Transitions in Prehistory

Transitions in Prehistory PDF Author: John J. Shea
Publisher: American School of Prehistoric
ISBN: 9781842173404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
This collection of papers celebrates the career of Ofer Bar-Yosef and his contribution to the study of prehistory. As professor at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University (1970-1988) and as MacCurdy Professor at Harvard University (1989-present), Ofer has had a huge impact on prehistoric archaeology, fostering multi-national research projects worldwide. With such wide-ranging research interests spanning his career, the editors of this book needed to find a theme which could somehow reflect the entirety of his career so far. The theme they chose was transitions in prehistory a topic that Ofer has written on from the early phases of his career to the present day. They have called upon students and long-term collaborators to address questions about important transitions in prehistory, dividing the papers into three groups: transitions in the Pleistocene; transitions in the Holocene; and methodological and theoretical transitions, changes in the way archaeologists view the nature of the evidence and our explanations of the archaeological record.

Transitions in Prehistory

Transitions in Prehistory PDF Author: John J. Shea
Publisher: American School of Prehistoric
ISBN: 9781842173404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
This collection of papers celebrates the career of Ofer Bar-Yosef and his contribution to the study of prehistory. As professor at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University (1970-1988) and as MacCurdy Professor at Harvard University (1989-present), Ofer has had a huge impact on prehistoric archaeology, fostering multi-national research projects worldwide. With such wide-ranging research interests spanning his career, the editors of this book needed to find a theme which could somehow reflect the entirety of his career so far. The theme they chose was transitions in prehistory a topic that Ofer has written on from the early phases of his career to the present day. They have called upon students and long-term collaborators to address questions about important transitions in prehistory, dividing the papers into three groups: transitions in the Pleistocene; transitions in the Holocene; and methodological and theoretical transitions, changes in the way archaeologists view the nature of the evidence and our explanations of the archaeological record.

Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory

Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory PDF Author: Anne Birgitte Gebauer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Get Book

Book Description
Uebergang zur Landwirtschaft - Prähistorie - Wirtschaftsgeschichte.

Transitions in Prehistory

Transitions in Prehistory PDF Author: Ofer Bar-Yosef
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiquities, Prehistoric
Languages : en
Pages : 525

Get Book

Book Description


Archaic Transitions in Ohio and Kentucky Prehistory

Archaic Transitions in Ohio and Kentucky Prehistory PDF Author: Olaf H. Prufer
Publisher: Kent State University Press
ISBN: 9780873387132
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book

Book Description
After the last Ice Age, the southern Lake Erie basin and the Ohio valley were characterized by biotic zones that influenced cultural development of archaic Native American populations. This text looks at the transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to the rise of food production in this area.

Simulating Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory

Simulating Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory PDF Author: Salvador Pardo-Gordó
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783030836429
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
This book highlights new and innovative approaches to archaeological research using computational modeling while focusing on the Neolithic transition around the world. The transformative effect of the spread and adoption of agriculture in prehistory cannot be overstated. Consequently, archaeologists have often focused their research on this transition, hoping to understand both the ecological causes and impacts of this shift, as well as the social motivations and constraints involved. Given the complex interplay of socio-ecological factors, the answers to these types of questions cannot be found using traditional archaeological methods alone. Computational modeling techniques have emerged as an effective approach for better understanding prehistoric data sets and the linkages between social and ecological factors at play during periods of subsistence change. Such techniques include agent-based modeling, Bayesian modeling, GIS modeling of the prehistoric environment, and the modeling of small-scale agriculture. As more archaeological data sets aggregate regarding the transition to agriculture, researchers are often left with few ways to relate these sets to one another. Computational modeling techniques such as those described above represent a critical next step in providing archaeological analyses that are important for understanding human prehistory around the world. Given its scope, this book will appeal to the many interdisciplinary scientists and researchers whose work involves archaeology and computational social science. Chapter “The Spread of Agriculture: Quantitative Laws in Prehistory?” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via springer.com.

Societies in Transition in Early Greece

Societies in Transition in Early Greece PDF Author: Alex R. Knodell
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520380533
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book

Book Description
Situated at the disciplinary boundary between prehistory and history, this book presents a new synthesis of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece, from the rise and fall of Mycenaean civilization to the emergence of city-states in the Archaic period. These centuries saw the growth and decline of varied political systems and the development of networks across local, regional, and Mediterranean scales. As a groundbreaking study of landscape, interaction, and sociopolitical change, Societies in Transition in Early Greece systematically bridges the divide between the Mycenaean period and the Archaic Greek world to shed new light on an often-overlooked period of world history. “This book reconfigures our understanding of early Greece on a regional level, beyond Mycenaean 'palaces' and across temporal boundaries. Alex Knodell's sophisticated arguments enable a fresh reading of the emergence of early Greek polities, revealing the microregions that put to the test overarching 'Mediterranean' models. His detailed study makes a convincing return to a comparative framework, integrating a 'small world' network and its trajectory with the larger picture of ancient complex societies.” SARAH MORRIS, Steinmetz Professor of Classical Archaeology and Material Culture, University of California, Los Angeles “A comprehensive, thoughtful treatment of the time period before the crystallization of the ancient Greek city states.” WILLIAM A. PARKINSON, Curator and Professor, The Field Museum and University of Illinois at Chicago “An important and must-read account. The strength of this book lies in its close analysis of the important different regional characteristics and evolutionary trajectories of Greece as it transforms into the Archaic and, later, the Classical world.” DAVID B. SMALL, author Ancient Greece: Social Structure and Evolution.

