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The Adorned Body: Mapping Ancient Maya Dress by
How we dress our bodies--through clothing, footwear, headgear, jewelry, haircuts, and more--is key to the expression of status and identity. This idea was as true for ancient Maya civilization as it is today, yet few studies have centered on what ancient Maya peoples wore and why. In The Adorned Body, Nicholas Carter, Stephen Houston, and Franco Rossi bring together contributions from a wide range of scholars, leading to the first in-depth study of Maya dress in pre-Columbian times. Incorporating artistic, hieroglyphic, and archaeological sources, this book explores the clothing and ornaments of ancient Maya peoples, systematically examining who wore what, deducing the varied purposes and meanings of dress items and larger ensembles, and determining the methods and materials with which such items were created. Each essay investigates a category of dress--including headgear, pendants and necklaces, body painting, footwear, and facial ornaments--and considers the variations within each of these categories, as well as popular styles and trends through time. The final chapters reveal broader views and comparisons about costume ensembles and their social roles. Shedding new light on the art and archaeology of the ancient Americas, The Adorned Body offers a thorough map of Maya dress that will be of interest to scholars and fashion enthusiasts alike.
Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices by
Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices chronicles the modal patterns, diversity, and change of ancient mortuary practices from across the US Southwest and northwest Mexico over four thousand years of Prehispanic occupation. The volume summarizes new methodological approaches and theoretical issues concerning the meaning and importance of burial practices to different peoples at different times throughout the ancient Greater Southwest. Chapters focus on normative mortuary patterns, the range of variability of mortuary patterns, how the contexts of burials reflect temporal shifts in ideology, and the ways in which mortuary rituals, behaviors, and funerary treatments fulfill specific societal needs and reflect societal beliefs. Contributors analyze extensive datasets--archived and accessible on the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR)--from various subregions, structurally standardized and integrated with respect to biological and cultural data. Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices, together with the full datasets preserved in tDAR, is a rich resource for comparative research on mortuary ritual for indigenous descendant groups, cultural resource managers, and archaeologists and bioarchaeologists in the Greater Southwest and other regions. Contributors: Nancy J. Akins, Jessica I. Cerezo-Román, Mona C. Charles, Patricia A. Gilman, Lynne Goldstein, Alison K. Livesay, Dawn Mulhern, Ann Stodder, M. Scott Thompson, Sharon Wester, Catrina Banks Whitley
Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene by
This book presents a discussion of the culture history of ancient West Mexico from the time of the first human inhabitants until the last cultural developments that took place before the Spanish invasion in the 16th century. The overall narrative is played out within the context of the Mesoamerican ecumene; that is, the universe of cultural and social interactions that coalesced into one of the few pristine civilizations of the ancient world. The book presents a long-overdue synthesis and update of West Mexican archaeology aimed at scholars, students and the general public. Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene is the first book about West Mexican archaeology written by a single author. Another unique feature of this book is that it follows a holistic approach that includes data and perspectives from sociocultural anthropology, ethnohistory, ethnoarchaeology, and general analogy with many ancient cultures within the Mesoamerican ecumene and beyond (including several of the Old World). The focus of interest is the relationship between West Mexico and the rest of the ecumene, and the role played by the ancient West Mexicans in shaping the culture and history of the Mesoamerican universe. Ancient West Mexico has often been portrayed as a 'marginal' or 'underdeveloped' area of Mesoamerica. This book shows that the opposite is true. Indeed, Williams convincingly demonstrates that West Mexico actually played a critical role in the cultural and historical development of the Mesoamerican ecumene.
Anthropological Controversies by
This book uses controversies as a gateway through which to explore the origins, ethics, key moments, and people in the history of anthropology. It draws on a variety of cases including complicity in "human zoos", Malinowski's diaries, and the Human Terrain System to explore how anthropological controversies act as a driving force for change, how they offer a window into the history of and research practice in the discipline, and how they might frame wider debates such as those around reflexivity, cultural relativism, and the politics of representation. The volume provokes discussion about research ethics and practice with tangible examples where grey areas are brought into sharp relief. The controversies examined in the book all involve moral or practical ambiguities that offer an opportunity for students to engage with the debate and the dilemmas faced by anthropologists, both in relation to the specific incidents covered and to the problems posed more generally due to the intimate and political implications of ethnographic research.
Anthropological Data in the Digital Age by
For more than two decades, anthropologists have wrestled with new digital technologies and their impacts on how their data are collected, managed, and ultimately presented. Anthropological Data in the Digital Age compiles a range of academics in anthropology and the information sciences, archivists, and librarians to offer in-depth discussions of the issues raised by digital scholarship. The volume covers the technical aspects of data management--retrieval, metadata, dissemination, presentation, and preservation--while at once engaging with case studies written by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists returning from the field to grapple with the implications of producing data digitally. Concluding with thoughts on the new considerations and ethics of digital data, Anthropological Data in the Digital Age is a multi-faceted meditation on anthropological practice in a technologically mediated world.
Anthropology and Activism by
This book offers a comprehensive and current look at the complex relationship between anthropology and activism. Activism has become a vibrant research topic within anthropology and many scholars now embrace their own roles as engaged social actors, which has compelled reflexive attention to the anthropology/activism intersection and its implications. With contributions by emerging scholars as well as leading activist anthropologists, this volume illuminates the diverse ways in which the anthropology/activism relationship is being navigated. Chapters touch on key areas including environment and extraction, food sustainability and security, migration and human rights, health disparities and healthcare access, class and gender identities and empowerment, and the defense of democracy. Case studies (drawn mainly from North America) encourage readers to think through their own experiences and expectations and will serve as durable documentation of how movements develop and change. This timely survey of the activist anthropological landscape is valuable reading in an era of widely perceived ecological and political crisis, where disinterested data collection increasingly appears to be a luxury that neither the discipline nor the world can afford.
The Anthropology of Precious Minerals by
Based on a Wenner-Gren international workshop, held at the Royal Ontario Museum, this book addresses the complexity of human-mineral engagements through ethnographic case studies and anthropological reflections on different people and the minerals they deem 'precious.'.
Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvings by
In the realm of rock art, humanlike images appear widely through time and space from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and for some continents to later, yet still prehistoric, times. The artworks discussed in Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvingsrange from paintings, engravings or scratchings on cave walls and rock shelters, images pecked into rocky surfaces or upon standing stones, and major sacred sites (among them Gobekli Tepe, Avebury, Stonehenge, and the Palaeolithic Chauvet Cave) in which the possibility exists of recovery of the meanings intended by the artists and sculptors. Such prospects can relate to known or inferred legends, myths, folklore, rites and ritual, and often allude to matters that recognise the unremitting benefits of human, animal and crop fertility to humankind. Occasionally, relevant art forms are present not in whole but as pars pro toto, in which a part stands for or symbolises the whole. Images or artistic compositions often articulate, in ways more or less manifest, scenes of dramatic action as with hunting and dancing, mating and birthing, ritual and ceremony, some of which may openly or latently express yearnings for the rewards of fruitful fecundity - as with the much-loved worldview known as the hieros gamosor Sacred Marriage.
Archaeological Science by
This book provides an up to date introduction to the exciting, but complex, new scientific methodologies that are increasingly used in archaeological study. Written by an international team of specialists, it provides clear and engaging overviews of a wide array of approaches, including DNA and proteomics, dating methods, materials analysis, stable isotope analysis, and the scientific study of human, plant, and animal remains, among other topics. Each technique is explored through the use of actual archaeological examples, which both explain the methods and highlight their potential applications. The work is carefully illustrated with useful charts, graphs and other images, which complement the detail in the text, and help to articulate the case studies explored as well as the underlying principles of the techniques involved. Feature tables in many of the chapters highlight selected research on each topic, providing useful summaries of the current state and scope of the field for the reader. This volume will serve as a handy reference tool for scholars, as well as a key textbook for courses on archaeological science.
The Archaeology of Burning Man by
Each August staff and volunteers begin to construct Black Rock City, a temporary city located in the hostile and haunting Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada. Every September nearly seventy thousand people occupy the city for Burning Man, an event that creates the sixth-largest population center in Nevada. By mid-September the infrastructure that supported the community is fully dismantled, and by October the land on which the city lay is scrubbed of evidence of its existence. The Archaeology of Burning Man examines this process of building, occupation, and destruction. For nearly a decade Carolyn L. White has employed archaeological methods to analyze the various aspects of life and community in and around Burning Man and Black Rock City. With a syncretic approach, this work in active-site archaeology provides both a theoretical basis and a practical demonstration of the potential of this new field to reexamine the most fundamental conceptions in the social sciences.
An Archaeology of Ethnicity, Race, and Consumption in New York by
An Archaeology of Ethnicity, Race, and Consumption in New York examines the archaeological visibility of ethnicity within the confines of nineteenth-century material culture from across New York State. The author discusses the limits of archaeological interpretations of ethnicity, presents the utility of material indications of racism in the archaeological record, considers the archaeological footprint of immigrant groups, and contextualizes these discussions with the economic development of the state of New York. The author argues that the construction of canals and railroads causes drastic changes in trade networks and available goods throughout the state, and impacted the lives of immigrant populations who both built and depended on these systems. This book recounts the exploitation of immigrant groups for hard labor to complete these arterial constructions, which in turn increases reliable accessibility to trade goods, but also provides archaeologists today an increased ability to understand the treatment of those immigrant groups by American society.
An Archive of Taste: Race and Eating in the Early United States by
A groundbreaking synthesis of food studies, archival theory, and early American literature There is no eating in the archive. This is not only a practical admonition to any would-be researcher but also a methodological challenge, in that there is no eating--or, at least, no food--preserved among the printed records of the early United States. Synthesizing a range of textual artifacts with accounts (both real and imagined) of foods harvested, dishes prepared, and meals consumed, An Archive of Taste reveals how a focus on eating allows us to rethink the nature and significance of aesthetics in early America, as well as of its archive. Lauren F. Klein considers eating and early American aesthetics together, reframing the philosophical work of food and its meaning for the people who prepare, serve, and consume it. She tells the story of how eating emerged as an aesthetic activity over the course of the eighteenth century and how it subsequently transformed into a means of expressing both allegiance and resistance to the dominant Enlightenment worldview. Klein offers richly layered accounts of the enslaved men and women who cooked the meals of the nation's founders and, in doing so, directly affected the development of our national culture--from Thomas Jefferson's emancipation agreement with his enslaved chef to Malinda Russell's Domestic Cookbook, the first African American-authored culinary text. The first book to examine the gustatory origins of aesthetic taste in early American literature, An Archive of Taste shows how thinking about eating can help to tell new stories about the range of people who worked to establish a cultural foundation for the United States.
Authenticity and Authorship in Pacific Island Encounters by
The insular Pacific is a region saturated with great cultural diversity and poignant memories of colonial and Christian intrusion. Considering authenticity and authorship in the area, this book looks at how these ideas have manifested themselves in Pacific peoples and cultures. Through six rich complementary case studies, a theoretical introduction, and a critical afterword, this volume explores authenticity and authorship as "traveling concepts." The book reveals diverse and surprising outcomes which shed light on how Pacific identity has changed from the past to the present.
