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Publisher :Amsterdam University Press Release Date :2014-05-07 ISBN :9048519594 Pages :482 pages Rating :4.0/5 (485 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Archaeology in the digital era by Tim Sly:
Download or read book Archaeology in the digital era written by Tim Sly and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-07 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: CAA is the foremost conference on digital archaeology, and this volume offers a comprehensive and up-to date reference to the state of the art. This volume contains a selection of the best papers presented at the 40th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), held in Southampton from 26 to 29 March 2012. The papers, all written and peer-reviewed by experts in the field of digital archaeology, explore a multitude of topics to showcase ground-breaking technologies and best practice from various archaeological and informatics disciplines, with a variety of case studies from all over the world.
Publisher :SFI Press Release Date :2021-08-02 ISBN :1947864386 Pages :442 pages Rating :4.9/5 (478 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Agent-Based Modeling for Archaeology by Iza Romanowska:
Download or read book Agent-Based Modeling for Archaeology written by Iza Romanowska and published by SFI Press. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: To fully understand not only the past, but also the trajectories, of human societies, we need a more dynamic view of human social systems. Agent-based modeling (ABM), which can create fine-scale models of behavior over time and space, may reveal important, general patterns of human activity. Agent-Based Modeling for Archaeology is the first ABM textbook designed for researchers studying the human past. Appropriate for scholars from archaeology, the digital humanities, and other social sciences, this book offers novices and more experienced ABM researchers a modular approach to learning ABM and using it effectively. Readers will find the necessary background, discussion of modeling techniques and traps, references, and algorithms to use ABM in their own work. They will also find engaging examples of how other scholars have applied ABM, ranging from the study of the intercontinental migration pathways of early hominins, to the weather–crop–population cycles of the American Southwest, to the trade networks of Ancient Rome. This textbook provides the foundations needed to simulate the complexity of past human societies, offering researchers a richer understanding of the past—and likely future—of our species.
Publisher :Oxford University Press Release Date :2022-09-14 ISBN :0192857827 Pages :355 pages Rating :4.1/5 (928 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Simulating Roman Economies by Associate Professor Classical Archaeology and Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (Urbnet) Tom Brughmans:
Download or read book Simulating Roman Economies written by Associate Professor Classical Archaeology and Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (Urbnet) Tom Brughmans and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-14 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: The use of formal modelling and computational simulation in studies of the Roman economy has become more common over the last decade. But detailed critical evaluations of this innovative approach are still missing and much needed. What kinds of insights about the Roman economy can it lead to that could not have been obtained through more established approaches, and how do simulation methods constructively enhance research processes in Roman Studies? This edited volume addresses this need through critical discussion and convincing examples. It presents the Roman economy as a highly complex system, traditionally studied through critical examinations of material and textual sources, and understood through a wealth of diverging theories. A key contribution of simulation lies in its ability to formally represent diverse theories of Roman economic phenomena, and test them against empirical evidence. Critical simulation studies rely on collaboration across Roman data, theory, and method specialisms, and can constructively enhance multivocality of theoretical debates of the Roman economy. This potential is illustrated, avoiding computational and mathematical language, through simulation studies of a wealth of Roman economic phenomena: from maritime trade and terrestrial transport infrastructures, through the economic impacts of the Antonine Plague and demography, to local cult economies and grain trade. Through these examples and discussions, this volume aims to provide the common ground, guidance, and inspiration needed to make simulation methods part of the tools of the trade in Roman Studies, and to allow them to make constructive contributions to our understanding of the Roman economy.
Publisher :Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Release Date :2022-02-10 ISBN :1803271825 Pages :214 pages Rating :4.8/5 (32 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Arqueología y Téchne: Métodos formales, nuevos enfoques by José Remesal Rodríguez:
Download or read book Arqueología y Téchne: Métodos formales, nuevos enfoques written by José Remesal Rodríguez and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2022-02-10 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: Presents papers resulting from the EPNet project (Production and Distribution of Food during the Roman Empire: Economic and Political Dynamics) which aimed to investigate existing hypotheses about the Roman economy in order to understand which products were distributed through the different geographical regions of the empire, and in which periods.
