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Journal articles on the topic 'Prehistory'
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1
Cooney, Gabriel. "A sense of place in Irish prehistory." Antiquity 67, no. 256 (September 1993): 632–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00045865.
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Peter Woodman's survey-article in ANTIQUITY, ‘Filling the spaces in Irish prehistory’ (66: 295–314), was developed from his paper to the Prehistoric Society, ‘What's new in Irish prehistory?’ Was it actually new? Did it fill the spaces in the periods of earlier Irish prehistory that ANTIQUITYasked Professor Woodman to address? Gabriel Cooney offers a different perspective on Irish prehistory.
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Gathercole, Peter. "Childe, Marxism, and Knowledge." European Journal of Archaeology 12, no. 1-3 (2009): 181–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461957109339695.
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Childe withdrew from revolutionary politics after his post-university years in Australia in favour of a career in prehistoric archaeology in Britain. Though remaining a Marxist, his application of Marxist principles to prehistory developed only slowly as his interpretations became more sophisticated. He became increasingly interested in knowledge about prehistory from studying results of the interactions between material remains and their interpretation (in Marxist terms, the relationships between practice and theory). In his paper ‘Retrospect’, Childe (1958b:73) charted the development in his thinking to where he rejected ‘transcendental laws determining history and mechanical causes … automatically shaping its course’ with an understanding that a prehistoric society's knowledge of itself was ‘known or knowable … with its then existing material and conceptual equipment’. Thus the prehistory of Europe could be seen not as a product of Oriental civilization, but as an independent entity. Childe could then write a prehistory of Europe ‘that should be both historical and scientific’ (1958b:74). This book, The Prehistory of European Society (1958a), also demonstrated his use of the epistemology of knowledge to understand prehistory as a sociological phenomenon.
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Till, Rupert. "Songs of the Stones: An Investigation into the Acoustic History and Culture of Stonehenge <br> doi:10.5429/2079-3871(2010)v1i2.10en." IASPM Journal 1, no. 2 (January 20, 2011): 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.5429/308.
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This paper investigates the acoustic culture of Stonehenge, an iconic British prehistoric stone circle. It addresses references to the structure within popular music culture, as well as Thomas Hardy’s discussion of the site. It investigates ritual activities in prehistory from an analytical consideration of its acoustics, using theoretical, digital modeling, physical modeling and field measurement approaches. Stonehenge in prehistory is found to have significant acoustic features that are likely to have had an impact in prehistory. Conclusions are drawn about what we can learn from the similarities between ritualistic musical culture in prehistory and in contemporary popular culture.
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Richman, Michèle. "Bataille’s Prehistoric Turn: The Case for Heterology." Theory, Culture & Society 35, no. 4-5 (July 28, 2017): 155–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263276416636453.
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The contribution of this study to existing scholarship is threefold. First, it extends heterology’s timeline beyond the late 1930s to encompass the final phase of Bataille’s career (1955–62) devoted to prehistory. It argues that heterology’s keyword – the wholly other – furnished an entry point into the prehistoric past marginalized by traditional historiography. Second, it demonstrates that the exemplar of prehistory’s otherness is silence. Along with Maurice Blanchot, Bataille forged a modernist aesthetics that promotes silence as an interruption of speech. It therefore concludes that interruption – frequently dismissed as a sign of Bataille’s deficiencies or in contradiction with his goal of continuity – recaptures the continuum lost when archaic humans invented work, language, and a deferral to the future. With sections on religious experience, markings, eroticism, and the rupture between animals and humans, this study offers an introduction to prehistory in Bataille for specialists and general readers willing to plunge into what scholars now describe as deep history.
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Tipping, Richard, Richard Bradley, Jeff Sanders, Robert McCulloch, and Robert Wilson. "Moments of crisis: climate change in Scottish prehistory." Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 142 (November 30, 2013): 9–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.9750/psas.142.9.25.
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There is strong evidence for many key turning points in Scottish and north-west European prehistory – what we call moments of 'crisis' – to be associated with evidence for widespread and abrupt natural changes in climate. Association or coincidence are not cause, though, and the testing of specific hypotheses to establish this relation is needed. The timing of these moments of abrupt climatic change in Scottish prehistory is proposed in a review of the many new data-sets of prehistoric climate change affecting the North Atlantic region. The case is made that Scotland in prehistory, because of its location in the North Atlantic region, should become a testing-ground of the relation between prehistoric society and climate change, to move debate beyond merely coincidence matching.
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Parker-Pearson, M. "From corpse to skeleton: dealing with the dead in prehistory." Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris 28, no. 1-2 (March 1, 2016): 4–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13219-016-0144-y.
