Ice-Age Eastern Europe was an inhospitable place, isolated from the moderating influence of oceans. Unlike Western Europe, which was settled over half a million years ago, Eastern Europe remained largely unoccupied until the appearance of the cold-adapted Neanderthals. When modern humans arrived from southern latitudes, they were anatomically less suited to colder climates, but successfully colonized Eastern Europe with the aid of innovative technologies that their Neanderthal predecessors lacked. 

John F. Hoffecker provides an overview of Pleistocene or Ice-Age settlement in Eastern Europe with a heavy focus on the adaptations of Neanderthals and modern humans to this harsh environmental setting. Hoffecker argues that the Eastern European record reveals a stark contrast between Neanderthals and modern humans with respect to technology and social organization, both of which are tied to the development of language and the use of symbols. Desolate Landscapes will bring readers up to date with the rich archaeological record in this significant region and its contribution to our understanding of one of our most important events in human evolution - the rise of modern humans and the extinction of the Neanderthals. 

The book is divided into seven chapters. The first discusses general anthropological principles and theories pertaining to human adaptation and development in cold environments. The second outlines the environmental conditions of the specific area under study in the book.

The next two chapters focus on Neanderthal finds in the area. The following two chapters discuss the replacement of the local Neanderthal population by the Cro-magnons, and the development of their way of life in the cold Loess Steppe environment. The final chapter summarizes the discussion and is followed by an extremely valuable and extensive bibliography, more than half of which consists of non-English (primarily Russian) sources.

People have long used wild plants as food and medicine, and for a myriad of other important cultural applications. While these plants and the foraging activities associated with them have been dismissed by some observers as secondary or supplementary—or even backward—their contributions to human survival and well-being are more significant than is often realized. Eating on the Wild Side spans the history of human-plant interactions to examine how wild plants are used to meet medicinal, nutritional, and other human needs.

Drawing on nonhuman primate studies, evidence from prehistoric human populations, and field research among contemporary peoples practicing a range of subsistence strategies, the book focuses on the processes and human ecological implications of gathering, semidomestication, and cultivation of plants that are unfamiliar to most of us. Contributions by distinguished cultural and biological anthropologists, paleobotanists, primatologists, and ethnobiologists explore a number of issues such as the consumption of unpalatable and famine foods, the comparative assessment of aboriginal diets with those of colonists and later arrivals, and the apparent self-treatment by sick chimpanzees with leaves shown to be pharmacologically active.

Collectively, these articles offer a theoretical framework emphasizing the cultural evolutionary processes that transform plants from wild to domesticated—with many steps in between—while placing wild plant use within current discussions surrounding biodiversity and its conservation. Eating on the Wild Side makes an important contribution to our understanding of the links between biology and culture, describing the interface between diet, medicine, and natural products. By showing how various societies have successfully utilized wild plants, it underscores the growing concern for preserving genetic diversity as it reveals a fascinating chapter in the human ecology.

CONTENTS
1. The Cull of the Wild, Nina L. Etkin
2. Agriculture and the Acquisition of Medicinal Plant Knowledge, Michael H. Logan & Anna R. Dixon
3. Ambivalence to the Palatability Factors in Wild Food Plants, Timothy Johns
4. Wild Plants as Cultural Adaptations to Food Stress, Rebecca Huss-Ashmore & Susan L. Johnston
Physiologic Implications of Wild Plant Consumption
5. Pharmacologic Implications of "Wild" Plants in Hausa Diet, Nina L. Etkin & Paul J. Ross
6. Wild Plants as Food and Medicine in Polynesia, Paul Alan Cox
7. Characteristics of "Wild" Plant Foods Used by Indigenous Populations in Amazonia, Darna L. Dufour & Warren M. Wilson
8. The Health Significance of Wild Plants for the Siona and Secoya, William T. Vickers
9. North American Food and Drug Plants, Daniel M. Moerman
Wild Plants in Prehistory
10. Interpreting Wild Plant Foods in the Archaeological Record, Frances B. King
11. Coprolite Evidence for Prehistoric Foodstuffs, Condiments, and Medicines, Heather B. Trigg, Richard I. Ford, John G. Moore & Louise D. Jessop
Plants and Nonhuman Primates
12. Nonhuman Primate Self-Medication with Wild Plant Foods, Kenneth E. Glander
13. Wild Plant Use by Pregnant and Lactating Ringtail Lemurs, with Implications for Early Hominid Foraging, Michelle L. Sauther
Epilogue
14. In Search of Keystone Societies, Brien A. Meilleur

The eight case studies in this book -- each a synthesis of available knowledge about the origins of agriculture in a specific region of the globe -- enable scholars in diverse disciplines to examine humanity's transition to agricultural societies. Contributors include: Gary W. Crawford, Robin W. Dennell, and Jack R. Harlan.

