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Fragmentation in Archaeology revolutionises archaeological studies of material culture, by arguing that the deliberate physical fragmentation of objects, and their (often structured) deposition, lies at the core of the archaeology of the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Copper Age of Central and Eastern Europe. John Chapman draws on detailed evidence from the Balkans to explain such phenomena as the mass sherd deposition in pits and the wealth of artefacts found in the Varna cemetery to place the significance of fragmentation within a broad anthropological context.
This is a highly original work that attempts to take fragmentation studies further towards integrating archaeology, social anthropology and material culture, and concerns the relationship between whole objects and broken ones. The authors construct a new fragmentation premise and examine its implications for the Balkans in the Neolithic, using case studies taken from the Balkans and Greece. Key issues covered include a biographical method of considering objects and their relation to the creation of personhood; methodological issues of site formation; a questioning of the assumption that excavated data is a more or less accurate reflection of the operation of past social practices; and a discussion of what happened to pieces missing from an assemblage. It concludes by seeking to put Balkan prehistory back together again by looking at variations in social practices and the construction of personhood at different socio-spatial levels.
Explores the social significance of representation of the human body in Preclassic Mesoamerica.
This conspectus brings together in an accessible and systematic manner a dizzy array of archaeological cultures situated between several worlds.
The universe may well have begun with an immense act of fragmentation, "the big bang," that sent particles flying in all directions to perform spectacular acts of creation and destruction. The fragment, volatile and unpredictable, is not simply the static part of a once-whole thing but itself something in motion. Drawing upon art history, archaeology, literature, numismatics, philosophy, and film, this book explores the significance of the fragment and addresses the powerful drives that have impelled it into the cultural mainstream. Book jacket.
Outgrowth of a symposium at the 2006 Society for American Archaeology meetings in San Juan, and of a seminar at the Amerind Foundation. Cf. pref.
Miniature and fragmentary objects are both eye-catching and yet easily dismissed. Tiny scale entices users with visions of Lilliputian worlds. The ambiguity of fragments intrigues us, offering tactile reminders of reality's transience. Yet, the standard scholarly approach to such objects has been to see them as secondary, incomplete things, whose principal purpose was to refer to a complete and often life-size whole. The Tiny and the Fragmented offers a series of fresh perspectives on the familiar concepts of the tiny and the fragmented. Written by a prestigious group of internationally-acclaimed scholars, the volume presents a remarkable diversity of case studies that range from Neolithic Europe to pre-Colombian Honduras to the classical Mediterranean and ancient Near East. Each scholar takes a different approach to issues of miniaturization and fragmentation but is united in considering the little and broken things of the past as objects in their own right. Whether a life-size or whole thing is made in a scaled-down form, deliberately broken as part of its use, or only considered successful in the eyes of ancient users if it shows some signs of wear, it challenges our expectations of representation and wholeness, of what it means for a work of art to be "finished" and "affective." Overall, The Tiny and the Fragmented demands a reconsideration of the social and contextual nature of miniaturization, fragmentation, and incompleteness, making the case that it was because of, rather than in spite of, their small or partial state that these objects were valued parts of the personal and social worlds they inhabited.
This book surveys the archaeological record for stone tools from the earliest times to 6,500 years ago in the Near East.
The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, has made it his life's work to find out--and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago – amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago – many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. Hancock's research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient "New World" cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected "Old World" cultures. Have archaeologists focused for too long only on the "Old World" in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the "New World"? America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock's body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.
This Handbook reviews the state of mortuary archaeology and its practice with forty-four chapters focusing on the history of the discipline and its current scientific techniques and methods. Written by leading scholars in the field, it derives its examples and case studies from a wide range of time periods and geographical areas.