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The shortcomings of the archaeological record raise many challenges for the interpretation of prehistoric funerary practices, particularly because the remains of most people in prehistory have left no trace at all. Throughout prehistory, most human remains were treated in ways that are archaeologically invisible. A brief review of the sequence of funerary practices in British prehistory reveals major gaps and deficiencies in the burial record. It may well be that the normative rites for much of British prehistory were those that left little or no archaeological trace, such as excarnation through exposure of corpses or scattering of cremated ashes.One form of mortuary practice only recently demonstrated for British prehistory is that of mummification. Scientific analysis of Late Bronze Age skeletons from Cladh Hallan, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, has revealed that they were not only composites of multiple individuals but were also mummified prior to burial. In particular, histological analysis of bioerosion in the bone microstructure reveals that putrefaction was arrested soon after death. This method of histological analysis has been applied to a large sample of prehistoric and historical human remains, and reveals that patterns of arrested decay are particularly a feature of the British Bronze Age from the Bell Beaker period onwards.
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Chapman, Robert. "The Prehistoric Society, Prehistory and Society." Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 51, no. 1 (December 1985): 15–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0079497x00007003.
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Towards the beginning of her novel Excellent Women Barbara Pym recounts a telephone conversation of more than passing relevance to our meeting today.I dialled the number fearfully and heard it ring. ‘Hello, hello, who is that?’ a querulous elderly woman's voice answered. I was completely taken aback, but before I could speak the voice went on, ‘If it's Miss Jessop I can only hope you are ringing up to apologize’. I stammered out an explanation. I was not Miss Jessop. Was Mr Everard Bone there? ‘My son is at a meeting of the Prehistoric Society’, said the voice. ‘Oh, I see. I'm so sorry to have bothered you’, I said. ‘People are always bothering me — I never wanted to have the telephone put in at all’.After a further apology I hung up the receiver shaken and mystified but at the same time relieved. Everard Bone was at a meeting of the Prehistoric Society. It sounded like a joke. (1952, 29–30)Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, if this is a typical reaction to the Prehistoric Society, then on 23 February we become a fifty-year-old joke! If we allow for the history of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, then we reach well and truly back into the days of the Music Hall joke.
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Coye, Noël, and Arnaud Hurel. "Émile Cartailhac (1845–1921): une préhistoire en constante reconstruction." ORGANON 55 (December 12, 2023): 25–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/00786500.org.23.002.18779.
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Émile Cartailhac (1845–1921): A Prehistory in Constant Reconstruction At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, French prehistory underwent a conceptual and methodological overhaul in line with the movement affecting the human sciences at the time. This change was brought about by a new generation of prehistorians, but some of the earliest, including Émile Cartailhac, were also at the forefront of the movement. The Toulouse prehistorian was not a systemic thinker, but conducted research into, and dissemination and promotion of prehistory at both the national and international level. He played an active role in the main debates renovating prehistory and proposed a series of compromises that reconfigured prehistoric practice by the renovation of methods and the opening up of new areas of investigation.
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Wood, Jacqui. "Food and drink in European prehistory." European Journal of Archaeology 3, no. 1 (2000): 89–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/eja.2000.3.1.89.
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There is a wealth of archaeological evidence, from bones excavated in prehistoric middens, piles of fruit stones and sea shells, that give us concrete indications of food consumed at various prehistoric sites around Europe. In addition to this information, we have pollen analysis from settlement sites and charred plant macrofossils. Wetland archaeology informs us in much more detail about not only the types of foods that were being eaten in prehistory but also, in some cases, their cooking techniques. This paper will explore whether or not a popular misconception about the daily diet in prehistory has its roots in the analysis of stomach contents of various bog bodies found in Europe.
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Renfrew, Colin, Theodora Bynon, Merritt Ruhlen, Aron Dolgopolsky, and Peter Bellwood. "Is there a Prehistory of Linguistics?" Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5, no. 2 (October 1995): 257–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774300015055.
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There are few aspects of human behaviour more fundamental than our ability to use language. Language plays a key role in the study of any living human society, and of all historical communities which have left us written records. In theory it could also throw enormous light on the development and relationships of prehistoric human communities. But here there is a huge and obvious problem: what evidence can there be for human languages in the pre-literate, prehistoric age? In other words, what hope is therefor a prehistory of linguistics? There is no easy answer, yet it is hard to accept that any account of human prehistory can be considered adequate without some knowledge of prehistoric languages and linguistic relationships, if only at the broadest scale.The list of questions we might wish to pose stretches back to the period of the very earliest hominids. When did our human ancestors first begin to talk to each other? Was language acquisition sudden or gradual? Did human language arise in one place, and then spread and diversify from- that point? Or did it emerge independently, among separate groups of early humans in different parts of the world?Leading on from this is the study of ethnicity and ethnogenesis. Since the end of the nineteenth century one of the biggest problems facing prehistoric archaeologists has been the identification and interpretation of archaeological cultures and cultural groups. Do these have any social or ethnic reality? Is it right to speak of a Beaker ‘folk’? Was the Bandkeramik colonization the work of one people or of many? These questions would be so much easier to resolve if only we could trace the prehistory of languages, and could establish, for instance, whether all Bandkeramik and Beaker users spoke the same or a related language.Such possibilities may seem exciting and hopeful to some, irredeemably optimistic to others. Whatever view we take, they clearly merit serious discussion. In the present Viewpoint, our third in the series, we have asked five writers — two archaeologists (Renfrew & Bellwood), three linguists (Bynon, Ruhlen & Dolgopolsky) — to give their own, personal response to the key question ‘Is there a prehistory of linguistics?’ Can we, from the evidence of archaeology, linguistics (and now DNA studies), say anything positive about langtiage in prehistory?
