Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Open Access Books from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

Open Access Books from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press is the academic publishing division of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, a premier research organization dedicated to the creation, dissemination, and conservation of archaeological knowledge and heritage. The Cotsen Institute is also home to both the Interdepartmental Archaeology Program and the UCLA/Getty Master's Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation. Since 1975, the Cotsen Institute Press (formerly the Publications Unit) has served to preserve cultural heritage through the documentation and publication of scholarly archaeological research. Specializing in producing high-quality academic titles, our press publishes approximately 10 volumes per year in nine series, including a new digital series hosted on eScholarship. Acquisitions are monitored by an Editorial Board composed of distinguished UCLA and external faculty and are accepted based on the results of critical peer review. For more information about our press, please visit our Web site http://www.ioa.ucla.edu/publications/introduction.

Cotsen Digital Archaeology series

Cover page of Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration

Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration

(2011)

How is the Web transforming the professional practice of archaeology? And as archaeologists accustomed to dealing with “deep time,” how can we best understand the possibilities and limitations of the Web in meeting the specialized needs of professionals in this field? These are among the many questions posed and addressed in Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration, edited by Eric Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall. With contributions from a range of experts in archaeology and technology, this volume is organized around four key topics that illuminate how the revolution in communications technology reverberates across the discipline: approaches to...

  • 1 supplemental PDF
Cover page of The World According to Basketry

The World According to Basketry

(1999)

This book was originally published in 1999 by the Leiden University, Center of Non-Western Studies. This is an unabridged re-publication of the 1999 edition, and the one-hour movie that is an integral part of the book. You can download the movie as mp4 file under the tab “Supporting Material”. At a future date the full integration of text and video (as specified in Appendix C of the book) will be offered through this stable URL as well.

  • 1 supplemental video
Cover page of Who is afraid of basketry

Who is afraid of basketry

(1991)

A guide to recording basketry and cordage for archaeologists and ethnographers

  • 1 supplemental file

Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

 

Cover page of Practical archaeology: Field and Laboratory techniques and Archaeological logistics

Practical archaeology: Field and Laboratory techniques and Archaeological logistics

(2020)

All archaeological writing can be placed in two categories: that which reports on or interprets archaeological discoveries and that which proposes the ways and means by which new discoveries can be made or interpreted. Archaeological writing on systems theory, simulation, and method obviously belongs to the second category. Archaeological writing about the ways and means of research should be a topical triumvirate featuring theory, method, and practice. The following papers bear witness to the value of practical considerations within the field. They are useful and instructive because they address common problems from the world of real archaeology and purpose real solutions for them that...

Cover page of Landscape History of Hadramawt: The Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA Project 1998-2008)

Landscape History of Hadramawt: The Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA Project 1998-2008)

(2020)

The rugged highlands of southern Yemen are one of the less archaeologically explored regions of the Near East. This final report of survey and excavations by the Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA) Project addresses the development of food production and human landscapes, topics of enduring interest as scholarly conceptualizations of the Anthropocene take shape. Along with data from Manayzah, site of the earliest dated remains of clearly domesticated animals in Arabia, the volume also documents some of the earliest water management technologies in Arabia, thereby anchoring regional dates for the beginnings of pastoralism and of potential farming...

Cover page of Early Athens: Settlements and Cemeteries in the Submycenaean, Geometric, and Archaic Periods

Early Athens: Settlements and Cemeteries in the Submycenaean, Geometric, and Archaic Periods

(2019)

This volume is one of the most important works on ancient Athens in the last fifty years. The focus is on the early city, from the end of the Bronze Age—ca. 1200 BCE—to the Archaic period, when Athens became the largest city of the Classical period. From a systematic study of all the excavation reports and surveys in central Athens, the author has synthesized a detailed diachronic overview of the city from the Submycenaean period through the Archaic. It is a treasure-trove of information for archaeologists who work in this period. Of great value as well are the detailed maps included, which present features of ancient settlements and cemeteries, the repositories of the human physical...

Cover page of Images in Action: The Southern Andean Iconographic Series

Images in Action: The Southern Andean Iconographic Series

(2018)

Emanating from a colloquium in pre-Columbian art and archaeology held at the University of Chile in Santiago, Images in Action presents interpretations of a large corpus of art and iconography from the Southern and South-Central Andes, bringing together some of the most esteemed scholars in the field. More than thirty authors, all with extensive experience in the Southern Andes, examine artifacts, artworks, textiles, archaeology and architecture to develop creative new insights on the cultural interactions between people in prehistoric western South America. The volume’s nearly 700 images are archived in an online database with metadata, fully referenced in the text, and searchable...

Cover page of Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy

Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy

(2018)

This volume addresses the entanglement between archaeology, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and war. Popular sentiment in the West has tended to embrace the adventure rather than ponder the legacy of archaeological explorers. Allegations by imperial powers of “discovering” archaeological sites or “saving” world heritage from neglect or destruction have often provided the pretext for expanding political might. Consequently, Indigenous populations often fell victim to imperialism, while seeing their lands confiscated, artifacts looted, and the ancient remains in their midst commodified. Spanning the globe with case studies from East Asia, Siberia, Australia, North and South America...

Cover page of The History and Archaeology of Jaffa 2

The History and Archaeology of Jaffa 2

(2017)

Since 2007 the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project, under the direction of Aaron A. Burke and Martin Peilstöcker, has endeavored to bring to light the vast archaeological and historical record of the site of Jaffa, Israel. Continuing the effort begun with The History and Archaeology of Jaffa 1, this volume represents a decade of fieldwork and analysis by the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project and the publication of several projects begun earlier. It consists of a collection of independent studies and final reports on smaller excavations that do not require individual book-length treatments. The volume’s content is arranged around overviews of archaeological research in Jaffa (Part I), historical and...

Cover page of Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors

(2017)

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century cross-cuts the ranks of important books on social history, consumerism, contemporary culture, the meaning of material culture, domestic architecture, and household ethnoarchaeology. Far richer in information and more incisive than America at Home (Smolan and Erwitt), this innovative book also moves well beyond Rick Smolan's Day in the Life series. It is a distant cousin of Material World and Hungry Planet in content and style, but represents a blend of rigorous science and photography that none of these titles can claim. The authors are widely published scholars--archaeologists and anthropologists from UCLA--and a world-renowned photographer...

Cover page of The Desert Fayum Reinvestigated

The Desert Fayum Reinvestigated

(2017)

The Neolithic in Egypt is thought to have arrived via diffusion from an origin in southwest Asia. In this volume, the authors advocate an alternative approach to understanding the development of food production in Egypt based on the results of new fieldwork in the Fayum. They present a detailed study of the Fayum archaeological landscape using an expanded version of low-level food production to organize observations concerning paleoenvironment, socioeconomy, settlement, and mobility...

