Chapter 1 - Introducing World Prehistory
Archaeology and Prehistory
Site: The Avebury Archer
The Beginnings of World Prehistory
Who Needs the Past?
Cyclical and Linear Time
Science: Dating the Past
Written Records, Oral Traditions, and Archaeology
Studying Culture and Culture Change
Primary Cultural Processes
Theoretical Approaches: Culture as Adaptation
Climatic Change
Culture as Adaptation
Cultural Evolution and Cultural Ecology
Multilinear Evolution: Prestate and State-Organized Societies
Theoretical Approaches: Evolutionary Ecology and Hunter-Gatherers
Evolutionary Ecology and Optimal Foraging Strategy
Theoretical Approaches: People as Agents of Change
External and Internal Constraints
Interactions
Gender: Men and Women
Trade and Exchange
Ideologies and Beliefs
Summary
Part I Beginnings 7 Million to 40,000 Years Ago
Chapter 2 -Human Origins: 7 Million to 1.9 Million Years Ago
The Great Ice Age
The Origins of the Human Line
Aegyptopithecus
Miocene Primates
Molecular Biology and Human Evolution
The Ecological Problems Faced by Early Hominins
Adaptive Problems
Dating the Past: Potassium-Argon Dating
Fossil Evidence: 7 to 3 MYA
Toumaï: Sahelanthropus tchadensis
Ardipithecus ramidus
Australopithecus anamensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Laetoli: Footprints of A. afarensis
Fossil Evidence: 3 to 2.5 MYA
Gracile Australopithecines: Australopithecus africanus
Robust Australopithecines: A. aethiopicus, A. boisei, and A. robustus
Australopithecus garhiEarly Homo: 2.5 to 2.0 MYA
Homo habilisA Burst of Rapid Change?
Who Was the First Human?
Archaeological Evidence for Early Human Behavior
Evidence for “Central Places”?
Site: Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, East Africa
Hunting and Scavenging
Plant Foraging and “Grandmothering”
Toolmaking
The Oldowan Industry
The Mind of the Earliest Humans
The Development of Language
Social Organization
Summary
Chapter 3 - Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens: 1.9 Million to 40,000 Years Ago
Pleistocene Background
Lower Pleistocene (1.6 Million to c. 780,000 Years Ago)
Middle Pleistocene (c. 780,000 to 128,000 Years Ago)
Homo ergaster in Africa
The Radiation of Homo ergaster
Fire
Homo erectus in Asia
Southeast Asia
China
Early Asian Technology
The Settlement of Temperate Latitudes
Earliest Human Settlement in Southwest Asia and Europe
Southwest Asia
Europe
Archaic Human Technology
Hand Axes and Other Tools
Hand Axes and the Evolution of the Human Mind
Evidence for Behavior: Boxgrove, Schoningen, and Torralba
Site: A 400,000-Year-Old Hunt at Schoningen, Germany
Language
Archaic Homo sapiens in Europe: The Neanderthals
Dating the Past: Radiocarbon Dating
A More Complex Technology
Levallois and Disk-Core-Reduction Strategies
Tool Forms and Variability
The Mousterian Debate
The Origins of Burial and Religious Belief
The Origins of Modern Humans
Continuity or Replacement?
Homo sapiens in Africa
Molecular Biology and Homo sapiens
Ecology and Homo sapiens
The Spread of Homo sapiens
The Issue of Cognitive Ability
Homo sapiens in East Asia
Summary
Part II The Great Diaspora: The Spread of Modern Humans 45,000 Years Ago to Modern Times
Chapter 4 - Europe and Eurasia: c. 40,000 to 8000 B.C.
The Upper Pleistocene (c. 126,000 Years Ago to 8000 B.C.)
Modern Humans in Southwest Asia
The Upper Paleolithic Transition
A Cultural Explosion?
Modern Humans in Europe
European Hunter-Gatherers (45,000 Years Ago to 8000 B.C.)
Settlement Strategies and Lifeways
Social Life and Group Size
Upper Paleolithic Art
Site: Grotte de Chauvet, France
Paintings and Engravings
Explaining Upper Paleolithic Art
Human Settlement in Eurasia (35,000 to 15,000 Years Ago)
Siberia (?33,000 to 13,000 Years Ago)
The Settlement of Far Northeast Asia
Bifaces, Microblades, and the First Americans
Summary
Chapter 5 - The First Americans: ?14,000 B.C. to Modern Times
The First Settlement of the Americas
Ice Sheets and the Bering Land Bridge
The First Settlement of Alaska
Biological and Linguistic Evidence for the First Americans
The Earliest Sites South of the Ice Sheets
Settlement Routes: Ice-Free Corridors and Seacoasts
Late Wisconsin Settlement in North America?
