Unit Issues in Archaeology

Unit Issues in Archaeology
Author: Ann Felice Ramenofsky
Publisher: University of Utah Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1998
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780874805482

This volume emphasizes one aspect of scientific method: units of measure and their construction as applied to archaeology. Attributes, artifact classes, locational designations, temporal periods, sampling universes, culture stages, and geographic regions are all examples of constructed units.

Key Concepts in Public Archaeology

Key Concepts in Public Archaeology
Author: Gabriel Moshenska
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1911576445

This book provides a broad overview of the key concepts in public archaeology, a research field that examines the relationship between archaeology and the public, in both theoretical and practical terms. While based on the long-standing programme of undergraduate and graduate teaching in public archaeology at UCL’s renowned Institute of Archaeology, the book also takes into account the growth of scholarship from around the world and seeks to clarify what exactly ‘public archaeology’ is by promoting an inclusive, socially and politically engaged vision of the discipline. Written for students and practitioners, the individual chapters provide textbook-level introductions to the themes, theories and controversies that connect archaeology to wider society, from the trade in illicit antiquities to the use of digital media in public engagement, and point readers to the most relevant case studies and learning resources to aid their further study. This book was produced as part of JISC's Institution as e-Textbook Publisher project. Find out more at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/institution-as-e-textbook-publisher Praise for Key Concepts in Archaeology 'Littered throughout with concise and well-chosen case studies, Key Concepts in Public Archaeology could become essential reading for undergraduates and is a welcome reminder of where archaeology sits in UK society today.' British Archaeology

Handheld XRF for Art and Archaeology

Handheld XRF for Art and Archaeology
Author: Aaron N. Shugar
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2012
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9058679071

This volume focuses specifically on the applications, possibilities, and limitations of handheld X-ray fluorescence devices in art conservation and archaeology.

The Archaeology Coursebook

The Archaeology Coursebook
Author: Jim Grant
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 477
Release: 2008-06-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 113404190X

This fully updated and revised edition of the best-selling title The Archaeology Coursebook is a guide for students studying archaeology for the first time. Including new methods and case studies in this third edition, it provides pre-university students and teachers, as well as undergraduates and enthusiasts, with the skills and technical concepts necessary to grasp the subject. The Archaeology Coursebook: introduces the most commonly examined archaeological methods, concepts, and themes, and provides the necessary skills to understand them explains how to interpret the material students may meet in examinations and how to succeed with different types of assignments and exam questions supports study with case studies, key sites, key terms, tasks and skills development illustrates concepts and commentary with over 300 photos and drawings of excavation sites, methodology and processes, tools and equipment links from its own website at www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415462860 to other key websites in archaeology at the right level contains new material on "Issues in Modern Archaeology", "Sites and People in the Landscape" and "People and Society in the Past", new case studies, methods, examples, boxes, photographs and diagrams; as well as updates on examination changes for pre-university students. This is definitely a book no archaeology student should be without.

The Archaeology of Island Colonization

The Archaeology of Island Colonization
Author: Matthew F. Napolitano
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2021-05-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813057787

This volume details how new theories and methods have recently advanced the archaeological study of initial human colonization of islands around the world, including in the southwest Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. This global perspective brings into comparison the wide variety of approaches used to study these early migrations and illuminates current debates in island archaeology. Evidence of island colonization is often difficult to find, especially in areas impacted by sea-level rise, and these essays demonstrate how researchers have tackled this and other issues. Contributors show the potential of computer simulations of voyaging in determining the range of timing and origin points that were possible in the past. They discuss how Bayesian modeling helps address uncertainties and controversies surrounding radiocarbon dating. Additionally, advances in biomolecular techniques such as ancient DNA (aDNA), paleoproteomics, analysis of human microbiota, and improved resolution in isotopic analyses are providing more refined information on the homelands of initial settlers, on individual life courses, and on population-level migrations. Islands offer rich opportunities to examine the exploratory nature of the human species, providing insights into the evolution of watercraft technologies and wayfinding, the impact of humans on their new environments, and the motivations for their journeys. The Archaeology of Island Colonization represents the innovative ways today’s archaeologists are reconstructing these unique paleolandscapes. Contributors: Nasullah Aziz | David Ball | Todd J. Braje | Richard Callaghan | John F. Cherry | Ethan Cochrane | Robert J. DiNapoli | Andrew Dugmore | Jon M. Erlandson | Scott M. Fitzpatrick | Amy E. Gusick | Derek Hamilton | Terry L. Hunt | Thomas P. Leppard | Carl P. Lipo | Jillian Maloney | Matthew F. Napolitano | Anthony Newton | Maria A. Nieves-Colón | Rintaro Ono | Adhi Agus Oktaviana | Timothy Rieth | Curtis Runnels | Magdalena M.E. Schmid | Alexander J. Smith | Harry Octavianus Sofian | Sriwigati | Jessica H. Stone | Orri Vésteinsson A volume in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by Victor D. Thompson