Cover page of Tangatatau Rockshelter: The Evolution of an Eastern Polynesian Socio-Ecosystem

Tangatatau Rockshelter: The Evolution of an Eastern Polynesian Socio-Ecosystem

(2017)

Tangatatau Rockshelter on Mangaia Island (Southern Cook Islands), excavated by a multi-disciplinary team in 1989-1991, produced one of the richest stratigraphic sequences of artifacts, faunal assemblages, and archaeobotanical materials in Eastern Polynesia. More than 70 radiocarbon dates provide a tight chronology from AD 1000 to European contact (ca. 1800). The faunal assemblage provides compelling evidence for dramatic reductions in indigenous bird life following Polynesian colonization, one of the best documented cases for human-induced impacts on island biota. ...

Cover page of Art: Authenticity, Restoration, Forgery 

Art: Authenticity, Restoration, Forgery 

(2016)

This book presents a detailed account of authenticity in the visual arts from the Palaeolithic to the postmodern. The restoration of works of art can alter the perception of authenticity, and may result in the creation of fakes and forgeries. These interactions set the stage for the subject of this book, which initially examines the conservation perspective, then continues with a detailed discussion of notions of authenticity, and the philosophical background.  There is a disputed territory between those who view the present-day cult of authenticity as fundamentally flawed, and those who have analyzed its impact upon different cultural milieus, operating across performative, contested, and fragmented ground...

Cover page of Altera Roma: Art and Empire from Mérida to Mexico

Altera Roma: Art and Empire from Mérida to Mexico

(2016)

Altera Roma explores the confrontation of two cultures—European and Amerindian—and two empires—Spanish and Aztec. In an age of exploration and conquest, Spanish soldiers, missionaries, and merchants brought an array of cultural preconceptions. Their encounter with Aztec civilization coincided with Europe’s rediscovery of classical antiquity, and Tenochtitlán came to be regarded a “second Rome,” altera Roma. Iberia’s past as the Roman province of Hispania served to both guide and critique the Spanish overseas mission. ...

Cover page of A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes: The Samara Valley Project 

A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes: The Samara Valley Project 

(2016)

The first English-language monograph that describes seasonal and permanent Late Bronze Age settlements in the Russian steppes, this is the final report of the Samara Valley Project, a U.S.-Russian archaeological investigation conducted between 1995 and 2002. It explores the changing organization and subsistence resources of pastoral steppe economies from the Eneolithic (4500 BC) through the Late Bronze Age (1900–1200 BC) across a steppe-and-river valley landscape in the middle Volga region, with particular attention to the role of agriculture during the unusual episode of sedentary, settled pastoralism that spread across the Eurasian steppes with the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures...

Cover page of The Archaeology of Grotta Scaloria: Ritual in Neolithic Southeast Italy

The Archaeology of Grotta Scaloria: Ritual in Neolithic Southeast Italy

(2016)

Scaloria Cave, Grotta Scaloria, is in Apulia, where the Tavoliere Plain rises to meet the Gargano peninsula. Hundreds of villages were located there during the Neolithic period, the villagi trincerati first identified from aerial photographs taken by the British RAF during WW II. Certainly some of these Neolithic villagers of the Tavoliere visited Scaloria Cave, for refuge from the elements, and for the mysterious rituals held in both the Lower and Upper Chambers. 

Grotta Scaloria was first discovered and explored in 1931, excavated briefly in 1967, and extensively from 1978–80 by a...

Cover page of Icon, Cult, and Context: Sacred Spaces and Objects in the Classical World

Icon, Cult, and Context: Sacred Spaces and Objects in the Classical World

(2016)

This festschrift honors UCLA professor emerita Susan Downey and her meticulous scholarship on religious architecture and imagery in the Roman/Hellenistic world. The iconography of gods and goddesses, the analysis of sacred imagery in the context of ancient cult practices, and the design and decoration of sacred spaces are the main themes of the book.

Professor Downey’s influence shines through in these discussions, which echo her mentorship of several generations of art history and archaeology students, and recognize her scholarly achievements...

Cover page of Vilcabamba and the Archaeology of Inca Resistance

Vilcabamba and the Archaeology of Inca Resistance

(2015)

The sites of Vitcos and Espíritu Pampa are two of the most important Inca cities within the remote Vilcabamba region of Peru. The province has gained notoriety among historians, archaeologists and other students of the Inca, since it was from here that the last independent Incas waged a nearly forty year-long war (AD 1536–1572) against Spanish control of the Andes. Building on three years of excavation and two years of archival work, the authors discuss the events that took place in this area, speaking to the complex relationships that existed between the Europeans and Andeans during the decades that Vilcabamba was the final stronghold of the Inca empire...

Cover page of Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia: Excavations at Tell Al-Raqa'i

Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia: Excavations at Tell Al-Raqa'i

(2015)

This book presents a new perspective on the emergence of urban societies in Mesopotamia, focusing attention on life in a rural village and helping to correct the traditional bias by archaeologists toward the urban and the elite. Reporting on the extensive excavations at Tell al-Raqa’i (early-middle 3rd millennium BC) in upper Mesopotamia/Syria, the authors offer detailed studies on architecture, pottery, animal bones, plant remains, and other varieties of artifacts and ecofacts. These data provide a wealth of information on the nature of life in a small community during the transition to urbanism. Spatial and social organization, household economics, and the significance of enigmatic structures such as...

Cover page of An Archaic Mexican Shellmound and Its Entombed Floors

An Archaic Mexican Shellmound and Its Entombed Floors

(2015)

Tlacuachero is the site of an Archaic-period shellmound located in the wetlands of the outer coast of southwest Mexico. This book presents investigations of several floors that are within the site's shell deposits that formed over a 600-800 year interval during the Archaic period (ca. 8000-2000 BCE), a crucial timespan in Mesoamerican prehistory when people were transitioning from full blown dependency on wild resources to the use of domesticated crops. 

The floors are now deeply buried in an limited area below the summit of the shellmound.  The authors explore what...

Cover page of The Excavation of the Prehistoric Burial Tumulus at Lofkënd, Albania (2-Vol Set)

The Excavation of the Prehistoric Burial Tumulus at Lofkënd, Albania (2-Vol Set)

(2014)

The burial tumulus of Lofkënd lies in one of the richest archaeological areas of Albania (ancient Illyria) home to a number of burial tumuli spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages of later European prehistory. Modern understanding of the pre- and protohistory of Illyria has largely been shaped by the contents of such burial mounds, yet some were robbed long ago, others reused for modern burials, and few were excavated under scientific conditions. What inspired this systematic exploration by UCLA was more than the promise of an unplundered necropolis; it was also the chance to revisit the significance of this tumulus and its fellows for the emergence of urbanism and complexity in ancient...

Cover page of New Insights into the Iron Age Archaeology of Edom, Southern Jordan

New Insights into the Iron Age Archaeology of Edom, Southern Jordan

(2014)

Situated south of the Dead Sea, near the famous Nabataean capital of Petra, the Faynan region in Jordan contains the largest deposits of copper ore in the southern Levant. The Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project (ELRAP) takes an anthropological archaeology approach to the deep-time study of culture change in one of the Old World’s most important locales for studying technological development. Using innovative digital tools for data recording, curation, analyses and dissemination, the researchers focused on ancient mining and metallurgy as the subject of surveys and excavations related to the Iron Age (ca. 1200–500 BCE), when the first local, historical state-level societies appeared in...

