The Past in Perspective An Introduction to Human Prehistory

by Feder, Kenneth L.

• ISBN13: 9780197667675
• ISBN10: 0197667678
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197667699
• Edition: 9th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2024-04-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Winner of the Textbook & Academic Authors Association's McGuffey Longevity Award

The Past in Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory, Ninth Edition, is an engaging and up-to-date chronological overview of human prehistory. Kenneth L. Feder introduces students to "the big picture"--the grand sweep of human evolutionary history--presenting the human past within the context of fundamental themes of cultural evolution. Feder's unique, refreshing, and accessible narrative personalizes the past and makes it relevant to today's students. Using a consistent chapter format, Feder helps students master both what we know and what is still debated about the complex story of the human past.

Author Biography

Kenny Feder is a Professor Emeritus. He is the author of Linking to the Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology, Second Edition (OUP, 2008) and Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, Tenth Edition (OUP, 2019). His most recent book, Ancient America: Fifty Archaeological Sites to See for Yourself (2017) is aimed at a general audience. Kenny has appeared on numerous cable documentaries (on the National Geographic Channel, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and others) focused on the human past.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Encountering the Past
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
1.1 A FOREIGN COUNTRY
1.2 AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
1.3 AN ANCIENT WORLD
The Age of the Earth
1.4 A WRECK OF A WORLD
Noah's Flood
1.5 EQUABLE AND STEADY CHANGE
1.6 FAIRY STONES?
John Frere's Discovery
More Stone Tools...and Bones
1.7 THE SLOW AGENCY OF EXISTING CAUSES
1.8 ANCIENT HUMANS REVISITED
Cultures Ancient and Changing
1.9 CHARLES DARWIN AND THE ANTIQUITY OF LIFE
1.10 AN EVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY
The Mutability of Species
1.11 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Human Evolution
1.12 CULTURES EVOLVING
A New Catastrophism
1.13 OUR MODERN VIEW
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
2. Probing the Past
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
2.1 EPISTEMOLOGY: HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW
The "Science" in the Study of the Past
2.2 PALEOANTHROPOLOGICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
How Sites Are Formed
How Sites Are Preserved
How Sites Are Found
How Information Is Recovered
Archaeology at a Distance: Noninvasive Methods of Data Collection
2.3 ANALYZING ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA
How Artifacts Are Analyzed
How Ecofacts Are Analyzed
How Human and Prehuman Skeletal Remains Are Analyzed
2.4 DETERMINING THE AGE OF A SITE OR SPECIMEN
Dating Techniques Based on Radioactive Decay
Dating Techniques Based on Biology
Dating Techniques Based on Radiation Damage
What's the Date?
2.5 THE ETHICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST
Finders, Keepers? Or Theft?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
2.6 COPING WITH CRAP: PSEUDOSCIENCE IN ARCHAEOLOGY
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
3. African Roots
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
3.1 THE FIRST HOMININS
Late Miocene Hominins
The Genus Australopithecus
Australopithecus afarensis
3.2 A FORK IN THE HOMININ ROAD
The Ability to Make Tools
3.3 A DIFFERENT PATH-HOMO
Oldowan Technology
The Fate of Homo habilis
ISSUES AND DEBATES
3.4 WHAT WERE THE FIRST STEPS IN HOMININ EVOLUTION?
3.5 HOW DO WE KNOW THE HOMININS WERE UPRIGHT?
3.6 IS THERE OTHER EVIDENCE FOR BIPEDALITY?
3.7 WHY BIPEDALISM?
The Upright Provider
The Upright Scavenger
The Efficient Walker
The Endurance Runner
3.8 WHERE DID THE IDEA FOR STONE TOOLS COME FROM?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
3.9 HAS EVOLUTION PROGRAMMED US TO BE KILLERS?
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
4. The Human Lineage
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
4.1 HOMO ERECTUS
The Evolutionary Position of Homo erectus
4.2 HOMININS CONQUER THE WORLD
East Asia
Homo erectus: Ocean Explorer
China and India
Southeast Asia: Hobbits
