Landscapes of Death: Early Bronze Age Tombs and Mortuary Rituals on the Oman Peninsula

Landscapes of Death: Early Bronze Age Tombs and Mortuary Rituals on the Oman Peninsula
Author: Kimberly D. Williams
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2024-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1803275308

This book provides a comprehensive and detailed review of the evidence for Early Bronze Age mortuary rituals on the Oman Peninsula, describing the research conducted, synthesizing the resulting data, and presenting a complete view of the state of knowledge on the topic.

Mortuary and Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Bronze Age Arabia

Mortuary and Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Bronze Age Arabia
Author: Kimberly D. Williams
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2019-05-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1683400933

This volume brings together expert s in archaeology and bioarchaeology to examine continuity and change in ancient Arabian mortuary practices. While most previous investigations have been limited geographically to Egypt and the Levant, this volume focuses on the lesser-studied southeastern Arabian Peninsula, showing what death and burial can reveal about the lifestyles of the region’s prehistoric communities. In case studies from Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain, contributors explore the transition from the earliest to the most complex mortuary monuments in the Bronze Age and beyond. They consider sociopolitical and environmental factors that may have influenced mortuary practices and what skeletal biogeochemistry can reveal about changing mobility and access to food resources. They also discuss sites that illustrate more nuanced shifts in burial traditions that took place during the evolution of the Hafit to the Umm an-Nar cultures, a period of transformation often neglected because the semi-nomadic lifestyle of this intermediary culture left behind a limited archaeological record. Burial patterns reveal a shift from cairns to communal tombs that offers new insight into the relationship between the mortuary landscape and the living, while the presence of animal bones interred with human remains embodies the significance of herd management as symbols of both territoriality and reproduction. By using skeletal remains as a rich source of scientific data that complements studies of burial context, this volume represents an important turning point for mortuary research in the region. Its novel interdisciplinary and international perspective provides a synthesis of new ideas and interpretations that will guide future archaeological research in Arabia and beyond. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen Contributors: Eugenio Bortolini | Charlotte Marie Cable | Guillaume Gernez | Jessica Giraud | Richard Thorburn Howard Cuttler | Aurea Izquierdo Zamora | Olivia Munoz | Jill A. Weber | Benjamin W. Porter | Alexis Boutin | Debra L. Martin | Kathryn M. Baustian | Anna J. Osterholz | Peter Magee

Megaliths of the World

Megaliths of the World
Author: Luc Laporte
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 1436
Release: 2022-08-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1803273216

Bringing together the latest research on megalithic monuments throughout the world, 150 researchers offer 72 articles, providing a region-by region account in their specialist areas, and a summary of the current state of knowledge. Highlighting salient themes, the book is vital to anyone interested in the phenomenon of megalithic monumentality.

Landscapes from Antiquity

Landscapes from Antiquity
Author: Simon Stoddart
Publisher:
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780953976201

This is the first volume of an exciting new project; Antiquity , drawing on its 75-year tradition of publishing articles of enduring value, has brought together twenty-four classic papers on a central archaeological theme. The papers have been selected to represent ancient and modern landscape approaches, organized into thematic sections: Early studies of Fox and Curwen, aerial photography of Bradford, Crawford and St Joseph, survey method, integrated regional landscapes, physical, industrial, contested and experienced landscapes. Each section is introduced with an overview and personal perspective by Simon Stoddart, the current editor of Antiquity . As he points out in the introduction, the editor of Antiquity has always drawn on the most exciting and relevant of current research. Consequently the frequency and content of landscape in Antiquity provides illuminating commentary on the definition and prominence of the theme landscape in archaeological research. Contents: Early studies of landscape: Prehistoric Cart-tracks in Malta ( T. Zammit ); Dykes ( Cyril Fox ); The Hebrides: a Cultural Backwater ( E. Cecil Curwen ); Native Settlements of Northumberland ( A. H. A. Hogg ). The impact of aerial photography: Woodbury. Two marvellous air-photographs ( O. G. S. Crawford ); Iron Age square enclosures in Rhineland ( K. V. Decker and I. Scollar ); Aerial reconnaissance in Picardy ( R. Agache ); Air reconnaissance: recent results ( J. K. St Joseph ). Survey method and analysis: Understanding early medieval pottery distributions ( A. J. Schofield ); Exploring the topography of the mind: GIS, social space and archaeology ( Marcos Llobera ). Integrated landscape archaeology: Neolithic settlement patterns at Avebury, Wiltshire ( Robin Holgate ); Stonehenge for the ancestors: the stones pass on the message ( M. Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina ); Aerial reconnaissance of the Fen Basin ( D. N. Riley ); The Fenland Project: from survey management and beyond ( John Coles and David Hall ); Siticulosa Apulia ( John Bradford and P. R. Williams-Hunt ); Archaeology and the Etruscan countryside ( Graeme Barker ). Physical landscapes: Active tectonics and land-use strategies: a Palaeolithic example from northwest Greece ( Geoff Bailey, Geoff King and Derek Sturdy ); A guide for archaeologists investigating Holocene landscapes ( A. J. Howard and M. G. Macklin ). Industrial landscapes: Trouble at t'mill: industrial archaeology in the 1980s ( C. M. Clark ); Towards an archaeology of navvy huts and settlements of the industrial revolution ( Michael Morris ). Contested landscapes: The Berlin Wall: production, preservation and consumption of a 20th-century monument ( Frederick Baker ); Seeing stars: character and identity in the landscapes of modern Macedonia ( Keith Brown ). Experienced landscapes: Forms of power: dimensions of an Irish megalithic landscape ( Jean McMann ); Late woodland landscapes of Wisconsin: ridges, fields, effigy mounds and territoriality ( William Gustav Gartner ).