Aztec Codices: What They Tell us About Daily Life by
From the migration of the Aztecs to the rise of the empire and its eventual demise, this book covers Aztec history in full, analyzing conceptions of time, religion, and more through codices to offer an inside look at daily life. This book focuses on two main areas: Aztec history and Aztec culture. Early chapters deal with Aztec history--the first providing a visual record of the story of the Aztec migration and search for their destined homeland of Tenochtitlan, and the second exploring how the Aztecs built their empire. Later chapters explain life in the Aztec world, focusing on Aztec conceptions of time and religion, the Aztec economy, the life cycle, and daily life. The book ends with an account of the fall of the empire, as illustrated by Aztec artists. With sections concerning a wide variety of topics--from the Aztec pantheon to war, agriculture, childhood, marriage, diet, justice, the arts, and sports, among many others--readers will gain an expansive understanding of life in the Aztec world. Provides an overview of life in the Aztec world and takes as its starting point the books created by Aztec peoples themselves Explores different topics related to Aztec history, culture, and daily life introduced by a reading of a page from a codex Elucidates such daily aspects of Aztec life as diet, religion, calendars, economic systems, clothing and adornment, and more Allows students to gain both an understanding of the Aztec pictorial system of writing and of how the Aztecs lived their lives
Behavior and Culture in One Dimension: Sequences, Accordances, and the Evolution of Complexity by
Behavior and Culture in One Dimension adopts a broad interdisciplinary approach, presenting a unified theory of sequences and their functions and an overview of how they underpin the evolution of complexity. Sequences of DNA guide the functioning of the living world, sequences of speech and writing choreograph the intricacies of human culture, and sequences of code oversee the operation of our literate technological civilization. These linear patterns function under their own rules, which have never been fully explored. It is time for them to get their due. This book explores the one-dimensional sequences that orchestrate the structure and behavior of our three-dimensional habitat. Using Gibsonian concepts of perception, action, and affordances, as well as the works of Howard Pattee, the book examines the role of sequences in the human behavioral and cultural world of speech, writing, and mathematics. The book offers a Darwinian framework for understanding human cultural evolution and locates the two major informational transitions in the origins of life and civilization. It will be of interest to students and researchers in ecological psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, and the social and biological sciences. "Behavior and Culture in One Dimension provides an engaging, highly readable exploration of the foundational role of one-dimensional patterns or "sequences" in the origin and evolution of complex systems on earth, among them, living systems. These one-dimensional sequences (including, for example, RNA, DNA, linguistic sequences, computer code) serve to organize, harness, and control (three-dimensional) physical systems so that the systems exhibit functional, organized activity at larger spatiotemporal scales including ecologically relevant scales. The book should attract a variety of readerships including popular science readers and students of evolution, ecological science, and language. For language scholars, such as myself, it offers a unique, persuasive, and impactful perspective on the kind of thing that language is, offering valuable insight on how language use in the world (written as well as spoken) can do the work it does. I highly recommend this book." — Carol A. Fowler, Haskins Laboratories, U.S.A. "Over the past 60 years Howard Pattee proposed foundational ideas for understanding the nature of life. With spectacular clarity and force his former student Dennis Waters examines and extends Pattee’s work to produce a vibrant framework for thinking how the physical/biological world constructs life itself. Get ready to think and then think again. This book is true scholarship in its finest form."— Michael Gazzaniga, SAGE Center for the Study of Mind, University of California, U.S.A. "Dennis Waters’ Behavior and Culture in One Dimension explores the implications of a deceptively simple idea—the concept of a sequence—and shows how much of the complexity of the biological and human world is dependent on it. With DNA at one end of his account and written language at the other, he shows how sequences have played midwife to the emergence of complex life and human civilization." — Terrence Deacon, University of California, U.S.A "Behavior and Culture in One Dimension pursues the bold and intriguing claim that DNA, language, and computer code are not simply metaphorical allies. Waters builds the case that systems of linear sequences have properties in common that allow them to constrain activity in three dimensions. He’s after a universal organizing principle that is independent of the embodiment of the sequence—human language, animal communication, behavior by parasites, bacteria, and civilizations are all in his sights. The neglect of language has long been seen by cognitive science as the Achilles heel of ecological psychology. An approach to language that respects the ecological emphasis on natural law is sorely needed and that is very much what Waters provides." — Claudia Carello, University of Connecticut, U.S.A. Dennis P. Waters received his Ph.D. from Binghamton University in 1990. He became a publishing entrepreneur, founding technical news services like GenomeWeb.com. After retiring, Waters continued his Ph.D. research, how one-dimensional patterns of DNA, language, and code guide the three-dimensional world. He is a visiting scientist at Rutgers University. Introduction: Sequences, Sequences, and Sequences Chapter 1. The Problem of Sequentialization Chapter 2. The Emergence of Constraint Chapter 3. The Grammar of Interaction Chapter 4. The Grammar of Extension Chapter 5. The Grammar of Abstraction Chapter 6. The Conundrum of Replication Chapter 7. The Threshold of Complication Chapter 8. The Institution of Sequences Chapter 9. The Continuum of Abstraction Appendix: Just Enough Molecular Biology
Beneath the Surface: A Transnational History of Skin Lighteners by
For more than a century, skin lighteners have been a ubiquitous feature of global popular culture--embraced by consumers even as they were fiercely opposed by medical professionals, consumer health advocates, and antiracist thinkers and activists. In Beneath the Surface, Lynn M. Thomas constructs a transnational history of skin lighteners in South Africa and beyond. Analyzing a wide range of archival, popular culture, and oral history sources, Thomas traces the changing meanings of skin color from precolonial times to the postcolonial present. From indigenous skin-brightening practices and the rapid spread of lighteners in South African consumer culture during the 1940s and 1950s to the growth of a billion-dollar global lightener industry, Thomas shows how the use of skin lighteners and experiences of skin color have been shaped by slavery, colonialism, and segregation as well as by consumer capitalism, visual media, notions of beauty, and protest politics. In teasing out lighteners' layered history, Thomas theorizes skin as a site for antiracist struggle and lighteners as a technology of visibility that both challenges and entrenches racial and gender hierarchies.
Beyond Observation: A History of Authorship in Ethnographic Film by
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. A history of ethnographic film from the birth of cinema in 1895 until 2015 that analyses a large number of films made in a broad range of styles, on a broad range of topics and in many different parts of the world. For the period before the Second World War, it considers films made in reportage, exotic melodrama and travelogue genres as well as more conventionally ethnographic films made for academic and state-funded purposes. It then describes how after the war, ethnographic film-makers developed various different modes of authorship inspired by the ideas of Jean Rouch, Robert Gardner and Colin Young. It also considers films made from the 1970s by the indigenous subjects themselves as well as those made for British television up until the 1990s. In the final part, it examines various possible models for the future of ethnographic film.
Blood Rush: the Dark History of a Vital Fluid by
As a young man, Jan Verplaetse saw a hare suspended from a meat hook, skinned and gutted. What struck him so forcefully at the time was not the animal itself, but the blood gently dripping from its mouth. His reaction prompted the start of a quest he undertakes in this book: to investigate our fascination with blood, the most vital of fluids. Blood Rush shows how, throughout history, blood has had the capacity to intoxicate us, to the point that we lose ourselves, whether in violence, through hunting, fighting, or killing, or in the vicarious thrill of watching sporting events, horror films, or video games. Are these feelings physical, or in our imagination? Where does the magic of blood come from? In his deeply researched and provocative narrative, Verplaetse moves from antiquity to the present, from magic to experimental psychology, from philosophy to religion and scientific discoveries, to demonstrate why blood at once attracts and repels us.
Brain and Race: A History of Cerebral Anthropology by
Since the second half of the eighteenth century, generations of scientists persisted in studying the relationships between the volume, weight or shape of the human brain and the degree of 'intelligence'. In Pogliano's book, the thread of time drives the narrative up to the mid-twentieth century. It investigates the duration and changes of a game that was intrinsically political, although having to do with bones and nervous matter. Races made its main object, during a long period when Western culture believed the human species to be naturally partitioned into a number of discrete types, with their innate and hereditary traits. Never leading to irrefutable achievements, the polycentric (as well as visual) enterprise herein described is full of growing tensions, doubts, and disillusionment.
Case Studies for Advances in Paleoimaging and Other Non-Clinical Applications by
The case studies provided in Case Studies for Advances in Paleoimaging will provide the reader real-world scenarios and case examples that will help prepare researchers to discover new ways to apply the various modalities associated with the technology. This book is a follow up to the authors classic work Paleoimgaging (2009) and companion to Advances in Paleoimaging (2020). The case examples outlined demonstrate the problem-solving nature of imaging research and the application of critical thought to unique problems. Further, Case Studies for Advances in Paleoimaging demonstrates the incredible depth of application of these modalities including photography, endoscopy, x-ray fluorescence, plane radiography, digital radiography, and advanced imaging modalities like multi-detector computed tomography, micro-computed tomography, and magnetic resonance. Of particular note, case study seven, Contrast Media Injections, informs the researcher regarding methods to bring out specific anatomic structures that may be the target of a given research question. Intended for the students, faculty, and seasoned researchers, Case Studies for Advances in Paleoimaging presents actual cases from the authors' vast experience in the application of paleoimaging modalities in order to answer unique research problems. The book also serves as a field manual for future current and researchers in approach similar, or even new cases, that present unique challenges. These cases demonstrate how the varied imaging methodologies can provide data which greatly enriches our understanding of the subject at hand, be it ancient cultural remains, forensic recovery, museum holdings, or other anthropological and archaelogical artifacts.
Climate Change and Ancient Societies in Europe and the near East by
Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its impact on past human societies. This book explores the link between climate and society in ancient worlds, focusing on the ancient economies of western Eurasia and northern Africa from the fourth millennium BCE up to the end of the first millennium CE. This book contributes to the multi-disciplinary debate between scholars working on climate and society from various backgrounds. The chronological boundaries of the book are set by the emergence of complex societies in the Neolithic on the one end and the rise of early-modern states in global political and economic exchange on the other. In order to stimulate comparison across the boundaries of modern periodization, this book ends with demography and climate change in early-modern and modern Italy, a society whose empirical data allows the kind of statistical analysis that is impossible for ancient societies. The book highlights the role of human agency, and the complex interactions between the natural environment and the socio-cultural, political, demographic, and economic infrastructure of any given society. It is intended for a wide audience of scholars and students in ancient economic history, specifically Rome and Late Antiquity.
Climate Change and Conservation of Coastal Built Heritage by
This book presents the preservation principles and the current environmental challenges relating to monitoring heritage sites and buildings under the effects of climate change. It provides a clear overview of conservation action levels and the importance of participation and cooperation between them, and discusses evaluation and management methods, thermal comfort for the common usages, and conceptual methods for enhancing the built heritage. The research presented employed the "Zoom In, Zoom Out" approach for monitoring the Syrian coastal heritage sites threatened by the direct and indirect effects of climate change. Lastly, the book establishes the basic principles and conservation strategies for preserving the coastal heritage sites and buildings. As such, it is a valuable reference resource for researchers, developers, architects, and conservators involved in protecting the architectural heritage in coastal areas. It can also be used as a guidebook on preserving and monitoring built heritage sites at both macro and micro levels.
Collaborations: Anthropology in a Neoliberal Age by
Collaborations responds to the growing pressure on the humanities and social sciences to justify their impact and utility after cuts in public spending, and the introduction of neoliberal values into academia. Arguing 'in defense of' anthropology, the editors demonstrate the continued importance of the discipline and reveal how it contributes towards solving major problems in contemporary society. They also illustrate how anthropology can not only survive but thrive under these conditions. Moreover, Collaborations shows that collaboration with other disciplines is the key to anthropology's long-term sustainability and survival, and explores the challenges that interdisciplinary work presents. The book is divided into two parts: Anthropology and Academia, and Anthropology in Practice. The first part features examples from anthropologists working in academic settings which range from the life, behavioural and social sciences to the humanities, arts and business. The second part highlights detailed ethnographic contributions on topics such as peace negotiations, asylum seekers, prostitution and autism. Collaborations is an important read for students, scholars and professional and applied anthropologists as it explores how anthropology can remain relevant in the contemporary world and how to prevent it from becoming an increasingly isolated and marginalized discipline.
Color in the Ancestral Pueblo Southwest by
Color attracts attention, evokes emotions, conveys information, carries complex meanings, and makes things beautiful. Color is so meaningful, in fact, that research on the color choices of Ancestral Pueblo people has the potential to deepen our understanding of religious, social, and economic change in the ancient Southwest. This volume explores museum collections and more than a century of archaeological research to create the first systematic understanding of the many ways Ancestral Pueblo people chose specific colors through time and space to add meaning and visual appeal to their lives. Beginning with the technical and practical concerns of acquiring pigments and using them to create paints, the authors explore how connections to landscapes and sacred places are embodied by many colorful materials. Contributors examine the development of polychromes and their juxtaposition with black-on-white vessels; document how color was used in rock paintings and architecture; and consider the inherent properties of materials, arguing that shell, minerals, and stone were valued not only for color but for other visual properties as well. The book concludes by considering the technological, economic, social, and ideological factors at play and demonstrates the significant role color played in aesthetic choices.
