Investigating Archaeological Cultures


Book Description

Defining "culture" is an important step in undertaking archaeological research. Any thorough study of a particular culture first has to determine what that culture contains-- what particular time period, geographic region, and group of people make up that culture. The study of archaeology has many accepted definitions of particular cultures, but recently these accepted definitions have come into question. As archaeologists struggle to define cultures, they also seek to define the components of culture. This volume brings together 21 international case studies to explore the meaning of "culture" for regions around the globe and periods from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age and beyond. Taking lessons and overarching themes from these studies, the contributors draw important conclusions about cultural transmission, technology development, and cultural development. The result is a comprehensive model for approaching the study of culture, broken down into regions (Russia, Continental Europe, North America, Britain, and Africa), materials (Lithics, Ceramics, Metals) and time periods. This work will be valuable to all archaeologists and cultural anthropologists, particularly those studying material culture.




Stockholm


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Anthropologica


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Technological Choices


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Technological Choices deals with the adoption or rejection by a society of certain technological innovations. It demonstrates that in any society, such choices result from cultural values and social relations, rather than inherent benefits in the technology itself and highlights revolutionary viewpoint has crucial implications for current Western societies. The book is based on case-studies covering a wide chronological and geographic span from Neolithic Europe to the modern industrial age, from the tribes of Papua New Guinea, India and North Africa to European peasant communities. The techniques studied range from the manufacture of stone implements to the development of high-tech transportation devices. Technological Choices will be of great interest to students of archaeology and anthropology and the history of technology. It will also be valuable reading for economists and social historians.




Similar but Different


Book Description

The book “Similar but Different. Bell Beakers in Europe” deals with a cultural phenomenon, known as the Bell Beaker culture, that during the 3rd millennium B.C. was present throughout Western and Central Europe. This development played an important role in the formation of the Bronze Age at the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC. This book consists of 10 chapters – in each a specific issue is discussed connected with Bell Beakers. The chapters are divided into three parts concerning consecutively: general problems, issues of the so-called common ware and the character of the Bell Beakers in particular places in Europe. The reader can become acquainted with interpretations of the whole phenomenon, based on inter-regional similarities – the works of H. Case, M. Vander Linden, L. Salanova, and R. Furestier. The second part consist of the chapters by Ch. Strahm, M. Besse and V. Leonini that focus on the matter of the so-called common ware: some ceramic vessels, which are not part of the ‘beaker set’, but accompany it in many regions. That is one of the Bell Beakers’ analytical problems, which is still argued about. The three last chapters show the specific features of some regional centers, where Bell Beakers developed, the attention was focused on the Bell Beakers’ localities’. These are the works of A Gibson (Britain), O. Lemercier (Mediterranean France) and L. Sarti (central Italy). The book shows the basic features of the Bell Beaker culture in Europe. These however are still a challenge for researchers, because the phenomenon had two faces. On the one hand it is characterized by a set of material culture which is occurring in many places Western and Central Europe. On the other hand, in specific areas, these features were relatively easily influenced by the local environment, they got some sort of regional particularities. That is the essence of the Bell Beakers, hence the title of this book: ‘similar but different’. This book is a reprint, the first edition was published in 2004 by the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań.




Le processus psychosomatique


Book Description

Ce livre vous invite a explorer les profondeurs de l'inconscient pour determiner les bases du fonctionnement psychosomatique de l'etre humain. Sur le plan physique a partir de l'etude du cerveau et des fonctions neurophysiologiques. Sur le plan psychique, en reprenant les bases du fonctionnement psychologique. La synthese psychosomatique s'opere ensuite a travers les circuits electromagnetiques du corps humain. Pour justifier ses propos, l'auteur se refere egalement a differentes sources traditionnelles, telles les meridiens d'acupuncture, la cabale ou l'astrologie. Il demontre ainsi que la fusion psychosomatique represente a la fois la source et la finalite du processus vital. Cet essai magistral aboutit a une definition de l'etre humain qui integre les aspects physiques et psychiques de la personnalite en une synthese energetique unique, a l'interieur de laquelle s'opere la relation psychosomatique.




Cultural Policy in France


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Contents: Report by the panel of European experts by Robert Wangerm'e; National report by Bernard Gournay.




Engaging Art


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Engaging Art explores what it means to participate in the arts in contemporary society – from museum attendance to music downloading. Drawing on the perspectives of experts from diverse fields (including Princeton scholars Robert Wuthnow and Paul DiMaggio; Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice; and MIT scholars Henry Jenkins and Mark Schuster), this volume analyzes key trends involving technology, audience demographics, religion, and the rise of "do-it-yourself" participatory culture. Commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and independently carried out by the Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, Engaging Art offers a new framework for understanding the momentous changes impacting America’s cultural life over the past fifty years. This volume offers suggestive glimpses into the character and consequence of a new engagement with old-fashioned participation in the arts. The authors in this volume hint at a bright future for art and citizen art making. They argue that if we center a new commitment to arts participation in everyday art making, creativity, and quality of life, we will not only restore the lifelong pleasure of homemade art, but will likely seed a new generation of enthusiasts who will support America’s signature nonprofit cultural institutions well into the future.





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