Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia

Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia PDF Author: Bryan K. Hanks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521517125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
Challenges current interpretations of social and cultural change in prehistoric Eurasia, through a thematic investigation of archaeological patterns.

Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia

Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia PDF Author: Bryan K. Hanks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521517125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
Challenges current interpretations of social and cultural change in prehistoric Eurasia, through a thematic investigation of archaeological patterns.

Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology

Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology PDF Author: Dries Daems
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000344738
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology turns to complex systems thinking in search of a suitable framework to explore social complexity in Archaeology. Social complexity in archaeology is commonly related to properties of complex societies such as states, as opposed to so-called simple societies such as tribes or chiefdoms. These conceptualisations of complexity are ultimately rooted in Eurocentric perspectives with problematic implications for the field of archaeology. This book provides an in-depth conceptualisation of social complexity as the core concept in archaeological and interdisciplinary studies of the past, integrating approaches from complex systems thinking, archaeological theory, social practice theory, and sustainability and resilience science. The book covers a long-term perspective of social change and stability, tracing the full cycle of complexity trajectories, from emergence and development to collapse, regeneration and transformation of communities and societies. It offers a broad vision on social complexity as a core concept for the present and future development of archaeology. This book is intended to be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the field of archaeology and related disciplines such as history, anthropology, sociology, as well as the natural sciences studying human-environment interactions in the past.

Trade before Civilization

Trade before Civilization PDF Author: Johan Ling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009092812
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
Trade before Civilization explores the role that long-distance exchange played in the establishment and/or maintenance of social complexity, and its role in the transformation of societies from egalitarian to non-egalitarian. Bringing together research by an international and methodologically diverse team of scholars, it analyses the relationship between long-distance trade and the rise of inequality. The volume illustrates how elites used exotic prestige goods to enhance and maintain their elevated social positions in society. Global in scope, it offers case studies of early societies and sites in Europe, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Mesoamerica. Deploying a range of inter-disciplinary and cutting-edge theoretical approaches from a cross-cultural framework, the volume offers new insights and enhances our understanding of socio-political evolution. It will appeal to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, conflict theorists, and ethnohistorians, as well as economists seeking to understand the nexus between imported luxury items and cultural evolution.

Feast, Famine or Fighting?

Feast, Famine or Fighting? PDF Author: Richard J. Chacon
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319484028
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
The advent of social complexity has been a longstanding debate among social scientists. Existing theories and approaches involving the origins of social complexity include environmental circumscription, population growth, technology transfers, prestige-based and interpersonal-group competition, organized conflict, perennial wartime leadership, wealth finance, opportunistic leadership, climatological change, transport and trade monopolies, resource circumscription, surplus and redistribution, ideological imperialism, and the consideration of individual agency. However, recent approaches such as the inclusion of bioarchaeological perspectives, prospection methods, systematically-investigated archaeological sites along with emerging technologies are necessarily transforming our understanding of socio-cultural evolutionary processes. In short, many pre-existing ways of explaining the origins and development of social complexity are being reassessed. Ultimately, the contributors to this edited volume challenge the status quo regarding how and why social complexity arose by providing revolutionary new understandings of social inequality and socio-political evolution.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean PDF Author: Barry Cunliffe
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191003360
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 708

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Book Description
By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering over 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century AD. An unashamedly 'big history', it charts the development of European, Near Eastern, and Chinese civilizations and the growing links between them by way of the Indian Ocean, the silk Roads, and the great steppe corridor (which crucially allowed horse riders to travel from Mongolia to the Great Hungarian Plain within a year). Along the way, it is also the story of the rise and fall of empires, the development of maritime trade, and the shattering impact of predatory nomads on their urban neighbours. Above all, as this immense historical panorama unfolds, we begin to see in clearer focus those basic underlying factors - the acquisitive nature of humanity, the differing environments in which people live, and the dislocating effect of even slight climatic variation - which have driven change throughout the ages, and which help us better understand our world today.

Globalization in Prehistory

Globalization in Prehistory PDF Author: Nicole Boivin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108429807
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
Challenges contemporary understandings of 'globalization' by focusing on the role of non-state prehistoric societies and their vast realms of connectivity.

Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy

Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy PDF Author: Anatoly Yuminov
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030488640
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
This book presents general problems in geoarchaeology, and discusses geophysical solutions, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry applications, X-ray and isotope analyses and GIS technologies. It also examines practical reconstructions of technological processes used in ancient time, and investigates the use of minerals and rocks by ancient societies in the territories of modern Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, as well as the characteristics of ores, metallurgical slags and data on the composition and impurities of archaeological metals. Intended for archaeologists, historians, museum workers and geologists studying noble metals and copper, the book is also a useful resource for students, graduate students, experts and anyone interested in the use of various minerals at different stages of humanity’s development.

A Companion to Gender Prehistory

A Companion to Gender Prehistory PDF Author: Diane Bolger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118294262
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 933

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Book Description
An authoritative guide on gender prehistory for researchers, instructors and students in anthropology, archaeology, and gender studies Provides the most up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of gender archaeology, with an exclusive focus on prehistory Offers critical overviews of developments in the archaeology of gender over the last 30 years, as well as assessments of current trends and prospects for future research Focuses on recent Third Wave approaches to the study of gender in early human societies, challenging heterosexist biases, and investigating the interfaces between gender and status, age, cognition, social memory, performativity, the body, and sexuality Features numerous regional and thematic topics authored by established specialists in the field, with incisive coverage of gender research in prehistoric and protohistoric cultures of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific

Prehistoric Mobility and Diet in the West Eurasian Steppes 3500 to 300 BC

Prehistoric Mobility and Diet in the West Eurasian Steppes 3500 to 300 BC PDF Author: Claudia Gerling
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110388383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
Questions concerning mobility and migration as well as subsistence strategies of past societies have always been of major importance in archaeological research. The West Eurasian steppes in the Eneolithic, the Early Bronze and the Iron Age were largely inhabited by cultural communities believed to show an elevated level of spatial mobility, often linked to their subsistence economy. In this volume, questions concerning the mobility and potential migration as well as the diet and economy of the West Eurasian steppes communities during the 4th, the 3rd and the 1st Millennia BC are approached by applying isotope analysis, specifically 87Sr/86Sr, δ18O, δ15N and δ13C analyses. Adapting a combination of different isotopic systems to a study area of vast spatial and chronological dimension allowed a wide variety of questions to be answered and establishes the beginning of a database of biogeochemical data for the West Eurasian steppes. Besides the characterisation of mobility and subsistence patterns of the archaeological communities under discussion, attempts to identify possible Early Bronze Age migrations from the steppes to the steppe-like plains in parts of Eastern Europe were made, alongside an evaluation of the applicability of isotope analysis to this context.

Ancient China and its Eurasian Neighbors

Ancient China and its Eurasian Neighbors PDF Author: Katheryn M. Linduff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108418619
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This volume looks at the effects of interaction and the nature of identity construction in a frontier or contact zone through the analysis of material culture, especially in mortuary settings.