Communities and Knowledge Production in Archaeology by
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The dynamic processes of knowledge production in archaeology and elsewhere in the humanities and social sciences are increasingly viewed as the collaborative effort of groups, clusters and communities of researchers rather than the isolated work of so-called 'instrumental' actors. Shifting focus from the individual scholar to the wider social contexts of her work and the dynamic creative processes she participates in, this volume critically examines the importance of informal networks and conversation in the creation of knowledge about the past. Engaging with theoretical approaches such as the sociology and geographies of knowledge and Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and using examples taken from different archaeologies in Europe and North America from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century, the book caters to a wide readership, ranging from students of archaeology, anthropology, classics and science studies to the general reader.
Comparing Cultures: Innovations in Comparative Ethnography by
A new and important contribution to the re-emergent field of comparative anthropology, this book argues that comparative ethnographic methods are essential for more contextually sophisticated accounts of a number of pressing human concerns today. The book includes expert accounts from an international team of scholars, showing how these methods can be used to illuminate important theoretical and practical projects. Illustrated with examples of successful inter-disciplinary projects, it highlights the challenges, benefits, and innovative strategies involved in working collaboratively across disciplines. Through its focus on practical methodological and logistical accounts, it will be of value to both seasoned researchers who seek practical models for conducting their own cutting-edge comparative research, and to teachers and students who are looking for first-person accounts of comparative ethnographic research.
The Competition of Fibers: Early Textile Production in Western Asia, South-east and Central Europe (10,000-500BCE) by
The central issues discussed in this new collected work in the highly successful ancient textiles series are the relationships between fiber resources and availability on the one hand and the ways those resources were exploited to produce textiles on the other. Technological and economic practices - for example, the strategies by which raw materials were acquired and prepared - in the production of textiles play a major role in the papers collected here. Contributions investigate the beginnings of wool use in western Asia and southeastern Europe. The importance of wool in considerations of early textiles is due to at least two factors. First, both wild as well as some domesticated sheep are characterized by a hairy rather than a woolly coat. This raises the question of when and where woolly sheep emerged, a question that has not up to now been resolvable by genetic or other biological analyses. Second, wool as a fiber has played a major role both economically and socially in both western Asian and European societies from as early as the 3rd millennium BCE in Mesopotamia, and it continues to do so, in different ways, up to the modern day. Despite the importance of wool as a fiber resource contributors demonstrate clearly that its development and use can only be properly addressed in the context of a consideration of other fibers, both plant and animal. Only within a framework that takes into account historically and regionally variable strategies of procurement, processing, and the products of different types of fibers is it possible to gain real insights into the changing roles played by fibers and textiles in the lives of people in different places and times in the past. With relatively rare, albeit sometimes spectacular exceptions, archaeological contexts offer only poor conditions of preservation for textiles. As a result, archaeologists are dependent on indirect or proxy indicators such as textile tools (e.g., loom weights, spindle whorls) and the analysis of faunal remains to explore a range of such proxies and methods by which they may be analyzed and evaluated in order to contribute to an understanding of fiber and textile production and use in the past.
Creating Heritage: Unrecognised Pasts and Rejected Futures by
This book investigates the selection process of heritagisation to understand what specific pasts are being selected or rejected for representation, who is selecting them, how and to whom they are being represented and why they are being presented, or dismissed, in the ways that they are. Some aspects of our pasts are venerated and memorialised for a variety of reasons, while others are forgotten or even hidden. This volume, thus, provides examples from across a spectrum. Some phenomena are well-suited to heritagisation, such as animals memorialised for their bravery, long past agricultural techniques and implements, and impressive landscapes. However, this book also deals with products (e.g. tobacco), historical periods (e.g. the Third Reich) and scientific techniques (e.g. genetic modification) with negative connotations that extend beyond their heritage attributes. This volume considers how the actors in the heritage industry admit, valorise, prioritise and rationalise historic resources as heritage products. These findings provide practical examples of how heritage institutions privilege, frame and/or exclude a wide range of heritage items. They also contrast the invocations of sectional (local, national or class based) and more cosmopolitan heritages and consider the extent to which innovation and change are or can be acknowledged within the heritage discourse.
Decolonising Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in an Age of Technocolonialism: Recentring African Indigenous Knowledge and Belief Systems by
Positing the notions of coloniality of ignorance and geopolitics of ignorance as central to coloniality and colonisation, this book examines how colonialists socially produced ignorance among colonised indigenous peoples so as to render them docile and manageable. Dismissing colonial descriptions of indigenous people as savages, illiterate, irrational, prelogical, mystical, primitive, barbaric and backward, the book argues that imperialists/colonialists contrived geopolitics of ignorance wherein indigenous regions were forced to become ignorant, hence containable and manageable in the imperial world. Questioning the provenance of modernist epistemologies, the book asks why Eurocentric scholars only contest the provenance of indigenous knowledges, artefacts and scientific collections. Interrogating why empire sponsors the decolonisation of universities/epistemologies in indigenous territories while resisting the repatriation/restitution of indigenous artefacts, the book also wonders why Westerners who still retain indigenous artefacts, skulls and skeletons in their museums, universities and private collections do not consider such artefacts and skulls to be colonising them as well. The book is valuable to scholars and activists in the fields of anthropology, museums and heritage studies, science and technology studies, decoloniality, policymaking, education, politics, sociology and development studies.
Decolonizing Qualitative Approaches for and by the Caribbean by
As academics in postcolonial Caribbean countries, we have been trained to believe that research should be objective: a measurable benefit to the public good and quantifiable in nature so as to generalize findings to develop knowledge societies for economic growth. What happens, however when the very word "research" connotes a derogatory term or semblance of distrust? Smith (1999) speaks towards the distrustful nature of the term as a legacy of European imperialism and colonialism. Against this backdrop, how do Caribbean researchers leverage recognized and valued (indigenous) methods of knowing and understanding for and by the Caribbean populace? How do we learn from indigenous research methods such as Kaupapa Maori (Smith, 1999) and develop an understanding of research that is emancipatory in nature? Decolonizing qualitative methods are rooted in critical theory and grounded in social justice, resistance, change and emancipatory research for and by the Other (Said, 1978). Rodney's (1969) legacy of "groundings" provides a Caribbean oriented ethnographic approach to collecting data about people and culture. It is an anti-imperialist method of data collection focused on the socioeconomic and political environment within the (post) colonial context. Similar to Rodney, other critical Caribbean scholars have moved the research discourse to center on the notions of resistance, struggle (Chevannes, 1995; Feraria, 2009) and decolonoizing methodologies. This proposed edited volume will provide a collective body of scholarship for innovative uses of decolonizing qualitative research. In order to theorize and conduct decolonizing research, one can argue that the researcher as self and as the Other needs to be interrogated. Borrowing from an autoethnographic ontology, the researcher or investigator recognizes the self as the unit of measure, and there is a concerted effort to continuously see the self, seeing the self through and as the other (Alexander, 2005; Ellis, 2004). This level of interrogation may require frameworks such as Reasonable Humanism in which there is a clear understanding of the role of the researcher and researched from a physiological and psychosocial standpoint. Thereafter, the researcher is better prepared to enter into a discourse about decolonizing methodologies. The origins of qualitative inquiry in the Caribbean can be traced to political and economic discourses - Marxism, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, capitalism, liberalism, postmodernism- which have challenged ways of knowing and the construction of knowledge. Evans (2009) traced the origins of qualitative inquiry to slave narratives, proprietor's journals, missionaries' reports and travelogues. Common to the Caribbean is an understanding of how colonial legacies of research have ridiculed oral traditions, language, and ways of knowing, often rendering them valueless and inconsequential. This proposed edited volume acknowledges the significance of decolonizing approaches to qualitative research in the Caribbean and the wider Caribbean diaspora..
The Domestication of Humans by
The Domestication of Humansexplains the alternative to the African Eve model by attributing human modernity, not to a speciation event in Africa, but to the unintended self-domestication of humans. This alternative account of human origins provides the reader with a comprehensive explanation of all features defining our species that is consistent with all the available evidence. These traits include, but are not limited to, massive neotenisation, numerous somatic changes, susceptibility to almost countless detrimental conditions and maladaptations, brain atrophy, loss of oestrus and thousands of genetic impairments. The teleological fantasy of replacement by a 'superior' species that has dominated the topic of modern human origins has never explained any of the many features that distinguish us from our robust ancestors. This book explains all of them in one consistent, elegant theory. It presents the most revolutionary proposal of human origins since Darwin. Although primarily intended for the academic market, this book is perfectly suitable for anyone interested in how and why we became the species that we are today.
The Earliest Europeans: A Year in the Life: Survival Strategies in the Lower Palaeolithic by
The Earliest Europeans explores a fundamental question: how did Europe's first hominin occupants cope with the year-round practical challenges of life. To do so, the book adopts a 'year in the life' perspective that draws on the increasingly rich and robust archaeological and Quaternary Science records for the European Lower Palaeolithic, combined with insights from modern ethnography and zoological studies. By exploring potential survival strategies and behaviours, Hosfield offers new insights into the character of Europe's earliest occupations across more than 1 million years, and ultimately asks: what sorts of 'humans' were these hominins? The innovative season-by-season structure of the book explores cyclical fluctuations in resources and weather conditions. From the depths of cold winters to the bountiful foods of late summer, it considers the implications of these variations for hominin behaviours. Hosfield draws on a range of supporting examples and evidence from Lower Palaeolithic sites across Europe, spanning technology, palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, hominin life history, and plant and animal food resources. In doing so, The Earliest Europeans highlights both the current and future potential of Europe's earliest archaeological record.
The Ecology of Playful Childhood: The Diversity and Resilience of Caregiver-Child Interactions among the San of Southern Africa by
While studies of San children have attained the peculiar status of having delineated the prototype for hunter-gatherer childhood, relatively few serious ethnographic studies of San children have been conducted since an initial flurry of research in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the author's long-term field research among several San groups of Southern Africa, this book reconsiders hunter-gatherer childhood using "play" as a key concept. Playfulness pervades the intricate practices of caregiver-child interactions among the San: immediately after birth, mothers have extremely close contact with their babies. In addition to the mother's attentions, other people around the babies actively facilitate gymnastic behavior to soothe them. These distinctive caregiving behaviors indicate a loving, indulgent attitude towards infants. This also holds true for several language genres of the San that are used in early vocal communication. Children gradually become involved in various playful activities in groups of children of multiple ages, which is the major locus of their attachment after weaning; these playful activities show important similarities to the household and subsistence activities carried out by adults. Rejuvenating studies of San children and hunter-gatherer childhood and childrearing practices, this book aims to examine these issues in detail, ultimately providing a new perspective for the understanding of human sociality.
Eroticism of More- and Other-than-Human Bodies by
Focusing on non-human actors, Grażyna Gajewska expands the discussion of eroticism in contemporary culture by bringing in material culture, object studies, and "the anthropology of things." She sets out from the assumption that things (such as, for instance, attire, underwear, shoes, or jewelry) play an important role in arousing erotic imagination--they are genuine participants in the process, not mere signifiers of eroticism. Their use does not denote only undeniable facts of everyday life associated with functionality, the pragmatic or aesthetic aspect, but also contribute to the shaping of human emotions, fantasies and phantasms. In her study, Gajewska brings eroticism in contemporary culture to light through applying gender studies to new contexts--animals, robots, virtual worlds--even as she explores a new methodology, the anthropology of things.
Ethnic Subjectivity in Intergenerational Memory Narratives by
In this interdisciplinary study, Mónika Fodor explores how intergenerational memory narratives embedded in the speaker's own stories impact ethnic subjectivity construction. Working with thematically selected life experiences from interviews conducted with second- and late-generation European Americans, Fodor demonstrates how the storytellers position themselves in a range of social, cultural, and political discourses to claim or disclaim ethnicity as part of their subjectivity. Tying narrative content, structural, and performance analysis to the sociological and sociolinguistic concepts of "symbolic capital" and "investment," Fodor unpacks the changing levels of identifying with one's ancestral ethnic heritage and its potential to carry meaning for late-generation descendants. In doing so, she reveals the shared features of identification among individuals through narrative meaning-making, which may be the basis of real or imagined, heterolocal discourse community formation and sustained ethnic subjectivity. The narrative analysis demonstrates how the cohesive force among members of the community is the shared knowledge of story frames and the personalized retelling of these. Ethnic Subjectivity in Intergenerational Memory Narratives draws on inherited, often moving, personal experiences that offers new insights into the so far largely unexplored terrain of the narrative structure of intergenerationally transferred memory retellings, that will be of great interest to students and scholars of ethnic studies, migration and identity studies.