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Clermont, Norman, and Philip E. L. Smith. "Prehistoric, prehistory, prehistorian … who invented the terms?" Antiquity 64, no. 242 (March 1990): 97–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00077322.
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Who first used a word for the idea of ‘prehistory’? Chippindale, in a paper published last year, tried to clear up this old confusion once and for all. He failed. Here are more answers to the question — a matter of real historical importance since the invention of a prehistoric past was so central to the 19th-century development of archaeology.
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CHARLES, D. K. "Japanese Prehistory: Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers In Japan." Science 235, no. 4791 (February 20, 1987): 916b—917b. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.235.4791.916b.
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Rückemann, Claus-Peter. "The Coherent Multi-disciplinary Knowledge Case of Prehistorical Insight: Information Science at the Edge of Structured Data Comprehension." Information Theories and Applications 28, no. 1 (2021): 3–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.54521/ijita28-01-p01.
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Up to these days, we are experiencing an omnipresent lack of a general approach for cognitive addressing of knowledge structures. This article presents new results and component reference implementations based on frameworks of coherent conceptual knowledge. Coherent conceptual knowledge provides valuable instruments for multi-disciplinary contextualisation, e.g., for contexts in prehistory and protohistory. This research addresses scientific methodologies, valorisation and intelligent re-valorisation of any scientific insight, cognostic addressing of structures, also known as nucleal cognstructures. The resulting component reference implementations enable productive, fertile environments, and learning-improvement-cycles. Central goal of this research is a consistent coherent conceptual integration of knowledge. Prehistory and prehistoric archaeology and their contexts and contextualisation provide a plethora of instructive multi-disciplinary scientific scenarios of high complexity. Thus, component reference implementations for these scenarios are implementation blueprints for informational modeling, industrial learning, and improvement cycles. The results of this long-term research provide solutions based on practical information science, beneficial for prehistory, prehistoric archaeology, and their multi-disciplinary contexts as well as for providing approaches to general solutions.
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Kunnas-Pusa, Liisa. "Eighteenth-century visions of the Stone Age." 1700-tal: Nordic Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 18 (July 2, 2021): 11–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.7557/4.5905.
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Archaeological concepts of prehistory and the Stone Age are rooted in nineteenth-century scientific discoveries, which extended the human past much further back in time than was previously thought. Without this deep past, the disciplines of archaeology and history would not be what they are today. However, when the division of prehistory into the ages of stone, bronze, and iron was introduced in 1836, it was already an old idea. Stone Age artefacts and the initial phase of human history were discussed in the eighteenth-century academic world, even though the periodisation of history was constructed differently. In the philosophy of the Enlightenment several ideas surfaced which were essential to the formation of archaeology as a scientific practice, and which still affect the way the prehistoric past is imagined. This article examines the concept of a prehistoric, furthest past in Finnish scientific texts, within the framework of eighteenth-century Swedish traditions of science and historiography. How did the scholars in the Academy of Turku view Stone Age artefacts that had a multi-faceted nature in the antiquarian tradition? In what way did their visions of the earliest phase of the Nordic past set up later nationalistic narratives about prehistory?
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Chevalier, Adèle. "Définir la Préhistoire exotique par ses objets muséaux: Le cas du Musée D’Ethnographie du Trocadéro au début des années 1930." ORGANON 55 (December 12, 2023): 53–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/00786500.org.23.003.18780.
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Defining Exotic Prehistory through Its Collections: The Case of the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro in the Early 1930’s In November 1933 the room of Exotic Prehistory at the Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro (MET) was first opened. Initially focusing on Africa, the project evolved when Paul Rivet incorporated Asian territories into it. The organizing of the room was partly the result of the institutionalization and professionalization of the French Science of Man during the interwar period, which was common to both ethnographic and ¨ anthropological collections. However, the acquisition and management of prehistoric collections, particularly those from Indochina, had their own specificities. The aim of this article is to examine, from a museum perspective, the concept of exotic prehistory, the types of objects that are promoted through it and the ways in which it was created and used at the MET.
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Whitnall, Carolyn. "Prehistory." Anglican Theological Review 105, no. 4 (November 2023): 529–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00033286231211655.
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Robinson, M. E., D. W. Shimwell, and G. Cribbin. "Re-assessing the logboat from Lurgan Townland, Co. Galway, Ireland." Antiquity 73, no. 282 (December 1999): 903–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00065662.
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Recent study of the prehistoric Lurgan logboat reveals many details of its construction and date. Speculation on how the boat was used and why it was incomplete offer an insight into Irish prehistory.
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LeBlanc, Steven A. "Modeling Warfare in Southwestern Prehistory." North American Archaeologist 18, no. 3 (January 1998): 235–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/v36n-euvx-ny91-celr.
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Warfare was an important behavioral component in the Southwest, and its existence and consequences have not been adequately considered in modeling Southwestern prehistory. Warfare seems to have varied in intensity, importance, and form during the prehistoric record, however, one particular episode seems to be particularly important and usefully dealt with. This was a period of intense warfare lasting from the mid a.d. 1200s, well into the Pueblo IV period.