The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes

The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes
Author: Bleda S. Düring
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107189705

This book examines the poorly understood transformations in rural landscapes and societies that formed the backbone of ancient empires.

The Archaeology of Prehistoric Arabia

The Archaeology of Prehistoric Arabia
Author: Peter Magee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2014-05-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1139991639

Encompassing a landmass greater than the rest of the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean combined, the Arabian peninsula remains one of the last great unexplored regions of the ancient world. This book provides the first extensive coverage of the archaeology of this region from c.9000 to 800 BC. Peter Magee argues that a unique social system, which relied on social cohesion and actively resisted the hierarchical structures of adjacent states, emerged during the Neolithic and continued to contour society for millennia later. The book also focuses on how the historical context in which Near Eastern archaeology was codified has led to a skewed understanding of the multiplicity of lifeways pursued by ancient peoples living throughout the Middle East.

Northern Archaeology and Cosmology

Northern Archaeology and Cosmology
Author: Vesa-Pekka Herva
Publisher:
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2019
Genre: Arctic regions
ISBN: 9781138358980

Introduction : northern exposure -- Stone-worlds -- Houses, land and soil -- Forests and hunting -- Coastal landscapes and the sea -- Boats and waterways -- River mouths and central places -- Birds and cosmology -- The sun, light and fire -- Epilogue.

Beyond Barrows

Beyond Barrows
Author: David R. Fontijn
Publisher: Sidestone Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 9088901082

Europe is dotted with tens of thousands of prehistoric barrows. In spite of their ubiquity, little is known on the role they had in pre- and protohistoric landscapes. In 2010, an international group of archaeologists came together at the conference of the European Association of Archaeologists in The Hague to discuss and review current research on this topic. This book presents the proceedings of that session. The focus is on the prehistory of Scandinavia and the Low Countries, but also includes an excursion to huge prehistoric mounds in the southeast of North America. One contribution presents new evidence on how the immediate environment of Neolithic Funnel Beaker (TRB) culture megaliths was ordered, another one discusses the role of remarkable single and double post alignments around Bronze and Iron Age burial mounds. Zooming out, several chapters deal with the place of barrows in the broader landscape. The significance of humanly-managed heath in relation to barrow groups is discussed, and one contribution emphasizes how barrow orderings not only reflect spatial organization, but are also important as conceptual anchors structuring prehistoric perception. Other authors, dealing with Early Neolithic persistent places and with Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age urnfields, argue that we should also look beyond monumentality in order to understand long-term use of "ritual landscapes". The book contains an important contribution by the well-known Swedish archaeologist Tore Artelius on how Bronze Age barrows were structurally re-used by pre-Christian Vikings. This is his last article, written briefly before his death. This book is dedicated to his memory. This publication is part of the Ancestral Mounds Research Project of the University of Leiden.

The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia

The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia
Author: Gonzalo Aranda Jimenez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2014-11-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317588908

After more than a century of research, an enormous body of scientific literature in the field of El Argar studies has been generated, comprising some 700 bibliographic items. No fully-updated synthesis of the literature is available at the moment; recent works deal only with specific characteristics of Argaric societies or some of the regions where their influence spread. The Archaeology of Bronze Age Iberia offers a much-needed, comprehensive overview of Argaric Bronze Age societies, based on state-of-the-art research. In addition to expounding on recent insights in such areas as Argaric origin and expansion, social practices, and socio-politics, the book offers reflections on current issues in the field, from questions concerning the genealogy of discourses on the subject, to matters related to professional practices. The book discusses the values and interests guiding the evolution of El Argar studies, while critically reexamining its history. Scholars and researchers in the fields of Prehistory and Archaeology will find this volume highly useful.

The Archaeology of South Asia

The Archaeology of South Asia
Author: Robin Coningham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 557
Release: 2015-08-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1316418987

This book offers a critical synthesis of the archaeology of South Asia from the Neolithic period (c.6500 BCE), when domestication began, to the spread of Buddhism accompanying the Mauryan Emperor Asoka's reign (third century BCE). The authors examine the growth and character of the Indus civilisation, with its town planning, sophisticated drainage systems, vast cities and international trade. They also consider the strong cultural links between the Indus civilisation and the second, later period of South Asian urbanism which began in the first millennium BCE and developed through the early first millennium CE. In addition to examining the evidence for emerging urban complexity, this book gives equal weight to interactions between rural and urban communities across South Asia and considers the critical roles played by rural areas in social and economic development. The authors explore how narratives of continuity and transformation have been formulated in analyses of South Asia's Prehistoric and Early Historic archaeological record.