Rich case studies examining responses to climatic events in ancient Europe and the Near East.
The subject of climate change could hardly be more timely. In Climate and Cultural Change in Prehistoric Europe and the Near East, an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine climate change through the lens of new archaeological and paleo-environmental data over the course of more than 10,000 years from the Near East to E...(Read More)
Diversity of Sacrifice
(June 2016)
Form and Function of Sacrificial Practices in the Ancient World and Beyond Carrie Ann Murray - Editor
Explores sacrificial practices across a range of contexts from prehistory to the present.
The term "sacrifice" belies what is a complex and varied transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon. Bringing together scholars from such diverse fields as anthropology, archaeology, epigraphy, literature, and theology, Diversity of Sacrifice explores sacrificial practices across a range of contexts from p...(Read More)
The Archaeology of Childhood
(December 2015)
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on an Archaeological Enigma Güner Coşkunsu - Editor
Critical interdisciplinary examination of archaeology’s approach to childhood in prehistory.
Children existed in ancient times as active participants in the societies in which they lived and the cultures they belonged to. Despite their various roles, and in spite of the demographic composition of ancient societies where children comprised a large percentage of the population, children are almost completely missing in...(Read More)
Buried Ideas
(November 2015)
Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts Sarah Allan - Author
Four Warring States texts discovered during recent decades challenge longstanding understandings of Chinese intellectual history.
The discovery of previously unknown philosophical texts from the Axial Age is revolutionizing our understanding of Chinese intellectual history. Buried Ideas presents and discusses four texts found on brush-written slips of bamboo and their seemin...(Read More)
Interdisciplinary study of monumental art and architecture in human history.
Monumentality is a human phenomenon that has occurred in nearly all times and places. Because of its ubiquity, monumentality is something that has been studied by a large number of disciplines and individuals. Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology explores the phenomenon of monumental art and architecture from humankind&rsquo...(Read More)
The Dream on the Rock
(December 2013)
Visions of Prehistory Fulvio Gosso - Author Peter Webster - Author
Examines the relationship between rock art, shamanism, and the origins of human existence.
The Dream on the Rock takes an interdisciplinary approach to contextualizing and historicizing the phenomenon of shamanism from the Neolithic Age until the beginning of the Iron Age. Fulvio Gosso and Peter Webster argue that rock art and other ancient materials provide a glimpse of the fundamental role played by nonord...(Read More)
Interdisciplinary study of the role of violence in the Mediterranean and Europe.
The Archaeology of Violence is an interdisciplinary consideration of the role of violence in social-cultural and sociopolitical contexts. The volume draws on the work of archaeologists, anthropologists, classicists, and art historians, all of whom have an interest in understanding the role of violence in their respective sp...(Read More)
A wide-ranging exploration of traditional Chinese views of mortality. Mortality in Traditional Chinese Thought is the definitive exploration of a complex and fascinating but little-understood subject. Arguably, death as a concept has not been nearly as central a preoccupation in Chinese culture as it has been in the West. However, even in a society that seems to understand death as a part of life, responses to mortality ...(Read More)
Eventful Archaeologies
(September 2010)
New Approaches to Social Transformation in the Archaeological Record Douglas J. Bolender - Editor
The potential of events for interpreting changes in the archaeological record.
What is the role of historical 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?
The Magdalenian Household
(September 2010)
Unraveling Domesticity Ezra B. W. Zubrow - Editor Françoise Audouze - Editor James G. Enloe - Editor
A comprehensive investigation of household life during the Upper Paleolithic era.
What was home and family like in Paleolithic Europe? How did mobile hunter-gatherer families live, work, and play together in the fourteenth millennium BP? What were the functional and spatial constraints and markers of their domesticity—the processes that create and sustain a household?