Showing titles in Archaeology

Flatboats were the most prolific type of vessel on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers during the early 1800s. Thousands of these boats descended the two rivers each year, carrying not only valuable cargo to New Orleans but also western-bound emigrants to newly opened territories. By the late 1800s, flatboats had completely disappeared, and no intact examples were known to exist. That changed in 2000, when local residents found a wreck on the Ohio River shoreline in Illinois.

Misinformation and myths have attached themselves to the Egyptian pyramids since ancient Greece and Rome. While many Americans believe that the pyramids were built by aliens, archaeologists understand that the Giza pyramids were built by the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty around 2450 BCE. So why is there such a disconnect between scholarly opinion and the popular view of Egypt? Jason Colavito takes us back to Late Antique Egypt, where the replacement of polytheism with Christianity gave rise to local efforts to rewrite the stories of Egyptian history in the image of the Bible.

In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a prehuman skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution.

When a team of Victorian archaeologists began to dig into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest stores of knowledge ever seen: a library. As they excavated, and deciphered the library’s forgotten languages, they discovered that it had belonged to Ashurbanipal, a scholar king and conqueror who had ruled the kingdom of Assyria over two thousand years before. Assyriologist Selena Wisnom has spent years studying the tablets and is our expert, lively guide through the library stacks.

In How War Began, author Keith F. Otterbein draws on primate behavior research, archaeological research, data gathered from the Human Relations Area Files and a career spent in research and reflection on war to argue for two separate origins. He identifies two types of military organization: one which developed two million years ago at the dawn of humankind, wherever groups of hunters met and a second which developed some 5,000 years ago, in four identifiable regions, when the first states arose and proceeded to embark upon military conquests.

New marine archaeological evidence has revealed the remains of a large land mass to the north of Britain that hosted an advanced civilization 1,000 years before the recognized “first” civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, or India. Remembered in Celtic legends as Tu-lay, and referred to by geologists as Doggerland or Fairland, this civilization began at least as early as 4000 BC but was ultimately destroyed by rising sea levels, huge tsunamis, and a terrible viral epidemic released from melting permafrost during a cataclysmic period of global warming.

On a cold, cloudy day in early February 1985, Shelley Wachsmann, then resident nautical archaeologist for the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, drove to Kibbutz Ginosar, an agricultural settlement near the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Two brothers, avid amateur archaeologists, had found a boat buried in the lake, its outlines revealed by receding lake waters. The boat was "possibly ancient," according to the handwritten note placed on Wachsmann's desk a day or two before.

A thriving fur trade post between 1830 and 1860, Fort Clark, in what is today western North Dakota, also served as a way station for artists, scientists, missionaries, soldiers, and other western chroniclers traveling along the Upper Missouri River. The written and visual legacies of these visitors have long been the primary sources of information on the cultures of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, the peoples who met the first fur traders in the area. This book is the first account of the fur trade at Fort Clark to integrate new archaeological evidence into the history.

To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians built fortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice that generated staggering quantities of artifacts over the course of many millennia—and also one that has drawn thieves and tomb-raiders to Egypt since antiquity. Drawing on modern scholarship, reportage, and period sources, this book tracks the history of treasure-seekers in Egypt and the social contexts in which they operated, revealing striking continuities throughout time.

Imagine you are a hunter-gatherer some 12,000 years ago. You've got a choice - carry on foraging or plant a few seeds and move to one of those new-fangled settlements down the valley. What you won't know is that urban life is short and riddled with dozens of new diseases; your children will be shorter and sicklier than you are; they'll be plagued with gum disease and stand a decent chance of violent death at the point of a spear. Why would anyone choose this? But choose they did.

Stonehenge is just one of thousands of stone circles erected throughout Britain and Ireland for over three millennia from 3,000 BC on. How did this building tradition survive for so long, over such a large area and with such complexity and uniformity, when the people of the British Isles lived in separate, isolated communities? Graham Phillips argues that these stone circles are evidence of an astonishing system of healthcare and preservation of ancient medical knowledge that held together a society scattered across the British Isles.

El Domingo de Ramos de 1965 cuatro personajes inician un viaje hacia Veracruz y se detienen en Cholula, ciudad de laspirámides aztecas. En el laberinto de sus galerías se internaránlas dos parejas, como en un descenso a los infiernos, que concluirá con una tragedia ritual inesperada. Ficción total en palabras del propio autor, Cambio de piel indaga en el mito del México prehispánico y en el holocausto europeoa través de la memoria de sus protagonistas para decirnos que, en definitiva, todas las violencias son la misma violencia.

In the 13th century, Moundville was one of the largest Native American settlements north of Mexico. Spread over 325 acres were 29 earthen mounds arranged around a great plaza, a mile-long stockade, and dozens of dwellings for thousands of people. Moundville, in size and complexity second only to the Cahokia site in Illinois, was a heavily populated town as well as a political and religious center. Moundville was sustained by tribute of food and labor provided by the people who lived in the nearby floodplain as well as other smaller mound centers.

A hundred and fifty years ago, naval warfare entered a new phase with the introduction of ironclad vessels. On March 9, 1862, the USS Monitor, prototype of this new class of warships, fought the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads, Virginia, after the Virginia had ravaged the Union fleet blockading the James River, sinking larger, seemingly more powerful wooden warships in a potent demonstration of the power of an armored, heavily-gunned, steam-powered warship.

Popular fiction is filled with images of archaeologists as daring adventurers who constantly risk life and limb in the pursuit of fabulous antiquities of immense historical and monetary value. There are evil villains, great romances, and unknown perils lurking around every corner. That's the view many people have of archaeology. But what is the truth behind the myth? And why have the myths persisted for so long?

Exploring myths, mysteries and misconceptions about the past - from the legacies of figures like Pythagoras and Christopher Columbus, to the realities of life in the gun-toting Wild West, to the archaeological digs that have upset our understanding of the birth of civilisation - David Mountain reveals how ongoing revolutions in history and archaeology are shedding light on the truth.

The official inside story of the life, death and remarkable discovery of history's most controversial monarch. On 22 August 1485 Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field, the last king of England to die in battle. His victorious opponent, Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII), went on to found one of our most famous ruling dynasties. Richard's body was displayed in undignified fashion for two days in nearby Leicester and then hurriedly buried in the church of the Greyfriars.

From the first flickers of ingenuity, humankind has excelled in civilization-defining inventions and innovations. Lightbulb Moments in Human History takes a positive, playful and perceptive look at how these big ideas have driven humanity’s inevitable rise. Be astounded by the accidental invention of writing by Sumerian bookkeepers.

Long before the indigenous people of southeastern North America first encountered Europeans and Africans, they established communities with clear social and political hierarchies and rich cultural traditions. Award-winning historian Gregory D. Smithers brings this world to life in Native Southerners, a sweeping narrative of American Indian history in the Southeast from the time before European colonialism to the Trail of Tears and beyond.

This book contains a glimpse into the lives of multiple historical figures that have escaped common knowledge and many historical texts. Here's an inescapable fact: you will need to dig deeper when learning about these people, but you will come out introduced to droves of new personalities. If you do not find yourself wanting to know more, we have done you a disservice, but we guarantee you that your interest will be piqued.