Ideology and Social Structure of Stone Age Communities in Europe

Ideology and Social Structure of Stone Age Communities in Europe PDF Author: Anne L. van Gijn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789073368118
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Get Book

Book Description

Ideology and Social Structure of Stone Age Communities in Europe

Ideology and Social Structure of Stone Age Communities in Europe PDF Author: Anne L. van Gijn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789073368118
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Get Book

Book Description


Rituality and Social (Dis)Order

Rituality and Social (Dis)Order PDF Author: Alessandro Testa
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000223701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Get Book

Book Description
Carnival has been described as one of the foundational elements of European culture, bearing an emblematic and iconic status as the festive phenomenon par excellence. Its origins are partly obscure, but its stratified and complex history, rich symbolic diversity, and sundry social configurations make it an exceptional object of cultural analysis. The product of more than 12 years of research, this book is the first comparative historical anthropology of popular European Carnival in the English language, with a focus on its symbolic, religious, and political dimensions and transformations throughout the centuries. It builds on a variety of theories of social change and social structures, questioning existing assumptions about what folklore is and how cultural gaps and differences take shape and reproduce through ritual forms of collective action. It also challenges recent interpretations about the performative and political dimension of European festive culture, especially in its carnivalesque declension. While presenting and exploring the most important features and characteristics of European pre-modern Carnival and discussing its origins and developments, this thorough study offers fresh evidence and up-to-date analyses about its transversal and long-lasting significance in European societies.

Agency Uncovered

Agency Uncovered PDF Author: Andrew Gardner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315435209
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book

Book Description
This book questions the value of the concept of 'agency', a term used in sociological and philosophical literature to refer to individual free will in archaeology. On the one hand it has been argued that previous generations of archaeologists, in explaining social change in terms of structural or environmental conditions, have lost sight of the 'real people' and reduced them to passive cultural pawns, on the other, introducing the concept of agency to counteract this can be said to perpetuate a modern, Western view of the autonomous individual who is free from social constraints. This book discusses the balance between these two opposites, using a range of archaeological and historical case studies, including European and Asian prehistory, classical Greece and Rome, the Inka and other Andean cultures. While focusing on the relevance of 'agency' theory to archaeological interpretation and using it to create more diverse and open-ended accounts of ancient cultures, the authors also address the contemporary political and ethical implications of what is essentially a debate about the definition of human nature.

Beyond the Map

Beyond the Map PDF Author: Gary R. Lock
Publisher: IOS Press
ISBN: 9781586030216
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book

Book Description
This set of papers by European and North American archaeologists explore the interface between new spatial technologies and areas of theoretical concern in spatial archaeology. Differing aspects of landscape, such as vision, perception and movement, are explored through a series of case studies that focus on how spatial technologies can influence archaeological interpretation and to what extent these new technologies can be manipulated to take us beyond 2-dimensional maps. Individual site-based analyses and new applications of predictive modelling are also presented and assessed together with the wider questions of spatial technologies within heritage management.

Beyond Barrows

Beyond Barrows PDF Author: David R. Fontijn
Publisher: Sidestone Press
ISBN: 9088901082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book

Book Description
Europe is dotted with tens of thousands of prehistoric barrows. In spite of their ubiquity, little is known on the role they had in pre- and protohistoric landscapes. In 2010, an international group of archaeologists came together at the conference of the European Association of Archaeologists in The Hague to discuss and review current research on this topic. This book presents the proceedings of that session. The focus is on the prehistory of Scandinavia and the Low Countries, but also includes an excursion to huge prehistoric mounds in the southeast of North America. One contribution presents new evidence on how the immediate environment of Neolithic Funnel Beaker (TRB) culture megaliths was ordered, another one discusses the role of remarkable single and double post alignments around Bronze and Iron Age burial mounds. Zooming out, several chapters deal with the place of barrows in the broader landscape. The significance of humanly-managed heath in relation to barrow groups is discussed, and one contribution emphasizes how barrow orderings not only reflect spatial organization, but are also important as conceptual anchors structuring prehistoric perception. Other authors, dealing with Early Neolithic persistent places and with Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age urnfields, argue that we should also look beyond monumentality in order to understand long-term use of "ritual landscapes". The book contains an important contribution by the well-known Swedish archaeologist Tore Artelius on how Bronze Age barrows were structurally re-used by pre-Christian Vikings. This is his last article, written briefly before his death. This book is dedicated to his memory. This publication is part of the Ancestral Mounds Research Project of the University of Leiden.

