The Ancient Near East: An Encyclopedia for Students

Spanning more than 4,000 years, from the Early Bronze Age to 325 B.C.E, this Encyclopedia provides an overview of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran/Persia, the Arabian Peninsula and more. This 4-vol. set is fully illustrated, and including sidebars, marginal definitions and maps, this set provides an accurate, comprehensive and accessible research reference for students, and is modeled Ancient Greece and Rome and The Middle Ages.

Brand: Charles Scribners & Sons

Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: Sex, Gender, and Archaeology

There has never been a single way that social life has heen organized by sex. The ancient Greeks saw men and women as expressing varying degrees of a single sexual potential; many Native American societies considered sexual identity as something that changed and developed during a lifetime, and recognized three or four categories of sexual identity. Ranging from the earliest European hunters who created the first human images known to us almost 30,000 years ago to the lives of men and women from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who seldom appear in conventional histories, Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives explores how men and women have represented sexual differences, and lived lives shaped in part by those differences. Professor Joyce shows not only how archaeologists learn about the lives of men and women in the past, but also why the stories they can tell are important to hear today. She challenges us to reconsider how we think about sex and its implications for each person. Showing the critical role of the material world in forming our experiences of and concepts about sex, this book connects archaeology firmly to contemporary studies of material culture and identity. 35 black-and-white illustrations

Brand: Thames & Hudson

The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why did Foragers become Farmers?

The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming. Graeme Barker takes a global view, and integrates a massive array of information from archaeology and many other disciplines, including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology. Against current orthodoxy, Barker develops a strong case for the development of agricultural systems in many areas as transformations in the life-ways of the indigenous forager societies, and argues that these were as much changes in social norms and ideologies as in ways of obtaining food. With a large number of helpful line drawings and photographs as well as a comprehensive bibliography, this authoritative study will appeal to a wide general readership as well as to specialists in a variety of fields.

Brand: Oxford University Press, USA

Arrowpoints, Spearheads, & Knives of Prehistoric Times

A thorough history of the weapons and tools our prehistoric ancestors used to survive, this book reveals a world that will fascinate anyone interested in outdoor skills, ancient weapons, or anthropology. Thomas Wilson explains the many types of arrowheads, spears, and knives used by the peoples of the Paleolithic period across Western Europe and the early days of America. He details the materials from which these tools were made, how and where they were manufactured, and the purposes for which they were crafted?from hunting and cutting to scraping and grinding. Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of photographs and drawings of these tools, including microscopic details of the flint and other stones from which they were crafted, this is a rare look into what seems like mankind?s not-so-distant past.

Brand: Skyhorse Publishing

The Iron Age Round-House: Later Prehistoric Building in Britain and Beyond

In contrast to Continental Europe, where the Iron Age is abundantly represented by funerary remains as well as by hill-forts and major centers, the British Iron Age is mainly represented by its settlement sites, and especially by houses of circular ground-plan, in marked contrast to the Central and Northern European tradition of rectangular houses. In lowland Britain the evidence for timber round-houses comprises the footprint of post-holes or foundation trenches; in the Atlantic north and west, the remains of monumental stone-built houses survive as upstanding ruins, testimony to the building skills of Iron Age engineers and masons. D.W. Harding's fully illustrated study explores not just the architectural aspects of round-houses, but more importantly their role in the social, economic and ritual structure of their communities, and their significance as symbols of Iron Age society in the face of Romanization.

Brand: Oxford University Press, USA

Soil Science and Archaeology: Three Test Cases from Minoan Crete (Prehistory Monographs)

A detailed study of the landscape in three regions of Crete examines the development, stability, and physio-chemical composition of selected soils near three archaeological sites: Karphi, a Late Minoan IIIC "Refuge Site"; Chrysokamino, a Final Neolithic to Late Minoan IIIB Farmhouse; Vronda and Kastro near Kavousi, two Late Minoan IIIC to Geometric Sites The author offers conclusions on the history of the Cretan landscape and its formation processes, and how those processes contribute to our understanding of the human use of the landscape. The book is of interest both to those involved with the archaeology of Minoan Crete and to those who study the pedological history of other regions.