From Arabia to the Pacific: How Our Species Colonised Asia by
Drawing upon invasion biology and the latest archaeological, skeletal and environment evidence, From Arabia to the Pacificdocuments the migration of humans into Asia, and explains why we were so successful as a colonising species. The colonisation of Asia by our species was one of the most momentous events in human evolution. Starting around or before 100,000 years ago, humans began to disperse out of Africa and into the Arabian Peninsula, and then across southern Asia through India, Southeast Asia and south China. They learnt to build boats and sail to the islands of Southeast Asia, from which they reached Australia by 50,000 years ago. Around that time, humans also dispersed from the Levant through Iran, Central Asia, southern Siberia, Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau, north China and the Japanese islands, and they also colonised Siberia as far north as the Arctic Ocean. By 30,000 years ago, humans had colonised the whole of Asia from Arabia to the Pacific, and from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean as well as the European Peninsula. In doing so, we replaced all other types of humans such as Neandertals and ended five million years of human diversity. Using interdisciplinary source material, From Arabia to the Pacificcharts this process and draws conclusions as to the factors which made it possible. It will be invaluable to scholars of prehistory, and archaeologists and anthropologists interested in how the human species moved out of Africa and spread throughout Asia.
Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy: Proceedings of 6th Geoarchaeological Conference, Miass, Russia, 16-19 September 2019 by
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.
Global Psychology from Indigenous Perspectives: visions inspired by K. S. Yang by
This volume celebrates the visions of a more equitable global psychology as inspired by the late Professor K. S. Yang, one of the founders of the indigenous psychology movement. This unprecedented international debate among leaders in the field is essential for anyone who wishes to understand the movement from within--the thinking and the vision of those who are the driving forces behind the movement. This book should appeal to scholars and students of psychology, sociology, anthropology, ethnology, philosophy of science, and postcolonial studies.
The Greater Chaco Landscape : ancestors, scholarship, and advocacy by
Since the mid-1970s, government agencies, scholars, tribes, and private industries have attempted to navigate potential conflicts involving energy development, Chacoan archaeological study, and preservation across the San Juan Basin. The Greater Chaco Landscape examines both the imminent threat posed by energy extraction and new ways of understanding Chaco Canyon⁠ and Chaco-era great houses and associated communities from southeast Utah to west-central New Mexico in the context of landscape archaeology. Contributors analyze many different dimensions of the Chacoan landscape and present the most effective, innovative, and respectful means of studying them, focusing on the significance of thousand-year-old farming practices; connections between early great houses outside the canyon and the rise of power inside it; changes to Chaco's roads over time as observed in aerial imagery; rock art throughout the greater Chaco area; respectful methods of examining shrines, crescents, herraduras, stone circles, cairns, and other landscape features in collaboration with Indigenous colleagues; sensory experiences of ancient Chacoans via study of the sightlines and soundscapes of several outlier communities; and current legal, technical, and administrative challenges and options concerning preservation of the landscape. An unusually innovative and timely volume that will be available both in print and online, with the online edition incorporating video chapters presented by Acoma, Diné, Zuni, and Hopi cultural experts filmed on location in Chaco Canyon, The Greater Chaco Landscape is a creative collaboration with Native voices that will be a case study for archaeologists and others working on heritage management issues across the globe. It will be of interest to archaeologists specializing in Chaco and the Southwest, interested in remote sensing and geophysical landscape-level investigations, and working on landscape preservation and phenomenological investigations such as viewscapes and soundscapes. Contributors: R. Kyle Bocinsky, G. B. Cornucopia, Timothy de Smet, Sean Field, Richard A. Friedman, Dennis Gilpin, Presley Haskie, Tristan Joe, Stephen H. Lekson, Thomas Lincoln, Michael P. Marshall, Terrance Outah, Georgiana Pongyesva, Curtis Quam, Paul F. Reed, Octavius Seowtewa, Anna Sofaer, Julian Thomas, William B. Tsosie Jr., Phillip Tuwaletstiwa, Ernest M. Vallo Jr., Carla R. Van West, Ronald Wadsworth, Robert S. Weiner, Thomas C. Windes, Denise Yazzie, Eurick Yazzie
A Guide to Tribes in Indonesia: Anthropological Insights from the Archipelago by
This encyclopedia provides a comprehensive overview of the traditions, cultures, kinship norms, and other significant cultural aspects of the tribes, or otherwise named ethnic groups, of Indonesia, by an Indonesian anthropologist. The entries are supported by illustrations drawn by the late author himself, and are also accompanied by maps indicating the geographic locations and distributions of each tribe throughout the vast archipelago. Originally written and published in Bahasa Indonesian, the text has been translated into English and revised to feature up-to-date information. In showcasing the extent of diversity and the distinctiveness of the numerous tribal cultures in Indonesia, the volume presents itself as an important academic reference in Indonesian anthropology and ethnography studies, now finally available to global readership. Intended as a short work of reference, it will be indispensable to students and scholars researching Indonesia from anthropological, sociocultural, and ethnographic perspectives.
Heritage Formation and the Senses in Post-Apartheid South Africa by
In this book, Duane Jethro creates a framework for understanding the role of the senses in processes of heritage formation. He shows how the senses were important for crafting and successfully deploying new, nation-building heritage projects in South Africa during the postapartheid period. The book also highlights how heritage dynamics are entangled in evocative, changing sensory worlds. Jethro uses five case studies that correlate with the five main Western senses. Examples include touch and the ruination of a series of art memorials; how vision was mobilised to assert the authority of the state-sponsored Freedom Park project in Pretoria; how smell memories of apartheid-era social life in Cape Town informed contemporary struggles for belonging after forced removal; how taste informed debates about the attempted rebranding of Heritage Day as barbecue day; and how the sound of the vuvuzela, popularized during the FIFA 2010 Football World Cup, helped legitimize its unofficial African and South African heritage status. This book makes a valuable contribution to the field of sensory studies and, with its focus on aesthetics and material culture, is in sync with the broader material turn in the humanities.
Historical Archaeology and Indigenous Collaboration by
Society for American Archaeology Scholarly Book Award Highlighting the strong relationship between New England?s Nipmuc people and their land from the pre-contact period to the present day, this book helps demonstrate that the history of Native Americans did not end with the arrival of Europeans. This is the rich result of a twenty-year collaboration between indigenous and nonindigenous authors, who use their own example to argue that Native peoples need to be integral to any research project focused on indigenous history and culture. The stories traced in this book center around three Nipmuc archaeological sites in Massachusetts?the seventeenth century town of Magunkaquog, the Sarah Boston Farmstead in Hassanamesit Woods, and the Cisco Homestead on the Hassanamisco Reservation. The authors bring together indigenous oral histories, historical documents, and archaeological evidence to show how the Nipmuc people outlasted armed conflict and Christianization efforts instigated by European colonists. Exploring key issues of continuity, authenticity, and identity, Historical Archaeology and Indigenous Collaboration provides a model for research projects that seek to incorporate indigenous knowledge and scholarship.
Hominescence by
According to Michel Serres, a process of 'hominescence' has taken place throughout human history. Hominescence can be described as a type of adolescence; humanity in a state of growing, a state of constant change, on the threshold of something unpredictable. We are destined never to be the same again but what does the future hold? In this innovative and passionately original work of philosophy, Serres describes the future of man as an adolescence, transitioning from childhood to adulthood, or luminescence, when a dark body becomes light. After considering the radical changes that humanity has experienced over the last fifty years, Serres analyzes the new relationship of man has with diverse concepts, like the dead, his own body, agriculture, and new communication networks. He alerts us to the consequences of these changes, particularly on the danger of growing inequalities between rich and poor countries. Should we rejoice in the future, ignore it, or even dread it? Unlike other philosophers who preach doom and gloom, Serres wants us to anticipate the uncertain light of the future.
The House of the Cylinder Jars: room 28 in Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon by
The House of the Cylinder Jars details the archaeological excavations led by Patricia L. Crown at Pueblo Bonito's famed Room 28 in Chaco Canyon in 2013. Originally excavated in 1896 by the Hyde Exploring Expedition, Room 28 gained notoriety for its incredible assemblage of 174 whole ceramic vessels. Crown and her team reopened Room 28 after she and Jeffrey Hurst discovered residues of chocolate in cylinder jar fragments from Pueblo Bonito in 2009. Their research revealed the first evidence of chocolate north of the US-Mexico border and possibly linked Chacoan rituals surrounding cacao use to Mesoamerica. The House of the Cylinder Jars documents the re-excavation of Room 28, and places it within the context of other rooms at Pueblo Bonito, and describes the ritual termination by fire of the materials stored in the room. The contributors also offer a modern interpretation of the construction and depositional histories of surrounding spaces at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon.
Indigenising Anthropology with Guattari and Deleuze by
This collection of essays charts the intellectual trajectory of Barbara Glowczewski, an anthropologist who has worked with the Warlpiri people of Australia since 1979. She shows that the ways Aboriginal people actualise virtualities of their Dreaming space-time into collective networks of ritualised places resonate with Guattarian and Deleuzian concepts. Inspired by the art and struggles of different Indigenous people and other discriminated groups, especially women, Glowczewski draws on her own conversations with Guattari, and her debates with various scholars to deliver an innovative agenda for radical anthropology.
Indigenous Epistemology: Descent into the Womb of Decolonized Research Methodologies by
Indigenous Epistemology problematizes the self-reflexive inquiry between two researchers engaged in transnational collaboration that asserts experiential pedagogy as a tool to decolonize research methodology and honor the inter-generational stories that empower Indigenous people across the globe. The authors demonstrate the direct connection between Black Lives Matter, SOSBlakAustralia and the Maroons of Jamaica as examples of contemporary Indigenous people disrupting hegemony through agentive action that inspires global awareness and pushes for systemic change. In elevating the critical epistemologies of the ancient cultures of the Aboriginals of Australia and the African Diaspora, the authors assert that the legacies and current operations of colonialism must be disrupted and replaced with an emancipatory epistemology.
Kindred : Neanderthal life, love, death and art by
** WINNER OF THE PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE 2021 **'Beautiful, evocative, authoritative.' Professor Brian Cox'Important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity.' Yuval Noah HarariKindred is the definitive guide to the Neanderthals. Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins.Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience at the cutting-edge of Palaeolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside clichés of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them to be curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. Above all, they were successful survivors for more than 300,000 years, during times of massive climatic upheaval.Much of what defines us was also in Neanderthals, and their DNA is still inside us. Planning, co-operation, altruism, craftsmanship, aesthetic sense, imagination, perhaps even a desire for transcendence beyond mortality. Kindred does for Neanderthals what Sapiens did for us, revealing a deeper, more nuanced story where humanity itself is our ancient, shared inheritance.
Kinship and Family in Ancient Egypt: archaeology and anthropology in dialogue by
In this interdisciplinary study, Leire Olabarria examines ancient Egyptian society through the notion of kinship. Drawing on methods from archaeology and sociocultural anthropology, she provides an emic characterisation of ancient kinship that relies on performative aspects of social interaction. Olabarria uses memorial stelae of the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom (ca.2150-1650 BCE) as her primary evidence. Contextualising these monuments within their social and physical landscapes, she proposes a dynamic way to explore kin groups through sources that have been considered static. The volume offers three case studies of kin groups at the beginning, peak, and decline of their developmental cycles respectively. They demonstrate how ancient Egyptian evidence can be used for cross-cultural comparison of key anthropological topics, such as group formation, patronage, and rites of passage.
