World Prehistory : A Brief Introduction

by: Fagan, B.M.

Price: 21,72 EURO

1 copy in stock

 
World prehistory : a brief introduction

Author: Brian M. Fagan

Summary:This is a brief survey of world archaeology, designed for readers with no previous experience of the subject. The book should appeal to those who want an overview of the major developments in the early human past.

xv, 299 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Contents:
pt. 1. Prehistory
1. The study of world prehistory
"In the beginning"
Pseudoarchaeology
Prehistory, archaeology, and world prehistory
Major developments in human prehistory
Linear and cyclical time
Dating the past
Space
The present and the past
2. Explaining prehistory
Culture, culture history, and cultural process
The mechanisms of culture change
Culture as adaptation
Multilinear cultural evolution
Stages of social development
Multicausal culture change
Analogy : the ethnographic present
The meaning of the past
Current theoretical approaches. pt. 2. The world or archaic humans
3. Origins
The great Ice Age
Early primate evolution and adaptation
The fossil evidence for human evolution
Toolmaking and early human behavior
Protohuman culture
Archaeological evidence for early human behavior
The early adaptive pattern
4. Out of Africa
Ice Age background
Homo erectus
The radiation of Homo erectu
The lifeway of Homo erectus
Archaic Homo sapiens
Tool technology
The origins of Homo sapiens
Homo sapiens in Africa
Why did Homo sapiens evolve?
The Neanderthals. pt. 3. The birth of the modern world
5. Diaspora
The late Ice Age world
The peopling of Southeast Asia and Australia
Late Ice Age Europe : the Cro-Magnons
The mammoth hunters of Eurasia
The Far East
The first Americans
The Clovis people
6. The first farmers
The changed world of the Holocene
Changes in forager society
Social complexity among foragers
The origins of food production
Early food production in the Near East
Egyptian farmers
The spread of farming into Europe
Early Chinese farmers
Early farmers of the Americas
7. Ocean voyages, pueblos, and moundbuilders
Reciprocity and big men
The navigators : Polynesian chiefdoms
Pueblo farmers in the North American Southwest
The moundbuilders of Eastern North America. pt. 4. Early civilizations
8. State-organized societies
What is a state-organized society?
Theories of the origin of states
Environmental and social theories of state formation
The collapse of civilizations
9. The Mediterranean world
The Sumerians of Mesopotamia
Ancient Egyptian civilization
Hittites and sea traders
Minoans and Mycenaeans
Collapse and recovery : sea peoples and Phoenicians
Assyrians and Babylonians
10. Asians and Africans
South Asia : Harappan civilization
China : Shang civilization
China, India, and Southeast Asia
Ancient African kingdoms
11. Mesoamerican civilizations
Village farmers
The Olmec
Teotihuacán
Mayan civilizations
The Toltecs
Aztec civilization
12. Andean civilizations
The maritime foundations of Andean civilizations
The rise of complex society
Chavín de Huantar
Irrigation agriculture
Moche civilization
Tiwanaku and Huari
Chimu civilization
Inca civilization
13. Epilog
Guide to further reading
Glossary of technical terms
Glossary of archaeological sites and cultural terms
Illustration acknowledgments
Index

World Prehistory : A Brief Introduction

by: Fagan, B.M.

• ISBN-13: 9780673523723 / 978-0-673-52372-3
• ISBN-03: 0673523721 / 0-673-52372-1
• HarperCollins, , 1996

Price: 21,72 EURO

1 copy in stock