Brand: INSTAP Academic Press

Earliest Italy: An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic (Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology)

This book aims to synthesize more than 600,000 years of Italian prehistory, beginning with the Lower Paleolithic and ending with the last hunter-gatherers of the early Holocene. The author treats such issues as the development of social structure, the rise and fall of specific cultural traditions, climatic change, modifications of the landscape, fauna and flora, and environmental adaptation and exploitation and includes detailed descriptions of the most important sites.

Brand: Springer

The Bronze Age Computer Disc

Here we pursue and resolve the obscure riddle of the Phaistos Disc and reveal an amazing truth: that Minoan Bronze Age man had a level of knowledge to match that of 20th-century Europe. Their mathematics was ahead of the Greeks and to this day we use a unit of their measure: the Nautical Mile. Here we demonstrate that Bronze Age man knew the world to be round, and that he could measure its circumference to within hundreds of metres! This true detective story also demonstrates that the movement of the Earth in relation to the planets was fully understood. And that the Minoans had their own self-correcting calendar, which is something that we still haven't managed to achieve! This is the story of their 366[degrees] circle and a most elegant system lost to mankind. Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas (The Second Messiah) have tested this research for themselves and write: '.the story Alan told was far stranger than we could have imagined. and sounded rather fanciful. But the cold-blooded result of our efforts was clear. Alan had to be right'. 'He has rediscovered prehistoric knowledge and a system of super elegance that was lost before Moses reached the Promised Land. This is thinking of the highest order, of which any civilisation would justly be proud'. 'The sheer volume of supporting evidence from Megalithic sources make his explanation totally compelling' - Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas.

Brand: Quantum

The Archaeology of Mobility: Old World and New World Nomadism (COTSEN ADVANCED SEMINARS)

There have been edited books on the archaeology of nomadism in various regions, and there have been individual archaeological and anthropological monographs, but nothing with the kind of coverage provided in this volume. Its strength and importance lies in the fact that it brings together a worldwide collection of studies of the archaeology of mobility. This book provides a ready-made reference to this worldwide phenomenon and is unique in that it tries to redefine pastoralism within a larger context by the term mobility. It presents many new ideas and thoughtful approaches, especially in the Central Asian region.

Brand: The Cotsen Institute Of Archaeology Press

Britain Begins

The ancient Celts believed they were descended from Father Dis (Dis Pater), a god of the dead who resided in the west where the sun set. Today, ideas of our prehistoric origins are more likely based on ocean core samples, radio-carbon dating, and archeological artifacts. But as Barry Cunliffe reminds us in Britain Begins, an archaeologist writing of the past must be constantly aware that the past is, in truth, unknowable. Like the myth-making Celts, we too create stories about our origins, based on what we know today. Cunliffe here offers readers a vision of both worlds, looking at new myths and old, as he tells the fascinating story of the origins of the British and the Irish, from around 10,000 BC to the eve of the Norman Conquest. Using the most up-to-date archaeological evidence together with new work on DNA and other scientific techniques which help us to trace the origins and movements of these early settlers, Cunliffe offers a rich narrative account of the first islanders-who they were, where they came from, and how they interacted with one another. Underlying this narrative is the story of the sea, and Cunliffe paints a fascinating picture of early ships and sails and of the surprising sophistication of early navigation. The story told by the archaeological evidence is enhanced by historical texts, such as Julius Caesar's well-known if rather murky vision of Britain. Equally interesting, Cunliffe looks at the ideas of Britain's origins formed by our long-ago ancestors themselves, when they used what scraps there were, gleaned from Biblical and classical texts, to create a largely mythological origin for the British.

Brand: Oxford University Press, USA

The Neanderthal Legacy

The Neanderthals populated western Europe from nearly 250,000 to 30,000 years ago when they disappeared from the archaeological record. In turn, populations of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, came to dominate the area. Seeking to understand the nature of this replacement, which has become a hotly debated issue, Paul Mellars brings together an unprecedented amount of information on the behavior of Neanderthals. His comprehensive overview ranges from the evidence of tool manufacture and related patterns of lithic technology, through the issues of subsistence and settlement patterns, to the more controversial evidence for social organization, cognition, and intelligence. Mellars argues that previous attempts to characterize Neanderthal behavior as either "modern" or "ape-like" are both overstatements. We can better comprehend the replacement of Neanderthals, he maintains, by concentrating on the social and demographic structure of Neanderthal populations and on their specific adaptations to the harsh ecological conditions of the last glaciation. Mellars's approach to these issues is grounded firmly in his archaeological evidence. He illustrates the implications of these findings by drawing from the methods of comparative socioecology, primate studies, and Pleistocene paleoecology. The book provides a detailed review of the climatic and environmental background to Neanderthal occupation in Europe, and of the currently topical issues of the behavioral and biological transition from Neanderthal to fully "modern" populations.

