Ancient Anthropology

From Aristotle to Ada Lovelace: a brief history of the mathematical ideas that have forever changed the world and the everyday people and pioneers behind them. The story of our best invention yet. From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers and much else in our lives, numbers are everywhere. They are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life.

"In this fascinating, witty, and provocative book, Delbourgo's collectors range from emperors to scientists, from shopaholics to taxonomists, from bibliomaniacs to serial killers. Give it to the collector in your life, and watch the sparks fly!"―Cathy Gere, author of The Tomb of Agamemnon A...

Imagine you were transported back in time to Ancient Greece and you had to start a new life there. What would you see? How would the people around you think and believe? How would you fit in? Where would you live? What would you eat? What work would be available, and what help could you get if you got sick?

In 1769, Captain James Cook’s historic expedition in the region would lead to an English claim on Australia, but before he reached Australia, he sailed near New Zealand and spent weeks mapping part of New Zealand’s coast. Thus, he was also one of the first to observe and take note of the indigenous peoples of the two islands.

Paleophilosophy: The Dawn of Thought is a book that restores to us the forgotten dignity of ancient humanity. It makes a simple and radical claim: philosophy is older than cities, temples, and alphabets; it begins not with libraries, but with silence around the fire, with palms pressed against stone, with the rhythm of the dance, with the care given to the dead, and with dreams in which humankind first encountered the “other.

What can fossilized teeth tell us about our ancient life expectancy? What can big data on fossils reveal about farming's problematic role in human evolution? How can simple geometric comparisons of skull and pelvic fossils suggest an origin to our social nature? In Close Encounters with Humankind, paleoanthropologist Sang-Hee Lee explores some of our biggest evolutionary questions from unexpected new angles. Through a series of entertaining, bite-sized chapters, we gain new perspectives into our first hominin ancestors, our first steps on two feet, and more.

Over more than 25 years of teaching and research, Christine Desdemaines-Hugon has become an unrivaled expert in the cave art and artists of the Dordogne region. In Stepping-Stones she combines her expertise in both art and archaeology to convey an intimate understanding of the "cave experience." Her keen insights communicate not only the incomparable artistic value of these works but also the near-spiritual impact of viewing them for oneself.

Che cos'è l'autorità nella Grecia antica? A lungo è stata negata la stessa esistenza di un termine greco che la definisca, e ci si è limitati a ricercare in quella cultura i sistemi di relazione sottesi al concetto romano di auctoritas. Prendendo le distanze da tale impostazione romano-centrica, l'autore individua le metafore culturali di cui i Greci si servono per elaborare la loro particolare nozione di auto rità, che non si presenta come qualità intrinseca dell'auctor, ma come "facoltà" concessa a qualcuno da una fonte esterna.

This is the first thoroughly revised edition of The Rape of the Nile—Fagan’s classic account of the cavalcade of archaeologists, thieves, and sightseers who have flocked to the Nile Valley since ancient times. Featured in this edition are new accounts of stunning recent discoveries, including the Royal Tombs of Tanis, the Valley of Golden Mummies at Bahariya, the Tomb of the Sons of Ramses, and the sunken city of Alexandria (whose lighthouse was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World).

Prehistoric World Cultures provides a broad overview of world prehistory while highlighting significant events, developments, and cultures through time. Organized chronologically and geographically, it gives students a clear understanding of changes through time from the evolution of our species to the development of complex civilizations.

Where do human societies come from? The drive to answer this question took on a new urgency in the nineteenth century, when a generation of archaeologists began to look beyond the bible for the origins of different cultures and civilizations. Zelia Nuttall threw herself into the study of Aztec customs and cosmology, eager to use the tools of the emerging science of anthropology to prove that modern Mexico was built over the ruins of ancient civilizations.

In 1955, on a visit to South Africa, Robert Ardrey became aware of the growing evidence that man had evolved on the African continent from carnivorous, predatory stock - ones who had also, long before man, achieved the use of weapons. A dramatist, Ardrey's interest in the African discoveries sprang less from purely scientific grounds than from the radical new light they cast on the eternal question: Why do we behave as we do? Are we naturally inclined towards war and weapons?

Most histories of the Cherokee nation focus on its encounters with Europeans, its conflicts with the U.S. government, and its expulsion from its lands during the Trail of Tears. This work, however, traces the origins of the Cherokee people to the third century B.C.E. and follows their migrations through the Americas to their homeland in the lower Appalachian Mountains.

When did the human species turn against the planet that we depend on for survival? Human industry and consumption of resources have altered the climate, polluted the water and soil, destroyed ecosystems, and rendered many species extinct, vastly increasing the likelihood of an ecological catastrophe. How did humankind come to rule nature to such an extent? To regard the planet's resources and creatures as ours for the taking? To find ourselves on a seemingly relentless path toward ecocide?

The Sumerians were the people from Sumer, the first recognized society in the historic area of southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq), developed throughout the 6th and 5th centuries BC throughout the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages. In addition to age-old Egypt, the Caral-Supe culture, the Indus Valley civilization, the Minoan civilization, and age-old China, it is also one of the world's early civilizations. Sumerian farmers who lived along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys grew a great deal of grain and other items.