Much has been written about the history of Northern Ireland, but less well-known is its wealth of prehistoric sites, from which most of our knowledge of the early inhabitants of this country has been ...obtained. Until recently, the greatest sources for this information were prehistoric burial sites, which have been visible in our landscape for thousands of years and have attracted the attention of inquisitive people throughout this time, often removing items, or adding others and in doing so, making it difficult for later generations to sift through the evidence. Fortunately, sketches, notes and artefacts have been gathered by Ordnance Survey surveyors, antiquarians and archaeological and historical societies and these continue to be interrogated by modern archaeologists in their search for understanding. A further problem has been the dependence on information about prehistoric societies from their burial sites. Very few sites where these people lived and worked were visible above ground and as a consequence, little was known about them. However, during the last few decades, large-scale infrastructure projects and associated archaeological investigation has revealed a wealth of information. Much of the detail has still to be published and made available for research, but has already enriched understanding of our prehistoric past. This monograph brings together information on all the currently known sites in Northern Ireland that are in some way associated with prehistoric life. It has been compiled from a number of sources and includes many that have only recently been discovered. A total of 1580 monuments are recorded in the inventory, ranging from burnt mounds to hillforts. In addition to providing an inventory of all known sites, along with a selection of photographs and plans, the work also includes an introduction to the prehistory of Northern Ireland, an explanation of terms and a full bibliography. It should be considered alongside an earlier work by the same authors on prehistoric burial sites in Northern Ireland (The Prehistoric Burial Sites of Northern Ireland, Archaeopress Archaeology 2014). The aim is to provide a foundation for more specific research projects, based on a standardised format for this largely untapped resource and stimulate a renewed interest in the prehistory of Northern Ireland. Hopefully, this can then be considered along with our knowledge of the historical period to provide a more complete overview of the story of human activity in what is now Northern Ireland.
Pecos River style pictographs are one of the most complex forms of rock art worldwide. The dramatic prehistoric pictographs on the limestone overhangs of the lower Pecos and Devils Rivers in West ...Texas have been the subject of preservation and study since the 1930s, and dedicated research continues to this day. The medium is large-scale, polychrome pictographs in open rock shelter settings, emphasizing the animistic/shamanistic religion practiced by the local aboriginal peoples. Creating large-scale rock murals required intelligence, skill, and knowledge. These enigmatic images, some dating to 4,500 years ago and possibly earlier, depict strange, vaguely human and animal shapes and various geometric forms. While full understanding of the meaning of these images is abstruse, archaeologists and other scholars have identified what they believe to be patterns and religious themes, mixed with what could be figures and objects from everyday life in the local hunter-gatherer culture as it existed in the region centuries before the arrival of colonizing Europeans. Although interpretation of these pictographs remains controversial, in Pecos River Style Rock Art: A Prehistoric Iconography, James Burr Harrison Macrae contributes to the beginnings of a syntactic “grammar” for these images that can be applied in diverse contexts without direct reference to any particular interpretation. “The strength of structural-iconographic analysis,” Macrae writes, “is that it relies on repetitive patterns rather than idiosyncratic information, such as trying to make broad inferences from one or only a few sites.” Pecos River Style Rock Art offers the framework of an empirical methodology for understanding these ancient artworks.
Past Mobilities Leary, Jim
2014, 20160513, 2016-05-20, 2014-05-01
eBook
The new mobilities paradigm has yet to have the same impact on archaeology as it has in other disciplines in the social sciences - on geography, sociology and anthropology in particular - yet ...mobility is fundamental to archaeology: all people move. Moving away from archaeology's traditional focus upon place or location, this volume treats mobility as a central theme in archaeology. The chapters are wide-ranging and methodological as well as theoretical, focusing on the flows of people, ideas, objects and information in the past; they also focus on archaeology's distinctiveness. Drawing on a wealth of archaeological evidence for movement, from paths, monuments, rock art and boats, to skeletal and DNA evidence, Past Mobilities presents research from a range of examples from around the world to explore the relationship between archaeology and movement, thus adding an archaeological voice to the broader mobilities discussion. As such, it will be of interest not only to archaeologists and historians, but also to sociologists, geographers and anthropologists.
The Black Sea in the Light of New Archaeological Data and Theoretical Approaches contains 19 papers on the archaeology and ancient history of the Black Sea region, covering a vast period of time, ...from the Early Iron Age until the Late Roman – Early Byzantine Periods. The majority of papers present archaeological material that has come to light during the last few years, in excavations that have been taking place in several parts of Pontus. Additionally, there are papers that present theoretical approaches to historical issues concerning the Black Sea, its local peoples, cultural aspects or specific sites, while at the end there is as well as a section on the connections between the Black Sea and northern Greece. Thus, the reader of this volume will have the opportunity to be informed about new archaeological results from excavators of some very important Black Sea sites, focus on specific categories of excavation finds or constructions, but also encounter new theories and ideas about social aspects of life in the Black Sea in ancient times. All these indicate once again the impressive acceleration of the archaeological and historical research that is being conducted in the last few decades in the Black Sea littoral, which continues to attract the unfailing interest of scholars from around the world.