Brand: Princeton University Press

Discovering Ancient Ireland

A comprehensive history of Ireland's prehistorical archaeology Taking Ireland's first human colonization as its starting point, this history leads us on a journey through the vast, enigmatic landscape of prehistoric Ireland. It distinguishes the various significant periods in Irish prehistory and discusses the life and culture of the people who left their marks on the landscape. Readers are introduced to the farming methods, the defense mechanisms, the hierarchy structures, and the art and the beliefs of Irish prehistoric ancestors. Each period is presented with its most important archaeological sites, such as the Boyne Valley, D n Aenghus, and the Hill of Tara, accompanied by photographs from the author's collection. This clear and accessible guide to the prehistoric landscape of the island will enrich any reader's understanding of ancient Ireland.

Brand: The History Press

The Stonehenge People: An Exploration of Life in Neolithic Britain 4700-2000 BC

Rodney Castleden presents an illuminating and convincing interpretation of Stonhenge's cultural context and historical meaning.

Brand: Routledge

Specialization, Exchange and Complex Societies (New Directions in Archaeology)

This book, a comparative study of specialized production in prehistoric societies, examines both adaptionist and political approaches to specialization and exchange using a worldwide perspective. What forms of specialization and exchange promote social stratification, political integration and institutional specialization? Can increases in specialization always be linked to improved subsistence strategies or are they more closely related to the efforts of political elites to strengthen coalitions and establish institutions of control? Are valuables as important as subsistence goods in the developmental process? These and other questions are examined in the contexts of ten prehistoric societies, ranging from the incipient complexity of Mississippian chiefdoms through to the more complex systems of West Africa, Hawaii and Bronze Age Europe, to the agrarian states of Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, Peru and Yamato Japan. Each society is the subject of a separate study by a scholar whose own research has provided new insights into the interplay of specialization, exchange and social complexity in the region studied.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

La Pirateria nell'Adriatico antico: Atti dell'Incontro di Studio, La pirateria nell'Adriatico antico. Venezia, 10 marzo 2002 (Hesper a) (Italian Edition)

Pages: 288, Paperback, L'Erma di Bretschneider

Brand: L'erma Di Bretschneider

The Mystery of Easter Island (Mystic Traveller)

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Brand: Adventures Unlimited Press

The Geography of Neandertals and Modern Humans in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean (Peabody Museum Bulletin 8)

During the Middle Paleolithic, various populations ancestral to modern Hone sapiens inhabited Africa, while Europe was homeland to the Neandertals. Recent archaeological investigations have provided data showing that the abrupt transition from the Middle to the Upper Neolithic, during which these populations met and interacted, was a fast-moving period of change for both groups. In this volume, the expansion of modern humans and their impact on the populations of Neandertals in Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa is discussed in depth, with particular focus on the lithic industries of the late Middle and early Upper Paleolithic.

Brand: Peabody Museum Press

The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE (New Oxford World History)

To be human is to be curious. And one of the things we are most curious about is how we came to be who we are-how we evolved over millions of years to become creatures capable of inquiring into our own evolution. In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both fossil and archaeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family, Hominidae, through the appearance of Homo sapiens to the Agricultural Revolution. He begins with an accessible overview of evolutionary theory and then explores the major turning points in human evolution: the emergence of the genus Homo, the advantages of bipedalism, the birth of the big brain and symbolic thinking, Paleolithic and Neolithic tool making, and finally the enormously consequential shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies 10,000 years ago. Focusing particularly on the pattern of events and innovations in human biological and cultural evolution, Tattersall offers illuminating commentary on a wide range of topics, including the earliest known artistic expressions, ancient burial rites, the beginnings of language, the likely causes of Neanderthal extinction, the relationship between agriculture and Christianity, and the still unsolved mysteries of human consciousness. Complemented by a wealth of illustrations and written with the grace and accessibility for which Tattersall is widely admire, The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE invites us to take a closer look at the strange and distant beings who, over the course of millions of years, would become us.