Central and South America?
A Scenario for First Settlement
The Paleo-Indians: Clovis and Others
Big-Game Extinctions
Later Hunters and Gatherers
Plains Hunters
The Desert West
Eastern North America
Site: Koster, Illinois
Specialized Foraging Societies in Central and South America
Aleuts and Inuit (Eskimo)
Summary
Chapter 6 - Africans and Australians: 45,000 Years Ago to Modern Times
African Hunter-Gatherers, Past and Present
Sunda and Sahul: The First Settlement of Island Southeast Asia
Site: Exotic Islanders: Homo floresiensis
Australia
Ice Age Wallaby Hunters in Tasmania
Later Australian Cultures
Summary
Chapter 7 - Intensification and Complexity: Before 10,000 B.C. to Modern Times
The Holocene (After 10,000 B.C.)
Coping with Environmental Variation
Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers in Europe
Site: Star Carr, England
Mesolithic Complexity in Scandinavia
The Maglemose Period (7500 to 5700 B.C.)
The Kongemose Period (5700 to 4600 B.C.)
The Ertebølle Period (4600 to 3200 B.C.)
Hunter-Gatherer Complexity
Conditions for Greater Complexity
Attributes of Greater Complexity
Debates About Social Complexity
Hunter-Gatherer Societies in Southwest Asia
Summary
Part III First Farmers c. 10,000 B.C. TO MODERN TIMES
Chapter 8 - A Plenteous Harvest: The Origins
Theories About the Origins of Food Production
Early Hypotheses
Multivariate Theories
Site: Guilá Naquitz, Mexico
Differing Dates for Food Production
Studying Early Food Production
Dating the Past: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Radiocarbon Dating
Why Did Food Production Take Hold So Late?
Consequences of Food Production
Nutrition and Early Food Production
Herding: Domestication of Animals
Plant Cultivation
Technology and Domestication
Summary
Chapter 9 - The Origins of Food Production in Southwest Asia
A Scenario for Early Agriculture
The First Farmers: Netiv Hagdud, Abu Hureyra, and Jericho
Netiv Hagdud
Abu Hureyra
Jericho
Diverse Farming Economies and Trade
The Zagros and Mesopotamia
Zawi Chemi Shanidar
Ganj Dareh
Jarmo
Ali Kosh and the Lowlands
Early Farmers in Anatolia
Site: Ritual Buildings in Southeastern TurkeyHaçilar and Çatalhöyük
Two Stages of Farming Development
Summary
Chapter 10 - The First European Farmers
Mesolithic Prelude
The Transition to Farming in Europe
Farming in Greece and Southern Europe
The Spread of Agriculture into Temperate Europe
The Balkans
Bandkeramik Cultures
Frontiers and Transitions
Social Changes, Lineages, and the Individual
The Introduction of the Plow
Plains Farmers: Tripolye
Mediterranean and Western Europe
The Megaliths
Site: Easton Down and the Avebury Landscape
Summary
Chapter 11 - First Farmers in Egypt and Tropical Africa
Hunter-Gatherers on the Nile
Agricultural Origins Along the Nile
Saharan Pastoralists
Early Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa
Summary
Chapter 12 - Asia and the Pacific: Rice, Roots, and Ocean Voyages
The Origins of Rice Cultivation
Early Farming in China
Southern and Eastern China
Northern China
Jomon and Early Agriculture in Japan
Early Agriculture in Southeast Asia
Site: The Princess of Khok Phanom Di, Thailand 288
Rice and Root Cultivation in Island Southeast Asia
Agriculture in the Pacific Islands
The Lapita Cultural Complex and the Settlement of Melanesia and Western Polynesia
Long-Distance Voyaging in the Pacific
Science: Indigenous Pacific Navigation
The Settlement of Micronesia and Eastern Polynesia
The Settlement of New Zealand
Summary
Chapter 13 - The Story of Maize: Early Farmers in the Americas
The First Plant Domestication
The Origins of Maize Agriculture
Beans and Squash
Early Food Production in the Andes
The Highlands
The Peruvian Coast
Early Farmers in Southwestern North America
Hohokam
Mogollon
Ancestral Pueblo
Site: The Chaco Phenomenon
Preagricultural and Agricultural Societies in Eastern North America
Moundbuilder Cultures
Adena
Hopewell
Mississippian
Human Settlement in the Caribbean
First Selltement (Preceramic Cultures)
Saladoid Migrations
Taino Chiefdoms
Summary
Part IV Old World Civilizations c. 3000 B.C. TO MODERN TIMES
Chapter 14 - The Development of Civilization
Civilization
Cities
Six Classic Theories of the Emergence of States
1. V. Gordon Childe and the “Urban Revolution”
2. Ecology and Irrigation
3. Technology and Trade
4. Warfare
5. Cultural Systems and Civilization
6. Environmental Change
Social Theories
Power in Three Domains
Site: The Lord of Sicán at Huaca Loro, Peru
Chiefly Cycling: Processes and Agents
The Collapse of Civilizations
Summary
Chapter 15 - Early Civilizations in Southwest Asia
Upland Villages
Settlement of the Lowlands
Environmental Change
Archaeological Evidence
Site: The Temple at Eridu, Iraq
Uruk: The Mesopotamian City
Sumerian Civilization
Exchange on the Iranian Plateau
The Widening of Political Authority
The Akkadians
Babylon
The Assyrians
Summary
Chapter 16 - Egypt, Nubia, and Africa
The Origins of the Egyptian State
Ancient Monopoly?
