Some Notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures from which Emerged the Egyptian Civilisation
Until the 1980s, there was alack of archaeological excavation in Egypt’s WesternDesert. Today, the historical genetics of the Nile Valley,which is at one and the same time the ‘crossroad and refugium’, and the ‘Saharan affinities’ of the Predynastic Egyptians, have begun to be clearly identified
Family matters, Economy, culture and biology: fertility and its constraints in Roman Italy
However, the theory concerning fertility behaviour during the Late Roman Republic that has been put forward by Brunt depends largely on such viewpoints as have become controversial in the discipline of demography. Rather than purely economic and rational in scope, decision making processes – such as those concerning marriage and procreation – are embedded in specific cultural and social settings that affect outcomes through the creation or upholding of practical, structural, normative or perceived constraints.
Tomb and social status: The textual evidence
In archaeological theoretical literature it has been stressed that tombs might rather show the status of the living persons who organized the burial than the status of the buried person. This is of course an important argument but in Ancient Egypt we have the anthropologically quite exceptional situation that the tomb-owner already began the construction of his tomb and the organisation of his burial equipment when he was still alive.
Bronze Age pottery and settlements in southern England
What we need to do. Doctoral research involving artefact corpora appears to be unfashionable. However the compilation of such works for Food Vessels, accessory vessels and the Late Bronze Age styles is desperately needed; and the studies of Biconical Urns and MBA pottery (see above) need to be published.
Hierarchy of Women within Elite Families. Iconographic Data from the Old Kingdom
When the hierarchy of women is concerned, the range of data is limited, since women were virtually excluded from the bureaucracy, and the number of their own tombs is relatively low. In spite of this, over recent decades the studies focusing on women have been steadily increasing our knowledge on the position and roles of women in the Egyptian society of the Old Kingdom
Egypt
The following thesis developed out of a desire to understand the process behind identity formation in the ancient world.
Symbolic Perceptions of New Kingdom Watercraft: Building Boats from Gods
I contribute an anthropological perspective to the well attested association between Egyptian watercraft and interment, illuminating the use of symbolic watercraft by the deceased.
Housekeeping, Neandertal-Style: Hearth Placement and Midden Formation in Kebara Cave (Israel)
The interpretation of Neandertal life ways has probably never been as polarized as it is today. At one extreme are many archaeologists and biological anthropologists, and quite a few geneticists, who see Neandertals as belonging to a species other than our own, most often a decidedly inferior one in terms of both behavior and cognitive wherewithal
This in itself is not surprising, but Grossschmidt
Trophies and Tombstones: Commemorating the Roman Soldier
How were the corpses disposed of and to what extent were these men commemorated and remembered? The intention of this paper is to unite the diverse relevant evidence for the first time and to argue that, although displays of public loss and mourning were often muted, the sacrifices of some soldiers did receive public acknowledgement.