Showing titles in Archaeology

Sins of the Shovel is a story of adventure and business gone wrong and how archaeologists today grapple with this complex heritage. Through the story of the Hyde Exploring Expedition, practicing archaeologist Rachel Morgan uncovers the uncomfortable links between commodity culture, contemporary ethics, and the broader political forces that perpetuate destructive behavior today. The result is an unsparing and even-handed assessment of American archaeology's sins, past and present, and how the field is working toward atonement.

Wie lebten Frauen in der Stein- und Bronzezeit? Wie waren die Geschlechterverhältnisse in der Zeit vor Erfindung der Schrift? Bis vor Kurzem waren alle Antworten auf diese Fragen mehr oder weniger Spekulation. Doch seit DNA-Analysen für die prähistorische Forschung zur Verfügung stehen, hat sich dies geändert. Die Wissenschaftsjournalistin Karin Bojs trägt die neuesten Ergebnisse zusammen und fragt, wann und warum das Patriarchat entstand. Die Prähistorikerin Marija Gimbutas hatte seit den 50er Jahren eine Theorie entwickelt, nach der in „Alteuropa“ eher friedliche, matrilineare Gesellschaften existiert hätten.

All too often we think of the past as static, 'frozen in time', and indeed movement is not always easy to decipher from the archaeological record. With Jim Leary's expert eye we explore the tangible remains, from fossilized footprint tracks to prehistoric wooden trackways, ridgeways, holloways, droveways, green ways, corpse roads, and Roman roads. Isotope studies and archaeogenetics now allow us see the arduous journeys that people made across continents and oceans, proving that migration has been continuous throughout our past, an endless ebb and flow of populations.

When the Smithsonian’s Hall of Physical Anthropology opened in 1965 it featured 160 Andean skulls affixed to a wall to visualize how the world’s human population had exploded since the birth of Christ. Through a history of Inca mummies, a preHispanic surgery called trepanation, and Andean crania like these, Empires of the Dead explains how “ancient Peruvians” became the single largest population in the Smithsonian and many other museums in Peru, the Americas, and beyond.

Com base na arqueogenética, cientistas como Johannes Krause traçaram a rota das ondas migratórias que povoaram o mundo, lançando luz sobre aspectos do passado que até então permaneciam um mistério. Krause e o jornalista Thomas Trappe reescrevem um dos capítulos mais interessantes desse percurso: o povoamento da Europa. Além disso, detalham a cultura dos povos que viviam lá no período pré-histórico, formados por hábeis artesãos, por pessoas que enterravam os mortos com joias de ouro muito antes dos faraós do Egito e por caçadores de grandes animais que pereceram na Era do Gelo.