Brand: Oxford University Press, USA

Prehistoric Henges (Shire Archaeology)

Stonehenge is just one of almost a hundred vast circular earthworks built in the British Isles over four thousand years ago. Known as henges, they remain one of the mysteries of prehistoric Britain. Unlike stone circles, which are their counterparts in the west, henges have generally been ignored. With their overgrown banks and weathered ditches they attract few visitors. Yet discoveries have revealed fascinating glimpses of the beliefs of their builders. Excavations have unearthed grim evidence of forgotten rituals: a child's sacrifice at Woodhenge; a human burial at the center of Arbor Low; a woman's skull at the entrance to Gorsey Bigbury; winter moonlight at Stonehenge. Such things hint at the power and importance that these huge enclosures once had. The effort needed to raise these spacious rings of earth or chalk, the careful planning of their entrances, the settings of stone or timber inside them and the avenues leading uphill from nearby rivers all make henges among the most exciting and intriguing of the ancient monuments of the British Isles.

Brand: Shire

People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Pre-History (13th Edition)

This internationally renowned text provides the only truly global account of human prehistory from the earliest times through the earliest civilizations. Written in an accessible way, People of the Earth shows how today's diverse humanity developed biologically and culturally over millions of years against a background of constant climatic change.

Brand: Pearson

The Lithic Assemblages of Qafzeh Cave (Human Evolution)

This book presents the first comprehensive description of the lithic assemblages from Qafzeh Cave, one of only two Middle Paleolithic sites in the Levant that has yielded multiple burials of early anatomically modern Homo sapiens (AMHs). The record from this region raises the question of possible long-term temporal overlap between early AMHs and Neanderthals. For this reason, Qafzeh has long been one of the pivotal sites in debates on the origins of AMHs and in attempts to compare and contrast the two species' adaptations and behavior. Although the hominin fossils from the site were published years ago, until now the associated archaeological assemblages were incompletely described, often leading to conflicting interpretations. This monograph includes a thorough technological analysis of the lithic assemblages, incorporated in their geological and sedimentological contexts. This description serves as a springboard for regional comparisons as well as a more general discussion about Middle Paleolithic behavior, which is relevant to important and as yet unresolved questions on the origins of "modern" behavior patterns. The volume includes a wide-ranging and up-to-date bibliography that provides the middle-range for discussing the ecological context and behavioral complexity of the Middle Paleolithic period, and ends with some thought-provoking conclusions about the dynamic human interactions that existed in the region during this time.

Brand: Oxford University Press, USA

Fingerprints of the Gods

The bestselling author of The Sign and the Seal reveals the true origins of civilization. Connecting puzzling clues scattered throughout the world, Hancock discovers compelling evidence of a technologically and culturally advanced civilization that was destroyed and obliterated from human memory. Four 8-page photo inserts.

Brand: Three Rivers Press

Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers: How Agriculture Really Began (Darwinism Today series)

Colin Tudge overturns the traditional view that farming began in the Middle East 10,000 years ago, quickly led to the Neolithic farming revolution, and ended the hunting-gathering lifestyle. Agriculture in some form had been practiced for thousands of years before that, Tudge argues. Neolithic farming was not the beginning of agriculture but the beginning of agriculture on a large scale, in one place, with refined tools.

Brand: Yale University Press

Sotira Kaminoudhia: An Early Bronze Age Site in Cyprus (ASOR Arch Reports)

The excavations at Sotira Kaminoudhia in southern Cyprus revealed the remains of tombs and an Early Bronze Age settlement. This is the first Early Bronze Age settlement to be excavated in Cyprus, an era previously known only from mortuary deposits. This volume provides a final report on the excavations and includes specialist studies on various artifact groups, including: ceramics, chipped and ground stone, metals and terracottas. Other chapters focus on the skeletal remains, local flora and fauna, the geology, the environment, and a regional archaeological survey. This important report provides a wealth of new material from the southern part of the island, material that may now be compared with finds from the contemporaneous site of Marki Alonia in the centre of the island.

