Tracing Prehistoric Social Networks Through Technology

Author : Ann Brysbaert
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136582452
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tracing Prehistoric Social Networks through Technology written by Ann Brysbaert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-05-30 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume investigates smaller and larger networks of contacts within and across the Aegean and nearby regions, covering periods from the Neolithic until Classical times (6000–323 BC). It explores the world of technologies, crafts and archaeological 'left-overs' in order to place social and technological networks in their larger economic and political contexts. By investigating ways of production, transport/distribution, and consumption, this book covers a chronologically large period in order to expand our understanding of wider cultural developments inside the geographical boundaries of the Aegean and its regions of contact in the east Mediterranean. This book brings together scholars’ expertise in a variety of different fields ranging from historical archaeology (using textual evidence), archaeometry, geoarchaeology, experimental work, archaeobotany, and archaeozoology. Chapters in this volume study and contextualize archaeological remains and explore networks of crafts-people, craft traditions, or people who employed various technologies to survive. Central questions in this context are how and why traditions, techniques, and technologies change or remain stable, or where and why cross-cultural boundaries developed and disintegrated.

Author : Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135014450
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Knowledge Networks and Craft Traditions in the Ancient World written by Katharina Rebay-Salisbury and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume investigates knowledge networks based on materials and associated technologies in Prehistoric Europe and the Classical Mediterranean. It emphasises the significance of material objects to the construction, maintenance, and collapse of networks of various forms – which are central to explanations of cultural contact and change. Focusing on the materiality of objects and on the way in which materials are used adds a multidimensional quality to networks. The properties, functions, and styles of different materials are intrinsically linked to the way in which knowledge flows and technologies are transmitted. Transmission of technologies from one craft to another is one of the main drivers of innovation, whilst sharing knowledge is enabled and limited by the extent of associated social networks in place. Archaeological research has often been limited to studying objects made of one particular material in depth, be it lithic materials, ceramics, textiles, glass, metal, wood or others. The knowledge flow and transfer between crafts that deal with different materials have often been overlooked. This book takes a fresh approach to the reconstruction of knowledge networks by integrating two or more craft traditions in each of its chapters. The authors, well-known experts and early career researchers, provide concise case studies that cover a wide range of materials. The scope of the book extends from networks of craft traditions to implications for society in a wider sense: materials, objects, and the technologies used to make and distribute them are interwoven with social meaning. People make objects, but objects make people – the materiality of objects shapes our understanding of the world and our place within it. In this book, objects are treated as clues to social networks of different sorts that can be contrasted and compared, both spatially and diachronically.

Author : Stella Souvatzi
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135042888
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Space and Time in Mediterranean Prehistory written by Stella Souvatzi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Space and Time in Mediterranean Prehistory addresses these two concepts as interrelated, rather than as separate categories, and as a means for understanding past social relations at different scales. The need for this volume was realised through four main observations: the ever growing interest in space and spatiality across the social sciences; the comparative theoretical and methodological neglect of time and temporality; the lack in the existing literature of an explicit and balanced focus on both space and time; and the large amount of new information coming from prehistoric Mediterranean. It focuses on the active and interactive role of space and time in the production of any social environment, drawing equally on contemporary theory and on case-studies from Mediterranean prehistory. Space and Time in Mediterranean Prehistory seeks to break down the space-time continuum, often assumed rather than inferred, into space-time units and to uncover the varying and variable interrelations of space and time in prehistoric societies across the Mediterranean. The volume is a response to the dissatisfaction with traditional views of space and time in prehistory and revisits these concepts to develop a timely integrative conceptual and analytical framework for the study of space and time in archaeology.

Author : Jennifer Birch
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135045100
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Prehistoric Villages to Cities written by Jennifer Birch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the evolution of village societies and the transition to a ‘Neolithic’ way of life. Considerable interest has also concentrated on urbanism and the rise of the earliest cities. Between these two landmarks in human cultural development lies a critical stage in social and political evolution. Throughout world, at various points in time, people living in small, dispersed village communities have come together into larger and more complex social formations. These community aggregates were, essentially, middle-range; situated between the earliest villages and emergent chiefdoms and states. This volume explores the social processes involved in the creation and maintenance of aggregated communities and how they brought about revolutionary transformations that affected virtually every aspect of a society and its culture. While there have been a number of studies that address coalescence from a regional perspective, less is understood about how aggregated communities functioned internally. The key premise explored in this volume is that large-scale, long-term cultural transformations were ultimately enacted in the context of daily practices, interactions, and what might be otherwise considered the mundane aspects of everyday life. How did these processes play out "on the ground" in diverse and historically contingent settings? What are the strategies and mechanisms that people adopt in order to facilitate living in larger social formations? What changes in social relations occur when people come together? This volume employs a broadly cross-cultural approach to interrogating these questions, employing case studies which span four continents and more than 10,000 years of human history.

