An international team of experts examines the historical archaeology of contact and its aftermath by considering the consequences of colonialism in settler societies from the sixteenth century to the present. This work's unique global vision constitutes an innovative exploration of issues which are assuming major social and political importance in the postcolonial world.

An international team of experts examines the historical archaeology of contact and its aftermath by considering the consequences of colonialism in settler societies from the sixteenth century to the present. This work's unique global vision constitutes an innovative exploration of issues which are assuming major social and political importance in the postcolonial world.

Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging features of humankind. Why are there some six thousand different languages spoken in the world today? Why are some, like Chinese or English, spoken by millions over vast territories, while others are restricted to just a few thousand speakers in a limited area? The farming/language dispersal hypothesis makes the radical and controversial proposal that the present-day distributions of many of the world's languages and language families can be traced back to the early developments and dispersals of farming from the several nuclear...

What is the relationship between mind and ideas on the one hand, and the material things of the world on the other? In recent years, researchers have rejected the old debate about the primacy of the mind or material, and have sought to establish more nuanced understandings of the ways humans interact with their material worlds. In this volume alternative approaches are presented, deriving from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives. Contributors debate the significance of key thresholds in the human past, including sedentism, domestication, and the emergence of social inequality and their...

Data from molecular genetics have changed our views on the origin, spread and timescale of our species across this planet. But how can we reveal more detail about the demography of ancient human populations? For example, is it possible to determine when and how many people arrived at a certain continent, and which route they took from a choice of geographically plausible options? One of the most promising tools for such investigation is computer simulation incorporating various demographic scenarios. The simulation outcomes must be evaluated by teams with archaeological expertise, since...

The refinement of radiocarbon dating using the information form tree-ring counts has raised serious doubts about the accepted theoretical framework of European prehistory. This work shows how the baffling monuments of prehistoric Europe, like Stonehenge, could have been built without recourse to help from the 'more civilized' Near East.

This volume explores the relationship between symbolism, spirituality, and humanity in the prehistoric societies of Europe and traditional societies elsewhere.

In Prehistory, the award-winning archaeologist and renowned scholar Colin Renfrew covers human existence before the advent of written records the overwhelming majority of our time here on earth and gives an incisive, concise, and lively survey of the past, and of how scholars and scientists labor to bring it to light.
Renfrew begins by looking at prehistory as a discipline, detailing how breakthroughs such as radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have helped us to define humankind s past how things have changed much more clearly than was possible just a half century ago. As for why things...

The case of Melos is relevant to the understanding of the processes of early state-formation and of the integration of small-scale societies into larger political units.