The Language of Secret Proof: indigenous truth and representation by
New spatial notational systems for protecting and regaining Indigenous lands in the United States.In The Language of Secret Proof, Nina Valerie Kolowratnik challenges the conditions under which Indigenous rights to protect and regain traditional lands are currently negotiated in United States legal frameworks. This tenth volume in the Critical Spatial Practice series responds to the urgent need for alternative modes of evidentiary production by introducing an innovative system of architectural drawing and notation. Kolowratnik focuses on the double bind in which Native Pueblo communities in the United States find themselves when they become involved in a legal effort to reclaim and protect ancestral lands; the process of producing evidence runs counter to their structural organization around oral history and cultural secrecy. The spatial notational systems developed by Kolowratnik with Hemish tribal members from northern New Mexico and presented in this volume are an attempt to produce evidentiary documentation that speaks Native truths while respecting demands on secrecy. These systems also attempt to instigate a dialogue where there currently is none, working to deconstruct the fixed opposition between secrecy and disclosure within Western legal systems.
Lost Maya Cities: archaeological quests in the Mexican jungle by
Hailed by The Guardian and other publications as "a real-life Indiana Jones," Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Sprajc has been mapping out previously unknown Mayan sites in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula since 1996. Most recently, he was credited with the discovery of the Chactún and Lagunita sites in 2013 and 2014, respectively, helping to fill in what was previously one of the largest voids in modern knowledge of the ancient Maya landscape: the 2,800-square-mile Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in central Yucatán. Previously published in Sprajc's native Slovenian and in German, this thrilling account of machete-wielding jungle expeditions has garnered enthusiastic reviews for its depictions of the efforts, dangers, successes, and disappointments experienced as the explorer-scientist searches out and documents ancient ruins that have been lost to the jungle for centuries. A skilled communicator as well as an experienced scholar, Sprajc conveys in eminently accessible prose a wealth of information on various aspects of the Maya culture, which he has studied closely for decades. The result is a deeply personal presentation of archaeological research on one of the most enigmatic civilizations of the ancient world. Generously illustrated, this book follows the chronology of Sprajc's discoveries, focusing on what he considers the most interesting episodes. Those who specialize in Mesoamerican prehistory and archaeology will certainly relish Sprajc's reports concerning his many field surveys and the discoveries that resulted. General readers, too, will enjoy his accounts of previously undocumented sites, ancient urban centers overtaken by the jungle, massive sculpted monuments, and mysterious hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Malawian oral literature : the aesthetics of indigenous arts by 
Maps for Time Travelers: How Archaeologists Use Technology to Bring Us Closer to the Past by
Popular culture is rife with movies, books, and television shows that address our collective curiosity about what the world was like long ago. From historical dramas to science fiction tales of time travel, audiences love stories that reimagine the world before our time. But what if there were a field that, through the advancements in technology, could bring us closer to the past than ever before? Written by a preeminent expert in geospatial archaeology, Maps for Time Travelers is a guide to how technology is revolutionizing the way archaeologists study and reconstruct humanity's distant past. From satellite imagery to 3D modeling, today archaeologists are answering questions about human history that could previously only be imagined. As archaeologists create a better and more complete picture of the past, they sometimes find that truth is stranger than fiction.
Material Cultures in Public Engagement: Re-inventing Public Archaeology within Museum collections by
The Material Cultures in Public Engagement volume seeks to document and explore the significant change in the relationship of Museums with collections of the Ancient World and their audiences. The volume establishes a new approach to the study of public archaeology as a discipline and application within Museums, by bringing together the voices and experiences of museum professionals (curators, conservators and researchers) and public engagement professionals. Chapters in this volume present clear case-studies of the variety and diversity of public engagement projects conducted currently within European Museums and beyond. While the majority of case studies presented in the volume's chapters stem from European Museum programmes, plenty of reference is made on parallel strategies and successful public engagement programmes outside Europe. Case studies within the volume provide important insights as to why public engagement programmes have developed in different ways between Europe and the Americas, as well as whether these differences may stem from different curatorial practices. Finally, a number of studies included in this volume point out that methodologies and practices of public engagement applied currently by Museums in or outside Europe, are rarely the subject of theoretical and methodological scrutiny, unlike other fields of study of the Ancient World or other social sciences. In summary, chapters within the book promise to contribute to the advancement of public engagement with the Ancient World, as well as to the advancement of public archaeology itself as a practice.
The Maya World by
The Maya Worldbrings together over 60 authors, representing the fields of archaeology, art history, epigraphy, geography, and ethnography, who explore cutting-edge research on every major facet of the ancient Maya and all sub-regions within the Maya world. The Maya world, which covers Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, contains over a hundred ruins that are open to tourism, eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and many thousands more that await investigation. In addition to captivating the lay public, the ancient Maya have attracted scores of major interdisciplinary research expeditions and hundreds of smaller projects going back to the 19th century, making them one of the best-known ancient cultures. The Maya Worldexplores their renowned writing system, towering stone pyramids, exquisitely painted murals, and elaborate funerary tombs as well as their creative agricultural strategies, complex social, economic, and political relationships, widespread interactions with other societies, and remarkable cultural resilience in the face of historical ruptures. This is an invaluable reference volume for scholars of the ancient Maya, including archaeologists, historians and anthropologists.
Monsters in Society : alterity, transgression, and the use of the past in medieval Iceland by
Dragons, giants, and the monsters of learned discourse are rarely encountered in the Sagas of Icelanders, and therefore, the general teratological focus on physical monstrosity yields only limited results when applied to them. This, however, does not equal an absence of monstrosity - it only means that monstrosity is conceived of differently. This book shifts the view of monstrosity from the physical to the social, accounting for the unique social circumstances presented in the Íslendingasögur and demonstrating how closely interwoven the social and the monstrous are in this genre. Employing literary and cultural theory as well as anthropological and historical approaches, it reads the monsters of the Íslendingasögur in their literary and socio-cultural context, demonstrating that they are not distractions from feud and conflict, but that they are in fact an intrinsic part of the genre's re-imagining of the past for the needs of the present.
Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of our Extinct Cousins by
Did Neanderthals have language, and if so, what was it like? Scientists agree overall that the behaviour and cognition of Neanderthals resemble that of early modern humans in important ways. However, the existence and nature of Neanderthal language remains a controversial topic. The first in-depth treatment of this intriguing subject, this book comes to the unique conclusion that, collective hunting is a better window on Neanderthal language than other behaviours. It argues that Neanderthal hunters employed linguistic signs akin to those of modern language, but lacked complex grammar. Rudolf Botha unpacks and appraises important inferences drawn by researchers working in relevant branches of archaeology and other prehistorical fields, and uses a large range of multidisciplinary literature to bolster his arguments. An important contribution to this lively field, this book will become a landmark book for students and scholars alike, in essence, illuminating Neanderthals' linguistic powers.
Networks and Monumentality in the Pacific by
Sessions XXXVIII-1,2 of UISPP 2018 in Paris were dedicated to monumental constructions and to complex exchange networks in the Pacific. Both topics have been extensively commented on and described by indigenous experts, explorers, missionaries, and scholars over the last two centuries, however these have been made famous only for the most impressive examples such as the moai statues of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) or the kula exchange system of the Trobriand Islands. Some of the latest research on these key aspects of Pacific islands societies are made available in this volume to researchers focusing on the region, but also to a more global scientific community and to the general public. The volume reflects the tremendous progress made in Pacific island archaeology in the last 60 years which has considerably advanced our knowledge of early Pacific island societies, the rise of traditional cultural systems, and their later historical developments from European contact onwards. Interdisciplinarity is particularly stimulating in the Pacific region, where the study of the archaeological record and of chronological sequences are often combined with other kinds of information such as ethnohistorical accounts, oral traditions, and linguistic reconstructions, in the French tradition of ethnoarchéologie and the American tradition of historical anthropology.
The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange: Bioarchaeological Explorations of Atypical Burials by
Abnormal burial practices have long been a source of fascination and debate within the fields of mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology. The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange investigates an unparalleled geographic and temporal range of burials that differ from the usual customs of their broader societies, emphasizing the importance of a holistic, context-driven approach to these intriguing cases. From an Andean burial dating to 3500 BC to mummified bodies interred in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, during the twentieth century, the studies in this volume cross the globe and span millennia. The unusual cases explored here include Native American cemeteries in Illinois, "vampire" burials in medieval Poland, and a mass grave of decapitated soldiers in ancient China. Moving away from the simplistic assumption that these burials represent people who were considered deviant in society, contributors demonstrate the importance of an integrated biocultural approach in determining why an individual was buried in an unusual way. Drawing on historical, sociocultural, archaeological, and biological data, this volume critically evaluates the binary of "typical" versus "atypical" burials. It expands our understanding of the continuum of variation within mortuary practices, helping researchers better interpret burial evidence to learn about the people and cultures of the past. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen
Our Blue Planet: an Introduction to Maritime and Underwater Archaeology by
Our Blue Planet provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of maritime and underwater archaeology. Situating the field within the broader study of history and archaeology, this book advocates that an understanding of how our ancestors interacted with rivers, lakes, and oceans is integral to comprehending the human past. Our Blue Planet covers the full breadth of maritime and underwater archaeology, including formerly terrestrial sites drowned by rising sea levels, coastal sites, and a wide variety of wreck sites ranging across the globe and spanning from antiquity to World War II. Beginning with a definition of the field and several chapters dedicated to the methods of finding, recording, and interpreting submerged sites, Our Blue Planet provides an entry point for all readers, whether or not they are familiar with maritime and underwater archaeology or archaeology in general. The book then shifts to a thematic approach with chapters exploring human interactions with the watery world, both along the coasts and by ship. These chapters discuss the relationships between culture, technology, and environment that allowed humans through time to spread across the globe. Because ships were the primary means for humans to interact with large bodies of water, they are the focus of several chapters on the development of shipbuilding technology, the lives of sailors, and the uses of ships in exploration, expansion, and warfare. The book ends with chapters on how and why the non-renewable submerged archaeological record should be managed, so that both current and future generations can learn from the achievements and failures of past societies, as well as on how anyone can become involved in maritime and underwater archaeology. Throughout, the reader benefits from the personal reflections of a number of leading figures in the field.
The Oxford Handbook of Egyptian Epigraphy and Palaeography by
The unique relationship between word and image in ancient Egypt is a defining feature of that ancient culture's records. All hieroglyphic texts are composed of images, and large-scale figural imagery in temples and tombs is often accompanied by texts. Epigraphy and palaeography are two distinct, but closely related, ways of recording, analyzing, and interpreting texts and images. This Handbook stresses technical issues about recording text and art and interpretive questions about what we do with those records and why we do it. It offers readers three key things: a diachronic perspective, covering all ancient Egyptian scripts from prehistoric Egypt through the Coptic era (fourth millennium BCE-first half of first millennium CE), a look at recording techniques that considers the past, present, and future, and a focus on the experiences of colleagues. The diachronic perspective illustrates the range of techniques used to record different phases of writing in different media. The consideration of past, present, and future techniques allows readers to understand and assess why epigraphy and palaeography is or was done in a particular manner by linking the aims of a particular effort with the technique chosen to reach those aims. The choice of techniques is a matter of goals and the records' work circumstances, an inevitable consequence of epigraphy being a double projection: geometrical, transcribing in two dimensions an object that exists physically in three; and mental, an interpretation, with an inevitable selection among the object's defining characteristics. The experiences of colleagues provide a range of perspectives and opinions about issues such as techniques of recording, challenges faced in the field, and ways of reading and interpreting text and image. These accounts are interesting and instructive stories of innovation in the face of scientific conundrum.
The Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture by
Most historians rely principally on written sources. Yet there are other traces of the past available to historians: the material things that people have chosen, made, and used. This book examines how material culture can enhance historians' understanding of the past, both worldwide and across time. The successful use of material culture in history depends on treating material things of many kinds not as illustrations, but as primary evidence. Each kind of material thing-and there are many-requires the application of interpretive skills appropriate to it. These skills overlap with those acquired by scholars in disciplines that may abut history but are often relatively unfamiliar to historians, including anthropology, archaeology, and art history. Creative historians can adapt and apply the same skills they honed while studying more traditional text-based documents even as they borrow methods from these fields. They can think through familiar historical problems in new ways. They can also deploy material culture to discover the pasts of constituencies who have left few or no traces in written records. The authors of this volume contribute case studies arranged thematically in six sections that respectively address the relationship of history and material culture to cognition, technology, the symbolic, social distinction, and memory. They range across time and space, from Paleolithic to Punk.