Publisher :Aarhus Universitetsforlag Release Date :2018-12-31 ISBN :8771846387 Pages :309 pages Rating :4.7/5 (718 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Urban Network Evolutions by Rubina Raja:
Download or read book Urban Network Evolutions written by Rubina Raja and published by Aarhus Universitetsforlag. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: For millenia, urban networks have shaped the development of human societies. Today, new archaeological approaches are unveiling the evolution of these networks in unprecedented detail. Urban Networks Evolutions reviews the new approaches to urban evolution as archaeology endeavours to characterise both the scale and pace of historical events and processes. Issuing from the work of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence, the Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), the book compares the archaeology of urbanism from medieval Northern Europe to the Ancient Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean World. The 40 contributors demonstrate how new techniques for refining archaeological dates, contexts, and the provenance ascribed to material culture, afford a new high-definition approach to the study of global and interregional dynamics. This opens up for far-reaching questions as to how and to what extent urban networks catalysed societal and environmental expansions and crises in the past.
Publisher :Springer Release Date :2016-12-06 ISBN :3319451081 Pages :364 pages Rating :4.3/5 (194 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Archaeology of the Communist Era by Ludomir R Lozny:
Download or read book Archaeology of the Communist Era written by Ludomir R Lozny and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: This book contributes to better recognition and comprehension of the interconnection between archaeology and political pressure, especially imposed by the totalitarian communist regimes. It explains why, under such political conditions, some archaeological reasoning and practices were resilient, while new ideas leisurely penetrated the local scenes. It attempts to critically evaluate the political context and its impact on archaeology during the communist era world wide and contributes to better perception of the relationship between science and politics in general. This book analyzes the pressures inflicted on archaeologists by the overwhelmingly potent political environment, which stimulates archaeological thought and controls the conditions for professional engagement. Included are discussions about the perception of archaeology and its findings by the public.
Publisher :Berghahn Books Release Date :2020-07-01 ISBN :1789207878 Pages :210 pages Rating :4.7/5 (892 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology by Shawn Graham:
Download or read book An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology written by Shawn Graham and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: The use of computation in archaeology is a kind of magic, a way of heightening the archaeological imagination. Agent-based modelling allows archaeologists to test the ‘just-so’ stories they tell about the past. It requires a formalization of the story so that it can be represented as a simulation; researchers are then able to explore the unintended consequences or emergent outcomes of stories about the past. Agent-based models are one end of a spectrum that, at the opposite side, ends with video games. This volume explores this spectrum in the context of Roman archaeology, addressing the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of a formalized approach to computation and archaeogaming.
Publisher :Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG Release Date :2022-06-21 ISBN :3110723999 Pages :312 pages Rating :4.1/5 (17 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Digital History and Hermeneutics by Andreas Fickers:
Download or read book Digital History and Hermeneutics written by Andreas Fickers and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: As a result of rapid advancements in computer science during recent decades, there has been an increased use of digital tools, methodologies and sources in the field of digital humanities. While opening up new opportunities for scholarship, many digital methods and tools now used for humanities research have nevertheless been developed by computer or data sciences and thus require a critical understanding of their mode of operation and functionality. The novel field of digital hermeneutics is meant to provide such a critical and reflexive frame for digital humanities research by acquiring digital literacy and skills. A new knowledge for the assessment of digital data, research infrastructures, analytical tools, and interpretative methods is needed, providing the humanities scholar with the necessary munition for doing critical research. The Doctoral Training Unit "Digital History and Hermeneutics" at the University of Luxembourg applies this analytical frame to 13 PhD projects. By combining a hermeneutic reflection on the new digital practices of humanities scholarship with hands-on experimentation with digital tools and methods, new approaches and opportunities as well as limitations and flaws can be addressed.
Publisher :Berghahn Books Release Date :2018-08-17 ISBN :1789201462 Pages :512 pages Rating :4.7/5 (892 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Communities, Landscapes, and Interaction in Neolithic Greece by Apostolos Sarris:
Download or read book Communities, Landscapes, and Interaction in Neolithic Greece written by Apostolos Sarris and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-08-17 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: The last three decades have witnessed a period of growing archaeological activity in Greece that have enhanced our awareness of the diversity and variability of ancient communities. New sites offer rich datasets from many aspects of material culture that challenge traditional perceptions and suggest complex interpretations of the past. This volume provides a synthetic overview of recent developments in the study of Neolithic Greece and reconsiders the dynamics of human-environment interactions while recording the growing diversity in layers of social organization. It fills an essential lacuna in contemporary literature and enhances our understanding of the Neolithic communities in the Greek Peninsula.