Cover page of Archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age: From Erlitou to Anyang 

Archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age: From Erlitou to Anyang 

(2014)

Archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age is a synthesis of recent Chinese archaeological work on the second millennium BCE-the period associated with China’s first dynasties and East Asia’s first “states.” With a focus on early China’s great metropolitan centers in the Central Plains and their hinterlands, this work attempts to contextualize them within their wider zones of interaction from the Yangtze to the edge of the Mongolian steppe, and from the Yellow Sea to the Tibetan plateau and the Gansu corridor. Analyzing the complexity of early Chinese culture history, and the variety and development of its urban formations, Roderick Campbell explores East Asia’s divergent developmental paths and...

Cover page of Formative Lifeways in Central Tlaxcala, Volume 1: Excavations, Ceramics, and Chronology

Formative Lifeways in Central Tlaxcala, Volume 1: Excavations, Ceramics, and Chronology

(2014)

The transition to the Formative in the relatively high-altitude study region of Tlaxcala, Mexico is later than it was in choice regions for early agriculture elsewhere in Mesoamerica. From 900 BCE, however, population growth and sociopolitical development were rapid. A central claim in the research presented here is that a macroregional perspective is essential for understanding the local Formative sequence. In this volume, the data from excavations at three village sites (Amomoloc, Tetel, and Las Mesitas) and one modest regional center (La Laguna) are examined. The ceramic typology is described in detail. An innovative approach to the classification of figurines is presented, and a...

Cover page of Visions of Tiwanaku

Visions of Tiwanaku

(2013)

“What was Tiwanaku?” This question was posed to a select group of scholars that gathered for an intensive two-day conference at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. For over half a millennium, the megalithic ruins in the highlands of the Andes mountains have stood as proxy for the desires and ambitions of various empires and political agendas; in the last hundred years, scholars have attempted to answer this question by interpreting the shattered remains from a distant preliterate past. The conference pooled the decades of experience of a dozen leading scholars together with the recent field data of junior scholars (published separately in Volumes 2 and 3 of Advances in Titicaca...

Cover page of Advances in Titicaca Basin Archaeology-2 

Advances in Titicaca Basin Archaeology-2 

(2013)

This volume, the second in a series of studies on the archaeology of the Titicaca Basin, serves as an excellent springboard for broader discussions of the roles of ritual, authority, coercion, and the intensification of resources and trade for the development of archaic states worldwide. Over the last hundred years, scholars have painstakingly pieced together fragments of the incredible cultural history of the Titicaca Basin, an area that encompasses over 50,000 square kilometers, achieving a basic understanding of settlement patterns and chronology. While large-scale surveys need to continue and areas will need to be revisited to further refine chronologies and knowledge of site-formation processes...

Cover page of Empires and Diversity: On the Crossroads of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History

Empires and Diversity: On the Crossroads of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History

(2013)

For more than four thousand years, empires have been geographically the largest polities on Earth, shaping in many respects the human past and present in different epochsand on different continents. 

Covering the time span from the second millennium BCE to the sixteenth century CE, and geographic areas from China to South America, the case studies included in this volume demonstrate the necessity to combine perspectives from the longue durée and global comparativism with Han Dynasty Chinese, Inka, and Mughal empiresthe theory of agency and...

Cover page of Light and Shadow: Isolation and Interaction in the Shala Valley of Northern Albania

Light and Shadow: Isolation and Interaction in the Shala Valley of Northern Albania

(2013)

There are few places in Europe as remote as the Shala Valley of northern Albania. The inhabitants appear lost in time, cut off from the outside world, a people apart. But this careful interdisciplinary study of their past and way of life tells a very different tale, overturning much of what we thought we knew about Shala and “persistent” peoples everywhere.

The residents of this mountain tribe spent centuries inside the bounds of the Ottoman Empire, yet they retained not only their Catholicism, but also their political autonomy, forming a flexible, resilient society. Employing survey...

Cover page of The Dead Tell Tales

The Dead Tell Tales

(2013)

Honoring Jane Buikstra’s pioneering work in the development of archaeobiological research, the essays in this volume stem from a symposium held at an annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Buikstra’s redefinition of the term “bioarchaeology” to focus specifically on human skeletal data in historical and anthropological contexts, and the impact of her mentorship on developing scholars in the field, are acknowledged and celebrated by the wide-ranging contributions in The Dead Tell Tales...

Cover page of Classic Maya Political Ecology: Resource Management, Class Histories, and Political Change in Northwestern Belize 

Classic Maya Political Ecology: Resource Management, Class Histories, and Political Change in Northwestern Belize 

(2013)

The Classic Maya of the Central Lowlands crafted one of the ancient world’s great civilizations in what is today Belize, northern Guatemala, and Yucatan, Mexico. Although the Maya have long been known for their artistic and architectural achievements, the economic and agricultural base of this society has received far less attention. Over the past couple of decades, archaeologists have begun to understand how Maya householders reliably farmed this harsh, fragile, and yet highly productive environment for two thousand years. A new view emerges of how regional polities prospered in the face of population increase, political turmoil, and environmental and climatic change...

Cover page of The Stones of Tiahuanaco

The Stones of Tiahuanaco

(2013)

The remains of the artful gateways, platforms, walls, and sculpture at Tiahuanaco, an important Middle Horizon site at the southern end of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, have for centuries sparked what has seemed like unanswerable questions about how they were made. The masons’ highly sophisticated knowledge of mathematics, geometry, and stonecraft is evident in the tight joints and perfectly sharp, right angles of these fine examples of Andean cut-stone architecture. The Inca prized the precise stone masonry of this important site, which is considered by many scholars to be the precursor of the stonebuilding traditions of their civilization, which flourished four hundred years after the decline of...

Cover page of Last House on the Hill: BACH Area Reports from Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Last House on the Hill: BACH Area Reports from Çatalhöyük, Turkey

(2012)

Occupied from around 7500 BC to 5700 BC, the large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia is composed entirely of domestic buildings; no public buildings have been identified. First excavated in the early 1960s, the site was left untouched until 1993. During the summers of 1997–2003 a team from the University of California at Berkeley (the BACH team) excavated an area at the northern end of the East Mound of Çatalhöyük. The houses there date predominantly to the late Aceramic and early Ceramic Neolithic, around 7000 BC. Last House on the Hill is the final report of the BACH excavations. This volume comprises both interpretive chapters and empirical data from the...

Cover page of The History of the Peoples of the Eastern Desert

The History of the Peoples of the Eastern Desert

(2012)

The last quarter century has seen extensive research on the ports of the Red Sea coast of Egypt, the road systems connecting them to the Nile, and the mines and quarries in the region. Missing has been a systematic study of the peoples of the Eastern Desert—the area between the Red Sea and the Nile Valley—in whose territories these ports, roads, mines, and quarries were located.The historical overview of the Eastern Desert in the shape of a roughly chronological narrative presented in this book fills that gap...

