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Books in Archaeology

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Encyclopedia of Archaeology

  • 2nd Edition
  • November 10, 2023
  • Efthymia Nikita + 1 more
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 0 - 3 2 3 - 9 1 8 5 6 - 5
Encyclopedia of Archaeology, Second Edition, Four Volume Set covers the standing of archaeology as a scientific discipline, how archaeology is practiced, both in the field and in the lab, provides an archaeological geographical overview encompassing all continents and time periods, and covers the role of archaeology in the modern world. This clearly structured thematic manner ensures a well-balanced presentation of the discipline across the world by the people who perform and experience archaeology as native scholars. Led by a brand new international editorial team, this book contains 299 articles.From using home kits to analyze our DNA and find our ancestors’ origin, to walking among ancient monuments embedded in modern cityscapes, visiting museums and archaeological sites, watching adventure movies, or playing video games about mummies coming to life, archaeology touches on many aspects of our everyday life.

Ortner's Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains

  • 3rd Edition
  • January 29, 2019
  • Jane E. Buikstra
  • English
  • Hardback
    9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 0 9 7 3 8 - 0
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 0 9 9 0 1 - 8
Ortner's Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains, Third Edition, provides an integrated and comprehensive treatment of the pathological conditions that affect the human skeleton. As ancient skeletal remains can reveal a treasure trove of information to the modern orthopedist, pathologist, forensic anthropologist, and radiologist, this book presents a timely resource. Beautifully illustrated with over 1,100 photographs and drawings, it provides an essential text and material on bone pathology, thus helping improve the diagnostic ability of those interested in human dry bone pathology.

Made in Africa

  • 1st Edition
  • May 7, 2018
  • Steve Webb
  • English
  • Paperback
    9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 1 4 7 9 8 - 6
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 1 4 7 9 9 - 3
Made in Africa: Hominin Explorations and the Australian Skeletal Evidence describes and documents the largest collection of modern human remains in the world from its time period. These Australian fossils, which represent modern humans at the end of their great 20,000 km journey from Africa, may be reburied in the next two years at the request of the Aboriginal community. Part one of the book provides an overview of modern humans, their ancestors, and their journeys, explores the construct of human evolution over the last two and half million years, and defines the background to the first hominins and later modern humans to leave Africa, cross the world and meet other archaic peoples who had also travelled and undergone similar evolutionary pathways. Part two focuses on Australia and the evidence for its earliest people. The Willandra Lakes fossils represent the earliest arrivals and are the largest and most diverse late Pleistocene collection from this part of the world. Although twenty to twenty-five thousand years younger than the oldest archaeological site in Australia, they exemplify the migrating end-point of the human story that reflect a diversity and culture not recorded elsewhere in the world. Part three records the Willandra Lake Collection itself from a photographic and descriptive perspective. Evolutionary biologists and geneticists will find this book to be a valuable documentation of the 20,000 km hominid migration from Africa to the most distant parts of the world, and of the challenges and findings of the Willandra Lake Collection.

Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory

  • 1st Edition
  • Volume 6
  • June 28, 2014
  • Michael B. Schiffer
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 9 4 2 9 - 2
Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 6 is a collection of papers dealing with the study of man's ancestors in antiquity. One paper compares archaeology in Europe and in North America where turn-of-the-century archaeologists, both professionals and amateurs, have contributed to the development of the science. Their contribution has led to an institutional sense of delineating professionals and amateurs in archaeological science and, more substantially, in matters of defining stone tools, cultural occupations, and cultural change. Another paper discusses large-scale stylistic trait distribution in broad terms related to archaeology, sociology, and geography. A model of cultural evolution simplifies anthropological concept of cultural complexity into inequality and heterogeneity, which are measurable variables to test hypotheses of cultural evolution. One paper cites the case of the Maya as subsistence and complex societies to show the diversity of Maya agriculture and other subsistence subsystems. One paper notes that the concepts and theory which archaeologists are using tend to be more sophisticated than their ability to provide samples of observations for testing. The collection is suitable for professional or amateur archaeologists, anthropologist, sociologists, and researchers interested in pre-historical times and cultures.

Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory

  • 1st Edition
  • Volume 7
  • June 28, 2014
  • Michael B. Schiffer
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 9 4 3 0 - 8
Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 7 is a collection of papers that deals with the study of gender, discovering new sites, and using remote sensing. Some papers describe the prestate societies in the Americas, intrasite archaeological records organization, and geomagnetic dating methods. One paper explains that an explicit framework for the archaeological study of gender should be formulated alongside the existing explicit theory of human social action. Organization of gender behaviors is connected to task differentiation, material culture, cultural solidarity, integration, extradomestic trade. Another paper notes that the extent of social differentiation seems to depend less on the number of people in a society than on its organizational divisions. It emphasizes that the total population and maximal community-size can also determine the number of administrative levels. One paper discusses the approaches and techniques in dealing with the problems of discovering unseen sites, name, their visibility and obtrusiveness. The individual archaeologists can apply remote sensing applications to pursue a cultural resource management or in a certain explanatory archaeological situation. Another paper explains how to obtain accuracy in dating objects and cultural events using geomagnetic methods. The collection is suitable for professional or amateur archaeologists, sociologists, anthropologist, and scientist involved in the analysis of artifacts.

