Search results for ""Author Daniela Hofmann""

The papers gathered in this volume explore the economic and social roles of exchange systems in past societies from a variety of different perspectives. Based on a broad range of individual case studies, the authors tackle problems surrounding the identification of (pre-monetary) currencies in the archaeological record. These concern the part played by weight measurement systems in their development, the changing role of objects as they shift between different spheres of exchange, e.g. from gifts to commodities, as well as wider issues regarding the role of exchange networks as agents of social and economic change. Among the specific questions the papers address is what happens when new objects of value are introduced into a system, or when existing objects go out of use, as well as how exchange systems react to events such as crises or the emergence of new polities and social constellations. One theme that unites most of the papers is the tension between what is introduced from the outside and changes that are driven by social transformations within a given group.

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The Neolithic --a period in which the first sedentary agrarian communities were established across much of Europe--has been a key topic of archaeological research for over a century. However, the variety of evidence across Europe, the range of languages in which research is carried out, and the way research traditions in different countries have developed makes it very difficult for both students and specialists to gain an overview of continent-wide trends. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides the first comprehensive, geographically extensive, thematic overview of the European Neolithic --from Iberia to Russia and from Norway to Malta --offering both a general introduction and a clear exploration of key issues and current debates surrounding evidence and interpretation. Chapters written by leading experts in the field examine topics such as the movement of plants, animals, ideas, and people (including recent trends in the application of genetics and isotope analyses); cultural change (from the first appearance of farming to the first metal artefacts); domestic architecture; subsistence; material culture; monuments; and burial and other treatments of the dead. In doing so, the volume also considers the history of research and sets out agendas and themes for future work in the field.

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Living Well Together investigates the development of the Neolithic in southeast and central Europe from 6500-3500 cal BC with special reference to the manifestations of settling down. A collection of reports and comments on recent fieldwork in the region, Living Well Together? provides 14 tightly written and targeted papers presenting interpretive discussions from important excavations and reassessments of our understanding of the Neolithic. Each paper makes a significant contribution to existing knowledge about the period, and the book, like its companion (Un)settling the Neolithic (Oxbow 2005) will be a benchmark text for work in this region. The reports in Living Well Together? play out the critical questions posed in the earlier volume: how should one interpret settlement; what of the difference between tells and flat sites; what do we mean by permanent occupation; can we avoid the assumptions that underlie claims for year-round residence or seasonal occupation; why, in some regions and at some times, did people maintain residence for so many generations that monumental tell settlements grew to dominate the visual and social landscape; what would a viewshed analysis of tells reveal; what are the dynamics of households in Neolithic Greece; how should we see the emergence of pottery in terms of material culture; and what were the origins of the LBK, and how can we understand its development? The volume's authors have succeeded in attacking existing thought, in provoking new discussion and in creating new paths to understanding the nature of human existence in the Neolithic. Together they set a new agenda for studying the Neolithic across and beyond southeastern and central Europe.

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