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Codina, Marta, Ivan Gironès, Roger Alcàntara, and Adrià Breu. "Alta Ribera Salada and Balma de les Cordes (Odèn, Solsonès). Research about the settlement of Alta Ribera Salada and its possible salt exploitation." Vall Salina e-Journal, no. 1 (June 15, 2024): 25–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.69736/22190103.
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Balma de les Cordes was a Bronze Age domestic space among the megalithic landscape of Alta Ribera Salada. This article will delve into the activities carried out within this cavity during prehistory, focusing on the productive activities of populations with easy access to natural sources of salt water. The lithic industry is detailed and an assessment is made of the archaeozoological and ceramic/pottery remains. This study enriches our understanding of the peoples of recent prehistory in Catalonia and opens a debate on the importance of a resource such as salt in shaping prehistoric economies and ways of life.
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Venegas Ramos, Alberto. "El consumo de la Prehistoria a través del videojuego, representaciones, tipologías y causas = The Prehistory through the Videogames: Representations, Tipologies and Causes." Espacio Tiempo y Forma. Serie I, Prehistoria y Arqueología, no. 10 (December 4, 2017): 13. http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/etfi.10.2017.19174.
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Las representaciones de la Prehistoria en la cultura popular siempre han sido parciales, deformadas por los propios creadores para fijar una “marca prehistórica” que fuera fácilmente reconocible para los consumidores. En este trabajo intentaremos trazar un recorrido por la historia de las representaciones del videojuego ambientados en la Prehistoria para establecer una tipología y una serie de rasgos generales. Como conclusión ligaremos esta tipología, las diferentes representaciones y rasgos generales con las nociones de consumo, el pasado y el uso de la Historia en la cultura popular expresadas en los trabajos de Barthes Samuel (2012), David Lowenthal (2015) y Jerome de Groot (2016).The representation of the Prehistory in popular culture have been always partial, deformed by the creators of contents to create a “prehistoric brand” that be easily recognoscible for the consumer. In this paper we will try to trace a history of the prehistoric representations in the video games and stablish a typology for the different manifestations. In the last place, we will question himself the reasons for this representations in relation with the works of Barthes Samuel (2012), David Lowenthal (2015) and Jerome de Groot (2016) and their notions of the relation between the consuming, the past and the use of History in the popular culture.
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Green, Stanton W., and Marek Zvelebil. "The Mesolithic Colonization and Agricultural Transition of South-east Ireland." Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 56 (1990): 57–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0079497x0000503x.
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This paper presents the first systematic archaeological evidence from the early prehistory of south-east Ireland. The research is designed to investigate the colonization of the area during the Mesolithic period and the subsequent transition to agriculture. From a theoretical perspective, we offer a view of indigenous development. That is, we look for continuities between Mesolithic and Neolithic Ireland in terms of technology and settlement. The data, we are gathering include surface and excavated materials. Lithic assemblages were systematically collected from ploughsoils surrounding the Waterford Harbour area during the years 1983 through 1987. These materials are analyzed from the point of view of geography, raw material, reduction sequences, manufacturing technology, and chronological typology to yield an initial glimpse into the rich prehistory of the region and its pattern of settlement. Excavations during 1986, 1987 and 1989 have begun to fill in some detail including the region's first prehistoric barley, a Neolithic radiocarbon date, prehistoric pottery, a rhyolite quarry and several rich lithic assemblages.
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Tusa Ilea, Laura. "Heretical Dimensions of Self Responsability by Jan Patočka." Investigaciones Fenomenológicas, no. 4-I (January 15, 2014): 331. http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/rif.4-i.2013.29752.
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Jan Patočka’s account of responsibility, as developed in Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, is configured through the philosopher’s entire model of history, seen less as a scale of progress, but rather as a rupture. Responsibility is possible only for a very specific form of humanity, centered on history, problematicity and selfdisclosure. This type of historic humanity is in profound contrast with the prehistoric one, focused on “daimonic participation.” Responsibility involves the passage from prehistory to history. Despite the fact that it requires an intense “discipline of the soul,” the passage to responsibility cannot become pure and transparent, which in turn means that history is repeatedly threatened by falling back into prehistory. The positive involved in this assumption is that responsibility is not taken for granted; it is not a matter of following metaphysical principles, but rather a matter of a practical, “heretical” decision of embracing history, with its shaken problematicity, and of resisting the temptation of prehistory.La comprensión de Jan Patočka de la responsabilidad, tal como se desarrolladen Ensayos eréticos de filosofía de la Historia, viene configurada por el modelo completo de Historia, vista más como una ruptura que como una escala de progreso. La responsabilidad es posible sólo para una forma muy concreta de humanidad, centrada en la historia, la problematicidad y el autodescubrimiento. Este tipo de humanidad histórica se halla en profundo contraste con el tipo prehistórico, focalizado sobre la “participación demónica”. La responsabilidad implica el tránsito de la prehistoria a la historia. Pese a requerir una intensa “disciplina del alma”, el tránsito a la responsabilidad no puede tornarse puro y transparente, lo que a su vez significa que la historia está constantemente amenzada por una recaída en la prehistoria. El lado positivo que esta asunción envuelve es que la responsabilidad no se da por garantizada; no es una cuestión de seguir principios metafísicos, sino más bien cuestión de una decisión práctica, “herética”, de abrazar la historia, con su problematicidad conmovida, y de resistir la tentación de la prehistoria.
