Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies

Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies PDF Author: Lynne Kelly
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107059372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this book, Lynne Kelly explores the role of formal knowledge systems in small-scale oral cultures in both historic and archaeological contexts. In the first part, she examines knowledge systems within historically recorded oral cultures, showing how the link between power and the control of knowledge is established. Analyzing the material mnemonic devices used by documented oral cultures, she demonstrates how early societies maintained a vast corpus of pragmatic information concerning animal behavior, plant properties, navigation, astronomy, genealogies, laws and trade agreements, among other matters. In the second part Kelly turns to the archaeological record of three sites, Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point and Stonehenge, offering new insights into the purpose of the monuments and associated decorated objects. This book demonstrates how an understanding of rational intellect, pragmatic knowledge and mnemonic technologies in prehistoric societies offers a new tool for analysis of monumental structures built by non-literate cultures.

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory PDF Author: Brian Hayden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108426395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

Get Book Here

Book Description
Secret societies in tribal societies turn out to be key to understanding the origins of social inequalities and state religions.

The Memory Code

The Memory Code PDF Author: Lynne Kelly
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681773821
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Get Book Here

Book Description
In ancient, pre-literate cultures across the globe, tribal elders had encyclopedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across a landscape, identify the stars in the sky, and recite the history of their people. Yet today, most of us struggle to memorize more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian song lines as a starting point, Dr. Lynne Kelly has since identified the powerful memory technique used by our ancestors and indigenous people around the world. In turn, she has then discovered that this ancient memory technique is the secret purpose behind the great prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge, which have puzzled archaeologists for so long.The henges across northern Europe, the elaborate stone houses of New Mexico, huge animal shapes in Peru, the statues of Easter Island—these all serve as the most effective memory system ever invented by humans. They allowed people in non-literate cultures to memorize the vast amounts of information they needed to survive. But how?For the first time, Dr. Kelly unlocks the secret of these monuments and their uses as "memory places" in her fascinating book. Additionally, The Memory Code also explains how we can use this ancient mnemonic technique to train our minds in the tradition of our forbearers.

The Transition to Statehood in the New World

The Transition to Statehood in the New World PDF Author: Robert R. Kautz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521172691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
This 1982 collection of eight original anthropological essays provides an exciting synthesis of theory and practice in one of the key issues of contemporary cultural evolutionary thought. The contributors ask why complex, highly stratified societies emerged at several locations in the New World at the same point in prehistory. Focusing primarily on the initial centers of civilization in Mesoamerica and the Andean region, they consider the sociopolitical, environmental and ideological factors in state formation. The essays discuss the prehistoric conditions and processes that simulated the development of the first state-level societies in Mesoamerica and Peru, and explore the difficulties archaeologists must face in their direct analysis of physical remains. In general, the contributors recognize a growing need for better archaeological solutions to the question of state origin and for more sensitivity to the problems as well as to the possibilities of ethnographic analogy.

The Creation of Inequality

The Creation of Inequality PDF Author: Kent Flannery
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674064976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646

Get Book Here

Book Description
Flannery and Marcus demonstrate that the rise of inequality was not simply the result of population increase, food surplus, or the accumulation of valuables but resulted from conscious manipulation of the unique social logic that lies at the core of every human group. Reversing the social logic can reverse inequality, they argue, without violence.

Ideology, Power and Prehistory

Ideology, Power and Prehistory PDF Author: Theoretical Archaeology Group (England). Conference
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521255264
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book starts from the premise that methodology has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory.

