Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies

Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies
Author: Lynne Kelly
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2015-05-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107059372

In this book, Lynne Kelly explores the role of formal knowledge systems in small-scale oral cultures in both historic and archaeological contexts. In the first part, she examines knowledge systems within historically recorded oral cultures, showing how the link between power and the control of knowledge is established. Analyzing the material mnemonic devices used by documented oral cultures, she demonstrates how early societies maintained a vast corpus of pragmatic information concerning animal behavior, plant properties, navigation, astronomy, genealogies, laws and trade agreements, among other matters. In the second part Kelly turns to the archaeological record of three sites, Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point and Stonehenge, offering new insights into the purpose of the monuments and associated decorated objects. This book demonstrates how an understanding of rational intellect, pragmatic knowledge and mnemonic technologies in prehistoric societies offers a new tool for analysis of monumental structures built by non-literate cultures.

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory
Author: Brian Hayden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2018-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108426395

Secret societies in tribal societies turn out to be key to understanding the origins of social inequalities and state religions.

Ideology, Power and Prehistory

Ideology, Power and Prehistory
Author: Theoretical Archaeology Group (England). Conference
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1984-05-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780521255264

This book starts from the premise that methodology has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory.

The Memory Code

The Memory Code
Author: Lynne Kelly
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2017-02-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1681773821

In ancient, pre-literate cultures across the globe, tribal elders had encyclopedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across a landscape, identify the stars in the sky, and recite the history of their people. Yet today, most of us struggle to memorize more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian song lines as a starting point, Dr. Lynne Kelly has since identified the powerful memory technique used by our ancestors and indigenous people around the world. In turn, she has then discovered that this ancient memory technique is the secret purpose behind the great prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge, which have puzzled archaeologists for so long.The henges across northern Europe, the elaborate stone houses of New Mexico, huge animal shapes in Peru, the statues of Easter Island—these all serve as the most effective memory system ever invented by humans. They allowed people in non-literate cultures to memorize the vast amounts of information they needed to survive. But how?For the first time, Dr. Kelly unlocks the secret of these monuments and their uses as "memory places" in her fascinating book. Additionally, The Memory Code also explains how we can use this ancient mnemonic technique to train our minds in the tradition of our forbearers.

The Transition to Statehood in the New World

The Transition to Statehood in the New World
Author: Grant D. Jones
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 1981-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521240758

This 1982 collection of eight original anthropological essays provides an exciting synthesis of theory and practice in one of the key issues of contemporary cultural evolutionary thought. The contributors ask why complex, highly stratified societies emerged at several locations in the New World at the same point in prehistory. Focusing primarily on the initial centers of civilization in Mesoamerica and the Andean region, they consider the sociopolitical, environmental and ideological factors in state formation. The essays discuss the prehistoric conditions and processes that simulated the development of the first state-level societies in Mesoamerica and Peru, and explore the difficulties archaeologists must face in their direct analysis of physical remains. In general, the contributors recognize a growing need for better archaeological solutions to the question of state origin and for more sensitivity to the problems as well as to the possibilities of ethnographic analogy.

Women in Prehistory

Women in Prehistory
Author: Margaret R. Ehrenberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 1989
Genre: History
ISBN:

" "ocial attitudes in our culture have led to the assumption that early advances in human knowledge were the achievements of men; the role of women in prehistoric times has been largely overlooked. In this thought-provoking book, however, Margaret Ehrenberg argues that the true contribution of women especially in the discovery and development of agriculture was much greater than has been acknowledged to date. Examining the evidence from archaeological, anthropological, and classical documentary sources, Ehrenberg throws new light on the lives of women and their social status in Europe from the Palaeolithic era to the Iron Age. The relationship between the role of women and economic production is a central theme of this survey. In Bronze Age and Iron Age societies individual women are seen to be in positions of power. Although available evidence is fragmentary and often controversial, Ehrenberg shows how information can be gathered from skeletons and grave goods found in burials, from settlement sites, from rock carvings and sculpted figurines, as well as from anthropological parallels, to enable significant inferences to be drawn about the life of prehistoric women.

How Chiefs Come to Power

How Chiefs Come to Power
Author: Timothy K. Earle
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1997
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804728560

This book is basically about power-how people came to acquire it and the implications that contrasting paths to power had for the development of societies. Earle argues that chiefdoms, being a regional polity with governance over a population of a few thousand to tens of thousands of people, and with some social stratification, possessed the same fundamental dynamics as those of states, and that the origin of states is to be understood in the emergence and development of chiefdoms. His arguments are developed by three case studies-Denmark during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age (2300-1300) BC, the high Andes of Peru from the early chiefdoms through the Inka conquest (AD 500-1534), and Hawai'i from early settlement to its incorporation in the world economy (AD 800-1824). After summarizing the cultural history of the three societies over a thousand years, he considers the sources of chiefly power-the economy, military power and ideology-and how these sources were linked together.

First Knowledges Songlines

First Knowledges Songlines
Author: Margo Neale
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Australia
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1760761389

Let this series begin the discussion.' - Bruce Pascoe 'An act of intellectual reconciliation.' - Lynette Russell Songlines are an archive for powerful knowledges that ensured Australia's many Indigenous cultures flourished for over 60,000 years. Much more than a navigational path in the cartographic sense, these vast and robust stores of information are encoded through song, story, dance, art and ceremony, rather than simply recorded in writing. Weaving deeply personal storytelling with extensive research on mnemonics, Songlines: The Power and Promise offers unique insights into Indigenous traditional knowledges, how they apply today and how they could help all peoples thrive into the future. This book invites readers to understand a remarkable way for storing knowledge in memory by adapting song, art, and most importantly, Country, into their lives. About the series: The First Knowledges books are co-authored by Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia. Forthcoming titles include: Design by Alison Page & Paul Memmott (2021); Country by Bill Gammage & Bruce Pascoe (2021); Healing, Medicine & Plants (2022); Astronomy (2022); Innovation (2023).