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Robb, John. "Prehistoric Art in Europe: A Deep-Time Social History." American Antiquity 80, no. 4 (October 2015): 635–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.80.4.635.
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Although many researchers have studied prehistoric European artthere has been virtually no attention paid to the broad prehistory of art as a specialized form of material culture: virtually all studies focus narrowly on single bodies of art. This paper presents a new approach to analyzing prehistoric art: quantitative deep time study. It analyzes a database of 211 art traditions from across Europe and from 40,000 B.C. to 0 AD.to identify changes in the amountnatureand use of prehistoric art. The results reveal clear long-term trends. The amount of art made increased sharply with the origins of sedentary farming and continued to rise throughout prehistory. New forms of art arise in conjunction with new ways of life: “period genres “ are closely tied into patterns of social change. There are also long-term shifts in aesthetics and the uses of art (such as a gradual shift from arts of ritual and concealment to arts of surface and display). These resultsthough preliminaryshow that a deep-time approach familiar from topics such as climate change is applicable to art; the resulting social history can illuminate both art and its social context.
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Budja, Mihael. "Neolithic pottery and the biomolecular archaeology of lipids." Documenta Praehistorica 41 (December 30, 2014): 196–224. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/dp.41.11.
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In this paper, we present archaeological and biochemical approaches to organic food residues, the lipids that are well preserved in ceramic matrices on prehistoric vessels. The ‘archaeo- logical biomarker revolution’ concept is discussed in relation to pottery use, animal exploitation and the evolution of dietary practices in prehistory.
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Harris, David R. "Pathways to World Prehistory Presidential Address 1994." Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 60, no. 1 (1994): 1–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0079497x00003352.
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Several previous Presidents, most notably Professor Sir Grahame Clark, have stressed in their presidential addresses the worldwide scope of our subject; but so far only one, my distinguished predecessor, Thurstan Shaw, has chosen to speak mainly about the prehistory of a non-European part of the world, in his case Africa (Shaw 1990). My aim today is to develop this theme by exploring three pathways to world prehistory: first, the pathway followed by the Society itself; second, the pathway that led humanity to people the world's continents; and third, the pathway that links prehistoric archaeology to the concerns of the modern world. This agenda may appear unrealistically ambitious for a short address, but, by briefly considering these three inter-twined pathways, I hope to show that the study of prehistory is not only worthwhile for its own sake, but that it also has direct relevance to the social and political problems of our late 20th century world.On the occasion of our 50th Anniversary Conference, held in Norwich in March 1985, Grahame Clark described the eventful history of the Society, and that of its predecessor, the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia. He analyzed the trend in membership and publication that signalled the Society's transformation, from a local band of mainly amateur enthusiasts to a national society of professional and amateur prehistorians, with, increasingly, an international view of their subject (Clark 1985). The sub-title of Professor Clark's paper — From East Anglia to the World — neatly encapsulated this theme, which he illustrated by analyzing the geographical coverage of articles published in the Proceedings between 1911 and 1982: an analysis that brought up-to-date the earlier examination of publication trends that he had included in his own Presidential Address in 1959 (Clark 1959).
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Fibiger, Linda. "The Past as a Foreign Country." Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 44, no. 1 (March 1, 2018): 6–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/hrrh.2018.440103.
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Steven Pinker’s thesis on the decline of violence since prehistory has resulted in many popular and scholarly debates on the topic that have ranged—at times even raged— across the disciplinary spectrum of evolution, psychology, philosophy, biology, history, and beyond. Those disciplines that made the most substantial contribution to the empirical data underpinning Pinker’s notion of a more violent prehistoric past, namely, archaeology and bioarchaeology/physical anthropology, have not featured as prominently in these discussions as may be expected. This article will focus on some of the issues resulting from Pinker’s oversimplifi ed cross-disciplinary use of bioarchaeological data sets in support of his linear model of the past, a model that, incidentally, has yet to be incorporated into current accounts of violent practices in prehistory.
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Ingold, Tim. "Posthuman Prehistory." Nature and Culture 16, no. 1 (March 1, 2021): 83–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/nc.2020.160106.
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Abstract This article asks what part prehistory could play in establishing a posthumanist settlement, alternative to the humanism of the Enlightenment. We begin by showing how Enlightenment thinking split the concept of the human in two, into species and condition, establishing a point of origin where the history of civilization rises from its baseline in evolution. Drawing on the thinking of the thirteenth-century mystic, Ramon Llull, we present an alternative vision of human becoming according to which life carries on through a process of continuous birth, wherein even death and burial hold the promise of renewal. In prehistory, this vision is exemplified in the work of André Leroi-Gourhan, in his exploration of the relation between voice and hand, and of graphism as a precursor to writing. We conclude that the idea of graphism holds the key to a prehistory that not so much precedes as subtends the historic.