Europe
A New Hominin Star
Where Does Homo naledi Fit in the Story of Human Evolution?
4.3 THE AGE OF ICE
The Oxygen Isotope Curve
4.4 HOMO ERECTUS: THE TOOLMAKER
4.5 SUBSISTENCE
ISSUES AND DEBATES
4.6 WHAT ENABLED THE GEOGRAPHIC EXPANSION OF HOMO ERECTUS?
Intelligence
Control of Fire
4.7 THE "ART" OF MAKING TOOLS
4.8 RAISING HOMO ERECTUS
4.9 WHEN DID HOMO ERECTUS BECOME EXTINCT?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
4.10 WE ARE EVERYWHERE AND CULTURE MAKES IT POSSIBLE
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
5. The First Humans
The Evolution of Homo sapiens
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
5.1 PREMODERN HUMANS: FOSSIL EVIDENCE
5.2 PREMODERN HUMANS: CULTURAL EVIDENCE
5.3 THE NEANDERTALS
Morphological Evidence
Fossil Evidence
5.4 NEANDERTAL CULTURE
Stone Tools
Subsistence
All in the Family
Compassion
Symbolic Expression
Burial of the Dead
5.5 ANATOMICALLY MODERN HOMO SAPIENS
5.6 EXPLAINING THE EVOLUTION OF US
Consensus View
Evidence
Consensus View
Evidence
Consensus View
Evidence
Consensus View
Evidence
Consensus View
Stone Tools of Anatomically Modern Human Beings: Utilitarian
Works of Art
ISSUES AND DEBATES
5.7 WHY ARE THE NEANDERTALS EXTINCT?
5.8 THE NEANDERTALS: A SEPARATE SPECIES
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
5.9 HUMAN BEINGS: AN EVOLUTIONARY SUCCESS STORY?
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
6. Expanding Intellectual Horizons
Art and Ideas in the Upper Paleolithic and Late Stone Age
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
6.1 NEW IDEAS: REFLECTIONS OF THE MODERN HUMAN MIND
1. New and Improved Stone-Tool Technologies
2. New Hunting and Weapons Technologies
3. Broadening the Subsistence Base
4. Branching Out in Raw Materials and Developing New
Technologies
5. New Uses for Plant Materials
6. The Acquisition of Raw Materials from a Great Distance
7. Larger Sites of Population Aggregation
8. Abundance of Nonutilitarian Objects
9. More Elaborate Burials
10. Symbolic Expression Through the Production of Art
6.2 A REVOLUTION OF INTELLECT: THE MEANING OF UPPER PALEOLITHIC ART
The Earliest Art: Australia and Africa
Upper Paleolithic Art in Europe
Figurines
The Sound of Music
ISSUES AND DEBATES
6.3 WHAT DOES THE ART OF THE UPPER PALEOLITHIC MEAN?
6.4 THE IMPORTANCE OF LIVING LONG: THE GRANDMOTHER EFFECT
6.5 HAND PRINTS
6.7 DID OUR ANCESTORS COUNT?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
6.8 WHY DO WE DESTROY?
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
7. Expanding Geographic Horizons
New Worlds
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
7.1 This Land Was Their Land
CHRONICLE
7.2 THE SETTLEMENT OF GREATER AUSTRALIA
Paleogeography in the Western Pacific
The Road to Sahul
The Discovery of Greater Australia
7.3 THE EARLIEST OCCUPATION OF GREATER AUSTRALIA
The Archaeology of Sahul
Willandra Lakes
7.4 THE SPREAD THROUGH AUSTRALIA
The Australian Interior
7.5 TASMANIA
7.6 GREATER AUSTRALIA: A BROAD RANGE OF ADAPTATIONS
7.7 EAST INTO THE PACIFIC
A Pacific Islander "Age of Exploration"
Pacific Geography
Pacific Archaeology
7.8 COMING TO AMERICA
7.9 THE SOURCE OF LOS INDIOS
7.10 WHEN DID THE FIRST MIGRANTS ARRIVE?
When Was Eastern Siberia First Inhabited?
When Was Beringia Exposed and Open for Travel
An Ice-Free Corridor
7.11 THE FIRST HUMAN SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA
Coastal Sites
First Skeletons
A Contested Consensus
7.12 ALASKA
Denali and Nenana
7.13 CLOVIS
Clovis Technology
Clovis Subsistence
Into the Arctic
ISSUES AND DEBATES
7.14 WHY WERE THE PACIFIC ISLANDS SETTLED
7.15 COULD THE CONSENSUS BE WRONG ABOUT THE TIMING OF THE INITIAL SETTLEMENT OF THE AMERICAS
7.16 COULD NATIVE AMERICANS REALLY HAVE COME FROM
EUROPE INSTEAD OF ASIA?
7.17 NATIVE AMERICAS AND POLYNESIANS: EVIDENCE OF A FAMILY REUNION
7.18 WHO-OR WHAT-KILLED THE AMERICAN AND AUSTRALIAN MEGAFAUNA?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
7.19 THE TRAGEDY OF EXTINCTION
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
8. After the Ice
The Food-Producing Revolution
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
8.1 EUROPE
Mesolithic Subsistence Patterns
Diversity and Regionalization
8.2 ASIA
8.3 AFRICA
8.4 AUSTRALIA
8.5 NORTH AMERICA
Regionalism in the New World Archaic
Koster: Emblem of the Archaic
8.6 SOUTH AMERICA
8.7 THE SHIFT FROM FOOD COLLECTION TO FOOD PRODUCION
Humans Taking the Place of Nature: Artificial Selection
