The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia PDF Author: Philip L. Kohl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139461990
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book provides an overview of Bronze Age societies of Western Eurasia through an investigation of the archaeological record. The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia outlines the long-term processes and patterns of interaction that link these groups together in a shared historical trajectory of development. Interactions took the form of the exchange of raw materials and finished goods, the spread and sharing of technologies, and the movements of peoples from one region to another. Kohl reconstructs economic activities from subsistence practices to the production and exchange of metals and other materials. Kohl also argues forcefully that the main task of the archaeologist should be to write culture-history on a spatially and temporally grand scale in an effort to detect large, macrohistorical processes of interaction and shared development.

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia

The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia PDF Author: Philip L. Kohl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139461990
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book provides an overview of Bronze Age societies of Western Eurasia through an investigation of the archaeological record. The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia outlines the long-term processes and patterns of interaction that link these groups together in a shared historical trajectory of development. Interactions took the form of the exchange of raw materials and finished goods, the spread and sharing of technologies, and the movements of peoples from one region to another. Kohl reconstructs economic activities from subsistence practices to the production and exchange of metals and other materials. Kohl also argues forcefully that the main task of the archaeologist should be to write culture-history on a spatially and temporally grand scale in an effort to detect large, macrohistorical processes of interaction and shared development.

Archaeological Human Remains

Archaeological Human Remains PDF Author: Barra O'Donnabhain
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319899848
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
This book expands on Archaeological Human Remains: Global Perspectives that was published in the Springer Briefs series in 2014 and which had a strong focus on post-colonial countries. In the current volume, the editors include papers that deal with non-Anglophone European traditions such as Portugal, Germany and France. In addition, authors continue the exploration of osteological trajectories that are not well-documented in the West, such as Senegal, China and Russia. The lasting legacies of imperialism, communism and colonialism are apparent as the authors of the individual country profiles examine the historical roots of the study of archaeological human remains and the challenges encountered while also considering the likely future directions likely of this multi-faceted discipline in different world areas.

In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors

In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors PDF Author: Takeshi Ueki
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040046762
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 599

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Book Description
In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors details through archaeological analysis, the dispersal of our species, Homo sapiens, providing a broad examination of evidence for early human migration into Asia and Oceania. Those migrations are crucial to our understanding of the global story of human evolution and cultural diversification. Chapters from an international team of experts provide the new geographical and temporal coverage. Controversies around timing, pathways, and competing models of migrations are explored in regions where archaeological data can be scarce. Genetic and archaeological data often seem inconsistent, but this book uses syntheses of archaeological evidence to give an updated view of our current knowledge of when and how these regions were first settled. These analyses help us understand the pattern of human movement and adaptation that led to the contemporary distribution of our species. This book provides the latest coverage of this important topic and contributes to thinking about the history of our species. In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors is an essential text for researchers and students of archaeology, anthropology, and human evolution.

Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia

Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia PDF Author: Yousuke Kaifu
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623492777
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1019

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Book Description
Despite the obvious geographic importance of eastern Asia in human migration, its discussion in the context of the emergence and dispersal of modern humans has been rare. Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia focuses long-overdue scholarly attention on this under-studied area of the world. Arising from a 2011 symposium sponsored by the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, this book gathers the work of archaeologists from the Pacific Rim of Asia, Australia, and North America, to address the relative lack of attention given to the emergence of modern human behavior as manifested in Asia during the worldwide dispersal from Africa.

The Emergence of Pressure Blade Making

The Emergence of Pressure Blade Making PDF Author: Pierre M. Desrosiers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461420024
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description
Human development is a long and steady process that began with stone tool making. Because of this skill, humans were able to adapt to climate changes, discover new territories, and invent new technologies. "Pressure knapping" is the common term for one method of creating stone tools, where a larger device or blade specifically made for this purpose is use to press out the stone tool. Pressure knapping was invented in different locations and at different points in time, representing the adoption of the Neolithic way of life in the Old world. Recent research on pressure knapping has led for the first time to a global thesis on this technique. The contributors to this seminal work combine research findings on pressure knapping from different cultures around the globe to develope a cohesive theory. This contributions to this volume represents a significant development to research on pressure knapping, as well as the field of lithic studies in general. This work will be an important reference for anyone studying the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods, lithic studies, technologies, and more generally, cultural transmission.

Treasures from the Oxus

Treasures from the Oxus PDF Author: Massimo Vidale
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1838609768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
In history, this grand arterial 1500-mile waterway was always seen as the natural frontier between the northern provinces of the Iranian empires and the outer Turanian lands. It was for centuries central to Achaemenid and later Persian power. But, as the author shows, it has a prehistory which goes very much further back: and a succession of skilled yet still elusive Bronze Age cultures flourished here well before the rise of Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE. This richly illustrated book explores the fascinating history, art and archaeology of the region, including its primal trade in silk and foodstuffs; the mineral wealth of the Oxus basin; its exotic myths and beliefs; and the converging tribes and peoples which led to a new stability, economic growth and urbanism. The volume contains 150 full-colour photographs of notable artefacts, including silver decorated vessels, inlaid stone pots, agate beads and 25 'Bactrian Princesses': remarkable statuettes made in chlorite and limestone. Most of these rare objects have never been seen, let alone published, before.

Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change

Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change PDF Author: Reuven Amitai
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082484789X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Since the first millennium BCE, nomads of the Eurasian steppe have played a key role in world history and the development of adjacent sedentary regions, especially China, India, the Middle East, and Eastern and Central Europe. Although their more settled neighbors often saw them as an ongoing threat and imminent danger—“barbarians,” in fact—their impact on sedentary cultures was far more complex than the raiding, pillaging, and devastation with which they have long been associated in the popular imagination. The nomads were also facilitators and catalysts of social, demographic, economic, and cultural change, and nomadic culture had a significant influence on that of sedentary Eurasian civilizations, especially in cases when the nomads conquered and ruled over them. Not simply passive conveyors of ideas, beliefs, technologies, and physical artifacts, nomads were frequently active contributors to the process of cultural exchange and change. Their active choices and initiatives helped set the cultural and intellectual agenda of the lands they ruled and beyond. This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars from different disciplines and cultural specializations to explore how nomads played the role of “agents of cultural change.” The beginning chapters examine this phenomenon in both east and west Asia in ancient and early medieval times, while the bulk of the book is devoted to the far flung Mongol empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This comparative approach, encompassing both a lengthy time span and a vast region, enables a clearer understanding of the key role that Eurasian pastoral nomads played in the history of the Old World. It conveys a sense of the complex and engaging cultural dynamic that existed between nomads and their agricultural and urban neighbors, and highlights the non-military impact of nomadic culture on Eurasian history. Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change illuminates and complicates nomadic roles as active promoters of cultural exchange within a vast and varied region. It makes available important original scholarship on the new turn in the study of the Mongol empire and on relations between the nomadic and sedentary worlds.

Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology

Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology PDF Author: Junko Habu
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1493965212
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 761

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Book Description
The Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology focuses on the material culture and lifeways of the peoples of prehistoric and early historic East and Southeast Asia; their origins, behavior and identities as well as their biological, linguistic and cultural differences and commonalities. Emphasis is placed upon the interpretation of material culture to illuminate and explain social processes and relationships as well as behavior, technology, patterns and mechanisms of long-term change and chronology, in addition to the intellectual history of archaeology as a discipline in this diverse region. The Handbook augments archaeologically-focused chapters contributed by regional scholars by providing histories of research and intellectual traditions, and by maintaining a broadly comparative perspective. Archaeologically-derived data are emphasized with text-based documentary information, provided to complement interpretations of material culture. The Handbook is not restricted to art historical or purely descriptive perspectives; its geographical coverage includes the modern nation-states of China, Mongolia, Far Eastern Russia, North and South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.

Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy

Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy PDF Author: Natalia Ankusheva
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303086040X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
This book of Springer Proceedings in Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy contains selected papers presented at the 7th Geoarchaeology Conference, which took place during October 19–23, 2020, at the South Urals Federal Research Center, Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Miass, Russia. The Proceedings combine studies in archeometry, geoarchaeology, and ancient North Eurasian technologies, including paleometallurgy, stone tools investigation, past exploitation of geological resources, bioarchaeology, residue analysis, pottery, and lithics studies. This book also specializes in various non-organic materials, rocks, minerals, ores, and metals, especially copper and metallurgical slags. Many types of research also use modern analytical methods of isotopic, chemical, and mineralogical analysis to address the composition and structure of ancient materials and the technological practices of past human populations of modern Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Mongolia. This book is intended for archaeologists, historians, museum workers, and geologists, as well as students, researchers from other disciplines, and the general public interested in the interdisciplinary research in the field of archaeology and archaeological materials, strategies and techniques of past quarrying, mining, metallurgy and lithic technologies at different chronological periods in Eurasian steppe and adjacent forest zone.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Georgia

Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Georgia PDF Author: Zaal Kikvidze
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000326632
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
This multidisciplinary book develops a synthesis of traditional ecological knowledge in the Caucasus region in Georgia – a hotspot of natural and cultural diversity. Traditional ecological knowledge connects the knowledge of natural phenomena with the culture of a given human society, and Georgia is an excellent case study for observing this knowledge. The Caucasus region in particular is notable for its natural and ethnocultural diversity and this book weaves together the disciplines of history, environment and ethnography to develop a synthesis of traditional ecological knowledge. Tracing the history of Georgia through two main phases, the hunter and gatherer bands and the agrarian phase, the author examines important events such as the breeding of naked hexaploid wheat, the domestication of the grapevine and the development of viticulture. By utilising this historic perspective it allows us to clearly see how traditional ecological knowledge has increased in sophistication during the long prehistory of Georgia, and most importantly how this type of knowledge underpins the social and economic progress of traditional societies, not only in Georgia, but throughout the world. This book will be of great relevance to interdisciplinary-minded scholars and students who have an interest in the relationships between nature and human society, including anthropologists, historians, biologists, ecologists, botanists, sociologists and ethnographers.