Sacred Matter: Animacy and Authority in the Americas (Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia)

Sacred Matter: Animacy and Authority in the Americas (Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia)

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Sacred Matter: Animacy and Authority in the Americas examines animism in Pre-Columbian America, focusing on the central roles objects and places played in practices that expressed and sanctified political authority in the Andes, Amazon, and Mesoamerica.Pre-Columbian peoples staked claims to their authority when they animated matter by giving life to grandiose buildings, speaking with deified boulders, and killing valued objects. Likewise things and places often animated people by demanding labor, care, and nourishment. In these practices of animation, things were cast as active subjects, agents of political change, and representatives of communities. People were positioned according to specific social roles and stations: workers, worshippers, revolutionaries, tribute payers, or authorities. Such practices manifested political visions of social order by defining relationships between people, things, and the environment.Contributors to this volume present a range of perspectives (archaeological, art historical, ethnohistorical, and linguistic) to shed light on how Pre-Columbian social authority was claimed and sanctified in practices of transformation and transubstantiation—that is, practices that birthed, converted, or destroyed certain objects and places, as well as the social and natural order from which these things were said to emerge.

 

In Search of the Indo-Europeans

In Search of the Indo-Europeans

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What image do the Indo-Europeans conjure up? For many, it's one of horseriding warriors sweeping out of Asia, spreading their languages and culture with each clash of the sword. Certainly, linguistic history shows that most of the peoples of Europe, Iran and India share a common ancient language known today as Proto-Indo-European. Celts, Germans, Italians, Greeks, Albanians, Slavs, Indians and many peoples long extinct can all have their linguistic ancestry traced back to this mother tongue. But how far does the story told by languages match the historical and archaeological record? What do we know about the lives and beliefs of these early Indo-Europeans? And where was their original homeland? With the skill of a forensic scientist, Dr. Mallory traces the immediate origins of each of the Indo-European peoples of Europe and Asia. By comparing their languages he demonstrates their common cultural heritage, and through the technique of comparative mythology he examines their earliest beliefs. Then he puts the case for their most likely homeland and presents the archaeological and linguistic evidence for their expansion across Europe and Asia, a process that has in recent times carried Indo-European speakers to every corner of the world. Accompanied by extensive quotations from translated texts and fully illustrated with maps, diagrams and photographs, In Search of the Indo-Europeans is recognized as the standard work in its field.

 

The Archaeologist's Laboratory: The Analysis of Archaeological Evidence (Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology)

The Archaeologist's Laboratory: The Analysis of Archaeological Evidence (Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology)

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This second edition of the classic textbook, The Archaeologist's Laboratory, is a substantially revised work that offers updated information on the archaeological work that follows fieldwork, such as the processing and analysis of artifacts and other evidence. An overarching theme of this edition is the quality and validity of archaeological arguments and the data we use to support them. The book introduces many of the laboratory activities that archaeologists carry out and the ways we can present research results, including graphs and artifact illustrations.Part I introduces general topics concerning measurement error, data quality, research design, typology, probability and databases. It also includes data presentation, basic artifact conservation, and laboratory safety. Part II offers brief surveys of the analysis of lithics and ground stone, pottery, metal artifacts, bone and shell artifacts, animal and plant remains, and sediments, as well as dating by stratigraphy, seriation and chronometric methods. It concludes with a chapter on archaeological illustration and publication.A new feature of the book is illustration of concepts through case studies from around the world and from the Palaeolithic to historical archaeology.The text is appropriate for senior undergraduate students and will also serve as a useful reference for graduate students and professional archaeologists.

 

The Maya (Ancient Peoples and Places)

The Maya (Ancient Peoples and Places)

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The Maya has long been established as the best and most readable introduction to the New World's greatest ancient civilization. In these pages Michael D. Coe distills a lifetime's scholarship for the general reader and student.Now, for the sixth edition, Professor Coe incorporates the latest ideas and research in a fast-changing field. Spectacular tomb discoveries at the city of Copan reveal some of the early artistic and architectural splendors at this major site. New finds here and elsewhere entail a complete reinterpretation of the relationship between the warrior-kings of the Classic Maya lowlands and Teotihuacan, the greatest city of pre-Conquest America. Continuing epigraphic breakthroughs - decipherments of Maya inscriptions - demonstrate vividly the shifting power blocs among the competing Maya city-states. A special feature of this revised edition are a new guide to visiting the Maya area and lists of rulers for the major Classic cities, never before published in this form.

 

Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts

Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts

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In the midst of a seemingly endless supply of mass-manufactured products, we find ourselves nostalgic for products bearing the mark of authenticity—hand-made furniture, artisan breads, craft beers, and other goods produced by human hands. What often goes unnoticed is the transformation of our understanding of craft—or rather, craft—in the wake of industrialization.In Craft, archaeologist and medieval historian Alexander Langlands argues that our modern understanding of craft only skims the surface. His journeys from his home in Wales have taken him along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe, from Spain through France and England to Scotland and Iceland in search of the lost meaning of craft. Reaching as far back as the Neolithic period, he combines deep history with scientific analyses and personal anecdotes. We follow the author as he herds sheep, keeps bees, tans hides, spins wool, and thatches roofs. We learn that scythes work much better on tall grass than the latest model of weed trimmers, that you can spin wool using a large wooden spoon, and that it was once considered criminal to work on animal hides before a requisite twelve-month soak.When it first appeared in Old English, the word craft signified an indefinable sense of knowledge, wisdom, and resourcefulness. Rediscovering craft will connect us with our human past, our sense of place, and our remarkable capacity to survive in the harshest of landscapes. Craft helps us more fully appreciate human ingenuity and the passing on of traditions from generation to generation.

 

Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology

Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology

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Frauds, myths, and supposed mysteries about humanity's past are moving targets for anyone committed to the scientific investigation of human antiquity. It is important for anyone interested in the human past to know, for example, that there is no evidence for a race of giant human beings in antiquity and no broken shards of laser guns under Egyptian pyramids. Debunking such nonsense is fun and useful in its own way, but more important is the process by which we determine that such claims are bunk.Now published by Oxford University Press, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, Ninth Edition, uses interesting--and often humorous--archaeological hoaxes, myths, and mysteries to show how we can truly know things about the past through science. It is not just a book about how we know what isn't true about the human past--it's also about how we know what is true.

 

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

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The groundbreaking theory of how fire and food drove the evolution of modern humans Ever since Darwin and The Descent of Man, the evolution and world-wide dispersal of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in Catching Fire, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be sued instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor. In short, once our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors' diets, Catching Fire sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, Catching Fire will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins-or in our modern eating habits.