Brand: American Schools of Oriental Research

Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans

An authoritative and radical rethinking of the history of Ancient Britain and Ancient Ireland, based on remarkable new archaeological finds. British history is traditionally regarded as having started with the Roman Conquest. But this is to ignore half a million years of prehistory that still exert a profound influence. Here Francis Pryor examines the great ceremonial landscapes of Ancient Britain and Ireland? Stonehenge, Seahenge, Avebury and the Bend of the Boyne? as well as the discarded artefacts of day-to-day life, to create an astonishing portrait of our ancestors. This major re-revaluation of pre-Roman Britain, made possible in part by aerial photography and coastal erosion, reveals a much more sophisticated life in Ancient Britain and Ireland than has previously been supposed.

Brand: Harper Perennial

The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture (New Studies in Archaeology)

This innovative study analyzes the great cultural and economic changes occurring in the Near East between 10,000 and 7,000 BC as Palaeolithic societies of hunter-gatherers gave way to village communities of Neolithic food-producers. Challenging the orthodox, materialist interpretations, and drawing on French theories of mentalities, Jacques Cauvin argues that the Neolithic revolution must be understood as an intellectual transformation, revealing itself above all in symbolic activities. He describes the emergence of the first agricultural villages, pastoralism and nomadism, and the diffusion of Neolithic ideas and practice to the region's periphery.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

Hillforts of England and Wales (Shire Archaeology)

The purpose the hillforts served is examined in this book. It also describes how the defences were constructed, the design of the entrances, and the buildings that were erected inside.'

Brand: Shire

Mortuary Ritual and Society in Bronze Age Cyprus (Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology)

A ground-breaking investigation of burial practices and social transformations in the era when Cypriot agricultural communities moved from village to urban life and became major players in the eastern Mediterranean copper trade. The author develops an innovative theoretical and methodological approach that enables her to define and elucidate the shifting spatial relationships between tombs and habitation areas, the elaboration of rituals involving secondary treatment and collective burial, and changing patterns of mortuary expenditure and symbolism throughout the Bronze Age. Keswani proposes that during the Early-Middle Bronze periods, the growing elaboration of mortuary festivities and their crucial importance in negotiating status hierarchies contributed to the intensification of Cypriot copper production and the expansion of interregional exchange relations. Subsequent changes in mortuary practice suggest that the importance of collective burial rites and traditional modes of ritual display diminished over the course of the Late Bronze Age, as urban institutions multiplied and the bases of social prestige were transformed.

Brand: Equinox Publishing

Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans

They survived by their wits in a snowbound world, hunting, and sometimes being hunted by, animals many times their size. By flickering firelight, they drew bison, deer, and mammoths on cavern walls- vibrant images that seize our imaginations after thirty thousand years. They are known to archaeologists as the Cro-Magnons-but who were they? Simply put, these people were among the first anatomically modern humans. For millennia, their hunter-gatherer culture flourished in small pockets across Ice Age Europe, the distant forerunner to the civilization we live in now. Bestselling author Brian Fagan brings these early humans out of the deep freeze with his trademark mix of erudition, cutting-edge science, and vivid storytelling. Cro-Magnon reveals human society in its infancy, facing enormous environmental challenges from glaciers, predators, and a rival species of humans-the Neanderthals. Cro-Magnon captures the adaptability that has made humans an unmatched success as a species. Living on a frozen continent with only crude tools, Ice Age humans survived and thrived. In these pages, we meet our most remarkable ancestors.

Brand: Bloomsbury Press

Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: Sex, Gender, and Archaeology

There has never been a single way that social life has heen organized by sex. The ancient Greeks saw men and women as expressing varying degrees of a single sexual potential; many Native American societies considered sexual identity as something that changed and developed during a lifetime, and recognized three or four categories of sexual identity. Ranging from the earliest European hunters who created the first human images known to us almost 30,000 years ago to the lives of men and women from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who seldom appear in conventional histories, Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives explores how men and women have represented sexual differences, and lived lives shaped in part by those differences. Professor Joyce shows not only how archaeologists learn about the lives of men and women in the past, but also why the stories they can tell are important to hear today. She challenges us to reconsider how we think about sex and its implications for each person. Showing the critical role of the material world in forming our experiences of and concepts about sex, this book connects archaeology firmly to contemporary studies of material culture and identity. 35 black-and-white illustrations

