New Light on the Most Ancient East
New Light on the Most Ancient East

Author: V. Gordon Childe

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-10-24

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1317606426

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This book offers a detailed survey on major archaeological discoveries in the Near and Middle East. This classic account focuses on the findings in three great centers of ancient civilization: Egypt, Sumer, and the Indus valley. Professor Childe discusses the excavation of the three cities of Mohenjo-daro and Chanhu-daro on the Indus and Harappa on the Ravi, and what these sites have revealed about Indian civilization in the third millennium B.C. He describes the findings at the numerous tells between Mesopotamia and the Indus basin, and in the three provinces of the Fertile Crescent; the succession of cultures in pre-dynastic Egypt and the rise of the Pharaohs; the findings at Ur and Kish and the development of an urban civilization in Mesopotamia. Throughout the text, the author sets forth the step-by-step gathering of precise archaeological evidence, relating these findings both to the context of their particular culture and to the larger context of the origins of European history.

The Archaeology of V. Gordon Childe
The Archaeology of V. Gordon Childe

Author: Vere Gordon Childe

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994-07

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 9780226317595

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Although V. Gordon Childe died 36 years ago, he remains the world's most renowned prehistorian. His What Happened in History, first published in 1942, is probably the most widely read book ever written by an archaeologist. His influence and reputation endure despite the fact that many of the theoretical ideas he propounded, as well as his interpretations of European and West Asian prehistory, have been profoundly modified, or even rejected, since his death. With contributions from such distinguished prehistorians as Kent V. Flannery, David Harris, Leo S. Klejn, John Mulvaney, Colin Renfrew, Michael Rowlands, and Bruce Trigger, The Archaeology of V. Gordon Childe is an attempt to evaluate Childe's achievement from different "partly national" perspectives and to assess how far, and why, his work remains significant today. The contributors examine such persistent themes in Childe's thought as the nature of culture and the role of diffusion in cultural evolution and debate the question of whether Childe anticipated "processual archaeology" in his famous models of the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions. Also included are evaluations of Childe's early career in Australia, his relations with Soviet archaeology, including a previously unknown letter from Childe to Soviet archaeologists, and his impact on American archaeology.

Archaeologists
Archaeologists

Author: Brian Fagan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2003-04-10

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0195119460

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Including eccentric professors and adventuring fortune hunters of old and highly trained scientists of today, Archaeologists collects together biographies of more than 30 archaeologists of the past two centuries. In the process, Archaeologists presents an engaging portrait of how digging for treasure evolved into the respected and vital science we know today. Some of the archaeologists profiled include:* Giovanni Belzoni, the 19th-century archaeologist who brought the head of Ramesses II back to England* Heinrich Schliemann, the modern discoverer of prehistoric Greece whose excavations included Mycenae and the ancient city of Troy* Howard Carter, who discovered King Tut's tomb* Mary and Louis Leakey, whose discovery of humanoid fossils placed human evolution's beginning in AfricaFrom the romance of golden pharaohs and lost civilizations to computers, tree ring dating, and numerous other scientific methods, Archaeologists is a fascinating look at the explorers of the human past.

Archaeological Thought in America
Archaeological Thought in America

Author: C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780521406437

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American archaeology today encompasses a huge range of approaches and draws eclectically on a multitude of academic disciplines. Until now, however, there has been no book seeking to separate the main strands and traditions of research and present a rounded picture of American archaeological thought in all its diversity. The seventeen essays in Archaeological Thought in America describe recent theoretical advances and present substantive interpretations of prehistoric data drawn from a variety of cultures and time-frames, including Mesoamerica, Central Asia, India and China. The contributors include many of the leading North American archaeologists of this generation.

A Central Asian Village at the Dawn of Civilization
A Central Asian Village at the Dawn of Civilization

Author: Fredrik Hiebert

Publisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology

Published: 2003-03-31

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9781931707503

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This integration of earlier and new scholarship reconceptualizes the origins of civilization, challenging the received view that the ancient Near East spawned the spread of civilization outward from Mesopotamia to all other neighboring cultures. Central Asia is here shown to have been a major player in the development of cities. Skillfully documenting the different phases of both Soviet and earlier Western external analyses along with recent excavation results, this new interpretation reveals Central Asia's role in the socioeconomic and political processes linked to both the Iranian Plateau and the Indus Valley, showing how it contributed substantively to the origins of urbanism in the Old World. Hiebert's research at Anau and his focus on the Chalcolithic levels provide an essential starting point for understanding both the nature of village life and the historical trajectories that resulted in Bronze Age urbanism.