Author : David Frankel
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134626088
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Archaeology in Environment and Technology written by David Frankel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environments, landscapes, and ecological systems are often seen as fundamental by archaeologists, but how they relate to society is understood in very different ways. The chapters in this book take environment, culture, and technology together. All have been the focus of much attention; often one or other has been seen as the starting point for analysis, but this volume argues that it is the study of the inter-relationships between these three factors that offers a way forward. The contributions to this book pick up different strands within the tangled web of intersections between environment, technology, and society, providing a series of case studies which explore facets of this common theme in different settings and circumstances and from different perspectives. As well as addressing themes of theoretical and methodological interest, these case studies draw on primary research dealing with time periods from the late Pleistocene glacial maximum to the very recent past, and involve societies of very different types. Running through all the contributions, however, is a concern with the archaeological record and the ways in which scales of observation and availability of evidence affect the development of questions and explanations. The diversity of the chapters in this volume demonstrates the inherent weakness in any attempt to prioritise environment, technology, or society. These three factors are all embedded in any human activity, as change in one will result in change in the others: social and technical changes alter relations with the environment–and indeed the environment itself—and as environmental change drives changes in society and technology. As this book shows, it is possible to consider the relationship between the three factors from different perspectives, but any attempt to consider one or even two in isolation will mean that valuable insights will be missed.

Author : Marina Panagiotaki
Publisher : Oxbow Books
ISBN 13 : 1789253012
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cutting-edge Technologies in Ancient Greece written by Marina Panagiotaki and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines materials produced with the use of fire and mostly by use of the kiln (metals, plasters, glass and glaze, aromatics). The technologies based on fire have been considered high-tech technologies and they have contributed to the evolution of man throughout history. Papers highlight technical innovations of the technician/artist/pyrotechnologist that lived in the Aegean (mainland Greece and the islands) during the Bronze Age, the Classical and the Byzantine periods.

Author : Elton Thomas Edward Barker
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199664137
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book New Worlds from Old Texts written by Elton Thomas Edward Barker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a highly interdisciplinary range of contributors, New Worlds from Old Texts explores ancient Greek perceptions of space, and how they may have differed from the modern cartographic view.

Author : Barry Molloy
Publisher : Oxbow Books
ISBN 13 : 1785702343
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Of Odysseys and Oddities written by Barry Molloy and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2016-08-31 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of Odysseys and Oddities is about scales and modes of interaction in prehistory, specifically between societies on both sides of the Aegean and with their nearest neighbors overland to the north and east. The 17 contributions reflect on tensions at the core of how we consider interaction in archaeology, particularly the motivations and mechanisms leading to social and material encounters or displacements. Linked to this are the ways we conceptualize spatial and social entities in past societies (scales) and how we learn about who was actively engaged in interaction and how and why they were (modes). The papers provide a broad chronological, spatial and material range but, taken together, they critically address many of the ways that scales and modes of interaction are considered in archaeological discourse. Ultimately, the intention is to foreground material culture analysis in the development of the arguments presented within this volume, informed, but not driven, by theoretical positions.

Author : Eivind Seland
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1785705997
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sinews of Empire written by Eivind Seland and published by . This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A recent surge of interest in network approaches to the study of the ancient world has enabled scholars of the Roman Empire to move beyond traditional narratives of domination, resistance, integration and fragmentation. This relational turn has not only offers tools to identify, map, visualize and, in some cases, even quantify interaction based on a variety of ancient source material, but also provides a terminology to deal with the everyday ties of power, trade, and ideology that operated within, below, and beyond the superstructure of imperial rule. Thirteen contributions employ a range of quantitative, qualitative and descriptive network approaches in order to provide new perspectives on trade, communication, administration, technology, religion and municipal life in the Roman Near East and adjacent regions.

Author : María Cruz Berrocal
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0415885922
Total Pages : 441 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Prehistory of Iberia written by María Cruz Berrocal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.