Brand: Thames & Hudson

Origins and Revolutions: Human Identity in Earliest Prehistory

In this innovative study Clive Gamble presents and questions two of the most famous descriptions of change in prehistory. The first is the 'human revolution', when evidence for art, music, religion and language first appears. The second is the economic and social revolution of the Neolithic period. Gamble identifies the historical agendas behind 'origins research' and presents a bold new alternative to these established frameworks, relating the study of change to the material basis of human identity. He examines, through artefact proxies, how changing identities can be understood using embodied material metaphors and in two major case-studies charts the prehistory of innovations, asking, did agriculture really change the social world? This is an important and challenging book that will be essential reading for every student and scholar of prehistory.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

Heraldry for the Dead: Memory, Identity, and the Engraved Stone Plaques of Neolithic Iberia

In the late 1800s, archaeologists began discovering engraved stone plaques in Neolithic (3500-2500 BC) graves in southern Portugal and Spain. About the size of one's palm, usually made of slate, and incised with geometric or, more rarely, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic designs, these plaques have mystified generations of researchers. What do their symbols signify? How were the plaques produced? Were they worn during an individual's lifetime, or only made at the time of their death? Why, indeed, were the plaques made at all? Employing an eclectic range of theoretical and methodological lenses, Katina Lillios surveys all that is currently known about the Iberian engraved stone plaques and advances her own carefully considered hypotheses about their manufacture and meanings. After analyzing data on the plaques' workmanship and distribution, she builds a convincing case that the majority of the Iberian plaques were genealogical records of the dead that served as durable markers of regional and local group identities. Such records, she argues, would have contributed toward legitimating and perpetuating an ideology of inherited social difference in the Iberian Late Neolithic.

Brand: University of Texas Press

The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals: Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom

Explores the influence of Neanderthal man on the cultural and biological development of humanity? Traces the power of long-held beliefs and superstitions to the influence of Neanderthal lunar and dream-based traditions? Offers a compelling vision of a unified humanity that can benefit from the gifts of both its Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon ancestors? Provides evidence that direct descendants of the Neanderthal race may still be alive in Central Asia A number of long-standing beliefs and superstitions show how the ideas that dominated the lives of our ancestors still have a powerful influence on us today. The disturbing power attributed to the number thirteen, the positive influence of the number seven, and the comfort offered by the admonition? knock wood? all reveal the enduring presence of our most ancient ancestors: the Neanderthals. Contrary to current theories, Stan Gooch maintains that the Neanderthals were not destroyed by the younger Cro-Magnon culture but were incorporated into that culture through interbreeding. The blending of the disparate influences of the lunar, matriarchal-based Neanderthals and the solar, patriarchal Cro-Magnons may explain the contradictory impulses and influences that have generated human conflict for millennia. In fact, the author suggests that the caste system in India may have been constructed to utilize the strengths of both lunar and solar cultures and to minimize the conflict between the two. There is evidence that direct descendents of the moon-worshipping, dream-"cultivating Neanderthal race are still living in Central Asia today. While their physical descendants may be almost extinct, the influence of Neanderthal wisdom remains strong and can be found not only in witchcraft lore and the Kabbalah, but in the formative tenets of the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, and even Christianity.

Brand: Inner Traditions

World Prehistory: In New Perspective

'To qualify as human, a hominid has, so to say, to justify himself by works: the criteria are no longer biological so much as cultural'. In this 1977 book, Professor Grahame Clark goes on to trace the origins and development of human culture, in all its diversity, throughout the world. He follows the intellectual, material and social progress of mankind in each major region, from the earliest stone industries of two million years ago to the gradual and still incomplete attainment of literacy over the last five thousand years. He takes full account of peoples still preliterate when encountered in recent times by anthropologists as well as of those which nourished the great historic civilizations of mankind. Throughout he emphasizes the close relationship between environment and the character and speed of cultural development. The narrative is generously illustrated with photographs, drawings and maps, and there is a carefully selected list of references to the main sources used.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

Ancient Chinese Warfare

The history of China is a history of warfare. Rarely in its 3,000-year existence has the country not been beset by war, rebellion, or raids. Warfare was a primary source of innovation, social evolution, and material progress in the Legendary Era, Hsia dynasty, and Shang dynasty-indeed, war was the force that formed the first cohesive Chinese empire, setting China on a trajectory of state building and aggressive activity that continues to this day. In Ancient Chinese Warfare, a preeminent expert on Chinese military history uses recently recovered documents and archaeological findings to construct a comprehensive guide to the developing technologies, strategies, and logistics of ancient Chinese militarism. The result is a definitive look at the tools and methods that won wars and shaped culture in ancient China.

