Placing Animals in the Neolithic


Book Description

This book presents a new perspective on the social milieu of the Early and Middle Neolithic in Central Europe as viewed through relations between humans and animals, food acquisition and consumption, as well as refuse disposal practices. Based on animal bone assemblages from a wide range of sites from a period of over 2,000 years originating in both the North European Plain lowlands and the loess uplands, the evidence explored in the book represents the Linear Band Pottery Culture (LBK), the Lengyel Culture, and the Funnel Beaker Culture (TRB) allowing us to follow the dynamic development of early farmers from their emergence in the area north of the Carpathians up to their consolidation and stabilization in this new territory.




Placing Animals in the Neolithic


Book Description

Publisher Description




Animals in the Neolithic of Britain and Europe


Book Description

Presenting 12 papers from the Neolithic Studies Group seminar on the subject of animals in the Neolithic, this book aims to cover a range of approaches to animals in the Neolithic, discussing both wild and domestic animals and focuses on their social as well as economic roles.




The Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology


Book Description

Animals have played a fundamental role in shaping human history, and the study of their remains from archaeological sites - zooarchaeology - has gradually been emerging as a powerful discipline and crucible for forging an understanding of our past. This Handbook offers a cutting-edge, global compendium of zooarchaeology that seeks to provide a holistic view of the role played by animals in past human cultures. Case studies from across five continents explore ahuge range of human-animal interactions from an array of geographical, historical, and cultural contexts, and also illuminate the many approaches and methods adopted by different schools and traditions instudying these relationships.




The Origins of Agriculture in the Ancient Near East


Book Description

Rapid and knowledge-based agricultural origins and plant domestication in the Neolithic Near East gave rise to Western civilizations.




Animals and Human Society


Book Description

Animals and Human Society provides a solid, scientific, research-based background to advance understanding of how animals impact humans. Animals have had profound effects on people from the earliest times, ranging from zoonotic diseases, to the global impact of livestock, poultry and fish production, to the influences of human-associated animals on the environment (on extinctions, air and water pollution, greenhouse gases, etc.), to the importance of animals in human evolution and hunter -gatherer communities.As a resource for both science and non-science, Animals and Human Society can be used as a text for courses in Animals and Human Society or Animal Science, or as supplemental material for Introduction to Animal Science. It offers foundational background to those who may have little background in animal agriculture and have focused interest on companion animals and horses. The work introduces livestock production (including poultry and aquaculture) but also includes coverage of companion and lab animals. In addition, animal behavior and animal perception are covered.Animals and Human Society is likewise an excellent resource for researchers, academics, or students newly entering a related field or coming from another discipline and needing foundational information, as well as interested laypersons looking to augment their knowledge on the many impacts of animals in human society. - Features research-based and pedagogically sound content, with learning goals and textboxes to provide key information - Challenges readers to consider issues based on facts rather than polemics - Poses ethical questions and raises overall societal impacts - Balances traditional animal science with companion animals, animal biology, zoonotic diseases, animal products, environmental impacts and all aspects of human/animal interaction




Hybrid Communities


Book Description

Domestication challenges our understanding of human-environment relationships because it blurs the dichotomy between what is artificial and what is natural. In domestication, biological evolution, environmental change, techniques and practices, anthropological trajectories and sociocultural choices are inextricably interconnected. Domestication is essentially a hybrid phenomenon that needs to be explored with hybrid scientific approaches. Hybrid Communities: Biosocial Approaches to Domestication and Other Trans-species Relationships attempts for the first time to explore domestication viewed from across disciplines both in its origins and as an ongoing process. This edited collection proposes new biosocial approaches and concepts which integrate the methods of social sciences, archaeology and biology to shed new light on domestication in diachrony and in synchrony. This book will be of great interest to all scholars working on human-environment relationships, and should also attract readers from the fields of social anthropology, archaeology, genetics, ecology, botany, zoology, history and philosophy.




Social Zooarchaeology


Book Description

This is the first book to provide a systematic overview of social zooarchaeology, which takes a holistic view of human-animal relations in the past. Until recently, archaeological analysis of faunal evidence has primarily focused on the role of animals in the human diet and subsistence economy. This book, however, argues that animals have always played many more roles in human societies: as wealth, companions, spirit helpers, sacrificial victims, totems, centerpieces of feasts, objects of taboos, and more. These social factors are as significant as taphonomic processes in shaping animal bone assemblages. Nerissa Russell uses evidence derived from not only zooarchaeology, but also ethnography, history and classical studies, to suggest the range of human-animal relationships and to examine their importance in human society. Through exploring the significance of animals to ancient humans, this book provides a richer picture of past societies.




An Introduction to Zooarchaeology


Book Description

This volume is a comprehensive, critical introduction to vertebrate zooarchaeology, the field that explores the history of human relations with animals from the Pliocene to the Industrial Revolution.​ The book is organized into five sections, each with an introduction, that leads the reader systematically through this swiftly expanding field. Section One presents a general introduction to zooarchaeology, key definitions, and an historical survey of the emergence of zooarchaeology in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and introduces the conceptual approach taken in the book. This volume is designed to allow readers to integrate data from the book along with that acquired elsewhere within a coherent analytical framework. Most of its chapters take the form of critical “review articles,” providing a portal into both the classic and current literature and contextualizing these with original commentary. Summaries of findings are enhanced by profuse illustrations by the author and others.​




The Archaeology of China


Book Description

"Past, present and future "The archaeological materials recovered from the Anyang excavations ... in the period between 1928 and 1937 ... have laid a new foundation for the study of ancient China (Li, C. 1977: ix)." When inscribed oracle bones and enormous material remains were found through scientific excavation in Anyang in 1928, the historicity of the Shang dynasty was confirmed beyond dispute for the first time (Li, C. 1977: ix-xi). This excavation thus marked the beginning of a modern Chinese archaeology endowed with great potential to reveal much of China's ancient history.. Half a century later, Chinese archaeology had made many unprecedented discoveries which surprised the world, leading Glyn Daniel to believe that "a new awareness of the importance of China will be a key development in archaeology in the decades ahead (Daniel 1981: 211). This enthusiasm was soon shared by the Chinese archaeologists when Su Bingqi announced that "the Golden Age of Chinese archaeology is arriving (Su, B. 1994: 139--140)". In recent decades, archaeology has continuously prospered, becoming one of the most rapidly developing fields in social science in China"--