Cover page of The Construction of Value in the Ancient World

The Construction of Value in the Ancient World

(2012)

Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value...

Cover page of Lake Titicaca: Legend, Myth and Science

Lake Titicaca: Legend, Myth and Science

(2012)

Lake Titicaca and the vast region surrounding this deep body of water contain mysteries that we are just beginning to unravel. The area surrounding the world’s highest navigable lake was home to some of the greatest civilizations in the ancient world. These civilizations were created by the ancestors of the Aymara and Quechua peoples who continue to live and work in Peru and Bolivia along the shores of this ancient body of water. This lavishly illustrated book provides a state-of-the-art description and explanation of the great cultures that inhabited this land from the first migrants ten millennia ago to the people who thrive here today. We will also discover the world of myth and legend that has grown...

Cover page of Crucible of Pueblos: The Early Pueblo Period in the Northern Southwest 

Crucible of Pueblos: The Early Pueblo Period in the Northern Southwest 

(2012)

Archaeologists are increasingly recognizing the early Pueblo period as a major social and demographic transition in Southwest history. In Crucible of Pueblos: The Early Pueblo Period in the Northern Southwest, Richard Wilshusen, Gregson Schachner and James Allison present the first comprehensive summary of population growth and migration, the materialization of early villages, cultural diversity, relations of social power, and the emergence of early great houses during the early Pueblo period. Six chapters address these developments in the major regions of the northern Southwest and four synthetic chapters then examine early Pueblo material culture to explore social identity, power...

Cover page of Chotuna and Chornancap: Excavating an Ancient Peruvian Legend

Chotuna and Chornancap: Excavating an Ancient Peruvian Legend

(2012)

Christopher Donnan's Chotuna and Chornancap: Excavating an Ancient Peruvian Legend, explores one of the most intriguing oral histories passed down among ancient Peruvians: the legend of Naymlap, the founder of a dynasty that ruled the Lambayeque Valley of northern Peru centuries before European contact. Naymlap is said to have built his palace at a place that many now consider to be the archaeological sites of Chotuna and Chornancap. In an effort to test the validity of the Naymlap legend, Donnan directed extensive archaeological excavations at Chotuna and Chornancap--completing plans of the monumental architecture, mapping and excavating most of the major structures, and...

Cover page of Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis: Insights from California Archaeology 

Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis: Insights from California Archaeology 

(2012)

How does the practice of archaeology benefit from faunal analysis? Michael Glassow and Terry Joslin's Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis: Insights from California Archaeology addresses this question. Contributors to this volume demonstrate how faunal remains can be used to elucidate subsistence, settlement, technological systems, economic exchange, social organization, adaptation to variability in resource distribution and abundance, and the impacts of historic land use. The sheer prevalence of faunal remains in California archaeological sites means that most archaeologists working in the state inevitably must give these resources their close attention-and yet methodological...

Cover page of Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration

Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration

(2011)

How is the Web transforming the professional practice of archaeology? And as archaeologists accustomed to dealing with “deep time,” how can we best understand the possibilities and limitations of the Web in meeting the specialized needs of professionals in this field? These are among the many questions posed and addressed in Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration, edited by Eric Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall. With contributions from a range of experts in archaeology and technology, this volume is organized around four key topics that illuminate how the revolution in communications technology reverberates across the discipline: approaches to...

Cover page of An Investigation into Early Desert Pastoralism: Excavations at the Camel Site, Negev

An Investigation into Early Desert Pastoralism: Excavations at the Camel Site, Negev

(2011)

Negev focuses on two primary purposes, one theoretical/methodological and the second substantive. Briefly stated, the book comprises a case study of excavations at an early (ca. 2800 B.C.) pastoral site in the Negev, providing detailed analyses and a synthetic overview of a seasonal encampment from this early period in the evolution of desert pastoral societies. It thus both demonstrates the feasibility of an archaeology of early mobile pastoralism and grapples with the basic anthropological and methodological issues surrounding the subject. Substantively, both the architectural and material culture assemblages uncovered constitute the first detailed analysis of this early desert culture and include...

Cover page of The History and Archaeology of Jaffa 1

The History and Archaeology of Jaffa 1

(2011)

In 2007 the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project (JCHP) was established as a joint research endeavor of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among the project’s diverse aims is the publication of numerous excavations conducted in Jaffa since 1948 under the auspices of various governmental and research institutions such as the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums and its successor, the Israel Antiquities Authority, as well as the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project. This, the first volume in the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project series, lays the groundwork for this initiative. Part I provides the historical, economic, and legal...

Cover page of Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands

Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands

(2011)

Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands explores the question of how information, broadly conceived, is acquired, stored, circulated, and utilized in small-scale hunter-gatherer societies, or bands. Given the nature of this question, the volume brings together a group of scholars from multiple disciplines, including archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, and evolutionary ecology. Each of these specialties deals with the question of information in different ways and with different sets of data given different primacy. The fundamental goal of the volume is to bridge disciplines and subdisciplines, open discussion, and see if some common ground-either theoretical perspectives, general principles...

Cover page of The Chanka: Archaeological Research in Andahuaylas (Apurimac), Peru

The Chanka: Archaeological Research in Andahuaylas (Apurimac), Peru

(2010)

In AD 1438 a battle took place outside the city of Cuzco that changed the course of South American history. The Chanka, a powerful ethnic group from the Andahuaylas region, had begun an aggressive program of expansion. Conquering a host of smaller polities, their army had advanced well inside the territory of their traditional rival, the Inca. 

In a series of unusual maneuvers, the Inca defeated the invading Chanka forces and became the most powerful people in the Andes. Many scholars believe that the defeat of the Chanka represents a defining moment in the history of...

Cover page of Settlement and Subsistence in Early Formative Soconusco: El Varal and the Problem of Inter-Site Assemblage Variation

Settlement and Subsistence in Early Formative Soconusco: El Varal and the Problem of Inter-Site Assemblage Variation

(2010)

The Soconusco region, a narrow strip of the Pacific coast of Mexico and Guatemala, is the location of some of the earliest pottery-using villages of ancient Mesoamerica. Mobile early inhabitants of the area harvested marsh clams in the estuaries, leaving behind vast mounds of shell. With the introduction of pottery and the establishment of permanent villages (from 1900 B.C.), use of the resource-rich estuary changed. The archaeological manifestation of that new estuary adaptation is a dramatic pattern of inter-site variability in pottery vessel forms. Vessels at sites within the estuary were about seventy percent neckless jars -- "tecomates" -- while vessels at contemporaneous sites a few...

