VOLUME 1:ARCHEOLOGY, MIGRATION AND NOMADISM, LINGUISTICS:INTRODUCTION:ARCHEOLOGY:MIGRATION AND NOMADISM:LINGUISTICS:*VOLUME 2:GENETICS AND PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY:METALLURGY:TEXTILES:GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATOLOGY:HISTORY:MYTHOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY:CONCLUSION:APPENDIX:ISBN inclusive of both Volumes
One of the least known but culturally rich and complex regions located at the heart of Asia, Xinjiang was a hub for the Silk Roads, serving international links between cultures to the west, east, north and south. Trade, artefacts, foods, technologies, ideas, beliefs, animals and people traversed the glacier covered mountain and desert boundaries.
Twenty-six leading scholars from around the world have come together to celebrate the strengths, the energies and the sheer intellectual excitement of their discipline. They unashamedly proclaim that over the last hundred years archaeology has transformed itself from a genteel antiquarianpursuit, deeply rooted in the classical tradition, to a rigorous and demanding discipline, spanning the humanities and the sciences, yet at the same time one widely accessible to the public at large. The contributors show how our understanding of the past has changed, reveal the exciting ideas under current debate, and offer their visions of the future.The result is a remarkable overview of world archaeology, focusing on new and unexpected themes at the cutting edge of the discipline.
The art of metal casting was imported into Indonesia, but its peoples mastered the secrets of metallurgy, and applied these, in ways often original and unique, to create their own distinctive civilisation of the Bronze-Iron Age. In this handbook, which is a sequal to my The Stone Age of Indo nesia, I have endeavoured to assemble a comprehensive picture of the Indonesian Bronze-Iron Age from the results of excavations, innumerable stray finds in museums, and various studies scattered among numerous scientific journals and periodicals (often difficult to obtain). The resulting picture can, of course, be a tentative one only, valid until many more scientific excavations have taken place. I have added a bibliography, as complete as it was possible to assemble. The completion of this summary of the Prehistory of Indonesia has been assisted by a grant-in-aid from the Wenner Gren Foundation "The Viking Fund", New York. I am grateful to Mr. Basoeki and Mr. Soebokastowo for the drawings of Figures 1, 11, 12, 13, 22 and 16, 23, 24, 25 respectively. Figures 2-10 and 15 were drawn by the well-known artist, the late Mas Pirngadie, and are here published for the first time, with the generous permission of the Board of Directors of the "Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen", Djakarta. I am deeply grateful to my brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Reiseger of Kempston, Bedfordshire, for so willingly undertaking the translation of the Dutch text into English.
An epic account of the rise and fall of the Silk Road empires The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the Old World from the perspective of Central Eurasia, Beckwith provides a new understanding of the internal and external dynamics of the Central Eurasian states and shows how their people repeatedly revolutionized Eurasian civilization. Beckwith recounts the Indo-Europeans' migration out of Central Eurasia, their mixture with local peoples, and the resulting development of the Graeco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations; he details the basis for the thriving economy of premodern Central Eurasia, the economy's disintegration following the region's partition by the Chinese and Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the damaging of Central Eurasian culture by Modernism; and he discusses the significance for world history of the partial reemergence of Central Eurasian nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Empires of the Silk Road places Central Eurasia within a world historical framework and demonstrates why the region is central to understanding the history of civilization.
The book compiles a portion of the contributions presented during the symposium “Urbanisation, commerce, subsistence and production during the third millennium BC on the Iranian Plateau”, which took place at the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée in Lyon, the 29-30 of April, 2014. The twenty papers assembled provide an overview of the recent archaeological research on this region of the Middle East during the Bronze Age. The socio-economic transformation from rural villages to towns and nations has prompted many questions into this evolution of urbanisation. What was the impact of interactions between cultures in the Iranian Plateau and the surrounding regions (Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, Indus Valley)? What was the overall context during the Bronze Age on the Iranian Plateau? What was the extent and means of the expansion of the Kuro-Araxe culture? How did the Elamite Kingdom become established? What new knowledge has been contributed by the recent excavations and studies undertaken in the east of Iran? What was the influence of the Indus Valley culture, known as an epicentre of urbanisation in South Asia? What are the unique characteristics of the ancient cultures in Iran? While the urbanisation of early Mesopotamia has been the subject of much debate for several decades, this topic has only recently been raised in respect to the Iranian Plateau. This volume is the product of an international community from Iranian, European, and American institutions, consisting of recognised specialists in the archaeology of the Iranian Bronze Age. It provides an overview of the latest research, including abundant results from current on-going excavations. The current state of archaeological research in Iran, comprising many dynamic questions and perspectives, is presented here in the form of original contributions on the first emergence of towns in the Near and Middle East.