Prehistoric Subsistence on the Southern New England Coast

  • 1st Edition
  • June 28, 2014
  • David J. Bernstein
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 9 9 3 0 - 3
Prehistoric Subsistence on the Southern New England Coast examines long-term trends in prehistoric subsistence in the Narragensett Bay region of Southern New England. The results suggest that, unlike other areas of Eastern north America, specialized agriculutral economies did not develop in this region prior to European contact. The book is accessible to both the general reader as well as scholars and students interested in consulting the original data for their own research and analysis.

Exchange Systems in Prehistory

  • 1st Edition
  • June 28, 2014
  • T. Earle + 1 more
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 9 4 9 6 - 4
Exchange Systems in Prehistory provides an accurate description of prehistoric exchange and a more thorough investigation of the significance of exchange in prehistory. This book discusses the four aspects of archaeological research on prehistoric exchange, including systemic modeling, chemical characterization, descriptive modeling and application of ethnographic and ethnohistorical research. Organized into five parts encompassing 14 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the basic procedures in chemical characterization of any raw material. This text then describes the many steps required in the sampling and resolution of turquoise sources and artifacts from Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Other chapters consider the measures of transportation cost for raw materials, including estimates of work along probable transport routes, social distances, and intermediary populations. This book discusses as well how anomalies may be used to identify central places or general hierarchical structure in settlement. This book is a valuable resource for archeologists and sociologists.

Quantitative Zooarchaeology

  • 1st Edition
  • June 28, 2014
  • Donald K. Grayson
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 9 9 4 4 - 0
Quantitative Zooarchaeology: Topics in the Analysis of Archaeological Faunas presents the problems in the quantification of bones and teeth from archaeological and palaeontological sites. This book discusses the various kinds of statistical manipulations that are done with the measurements. Organized into seven chapters, this book begins with an overview of the quantification of vertebrate faunas from archaeological and, to some extent, palaeontological sites. This text then explains the interrelationship between various abundance measures and the size of the samples on which those measures are based. Other chapters consider the fundamental kinds of questions that every faunal analyst asks of a set of bones and teeth from an archaeological site. This book discusses as well the ratio scale measure of taxonomic abundance. The final chapter discusses the three issues that deal with different aspects of archaeological faunal analysis, namely, collection techniques, meat weights, and the analysis of the seasons of the year during which an archaeological deposit accumulated. This book is a valuable resource for archaeological faunal analysts, archaeologists, and paleontologists.

Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy

  • 2nd Edition
  • June 28, 2014
  • Edward C. Harris
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 9 5 8 5 - 5
This book is the only text devoted entirely to archaeological stratigraphy, a subject of fundamental importance to most studies in archaeology. The first edition appeared in 1979 as a result of the invention, by the author, of the Harris Matrix--a method for analyzing and presenting the stratigraphic sequences of archaeological sites. The method is now widely used in archaeology all over the world.The opening chapters of this edition discuss the historical development of the ideas of archaeological stratigraphy. The central chapters examine the laws and basic concepts of the subject, and the last few chapters look at methods of recording stratification, constructing stratigraphic sequences, and the analysis of stratification and artifacts.The final chapter, which is followed by a glossary of stratigraphic terms, gives an outline of a modern system for recording stratification on archaeological sites. This book is written in a simple style suitable for the student or amateur. The radical ideas set out should also give the professional archaeologist food for thought.

Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory

  • 1st Edition
  • May 19, 2014
  • Michael B. Schiffer
  • English
  • eBook
    9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 9 9 0 9 - 9
Advances in Archeological Method and Theory: Selections for Students from Volumes 1 through 4 provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of archeological method and theory. This book covers a variety of topics, including cult archeology, cultural evolution, models of hunter–gatherer adaptation, and archeobotany. Organized into 13 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the general cultural significance of cult archeology, from their political and economic aspect to their symbolic meanings. This text then examines the applicability of evolutionary theory to archeology. Other chapters consider the fundamental principles of adaptation as applied to human behavior and review the state of application of adaptation approaches in archeology. This book discusses as well the research on hunter–gatherer adaptation. The final chapter describes the kinds of studies of modern material culture that archeologists are doing and their reasons for doing them. This book is a valuable resource for archeologists and anthropologists.