The chain of linked cultures of the southern coast of New Guinea, from the Asmat in the west to the Papuan Gulf in the east all share remarkably similar mythology and rituals, inspired by a common ancient worldview.

In this book art historian and anthropologist Dr. Holger Braun takes us on a step by step journey to discover the underlying principles of this ancient worldview which is visible as a secret sign language inscribed into the art objects of this area and intended to be legible excl...

Salt was a commodity of great importance in the ancient past, just as it is today. Its roles in promoting human health and in making food more palatable are well-known; in peasant societies it also plays a very important role in the preservation of foodstuffs and in a range of industries. Uncovering the evidence for the ancient production and use of salt has been a concern for historians over many years, but interest in the archaeology of salt has been a particular focus of research in recent...

In prehistoric Europe hierarchic societies arose and developed technological systems and processes in the production of objects related to everyday use, on the one hand, and items of religious and symbolic character emulating prestige and luxury, on the other, while both types of objects may not always be clearly distinguishable.

This volume deals with questions of how artisans and other social groups, involved in these productive processes and social practices, reacted to and interacted with...

Did ancient Europeans truly believe in an active after-life, as modern Europeans would like to think they did? What purpose did grave-goods actually serve? Are archaeology and the historical sciences in general able to shed, once and for all, a curse placed upon them at their inception as research disciplines in the early nineteenth century? Searching for answers to these questions is the aim of this book which has been written on the basis of widely spread, typical components of grave-goods....

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Deel XIV in de serie Generale Missiven van de VOC bestaat uit twee banden. Deze bevatten samenvattingen in hedendaags Nederlands en oorspronkelijke citaten van de algemene brieven van Gouverneur-Generaal en Raden in Batavia aan Heren XVII in Nederland. In deze brieven worden de berichten weergegeven ontvangen uit de verschillende kantoren, van Kaapstad in Zuid-Afrika tot Deshima in Japan en van Kharg in de Perzische Golf tot Timor in Oost-Indonesië. Die gaan over de handel, de a...

Excavations at Chalk Hill, Ramsgate in south-eastern Britain were primarily aimed at investigating the remains of a possible early Neolithic causewayed enclosure visible on aerial photographs. However, the monument could not in fact be categorised as a causewayed enclosure, but instead represented a type of early Neolithic ritual monument unique to the British Isles.The earliest significant features recorded on the site dated to the early Neolithic (roughly 3700-3600 cal BC). They took the fo...

Das Buch bietet eine detaillierte Darstellung des Jüngeren Neolithikums (ca. 2850 - 2250 v.Chr.) in Schleswig-Holstein (SH). Neben der Vorlage aller bisher bekannter Funde und Befunde der Einzelgrabkultur wird ein besonderer Fokus auf deren Hammeräxte gelegt. Sie sind das meist vorkommende Artefakt und bieten in ihren Kontexten eine Möglichkeit, soziale Praktiken des Jungneolithikums zu analysieren.

Grundsätzlich nimmt die Variationsbreite der Hammeräxte mit der Zeit zu, was - ähnlich wi...

This edited volume explores how (what is today) Scotland can be compared with, contrasted to, or was connected with other parts of Early Medieval Europe. Far from a 'dark age', Early Medieval Scotland (AD 300-900) was a crucible of different languages and cultures, the world of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglo-Saxons. Though long regarded as somehow peripheral to continental Europe, people in Early Medieval Scotland had mastered complex technologies and were part of sophisticated intellect...

De archieven van de Staten-Generaal uit de periode 1576-1796 behoren tot de belangrijkste bronnen voor het onderzoek naar de politieke en economische geschiedenis van de Republiek. Gemakkelijk toegankelijk zijn ze niet. De vorm en de structuur van de archieven en de archiefbestanddelen zijn, voor zover nog intact, een afspiegeling van de ingewikkelde staatsstructuur en de bijbehorende administratieve organisatie van die tijd.

Wie ze effectief wil raadplegen en interpreteren, wie zijn weg wil ...

De kroniek van Sicke Benninga is een regionale kroniek over de geschiedenis van Friesland en Groningen. Deze bestaat uit drie delen: De herkomst van het Friese volk vanaf de Trojanen, inclusief een bespreking van de Friese vrijheid; een ingelaste kroniek van de Groninger Johan van Lemego over de jaren 1110-1478, en als omvangrijkste deel een kroniek over de periode van ca. 1491-1530, bijgehouden aan de hand van actualiteit en geschreven op basis van schriftelijke bronnen, herinnering en monde...