Environmental Reconstruction in Mediterranean Landscape Archaeology PDF Download

Author: Philippe Leveau
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1785704311
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Contents include: Introduction ( K Walsh ); Palynology ( S Bottema ); A database for the palynological recording of human activity ( V Andrieu, E Brugiapaglia, R Cheddadi, M Reille and J-L de Beaulieu ); The contribution of anthracology ( J-L Vernet ); Dendroclimatology ( F Guibal ); Techniques in Landscape Archaeology ( A G Brown ); L'apport de la micromorphologie des sols ( N Fédoroff ); Reconstructing past soil environments ( R S Shiel ); The Geochemistry of Soil Sediments ( D D Gilbertson and J P Grattam ); Searching the Ports of Troy ( E Zanagger, M Timpson, S Yazvenko and H Leiermann ); The pontine region in central Italy ( P Attema, J Delvigne and B J Haagsma ); Population pressure on agricultural resources in Karstic landscapes ( P Novacovic, H Simoni and B Music ); La Pianura padana centrale tra il Bronzo Medio ed il Bronzo finale ( M Cremaschi ); The ancient ports of Marseille and Fos, Provence, southern France ( C Vella, C Morhange and M Provansal ); The evolution of field systems in the middle Rhône valley ( J-F Berger and C Jung ); La línea de Costa en época histórica en el Golfo de Valencia ( P Carmona ); The Vallée des Baux, Southern France ( P Leveau ); The étang de Berre, southern France ( F Trément ); Geoarchaeology in mediterranean landscape archaeology ( G Barker and J Bintliff ).

Author: Ralph Haussler
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789253284
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 816

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Book Description
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behavior while it is often felt that deities responsible for both natural benefits and natural calamities (such as droughts, famines, floods and landslides) need to be appeased. We presume that, in many societies, lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people have also felt the need to monumentalize their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities end as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practices. The aim of this new thematic appraisal is to scrutinize carefully our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multi-disciplinary approach. More than 30 papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people’s sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were ‘rewritten’, adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people’s understandings. A key question is how was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalized – especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly ‘non-natural’ landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that define a cosmological order? Sacred Landscapes therefore aims to analyze the complex links between landscape, ‘religiosity’ and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.

Author: Isabelle Séguy
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3319015532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
This book examines methods for linking osteo-archaeological data with historical and environmental sources to shed light on the living conditions of past populations. Covering all time periods from prehistory to the 20th century, it aims to construct models that capture plausible demographic dynamics from highly fragmentary evidence. Starting from the known in order to explore the unknown, this book presents a historical view of methods used in the past and present as well as proposes original ones. The paleodemographic methods presented in this handbook have been tested on anthropological and archaeological data and can easily be applied. This manual represents a fruitful collaboration between historical demographers and anthropological archaeologists who, with the help of mathematicians and statisticians, detail research that opens an important historical dimension to the discipline. Written in a readily understandable manner, it serves as an ideal resource for those wishing to interpret ancient bones in demographic terms.

Author: Johan S. Ellefsen
Publisher: Johan S. Ellefsen
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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This book expands on an initial paper that merited the comments: "I read it with interest . . . It is almost certain that, for the authors of its drawings, the Chauvet Cave was considered to be directly related to the Pont d'Arc." -Jean Clottes, author of What is Paleolithic Art?: Cave Paintings and the Dawn of Human Creativity. "It is very nicely written and offers a great deal of food for thought . . . the implicit depiction of landscape: it is a great idea." - Anne Solomon, author of Rock Arts, Shamans, and Grand Theories. In the book “The Sacred Landscape,” the author Johan S. Ellefsen tackles a controversial topic, the meaning of Prehistoric art. The author examines one of the main compositions in the Chauvet cave and how the rock shapes still visible in the face of Pont d’Arc –found right outside the cave– may have inspired the animals painted 36,000 years ago. This book challenges the preconceived notions about Paleolithic art, which commonly held that Ice Age artists did not paint landscapes, and the representations of animals on the walls could not be conceived as mythical narratives. The author proposes that the composition known as the Lion Panel of the Chauvet cave, painted around 36,000 years ago, is the oldest known landscape painting and it is the key to understand the meaning of Paleolithic art. The book sheds light on how the Ice Age artists created a landscape painting as a composite image, which aggregated figures of animals to imitate the contours of Pont d’Arc –analogous to the paintings of ‘therianthropes,’ which were composite figures that combined parts of animals and humans in a single figure. With illustrations and photographs the book engages the reader in finding the rock formations of Pont d’Arc and their astonishing resemblance to the head of a rhinoceros, the ‘ball-feet’ of the mammoths, and the head of a bison painted in the cave. This context gives the reader an insight into the paintings of the Chauvet cave and guides the reader to identify the symbolic value of the animals depicted, as well as the underlying narrative elements tied to the landscape. The author examines how a 36,000-year-old myth could have looked like and proposes that the Lion Panel was possibly conceived as a narrative describing the creation myth of the landscape. This research sheds light on how the Paleolithic artists represented the notions of safety, conflict and sacredness, and what are the teachings of these stories that allowed them to survive for millennia. The author also explores the precursors of the Lion Panel and its successors, showing that the arrangement of paintings had a preconceived structure and an underlying narrative that allowed its transmission. The book explains the peculiar weather conditions of the Ardèche region and how the occupants of the Chauvet cave noticed these peculiarities. In the subsections “The spring inside the Chauvet cave” and “A dripping mammoth on the ceiling” the author lays the foundation to understand the symbolism of springs and rain in the art of the Chauvet cave.

