Archaeology History And Biosciences

New scientific methods offer new insights in the past. Promising opportunities for archaeology and historiography are confronted with the challenges of interdisciplinary cooperation between the sciences and the humanities. This volume presents contributions by European researchers, arranged in four sections: fundamental questions of archaeology and biosciences, migrations, transformations, and social structures.

Rarely do archaeological studies provide critical consideration of how historical, archaeological, and scientific data relate to each other, or explicit attempts at demonstrating successful strategies for these kinds of interdisciplinary research. The authors in this volume provide such a critical consideration, examining a wide range of cultures, time periods, and materials.

The Working Papers of Hugo Grotius is the first full-length study of the handwritten documents initially used by the author of Mare Liberum (1609) and De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625) in his day-to-day activities as a scholar, lawyer, and politician, but subsequently incorporated into his own or other archives. Martine van Ittersum reconstructs a process of transmission, dispersal, and loss that started during Grotius’ lifetime and ended with the papers’ auction in 1864. This is also a study of archival afterlives. Our understanding of Grotius’ life and work is shaped by the conscious decisions of previous generations to retain or discard documents, frequently for the sake of individual lives and careers, family honour and/or larger political and religious ends.

Any reader of scholarship on the ancient and early medieval world will be familiar with the term 'Germanic', which is frequently used as a linguistic category, ethnonym, or descriptive identifier for a range of forms of cultural and literary material. But is the term meaningful, useful, or legitimate? The term, frequently applied to peoples, languages, and material culture found in non-Roman north-western and central Europe in classical antiquity, and to these phenomena in the western Roman Empire’s successor states, is often treated as a legitimate, all-encompassing name for the culture of these regions. Its usage is sometimes intended to suggest a shared social identity or ethnic affinity among those who produce these phenomena. Yet, despite decades of critical commentary that have highlighted substantial problems, its dominance of scholarship appears not to have been challenged. This edited volume, which offers contributions ranging from literary and linguistic studies to archaeology, and which span from the first to the sixteenth centuries AD, examines why the term remains so pervasive despite its problems, offering a range of alternative interpretative perspectives on the late and post-Roman worlds.

With state-of-the-art contributions by scholars who are leaders in their respective fields, this edition describes how the integration of natural and human archives is changing the entire historical enterprise.

The biology of people in the past - individuals, families and populations - is an intriguing and rapidly expanding field of historical study. Recent developments in the analysis of biological material can now be applied to historical specimens to reveal the activities and environments of individuals who lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago. This book explores the interface between human biology and history, bringing together historians, biological anthropologists and archaeologists who share a common concern with the interpretation of the biology of historical and prehistoric people. It illustrates how questions about the past formulated by historians and others in the pursuit of their own interests can be illuminated by the application of biological theories and methods. A broad range of themes is covered, from survival and reproduction to the evidence for environmental and nutritional effects on growth the development and the structure and mobility of past populations. This unique interfacing of human biology and history presents fresh and engaging perspectives to students, teachers and researchers in the fields of human biology, anthropology, archaeology and history. It provides an audit of the many areas in which these subjects inform each other and will foster the wider understanding of science in the humanities by demonstrating the value of applying scientific techniques and inferences to the historical discourse. Book jacket.

This book provides a short, readable introduction to historical archaeology, which focuses on modern history in all its fascinating regional, cultural, and ethnic diversity. Accessibly covering key methods and concepts, including fundamental theories and principles, the history of the field, and basic definitions, Historical Archaeology also includes a practical look at career prospects for interested readers. Orser discusses central topics of archaeological research such as time and space, survey and excavation methods, and analytical techniques, encouraging readers to consider the possible meanings of artifacts. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience as an historical archaeologist, the book’s perspective ranges from the local to the global in order to demonstrate the real importance of this subject to our understanding of the world in which we live today. The third edition of this popular textbook has been significantly revised and expanded to reflect recent developments and discoveries in this exciting area of study. Each chapter includes updated case studies which demonstrate the research conducted by professional historical archaeologists. With its engaging approach to the subject, Historical Archaeology continues to be an ideal resource for readers who wish to be introduced to this rapidly expanding global field.

This short account of the discipline of archaeology tells of spectacular discoveries and the colorful lives of the archaeologists who made them, as well as of changing theories and current debates in the field. Spanning over two thousand years of history, the book details early digs as well as covering the development of archaeology as a multidisciplinary science, the modernization of meticulous excavation methods during the twentieth century, and the important discoveries that led to new ideas about the evolution of human societies. A Brief History of Archaeology is a vivid narrative that will engage readers who are new to the discipline, drawing on the authors’ extensive experience in the field and classroom. Early research at Stonehenge in Britain, burial mound excavations, and the exploration of Herculaneum and Pompeii culminate in the nineteenth century debates over human antiquity and the theory of evolution. The book then moves on to the discovery of the world’s pre-industrial civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Central America, the excavations at Troy and Mycenae, the Royal Burials at Ur, Iraq, and the dramatic finding of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. The book concludes by considering recent sensational discoveries, such as the Lords of Sipán in Peru, and exploring the debates over processual and postprocessual theory which have intrigued archaeologists in the early 21st century. The second edition updates this respected introduction to one of the sciences’ most fascinating disciplines.