Cover page of Gallinazo: An Early Cultural Tradition on the Peruvian North Coast

Gallinazo: An Early Cultural Tradition on the Peruvian North Coast

(2009)

Over the last decades, considerable effort has been directed towards the study of early complex societies of northern Peru, and in recent years archaeologists have expressed a strong interest in the art and archaeology of the Moche, Lambayeque and Chimú societies. Yet, comparatively little attention has been paid to the earlier cultural foundations of North Coast civilization: the Gallinazo. In the recent years, however, the work of a number of North Coast specialists brought about a large quantity of data on the Gallinazo occupation of the coast, but a coherent framework for studying this culture had yet to be defined. A round table, which gathered some thirty scholars from Europe and North and...

Cover page of Blood and Beauty: Organized Violence in the Art and Archaeology of Mesoamerica and Central America

Blood and Beauty: Organized Violence in the Art and Archaeology of Mesoamerica and Central America

(2009)

Warfare, ritual human sacrifice, and the rubber ballgame are the traditional practices through which scholars have most often examined organized violence in the artistic and material records of ancient Mesoamerica and Central America.

This volume expands them to include such activities as gladiatorial-like boxing combats, investiture rites, trophy-head taking and display, dark shamanism, and the subjective pain inherent in acts of violence. Each author examines organized violence as a set of practices grounded in cultural understandings, even when the violence threatens the...

Cover page of Andean Civilization: A Tribute to Michael E. Moseley 

Andean Civilization: A Tribute to Michael E. Moseley 

(2009)

This volume brings together exciting new field data by more than two dozen Andean scholars who came together to honor their friend, colleague, and mentor, Michael E. Moseley. These new studies cover the enormous temporal span of Moseley’s own work from the Preceramic era to the Tiwanaku and Moche states to the Inka empire. And, like Moseley’s own studies—from Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization to Chan Chan: The Desert City to Cerro Bául’s brewery—these new studies involve settlements from all over the Andes—from the far northern highlands to the far southern coast. An invaluable addition to any Andeanist’s library, the papers in this book demonstrate the enormous breadth...

Cover page of The South American Camelids: An Expanded and Corrected Edition

The South American Camelids: An Expanded and Corrected Edition

(2009)

One of the most significant differences between the New World’s major areas of high culture is that Mesoamerica had no beasts of burden and wool, while the Andes had both. Four members of the camelid family—wild guanacos and vicuñas, and domestic llamas and alpacas—were native to the Andes. South American peoples relied on these animals for meat and wool, and as beasts of burden to transport goods all over the Andes.

In this book, Duccio Bonavia tackles major questions about these camelids, from their domestication to their...

Cover page of Pompeian Households: An Analysis of Material Culture 

Pompeian Households: An Analysis of Material Culture 

(2008)

Studies of Pompeian material culture have traditionally been dominated by art historical approaches, but recently there has been a renewed and burgeoning interest in Pompeian houses for studies of Roman domestic behavior. 

This book is concerned with contextualized Pompeian household artifacts and their role in deepening understanding of household behavior at Pompeii. It consists of a study of the contents of thirty so-called atrium houses in Pompeii to investigate the spatial distribution of household activities, both within each architectural room type and across the...

Cover page of The Archaeology of Mobility: Old World and New World Nomadism

The Archaeology of Mobility: Old World and New World Nomadism

(2008)

A majority of laymen, politicians and scholars consciously or subconsciously understand settled living as the highest rung on the evolutionary ladder. Accounts of people surviving and even thriving in peripheral areas are often instrumental to construct and maintain the dichotomy between 'the desert and the sown.' It is sometimes stated that mobile peoples obtain their material culture from neighboring settled populations, rather than produce their own, and that they do not leave recognizable archaeological traces apart from 'ephemeral campsites.' From the 24 chapters in this volume, however, it is clear that there is indeed an 'archaeology of mobility.'...

Cover page of Excavations at Cerro Azul, Peru: The Architecture and Pottery

Excavations at Cerro Azul, Peru: The Architecture and Pottery

(2008)

During the Late Intermediate period (AD 1100-1470), the lower Cañete Valley of Peru was controlled by the walled Kingdom of Huarco. While inland sites produced irrigated crops, the seaside community of Cerro Azul, 130 km south of Lima, produced fish for the rest of the kingdom.

Cerro Azul's noble families lived in large, multipurpose compounds with tapia walls. Their pottery had its strongest ties with valleys to the south, such as Chincha and Ica. During the course of excavation, the University of Michigan Project...

Cover page of Chavín: Art, Architecture, and Culture 

Chavín: Art, Architecture, and Culture 

(2008)

This book is the first in more than a decade to provide new information on the Chavín phenomenon of ancient Peru. Thought by some to be the "Mother Culture" of ancient Peruvian cultures, Chavín is remarkable for its baroque, sophisticated art style in a variety of media, including finely carved stone monuments, beautifully formed pottery, and magnificent and complex metallurgy. 

The textiles from Chavín, both iconographically and structurally innovative, form the foundation for the later Andean...

Cover page of Rethinking Mycenaean Palaces II: Revised and Expanded Second Edition

Rethinking Mycenaean Palaces II: Revised and Expanded Second Edition

(2007)

This revised and expanded edition of the classic 1999 edited book includes all the chapters from the original volume plus a new, updated, introduction and several new chapters. The current book is an up-to-date review of research into Mycenaean palatial systems with chapters by archaeologists and Linear B specialists that will be useful to scholars, instructors, and advanced students.

This book aims to define more accurately the term “palace” in light of both recent archaeological research in the...

Cover page of The Archaeology of Ritual 

The Archaeology of Ritual 

(2007)

This book is the fruit of the third Cotsen Advanced Seminar conducted at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. A wide spectrum of scholars, historians, art historians, anthropologists, students of performance and of religion, archaeologists, cognitive scientists, and linguists were all asked to think and comment on how ritual can be traced in archaeology and on possible directions for ritual research in the discipline. The outcome is a collection of papers that is thought provoking, often controversial, but always of extremely high quality.

Cover page of Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center

Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center

(2007)

Machu Picchu, voted one of the New Wonders of the World, is one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites, yet it remains a mystery. Even the most basic questions are still unanswered: What was its meaning and why was it built in such a difficult location? Renowned explorer Johan Reinhard attempts to answer such elusive questions from the perspectives of sacred landscape and archaeoastronomy.

Using information gathered from historical, archaeological, and ethnographical sources, Reinhard demonstrates how...

Cover page of Berenike 1999/2000

Berenike 1999/2000

(2007)

Excavations at Berenike, a Greco-Roman harbor on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, have provided extensive evidence for trade with India, South-Arabia and sub-Saharan Africa. 

The results of the 1999 and 2000 excavations by the joint mission of the University of Delaware, Leiden University and UCLA, have been published in a comprehensive report, with specialists’ analyses of different object groups and an overview of evidence for the trade route from the Indian perspective. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs...

Cover page of Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Late Holocene San Miguel Island

Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Late Holocene San Miguel Island

(2007)

California’s northern Channel Islands have one of the longest and best-preserved archaeological records in the Americas, spanning some 13,000 calendar years. When European explorers first traveled to the area, these islands were inhabited by the Chumash, some of the most populous and culturally complex hunter-gatherers known.

