Weblinks

This chapter covers two themes linked by their focus on how people in the past supported themselves. Material culture deals with things produced or transformed by humans while economics looks at human use of the resources available to them in the past.

General sources

A good source of short summary papers including recent research is the Comparative Archaeology Ring at:

http://www.comp-archaeology.org/

A series of lectures on economic anthropology is at:

http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/econant/polecon.htm

8.1 Subsistence: how did people in the past feed themselves?

A Clovis period mammoth kill site from North America is at:

http://www.lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/2002februarycolbysitepage1.htm

An article challenging the idea of specialised hunting in the Upper Palaeolithic is at:

http://faculty.washington.edu/grayson/jas29spec.pdf

An introduction to Mesolithic hunters in Britain (including a test of your survivalist knowledge) is at:

http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/flint/archhunt.html

Mesolithic Europe http://zinken.typepad.com/palaeo/01_mesolithic/index.html

Mesolithic plant foods http://home3.inet.tele.dk/evakoch/veg-uk.htm

Howick Project http://www.ncl.ac.uk/howick/main/introduction.htm

Star Carr http://portfolio.indy-net.co.uk/mesobrit/starcarr.html

http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/Projects/StarCarrWebsite/index.htm

http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/projects/starrcarr.html

Siebenlinden (Germany) http://www.landesdenkmalamt-bw.de/english/archaeol/siebenlinden/index.php

An account by an artist of how they present the Mesolithic is at:

http://www.archaeoart.co.uk/landscape/mesolithic_methods.htm

Tybrind Vig:

http://www.abc.se/~m10354/publ/tybrind.htm

Origins of agriculture

Despite the images making it a little difficult to read, there is an overview of domestication of plants and animals at:

http://www.primalseeds.org/agricult.htm

A concise review of different theories about the origins of agriculture is at:

http://courses.washington.edu/anth457/agorigin.htm

Banpo (China):

http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/legacy/banpo/banpo.html

Sites focused on the North American bison kill site at Head Smashed In are at:

http://www.head-smashed-in.com/

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/northamerica

An essay on early farming in South East Europe is at:

http://arheologija.ff.uni-lj.si/documenta/pdf31/31bogaard.pdf

Research into the spread of agriculture across Europe is on Peter Bogucki's website:

http://www.princeton.edu/~bogucki/

An LBK site in Germany is at:

http://www.uni-greifswald.de/~histor/~ufg/aktuelles/aktu-mesoexcavations.html

A project looking at faunal evidence in the transition to farming in the Baltic area is at:

http://www.zmuc.dk/VerWeb/Stenalderknogler/eng/index.htm

A paper countering the Wave of Advance theory is at:

http://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/nania/hitchhiking/preprint.pdf

Stable Isotope Analysis is explained at:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/ahob/AHOBI/isotopes.htm

Oslonki (Poland):

http://bobas.ib-pan.krakow.pl/oslonki/Oslonki.htm

Rock art from Tanum can be seen at:

http://sternerson.com/2005/rock_carvings_in_tanum/

Also with other Swedish art at:

http://www.arild-hauge.com/helleristningbild-se.htm

Similar Norwegian art is at:

http://donsmaps.com/norge.html

Peatlands and their importance for archaeology are at:

http://www.peatlandsni.gov.uk/archaeology/timeline.htm

The surveys of marine animal populations linked to fishing are at:

http://www.hull.ac.uk/hmap/

The DNA of crops is explored at:

http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/whri/research/archaeobotany/ancient_dna

8.2 The archaeology of storage

Storage is an economic strategy. The study of remains of artefacts and facilities associated with storage is important in understanding how resources were used.

Sites for Knossos and Minoan Crete:

Bronze Age Europe http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/4162/

http://www.uk.digiserve.com/mentor/minoan/index.htm

Ohalo II

http://mushecht.haifa.ac.il/hecht/archeology/ExhibitionC_eng.aspx?id=7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S__vWinUSHo

Tel Abu Hureyra

http://www.rit.edu/academicaffairs/abuhureyra/statement.php

Pastoralism in Europe

http://www.pastoralismjournal.com/content/1/1/28

Research in the Zagros Mountains

http://www.czap.org

8.3 The archaeology of intensification

This section approaches intensification in its widest sense — looking at how people in the past increased production.

Windmills:

http://www.fulwell-windmill.com/home/default.asp?id=56

Andres Sherratt's paper on animal traction is at:

http://www.archatlas.dept.shef.ac.uk/people/Frasnois.pdf

8.4 The archaeology of extraction

This section covers mining and quarrying and also the processes associated with them such as smelting.

Examples of mining can be seen at:

Great Orme (Wales) http://www.greatorme.freeserve.co.uk/

Sites related to metal production are at:

Viking metalcraft — includes experiments http://members.chello.se/vikingbronze/vikingbronze.htm

Medieval fishing http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/projects/Medieval_Fishing/

Copper production on Cyprus http://home.datacomm.ch/almyras/index1e.htm

The Phorades Project http://www.scsp.arts.gla.ac.uk/Phorades/

8.5 The archaeology of trade and exchange

This section covers archaeological evidence for exchange and also transport and transport systems from the past.

A variety of examples of excavated ships are at:

Serce Limani wreck (Turkey) http://www.diveturkey.com/inaturkey/serce.htm

Dover Boat (England) http://www.dover.gov.uk/museum/boat/home.asp

Siene http://archsubgras.free.fr/a_index.html

Ulu Burun http://ina.tamu.edu/ub_main.htm

http://www.diveturkey.com/inaturkey/ulub.htmw

Yassi Adi (Turkey) http://ina.tamu.edu/yassiada7.htm

This site deals with the excavation of a medieval bridge:

http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/archcom/projects/summarys/html96_7/1572anl.htm

Organic residue analysis is providing signatures for trade in particular commodities. An introduction is at:

http://www.bradford.ac.uk/archenvi/research/molecular/molarch.php

The Roman and Islamic spice trade:

http://www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/research/projects/nerc/index.html

The Caananite Amphorae Project:

http://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/material_culture

Kommos excavations:

http://www.fineart.utoronto.ca/kommos/

Studying materials — see links in Chapter 3 on post excavation processes.

There is a growing range of sites which include prehistoric technology. Many of these are bushcraft or survivalist websites:

http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/

http://www.primitive.org/

http://www.woodsmoke.uk.com/

http://wildwoodsurvival.com/index.html

8.6 The archaeology of specialisation

Gundestrup Cauldron http://www.shadowdrake.com/celtic/gundestrup.html

Writing http://www.omniglot.com/

Egyptian writing http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/homemain.html - ros

Linear B http://www.ancientscripts.com/linearb.html

Writing in Maya Glyphs http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/

Minoan potters http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/subjectareas/archaeology/academicstaff/inaberg

8.7 Art

A range of sites dealing with rock and cave art can be found at:

Lascaux http://www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/fr/

Chauvet http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html