text is geared toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in geology, geography, biology, glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, and climate modeling, fields that contribute to paleoclimatology. This volume can also serve as a reference for those requiring a general background on natural climate variability.

    Distant Voices is not only a joy to read, but offers a factual account of the history of the Nacoochee Valley and surrounding area. Known for his easy-to-read writing style, author Emory Jones has taken a wide range of subjects and woven them together in a unique way. Another plus is the book's clean design. It moves quickly from the mound builders; to De Soto and the Spanish; to the Cherokee Indians to the "latest new people," as Jones describes them. These were the first white settlers who traveled in two wagon trains in 1822 to what is now White County. The book also recounts the fascinating story of Capt. James Nichols, who built the big house across from the mound and placed the gazebo on top in 1876. The book also tells the amazing story of the mound's 1915 excavation. There's even a chapter about the little gazebo on top. The gazebo is said to be the reason the mound still stands today, rather than being plowed over. If that's not enough, full-page paintings and illustrations by local artists are interwoven throughout.

    Yet color is both unavoidable and varied. Each culture classifies, understands, and uses it in different and often surprising ways, posing particular challenges to those who study color from long-ago times and places far distant. Veiled Brightness reconstructs what color meant to the ancient Maya, a set of linked peoples and societies who flourished in and around the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and Central America. By using insights from archaeology, linguistics, art history, and conservation, the book charts over two millennia of color use in a region celebrated for its aesthetic refinement and high degree of craftsmanship. The authors open with a survey of approaches to color perception, looking at Aristotelian color theory, recent discoveries in neurophysiology, and anthropological research on color. Maya color terminology receives new attention here, clarifying not just basic color terms, but also the extensional or associated meanings that enriched ancient Maya perception of color. The materials and technologies of Maya color production are assembled in one place as never before, providing an invaluable reference for future research. From these investigations, the authors demonstrate that Maya use of color changed over time, through a sequence of historical and artistic developments that drove the elaboration of new pigments and coloristic effects. These findings open fresh avenues for investigation of ancient Maya aesthetics and worldview and provide a model for how to study the meaning and making of color in other ancient civilizations.

    This drastic shift in population presents a unique lens through which to study gender roles and social relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The lessons gleaned from this case study will provide new insight to the study of gender relations throughout other historical periods as well.Through an intensive examination of both historical and archaeological evidence, the author presents a clear picture of the gendered social relations in Deerfield over the span of seventy years. While gender relations in urban settings have been studied extensively, this unique work provides the same level of examination to gender relations in a rural setting. Likewise, where previous studies have often focused only on relations between married men and women, the unique case of Deerfield provides insight into the experiences of single women, particularly widows and "spinsters".This work presents a unique contribution that will be essential for anyone studying the historical archaeology of gender, or gender roles in the Victorian era and beyond.

    

    Yet the city’s singularity as the only center in the region with such a wealth of sculpture and fine architecture has hindered attempts to place it more firmly in the context of Mesoamerican history. In Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpents, Rex Koontz undertakes the first extensive treatment of El Tajín’s iconography in over thirty years, allowing us to view its imagery in the broader Mesoamerican context of rising capitals and new elites during a period of fundamental historical transformations. Koontz focuses on three major architectural features—the Pyramid of the Niches/Central Plaza ensemble, the South Ballcourt, and the Mound of the Building Columns complex—and investigates the meanings of their sculpture and how these meanings would have been experienced by specific audiences. Koontz finds that the iconography of El Tajín reveals much about how motifs and elite rites growing out of the Classic period were transmitted to later Mesoamerican peoples as the cultures centered on Teotihuacan and the Maya became the myriad city-states of the Early Postclassic period. By reexamining the iconography of sculptures long in the record, as well as introducing important new monuments and contexts, Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpents clearly demonstrates El Tajín’s numerous iconographic connections with other areas of Mesoamerica, while also exploring its roots in an indigenous Gulf lowlands culture whose outlines are only now emerging. At the same time, it begins to uncover a largely ignored regional artistic culture of which Tajín is the crowning achievement.

    The Kowoj: Identity, Migration, and Geopolitics in Late Postclassic Petén, Guatemala summarizes the results of recent research into this ethno-political group conducted by Prudence Rice, Don Rice, and their colleagues.Chapters in The Kowoj address the question "Who are the Kowoj?" from varied viewpoints: archaeological, archival, linguistic, ethnographic, and bioarchaeological. Using data drawn primarily from the peninsular site of Zacpetén, the authors illuminate Kowoj history, ritual components of their self-expressed identity, and their archaeological identification. These data support the Kowoj claim of migration from Mayapán in Yucatán, where they were probably affiliated with the Xiw, in opposition to the Itza. These enmities extended into Petén, culminating in civil warfare by the time of final Spanish conquest in 1697.The first volume to consider Postclassic Petén from broadly integrative anthropological, archaeological, and historical perspectives, The Kowoj is an important addition to the literature on late Maya culture and history in the southern lowlands. It will be of particular interest to archaeologists, historians, ethnohistorians, art historians, and epigraphers. Mesoamerican Worlds Series

    It provides a survey of the history and development of the field, connecting satellite remote sensing in archaeology to broader developments in remote sensing, archaeological method and theory, cultural resource management, and environmental studies. With a focus on practical uses of satellite remote sensing, Sarah H. Parcak evaluates satellite imagery types and remote sensing analysis techniques specific to the discovery, preservation, and management of archaeological sites.Case studies from Asia, Central America, and the Middle East are explored, including Xi’an, China; Angkor Wat, Cambodia and Egypt’s floodplains. In-field surveying techniques particular to satellite remote sensing are emphasized, providing strategies for recording ancient features on the ground observed from space. The book also discusses broader issues relating to archaeological remote sensing ethics, looting prevention, and archaeological site preservation. New sensing research is included and illustrated with the inclusion of over 160 satellite images of ancient sites.

    The Rise of Homo Sapiens: The Evolution of Human Thinking presents a provocative theory about the evolution of the modern mind based on archaeological evidence and the working memory model of experimental psychologist Alan Baddeley.A unique introduction and primer into the new discipline of cognitive archaeology Introduces scientists and college students (at all levels) to the fascinating interface between the worlds of archaeology and cognitive science

    George Potter presents new and unique evidence that Book of Mormon events took place in South America, specifically in Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. Using the writings of Spanish conquistadors and other research from top scholars, Potter has provided a different and fascinating perspective on Book of Mormon lands.

    Introduces historical archaeology, discusses important archeological finds from along the Underground Railroad routes, and explains how archaeologists dig in the ground and examine artifacts in order to understand the past.