Publisher :Springer Release Date :2017-02-10 ISBN :3319406582 Pages :496 pages Rating :4.3/5 (194 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Digital Methods and Remote Sensing in Archaeology by Maurizio Forte:
Download or read book Digital Methods and Remote Sensing in Archaeology written by Maurizio Forte and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: This volume debuts the new scope of Remote Sensing, which was first defined as the analysis of data collected by sensors that were not in physical contact with the objects under investigation (using cameras, scanners, and radar systems operating from spaceborne or airborne platforms). A wider characterization is now possible: Remote Sensing can be any non-destructive approach to viewing the buried and nominally invisible evidence of past activity. Spaceborne and airborne sensors, now supplemented by laser scanning, are united using ground-based geophysical instruments and undersea remote sensing, as well as other non-invasive techniques such as surface collection or field-walking survey. Now, any method that enables observation of evidence on or beneath the surface of the earth, without impact on the surviving stratigraphy, is legitimately within the realm of Remote Sensing. The new interfaces and senses engaged in Remote Sensing appear throughout the book. On a philosophical level, this is about the landscapes and built environments that reveal history through place and time. It is about new perspectives—the views of history possible with Remote Sensing and fostered in part by immersive, interactive 3D and 4D environments discussed in this volume. These perspectives are both the result and the implementation of technological, cultural, and epistemological advances in record keeping, interpretation, and conceptualization. Methodology presented here builds on the current ease and speed in collecting data sets on the scale of the object, site, locality, and landscape. As this volume shows, many disciplines surrounding archaeology and related cultural studies are currently involved in Remote Sensing, and its relevance will only increase as the methodology expands.
Publisher :Springer Release Date :2017-09-28 ISBN :3319584901 Pages :357 pages Rating :4.3/5 (195 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Micro-Spatial Histories of Global Labour by Christian G. De Vito:
Download or read book Micro-Spatial Histories of Global Labour written by Christian G. De Vito and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-28 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: This volume suggests a new way of doing global history. Instead of offering a sweeping and generalizing overview of the past, we propose a ‘micro-spatial’ approach, combining micro-history with the concept of space. A focus on primary sources and awareness of the historical discontinuities and unevennesses characterizes the global history that emerges here. We use labour as our lens in this volume. The resulting micro-spatial history of labour addresses the management and recruitment of labour, its voluntary and coerced spatial mobility, its political perception and representation and the workers’ own agency and social networks. The individual chapters are written by contributors whose expertise covers the late medieval Eastern Mediterranean to present-day Sierra Leone, through early modern China and Italy, eighteenth-century Cuba and the Malvinas/Falklands, the journeys of a missionary between India and Brazil and those of Christian captives across the Ottoman empire and Spain. The result is a highly readable volume that addresses key theoretical and methodological questions in historiography. Chapter 7 is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.
Publisher :BRILL Release Date :2022-12-12 ISBN :9004526676 Pages :347 pages Rating :4.0/5 (45 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review The Metamorphoses of Power by Adrian Gheorghe:
Download or read book The Metamorphoses of Power written by Adrian Gheorghe and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-12-12 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: Using interdisciplinary methodologies and making a case study around the military aḳıncı institution, a relic of early times, this study discusses the emergence of the Ottoman polity in dealing with various warlords and across different identities and political affiliations.