People have always been attracted to foods rich in calories, fat, and protein; yet the biblical admonition that meat be eaten “with bitter herbs” suggests that unpalatable plants play an important role in our diet. So-called primitive peoples show a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of how their bodies interact with plant chemicals, which may allow us to rediscover the origins of diet by retracing the paths of biology and culture.
 
The domestication of the potato serves as the focus of Timothy Johns’s interdisciplinary study, which forges a bold synthesis of ethnobotany and chemical ecology. The Aymara of highland Bolivia have long used varieties of potato containing potentially toxic levels of glycoalkaloids, and Johns proposes that such plants can be eaten without harm owing to human genetic modification and cultural manipulation. Drawing on additional fieldwork in Africa, he considers the evolution of the human use of plants, the ways in which humans obtain foods from among the myriad poisonous and unpalatable plants in the environment, and the consequences of this history for understanding the basis of the human diet. A natural corollary to his investigation is the origin of medicine, since the properties of plants that make them unpalatable and toxic are the same properties that make them useful pharmacologically.
 
As our species has adapted to the use of plants, plants have become an essential part of our internal ecology. Recovering the ancient wisdom regarding our interaction with the environment preserves a fundamental part of our human heritage.

Originally published in hardcover as With Bitter Herbs They Shall Eat It: Chemical Ecology and the Origins of Human Diet and Medicine

Paleonutrition is the analysis of prehistoric human diets and the interpretation of dietary intake in relation to health and nutrition. As a field of study, it addresses prehistoric diets in order to determine the biological and cultural implications for individuals as well as for entire populations, placing archaeological interpretations into an anthropological context. Throughout history, and long before written records, human culture has been constantly in flux. The study of paleonutrition provides valuable insights into shifts and changes in human history, whatever their causes.

This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the topic. Intended for students and professionals, it describes the nature of paleonutrition studies, reviews the history of paleonutrition research, discusses methodological issues in the reconstruction of prehistoric diets, presents theoretical frameworks frequently used in paleonutrition research, and showcases examples in which paleonutritional analyses have been successfully conducted on prehistoric individuals, groups, and populations. It offers an integrative approach to understanding state-of-the-art anthropological dietary, health, and nutritional assessments. The most recent and innovative methods used to reconstruct prehistoric diets are discussed, along with the major ways in which paleonutrition data are recovered, analyzed, and interpreted.

Paleonutrition includes five contemporary case studies that provide useful models of how to conduct paleonutrition research. Topics range from ancient diets in medieval Nubia to children’s health in the prehistoric American Southwest to honey use by an ethnographic group of East African foragers. As well as providing interesting examples of applying paleonutrition techniques, these case studies illustrate the mutually beneficial linkages between ethnography and archaeology.

For the past million years, individuals have engaged in multitasking as they interact with the surrounding environment and with each other for the acquisition of daily necessities such as food and goods. Although culture is often perceived as a collective process, it is individual people who use language, experience illness, expend energy, perceive landscapes, and create memories. These processes were sustained at the individual and household level from the time of the earliest social groups to the beginnings of settled agricultural communities and the eventual development of complex societies in the form of chiefdoms, states, and empires.

Even after the advent of “civilization” about 6,000 years ago, human culture has for the most part been created and maintained not by the actions of elites—as is commonly proclaimed by many archaeological theorists—but by the many thousands of daily actions carried out by average citizens.

With this book, Monica L. Smith examines how the archaeological record of ordinary objects—used by ordinary people—constitutes a manifestation of humankind’s cognitive and social development. A Prehistory of Ordinary People offers an impressive synthesis and accessible style that will appeal to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and others interested in the long history of human decision-making.