Chumash society was characterized by hereditary leaders, sophisticated exchange networks and interaction spheres, and diverse maritime economies. Focusing on the archaeology of five sites dated to the last 3,000 years, this book...

Cover page of Kasapata and the Archaic Period of the Cuzco Valley

Kasapata and the Archaic Period of the Cuzco Valley

(2007)

Although the Cuzco Valley of Peru is renowned for being the heartland of the Incas, little is known concerning its pre-Inca inhabitants. Until recently it was widely believed that the first inhabitants of the Cuzco Valley were farmers who lived in scattered villages along the valley floor (ca. 1000 BC) and that there were no Archaic Period remains in the region. This perspective was challenged during a systematic survey of the valley, when numerous preceramic sites were found. Additional information came from excavations at the site of Kasapata, the largest preceramic site identified during the survey. It is now clear that the Cuzco Valley was inhabited, like many other regions of the Andes, soon after...

Cover page of Settlement and Society: Essays Dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams

Settlement and Society: Essays Dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams

(2007)

This volume of essays dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams reflects both the breadth of his research and the select themes upon which he focused his attention. These essays written by his students and disciples focus on issues in Near Eastern archaeology but range as far afield as the Indus Valley and Mesoamerica. They are also concentrate on aspects of early complex society, but some refer back to the late Neolithic and others forward to Islamic times. The key foci of Adams’ work are reflected in this collection: ecology, frontiers, urbanism, trade and technology are all explored. Yet in spite of the breadth of the scope of this volume, the various intellectual threads pioneered by Adams serve to tie the...

Cover page of Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250 BC)

Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250 BC)

(2006)

The Late Bronze Age (ca. 1000-250 BC) was a crucial period during which the Chinese Classics came into being and famous thinkers such as Confucius (ca. 551-479 BC) laid the intellectual foundations of traditional Chinese civilization. Complementing and often challenging the surviving writings, Lothar von Falkenhausen develops a self-consciously archaeological perspective on the social conditions in this time. He analyzes clan and lineage organization, social stratification, gender and ethnic differences, as well as social change over time. Falkenhausen not only presents new data, but also thinks about these data in new ways, emphasizing the nexus between the social order and ritual...

Cover page of Roman Foodprints at Berenike: Archaeobotanical Evidence of Subsistence and Trade in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

Roman Foodprints at Berenike: Archaeobotanical Evidence of Subsistence and Trade in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

(2006)

During the Graeco-Roman period, Berenike served as a gateway to the outside world together with Myos Hormos. Commodities were imported from Africa south of the Sahara, Arabia, and India into the Greek and Roman Empire, the importance of both harbors evidenced by several contemporary sources. Between 1994 and 2002, eight excavation seasons were conducted at Berenike by the University of Delaware and Leiden University, the Netherlands. This book presents the results of the archaeobotanical research of the Roman deposits. It is shown that the study of a transit port such as Berenike, located at the southeastern fringe of the Roman Empire, is highly effective in producing new...

Cover page of Agricultural Strategies 

Agricultural Strategies 

(2006)

This volume brings together a diverse set of new studies--archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic—that focus on agricultural intensification and hydraulic systems around the world. Fifteen chapters—written by many of the world's leading experts—combine extensive regional overviews of agricultural histories with in-depth case studies. In this volume are chapters on agriculture in the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Oceania, Mesoamerica, and South America. A wide range of theoretical perspectives and approaches are used to provide a framework for agricultural land-use and water management in a variety of cultural and historical contexts. This book covers the co-evolutionary relationships...

Cover page of Us and Them: Archaeology and Ethnicity in the Andes

Us and Them: Archaeology and Ethnicity in the Andes

(2005)

This volume brings together a corpus of scholars whose work collectively represents a significant advancement in the study of prehistoric ethnicity in the Andean region. The assembled research represents an outstanding collection of theoretical and methodological approaches, and conveys recent discoveries in several subfields of prehistoric Andean anthropology, including spatial archaeology, mortuary archaeology, textile studies, ceramic analysis, and biological anthropology. Many of the authors in this volume apply novel research techniques, while others wield more established approaches in original ways. Although the research presented in this volume has occurred in the Andean region, many...

Cover page of Advances in Titicaca Basin Archaeology-1

Advances in Titicaca Basin Archaeology-1

(2005)

Advances in Titicaca Basin Archaeology-I is the first in a series of edited volumes that reports on recent research in the south central Andes. Volume I contains 18 chapters that cover the entire range of human settlement in the region, from the Early Archaic to the early Colonial Period. This book contains both short research reports as well as longer synthetic essays on work conducted over the last decade. It will be a critical resource for scholars working in the central Andes and adjacent areas.

Cover page of Plain of Phaistos: Cycles of Social Complexity in the Mesara Region of Crete

Plain of Phaistos: Cycles of Social Complexity in the Mesara Region of Crete

(2005)

The volume presents the results on an interdisciplinary regional field project (1984 - 1987) carried out on the island Of Crete. This volume traces the changing patterns of settlement and cycles of social complexity from the Late Neolithic period to the present day within the heartland of the state of Phaistos. The authors and contributors publish geological, archaeological, environmental, botanical, historical and ethnographic studies that establish the regional identity of the Western Mesara. Using a combination of empirical, processual and post-processual theoretical approaches, the volume investigates a central problem - how and why did the Bronze Age and Classical states arise at Phaistos?

Cover page of Foundations of Chumash Complexity

Foundations of Chumash Complexity

(2005)

This volume highlights the latest research on the foundations of sociopolitical complexity in coastal California. The populous maritime societies of southern California, particularly the groups known collectively as the Chumash, have gone largely unrecognized as prototypical complex hunter-gatherers, only recently beginning to emerge from the shadow of their more celebrated counterparts on the Northwest Coast of North America. While Northwest cultures are renowned for such complex institutions as ceremonial potlatches, slavery, cedar plank-house villages, and rich artistic traditions, the Chumash are increasingly recognized as complex hunter-gatherers with a different set of organizational...

Cover page of Maya Zooarchaeology: New Directions in Method and Theory

Maya Zooarchaeology: New Directions in Method and Theory

(2004)

A comprehensive work, combining traditional zooarchaeological reports and various state-of-the-art summaries of methods and theoretical perspectives. This combination of detailed discussions of basic zooarchaeological data with reviews of important themes in Maya zooarchaeology emphasizes the central issues that guide our research from basic data collection through final comparative interpretation. The chapters emphasize the newest developments in technical methods, the most recent trends in the analysis of “social zooarchaeology,” and the broadening perspectives provided by a new geographic range of investigations. The main focus of the volume remains on fostering cooperation among...

