Archaeological Approaches to Technology

Author: Heather Margaret-Louise Miller
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Designed for upper-division undergraduate and graduate level archaeology students taking courses in ancient technologies, archaeological craft production, material culture, the history of technology, archaeometry, and field methods. This text can also serve as a general introduction and a reference for archaeologists, material culture specialists in socio-cultural disciplines, and engineers/scientists interested in the backgrounds and histories of their disciplines. The study of ancient technologies-that is, the ways in which objects and materials were made and used-can reveal insights into ec.

Archaeological Approaches to Technology

Author: Heather Margaret-Louise Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315434598
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
This book is designed for upper-division undergraduate and graduate level archaeology students taking courses in ancient technologies, archaeological craft production, material culture, the history of technology, archaeometry, and field methods. This text can also serve as a general introduction and a reference for archaeologists, material culture specialists in socio-cultural disciplines, and engineers/scientists interested in the backgrounds and histories of their disciplines. The study of ancient technologies, that is, the ways in which objects and materials were made and used can reveal insights into economic, social, political, and ritual realms of the past. This book summarizes the current state of ancient technology studies by emphasizing methodologies, some major technologies, and the questions and issues that drive archaeologists in their consideration of these technologies. It shows the ways that technology studies can be used by archaeologists working anywhere, on any type of society and it embraces an orientation toward the practical, not the philosophical. It compares the range of pre-industrial technologies, from stone tool production, fiber crafts, wood and bone working, fired clay crafts, metal production, and glass manufacture. It includes socially contextualized case studies, as well as general descriptions of technological processes. It discusses essential terminology (technology, material culture, chaine operatoire, etc.), primarily from the perspective of how these terms are used by archaeologists.

Archaeology 2.0

Author: Eric Christopher Kansa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description

Ceramics and Society

Author: Valentine Roux
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030039730
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
Pottery is the most ubiquitous find in most historical archaeological excavations and serves as the basis for much research in the discipline. But it is not only its frequency that makes it a prime dataset for such research, it is also that pottery embeds many dimensions of the human experience, ranging from the purely technical to the eminently symbolic. The aim of this book is to provide a cutting-edge theoretical and methodological framework, as well as a practical guide, for archaeologists, students and researchers to study ceramic assemblages. As opposed to the conventional typological approach, which focuses on vessel shape and assumed function with the main goal of establishing a chronological sequence, the proposed framework is based on the technological approach. Such an approach utilizes the concept of chaîne opératoire, which is geared to an anthropological interpretation of archaeological objects. The author offers a sound theoretical background accompanied by an original research strategy whose presentation is at the heart of this book. This research strategy is presented in successive chapters that are geared to explain not only how to study archaeological assemblages, but also why the proposed methods are essential for achieving ambitious interpretive goals. In the heated debate on the equation stating that “pots equal people”, which is a rather fuzzy reference to assumed relationships between (mostly) ethnic groups and pottery, technology enables us to propose with conviction the equation “pots equal potters”. In this way, a well-founded history of potters is able to achieve a much better cultural and anthropological understanding of ancient societies.

Communicating the Past in the Digital Age

Author: Sebastian Hageneuer
Publisher: Ubiquity Press
ISBN: 1911529862
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Book Description
Recent developments in the field of archaeology are not only progressing archaeological fieldwork but also changing the way we practise and present archaeology today. As these digital technologies are being used more and more every day on excavations or in museums, this also means that we must change the way we approach teaching and communicating archaeology as a discipline. The communication of archaeology is an often neglected but ever more important part of the profession. Instead of traditional lectures and museum displays, we can interact with the past in various ways. Students of archaeology today need to learn and understand these technologies, but can on the other hand also profit from them in creative ways of teaching and learning. The same holds true for visitors to a museum. This volume presents the outcome of a two-day international symposium on digital methods in teaching and learning in archaeology held at the University of Cologne in October 2018 addressing exactly this topic. Specialists from around the world share their views on the newest developments in the field of archaeology and the way we teach these with the help of archaeogaming, augmented and virtual reality, 3D reconstruction and many more. Thirteen chapters cover different approaches to teaching and learning archaeology in universities and museums and offer insights into modern-day ways to communicate the past in a digital age.

Computational Intelligence in Archaeology

Author: Barcelo, Juan A.
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1599044919
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
Provides analytical theories offered by innovative artificial intelligence computing methods in the archaeological domain.

Determining Prehistoric Skin Processing Technologies

Author: Theresa Emmerich Kamper
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789088908361
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
This research outlines the development of a systematic, non-destructive method for identifying the tanning technologies used to produce prehistoric skin artefacts. The approach combines extensive archaeological research and over 25 years of the author's personal tanning experience.

E-Learning Methodologies and Computer Applications in Archaeology

Author: Politis, Dionysios
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1599047616
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description
Tools of data comparison and analysis are critical in the field of archaeology, and the integration of technological advancements such as geographic information systems, intelligent systems, and virtual reality reconstructions with the teaching of archaeology is crucial to the effective utilization of resources in the field. E-Learning Methodologies and Computer Applications in Archaeology presents innovative instructional approaches for archaeological e-learning based on networked technologies, providing researchers, scholars, and professionals a comprehensive global perspective on the resources, development, application, and implications of information communication technology in multimedia-based educational products and services in archaeology.

Computational Approaches to Archaeological Spaces

Author: Andrew Bevan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315431912
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
This volume of original chapters written by experts in the field offers a snapshot of how historical built spaces, past cultural landscapes, and archaeological distributions are currently being explored through computational social science. It focuses on the continuing importance of spatial and spatio-temporal pattern recognition in the archaeological record, considers more wholly model-based approaches that fix ideas and build theory, and addresses those applications where situated human experience and perception are a core interest. Reflecting the changes in computational technology over the past decade, the authors bring in examples from historic and prehistoric sites in Europe, Asia, and the Americas to demonstrate the variety of applications available to the contemporary researcher.

Studying Technological Change

Author: Michael Brian Schiffer
Publisher: University of Utah Press
ISBN: 9781607811367
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Studying Technological Change synthesizes nearly four decades of research by Michael Brian Schiffer, a cofounder of the field of behavioral archaeology. This new book asks historical and scientific questions about the interaction of people with artifacts during all times and in all places. The book is not about the history or prehistory of technology, nor is it a catalog of methods and techniques for inferring how specific technologies were made or used. Rather, it supplies conceptual tools that can be used to help craft an explanation of any technological change in any society. The behavioral approach leads to new questions, creative research employing diverse lines of evidence, and, often, counterintuitive explanations. In behavioral archaeology, one never loses sight of the materiality of human behavior. Needless to say, advocates of other research approaches will find much in this book to dispute. But critics cannot gainsay the productivity of the behavioral approach nor the fact that it has furnished fresh insights into episodes of technological change.