Early humans did not simply drift northward from their African origins as their abilities to cope with cooler climates evolved. The initial settlement of places like Europe and northern Asia, as well as the later movement into the Arctic and the Americas, actually occurred in relatively rapid bursts of expansion. A Prehistory of the North is the first full-length study to tell the complex story, spanning almost two million years, of how humans inhabited some of the coldest places on earth.

In an account rich with illustrations, John Hoffecker traces the history of anatomical adaptations, diet modifications, and technological developments, such as clothing and shelter, which allowed humans the continued ability to push the boundaries of their habitation. The book concludes by showing how in the last few thousand years, peoples living in the circumpolar zone—with the exception of western and central Siberia—developed a thriving maritime economy.

Written in nontechnical language, A Prehistory of the North provides compelling new insights and valuable information for professionals and students.

Is wealth inequality a universal feature of human societies, or did early peoples live an egalitarian existence? How did inequality develop before the modern era? Did inequalities in wealth increase as people settled into a way of life dominated by farming and herding? Why in general do such disparities increase, and how recent are the high levels of wealth inequality now experienced in many developed nations? How can archaeologists tell?

Ten Thousand Years of Inequality addresses these and other questions by presenting the first set of consistent quantitative measurements of ancient wealth inequality. The authors are archaeologists who have adapted the Gini index, a statistical measure of wealth distribution often used by economists to measure contemporary inequality, and applied it to house-size distributions over time and around the world. Clear descriptions of methods and assumptions serve as a model for other archaeologists and historians who want to document past patterns of wealth disparity.

The chapters cover a variety of ancient cases, including early hunter-­gatherers, farmer villages, and agrarian states and empires. The final chapter synthesizes and compares the results. Among the new and notable outcomes, the authors report a systematic difference between higher levels of inequality in ancient Old World societies and lower levels in their New World counterparts.

For the first time, archaeology allows humanity’s deep past to provide an account of the early manifestations of wealth inequality around the world.

Contributors

Nicholas Ames
Alleen Betzenhauser
Amy Bogaard
Samuel Bowles
Meredith S. Chesson
Abhijit Dandekar
Timothy J. Dennehy
Robert D. Drennan
Laura J. Ellyson
Deniz Enverova
Ronald K. Faulseit
Gary M. Feinman
Mattia Fochesato
Thomas A. Foor
Vishwas D. Gogte
Timothy A. Kohler
Ian Kuijt
Chapurukha M. Kusimba
Mary-Margaret Murphy
Linda M. Nicholas
Rahul C. Oka
Matthew Pailes
Christian E. Peterson
Anna Marie Prentiss
Michael E. Smith
Elizabeth C. Stone
Amy Styring
Jade Whitlam

This volume stands as a key general resource for archaeologists working in the region extending from Louisiana through Mississippi north to Missouri and Kentucky, and it represents an opportunity to influence for decades a large part of the archaeological work to take place in the Southeast.

 

The book responds to a need for a comprehensive archaeological overview of the Lower Mississippi Valley that forms a portion of an interstate corridor spanning nine states that will run from southern Michigan to the Texas-Mexico border. The culturally sensitive Mississippi Delta is one of the richest archaeological areas in North America, and it is crucial that research designs be comprehensive, coordinated, and meet current preservation and future research needs. The authors are well-respected researchers from both within and outside the region with expertise in the full range of topics that comprise American archaeology. They examine matters of method and theory, the application of materials science, geophysics, and other high-tech tools in archaeology that provide for optimum data-recovery.

Did our ancestors live in tropical forests? Although we see the rainforest as a bountiful environment teeming with life forms, most anthropologists and archaeologists have long viewed these areas as too harsh for human occupation during the pre-agricultural stages of hominid development.

Under the Canopy turns conventional wisdom on its head by providing a well-documented, geographically diverse overview of Stone Age sites in the wet tropics. New research indicates that, as humanity and its precursors increased their geographical and ecological ranges, rainforests were settled at a much earlier period than had previously been thought.

Featuring the work of leading scholars from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Malaysia, Panama, Spain, and the United States, Under the Canopy creates a new niche in paleolithic studies: the archaeology of tropical rainforests. This book provides the first synthesis of archaeological research in early foraging sites across the rainforest zone, and indicates that tropical forests could harbor important clues to human evolution, origins of modern behavior, cultural diversity, and human impact on tropical ecosystems.