Showing titles in Archaeology

The ruined silhouette of the Parthenon on its hill above Athens is one of the world's most famous images. Its 'looted' Elgin Marbles are a global cause celebre. But what actually are they? In a revised and updated edition, Mary Beard, award winning writer, reviewer and leading Cambridge classicist, tells the history and explains the significance of the Parthenon, the temple of the virgin goddess Athena, the divine patroness of ancient Athens.

Exploring myths, mysteries and misconceptions about the past - from the legacies of figures like Pythagoras and Christopher Columbus, to the realities of life in the gun-toting Wild West, to the archaeological digs that have upset our understanding of the birth of civilisation - David Mountain reveals how ongoing revolutions in history and archaeology are shedding light on the truth.

Die grüne Wiege der Menschheit: Die faszinierende Geschichte der Menschen und des Dschungels. Das Schicksal der Menschheit ist schon immer mit dem der Tropenwälder verbunden. Der Anthropologe und Archäologe Patrick Roberts nimmt uns mit auf eine spannende Reise durch die Jahrmillionen. Er schildert, wie die Wälder entstanden und das Aussehen unseres Planeten entscheidend prägten. Erst durch sie fanden Amphibien den Weg an Land, entwickelten sich neue Pflanzen- und Tierarten - und schließlich der Mensch.

This first comprehensive work on women in pre-Columbian cultures describes gender roles and relationships in the Americas from 12,000 B.C. to the A.D. 1500s. Utilizing many key archaeological works, Karen Olsen Bruhns and Karen E. Stothert redress some of the long-standing male bias in writing about ancient Native American lifeways. The authors pay particular attention to the problems of interpreting archaeological remains and the uses of historic and ethnographic evidence in reconstructing the past.

A hundred and fifty years ago, naval warfare entered a new phase with the introduction of ironclad vessels. On March 9, 1862, the USS Monitor, prototype of this new class of warships, fought the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads, Virginia, after the Virginia had ravaged the Union fleet blockading the James River, sinking larger, seemingly more powerful wooden warships in a potent demonstration of the power of an armored, heavily-gunned, steam-powered warship.

A thriving fur trade post between 1830 and 1860, Fort Clark, in what is today western North Dakota, also served as a way station for artists, scientists, missionaries, soldiers, and other western chroniclers traveling along the Upper Missouri River. The written and visual legacies of these visitors have long been the primary sources of information on the cultures of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, the peoples who met the first fur traders in the area. This book is the first account of the fur trade at Fort Clark to integrate new archaeological evidence into the history.

For every well-known archaeologist - the kind you might see doing exciting things on TV - there are legions of less high-profile characters working in the background. Their work may not be quite as sexy or result in paradigm-changing discoveries, but it is important and valuable. The following chapters are snap-shots of archaeology from more than 40 years of work in both Britain and Canada. Rather than spending too much time on the scientific and technical, Nick has focused on stories that convey the life of a working archaeologist...well, his working life anyway.

Von den Geheimnissen vergangener Kulturen. Unglaubliche archäologische Entdeckungen lassen uns fragen: Woher kamen die plötzlichen Wissensexplosionen vergangener Zivilisationen? Durch Überlieferungen einer früheren, vergessenen Menschheit? Durch das Werk von Außerirdischen? Oder unterschätzen wir das Können unserer Vor-Vorfahren? Und wie gingen unsere Ahnen mit Klimaveränderungen um? Gisela Graichen schildert spektakuläre archäologische Funde und Befunde; Harald Lesch liefert Erklärungen, die nur Naturwissenschaft und Astrophysik geben können.

A stunning blend of the personal and professional, The Archaeology of Loss is Sarah Tarlow’s first memoir. An accomplished archaeologist, much of Sarah’s work is concerned with the ritual and belief behind the practice of grief. In 2012, she was awarded the Chair in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. But in the years that followed this appointment, Sarah’s husband, Mark, would begin to suffer from a progressive but undiagnosed illness, finally resulting in his inability to drive, to walk, to taste or to care for himself.