Point of Pines Pueblo: a mountain Mogollon aggregated community by
University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 133 Point of Pines Pueblo has long been the center of theoretical debates in southwestern archaeology, yet detailed descriptions of the site have been lacking. Located on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in central Arizona, this large Mountain Mogollon village (about 800 rooms) dates from AD 1200 to 1400. For the first 100 years of occupation it was a multiethnic community and is often referenced in discussions of aggregation, community organization, migration, and ethnic interaction. In Point of Pines Pueblo Tammy Stone details the architectural structures and cultural materials at the site, providing a body of information never before published. From 1947 to 1960, Point of Pines Pueblo was excavated by the University of Arizona field school under the direction of Emil Haury. Data from that work were housed at the Arizona State Museum Archives. Stone draws from those original excavation notes to present detailed descriptions of each architectural structure and extramural feature along with information on the associated artifacts, dated dendrochronology samples, and ethnobotanical samples unearthed at the site. A rich source of raw data, this book will serve as a valuable resource for years to come.
Power, Presence and Space: South Asian Rituals in Archaeological Context by
Patterns of ritual power, presence, and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the societal and political power structures in which they are enacted. This book explores these connections in South Asia from the early Common Era until the present day. The essays in the volume examine a wide range of themes, including a genealogy of ideas concerning Vedic rituals in European thought; Buddhist donative rituals of Gandhara and Andhra Pradesh in the early Common Era; land endowments, festivals, and temple establishments in medieval Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; Mughal court rituals of the Mughal Empire; and contemporary ritual complexes on the Nilgiri Plateau. This volume argues for the need to redress a historical neglect in identifying and theorising ritual and religion in material contexts within archaeology. Further, it challenges existing theoretical and methodological forms of documentation to propose new ways of understanding rituals in history. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, religion, archaeology, and historical geography. Henry Albery has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Distant Worlds Graduate School, Münchner Zentrum für Antike Welten, at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germnay, since 2018, where a year prior he completed his doctoral thesis in Indologie und Religionswissenschaft. His research is primarily concerned with a social and political history of Buddhism in the north and nortwesterly regions of South Asia in the early Common Era, focusing foremost on donative inscriptions in Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī and on Buddhist legal and narrative literature in Chinese, Gāndhārī, Pāli and Sanskrit. He is also a member of the collaborative project, 'An English Translation of a Sanskrit Buddhist Yoga Manual' from Kučā, funded by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Grants for Critical Editions and Scholarly Translations, 2018. Jens-Uwe Hartmann is former Professor of Indology at the University of Munich, Germany. After studying in Munich and Göttingen he held the post of Professor of Tibetology at Humboldt University in Berlin before returning to Munich in 1999. In 2001, he became a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2007. He has held visiting appointments at the Collège de France in Paris (2001 and 2004), the Centre for Advanced Study of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in Oslo (2001-2002), the International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies in Tokyo (2002), the Soka University in Tokyo (2003), the UC Berkeley (2010) and the University of Stanford (2017). His research centres on the recovery and reconstruction of Indian Buddhist literature on the basis of Indic manuscripts as well as translations into Chinese and Tibetan with a focus on canonical texts and works of poetry. His various authored and coedited works include an edition of the Varṇārhavarṇastotra of Mātṛceṭa (1987), a study of the Dīrghāgama of the Sarvāstivādins (1992), the series Buddhist Manuscripts devoted to the publication of ancient Indic manuscripts from Afghanistan (2000, 2002, 2006, 2016), and From Birch Bark to Digital Data: Recent Advances in Buddhist Manuscript Research (2014). Himanshu Prabha Ray is Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford, UK. She was the first Chairperson of the National Monuments Authority, Ministry of Culture in New Delhi, India from 2012 to 2015, and former Professor in the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. Her research interests include Maritime History and Archaeology of the Indian Ocean, the History of Archaeology in South and Southeast Asia and the Archaeology of Religion in Asia. Her recent books include Archaeology and Buddhism in South Asia (2018), Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections (ed. 2018), The Archaeology of Sacred Spaces: The Temple in Western India,2nd Century BCE to 8th Century CE (with Susan Verma Mishra, 2017), The Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for a New Nation (2014) and The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia , (2003). Introduction: The Archaeology of Ritual in South Asian Contexts Part I: Power 1. Imagining Sacrifice in Ancient India: A Genealogy of Heesterman's 'Broken World' Robert Yelle 2. Rituals of Power: Coinage, Court Culture and Kingship under the Great Mughals Shailendra Bhandare 3. Ritual as Performed Constitutions-Badagas in the Nilgiris District, Frank Heidemann Part II: Presence 4. Codified Relic Theft and Buddhist Propaganda: (Re)-Dedicating the Buddha's Relics in the Indic Northwest Henry Albery 5. Naming Rituals and Sharing Power in the Time and Space of the Tamil Temple Leslie Orr 6. Power, Processions and the Festival Architecture of the Tamil temple Crispin Branfoot Part III: Space 7. Money for Rituals: Akṣayanīvī and Related Inscriptions from Andhradeśa, Ingo Strauch 8. Neither Cave nor Temple: Expressions of Power and Divinity in the Rock-Reliefs at Badami Lisa Owen 9. Ritualising Land and Cultivating Distinctions: Medieval Period Donative Practices, and a Political Ecology of the Raichur Doab Andrew Bauer 10. Sacred Frames: Knowledge, Culture and Ritual Agency in Ancient Tālukas of Karnataka (Late 10th-12th centuries) Nupur Dasgupta
Predictable Pleasures: Food and the Pursuit of Balance in Rural Yucatán Author by
The pursuit of balance pervades everyday life in rural Yucatán, Mexico, from the delicate negotiations between a farmer and the neighbor who wants to buy his beans to the careful addition of sour orange juice to a rich plate of eggs fried in lard. Based on intensive fieldwork in one indigenous Yucatecan community, Predictable Pleasures explores the desire for balance in this region and the many ways it manifests in human interactions with food. As shifting social conditions, especially a decline in agriculture and a deepening reliance on regional tourism, transform the manners in which people work and eat, residents of this community grapple with new ways of surviving and finding pleasure. Lauren A. Wynne examines the convergence of food and balance through deep analysis of what locals describe as acts of care. Drawing together rich ethnographic data on how people produce, exchange, consume, and talk about food, this book posits food as an accessible, pleasurable, and deeply important means by which people in rural Yucatán make clear what matters to them, finding balance in a world that seems increasingly imbalanced. Unlike many studies of globalization that point to the dissolution of local social bonds and practices, Predictable Pleasures presents an array of enduring values and practices, tracing their longevity to the material constraints of life in rural Yucatán, the deep historical and cosmological significance of food in this region, and the stubborn nature of bodily habits and tastes.
The Prehispanic Ethnobotany of Paquimé and Its Neighbors by
Paquimé (also known as Casas Grandes) and its antecedents are important and interesting parts of the prehispanic history in northwestern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. Not only is there a long history of human occupation, but Paquimé is one of the better examples of centralized influence. Unfortunately, it is also an understudied region compared to the U.S. Southwest and other places in Mesoamerica. This volume is the first large-scale investigation of the prehispanic ethnobotany of this important ancient site and its neighbors. The authors examine ethnobotanical relationships during Medio Period, AD 1200-1450, when Paquimé was at its most influential. Based on two decades of archaeological research, this book examines uses of plants for food, farming strategies, wood use, and anthropogenic ecology. The authors show that the relationships between plants and people are complex, interdependent, and reciprocal. This volume documents ethnobotanical relationships and shows their importance to the development of the Paquimé polity. How ancient farmers made a living in an arid to semi-arid region and the effects their livelihood had on the local biota, their relations with plants, and their connection with other peoples is worthy of serious study. The story of the Casas Grandes tradition holds valuable lessons for humanity.
Prehistoric Suns: ancient observations in the American Southwest by
Archaeoastronomy is a relatively new field of study that examines the astronomical knowledge of prehistoric peoples.These sophisticated sky-watchers cannily created observatories to help them understand the turning points in the year. Knowing when spring began, when to plant and harvest crops, and when winter was turning had an overwhelming significance in their lives. Steve Mulligan has applied his large-format camera skills to his most recent fifteen-year-long project in locating and photographing these prehistoric observatories in the American Southwest. During the various seasonal events of summer and winter solstice, equinox, and cross-quarters, he has captured these fantastic light displays on film and luminous silver prints. Prehistoric Suns is an unusual combination of fine art and documentation. Requiring a balance of intuition and technique, it will appeal to both aficionados of fine art photography and those enthralled by the beautiful rock art scattered across the western states.
Queering Knowledge: Analytics, Devices, and Investments after Marilyn Strathern by
This volume draws on the significance of the work of Marilyn Strathern in respect of its potential to queer anthropological analysis and to foster the reimagining of the object of anthropology. The authors examine the ways in which Strathern's varied analytics facilitate the construction of alternative forms of anthropological thinking, and greater understanding of how knowledge practices of queer objects, subjects and relations operate and take effect. Queering Knowledge offers an innovative collection of writing, bringing about queer and anthropological syntheses through Strathern's oeuvre. It will be relevant to scholars from anthropology as well as a number of other disciplines, including gender, sexuality and queer studies.
The Real Business of Ancient Maya Economies by
A timely synthesis of the latest research and perspectives on ancient Maya economics, this volume illuminates the sophistication and intricacy of economic systems in the Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic periods. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines move beyond paradigms of elite control and centralized exchange to focus on individual agency, highlighting production and exchange that took place at all levels of society. Case studies draw on new archaeological evidence from rural households and urban marketplaces to reconstruct the trade networks for tools, ceramics, obsidian, salt, and agricultural goods throughout the empire. They also describe the ways household production integrated with community, regional, and interregional markets. Redirecting the field of ancient Maya economic studies away from simplistic characterizations of the past by fully representing the range of current views on the subject, this volume delves deeply into multiple facets of a complex, interdependent material world. Contributors: Anthony P. Andrews | Chloé Andrieu | Beatriz Balcárcel | Adolfo Iván Batún | George Bey | Ronald L. Bishop | Geoffrey E. Braswell | Marcello Canuto | Bernadette Cap | Arlen F. Chase | Diane Z. Chase | Rubén Chuc Aguilar | Maia Dedrick | Pedro Delgado Kú, | Arthur A. Demarest | Keith Eppich | Bárbara Escamilla Ojeda | Scott L. Fedick | Luis Flores Cobá | Lynda Florey Folan | William J. Folan | David A. Freidel | Tomás Gallareta Negrón | Charles Golden | Stanley P. Guenter | Joel D. Gunn | Richard D. Hansen | Timothy S. Hare | Enrique Hernández | Rachel A. Horowitz | Scott R. Hutson | Takeshi Inomata | Eleanor M. King | Marilyn A. Masson | Patricia A. McAnany | Carlos Morales-Aguilar | Carlos Peraza Lope | Dorie Reents-Budet | Prudence M. Rice | William Ringle | Fernando Robles Castellanos | Alejandra Roche Recinos| Bradley W. Russell | Andrew Scherer | Whittaker Schroder | Payson Sheets | Edgar Suyuc | Alexandre Tokovinine | Paola Torres | Daniela Triadan | Kenichiro Tsukamoto | Clive Vella | Bart Victor | Beniamino Volta | Brent K. S. Woodfill | Andrew R. Wyatt | Norman Yoffee A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase
Revolting : An Archaeology of Shameful Histories and Repulsive Realities by
In this book, Paul Mullins examines a wide variety of material objects and landscapes that induce anxiety, provoke unpleasantness, or simply revolt us. Bringing archaeological insight to subjects that are not usually associated with the discipline, he looks at the way the material world shapes how we imagine, express, and negotiate difficult historical experiences. Revolting Things delves into well-known examples of ?dark heritage? ranging from Confederate monuments to the sites of racist violence. Mullins discusses the burials and gravesites of figures who committed abhorrent acts, locations that in many cases have been either effaced or dynamically politicized. The book also considers racial displacement in the wake of post?World War II urban renewal, as well as the uneasiness many contemporary Americans feel about the social and material sameness of suburbia. Mullins shows that these places and things are often repressed in public memory and discourse because they reflect entrenched structural inequalities and injustices we are reluctant to acknowledge. Yet he argues that the richest conversations about the uncomfortable aspects of the past happen because these histories have tangible remains, exerting a persistent hold on our imagination. Mullins not only demonstrates the emotional power of material things but also exposes how these negative feelings reflect deep-seated anxieties about twenty-first-century society.
