Archaeology

Han Material Culture is an analysis of Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) Chinese archaeology based on a comparison of the forms of vessels found in positively dated tombs. The resultant chronological framework allows for the cross dating of tombs across China,...

The Black Sea lies at the junction of three major cultural areas: Europe, Central Asia and the Near East. It plays a crucial role in enduring discussions about the impact of complex Near Eastern societies on European societies, and the repercussions of...

This book examines the interplay between astronomy and dynastic power in the course of ancient Egyptian history, focusing on the fundamental role of astronomy in the creation of the pyramids and the monumental temple and burial complexes. Bringing to...

Writing and the Ancient State explores the early development of writing and its relationship to the growth of political structures. The first part of the book focuses on the contribution of writing to the state's legitimating project. The second part...

This book examines a group of twelve ancient Egyptian tombs (c.2300 BCE) in the elite Old Kingdom cemetery of Elephantine at Qubbet el-Hawa in modern Aswan. It develops an interdisciplinary approach to the material - drawing on methods from art history,...

This book examines one of the thorniest problems of ancient American archaeology: the origins and domestication of maize. Using a variety of scientific techniques, Duccio Bonavia explores the development of maize, its adaptation to varying climates and...

For thousands of years, the geography of Eurasia has facilitated travel, conquest and colonization by various groups, from the Huns in ancient times to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the past century. This book brings together archaeological...

Architecture and the Origins of Preclassic Maya Politics highlights the dramatic changes in the relationship of ancient Maya peoples to the landscape and to each other in the Preclassical period (ca. 2000 BC-250 AD). Offering a comprehensive history of...

This study explores the organization, scale, complexity, and integration of Aztec commerce across Mesoamerica at Spanish contact. The aims of the book are threefold. The first is to construct an in-depth understanding of the economic organization of...

In this book, Xiaolong Wu offers a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Zhongshan state during China's Warring States Period (476-221 BCE). Analyzing artefacts, inscriptions, and grandiose funerary structures within a broad archaeological context, he...

Generations of scholars have grappled with the origins of 'palace' society on Minoan Crete, seeking to explain when and how life on the island altered monumentally. Emily Anderson turns light on the moment just before the palaces, recognizing it as a...

An Archaeology of the British Atlantic World, 1600-1700 is the first book to apply the methods of modern-world archaeology to the study of the seventeenth-century English colonial world. Charles E. Orser, Jr explores a range of material evidence of daily...

The Early Formative Olmec are central in a wide variety of debates regarding the development of Mesoamerican societies. A fundamental issue in Olmec archaeology is the nature of interregional interaction among contemporaneous societies and the possible...

Sustainability strives to meet the needs of the present without compromising the future, but increasingly recognizes the tradeoffs among these many needs. Who benefits? Who bears the burden? How are these difficult decisions made? Are people aware of...

The Middle Helladic period has received little attention, partially because of scholars' view of it as merely the prelude to the Mycenaean period and partially because of the dearth of archaeological evidence from the period. In this book, Helene...

In A Critique of Archaeological Reason, Giorgio Buccellati presents a theory of excavation that aims at clarifying the nature of archaeology and its impact on contemporary thought. Integrating epistemological issues with methods of data collection and...

Two common questions asked in archaeological investigations are: where did a particular culture come from, and which living cultures is it related to? In this book, Robert A. Cook brings a theoretically and methodologically holistic perspective to his...

In this book Dr Wallace makes a fundamental contribution to the study of urbanism in the Roman provinces. She attempts for the first time to present a detailed archaeological account of the first decade of one of the best-excavated cities in the Roman...

Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Using R is the first hands-on guide to using the R statistical computing system written specifically for archaeologists. It shows how to use the system to analyze many types of archaeological data. Part I includes...

This study uses artefact distribution analyses to investigate the activities that took place inside early Roman imperial military bases. Focusing especially on non-combat activities, it explores the lives of families and other support personnel who are...

The contribution of Neandertals to the biological and cultural emergence of early modern humans remains highly debated in anthropology. Particularly controversial is the long-held view that Neandertals in Western Europe were replaced 30,000 to 40,000...

The Northern Black Sea region, despite its distance from the centers of classical civilizations, played an integral role in the socioeconomic life of the ancient Greco-Roman world. The chapters in this book, written by experts on the region, explore...

This book examines the first human colonization of Asia and particularly the tropical environments of Southeast Asia during the Upper Pleistocene. In studying the unique character of the Asian archaeological record, it reassesses long-accepted...

This revised edition provides an up-to-date account of the many different kinds of information that can be obtained through the archaeological study of pottery. It describes the scientific and quantitative techniques that are now available to the...

Stone Tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Near East: A Guide surveys the lithic record for the East Mediterranean Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, and adjacent territories) from the earliest times to 6,500 years ago. It is intended both as an...

Time and History in Prehistory explores the many processes through which time and history are conceptualized and constructed, challenging the perception of prehistoric societies as ahistorical. Drawing equally on contemporary theory and illustrative case...

"Archaeologies of Social Life" is a fascinating new perspective on everyday life in ancient Egypt. The author provides detailed discussions of new topics of debate, including the body, sexuality and issues of identity, while also addressing...

The growth and development of towns and urbanism in the pre-modern world has been of interest to archaeologists since the nineteenth century. Much of the early archaeological research on urban origins focused on regions such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and...

Egyptian mummies have always aroused popular and scientific interest; however, most modern studies, although significantly increased in number and range, have been published in specialist journals. Now, this unique book, written by a long-established...

What was daily life like in Italy between 6000 and 3500 BC? In this book, first published in 2007, John Robb brings together the archaeological evidence on a wide range of aspects of life in Neolithic Italy and surrounding regions (Sicily and Malta)...

Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre proposes a fresh approach to understanding the Achaemenid Empire based on her study of the regional capital, Sardis. This study uses archaeological, artistic and textual sources to demonstrate that the two-hundred-year Persian...

A companion to The Archaeology of Rock-Art (Cambridge, 1998), this new collection edited by Christopher Chippindale and George Nash addresses the most important component around the rock-art panel - its landscape. The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art draws...

Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia challenges current interpretations of the emergence, development, and decline of social complexity in the steppe region of China and the former Soviet Union. Through a thematic investigation of archaeological...

It is beyond doubt that the climate is changing, presenting us with one of the biggest challenges in the twenty-first-century. During the past 150 years, archaeologists have studied the impact of climate change on humanity; however, this information has...

Research work on coastal Bengal has mostly focused on maritime trading networks. In a clear departure from the existing scholarship, this volume questions the linearity of considering trade as the sole determinant of creation of settlement in the coastal...

Empires of Antiquities is a history of the rediscovery of civilizations of the ancient Near East in the imperial order that evolved between the outbreak of the First World War and the 1950s. It explores the ways in which Near Eastern antiquity was...

The first Schweich Lectures were given by Professor S. R. Driver of Oxford University in 1908 and the British Academy celebrated the centenary of the lectures with a single lecture given by Professor Davies in 2008. This book is an amplified version of...

This fully-illustrated catalogue publishes 2021 pre-imperial ancient Greek coins from an area of Asia Minor covering Caria to Commagene but excluding Cyprus. Each coin is carefully photographed and its description appears opposite for ease of reference...

This book presents an archaeological case of prehistoric human environmental impact: a study of ecological and cultural change from the arid south coast of Peru, beginning around 750 BC and culminating in a collapse during the Middle Horizon, around AD...

These fifteen papers explore the ways in which recent developments in imaging, image analysis, and image display and diffusion can be applied to objects of material culture in order to enhance historians' understanding of the period from which the...