Exploring and Explaining Diversity in Agricultural Technology

Exploring and Explaining Diversity in Agricultural Technology PDF Author: Annelou van Gijn
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1842175157
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Get Book

Book Description
This volume is the outcome of collaborative European research among archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists, and frequently uses experiments in archaeology. It aims to establish new common ground for integrating different approaches and for viewing agriculture from the standpoint of the human actors involved. Each chapter provides an interdisciplinary overview of the skills used and the social context of the pursuit of agriculture, highlighting examples of tools, technologies and processes from land clearance to cereal processing and food preparation. This is the second of three volumes in the EARTH monograph series, The dynamics of non-industrial agriculture: 8,000 years of resilience and innovation , which shows the great variety of agricultural practices in human terms, in their social, political, cultural and legal contexts.

Punks, Monks and Politics

Punks, Monks and Politics PDF Author: Julian C H Lee
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786600226
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book

Book Description
Explores the notion of authenticity in three Southeast Asian countries with a high degree of cross-border mobility where the boundaries between the local and international are blurred

Material Culture and Sacred Landscape

Material Culture and Sacred Landscape PDF Author: Peter Jordan
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 0759116318
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Get Book

Book Description
This study provides a concrete example of how foraging societies enculturate and transform the natural environment and, through the use of material objects, create sacred spaces and sites. Using ethnographic and ethnohistorical information about the Khanty of Siberia, Jordan shows the shortcomings of both interpretive and materialist anthropological theorizing about hunters and gatherers. He focuses on the rich and complex relationship between the symbolism of the Khanty, their material culture, and the bringing of meaning to physical places. His examination looks at the topic in both historical and contemporary contexts, and in scales from the core-periphery model of Russian colonialism to the portrait of a single yurt community. Jordan's work will be of importance to those studying cultural anthropology, archaeology, and comparative religion.

Landscape and Culture in Northern Eurasia

Landscape and Culture in Northern Eurasia PDF Author: Peter Jordan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315425637
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Get Book

Book Description
This unique volume aims to break down the lingering linguistic boundaries that continue to divide up the circumpolar world, to move beyond ethnographic ‘thick description’ to integrate the study of northern Eurasian hunting and herding societies more effectively by encouraging increased international collaboration between archaeologists, ethnographers and historians, and to open new directions for archaeological investigation of spirituality and northern landscape traditions. Authors examine the life-ways and beliefs of the indigenous peoples of northern Eurasia; chapters contribute ethnographic, ethnohistoric and archaeological case-studies stretching from Fennoscandia, through Siberia, and into Chukotka and the Russian Far East.

Ceci N'est Pas Une Hache

Ceci N'est Pas Une Hache PDF Author: Karsten Wentink
Publisher: Sidestone Press
ISBN: 9088900019
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 135

Get Book

Book Description
As early as the 19th century discoveries of groups of large axes puzzled those confronted with them. The fact that most were found in waterlogged places increased the speculation as to the nature of the deposits. This thesis is concerned with the character and significance of TRB flint axe depositions. The first part is mainly concerned with the question of selective deposition and how it was structured. By means of metrical, spatial and functional analysis, patterns are explored that can shed light on the actions performed by people in the past. The second part deals with the meaning and significance of TRB flint axe depositions. Why did people in the past do the things they did, how were these actions meaningful and important? Using sociological theory and ethnographic evidence an interpretation is presented based on the empirically observed patterns.