The Routledge Handbook of Sensory Archaeology by
Edited by two pioneers in the field of sensory archaeology, this Handbook comprises a key point of reference for the ever-expanding field of sensory archaeology: one that surpasses previous books in this field, both in scope and critical intent. This Handbook provides an extensive set of specially commissioned chapters, each of which summarizes and critically reflects on progress made in this dynamic field during the early years of the twenty-first century. The authors identify and discuss the key current concepts and debates of sensory archaeology, providing overviews and commentaries on its methods and its place in interdisciplinary sensual culture studies. Through a set of thematic studies, they explore diverse sensorial practices, contexts and materials, and offer a selection of archaeological case-studies from different parts of the world. In the light of this, the research methods now being brought into the service of sensory archaeology are re-examined. Of interest to scholars, students and others with an interest in archaeology around the world, this book will be invaluable to archaeologists and is also of relevance to scholars working in disciplines contributing to sensory studies: aesthetics, anthropology, architecture, art history, communication studies, history (including history of science), geography, literary and cultural studies, material culture studies, museology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.
The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video by
The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video is a state-of-the-art book which encompasses the breadth and depth of the field of ethnographic film and video-based research. With more and more researchers turning to film and video as a key element of their projects, and as research video production becomes more practical due to technological advances as well as the growing acceptance of video in everyday life, this critical book supports young researchers looking to develop the skills necessary to produce meaningful ethnographic films and videos, and serves as a comprehensive resource for social scientists looking to better understand and appreciate the unique ways in which film and video can serve as ways of knowing and as tools of knowledge mobilization. Comprised of 31 chapters authored by some of the world's leading experts in their respective fields, the book's contributors synthesize existing literature, introduce the historical and conceptual dimensions of the field, illustrate innovative methodologies and techniques, survey traditional and new technologies, reflect on ethics and moral imperatives, outline ways to work with people, objects, and tools, and shape the future agenda of the field. With a particular focus on making ethnographic film and video, as opposed to analyzing or critiquing it, from a variety of methodological approaches and styles, the Handbook provides both a comprehensive introduction and up-to-date survey of the field for a vast variety of audiovisual researchers, such as scholars and students in sociology, anthropology, geography, communication and media studies, education, cultural studies, film studies, visual arts, and related social science and humanities. As such, it will appeal to a multidisciplinary and international audience, and features a dynamic, forward-thinking, innovative, and contemporary focus oriented toward the very latest developments in the field, as well as future possibilities.
Sacred Waters: A Cross-Cultural Compendium of Hallowed Springs and Holy Wells by
Describing sacred waters and their associated traditions in over thirty countries and across multiple time periods, this book identifies patterns in panhuman hydrolatry. Supplying life's most basic daily need, freshwater sources were likely the earliest sacred sites, and the first protected and contested resource. Guarded by taboos, rites and supermundane forces, freshwater sources have also been considered thresholds to otherworlds. Often associated also with venerated stones, trees and healing flora, sacred water sources are sites of biocultural diversity. Addressing themes that will shape future water research, this volume examines cultural perceptions of water's sacrality that can be employed to foster resilient human-environmental relationships in the growing water crises of the twenty-first century. The work combines perspectives from anthropology, archaeology, classics, folklore, geography, geology, history, literature and religious studies.
Science in Black and White: How Biology and Environment Shape Our Racial Divide by
This unflinching expose of racially biased research--the Alt-Right's "scientific wing"--debunks both old and emerging claims of inborn racial disparities. Racial groups differ in some of their social patterns, but the cause of those differences--nature versus nurture, or genetics versus environment-- remains fiercely debated. For the pro-nature camp-- sometimes aligned with white nationalism and eugenics, and often used to promote ideas of racial inferiority and superiority -- race-based biological determinism contributes significantly to the ethnic divide, especially the black/white gap in societal achievement. By contrast, pro-nurture supporters attribute ethnic variation in social outcomes primarily to environmental circumstances, ecological conditions, and personal experience. In this thoroughly researched book, science writer Alondra Oubre examines emerging scientific discoveries that show how both biology and environment interact to influence IQ--intelligence performance--and social behaviors across continental populations, or human races. She presents compelling evidence for why environmental and certain non-DNA-related biological phenomena overall seem to best explain black/white disparities in a gamut of social behaviors, including family structure, parenting, educational attainment, and rates of violent crime. As she demonstrates, nature still matters, but the biology that impacts racial variance in social behaviors extends beyond genetics to include other processes--epigenetics, gene expression, and plasticity--all of which are profoundly affected by a wide array of environmental forces. The complex, synergistic interplay of these factors combined, rather than just genes or just environment, appears to account for black/white divergence in a gamut of social behaviors.
Secrecy and Responsibility in the Era of an Epidemic by
A narrative ethnography about a Ugandan woman and her relatives, this novelistic, fine-grained volume shows how global questions of responsibility and inequity travel in family networks and confront people with decisions about life and death. It is a story of existence under extremely challenging conditions, about belonging and marginalization, about the opacity and ambiguity of social relations, and about growing up in a country haunted by violence and civil war only to be later lifted by optimism and devastated anew by the AIDS epidemic. The story draws on long-term fieldwork and letters from the woman who takes centre stage in the story, while at once providing unique and privileged insight into the ethical challenges of a research method that demands personal involvement that is ultimately withdrawn for scholarly analysis.
Sign Language in Papua New Guinea: a primary sign language from the Upper Lagaip Valley, Enga Province by
This book presents in revised form and as a single monograph three papers on a sign language from the Enga Province of Papua New Guinea. Originally published in 1980, for more than twenty years these papers remained the only report of a sign language from that part of the world. The detailed descriptive analyses that the author provided are still fresh today, and in some respects they anticipate insights into the nature of sign languages that were not further explored until much more recently. The monograph is accompanied by two essays: Sherman Wilcox comments on value and relevance of the author's work in the light of much more recent work on the linguistics of sign languages. An essay by Lauren Reed and Alan Rumsey provides an up to date survey of what is now known about sign languages in Papua New Guinea. Information about sign languages in the Solomon Island is also included.
South Asia in Transition: An Introduction to the Social Anthropology of a Subcontinent by
South Asia in Transition is an introductory book on the anthropology of South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, suitable for students at all levels and others interested in this topic. It assumes no prior knowledge of either the region of the discipline of anthropology. The book makes extensive use of existing publications to describe how anthropologists have approached the region and what they have said about it. The first set of chapters deal mostly with India, being successively on caste, class, tribes, religion, kinship and marriage, gender, the body and personhood, politics and political economy. The second set of chapters deal successively with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The Spirit Ambulance: choreographing the end of life in Thailand by
The Spirit Ambulance is a journey into decision-making at the end of life in Thailand, where families attempt to craft good deaths for their elders in the face of clashing ethical frameworks, from a rapidly developing universal medical system, to national and global human-rights politics, to contemporary movements in Buddhist metaphysics. Scott Stonington's gripping ethnography documents how Thai families attempt to pay back a "debt of life" to their elders through intensive medical care, followed by a medically assisted rush from the hospital to home to ensure a spiritually advantageous last breath. The result is a powerful exploration of the nature of death and the complexities arising from the globalization of biomedical expertise and ethics around the world.
Spirit Lands of the Eagle and : Numic Archaeology and Ethnohistory in the Rocky Mountains and Borderlands by
Spirit Lands of the Eagle and Bear explores advances in the prehistory and early history of Numic hunter-gatherers in the Rocky Mountain West through the presentation and analysis of archaeological and historic research on the period from the earliest established presence in the Rockies and its borderlands more than a thousand years ago to the forced removal of Ute, Shoshone, and other tribes to reservations in the mid-nineteenth century. New research into Numic archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography is significantly changing the understanding of migratory patterns, cultural interactions, chronology, and shared cultural-religious practices of regionally defined Numic branches and non-Numic populations of the American West. Contributors examine case studies of Ute and Shoshone material culture (ceramics, lithics, features and structures, trade and seasonal migration), chronology (dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, thermoluminescence), and subsistence systems (hunting camps, game drives, faunal and botanical evidence of food sources). They also delineate different hunter-gatherer "ethnic groups" who co-occupied or interacted within one another's territories through trade, raiding, or seasonal subsistence migrations, such as the Late Fremont/Ute and the Shoshone or the early Navajo/Ute and the Shoshone. With a strong emphasis on diverse cases and new and original archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic lines of evidence, Spirit Lands of the Eagle and Bear interweaves anthropological theory and innovative applications of leading-edge scientific methodologies and technologies. The book presents a cross-section of field, laboratory, and ethnohistoric studies--including indigenous consultation--that explore past, recent, and ongoing developments in Numic cultural history and prehistory. It will be of interest to scholars of Southwestern archaeology, as well as private and government cultural resource specialists and museum staff. Contributors: Richard Adams, John Cater, Christine Chady, David Diggs, Rand Greubel, John Ives, Byron Loosle, Curtis Martin, Sally McBeth, Lindsay Montgomery, Bryon Schroeder, Matthew Stirn
Steering Human Evolution: Eighteen Theses on Homo Sapiens Metamorphosis by
Humanity must steer its evolution. As human knowledge moves a step ahead of Darwin's theories, this book presents the emergence of human-made meta-evolution shaping our alternative futures. This novel process poses fateful challenges to humanity, which require regulation of emerging science and technology which may endanger the future of our species. However, to do so successfully, a novel 'humanity-craft' has to be developed; main ideologies and institutions need redesign; national sovereignty has to be limited; a decisive global regime becomes essential; some revaluation of widely accepted norms becomes essential; and a novel type of political leader, based on merit in addition to public support, is urgently needed. Taking into account the strength of nationalism and vested interests, it may well be that only catastrophes will teach humanity to metamorphose into a novel epoch without too high transition costs. But initial steps, such as United Nation reforms, are urgent in order to contain calamities and may soon become feasible. Being both interdisciplinary and based on personal experience of the author, this book adds up to a novel paradigm on steering human evolution. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern history, evolution sciences, future studies, political science, philosophy of action, and science and technology. It will also be of wide appeal to the general reader anxious about the future of life on Earth. Comments on the Corona pandemic add to the book's concrete significance.
Subsistence and Society in Prehistory: New Directions in Economic Archaeology by
Over the last thirty years, new scientific techniques have revolutionised our understanding of prehistoric economies. They enable a sound comprehension of human diet and subsistence in different environments, which is an essential framework for appreciating the rich tapestry of past human cultural variation. This volume first considers the origins of economic approaches in archaeology and the theoretical debates surrounding issues such as 'environmental determinism'. Using globally diverse examples, Alan K. Outram and Amy Bogaard critically investigate the best way to integrate newer lines of evidence such as ancient genetics, stable isotope analysis, organic residue chemistry and starch and phytolith studies with long-established forms of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data. Two case study chapters, on early Neolithic farming in Europe, and the origins of domestic horses and pastoralism in Central Asia, illustrate the benefit of a multi-proxy approach and how economic considerations feed into broader social and cultural questions.