In 2001, while vacationing on Panama’s Pacific coast, maritime archaeologist James P. Delgado came upon the hulk of a mysterious iron vessel, revealed by the ebbing tides in a small cove at Isla San Telmo. He learned that the wreck was the remains of one of the first successful deep-diving submersibles, built in 1864 by Julius H. Kroehl, an innovator during the Civil War. Delgado chronicles the confluence of technological advancement, entrepreneurial aspiration, American capitalist ambition, and ignorance of the physiological effects of deep diving in this compelling narrative.

Their names still echo down the ages: The Great Pyramid at Giza. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Temple of Artemis. The statue of Zeus at Olympia. The mausoleum of Halikarnassos. The Colossus at Rhodes. The Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Seven Wonders of the World were staggeringly audacious impositions on our planet. They were also brilliant adventures of the mind, test cases of the reaches of human imagination. Now only the pyramid remains, yet the scale and majesty of these seven wonders still enthral us today.

Facing an insurmountable deficit in resources compared to the Union navy, the Confederacy resorted to unorthodox forms of warfare to combat enemy forces. Perhaps the most energetic and effective torpedo corps and secret service company organized during the American Civil War, the Singer Secret Service Corps, led by Texan inventor and entrepreneur Edgar Collins Singer, developed and deployed submarines, underwater weaponry, and explosive devices.

More than 1200 miles from the nearest inhabited island and 2200 miles from mainland Chile, Easter Island is one of the most inaccessible places on the planet, made famous by its thousand huge statues. How people came to live there and what happened to them has been the cause of heated debate. Now, in this compelling and deeply researched new book, we find out the answers.

Christopher Hadley takes us on a lyrical journey into this past, retracing and searching for an elusive Roman road that sprang from one of the busiest road hubs in Roman Britain. His passage is not always easy. Time and nature have erased many clues; bridges rotted and whole woods grew across the route. Carters found an easier ford downstream, and people broke up its milestones to mend new paths. Year after year the heavy clay swallowed whole lengths of it; the once mighty road became a bridleway, an overgrown hollow-way, a parched mark in the soil.

Ein neuer Blick auf Pompeji und die befreiende Kraft der Kultur. Garküchen, ein Sklavenzimmer, griechische Theater, Villen, Thermen und Tempel – die Ausgrabungen in Pompeji offenbaren eine Welt. Doch was hat sie mit uns zu tun? Gabriel Zuchtriegel, der neue Direktor des Weltkulturerbes, legt eindrucksvoll dar, dass verschüttete Altertümer, starre Ruinen und schweigende Bilder uns noch heute verändern können.

This book contains a glimpse into the lives of multiple historical figures that have escaped common knowledge and many historical texts. Here's an inescapable fact: you will need to dig deeper when learning about these people, but you will come out introduced to droves of new personalities. If you do not find yourself wanting to know more, we have done you a disservice, but we guarantee you that your interest will be piqued.

In this comprehensive survey, updated for this new edition, Henderson explores the entire Maya cultural tradition, from the earliest traces of settlement through the period of the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. His wide-ranging account treats diverse aspects of the Maya world, from religion and philosophy to the environments of the various Maya peoples, using deciphered Maya texts to reconstruct the ancient societies.

. Decades of incremental changes created a distinctive watercraft, and the steamboat became perfectly suited to the conditions of the western rivers, transforming the west from a wilderness into a place of economic significance. In The Western River Steamboat, nautical archaeologist Adam I. Kane traces the development of this once commonplace vessel. Kane describes the importance and impact of the steamboat in American history and complements his historical analysis with clear, concise technical explanations of the construction and evolution of western river steamboats.

Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames for over 15 years, in pursuit of the objects that the river unearths: from Neolithic flints to Roman hair pins, medieval buckles to Tudor buttons, Georgian clay pipes to Victorian toys. These objects tell her about London and its lost ways of life. Moving from the river's tidal origins in the west of the city to the point where it meets the sea in the east, Mudlarking is a search for urban solitude and history on the River Thames, what Lara calls 'the longest archaeological site in the world'.

Adam Ford is an archaeologist. Not only has he been on expeditions to unlock the mysteries of the past in the Caribbean, British Isles, Jordan, Syria, Israel, United Arab Emirates and Australia, he's also had heat stroke, hypothermia, and dysentery; been chased by camel spiders; been walked on by scorpions; and been pestered by bugs big enough to ride.