Eventful Archaeologies

New Approaches to Social Transformation in the Archaeological Record

Edited by Douglas J. Bolender

Subjects: Archaeology, Anthropology
Series: SUNY series, The Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology Distinguished Monograph Series
Paperback : 9781438434223, 255 pages, September 2010
Hardcover : 9781438434230, 255 pages, September 2010

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Table of contents

Preface
Introduction: Toward an Eventful Archaeology
Douglas J. Bolender
Part I. Eventful Prehistories
1. Cascading Prehistoric Events: Fractalizing Prehistoric Research
Ezra B. W. Zubrow
2. A Paleohistorical Approach to Upper Paleolithic Structural Changes
Françoise Audouze and Boris Valentin
3. Becoming, Phenomenal Change, Event: Past and Archaeological Re-presentations
Dušan Bori´c
4. Event and Short-Term Process: Times for the Early Neolithic of Southern Britain
Alasdair Whittle, Alex Bayliss, and Frances Healy
5. The Neolithic Argonauts of the Western Mediterranean and Other Underdetermined Hypotheses of Colonial Encounters
Pedro Díaz-del-Río
6. Eventful Archaeology, the Heuneburg Mudbrick Wall, and the Early Iron Age of Southwest Germany
Bettina Arnold
Part II. Eventful Histories and Beyond
7. The Annales, Events, and the Fate of Cities
John Bintliff
8. Modeling the “Amazon” Phenomenon: Colonization Events and Gender Performances
Timothy Taylor
9. The Allure of the Event in Roman Provincial Archaeology
Louise Revell
10. The ad 79 Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius: A Signifi cant or Insignifi cant Event?
Penelope M. Allison
11. Testing Eventful Archaeologies: Eventful Archaeology and Volcanic “Disasters”
John P. Grattan
12. Events, Temporalities, and Landscapes in Iceland
Oscar Aldred and Gavin Lucas
13. Freedom as a Negotiated History, or an Alternative Sort of Event: The Transformation of Home, Work, and Self in Early New York
Christopher N. Matthews
Epilogue
14. Archaeology and the Human Career: Revolutions, Transformations, Events
Graeme Barker
Index

The potential of events for interpreting changes in the archaeological record.

Description

What is the role of events when evaluating the long-term significance of the archaeological record? Given that the event is a key mechanism for structural change, are historical transformations always eventful? And what is the relationship between specific events and other temporalities of change?

In this notable volume, researchers from Germany to Iceland to New York, from across the sweep of European and North American prehistory and history, explore the promise and challenges of events, the potent intersections of history and archaeology. Of special interest are the potential of events for better understanding volcanic disasters, the "Neolithic argonauts" of the western Mediterranean, Roman provincial archaeology, early Neolithic southern Britain, change during the Paleolithic era, the Iron Age Heuneburg Mud-brick Wall, colonial New York, and households.

Indispensable for historians, archaeologists, and those ethnohistorians and anthropologists working within a long-term historical framework, Eventful Archaeologies offers a more holistic and richly textured approach for comprehending cultural change.

Douglas J. Bolender is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Boston.