Brand: Basic Books

Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States (New Directions in Archaeology)

In a very influential paper published in 1994, John Baines and Norman Yoffee produced the first analysis to examine the impact of wealth and high culture on the development of states. The contributors to this book apply that model to a range of ancient states around the world, providing evidence on the production and uses of "high culture," literature and monumental architecture. There are chapters on Mesoamerica, the Andes, the Indus Valley, China, and Greece, while others expand on the original Egypt-Mesopotamia comparison.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change (New Directions in Archaeology)

Thirteen leading archaeologists have contributed to this innovative study of the socio-political processes - notably imitation, competition, warfare, and the exchange of material goods and information - that can be observed within early complex societies, particularly those just emerging into statehood. The common aim is to explain the remarkable formal similarities that exist between institutions, ideologies and material remains in a variety of cultures characterised by independent political centres yet to be brought under the control of a single, unified jurisdiction. A major statement of the conceptual approach is followed by ten case studies from a wide variety of times and places, including Minoan Crete, early historic Greece and Japan, the classic Maya, the American Mid - west in the Hopewellian period, Europe in the Early Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, and the British Isles in the late Neolithic.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

Information and Frontiers: Roman Foreign Relations in Late Antiquity

During late antiquity the Roman empire faced serious threats from the peoples to the east and to the north. This book is concerned with the role played by information and intelligence in the empire's relations with these peoples, how well-informed about them the empire was, and how such information was acquired. It deals with an important facet of late Roman history which has not previously received systematic treatment, and does so in a wide-ranging manner which relates the military/diplomatic history to its broader social/cultural and economic context.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

Prehistoric Farming in Europe (New Studies in Archaeology)

Drawing upon his own extensive knowledge of European archaeology, Graeme Barker has impressively integrated the full range of archaeological data to produce in this book a masterly account of prehistoric farming in Europe on a unique scale. He makes use of modern archaeological techniques to reconstruct the lives of prehistoric farmers in remarkable detail. Not only do we now have a vivid picture of the prehistoric farmyard, but we know what animals were kept, how they were fed and why they were bred. Evidence for crops grown and techniques of cultivation and husbandry helps recreate the prehistoric landscape. Even the social organisation that determined the use of resources, and provided the crucial stimulus for agricultural change, can be relived. Graeme Barker develops his argument through analogies with the agricultural history of classical and medieval Europe and concludes that today's industrial farmers can learn much from the successes and failures of early European farming.

Brand: Cambridge University Press

La Destruccion de la Atlantida: Convincente evidencia de la precipitada caida de la legendaria civilizacion

The most comprehensive reconstruction of the history and fate of the legendary ancient civilization of Atlantis? Draws together compelling evidence from geology, astronomy, myths, and ancient texts to prove the existence of Atlantean civilization and its catastrophic end? Includes a vivid narrative that re-creates the last days of Atlantis? Represents 20 years worth of research across the globe All indigenous cultures share the myth of an ancient deluge. In The Destruction of Atlantis, author Frank Joseph links this worldwide cultural phenomenon to the story of the lost civilization of Atlantis. This comprehensive account combines 20 years of research with a stunning and imaginative portrait of a mighty empire corrupted by an overreaching lust for wealth and power. It offers an important lesson to our own materialistic civilization. Todas culturas ind genas comparten el mito de un antiguo diluvio. En su libro La Destrucci n de la Atl ntida, autor Frank Joseph enlaza este fen meno mundial con la historia de la civilizaci n perdida de la Atl ntida. Este cuento extenso com-bina 20 a os de investigaci n con una imaginativa y pasmosa representaci n de un gran imperio corrompido por una gran codicia por la riqueza y el poder, ofreciendo una lecci n importante para nuestra civilizaci n materialista.

Brand: Iti En Espanol

Mesolithic Europe

This book focuses on the archaeology of the hunter-gatherer societies that inhabited Europe in the millennia between the Last Ice Age and the spread of agriculture, between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago. Traditionally viewed as a period of cultural stagnation, new data now demonstrate that this was a period of radical change and innovation. This was the period that witnessed the colonization of extensive new territory at high latitudes and high altitudes following postglacial climatic change, the development of seafaring, and the synthesis of the technological, economic, and social capabilities that underpinned the later development of agricultural and urban societies.

Brand: Cambridge University Press