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Tiger, Lionel. "Prehistory Returns." Foreign Affairs 78, no. 1 (1999): 127. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20020246.
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Ingold, Tim. "Posthuman Prehistory." Nature and Culture 16, no. 1 (March 1, 2021): 83–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/nc.2021.160106.
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This article asks what part prehistory could play in establishing a posthumanist settlement, alternative to the humanism of the Enlightenment. We begin by showing how Enlightenment thinking split the concept of the human in two, into species and condition, establishing a point of origin where the history of civilization rises from its baseline in evolution. Drawing on the thinking of the thirteenth-century mystic, Ramon Llull, we present an alternative vision of human becoming according to which life carries on through a process of continuous birth, wherein even death and burial hold the promise of renewal. In prehistory, this vision is exemplified in the work of André Leroi-Gourhan, in his exploration of the relation between voice and hand, and of graphism as a precursor to writing. We conclude that the idea of graphism holds the key to a prehistory that not so much precedes as subtends the historic.
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Gibbons, A. "Jawboning prehistory." Science 253, no. 5022 (August 23, 1991): 846. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1876843.
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Julien, Catherine. "Peruvian Prehistory." Latin American Anthropology Review 1, no. 1 (September 10, 2009): 19–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jlca.1989.1.1.19.2.
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Henning, Dale R., and Thomas D. Thiessen. "Regional Prehistory." Plains Anthropologist 49, no. 192 (November 2004): 381–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/pan.2004.026.
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Geim, A. K. "Graphene prehistory." Physica Scripta T146 (January 1, 2012): 014003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0031-8949/2012/t146/014003.
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Luciano, Dana. "Tracking Prehistory." J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 3, no. 1 (2015): 173–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jnc.2015.0019.
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Shnirelman, Victor A. "Alternative Prehistory." Journal of European Archaeology 3, no. 2 (September 1995): 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/096576695800703667.
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Saunders, Nicholas J. "Holy prehistory." Nature 394, no. 6691 (July 1998): 335–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/28542.
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Abedon, Stephen T., Cameron Thomas-Abedon, Anne Thomas, and Hubert Mazure. "Bacteriophage prehistory." Bacteriophage 1, no. 3 (May 2011): 174–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/bact.1.3.16591.
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POWELL, T. G. E. "II.-PREHISTORY." Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature 44, no. 1 (October 9, 2007): 6–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8314.1960.tb00366.x.
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Lütticken, Sven. "Posthuman Prehistory." Third Text 29, no. 6 (November 2, 2015): 498–510. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2016.1235861.
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Green, William. "The Prehistory of Missouri.:The Prehistory of Missouri." American Anthropologist 102, no. 4 (December 2000): 916–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2000.102.4.916.
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Vlolette, Adria La. "Gender in African Prehistory: Gender in African Prehistory ." American Anthropologist 101, no. 4 (December 1999): 848–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1999.101.4.848.
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Høiris, Ole. "Danmarks oldtid – i historisk perspektiv." Kuml 59, no. 59 (October 31, 2010): 213–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.7146/kuml.v59i59.24537.
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The prehistory of Denmark – an historical perspectiveIn the introduction to “Danmarks Oldtid” (The Prehistory of Denmark), Jørgen Jensen aligns his work in continuation of a tradition comprising three preceding publications: Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae’s “Danmarks Oldtid – oplyst ved Oldsager og Gravhöie” from 1843, Sophus Otto Müller’s “Vor Oldtid. Danmarks forhistoriske Archæologi – almenfattelig fremstillet” from 1897 and Johannes Brøndsted’s “Danmarks Oldtid” from 1938-40. Jørgen Jensen’s “Danmarks Oldtid” was published as one volume per year between 2001 and 2004. All the above works were written by a centrally-placed archaeologist, based at the museum in Denmark where it is decided which finds should be elevated as expressions of national culture (contrary to regional) and, thereby, what should be included in a shaping of the Danish national identity. These four publications are all popular accounts with a focus on the national prehistory, presented as the being time between the first appearance of humans within the country’s borders and the introduction of Christianity. And all contribute in ways characteristic of their respective periods to an integration of this prehistory into the Danish national identity.The first works were published when romanticism’s particularistic view of the world, with a focus on people, culture, nation, history and spirit, was predominant in those circles within which the national identity was formulated. However, with time, modernity’s universal world view gradually imposed itself, a world perception which in many areas demystified romanticism and focussed instead on society, system and development.In this article, it is demonstrated how the above-mentioned works, within three different areas – prehistory’s morale, the origin of the Danish people and/or culture and history’s determinants, in the spirit of their respective times, linked prehistory to the contemporary especially romantically-inspired creation of a Danish identity. There is a focus on, for example, the ways in which the Danish people or the Danish culture are/is rendered unique; something central to a romantic perception in contrast to a modernistic one. How events are placed in the past on which we can look back with pride – otherwise prehistory would of course not be of much worth as an element of identity. How a shift occurs between the randomness of history and necessity of development, and much more which unfolds in the area between romanticism and modernity.With reference to the fact that these four works were all more or less directly linked to the production of new prehistoric exhibitions at the National Museum, this article concludes, on the occasion of Moesgård Museum’s new exhibition, with an attempt to reverse the relationship between the spirit of the times and the communication of information which formed the foundation for its first part. Some observations are made concerning the ways in which it is possible, in a museum context, to relate to a post-modern or post-industrial scenario. Where the project of development, so central to the communication of the past in books and by museums, is abolished as imperialistic and how, consequently, the point of departure has to be that any communication must challenge the post-modern, reflexive individual in the construction of its own narratives. Ole HøirisAfdeling for Antropologi og EtnografiAarhus Universitet
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Chippindale, Christopher. "The Invention of Words for the Idea of ‘Prehistory’." Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54 (1988): 303–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0079497x00005867.
