Reading Prehistoric Human Tracks

Author : Andreas Pastoors,Tilman Lenssen-Erz
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 437 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : Archaeology
ISBN : 9783030604066

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Reading Prehistoric Human Tracks by Andreas Pastoors,Tilman Lenssen-Erz Pdf

This Open Access book explains that after long periods of prehistoric research in which the importance of the archaeological as well as the natural context of rock art has been constantly underestimated, research has now begun to take this context into focus for documentation, analysis, interpretation and understanding. Human footprints are prominent among the long-time under-researched features of the context in caves with rock art. In order to compensate for this neglect an innovative research program has been established several years ago that focuses on the merging of indigenous knowledge and western archaeological science for the benefit of both sides. The book gathers first the methodological diversity in the analysis of human tracks. Here major representatives of anthropological, statistical and traditional approaches feature the multi-layered methods available for the analysis of human tracks. Second it compiles case studies from around the globe of prehistoric human tracks. For the first time, the most important sites which have been found worldwide are published in a single publication. The third focus of this book is on firsthand experiences of researchers with indigenous tracking experts from around the globe, expounding on how archaeological sciencecan benefit from the ancestral knowledge. This book will be of interest to professional archaeologists, graduate students, ecologists, cultural anthropologists and laypeople, especially those focussing on hunting-gathering and pastoralist communities and who appreciate indigenous knowledge.--

Author : Matthew R. Bennett,Sarita A. Morse
Publisher : Springer
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2014-08-20
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783319085722

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Human Footprints: Fossilised Locomotion? by Matthew R. Bennett,Sarita A. Morse Pdf

Human footprints provide some of the most emotive and tangible evidence of our ancestors. They provide evidence of stature, presence, behaviour and in the case of early hominin footprints, evidence with respect to the evolution of human gait and foot anatomy. While human footprint sites are rare in the geological record the number of sites around the World has increased in recent years, along with the analytical tools available for their study. The aim of this book is to provide a definitive review of these recent developments with specific reference to the increased availability of three-dimensional digital elevation models of human tracks at many key sites. The book is divided into eight chapters. Following an introduction the second chapter reviews modern field methods in human ichnology focusing on the development of new analytical tools. The third chapter then reviews the major footprint sites around the World including details on several unpublished examples. Chapters then follow on the role of geology in the formation and preservation of tracks, on the inferences that can be made from human tracks and the final chapter explores the application of this work to forensic science. Audience: This volume will be of interest to researchers and students across a wide range of disciplines – sedimentology, archaeology, forensics and palaeoanthropology.

Author : Elle Clifford,Paul Bahn
Publisher : Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2022-07-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781803272597

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Everyday Life in the Ice Age by Elle Clifford,Paul Bahn Pdf

This is the first attempt to present a truly complete, balanced and realistic picture of life during the last Ice Age, while dispelling many of the myths and inaccuracies about our early ancestors. This highly illustrated and accessible book is aimed not only at students and specialists, but also and especially the interested public.

Author : Spencer G. Lucas,Robert B. Blodgett,Asher J. Lichtig,Adrian P. Hunt
Publisher : New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
Page : 506 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2022-08-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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FOSSIL RECORD 8 by Spencer G. Lucas,Robert B. Blodgett,Asher J. Lichtig,Adrian P. Hunt Pdf

Author : Benjamin Collins,April Nowell
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2024-03-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781805394624

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Culturing the Body by Benjamin Collins,April Nowell Pdf

The human body is both the site of lived experiences and a means of communicating those experiences to a diverse audience. Hominins have been culturing their bodies, that is adding social and cultural meaning through the use pigments and objects, for over 100,000 years. There is archaeological evidence for practices of adornment of the body by late Pleistocene and early Holocene hominins, including personal ornaments, clothing, hairstyles, body painting, and tattoos. These practices have been variously interpreted to reflect differences such as gender, status, and ethnicity, to attract or intimidate others, and as indices of a symbolically mediated self and personal identity. These studies contribute to a novel and growing body of evidence for diversity of cultural expression in the past, something that is a hallmark of human cultures today.

Author : Jim Leary
Publisher : Icon Books
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2023-06-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781837730261

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Footmarks by Jim Leary Pdf

'Lucid, poetic and fascinating' ALICE ROBERTS 'Engaging, authoritative and full of fascinating stories of the past' RAY MEARS 'A gentle, personal and very readable book' JULIA BLACKBURN AUTHOR OF TIME SONG ' A triumph!' JAMES CANTON, AUTHOR OF THE OAK PAPERS 'I loved this book' FRANCIS PRYOR On paths, roads, seas, in the air, and in space - there has never been so much human movement. In contrast we think of the past as static, 'frozen in time'. But archaeologists have in fact always found evidence for humanity's irrepressible restlessness. Now, latest developments in science and archaeology are transforming this evidence and overturning how we understand the past movement of humankind. In this book, archaeologist Jim Leary traces the past 3.5 million years to reveal how people have always been moving, how travel has historically been enforced (or prohibited) by people with power, and how our forebears showed incredible bravery and ingenuity to journey across continents and oceans. With Leary to show the way, you'll follow the footsteps of early hunter-gatherers preserved in mud, and tread ancient trackways hollowed by feet over time. Passing drovers, wayfarers and pilgrims, you'll see who got to move, and how people moved. And you'll go on long-distance journeys and migrations to see how movement has shaped our world.

