The Past In Perspective

Ideal for introduction to archaeology and world prehistory courses, The Past in Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory, Fifth Edition, is an engaging and up-to-date chronological introduction to human prehistory. Kenneth L. Feder introduces students to "the big picture"--the grand sweep of human evolutionary history--presenting the human past within the context of fundamental themes of cultural evolution. Written in a refreshingly accessible voice, this narrative of human prehistory personalizes the past and makes it relevant to today's students. Using a consistent chapter format--Prelude, Chronicle, Issues and Debates, and Case Study Close-up--Feder helps students master both what we know and what is still being debated about the complex story of the human past. Each chapter also includes an overview; a timeline of events, maps pinpointing locations of sites discussed, site lists with page references, a chapter summary, key terms (defined in the glossary at the back of the book), and suggested reading lists. New to This Edition * Updated information about early hominin finds, including Ardipithecus (Chapter 3), Homo floresiensis (Chapter 4), Sima del Elefante Cave in Spain (Chapter 4), the reconstruction of the Neandertal genome (Chapter 5), and the spectacular array of artifacts recovered at Hohle Fels Cave in Germany (Chapter 6) * New information on methodology, such as strontium isotype analysis for tracing geographic sources (Chapter 2), molecular archaeology (Chapter 5), and forensics (Chapter 1) * New information and a summary that updates our understanding of the peopling of the Americas and Australia (Chapter 7) * New chapter (8) "After the Ice: The Food-Producing Revolution"--a combined and streamlined version of Chapters 8 and 9 of the Fourth Edition--with new information about China and the domestication of the horse, as well as the complex at Gobeckli Tepe in Turkey * New information on the Olmec and the recent excavation at Stonehenge (Chapter 9) * A reorganization and updating of Chapters 10 and 11, with significant new material on China * A greatly expanded discussion of the roots of complexity in Mesoamerica, South America, aboriginal North America, and sub-Saharan Africa (Chapters 12-14)

An engaging and up-to-date chronological introduction to human prehistory, this text introduces students to the big picture of human evolutionary history, presenting the human past within the context of fundamental themes of cultural evolution.

Previously published as: Nine lives (and counting).

Ideal for Introduction to Archaeology and World Prehistory courses, and geared toward students with little-to-no previous coursework in the subject area, The Past in Perspective, Fourth Edition is an engaging, up-to-date, chronological introduction to human prehistory. Written in a conversational, appealing tone, Ken Feder introduces students to "the big picture"-the grand sweep of human evolutionary history, presenting the human past within the context of a series of fundamental themes of cultural evolution. His is a captivatingly written narrative of the trajectories of human development-and the fascinating processes employed to reveal those trajectories.

This volume takes a more comprehensive view of past familial dynamics than has been previously attempted. By applying interdisciplinary perspectives to periods ranging from the Prehistoric to the Modern, it informs a wider understanding of the term family, and the implications of family dynamics for children and their social networks in the past. Contributors drawn from across the humanities and social sciences present research addressing three primary themes: modes of kinship and familial structure, the convergence and divergence between the idealised image and realities of family life, and the provision of care within families. These themes are interconnected, as the idea and image of family shapes familial structure, which in turn defines the type of care and protection that families provide to their members. The papers in this volume provide new research to challenge assumptions and provoke new ways of thinking about past families as functionally adaptive, socially connected, and ideologically powerful units of society, just as they are in the present. A broad focus on the networks created by familial units also allows the experiences of historically underrepresented women and children to be highlighted in a way that underlines their interconnectedness with all members of past societies. The Family in Past Perspective builds a much-needed bridge across disciplinary boundaries. The wide scope of the book hmakes important contributions, and informs fields ranging from bioarchaeology to women's history and childhood studies.

This book brings together archeologists, historians, psychologists, and educators from different countries and academic traditions to address the many ways that we tell children about the (distant) past. Knowing the past is fundamentally important for human societies, as well as for individual development. The authors expose many unquestioned assumptions and preformed images in narratives of the past that are routinely presented to children. The contributors both examine the ways in which children come to grips with the past and critically assess the many ways in which contemporary societies and an increasing number of commercial agents construct and use the past.

Are countries truly reconciled after successful conflict resolution? Are only resource-rich regions capable of reconciliation, while supposedly resource-poor ones are condemned to recurring conflicts? This book examines the availability of various resources for political reconciliation, and explores how they are utilized in overcoming particular obstacles during the process. While the existing literature focus on themes such as justice, apology and resentment, the analysis here is centered on intellectual resources in terms of ideas, memory cultures, master narratives, economic incentives, civil society initiatives and object lessons. The research and comparative research in this volume are conducted by renowned regional experts from South Africa to the Asia-Pacific, thus providing multidisciplinary perspectives and new insight on the subject.

In this comprehensive and engaging volume, medical historian Jonathan Reinarz offers a historiography of smell from ancient to modern times. Synthesizing existing scholarship in the field, he shows how people have relied on their olfactory sense to understand and engage with both their immediate environments and wider corporal and spiritual worlds. This broad survey demonstrates how each community or commodity possesses, or has been thought to possess, its own peculiar scent. Through the meanings associated with smells, osmologies develop--what cultural anthropologists have termed the systems that utilize smells to classify people and objects in ways that define their relations to each other and their relative values within a particular culture. European Christians, for instance, relied on their noses to differentiate Christians from heathens, whites from people of color, women from men, virgins from harlots, artisans from aristocracy, and pollution from perfume. This reliance on smell was not limited to the global North. Around the world, Reinarz shows, people used scents to signify individual and group identity in a morally constructed universe where the good smelled pleasant and their opposites reeked. With chapters including "Heavenly Scents," "Fragrant Lucre," and "Odorous Others," Reinarz's timely survey is a useful and entertaining look at the history of one of our most important but least-understood senses.