First Knowledges Songlines

First Knowledges Songlines PDF Author: Margo Neale
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Australia
ISBN: 1760761389
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Get Book Here

Book Description
Let this series begin the discussion.' - Bruce Pascoe 'An act of intellectual reconciliation.' - Lynette Russell Songlines are an archive for powerful knowledges that ensured Australia's many Indigenous cultures flourished for over 60,000 years. Much more than a navigational path in the cartographic sense, these vast and robust stores of information are encoded through song, story, dance, art and ceremony, rather than simply recorded in writing. Weaving deeply personal storytelling with extensive research on mnemonics, Songlines: The Power and Promise offers unique insights into Indigenous traditional knowledges, how they apply today and how they could help all peoples thrive into the future. This book invites readers to understand a remarkable way for storing knowledge in memory by adapting song, art, and most importantly, Country, into their lives. About the series: Each book is a collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers and editors; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia. Forthcoming titles include: Design by Alison Page & Paul Memmott (2021); Country by Bill Gammage & Bruce Pascoe (2021); Medicine & Plants (2022); Astronomy (2022); Law (2023). *Ebook available through all major etailers*

Women in Prehistory

Women in Prehistory PDF Author: Margaret R. Ehrenberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
" "ocial attitudes in our culture have led to the assumption that early advances in human knowledge were the achievements of men; the role of women in prehistoric times has been largely overlooked. In this thought-provoking book, however, Margaret Ehrenberg argues that the true contribution of women especially in the discovery and development of agriculture was much greater than has been acknowledged to date. Examining the evidence from archaeological, anthropological, and classical documentary sources, Ehrenberg throws new light on the lives of women and their social status in Europe from the Palaeolithic era to the Iron Age. The relationship between the role of women and economic production is a central theme of this survey. In Bronze Age and Iron Age societies individual women are seen to be in positions of power. Although available evidence is fragmentary and often controversial, Ehrenberg shows how information can be gathered from skeletons and grave goods found in burials, from settlement sites, from rock carvings and sculpted figurines, as well as from anthropological parallels, to enable significant inferences to be drawn about the life of prehistoric women.

Past Societies

Past Societies PDF Author: Johannes Müller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789088909245
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the North Atlantic to the Persian Gulf and from Peru to the Near East, this book illustrates different studies on the interfluve of environments and societies in landscapes and describes certain historical moments and processes in which the interplay of ecological and societal factors is entangled.

Ideologies in Archaeology

Ideologies in Archaeology PDF Author: Reinhard Bernbeck
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816526737
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book Here

Book Description
Archaeologists have often used the term ideology to vaguely refer to a “realm of ideas.” Scholars from Marx to Zizek have developed a sharper concept, arguing that ideology works by representing—or misrepresenting—power relations through concealment, enhancement, or transformation of real social relations between groups. Ideologies in Archaeology examines the role of ideology in this latter sense as it pertains to both the practice and the content of archaeological studies. While ideas like reflexive archaeology and multivocality have generated some recent interest, this book is the first work to address in any detail the mutual relationship between ideologies of the past and present ideological conditions producing archaeological knowledge. Contributors to this volume focus on elements of life in past societies that “went without saying” and that concealed different forms of power as obvious and unquestionable. From the use of burial rites as political theater in Iron Age Germany to the intersection of economics and elite power in Mississippian mound building, the contributors uncover complex manipulations of power that have often gone unrecognized. They show that Occam’s razor—the tendency to favor simpler explanations—is sometimes just an excuse to avoid dealing with the historical world in its full complexity. Jean-Paul Demoule’s concluding chapter echoes this sentiment and moreover brings a continental European perspective to the preceding case studies. In addition to situating this volume in a wider history of archaeological currents, Demoule identifies the institutional and cultural factors that may account for the current direction in North American archaeology. He also offers a defense of archaeology in an era of scientific relativism, which leads him to reflect on the responsibilities of archaeologists. Includes contributions by: Susan M. Alt, Bettina Arnold, Uzi Baram, Reinhard Bernbeck, Matthew David Cochran, Jean-Paul Demoule, Kurt A. Jordan, Susan Kus, Vicente Lull, Christopher N. Matthews, Randall H. McGuire, Rafael Micó, Cristina Rihuete Herrada, Paul Mullins, Sue Novinger, Susan Pollock, Victor Raharijaona, Roberto Risch, Kathleen Sterling, Ruth M. Van Dyke, and LouAnn Wurst