Cover page of Archaeological Research on the Islands of the Sun and Moon, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia: Final Results from the Proyecto Tiksi Kjarka

Archaeological Research on the Islands of the Sun and Moon, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia: Final Results from the Proyecto Tiksi Kjarka

(2004)

Beginning in 1994, the Proyecto Tiksi Kjarka conducted a complete survey of the Islands of the Sun and Moon in southern Lake Titicaca, along with test excavations of important Inca, Tiwanaku, and pre-Tiwanaku sites. This book provides the final results of this work on one of the most important locations in the circum-Titicaca Basin, with detailed survey and excavation data indispensable for Andeanists and other scholars interested in the development of complex political, economic, and ritual systems in prehistory.

Cover page of Perspectives on Ancient Maya Rural Complexity

Perspectives on Ancient Maya Rural Complexity

(2003)

Settlement archaeology in the Maya area has focused much of its attention on the polar extremes of the settlement continuum. As a result of this urban/rural bias, a whole range of complex rural settlements remain under-explored. The chapters in this volume highlight the variable quality of these "middle level settlements".

Cover page of Prehistoric Sitagroi: Exavations in Northeast Greece, 1968-1970 Volume 2: The Final Report

Prehistoric Sitagroi: Exavations in Northeast Greece, 1968-1970 Volume 2: The Final Report

(2003)

Volume 2 presents the concluding research on Sitagroi, a prehistoric settlement mound in northeastern Greece, excavated between 1968 and 1970. This volume offers a detailed report on the plant remains along with a full treatment of craft and technology: artifacts of adornment; tools of bone and flaked stone; artifacts and tools of bone and ground and polished stone (and petrology); tools of the spinner, weaver and mat maker; pottery technology; metallurgy; and special clay finds such as seals, miniatures, and utensils. This rich presentation offers unparalleled insights into the life of the prehistoric inhabitants of the area. Sitagroi now becomes one of the most comprehensively published sites from...

Cover page of Theory and Practice in Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives

Theory and Practice in Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives

(2003)

Theory and Practice in Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives brings together leading scholars from the Old World and the Americas to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing archaeology today. These topics include archaeology and text, the future of large-scale archaeological fieldwork at individual sites, interpretation and preservation of archaeological sites and landscapes, past trajectories and new approaches to regional survey, and debates surrounding landscape and settlement archaeology. Essays by Old World archaeologists provide an overview of these themes, as well as a history of research over the last hundred years. These scholars...

Cover page of Yeki bud, yeki nabud: Essays on the Archaeoogy of Iran in Honor of William M. Sumner

Yeki bud, yeki nabud: Essays on the Archaeoogy of Iran in Honor of William M. Sumner

(2003)

This volume is a collection of essays by colleagues, friends, and students of William M. Sumner in appreciation of his outstanding contribution to Iranian archaeology, especially to our archaeological knowledge of Fars, a center of Iranian civilization.

Cover page of Pathways to Prismatic Blades: A Study in Mesoamerican Obsidian Core-Blade Technology

Pathways to Prismatic Blades: A Study in Mesoamerican Obsidian Core-Blade Technology

(2002)

The obsidian prismatic blade is one of the sharpest cutting implements ever produced in the prehistoric world. This volume explores the social and economic processes involved in its manufacture in ancient Mesoamerica. Contributors examine the variation in the way obsidian prismatic blades were manufactured across Mesoamerica and the causes behind this variation. The volume contributes to a broader understanding of prehistoric stone tool production and craft specialization in the ancient world.

Cover page of Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica

Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica

(2002)

Although the concepts and patterns of ritual varied through time in relation to general sociopolitical transformations and local historical circumstances in ancient Mesoamerica, most archaeologists would agree that certain underlying themes and structures modeled the ritual phenomena of this complex culture area. By focusing on ritual expression at the household level, this volume seeks to compare the manifestations of domestic ritual across time and space in both the cores and peripheries, in the cities and in the villages. The authors explore the ways in which cosmological principles and concepts of the sacred were used in the construction of ritual space and practice, how local landscapes...

Cover page of Catalysts to Complexity

Catalysts to Complexity

(2002)

When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and an untold number of small, autonomous Native communities. These societies all survived by foraging, and ethnohistoric records show a wide range of adaptations emphasizing a host of different marine and terrestrial foods. Many groups exhibited signs of cultural complexity including sedentism, high population density, permanent social inequality, and sophisticated maritime technologies. The ethnographic era was preceded by an archaeological past that extends back to the terminal Pleistocene. Essays in this volume explore the last three and one half millennia...

Cover page of Ceramics of Postclassic Cholula, Mexico: Typology and Seriation of Pottery from the UA-1 Domestic Compound

Ceramics of Postclassic Cholula, Mexico: Typology and Seriation of Pottery from the UA-1 Domestic Compound

(2001)

As the center for the religious cult of Quetzalcoatl, Cholula played a prominent role in shaping events of central Mexico’s Postclassic period. Yet confusion over historical events in Cholula itself have limited its place in recent archaeological considerations of Mesoamerica. Since ceramic sequences are the backbone of archaeological chronologies, this confusion ultimately relates to problems in previous attempts to order archaeological time with ceramics. This book provides an innovative new classification of Cholula ceramics, based on artifact assemblages from primary depositional contexts recovered from the UA-1 excavations. A detailed and well-illustrated description of ceramic types is provided...

Cover page of Prehistory of Agriculture: New Experimental and Ethnographic Approaches

Prehistory of Agriculture: New Experimental and Ethnographic Approaches

(1999)

The twenty-eight contributors to this book show how experimental and ethnographic approaches are being used to shed new light on the process of domestication, and harvesting techniques, tools and technology in the period just before and just after the appearance of agriculture. The book takes an explicitly comparative approach, with chapters on SW Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa.

Cover page of Native Americans at Mission Santa Cruz, 1791-1834

Native Americans at Mission Santa Cruz, 1791-1834

(1998)

When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and an untold number of small, autonomous Native communities. These societies all survived by foraging, and ethnohistoric records show a wide range of adaptations emphasizing a host of different marine and terrestrial foods. Many groups exhibited signs of cultural complexity including sedentism, high population density, permanent social inequality, and sophisticated maritime technologies. The ethnographic era was preceded by an archaeological past that extends back to the terminal Pleistocene. Essays in this volume explore the last three and one half millennia...

Cover page of Recent Advances in the Archaeology of the Northern Andes: In Memory of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff

Recent Advances in the Archaeology of the Northern Andes: In Memory of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff

(1998)

The Northern Andes has had a subdued voice in the literature of American archaeology - even though it is a pivotal region for understanding many of the social, economic, political and ideological changes which pre-Columbian cultures experienced. Each of the eleven chapters presents a synthesis of an aspect of recent research in the region, and each is written by scholars who are actively engaged in that research.

Series: Monograph 39

Cover page of Approaches to the Historical Archaeology of Mexico, Central & South America

Approaches to the Historical Archaeology of Mexico, Central & South America

(1997)

This volume brings together for the first time a collection of articles by scholars working in the field of historical archaeology in Mexico, Central, and South America. Even though archaeologists have conducted investigations on historical sites in Latin America for many years, international borders have often limited interaction among researchers and the exchange of pertinent literature among interested readers. As a result, there has been little awarenesss or understanding of the breadth of research focused on the archaeology of postcontact Latin America, especially that performed outside the Carribean area. Although it is premature to attempt to synthesize all current research on...

