List of illustrations Preface 1. The relevance of archaeological history 2. Classical archaeology and antiquarianism 3. The beginnings of scientific archaeology 4. The imperial synthesis 5. Culture-historical archaeology 6. Soviet archaeology 7. Functionalism in Western archaeology 8. Neo-evolutionism and the New Archaeology 9. The explanation of diversity 10. Archaeology and its social context Bibliographical essay References Index.

A History of Archaeological Thought

Archaeological and soil-stratigraphic data define the origin, growth, and collapse of Subir, the third millennium rain-fed agriculture civilization of northern Mesopotamia on the Habur Plains of Syria. At 2200 B. C., a marked increase in aridity and wind circulation, subsequent to a volcanic eruption, induced a considerable degradation of land-use conditions. After four centuries of urban life, this abrupt climatic change evidently caused abandonment of Tell Leilan, regional desertion, and collapse of the Akkadian empire based in southern Mesopotamia. Synchronous collapse in adjacent regions suggests that the impact of the abrupt climatic change was extensive.

/pdf/the-genesis-and-collapse-of-third-millennium-north-571k0ray8h.pdf

The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization

Few countries in the world are as dependent on water from a single source as Egypt. The natural Nile cycle of flow and sediment discharge has been disrupted by human intervention, including closure of the High Aswan Dam; this intervention has resulted in a series of responses that now threaten the northern Nile delta. Erosion, salinization, and pollution are inducing a marked decline in agricultural productivity and loss of land and coastal lagoons at a time when the population is expanding exponentially. Geological analyses of radiocarbon-dated cores across the northern delta are used to interpret the interaction of sea-level changes, climatic oscillations, subsidence, and transport processes during the past 35,000 years. Recognition of long-term trends of these natural factors provides a basis to evaluate the profound impact of human activity and to assess future changes in the Nile delta ecosystem.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/260/5108/628.full.pdf

Nile delta : recent geological evolution and human impact

While human beings cope with the production and distribution of goods by trying to achieve maximum efficiencies in energy expenditures, the basic way they symbolize power is through the conspicuous consumption of energy, control of which is the fundamental measure of power. Conspicuous consumption occurs in the form of monumental construction, supporting large numbers of energy consumers, production of high energy‐consuming luxury goods, and an emphasis on non‐useful movement (processions, needlessly large rooms, etc.). By expanding the concept of energy‐use to cover conspicuous consumption as well as efficiency of production, it can be seen as a basic factor in shaping the political as well as the economic behaviour of human beings and can explain why, as systems of inequality evolve, monumental architecture becomes an increasingly prominent feature of the archaeological record. This enlarged concept would also broaden a materialist perspective on human behaviour to take account of many signific...

Monumental architecture: A thermodynamic explanation of symbolic behaviour

"Oriental despotism : A Comparative Study of Total Power", Karl A. Wittfogel, Yale University Press, New-Haven 1957 : [recenzja] / Leszek Dzięgiel.

Early hydraulic civilization in Egypt

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Early hydraulic civilization in Egypt