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The standard recent authorities on the history of archaeology date the invention of a specific word for prehistory to 1833, saying that Paul Tournal of Narbonne used the adjective préhistorique (‘prehistoric’ in the English translation in Heizer 1969, 91; and in Daniel 1967, 25, following Heizer 1962) or the noun préhistoire (Daniel 1981,48) in an article about French bone-caves.This is not true. The word Tournal used was antéhistorique (Tournal 1833, 175), and the mistake has arisen from working with an idiomatic translation into English, which rendered ‘anté-historique’ as ‘prehistoric’ (Tournal [1959]) instead of the original French. (Grayson 1983, 102., however, quotes Tournal's original French correctly.) The earliest use of ‘prehistoric’ seems to be Daniel Wilson's of 1851 in The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland (1851), as the older histories of archaeology say (eg Daniel 1950, 86 (reprinted in Daniel 1975, 86); Daniel 1962, 9), before the error about Tournal began to circulate.
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Besse, M., S. Fragnière, A. Müller, M. Piguet, L. Dubois, D. Miéville, S. Schoeb, and D. Schumacher. "Learning About Archaeology and Prehistoric Life." Science & Education 28, no. 6-7 (May 25, 2019): 759–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11191-019-00047-z.
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Abstract This article is about an intervention introducing prehistoric life in primary education. Its objectives were to foster openness and interest for prehistory and archaeology, as well as content knowledge and conceptual learning with a focus on four main facets: basic knowledge about prehistoric life; conceptual learning/change regarding prehistory; learning about archaeologists and archaeology as a scientific discipline; and learning about interactions of archaeology and other disciplines (interdisciplinarity). Students participated in two workshops about the creation of a prehistoric object, highlighting the close interaction between the natural sciences and humanities within archaeology. The workshop emphasised dialogue between students, teachers and researchers, as well as active participation by the students. The educational effects of the workshops were studied using a pre-post design (N = 439, ages 8–10 years). Results show that the workshops had sizeable positive effects on both affective and cognitive variables. The appreciation of the workshops ranged from ≈ 70 to 90% (of maximum value) for interest, perceived educational value and further aspects. We also found a positive impact of the intervention on cognitive variables, e.g. for several elements of key knowledge about prehistory (such as where prehistoric people lived and with what resources; medium to large effect sizes: d > 0.9 and d = 0.46, respectively). Regarding conceptual learning, we found improved understanding of the link between climate change and long-term changes in wildlife in a given area (medium to large effect sizes, d = 0.5–0.8). A positive impact was also found for the understanding of archaeology encompassing both humanities and the natural sciences (e.g. understanding of climate change as inferred from archaeological knowledge, d = 0.3–0.5). No differences of the various outcomes were found between girls and boys; the workshops appear suitable for both genders. We conclude with a discussion of the interpretation of our findings, of some limitations and possible improvements, and of future perspectives, in particular for further classroom implementation.
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Cova, Elisabetta. "Negotiating the Past in the Present: Italian Prehistory, Civic Museums, and Curatorial Practice in Emilia-Romagna, Italy." European Journal of Archaeology 13, no. 3 (2010): 285–312. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461957110386702.
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The latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed the establishment of prehistoric archaeology as a scientific discipline in Italy, as well as the founding of the Italian nation state. Evolutionism, positivism, and a sense of national identity informed prehistoric research and the activities of individuals, such as Strobel, Pigorini, and Chierici, who are regarded today as the founding fathers of Italian prehistory. It is in this dynamic cultural and political climate that the civic museums of Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna were created, both as a response to intense local archaeological activity and in reaction to the centralizing structure of the newly formed kingdom of Italy. These civic museums were among the first museums of prehistory in Italy and the products of the cultural and political climate of late nineteenth-century Europe. This article explores the circumstances surrounding the foundation of these museums and considers how the work of the first prehistorians and the museums' own histories, as civic and cultural institutions, continues to affect their role and management in the present.
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Dortch, Charles. "Prehistory Down Under: archaeological investigations of submerged Aboriginal sites at Lake Jasper, Western Australia." Antiquity 71, no. 271 (March 1997): 116–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x0008460x.