Publisher :Cambridge University Press Release Date :2017-04-24 ISBN :1108165761 Pages : pages Rating :4.1/5 (81 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review A Critique of Archaeological Reason by Giorgio Buccellati:
Download or read book A Critique of Archaeological Reason written by Giorgio Buccellati and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: In A Critique of Archaeological Reason, Giorgio Buccellati presents a theory of excavation that aims at clarifying the nature of archaeology and its impact on contemporary thought. Integrating epistemological issues with methods of data collection and the role and impact of digital technology on archaeological work, the book explores digital data in order to comprehend its role in shaping meaning and understanding in archaeological excavation. The ability of archaeologists to record in the field, rather than offsite, has fundamentally changed the methods of observation, conceptualization, and interpretation of deposits. Focusing on the role of stratigraphy as the center of archaeological field work, Giorgio Buccellati examines the challenges of interpreting a 'broken tradition'; a civilization for which there are no living carriers today. He uses the site of Urkesh in Syria, where he has worked for decades, as a case study to demonstrate his theory.
Publisher :Bloomsbury Publishing Release Date :2022-11-03 ISBN :1350210706 Pages :193 pages Rating :4.3/5 (52 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Connecting the Isiac Cults by Tomáš Glomb:
Download or read book Connecting the Isiac Cults written by Tomáš Glomb and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: Why did Egyptian cults, especially those dedicated to the goddess Isis and god Sarapis, spread so successfully across the ancient Mediterranean after the death of Alexander the Great? How are we limited by the established methodological apparatus of historiography and which innovative methods from other disciplines can overcome these limits? In this book, Tomáš Glomb shows that while the interplay of different factors such as the economy, climate, and politics created favorable conditions for the early spread of the Isiac cults, the use of innovative quantitative methods can shed new light and help disentangle the complex interplay of individual factors. Using a combination of geospatial modeling, mathematical modeling, and network analysis, Glomb determines that, at least in the regions of the Hellenistic Aegean and western Asia Minor, the political channels created by the Ptolemaic dynasty were a dominant force in the local spread of the Isiac cults. An important contribution to the historiography of the ancient Mediterranean, this book answers the specific question of “how it happened” as well as, “how can we answer it beyond the limits of the established methodological apparatus in historiography.”
Publisher :Helsinki University Press Release Date :2022-08-23 ISBN :1912482339 Pages :470 pages Rating :4.9/5 (124 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Hidden Depths by Penny Spikins:
Download or read book Hidden Depths written by Penny Spikins and published by Helsinki University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: In Hidden Depths, Professor Penny Spikins explores how our emotional connections have shaped human ancestry. Focusing on three key transitions in human origins, Professor Spikins explains how the emotional capacities of our early ancestors evolved in response to ecological changes, much like similar changes in other social mammals. For each transition, dedicated chapters examine evolutionary pressures, responses in changes in human emotional capacities and the archaeological evidence for human social behaviours. Starting from our earliest origins, in Part One, Professor Spikins explores how after two million years ago, movement of human ancestors into a new ecological niche drove new types of collaboration, including care for vulnerable members of the group. Emotional adaptations lead to cognitive changes, as new connections based on compassion, generosity, trust and inclusion also changed our relationship to material things. Part Two explores a later key transition in human emotional capacities occurring after 300,000 years ago. At this time changes in social tolerance allowed ancestors of our own species to further reach out beyond their local group and care about distant allies, making human communities resilient to environmental changes. An increasingly close relationship to animals, and even to cherished possessions, appeared at this time, and can be explained through new human vulnerabilities and ways of seeking comfort and belonging. Lastly, Part Three focuses on the contrasts in emotional dispositions arising between ourselves and our close cousins, the Neanderthals. Neanderthals are revealed as equally caring yet emotionally different humans, who might, if things had been different, have been in our place today. This new narrative breaks away from traditional views of human evolution as exceptional or as a linear progression towards a more perfect form. Instead, our evolutionary history is situated within similar processes occurring in other mammals, and explained as one in which emotions, rather than ‘intellect’, were key to our evolutionary journey. Moreover, changes in emotional capacities and dispositions are seen as part of differing pathways each bringing strengths, weaknesses and compromises. These hidden depths provide an explanation for many of the emotional sensitivities and vulnerabilities which continue to influence our world today.