Taste of Control: food and the Filipino colonial mentality under American rule by
Winner of the 2021 Gourmand Awards, Asian Section & Culinary History Section Filipino cuisine is a delicious fusion of foreign influences, adopted and transformed into its own unique flavor. But to the Americans who came to colonize the islands in the 1890s, it was considered inferior and lacking in nutrition. Changing the food of the Philippines was part of a war on culture led by Americans as they attempted to shape the islands into a reflection of their home country. Taste of Control tells what happened when American colonizers began to influence what Filipinos ate, how they cooked, and how they perceived their national cuisine. Food historian René Alexander D. Orquiza, Jr. turns to a variety of rare archival sources to track these changing attitudes, including the letters written by American soldiers, the cosmopolitan menus prepared by Manila restaurants, and the textbooks used in local home economics classes. He also uncovers pockets of resistance to the colonial project, as Filipino cookbooks provided a defense of the nation's traditional cuisine and culture. Through the topic of food, Taste of Control explores how, despite lasting less than fifty years, the American colonial occupation of the Philippines left psychological scars that have not yet completely healed, leading many Filipinos to believe that their traditional cooking practices, crops, and tastes were inferior. We are what we eat, and this book reveals how food culture served as a battleground over Filipino identity.
Teotihuacan: the world beyond the city by
Teotihuacan was a city of major importance in the Americas between 1 and 550 CE. As one of only two cities in the New World with a population over one hundred thousand, it developed a network of influence that stretched across Mesoamerica. The size of its urban core, the scale of its monumental architecture, and its singular apartment compounds made Teotihuacan unique among Mesoamerica's urban state societies. Teotihuacan: The World Beyond the City brings together specialists in art and archaeology to develop a synthetic overview of the urban, political, economic, and religious organization of a key power in Classic-period Mesoamerica. The book provides the first comparative discussion of Teotihuacan's foreign policy with respect to the Central Mexican Highlands, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and the Maya Lowlands and Highlands. Contributors debate whether Teotihuacan's interactions were hegemonic, diplomatic, stylistic, or a combination of these or other social processes. The authors draw on recent investigations and discoveries to update models of Teotihuacan's history, in the process covering various questions about the nature of Teotihuacan's commercial relations, its political structure, its military relationships with outlying areas, the prestige of the city, and the worldview it espoused through both monumental architecture and portable media.
Theory in the Pacific the Pacific in Theory: Archaeological Perspectives by
Theory in the Pacific, the Pacific in Theory explores the role of theory in Pacific archaeology, and its interplay with archaeological theory worldwide. The contributors assess how the practice of archaeology in Pacific contexts has led to particular types of theoretical enquiry and interest, and, more broadly, how the Pacific is conceptualised in the archaeological imagination. Long seen as a laboratory environment for the testing and refinement of social theory, the Pacific islands occupy a central place in global theoretical discourse. This volume highlights this role through an exploration of how Pacific models and exemplars have shaped, and continue to shape, approaches to the archaeological past. The authors evaluate key theoretical perspectives and explore current and future directions in Pacific archaeology. In doing so, attention is paid to the influence of Pacific people and environments in motivating and shaping theory-building. Theory in the Pacific, the Pacific in Theory makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how theory develops attuned to the affordances and needs of specific contexts, and how those contexts promote reformulation and development of theory elsewhere. It will be fascinating to scholars and archaeologists interested in the Pacific region, as well as students of wider archaeological theory.
Till Death Do Us Part: American ethnic cemeteries as borders uncrossed by
Contributions by Allan Amanik, Kelly B. Arehart, Sue Fawn Chung, Kami Fletcher, Rosina Hassoun, James S. Pula, Jeffrey E. Smith, and Martina Will de Chaparro Till Death Do Us Part: American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed explores the tendency among most Americans to separate their dead along communal lines rooted in race, faith, ethnicity, or social standing and asks what a deeper exploration of that phenomenon can tell us about American history more broadly. Comparative in scope, and regionally diverse, chapters look to immigrants, communities of color, the colonized, the enslaved, rich and poor, and religious minorities as they buried kith and kin in locales spanning the Northeast to the Spanish American Southwest. Whether African Americans, Muslim or Christian Arabs, Indians, mestizos, Chinese, Jews, Poles, Catholics, Protestants, or various whites of European descent, one thing that united these Americans was a drive to keep their dead apart. At times, they did so for internal preference. At others, it was a function of external prejudice. Invisible and institutional borders built around and into ethnic cemeteries also tell a powerful story of the ways in which Americans have negotiated race, culture, class, national origin, and religious difference in the United States during its formative centuries.
Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources, Customary Law and Intellectual Property: A Global Primer by
This global primer surveys international initiatives on traditional knowledge, folklore, cultural heritage and genetic resources, and describes in a comprehensive manner regional and national principles of protection in Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, the United States and the Americas. The most innovative parts of the book discuss three key approaches. First, the book highlights the relevance of customary law, describes how it is recognized and applied in legal systems and assesses its effectiveness as an enforcement mechanism. Second, through selected cases, the book illustrates the problem of biopiracy to which the disclosure requirement has been proposed as a policy response. It traces the origins of the disclosure requirement to instruments developed jointly by WIPO and UNESCO. Third, the book proposes a novel approach to protecting traditional knowledge premised on the principle of reciprocity and the use of mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) and assesses the scope of such MRAs. Libraries and universities will find this work is an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers. The material will also be important for government officials and organizations developing policy. Furthermore, the information available in these pages can empower indigenous peoples and local communities looking to promote awareness and protect traditional knowledge.
Las Varas: Ritual and Ethnicity in the Ancient Andes by
Archaeological data from Las Varas, Peru, that establish the importance of ritual in constructing ethnic boundaries Recent popular discourse on nationalism and ethnicity assumes that humans by nature prefer "tribalism," as if people cannot help but divide themselves along lines of social and ethnic difference. Research from anthropology, history, and archaeology, however, shows that individuals actively construct cultural and social ideologies to fabricate the stereotypes, myths, and beliefs that separate "us" from "them." Archaeologist Howard Tsai and his team uncovered a thousand-year-old village in northern Peru where rituals were performed to recognize and reinforce ethnic identities. This site--Las Varas--is located near the coast of Peru in a valley leading into the Andes. Excavations revealed a western entrance to Las Varas for those arriving from the coast and an eastern entryway for those coming from the highlands. Rituals were performed at both of these entrances, indicating that the community was open to exchange and interaction, yet at the same time controlled the flow of people and goods through ceremonial protocols. Using these checkpoints and associated rituals, the villagers of Las Varas were able to maintain ethnic differences between themselves and visitors from foreign lands. Las Varas: Ritual and Ethnicity in the Ancient Andes reveals a rare case of finding ethnicity relying solely on archaeological remains. In this monograph, data from the excavation of Las Varas are analyzed within a theoretical framework based on current understandings of ethnicity. Tsai's method, approach, and inference demonstrate the potential for archaeologists to discover how ethnic identities were constructed in the past, ultimately making us question the supposed naturalness of tribal divisions in human antiquity.
Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots by
"This book is a tour de force." -- Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take A revolutionary new history of humankind through the prism of work by leading anthropologist James Suzman Work defines who we are. It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same. Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman shows how automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world and ourselves.
Here is a list of selected reference works on Anthropology and Archaeology. Most of these can be found in the reference section on the first floor in the Holland & Terrell Library.
Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory by
Praise for the first edition: "The most up-to-date and wide-ranging encyclopedia work on human evolution available."--American Reference Books Annual "For student, researcher, and teacher...the most complete source of basic information on the subject."--Nature "A comprehensive and authoritative source, filling a unique niche...essential to academic libraries...important for large public libraries." --Booklist/RBB
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers by
Hunting and gathering is humanity's first and most successful adaptation. Until 12,000 years ago, all humanity lived this way. Surprisingly, in an increasingly urbanized and technological world dozens of hunting and gathering societies have persisted and thrive worldwide, resilient in the face of change, their ancient ways now combined with the trappings of modernity. The Encyclopedia is divided into three parts. The first contains case studies, by leading experts, of over fifty hunting and gathering peoples, in seven major world regions. There is a general introduction and an archaeological overview for each region. Part II contains thematic essays on prehistory, social life, gender, music and art, health, religion, and indigenous knowledge. The final part surveys the complex histories of hunter-gatherers, encounters with colonialism and the state, and their ongoing struggles for dignity and human rights as part of the worldwide movement of indigenous peoples.
Encyclopedia of Archaeology by
The Encyclopedia of Archaeology encompasses all aspects of archaeology, including the nature and diversity of archaeology as a scientific discipline, the practice of archaeology, archaeology in the everyday world, and the future of the discipline. Featured in the Encyclopedia of Archaeology are articles by leading authors that summarize archaeological knowledge at the beginning the 21st century, highlighting important sites and issues, and tracing the development of prehistoric cultures around the globe. No existing work provides the breadth and depth of coverage as the Encyclopedia of Archaeology.
Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America by 
Archaeology in America by
The greatness of America is right under our feet. The American past - the people, battles, industry and homes - can be found not only in libraries and museums, but in the hundreds of archaeological sites that scientists investigate with great care. These sites are not in distant lands, accessible only by research scientists, but nearby - almost every locale possesses a parcel of land worthy of archaeological exploration. Archaeology in America is the first resource that provides everyone - students, researchers, and even just regular people interested in their local history - with a survey of the most important archaeological discoveries in North America. Leading scholars - most with an intimate knowledge of the area - have written in-depth essays on over 300 of the most important archaeological sites that explain the importance of the site, the history of the people who left the artifacts, and the nature of the ongoing research.
Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America by
This is the first comprehensive, one-volume encyclopedia in English devoted to pre-Columbian archaeology of the Mesoamerican culture area. In more than 500 articles by the major experts in the field, this work brings the most recent scholarship to an examination of regional environments and their cultural evolution. Entries range from the familiar and world-renowned archaeological discoveries of Maya and Aztec sites to more recent excavations such as the Sayil archaeological zone in the Yucatan and Teopantecuanitlan in Guerrero. A rich historical and cultural resource on one of the world's six cradles of civilization, this reference is ideal for students, scholars, and prospective travelers.
Encyclopedia of Anthropology by
The Encyclopedia of Anthropology is an award-winning five-volume set from SAGE Reference, winning Best Reference 2005 from the Library Journal. `The Encyclopedia of Anthropology is a magnificent achievement. It's intelligent, it doesn't shrink from the tough issues, it's very user-friendly and beautifully produced. I really hope it will have a long life as a valued reference work. It certainly deserves to' - The Open Society The Encyclopedia of Anthropology is a unique collection of over 1200 entries that focuses on topics in physical anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics and applied anthropology. Also included are relevant articles on geology, paleontology, biology, evolution, sociology, psychology, philosophy and theology. The contributions are authored by over 300 internationally renowned experts, professors and scholars from some of the most distinguished museums, universities and institutes in the world. This groundbreaking Encyclopedia is a must-have reference work for any library with collections in anthropology, as well as the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It provides students, academics and a wide range of interested readers with a greater understanding of, and deeper appreciation for, those facts, concepts, methods, hypotheses and perspectives that make up modern anthropology and related disciplines. Key themes include: Applied Anthropology Archaeology Biological Anthropology Biology Cultural Anthropology Evolution Geology Linguistics Paleontology Philosophy Physical Anthropology Psychology Social Anthropology Sociology Theology Theoretical Frameworks
Cultural Anthropology by
The latest edition of a major literature guide provides citations and informative annotations on a wide range of reference sources, including manuals, bibliographies, indexes, databases, literature surveys and reviews, dissertations, book reviews, conference proceedings, awards, and employment and grant sources. The organization closely follows that of the 1st edition, with some much-needed additions relating to online resources and new areas of interest within the field (such as forensic anthropology, environmental anthropology, and Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgendered Anthropology). Separate sections focus on individual subfields, as well as emerging concerns such as ethical issues in cultural heritage preservation. For academic and research library collections, as well as faculty members in anthropology, area studies, and intercultural studies.
Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology by
Medical practitioners and the ordinary citizen are becoming more aware that we need to understand cultural variation in medical belief and practice. The more we know how health and disease are managed in different cultures, the more we can recognize what is "culture bound" in our own medical belief and practice. The Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology is unique because it is the first reference work to describe the cultural practices relevant to health in the world's cultures and to provide an overview of important topics in medical anthropology. No other single reference work comes close to marching the depth and breadth of information on the varying cultural background of health and illness around the world. More than 100 experts - anthropologists and other social scientists - have contributed their firsthand experience of medical cultures from around the world.