Archaeologies of Complexity

Archaeologies of Complexity

Author: Robert Chapman

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780415273077

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Robert Chapman addresses the nature of contemporary archaeology and the study of social change, and debates the transition from perceived simple, egalitarian societies to our complex modern world.


The Prehistory of Iberia

The Prehistory of Iberia

Author: María Cruz Berrocal

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0415885922

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This volume advances the archaeological study of social organisation in Prehistory, and more specifically the rise of social complexity in European Prehistory. Within the wider context of world Prehistory, in the last 30 years the subject of early social stratification and state formation has been a key subject on interest in Iberian Prehistory. This book illustrates the differing forms of resistances, the interplay between change and continuity, the multiple paths to and from social complexity, and the 'failures' of states to form in Prehistory. Focusing on Iberia, but with a permanent connection to the wider geographical framework, this book presents, for the first time, a chronologically comprehensive, up-to-date approach to the issue of state formation in prehistoric Europe.


From Leaders to Rulers

From Leaders to Rulers

Author: Jonathan Haas

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1461512972

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What is the role of leadership in society? Why do people surrender their political autonomy to the decision-making authority of leaders and rulers? Why do people follow the commands of their leaders? Who gets to be king/chief/emperor and why? Why are some societies centralized while others are not? The papers in this volume draw on the archaeological record of societies from around the world to address these critical issues in contemporary social science.


Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World

Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World

Author: Valentino Gasparini

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-04-06

Total Pages: 622

ISBN-13: 3110557940

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The Lived Ancient Religion project has radically changed perspectives on ancient religions and their supposedly personal or public character. This volume applies and further develops these methodological tools, new perspectives and new questions. The religious transformations of the Roman Imperial period appear in new light and more nuances by comparative confrontation and the integration of many disciplines. The contributions are written by specialists from a variety of disciplinary contexts (Jewish Studies, Theology, Classics, Early Christian Studies) dealing with the history of religion of the Mediterranean, West-Asian, and European area from the (late) Hellenistic period to the (early) Middle Ages and shaped by their intensive exchange. From the point of view of their respective fields of research, the contributors engage with discourses on agency, embodiment, appropriation and experience. They present innovative research in four fields also of theoretical debate, which are “Experiencing the Religious”, “Switching the Code”, „A Thing Called Body“ and “Commemorating the Moment”.


Celtic from the West 3

Celtic from the West 3

Author: John T. Koch

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2016-09-01

Total Pages: 551

ISBN-13: 1785702300

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The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. ‘Celts’) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Age. The impetus for this book is to explore from the perspectives of three disciplines—archaeology, genetics, and linguistics—the background in later European prehistory to these developments. There is a traditional scenario, according to which, Celtic speech and the associated group identity came in to being during the Early Iron Age in the north Alpine zone and then rapidly spread across central and western Europe. This idea of ‘Celtogenesis’ remains deeply entrenched in scholarly and popular thought. But it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with recent discoveries pointing towards origins in the deeper past. It should no longer be taken for granted that Atlantic Europe during the 2nd and 3rd millennia BC were pre-Celtic or even pre-Indo-European. The explorations in Celtic from the West 3 are drawn together in this spirit, continuing two earlier volumes in the influential series.


Heraldry for the Dead

Heraldry for the Dead

Author: Katina T. Lillios

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0292778104

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In the late 1800s, archaeologists began discovering engraved stone plaques in Neolithic (3500-2500 BC) graves in southern Portugal and Spain. About the size of one's palm, usually made of slate, and incised with geometric or, more rarely, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic designs, these plaques have mystified generations of researchers. What do their symbols signify? How were the plaques produced? Were they worn during an individual's lifetime, or only made at the time of their death? Why, indeed, were the plaques made at all? Employing an eclectic range of theoretical and methodological lenses, Katina Lillios surveys all that is currently known about the Iberian engraved stone plaques and advances her own carefully considered hypotheses about their manufacture and meanings. After analyzing data on the plaques' workmanship and distribution, she builds a convincing case that the majority of the Iberian plaques were genealogical records of the dead that served as durable markers of regional and local group identities. Such records, she argues, would have contributed toward legitimating and perpetuating an ideology of inherited social difference in the Iberian Late Neolithic.


Time and Stone: The Emergence and Development of Megaliths and Megalithic Societies in Europe

Time and Stone: The Emergence and Development of Megaliths and Megalithic Societies in Europe

Author: Bettina Schulz Paulsson

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1784916862

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This analysis is concerned with the dating of megaliths in Europe and is based on 2410 available radiocarbon results and the application of a Bayesian statistical framework. It is, so far, the largest existing attempt to establish a supra-regional synthesis on the emergence and development of megaliths in Europe.


The Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula

The Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula

Author: Katina T. Lillios

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-12-05

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1107113342

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One of the only guides to the prehistoric archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula that engages with key anthropological and archaeological debates.


Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC

Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC

Author: Thomas Hugh Moore

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13: 0199567956

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This volume of 33 papers on the Atlantic region of Western Europe in the first millennium BC reflects a diverse range of theoretical approaches, techniques, and methodologies across current research, and is an opportunity to compare approaches to the first millennium BC from different national and theoretical perspectives.