Publisher :Oxford University Press Release Date :2022 ISBN :0190852224 Pages :249 pages Rating :4.1/5 (98 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Pearl of the Desert by Rubina Raja:
Download or read book Pearl of the Desert written by Rubina Raja and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: Palmyra has long attracted the attention of the world. Even before its rediscovery in the eighteenth century it had gained legendary status because of its third-century CE Queen Zenobia, who had rebelled against the Romans and expanded Palmyra's territory into that of an Empire, stretchingfrom what is modern eastern Turkey into Egypt. The city and its queen featured in European art and literature already in the century. Zenobia's Palmyra already existed as a mirage in the minds of the educated Europeans. Even though Zenobia's reign and extensive power was a fairly short interlude andthe Romans struck hard against the Palmyrenes devastating the city, this path to imperial power was one which tells us an immense amount about Palmyrene identity in the period before the devastation. While Zenobia has gained renewed interest among both scholars and the press, and while she hasserved as a political symbol for Syria's president As'ad (a statue of her was recently erected in Damascus), the time leading up to her reign still remains underexplored.With the current situation in Syria, a researched-based narrative is urgently needed to communicate the importance of this site to the general public. Palmyra has over the last years been used as a symbol of the resistance of the rebels, the power of ISIS over the region, as well as the supremacy ofthe Syrian state. UNESCO and the Russians have together with the Syrian state taken a particular interest in Palmyra and in monopolizing the potential rebuilding of the site after the destruction and looting of the past several years have subsided. We are, so to speak, standing at yet anotherturning point in Palmyra's long history, where history is being reinvented actively by several parties. There can be no doubt that the time is ripe for a book on the archaeology and history of Palmyra, as well as an analysis of the current situation, including the destruction and illicit traffickingof material remains from Palmyra. These three main topics will together highlight the ways in which this fascinating site has again and again captured the world's focus.Organized in nine chapters, this compact book will set out to provide an introduction for students and general readers. Following two overview chapters, the next six will give a chronological narrative of Palmyra from the late Hellenistic period through to Rome's destruction in 273 CE and itssurvival in the Byzantine and medieval Islamic periods. The book ends with a shorter conclusion chapter, which will summarize the most important findings and conclusions of the chapters of the book and will set out a number of lines of enquiry which could be taken up in research and culturalheritage management over the coming years. The result will be the best and most up-to-date account of Palmyra in English.
Publisher :John Wiley & Sons Release Date :2013-09-10 ISBN :1119970792 Pages :348 pages Rating :4.1/5 (199 users) GO BOOK!
Summary Book Review Spatial Simulation by David O'Sullivan:
Download or read book Spatial Simulation written by David O'Sullivan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book Synopsis: A ground-up approach to explaining dynamic spatial modelling for an interdisciplinary audience. Across broad areas of the environmental and social sciences, simulation models are an important way to study systems inaccessible to scientific experimental and observational methods, and also an essential complement to those more conventional approaches. The contemporary research literature is teeming with abstract simulation models whose presentation is mathematically demanding and requires a high level of knowledge of quantitative and computational methods and approaches. Furthermore, simulation models designed to represent specific systems and phenomena are often complicated, and, as a result, difficult to reconstruct from their descriptions in the literature. This book aims to provide a practical and accessible account of dynamic spatial modelling, while also equipping readers with a sound conceptual foundation in the subject, and a useful introduction to the wide-ranging literature. Spatial Simulation: Exploring Pattern and Process is organised around the idea that a small number of spatial processes underlie the wide variety of dynamic spatial models. Its central focus on three ‘building-blocks’ of dynamic spatial models – forces of attraction and segregation, individual mobile entities, and processes of spread – guides the reader to an understanding of the basis of many of the complicated models found in the research literature. The three building block models are presented in their simplest form and are progressively elaborated and related to real world process that can be represented using them. Introductory chapters cover essential background topics, particularly the relationships between pattern, process and spatiotemporal scale. Additional chapters consider how time and space can be represented in more complicated models, and methods for the analysis and evaluation of models. Finally, the three building block models are woven together in a more elaborate example to show how a complicated model can be assembled from relatively simple components. To aid understanding, more than 50 specific models described in the book are available online at patternandprocess.org for exploration in the freely available Netlogo platform. This book encourages readers to develop intuition for the abstract types of model that are likely to be appropriate for application in any specific context. Spatial Simulation: Exploring Pattern and Process will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in environmental, social, ecological and geographical disciplines. Researchers and professionals who require a non-specialist introduction will also find this book an invaluable guide to dynamic spatial simulation.