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Much of Australian prehistory lies under water. Although confined to the continent's extreme southwestern corner, field studies described in this report show that this submerged prehistoric component is very real, with numerous archaeological sites and former land surfaces awaiting investigation on the floors of Australia's lakes, rivers and estuaries, and on its submerged continental margins.
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Török, Béla. "The Story of the International Scientific Commission of the UISPP for Archaeometry of Pre- and Protohistoric Inorganic Artifacts, Materials and Technologies." Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica Natural Sciences in Archaeology XIII, no. 2 (November 2, 2022): 181–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.24916/iansa.2022.2.7.
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The International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), an organisation with over 90 years of history, includes all the fields and disciplines that contribute to the development of prehistory and protohistory. To achieve their goals, the UISPP organises periodically a world congress on prehistoric and protohistoric sciences. Based on proposals received, the general assembly decides on the creation of scientific commissions, following the advice of the executive committee of the UISPP. The main objective of these commissions is to promote and coordinate international research in a specific or specialised domain of the prehistoric and protohistoric sciences between each world congress. Based on the success and interest shown in a session of the 17th UISPP Congress, the need has arisen to create a new scientific commission in the field of archaeometry. This brief text describes the creation of this commission and its scientific activities to date. The commission aims at discussing and transmitting the archaeometric approaches to technologies in Prehistory and Protohistory concerning lithic technology, metallurgy, ceramics and glass making; gathering and organising the results, conclusions and circumstances of archaeometric case studies of artifacts; paying particular attention to production, procurement and characterisation of raw materials, and fabrication technologies; and discussing relevant interdisciplinary investigation methods and techniques.
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Leighton, Robert. "Later prehistoric settlement patterns in Sicily: old paradigms and new surveys." European Journal of Archaeology 8, no. 3 (2005): 261–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461957105076066.
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Whilst Sicily is the largest and perhaps most geographically diverse island in the Mediterranean, archaeological survey has been slow to develop there and has had little impact on general accounts of Sicilian prehistory. Discussions of prehistoric settlement distribution in the island have to contend with uneven data obtained by different means and limited evidence for past land-use and environmental change. Nevertheless, survey data point to contrasting settlement patterns between the fourth and first millennia BC (Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages), which can usefully be compared with information from conventional (non-survey) distribution maps. Surveys have the potential to promote new accounts of Sicilian prehistory in which traditional historicist paradigms are at least complemented by those which place a stronger emphasis on relationships or dynamics within the specific island context.
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Gdaniec, Kasia. "A miniature antler bow from a Middle Bronze Age site at Isleham, (Cambridgeshire), England." Antiquity 70, no. 269 (September 1996): 652–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00083782.
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A little bow — at less than half a metre long too small to be a practical tool — comes from the later prehistoric Fenland of east England. Along with the wristguards, fine arrowheads and smoothing stones of the British Bronze Age, it tells of the special meaning of archery in later prehistory — whether in the animal chase or in human combat.
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Barker, G. W. W. "From Classification to Interpretation: Libyan Prehistory, 1969–1989." Libyan Studies 20 (January 1989): 31–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0263718900006579.
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In the 15 years following the Second World War, the available data on the prehistory of North Africa were summarised in a series of major syntheses (notably Alimen 1955; Balout 1955; Ford-Johnston 1959; and Vaufrey 1955). With stratified sequences few and far between, radiometric techniques of absolute dating still at the developmental stage, and little detailed information on palaeoenvironments, it was inevitable that the emphasis of all these studies was on the description and classification of the archaeological record, and its organisation into regional cultural sequences. As far as Libya was concerned, the prehistoric rock carvings of the Fezzan were already well known, particularly from the studies by Graziosi before the war (Graziosi 1934; 1937; 1942), but in terms of artifact assemblages Libyan prehistory was much less understood than the prehistoric sequences of the Maghreb to the west and accordingly much less represented in the syntheses of the 1950s. In general, the prehistory of North Africa was described as a succession of ‘cultural groups’ that were correlated more or less with the better-documented palaeolithic, mesolithic, and neolithic sequences of Europe.During the 1960s, two major studies of Libyan prehistory were published which have had a dominating influence on research in the following 20 years. The first was the publication by Charles McBurney (1967) of the deep stratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave on the coast of Cyrenaica. McBurney began research on the Libyan Palaeolithic in the years immediately after the war, publishing a variety of surface collections (1947), trial excavations in the Hagfet ed Dabba cave (1950), and a joint study with C. W. Hey (1955) of the relationship between Pleistocene geological and archaeological sequences in Cyrenaica. His excavations in the Haua Fteah were conducted in 1951, 1952, and 1955, the deep sounding revealing a detailed sequence of layers spanning the middle and upper palaeolithic, epipalaeolithic (or mesolithic), and neolithic occupations of the cave (for initial reports: McBurney 1960; 1961; 1962). The full report was able not only to describe the remarkable sequence of assemblages, but also to correlate these with a palaeoenvironmental sequence established from faunal, molluscan, and sedimentary studies of the cave stratigraphy, the sequence also being tied to an absolute chronology based on 20 radiocarbon determinations. The Haua Fteah stratigraphy remains unique not only in Libya but in North Africa as a whole.