Author: Fekri A. Hassan Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 0306475472 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 348
Book Description
Recent droughts in Africa and elsewhere in the world, from China to Peru, have serious implications for food security and grave consequences for local and international politics. The issues do not just concern the plight of African peoples, but also our global ecological future. Global climatic changes become manifest initially in regions that are marginal or unstable. Africa's Sahel zone is one of the most sensitive climatic regions in the world and the events that have gripped that region beginning in the 1970's were the first indicator of a significant shift in global climatic conditions. This work aims to bring archaeology with the domain on contemporary human affairs and to forge a new methodology for coping with environmental problems from an archaeological perspective. Using the later prehistory of Africa as a comparison, the utility of this methodological strategy in interpreting culture change and assessing long-term response to current, global climatic fluctuations is examined and understood.
Author: Penny Van Esterik Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0313344205 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 175
Book Description
Southeast Asian cuisines, such as Thai, have become quite popular in the United States even though immigrant numbers are low. The food is appealing because it is tasty, attractive, and generally healthful, with plentiful vegetables, fish, noodles, and rice. Food Culture in Southeast Asia is a richly informative overview of the food and foodways of the mainland countries including Burma, Thailand, Lao, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia, and the island countries of Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Students and other readers will learn how diverse peoples from diverse geographies feed themselves and the value they place on eating as a material, social, and symbolic act. Chapter 1, Historical Overview, surveys the archaeological and historical evidence concerning mainland Southeast Asia, with emphasis on the Indianized kingdoms of the mainland and the influence of the spice trade on subsequent European colonization. Chapter 2, Major Foods and Ingredients, particularly illuminates the rice culture as the central source of calories and a dominant cultural symbol of feminine nurture plus fish and fermented fish products, local fresh vegetables and herbs, and meat in variable amounts. The Cooking chapter discusses the division of labor in the kitchen, kitchens and their equipment, and the steps in acquiring, processing and preparing food. The Typical Meals chapter approaches typical meals by describing some common meal elements, meal format, and the timing of meals. Typical meals are presented as variations on a common theme, with particular attention to contrasts such as rural-urban and palace-village. Iconic meals and dishes that carry special meaning as markers of ethnic or national identity are also covered. Chapter 6, Eating Out, reviews some of the options for public eating away from home in the region, including the newly developed popularity of Southeast Asian restaurants overseas. The chapter has an urban, middle-class bias, as those are the people who are eating out on a regular basis. The Special Occasions chapter examines ritual events such as feeding the spirits of rice and the ancestors, Buddhist and Muslim rituals involving food, rites of passage, and universal celebrations around the coming of the New Year. The final chapter on diet and health looks at some of the ideologies underlying the relation between food and disease, particularly the humoral system, and then considers the nutritional challenges related to recent changes in local food systems, including food safety.
Author: Gyles Iannone Publisher: University Press of Colorado ISBN: 1607322803 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 489
Book Description
In The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context, contributors reject the popularized link between societal collapse and drought in Maya civilization, arguing that a series of periodic “collapses,” including the infamous Terminal Classic collapse (AD 750–1050), were not caused solely by climate change–related droughts but by a combination of other social, political, and environmental factors. New and senior scholars of archaeology and environmental science explore the timing and intensity of droughts and provide a nuanced understanding of socio-ecological dynamics, with specific reference to what makes communities resilient or vulnerable when faced with environmental change.Contributors recognize the existence of four droughts that correlate with periods of demographic and political decline and identify a variety of concurrent political and social issues. They argue that these primary underlying factors were exacerbated by drought conditions and ultimately led to societal transitions that were by no means uniform across various sites and subregions. They also deconstruct the concept of “collapse” itself—although the line of Maya kings ended with the Terminal Classic collapse, the Maya people and their civilization survived. The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context offers new insights into the complicated series of events that impacted the decline of Maya civilization. This significant contribution to our increasingly comprehensive understanding of ancient Maya culture will be of interest to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, geography, and environmental studies.