Human Bioarchaeology of the Transition to Agriculture

Human Bioarchaeology of the Transition to Agriculture PDF Author: Ron Pinhasi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119956684
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 479

Get Book

Book Description
A holistic and comprehensive account of the nature of the transition from hunting to farming in prehistory. It addresses for the first time the main bioarchaeological aspects such as changes in mobility, behaviour, diet and population dynamics. This book is of major interest to the relevant audience since it offers for the first time a global perspective on the bioarchaeology of the transition to agriculture. It includes contributions from world-class researchers, with a particular emphasis on advances in methods (e.g. ancient DNA of pathogens, stable isotope analysis, etc.). The book specifically addresses the following aspects associated with the transition to agriculture in various world regions: Changes in adult and subadult stature and subadult growth profiles Diachronic trends in the analysis of functional morphological structures (craniofacial, vault, lower limbs, etc.) and whether these are associated with change in overall sex-specific morphological variability Changes in mobility Changes in behaviour which can be reconstructed from the study of the skeletal record. These include changes in activity patterns, sexual dimorphism, evidence of inter-personal trauma, and the like. Population dynamics and microevolution by examining intra and inter population variations in dental and cranial metric traits, as well as archaeogenetic studies of ancient DNA (e.g. mtDNA markers).

Transitions Before the Transition

Transitions Before the Transition PDF Author: Erella Hovers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387246614
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book

Book Description
Modern human origins and the fate of the Neanderthals are arguably the most compelling and contentious arenas in paleoanthropology. The much-discussed split between advocates of a single, early emergence of anatomically modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa and supporters of various regional continuity positions is only part of the picture. Equally if not more important are questions surrounding the origins of modern behavior, and the relationships between anatomical and behavioral changes that occurred during the past 200,000 years. Although modern humans as a species may be defined in terms of their skeletal anatomy, it is their behavior, and the social and cognitive structures that support that behavior, which most clearly distinguish Homo sapiens from earlier forms of humans. This book assembles researchers working in Eurasia and Africa to discuss the archaeological record of the Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age. This is a time period when Homo sapiens last shared the world with other species, and during which patterns of behavior characteristic of modern humans developed and coalesced. Contributions to this volume query and challenge some current notions about the tempo and mode of cultural evolution, and about the processes that underlie the emergence of modern behavior. The papers focus on several fundamental questions. Do typical elements of "modern human behavior" appear suddenly, or are there earlier archaeological precursors of them? Are the archaeological records of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age unchanging and monotonous, or are there detectable evolutionary trends within these periods? Coming to diverse conclusions, the papers in this volume open up new avenues to thinking about this crucial interval in human evolutionary history.

Decolonizing Indigenous Histories

Decolonizing Indigenous Histories PDF Author: Maxine Oland
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816599351
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book

Book Description
Decolonizing Indigenous Histories makes a vital contribution to the decolonization of archaeology by recasting colonialism within long-term indigenous histories. Showcasing case studies from Africa, Australia, Mesoamerica, and North and South America, this edited volume highlights the work of archaeologists who study indigenous peoples and histories at multiple scales. The contributors explore how the inclusion of indigenous histories, and collaboration with contemporary communities and scholars across the subfields of anthropology, can reframe archaeologies of colonialism. The cross-cultural case studies employ a broad range of methodological strategies—archaeology, ethnohistory, archival research, oral histories, and descendant perspectives—to better appreciate processes of colonialism. The authors argue that these more complicated histories of colonialism contribute not only to understandings of past contexts but also to contemporary social justice projects. In each chapter, authors move beyond an academic artifice of “prehistoric” and “colonial” and instead focus on longer sequences of indigenous histories to better understand colonial contexts. Throughout, each author explores and clarifies the complexities of indigenous daily practices that shape, and are shaped by, long-term indigenous and local histories by employing an array of theoretical tools, including theories of practice, agency, materiality, and temporality. Included are larger integrative chapters by Kent Lightfoot and Patricia Rubertone, foremost North American colonialism scholars who argue that an expanded global perspective is essential to understanding processes of indigenous-colonial interactions and transitions.

Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions

Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions PDF Author: Marta Camps
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387764879
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 575

Get Book

Book Description
As the study of Palaeolithic technologies moves towards a more analytical approach, it is necessary to determine a consistent procedural framework. The contributions to this timely and comprehensive volume do just that. This volume incorporates a broad chronological and geographical range of Palaeolithic material from the Lower to Upper Palaeolithic. The focus of this volume is to provide an analysis of Palaeolithic technologies from a quantitative, empirical perspective. As new techniques, particularly quantitative methods, for analyzing Palaeolithic technologies gain popularity, this work provides case studies particularly showcasing these new techniques. Employing diverse case studies, and utilizing multivariate approaches, morphometrics, model-based approaches, phylogenetics, cultural transmission studies, and experimentation, this volume provides insights from international contributors at the forefront of recent methodological advances.