Now in its third edition, Introducing Archaeology continues to be a lively and approachable textbook for introductory-level students. Covering traditional elements of archaeology, including methods and prehistory, the new edition also opens up greater conversations about the current state of archaeology, discussing issues of representation, inclusion, and diversity in the field. The authors highlight recent developments in digital and public archaeology, as well as the social and ...

Through the Lens of Anthropology is a concise introduction to anthropology that uses the twin themes of food and sustainability to connect evolution, biology, archaeology, history, language, and culture. The third edition remains a highly readable text that encourages students to think about current events and issues through an anthropological lens.Beautifully illustrated with over 100 full-color images and maps, along with detailed figures and boxes, this is an anthropolo...

Exploring the endings of species, languages, cultures, and ways of life, this collection "provocatively makes one think about extinction in novel ways." — Biological ConservationWe live in an era marked by an accelerating rate of species death, but since the early days of the discipline, anthropology has contemplated the death of languages, cultural groups, and ways of life. The essays in this collection examine processes of—and our understanding of—extinct...

As Julie Urbanik vividly illustrates, non-human animals are central to our daily human lives. We eat them, wear them, live with them, work them, experiment on them, try to save them, spoil them, abuse them, fight them, hunt them, buy and sell them, love them, and hate them. Placing Animals is the first book to bring together the historical development of the field of animal geography with a comprehensive survey of how geographers study animals today. Urbanik provides readers with a thoroug...

The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities provides a comprehensive, transnational, and interdisciplinary map to the field, offering a broad overview of its founding principles while providing insight into exciting new directions for future scholarship. Articulating the significance of humanistic perspectives for our collective social engagement with ecological crises, the volume explores the potential of the environmental humanities for organizing humanistic research...

Who are we? What is it about our species that sets us apart from every other living creature, past and present, on this planet? These are perennially compelling questions about human evolution and development that continue to cudgel the best brains on earth. Anthropology seeks to understand the roots of our common humanity, the diversity of cultures and world-views, and the organisation of social relations and practices. If you only have 30 seconds, that is enough time – by reading this bo...

This new edition offers a variety of clearly written and readily accessible articles from the Smithsonian’s highly acclaimed, award-winning publication AnthroNotes. Some of the world's leading anthropologists explore fundamental questions humans ask about themselves as individuals, as societies, and as a species. The articles reveal the richness and breadth of anthropology, covering not only the fundamental subjects but also the changing perspectives of anthropologists over the 15...

Gender in African Prehistory provides methods and theories for delineating and discussing prehistoric gender relations and their change through time. Sites studied range from Egypt to South Africa and Ghana to Tanzania, while time periods span the Stone Age to the period just prior to colonialization.

"A poetic and remarkably fertile exploration of the relationship between human beings and the natural environment."—Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian"I'm very grateful to have this book."—Ursula K. Le GuinThe acclaimed and award-winning book about what a rare mushroom can teach us about sustaining life on a fragile planetA Flavorwire and Times Higher Education Book of the YearMatsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the w...

In Prehistory, the award-winning archaeologist and renowned scholar Colin Renfrew covers human existence before the advent of written records–which is to say, the overwhelming majority of our time here on earth. But Renfrew also opens up to discussion, and even debate, the term “prehistory” itself, giving an incisive, concise, and lively survey of the past, and how scholars and scientists labor to bring it to light.Renfrew begins by looking at prehistory as a discipline, particular...

Do animals have moral rights? If so, what does this mean? What sorts of mental lives do animals have, and how should we understand welfare? By presenting models for understanding animals' moral status and rights, and examining their mental lives and welfare, David DeGrazia explores the implications for how we should treat animals in connection with our diet, zoos, and research. Animal Rights distinguishes itself by combining intellectual rigour with accessibility, offering a disti...

This book offers a critical reading of the Anthropocene that draws on archaeological, ecological, geological, and ethnographic evidence to argue that the concept reproduces the modernist binary between society and nature, and forecloses a more inclusive politics around climate change. The authors challenge the divisions between humans as biological and geophysical agents that constitute the ontological foundations of the period. Building on contemporary critiques of capitalism, they examin...