Author : Paul M. Dover
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2023-06-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781000892871

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Engaging with the Past and Present by Paul M. Dover Pdf

This collection brings together fifteen essays from practitioners of a variety of disciplines that concern themselves with the past, not only historians, but scholars from other branches of the humanities and social sciences (including theology, art history, public history, and archival science) and natural sciences (including geology, paleontology, astronomy, and paleoanthropology). What is the relationship between the past and the present? This essential and seemingly straightforward question, of central importance to many fields of study, in fact yields a variety of answers, with significant repercussions for methodology, epistemology, and pedagogy. This volume’s contributors describe how they relate phenomena in the past and their observations of the present, revealing intellectual resonances and opportunities for dialogue across subjects that are too often walled off from one another. By engaging scholars in a conversation about a first principle of their work, this book offers a genuinely interdisciplinary consideration of a timeless question, with implications for knowledge about both past and present. Engaging with the Past and Present is full of insights and ideas for anyone seeking to understand the past or employ it as evidence for understanding present realities.

Author : Doerte Weig
Publisher : transcript Verlag
Page : 203 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2021-10-31
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783839460115

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Tensional Responsiveness by Doerte Weig Pdf

How we sense and move our bodies shapes how we relate with each other. Current socio-economic practices are reducing generative qualities of relating. Doerte Weig shows how bodily capacities for sensitive tensional responsiveness are relevant to (re)generative cultures, the future of work, lifelong learning, sharing, healing and well-being. She draws together her own experience of living with Baka egalitarian foragers in North-Eastern Gabon, her corporate experience, and her studies on bodying, somatics and our connective tissue-system fascia. Interweaving neurophysiological shifting-sliding with a radically different ecosystemic awareness opens up potentials for bodying beyond current legal and political limits into enchantingly vibrant and ecosomatically alive futures.

Author : Lorenzo D. Stafford
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 171 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2024-05-30
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9783031413759

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Smell, Taste, Eat: The Role of the Chemical Senses in Eating Behaviour by Lorenzo D. Stafford Pdf

Author : Andy M. Jones,Michael J. Allen
Publisher : Oxbow Books
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2023-06-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781789259254

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The Drowning of a Cornish Prehistoric Landscape by Andy M. Jones,Michael J. Allen Pdf

Between 2018 and 2019, Cornwall Archaeological Unit undertook two projects at Mount’s Bay, Penwith. The first involved the excavation of a Bronze Age barrow and the second, environmental augur core sampling in Marazion Marsh. Both sites lie within an area of coastal hinterland, which has been subject to incursions by rising sea levels. Since the Mesolithic, an area of approximately 1 kilometer in extent between the current shoreline and St Michael’s Mount has been lost to gradually rising sea levels. With current climate change, this process is likely to occur at an increasing rate. Given their proximity, the opportunity was taken to draw the results from the two projects together along with all available existing environmental data from the area. For the first time, the results from all previous palaeoenvironmental projects in the Mount’s Bay area have been brought together. Evidence for coastal change and sea level rise is discussed and a model for the drowning landscape presented. In addition to modeling the loss of land and describing the environment over time, social responses including the wider context of the Bronze Age barrow and later Bronze Age metalwork deposition in the Mount’s Bay environs are considered. The effects of the gradual loss of land are discussed in terms of how change is perceived, its effects on community resilience, and the construction of social memory and narratives of place. The volume presents the potential for nationally significant environmental data to survive, which demonstrates the long-term effects of climate change and rising sea levels, and peoples’ responses to these over time.

Author : Amanda M. Evans,Joseph C. Flatman,Nicholas C. Flemming
Publisher : Springer
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2014-05-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781461496359

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Prehistoric Archaeology on the Continental Shelf by Amanda M. Evans,Joseph C. Flatman,Nicholas C. Flemming Pdf

The chapters in this edited volume present multi-disciplinary case studies of prehistoric archaeological sites located on now-submerged portions of the continental shelf. Each chapter represents an extension of the known prehistoric record beyond the modern shoreline. Case studies represent central themes of landscape change, climate change and societal development, using new technologies for mapping, monitoring and managing these sites.