Cover page of Down by the Station: Los Angeles Chinatown 1880-1933

Down by the Station: Los Angeles Chinatown 1880-1933

(1996)

In 1933, the demolition of the thriving Los Angeles Chinatown for the construction of Union Station sealed the remains of this intact community 14 feet below the railroad tracks. The planning and construction of the Metro Rail subway system five decades later included efforts to preserve and protect cultural resources in the area, detailed in this volume. The assemblage of excavated material objects reflects the import, preparation, and service of food; recreation; health practices; the presence of women and children, rubbish disposal practices; and degree of participation in local social networks. The unprecedented numbers and densities of artifacts illuminate aspects of lifeways not previously...

Cover page of Central California Coastal Prehistory: A View from Little Pico Creek

Central California Coastal Prehistory: A View from Little Pico Creek

(1995)

Reports on excavations at Little Pico Creek in San Luis Obispo County and assesses the temporal components and issues of cultural chronology, subsistence, mobility, and social structure.

Series: Perspectives in California Archaeology 3

Cover page of Hawaiian Adze Production and Distribution: Implications for the Development of Chiefdoms

Hawaiian Adze Production and Distribution: Implications for the Development of Chiefdoms

(1994)

Using a study of stone adzes of the precontact period on the island of Hawai'i, Lass examines the role of a material resource in the development of cultural complexity. Archaeological evidence is used to analyze the hypotheses that embrace the adaptationist and political approaches to increased complexity.

Cover page of A Conservation Manual for the Field Archaeologist

A Conservation Manual for the Field Archaeologist

(1994)

Conservation treatments and techniques for the archaeologist in the field, emphasizing how to conserve an excavated object before it is taken to a trained conservator offsite. Safety procedures and conservation supplies and materials are recommended. Techniques for lifting, cleaning, consolidating, marking, and storing are discussed, along with methods for treating specific artifact materials (e.g., amber, wood). Appendixes cover impressions and chemical preparations.

Cover page of New Light on Old Art: Recent Advances in Hunter-Gatherer Rock Art Research

New Light on Old Art: Recent Advances in Hunter-Gatherer Rock Art Research

(1994)

Rock art is the most visible aspect of the prehistoric hunter-gatherer archaeological record. Covering cave walls, cliff slides and boulder faces with painted and engraved designs, it challenges the archaeologist to address the symbolic, aesthetic, and religious sides of the past. Though traditionally marginalized in mainstream archaeology, recent advances in chronometric dating and interpretive techniques along with the development of cognitive archaeology, have brought rock art studies to the substantive and methodological forefront of the discipline...

Cover page of Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras: Regional Classification and Analysis

Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras: Regional Classification and Analysis

(1993)

The contributors to this volume have addressed issues of systematics in pottery analysis that perplex archaeologists wherever they work. These issues are not approached by setting forth rules or by adopting a how-to approach but rather by example as the various researchers give the background to their work, explain their methods, and present the classified pottery from their investigations. An in-process statement of what we are learning from pottery about chronology, interactions, and the nature of regional cultural development, this volume can be used by archaeologists working in southern Mesoamerica and northern Central America, who will find it valuable for comparative analysis...

Cover page of An Archaeologist's Guide to Chert and Flint

An Archaeologist's Guide to Chert and Flint

(1992)

For at least 2.5 million years, humans have been using tools, and until just a few thousand years ago their most important tools were of stone. The single most important and widely used stone in nearly every part of the world was chert, also known as flint. It was widely available, easily worked, and capable of being broken in a controlled manner to create sharp and durable edges. Artifacts of chert excavated in an archaeological context are invaluable to archaeologists; they are often the only surviving source of information about prehistoric cultures...

Cover page of Girikihaciyan: A Halafian Site in Southeastern Turkey

Girikihaciyan: A Halafian Site in Southeastern Turkey

(1990)

This report presents the results of excavations undertaken at the site of Girikihaciyan in southeastern Turkey during 1968 and 1970 by the Joint Prehistoric Project, Istanbul-Chicago under the overal direction of Professor Halet Cambel, University of Istanbul, and Professor Robert J. Braidwood, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.

Series: Monographs 33

Cover page of Rice Bowls in the Delta: Artifacts Recovered from the 1915 Asian Community of Walnut Grove, California

Rice Bowls in the Delta: Artifacts Recovered from the 1915 Asian Community of Walnut Grove, California

(1988)

The artifacts recovered from the Walnut Grove are a significant addition to the research of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Asian material culture. Of particular significance is the large collection of recovered Japanese ceramics. Deposited en masse following a devastating fire in 1915, they represent the table wares used by Walnut Grove's Japanese residents from ca. 1896 to 1915. Primarily products of the Meiji Period's technological revolution, these inexpensive porcelains have been largely overlooked in studies of Japanese pottery. 

Cover page of Excavations at Sitagroi: A Prehistoric Village in Northeast Greece Volume 1

Excavations at Sitagroi: A Prehistoric Village in Northeast Greece Volume 1

(1986)

The first of 2 volumes reporting on excavations at a middle neolithic to early bronze age site in northeast Greece. Vol. 1 presents the full sequence of culture exposed by excavation of this settlement mound, 10.5 m deep. Further studies define the environment during the 3 millennia of occupation and clarify the changing pattern of human subsistence over time. The chronological relationships for the Aegean, the Balkans, and Anatolia are examined in detail.

Cover page of Rock Art of East Mexico and Central America: An Annotated Bibliography

Rock Art of East Mexico and Central America: An Annotated Bibliography

(1979)

Strecker’s introduction to the first edition, reprinted here largely unchanged, raises questions about the techniques of production and avenues of interpretation, then concludes with a stylistic summary of Lower Central American rock art based upon earlier work of Stone (1948) and Krickeberg (1949). Partially because of the lack of discussion of rock art styles in Upper Central America and some need for clarification in usage, elsewhere I have attempted to define the rock art syles of Precolombian Guatemala and to suggest a standardized descriptive terminology which can be used throughout the New World in rock art contexts...

Cover page of The Transition to Mycenaean: A Stratified Middle Helladic II to Late Helladic IIA pottery sequence from Ayios Stephanos in Lakonia

The Transition to Mycenaean: A Stratified Middle Helladic II to Late Helladic IIA pottery sequence from Ayios Stephanos in Lakonia

(1976)

The following study is concerned only with pottery of the later Middle Helladic and early Mycenaean periods. In spite of its limited scope, we feel that the stratified ceramic sequence presented here has a unique importance not only in the archaeology of prehistoric Lakonia but also, in a broader sense, in the archaeology of prehistoric Greece as a whole. This sequence affords a unique opportunity to trace the effect of Cretan influence on Middle Helladic pottery which transformed the latter into the distinctly different Mycenaean pottery of the Late Helladic period...

 

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