Naqada, Nekhen, and Maadi
Writing
A Scenario for Unification
Intensification of Agriculture and Irrigation
Archaic Egypt and the Creation of the Great Culture (2920 to 2575 B.C.)
The Old Kingdom and the Pyramids (c. 2575 to 2180 B.C.)
Site: The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, Egypt
The Egyptian State
The First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom (2180 to 1640 B.C.)
The Second Intermediate Period (1640 to 1530 B.C.)
The New Kingdom (1530 to 1070 B.C.)
The “Estate of Amun”
Mummies and Mummification
Amarna and Akhenaten
The Restoration of Amun
The Late Period (1070 to 332 B.C.)
Egypt and Africa
Nubia: The Land of Kush
Meroe and Aksum
North Africa
Jenne-jeno and the Rise of African States
Ghana
Mali
Songhay
Farmers and Traders in Eastern and Southern Africa
Towns and Trade on the East African Coast
Great Zimbabwe
Europe and Africa
Summary
Chapter 17 - Early States in South and Southeast Asia
The Roots of South Asian Civilization
Highlands and Lowlands: The Kulli Complex
A Rapid Transition
Mature Harappan Civilization
Who Were the Harappans?
Harappan Beliefs
South Asia After the Harappans
Southeast Asian States
Dong Son
Trade and Kingdoms
The Rise of the God-Kings
The Angkor State (A.D. 802 to 1430)
Site: Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Summary
The Origins of Chinese Civilization
Longshan and Liangzhu
Shoulder Blades and Oracles
Xia and Shang
Capitals and Sepulchers
The Shang Royal Burials
The Bronze Smiths
The Warlords
Site: The Burial Mound of Emperor Shihuangdi, China
Summary
Chapter 19 - Hittites, Minoans, and Mycenaeans
Early Towns in Anatolia
Balance of Power: The Hittites
The Sea Peoples and the Rise of Israel
The Phoenicians
The Aegean and Greece
The Minoans
The Mycenaeans
Site: The Mycenaean Shrine at Phylakopi, Melos Island, Greece
Greek City-States After Mycenae
The Etruscans and the Romans
The Etruscans
The Romans
Summary
Chapter 20 - Europe Before the Romans
Early Copper Working
Battle Axes and Beakers
Site: Ötzi the Iceman, Similaun Glacier, Italian Alps
The European Bronze Age
Bronze Age Warriors
The Scythians and Other Steppe Peoples
The First Ironworking
The Hallstatt Culture
La Tène Culture
Summary
Part V Native American Civilizations: 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1534
Chapter 21 - Mesoamerican Civilizations
Village Farming
Preclassic Peoples in Mesoamerica
Early Preclassic
Middle Preclassic: The Olmec
Late Preclassic
The Rise of Complex Society in Oaxaca
Monte Albán
Teotihuacán
Maya Civilization
Maya Origins
Water Management
Kingship: Sacred Space and Time
Political Organization
Classic and Late Classic Maya Political History 500
Site: Architecture as a Political Statement: The Hieroglyphic Stairway at Copán, Honduras
The Ninth-Century Collapse
The Toltecs
Aztec Civilization and the Spanish Conquest
Summary
Chapter 22 - South American Chiefdoms and States
The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization
Coastal Foundations: The Initial Period
Caral
El Paraíso and Huaca Florida
Chavín de Huántar
Paracas: Textiles and Coastal Prehistory
Complex Society in the Southern Highlands: Chiripa and Pukara
The Early Intermediate Period
The Moche State
Site: The Lords of Sipán, Peru
The Middle Horizon: Tiwanaku and Wari
Tiwanaku
Wari
The Late Intermediate Period: Sicán and Chimor
The Late Horizon: The Inca State
Amazonia
The Spanish Conquest (1532 to 1534)
Summary
Glossary of Cultures and Sites
Glossary of Technical Terms
Bibliography of World Prehistory
Credits
Index
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