Author : Paulette F. C. Steeves
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2021-07
Category : History
ISBN : 9781496225368

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The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette F. C. Steeves Pdf

2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Title The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere is a reclaimed history of the deep past of Indigenous people in North and South America during the Paleolithic. Paulette F. C. Steeves mines evidence from archaeology sites and Paleolithic environments, landscapes, and mammalian and human migrations to make the case that people have been in the Western Hemisphere not only just prior to Clovis sites (10,200 years ago) but for more than 60,000 years, and likely more than 100,000 years. Steeves discusses the political history of American anthropology to focus on why pre-Clovis sites have been dismissed by the field for nearly a century. She explores supporting evidence from genetics and linguistic anthropology regarding First Peoples and time frames of early migrations. Additionally, she highlights the work and struggles faced by a small yet vibrant group of American and European archaeologists who have excavated and reported on numerous pre-Clovis archaeology sites. In this first book on Paleolithic archaeology of the Americas written from an Indigenous perspective, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere includes Indigenous oral traditions, archaeological evidence, and a critical and decolonizing discussion of the development of archaeology in the Americas.

Author : Martin Bell
Publisher : Oxbow Books
Page : 495 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2020-02-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781789254037

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Making One's Way in the World by Martin Bell Pdf

The book draws on the evidence of landscape archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies, ethnohistory and animal tracking to address the neglected topic of how we identify and interpret past patterns of movement in the landscape. It challenges the pessimism of previous generations which regarded prehistoric routes such as hollow ways as generally undatable. The premise is that archaeologists tend to focus on ‘sites’ while neglecting the patterns of habitual movement that made them part of living landscapes. Evidence of past movement is considered in a multi-scalar way from the individual footprint to the long distance path including the traces created in vegetation by animal and human movement. It is argued that routes may be perpetuated over long timescales creating landscape structures which influence the activities of subsequent generations. In other instances radical changes of axes of communication and landscape structures provide evidence of upheaval and social change. Palaeoenvironmental and ethnohistorical evidence from the American North West coast sets the scene with evidence for the effects of burning, animal movement, faeces deposition and transplantation which can create readable routes along which are favoured resources. Evidence from European hunter-gatherer sites hints at similar practices of niche construction on a range of spatial scales. On a local scale, footprints help to establish axes of movement, the locations of lost settlements and activity areas. Wood trackways likewise provide evidence of favoured patterns of movement and past settlement location. Among early farming communities alignments of burial mounds, enclosure entrances and other monuments indicate axes of communication. From the middle Bronze Age in Europe there is more clearly defined evidence of trackways flanked by ditches and fields. Landscape scale survey and excavation enables the dating of trackways using spatial relationships with dated features and many examples indicate long-term continuity of routeways. Where fields flank routeways a range of methods, including scientific approaches, provide dates. Prehistorians have often assumed that Ridgeways provided the main axes of early movement but there is little evidence for their early origins and rather better evidence for early routes crossing topography and providing connections between different environmental zones. The book concludes with a case study of the Weald of South East England which demonstrates that some axes of cross topographic movement used as droveways, and generally considered as early medieval, can be shown to be of prehistoric origin. One reason that dryland routes have proved difficult to recognise is that insufficient attention has been paid to the parts played by riverine and maritime longer distance communication. It is argued that understanding the origins of the paths we use today contributes to appreciation of the distinctive qualities of landscapes. Appreciation will help to bring about effective strategies for conservation of mutual benefit to people and wildlife by maintaining and enhancing corridors of connectivity between different landscape zones including fragmented nature reserves and valued places. In these ways an understanding of past routeways can contribute to sustainable landscapes, communities and quality of life

Author : John J. Shea
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2020-04-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108424431

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Prehistoric Stone Tools of Eastern Africa by John J. Shea Pdf

A detailed overview of the Eastern African stone tools that make up the world's longest archaeological record.

Author : Timothy Darvill
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 592 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2010-07-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781136973031

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Prehistoric Britain by Timothy Darvill Pdf

Britain has been inhabited by humans for over half a million years, during which time there were a great many changes in lifestyles and in the surrounding landscape. This book, now in its second edition, examines the development of human societies in Britain from earliest times to the Roman conquest of AD 43, as revealed by archaeological evidence. Special attention is given to six themes which are traced through prehistory: subsistence, technology, ritual, trade, society, and population. Prehistoric Britain begins by introducing the background to prehistoric studies in Britain, presenting it in terms of the development of interest in the subject and the changes wrought by new techniques such as radiocarbon dating, and new theories, such as the emphasis on social archaeology. The central sections trace the development of society from the hunter-gatherer groups of the last Ice Age, through the adoption of farming, the introduction of metalworking, and on to the rise of highly organized societies living on the fringes of the mighty Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. Throughout, emphasis is given to documenting and explaining changes within these prehistoric communities, and to exploring the regional variations found in Britain. In this way the wealth of evidence that can be seen in the countryside and in our museums is placed firmly in its proper context. It concludes with a review of the effects of prehistoric communities on life today. With over 120 illustrations, this is a unique review of Britain's ancient past as revealed by modern archaeology. The revisions and updates to Prehistoric Britain ensure that this will continue to be the most comprehensive and authoritative account of British prehistory for those students and interested readers studying the subject.