Processual Archaeology

Processual Archaeology
Author: Amber Johnson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2004-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 031302779X

Processual archaeologists seek to explain variability in the static archaeological record we observe in the present as a necessary first step toward learning how to learn about the operation of cultural dynamics in the past. The approach is a diverse and productive one that focuses on developing learning strategies. Researchers pursuing processual archaeology have already discovered a great deal about the archaeological record and about past dynamics, and there is a huge potential for building on the foundation laid thus far. The contributors to this volume provide clearly written research articles that are easily accessible to upper-level undergraduates and professional archaeologists. Although the papers do not focus on a single region, time period, or domain of observation (e.g. settlement patterns or lithics or site structure), they are integrated by shared goals for archaeology. This book clearly demonstrates that processual archaeology, far from having been replaced by post-processual archaeology, is becoming more and more powerful as our analytic sophistication and knowledge of the archaeological record grow.

International Handbook of Historical Archaeology

International Handbook of Historical Archaeology
Author: Teresita Majewski
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 689
Release: 2009-06-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0387720715

In studying the past, archaeologists have focused on the material remains of our ancestors. Prehistorians generally have only artifacts to study and rely on the diverse material record for their understanding of past societies and their behavior. Those involved in studying historically documented cultures not only have extensive material remains but also contemporary texts, images, and a range of investigative technologies to enable them to build a broader and more reflexive picture of how past societies, communities, and individuals operated and behaved. Increasingly, historical archaeology refers not to a particular period, place, or a method, but rather an approach that interrogates the tensions between artifacts and texts irrespective of context. In short, historical archaeology provides direct evidence for how humans have shaped the world we live in today. Historical archaeology is a branch of global archaeology that has grown in the last 40 years from its North American base into an increasingly global community of archaeologists each studying their area of the world in a historical context. Where historical archaeology started as part of the study of the post-Columbian societies of the United States and Canada, it has now expanded to interface with the post-medieval archaeologies of Europe and the diverse post-imperial experiences of Africa, Latin America, and Australasia. The 36 essays in the International Handbook of Historical Archaeology have been specially commissioned from the leading researchers in their fields, creating a wide-ranging digest of the increasingly global field of historical archaeology. The volume is divided into two sections, the first reviewing the key themes, issues, and approaches of historical archaeology today, and the second containing a series of case studies charting the development and current state of historical archaeological practice around the world. This key reference work captures the energy and diversity of this global discipline today.

Applying Evolutionary Archaeology

Applying Evolutionary Archaeology
Author: Michael J. O'Brien
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2007-05-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0306474689

Anthropology, and by extension archaeology, has had a long-standing interest in evolution in one or several of its various guises. Pick up any lengthy treatise on humankind written in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the chances are good that the word evolution will appear somewhere in the text. If for some reason the word itself is absent, the odds are excellent that at least the concept of change over time will have a central role in the discussion. After one of the preeminent (and often vilified) social scientists of the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer, popularized the term in the 1850s, evolution became more or less a household word, usually being used synonymously with change, albeit change over extended periods of time. Later, through the writings of Edward Burnett Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, and others, the notion of evolution as it applies to stages of social and political development assumed a prominent position in anthropological disc- sions. To those with only a passing knowledge of American anthropology, it often appears that evolutionism in the early twentieth century went into a decline at the hands of Franz Boas and those of similar outlook, often termed particularists. However, it was not evolutionism that was under attack but rather comparativism— an approach that used the ethnographic present as a key to understanding how and why past peoples lived the way they did (Boas 1896).

The Archaeology and History of Pueblo San Marcos

The Archaeology and History of Pueblo San Marcos
Author: Ann F. Ramenofsky
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2017-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0826358357

San Marcos, one of the largest late prehistoric Pueblo settlements along the Rio Grande, was a significant social, political, and economic hub both before Spanish colonization and through the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. This volume provides the definitive record of a decade of archaeological investigations at San Marcos, ancestral home to Kewa (formerly Santo Domingo) and Cochiti descendants. The contributors address archaeological and historical background, artifact analysis, and population history. They explore possible changes in Pueblo social organization, examine population changes during the occupation, and delineate aspects of Pueblo/Spanish interaction that occur with Spaniards’ intrusion into the colony and especially the Galisteo Basin. Highlights include historical context, in-depth consideration of archaeological field and laboratory methods, compositional and stylistic analyses of the famed glaze-paint ceramics, analysis of flaked stone that includes obsidian hydration dating, and discussion of the beginnings of colonial metallurgy and protohistoric Pueblo population change.