Author: Amanda Little Publisher: Harmony ISBN: 080418903X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
"In this fascinating look at the race to secure the global food supply, environmental journalist and professor Amanda Little tells the defining story of the sustainable food revolution as she weaves together stories from the world's most creative and controversial innovators on the front lines of food science, agriculture, and climate change"--
Author: V. Tarikhu Farrar Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1793606439 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 319
Book Description
The idea of an inherent backwardness of technology and material culture in early sub-Saharan Africa is a persistent and tenacious myth in the scholarly and popular imagination. Due to the emergence of the field of African studies and the upsurge in historical and archaeological research, in recent decades the stridency of this myth has weakened, and the overtly racist content of arguments mustered in its defense have tended to disappear. But more important are transformations in social, political, and cultural consciousness, which have worked to reshape conceptualizations of African peoples, their histories, and their cultures. Precolonial African Material Culture offers a thorough challenge to the myth of technological backwardness. V. Tarikhu Farrar revisits the early technology of sub-Saharan Africa as revealed by recent research and reconsiders long-possessed primary historical sources. He then explores the ways that indigenous African technologies have influenced the world beyond the African continent.
Author: Jessica Barnes Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300198817 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our times, yet global solutions have proved elusive. This book draws together cutting-edge anthropological research to uncover new ways of approaching the critical questions that surround climate change. Leading anthropologists engage in three major areas of inquiry: how climate change issues have been framed in previous times compared to present-day discourse, how knowledge about climate change and its impacts is produced and interpreted by different groups, and how imagination plays a role in shaping conceptions of climate change.
Author: Susan A Crate Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1315434768 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 417
Book Description
Comprehensively assessing anthropology's engagement with climate change, this volume both maps out exciting trajectories for research and issues a call to action. Linking sophisticated knowledge to effective actions, 'Anthropology and Climate Change' is essential for students and scholars in anthropology and environmental studies.
Author: Saeid Eslamian Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 1351851160 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 761
Book Description
This volume includes over 30 chapters, written by experts from around the world. It examines the environmental aspects of drought such as groundwater and soil contamination, river low-flow, urban water quality, and desertification. It also examines the effects of climate change and variability on drought, and discusses the differences in groundwater, rainfall, and temperatures and their related effects. It presents analytical modeling for better understanding drought in uncertain and changing climates.
Author: T. J. Wilkinson Publisher: University of Arizona Press ISBN: 081654445X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
Society for American Archaeology Book Award Winner Many fundamental studies of the origins of states have built upon landscape data, but an overall study of the Near Eastern landscape itself has never been attempted. Spanning thousands of years of history, the ancient Near East presents a bewildering range of landscapes, the understanding of which can greatly enhance our ability to infer past political and social systems. Tony Wilkinson now shows that throughout the Holocene humans altered the Near Eastern environment so thoroughly that the land has become a human artifact, albeit one that retains the power to shape human societies. In this trailblazing book—the first to describe and explain the development of the Near Eastern landscape using archaeological data—Wilkinson identifies specific landscape signatures for various regions and periods, from the early stages of complex societies in the fifth to sixth millennium B.C. to the close of the Early Islamic period around the tenth century A.D. From Bronze Age city-states to colonized steppes, these signature landscapes of irrigation systems, tells, and other features changed through time along with changes in social, economic, political, and environmental conditions. By weaving together the record of the human landscape with evidence of settlement, the environment, and social and economic conditions, Wilkinson provides a holistic view of the ancient Near East that complements archaeological excavations, cuneiform texts, and other conventional sources. Through this overview, culled from thirty years' research, Wilkinson establishes a new framework for understanding the economic and physical infrastructure of the region. By describing the basic attributes of the ancient cultural landscape and placing their development within the context of a dynamic environment, he breaks new ground in landscape archaeology and offers a new context for understanding the ancient Near East.
Author: Fekri A. Hassan
Author: Penny Van Esterik
Author: Gyles Iannone
Author: Amanda Little
Author: Fekri A. Hassan
Author: V. Tarikhu Farrar
Author: Jessica Barnes
Author: Susan A Crate
Author: Saeid Eslamian
Author: T. J. Wilkinson