The People of Palomas Trinkaus, Erik; Walker, Michael J; Bayle, Priscilla ...
2017, 2017-04-03, Letnik:
19
eBook
 The Neandertal site of the Sima de las Palomas del Cabezo Gordo, located in Murcia in southeastern Spain, is unique in several respects. One of its most important contribution to the field of ...Anthropology, however, may be that it has yielded of the remains of at least 17 Neandertals, adding appreciable breadth to the available data for a greater understanding of Neandertals. Further, its location in the southern Iberian Peninsula provides the potential for studying a population that may have been somewhat isolated from contemporaneous groups of early humans.   This comprehensive analysis represents the first detailed description and analysis of the human fossil assemblage found at the Sima de las Palomas site. While scientific discussion continues regarding the precise impact of Neandertals upon modern human physiology and biology, The People of Palomas adds significantly to our knowledge of the human fossil record of the Late Pleistocene.  
Clovis Caches Huckell, Bruce B; Kilby, J. David
2014
eBook
"A unique, significant contribution to our maturing studies of the Clovis era."—Gary Haynes, author of The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis Era The Paleoindian Clovis culture is known ...for distinctive stone and bone tools often associated with mammoth and bison remains, dating back some 13, 500 years. While the term Clovis is known to every archaeology student, few books have detailed the specifics of Clovis archaeology. This collection of essays investigates caches of Clovis tools, many of which have only recently come to light. These caches are time capsules that allow archaeologists to examine Clovis tools at earlier stages of manufacture than the broken and discarded artifacts typically recovered from other sites. The studies comprising this volume treat methodological and theoretical issues including the recognition of Clovis caches, Clovis lithic technology, mobility, and land use.
Ancient China Major, John S; Cook, Constance A
2017, 20160922, 2016, 2016-09-22
eBook
Odprti dostop
Ancient China: A History surveys the East Asian Heartland Region – the geographical area that eventually became known as China – from the Neolithic period through the Bronze Age, to the early ...imperial era of Qin and Han, up to the threshold of the medieval period in the third century CE. For most of that long span of time there was no such place as "China"; the vast and varied territory of the Heartland Region was home to many diverse cultures that only slowly coalesced, culturally, linguistically, and politically, to form the first recognizably Chinese empires. The field of Early China Studies is being revolutionized in our time by a wealth of archaeologically recovered texts and artefacts. Major and Cook draw on this exciting new evidence and a rich harvest of contemporary scholarship to present a leading-edge account of ancient China and its antecedents. With handy pedagogical features such as maps and illustrations, as well as an extensive list of recommendations for further reading, Ancient China: A History is an important resource for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Chinese History, and those studuing Chinese Culture and Society more generally.
I enjoyed reading this volume. It is rare to see such a comprehensive report on hard data published these days, especially one so insightfully contextualised by the editors’ introductory and ...concluding chapters. These scholars and the others involved in the work really know their stuff, and it shows. The editors connect the preoccupations of Pacific archaeologists with those of their colleagues working in other island regions and on “big questions” of colonisation, migration, interaction and patterns and processes of cultural change in hitherto-uninhabited environments. These sorts of outward-looking, big-picture contextual studies are invaluable, but all too often are missing from locally- and regionally-oriented writing, very much to its detriment. In sum, the work strongly advances our understanding of the early prehistory of Fiji through its well-integrated combination of original research and the reinterpretation of existing knowledge in the context of wider theoretical and historical concerns. In doing so The Early Prehistory of Fiji makes a truly substantial contribution to Pacific and archaeological scholarship.
This book provides unique insights into Late Neolithic life, its organization and its economy, made possible by an altogether exceptional collection of recent archaeological findings in South ...Scandinavia from longhouses with sunken floors dating from this period. Through analysis and interpretation of these comprehensive materials, Danish archaeologist John Simonsen presents brand new findings essential for many wider interpretations of this crucial and fascinating transitional period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age (c. 2350- c. 1600 BC). The basic materials presented and discussed in Daily Life at the Turn of the Neolithic were mainly found during new archaeological excavations in the central part of the Limfjord region of Denmark, but, in terms of the wider perspectives and considerations, often relate to the entire region and in several respects also to South Scandinavia - and beyond.
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