Author: Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1803274387
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This book provides an overview of the driving theories, methodologies and main topics that have been addressed to date regarding agrarian archaeology. The text is presented as an introduction for students, a critical reading guide for other scholars, and an informative instrument aimed at a wide audience.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : fr
Pages :

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Author: S.J. van der Linde
Publisher: Sidestone Press
ISBN: 9088901066
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
What are European archaeologists doing abroad? What have they been doing there for the past three to four centuries? Are they doing things differently nowadays? To address these questions, this book explores the scope, impact and ethics of European archaeological policies and practices in the Mediterranean area, the Near East, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. Acknowledging that international and transcultural projects have a range of different stakeholders, the first part of this book aims to identify some of the values and motivations behind different European archaeologies abroad. This is done by providing thorough historical overviews on a range of European countries, including France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland. But how are these values translated, through socio-political, theoretical and administrative frameworks, unto local circumstances in host countries? And how are these archaeological activities received locally? The second part of this book attempts to answer these questions through a range of historical and contemporary case studies, in Africa, in Asia, in South America, in the Near East and in Europe. The third part of the book offers several critical reflections on European values, motivations and collaboration projects, as perceived by archaeological heritage professionals based in, and/or working in Senegal, Sudan, Somaliland, Colombia, and the Near East. This collection of historical overviews, contemporary case studies and critical reflections focuses on the challenging relationships between archaeological practices and policies, including the requirements and wishes of archaeologists, of local communities and of other stakeholders in Europe and in the host countries. In addition to researchers and students, this book should be of interest to practicing archaeologists, heritage professionals and policy makers the world over, as they seek to reach better informed decisions regarding archaeological projects and international collaboration. This publication was produced in the framework of the ACE project – “Archaeology in Contemporary Europe. Professional Practices and Public Outreach”, with the support of the Culture 2007-2013 programme of the European Commission.

Author: Graeme Barker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009229990
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
In the Footsteps of the Etruscans describes the archaeology of the countryside within a ten km radius of the small town of Tuscania near Rome, throwing light on the unrecorded lives of the generations of farmers and shepherds who have lived there. What was the character of prehistoric settlement prior to Etruscan urbanization? How did urbanization shape the lives of the 'ordinary Etruscans' working the land, hardly ever addressed in Etruscan archaeology? What was the impact on these people of being absorbed into the expanding Roman empire and its globalised economic structures? How did the empire's collapse and the subsequent emergence of the nucleated medieval village affect Tuscania's rural population? The project's 7500-year 'archaeological history', from the first farmers to those grappling with globalisation today, contributes eloquently to our understanding of how Mediterranean peoples have constantly shaped their landscape, and been shaped by it.

Author: John Bintliff
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1785704710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 704

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Book Description
Archaeology of Populus Monograph in Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes Series. Population trends and demographics in general are discussed through a variety of case studies based in Mediterranean Europe. The range of archaeological techniques and methods of analysis includes regional field surveys, artifact scatter analysis, palaeoanthropology, historical and documentary sources, and studies of cemeteries.

Author: Christopher Gerrard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019106212X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1105

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Book Description
The Middle Ages are all around us in Britain. The Tower of London and the castles of Scotland and Wales are mainstays of cultural tourism and an inspiring cross-section of later medieval finds can now be seen on display in museums across England, Scotland, and Wales. Medieval institutions from Parliament and monarchy to universities are familiar to us and we come into contact with the later Middle Ages every day when we drive through a village or town, look up at the castle on the hill, visit a local church or wonder about the earthworks in the fields we see from the window of a train. The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain provides an overview of the archaeology of the later Middle Ages in Britain between AD 1066 and 1550. 61 entries, divided into 10 thematic sections, cover topics ranging from later medieval objects, human remains, archaeological science, standing buildings, and sites such as castles and monasteries, to the well-preserved relict landscapes which still survive. This is a rich and exciting period of the past and most of what we have learnt about the material culture of our medieval past has been discovered in the past two generations. This volume provides comprehensive coverage of the latest research and describes the major projects and concepts that are changing our understanding of our medieval heritage.