Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse

Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse PDF Author: Marsha Ann Levine
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
The domestication of the horse was one of the most significant events in the development of many human societies, ushering in new modes of transport and warfare and generating social and political change. This volume examines the origins of horse husbandry and pastoralism - especially nomadic pastoralism - in the Eurasian steppe. It brings together archaeologists and archaeozoologists from Asia, Europe and North America ito provide a wide-ranging overview of issues and evidence for the development of Central European societies from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Much of the material is here made available in English for the first time. The issues surrounding the domestication of the horse are set firmly within the broader context of steppe ecology and human subsistence, and with the development of pastoral economies across this crucial geographical zone.

Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse

Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse PDF Author: Marsha Ann Levine
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Get Book Here

Book Description
The domestication of the horse was one of the most significant events in the development of many human societies, ushering in new modes of transport and warfare and generating social and political change. This volume examines the origins of horse husbandry and pastoralism - especially nomadic pastoralism - in the Eurasian steppe. It brings together archaeologists and archaeozoologists from Asia, Europe and North America ito provide a wide-ranging overview of issues and evidence for the development of Central European societies from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Much of the material is here made available in English for the first time. The issues surrounding the domestication of the horse are set firmly within the broader context of steppe ecology and human subsistence, and with the development of pastoral economies across this crucial geographical zone.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language PDF Author: David W. Anthony
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831105
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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Book Description
Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization. Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean PDF Author: Barry W. Cunliffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199689172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
The story of the peoples of Eurasia, from the birth of farming to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. An immense historical panorama set on a huge continental stage, this is also the story of how humans first started building the global system we know today.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean PDF Author: Barry Cunliffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199689180
Category : Eurasia
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
The story of the peoples of Eurasia, from the birth of farming to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. An immense historical panorama set on a huge continental stage, this is also the story of how humans first started building the global system we know today.

A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes

A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes PDF Author: David W. Anthony
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 1938770323
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
The first English-language monograph that describes seasonal and permanent Late Bronze Age settlements in the Russian steppes, this is the final report of the Samara Valley Project, a US-Russian archaeological investigation conducted between 1995 and 2002. It explores the changing organization and subsistence resources of pastoral steppe economies from the Eneolithic (4500 BC) through the Late Bronze Age (1900-1200 BC) across a steppe-and-river valley landscape in the middle Volga region, with particular attention to the role of agriculture during the unusual episode of sedentary, settled pastoralism that spread across the Eurasian steppes with the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures (1900-1200 BC). Three astonishing discoveries were made by the SVP archaeologists: agriculture played no role in the LBA diet across the region, a surprise given the settled residential pattern; a unique winter ritual was practiced at Krasnosamarskoe involving dog and wolf sacrifices, possibly related to male initiation ceremonies; and overlapping spheres of obligation, cooperation, and affiliation operated at different scales to integrate groups defined by politics, economics, and ritual behaviors.

Reconfiguring the Silk Road

Reconfiguring the Silk Road PDF Author: Victor H. Mair
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1934536695
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
From the Bronze Age through the Middle Ages, a network of trade and migration routes brought people from across Eurasia into contact. Their commerce included political, social, and artistic ideas, as well as material goods such as metals and textiles. Reconfiguring the Silk Road offers new research on the earliest trade and cultural interactions along these routes, mapping the spread and influence of Silk Road economies and social structures over time. This volume features contributions by renowned scholars uncovering new discoveries related to populations that lived in the Tarim Basin, the advanced state of textile manufacturing in the region, and the diffusion of domesticated grains across Inner Asia. Other chapters include an analysis of the dispersal of languages across the Eurasian Steppe and a detailed examination of the domestication of the horse in the region. Contextualized with a foreword by Colin Renfrew and introduction by Victor Mair, Reconfiguring the Silk Road provides a new assessment of the intercultural evolution along the steppes and beyond. Contributors: David W. Anthony, Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Dorcas R. Brown, Peter Brown, Michael D. Frachetti, Jane Hickman, Philip L. Kohl, Victor H. Mair, J. P. Mallory, Joseph G. Manning, Colin Renfrew.

Horse Nations

Horse Nations PDF Author: Peter Mitchell
Publisher:
ISBN: 019870383X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
The Native American on a horse is an archetypal Hollywood image, but though such equestrian-focused societies were a relatively short-lived consequence of European expansion overseas, they were not restricted to North America's Plains. Horse Nations provides the first wide-ranging and up-to-date synthesis of the impact of the horse on the Indigenous societies of North and South America, southern Africa, and Australasia following its introduction as a result of European contact post-1492. Drawing on sources in a variety of languages and on the evidence of archaeology, anthropology, and history, the volume outlines the transformations that the acquisition of the horse wrought on a diverse range of groups within these four continents. It explores key topics such as changes in subsistence, technology, and belief systems, the horse's role in facilitating the emergence of more hierarchical social formations, and the interplay between ecology, climate, and human action in adopting the horse, as well as considering how far equestrian lifestyles were ultimately unsustainable.

The Spirited Horse

The Spirited Horse PDF Author: Laerke Recht
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350158933
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Presenting a new perspective on human–animal relations in the ancient Near East, this volume considers how we should understand equids (horses, donkeys, onagers and various hybrids) as animals that are social actors. Recht brings together a wealth of new data, including Bronze Age Near Eastern material culture from a range of archaeological contexts with equid remains as well as iconography and texts. She looks in particular at finds of equids themselves from burials, sacred space and settlements alongside associated artefacts such as chariots and harnesses. This is the first time the agency of animals is recognized. The study is essential reading for prehistorians, archaeologists and those studying early animal domestication, showcasing how humans encounter and interact with other animals, and how those animals in turn interact with humans. Recht outlines the broader implications for human involvement with their environment, both today and in the past, and points to further study in a number of focused appendices.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers PDF Author: Vicki Cummings
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191025267
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1683

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Book Description
For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities. Chapters provide in-depth archaeological, historical, and anthropological case-studies, and examine far-reaching questions about human social relations, attitudes to technology, ecology, and management of resources and the environment, as well as issues of diet, health, and gender relations - all central topics in hunter-gatherer research, but also themes that have great relevance for modern global society and its future challenges. The Handbook also provides a strategic vision for how the integration of new methods, approaches, and study regions can ensure that future research into the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers will continue to deliver penetrating insights into the factors that underlie all human diversity.

Connections and Complexity

Connections and Complexity PDF Author: Shinu Anna Abraham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315431831
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This compilation of original research articles highlight the important cross-regional, cross-chronological, and comparative approaches to political and economic landscapes in ancient South Asia and its neighbors. Focusing on the Indus Valley period and Iron Age India, this volume incorporates new research in South Asia within the broader universe of archaeological scholarship. Contributions focus on four major themes: reinterpreting material culture; identifying domains and regional boundaries; articulating complexity; and modeling interregional interaction. These studies develop theoretical models that may be applicable researchers studying cultural complexity elsewhere in the world.