Archeologia

The large, quadrupedal herbivores known as sauropods were widespread around the planet from the Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous. With the longest necks and tails of all of the dinosaurs, some sauropods were 40 meters in length and weighed upwards of 100,000 kilograms, more than 20 tons. The popular image of these lumbering giants, placidly consuming ferns has been greatly revised in recent years. New discoveries and new theories about behavior and physiology have continued to enrich the study of these remarkable beasts. This book presents 21 new studies of the sauropods. The book is...

This volume explores the organization and contents of five houses at Halieis. It is based on the structure of each house and its contents and includes detailed room-by-room analyses of the excavated finds. From this it expands into a general consideration of the Greek household and domestic economy, topics of growing interest among archaeologists. In particular, it considers division of labor within the household and the allocation of domestic space for men and women.

Volume 1 describes the development of the fortification system at Halieis, from simple earthwork defenses to massive walls with towers and gates. Halieis s excellent natural harbor made it a target for attacks from other cities. The increasingly complex defenses are the city s response to this aggression and new developments in siege warfare. McAllister presents both an extensively illustrated overall view of the fortifications and a detailed analysis of the materials and methods of construction. Other contributions include a study of the fortifications that are now submerged in the...

Call them "mudpuppies," "hellbenders," or "mud eels," salamanders are puzzling animals to most people. They come in forms that look like flattened fish with legs, like eels, like slimy lizards, or like lizards with toad-like skins. Their life history imitates the ancient evolutionary transition from aquatic to terrestrial vertebrates, though several groups remain permanently aquatic. Until now, no one has written about their ancient ancestors. Holman details the process of the identification and interpretation of the fossils. He presents a detailed systematic account of the known fossil...

Horns and Beaks completes Ken Carpenter's series on the major dinosaur types. As with his volumes on armored, carnivorous, and sauropodomorph dinosaurs, this book collects original and new information, reflecting the latest discoveries and research on these two groups of animals. The Ornithopods include Iguanodon, one of the first dinosaurs ever discovered and analyzed, and perhaps the most common and best-documented group, the hadrosaurs or "duckbilled dinosaurs." The Ceratopsians include Triceratops, known for its distinctive three-horned skull and protective collar.

Contributors...

New discoveries of ancient vertebrates, filling in gaps in the fossil record, are quickly eroding the traditionally recognized differences between the principal groups of vertebrates for example, between dinosaurs and birds and radically changing our understanding of the evolutionary history of the major group of animals to which our species belongs. This book describes this changing scientific landscape and contributes to the revolution in our knowledge of the developmental mechanisms that underlie evolutionary transformation.

"

This volume presents state-of-the-art papers on important topics and methods in the analysis of vertebrate microfossil assemblages. The minute remains of animals and plants have proven very useful to paleontologists as tools for dating large fossils, describing the environments which existed at the time the fossils were deposited, and identifying and mapping the extent of local floras and faunas, among other things. Due to the large sample sizes that can be obtained, the chance to recover rare taxa is much higher than it is during a search for skeletal remains. Analysis of the data...

Around 11,000 years ago, a Paleoindian culture known to us as "Clovis" occupied much of North America. Considered to be among the continent's earliest human inhabitants, the Clovis peoples were probably nomadic hunters and gatherers whose remaining traces include camp sites and caches of goods stored for utilitarian or ritual purposes.

This book offers the first comprehensive study of a little-known aspect of Clovis culture--stone blade technology. Michael Collins introduces the topic with a close look at the nature of blades and the techniques of their manufacture, followed by a...

The Moche people who inhabited the north coast of Peru between approximately 100 and 800 AD were perhaps the first ancient Andean society to attain state-level social complexity. Although they had no written language, the Moche created the most elaborate system of iconographic representation of any ancient Peruvian culture. Amazingly realistic figures of humans, animals, and beings with supernatural attributes adorn Moche pottery, metal and wooden objects, textiles, and murals. These actors, which may have represented both living individuals and mythological beings, appear in scenes...

In Maya Political Science: Time, Astronomy, and the Cosmos, Prudence M. Rice proposed a new model of Maya political organization in which geopolitical seats of power rotated according to a 256-year calendar cycle known as the May. This fundamental connection between timekeeping and Maya political organization sparked Rice's interest in the origins of the two major calendars used by the ancient lowland Maya, one 260 days long, and the other having 365 days. In Maya Calendar Origins, she presents a provocative new thesis about the origins and development of...

One of the great repositories of a people's world view and religious beliefs, the Huarochiri Manuscript may bear comparison with such civilization-defining works as Gilgamesh, the Popul Vuh, and the Sagas. This translation by Frank Salomon and George L. Urioste marks the first time the Huarochiri Manuscript has been translated into English, making it available to English-speaking students of Andean culture and world mythology and religions.

The Huarochiri Manuscript holds a summation of native Andean religious tradition and an image of the superhuman and...

The Southern High Plains of northwestern Texas and eastern New Mexico are rich in Paleoindian archaeological sites, including such well-known ones as Clovis, Lubbock Lake, Plainview, and Midland. These sites have been extensively researched over decades, not only by archaeologists but also by geoscientists, whose studies of soils and stratigraphy have yielded important information about cultural chronology and paleoenvironments across the region.

In this book, Vance T. Holliday synthesizes the data from these earlier studies with his own recent research to offer the most current and...

Striking, inexplicable stories circulate among the people of Nuevo Leon in northern Mexico. Stories of conversos (converted Jews) who fled the Inquisition in Spain and became fabulously wealthy in Mexico. Stories of women and children buried in walls and under houses. Stories of an entire, secret city hidden under modern-day Monterrey. All these stories have no place or corroboration in the official histories of Nuevo Leon.

In this pioneering ethnography, Marie Theresa Hernandez explores how the folktales of Nuevo Leon encode aspects of Nuevolenese identity that have been...

Gender was a fluid potential, not a fixed category, before the Spaniards came to Mesoamerica. Childhood training and ritual shaped, but did not set, adult gender, which could encompass third genders and alternative sexualities as well as "male" and "female." At the height of the Classic period, Maya rulers presented themselves as embodying the entire range of gender possibilities, from male through female, by wearing blended costumes and playing male and female roles in state ceremonies.

This landmark book offers the first comprehensive description and analysis of gender and power...

Flintknapping is an ancient craft enjoying a resurgence of interest among both amateur and professional students of prehistoric cultures. In this new guide, John C. Whittaker offers the most detailed handbook on flintknapping currently available and the only one written from the archaeological perspective of interpreting stone tools as well as making them.

Flintknapping contains detailed, practical information on making stone tools. Whittaker starts at the beginner level and progresses to discussion of a wide range of techniques. He includes information on necessary...

Every year thousands of people visit the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State. With a copy of Exploring Coast Salish Prehistory in hand, they will enjoy an introduction both to archaeology in general and to sites within San Juan Island National Historic Park.

The Coast Salish people inhabited the San Juans for 5,000 years. One important site on San Juan Island, Cattle Point, was a summer camp where residents engaged in fishing and shellfish harvesting. Native peoples' recollections of activities there have been confirmed by physical evidence in the form of shell...

Archaeology--along with Native American traditions and memories--holds a key to understanding early chapters of the human story in Washington. This all-new book draws together and brings up to date much of what has been learned about the state's prehistory and the environments early people experienced. It presents a sample of sites representing Washington's geographic regions and touches on historical archaeology, including excavations at fur-trade forts and the Whitman mission, and Cathlapotle, a Columbia River village visited by Lewis and Clark.

The authors portray the discovery of...