8.8 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF HUMAN CONTROL OF
PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES
Geography
Size
Seed Morphology
Osteological Changes
Population Characteristics
It's a Dog's Life
8.9 THE NEAR EAST
Late Pleistocene Foragers in the Near East
The First Agriculturalists
8.10 MESOAMERICA
The First Agriculturalists in the New World
The Shift to Domesticated Foods Among the People of the Tehuacán Valley
The Greatest Native American Contribution to Food
8.11 AFRICA
A Chronology of Food Production
Neolithic Cultures South of the Sahara
8.12 ASIA
Chronology of Food Production in China
Food Production in South Asia
Food Production in Southeast and Northeast Asia
Domestication in Central Asia
8.13 EUROPE
The Shift to Agriculture in Western Europe
8.14 NORTH AMERICA
Indigenous Domestication North of Mexico
The Appearance of Maize in the Eastern Woodlands
The American Southwest
8.15 SOUTH AMERICA
Three Regional Neolithics
Animal Domestication in South America
Cotton
ISSUES AND DEBATES
8.16 HOW WAS DOMESTICATION ACCOMPLISHED?
The Domestication of Wheat
From Teosinte to Maize
Rice
8.17 THE REMARKABLY MODERN CUISINE OF THE ANCIENT
WORLD
Why Agriculture?
A Multitude of Reasons
Got Milk?
8.18 IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEOLITHIC: THE ROOTS OF SOCIAL COMPLEXITY
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
8.19 FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
8.20 HERE, KITTY, KITTY, KITTY
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
9. Roots of Complexity
The Origins of Civilization
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
9.1 SIMPLICITY AND COMPLEXITY
9.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEXITY: BEFORE
AGRICULTURE
9.3 A REVOLUTION IN SUBSISTENCE, A REVOLUTION IN SOCIETY
From Rank Societies to Chiefdoms
9.4 COMPLEXITY'S TRACES IN THE OLD WORLD
Jericho
Çatalhöyük
Mesopotamia: Land Between the Rivers
The Roots of Complexity in Southwest Asia
9.5 COMPLEXITY'S TRACES IN THE NEW WORLD
The Olmec
South America
ISSUES AND DEBATES
9.6 WHY DOES COMPLEXITY DEVELOP IN THE FIRST PLACE?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
9.7 ARE COMPLEXITY AND INEQUALITY INEVITABLE?
9.8 STONEHENGE
9.9 THE CONSTRUCTION OF STONEHENGE
9.10 IMAGINING STONEHENGE
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
10. An Explosion of Complexity
Mesopotamia, Africa, and Europe
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
10.1 THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE
10.2 THE CHARACTER OF CIVILIZATION
Food Surplus
Social Stratification
Labor Specialization
A Formal Government
Large, Dense Populations
Record Keeping
Monumental Works
10.3 THE GEOGRAPHY OF CIVILIZATIONS
10.4 MESOPOTAMIA
Accelerating Change: The Ubaid
The Role of Irrigation
Power Invested in the Temple
Mesopotamia's First Cities: The Uruk Period
The Beginning of the Written Record
10.5 EGYPT OF THE PHARAOHS
The Egyptian Neolithic
Hierakonpolis
First Writing
First Pharaoh
The Flowering of Egypt
The Pyramid Age
10.6 OTHER AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS BEYOND EGYPT
10.7 GREAT ZIMBABWE
The Glory of Zimbabwe
10.8 MINOAN CRETE
The Palace at Knossos
ISSUES AND DEBATES
10.9 WHO WERE THE EGYPTIANS?
10.10 WHO WERE THE MINOANS?
10.11 WERE THE PYRAMIDS BUILT BY SLAVES?
10.12 WHY DID STATE SOCIETIES DEVELOP?
Conflict Models
Integration Models
Many Paths to Civilization
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
10.13 THE ONE-PERCENTERS: THE ANCIENT ROOTS OF
INEQUALITY
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
10.14 Giza
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
11. An Explosion of Complexity
The Indus Valley and China
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
11.1 THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION?
Flood Control and Civilization in the Indus Valley
Cultural Convergence
Cities of the Indus
The Indus Script
"A Peaceful Realm"
Collapse
11.2 THE CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT CHINA
The Lung-shan Culture
Acceleration Toward Civilization
The Shang Civilization
Tarim Basin People
ISSUES AND DEBATES
11.3 WHY WERE THE ELITES OF STATE SOCIETIES SO CONSPICUOUS IN THEIR CONSUMPTION?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
11.4 THE UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN GENIUS
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
11.5 THE TERRA-COTTA ARMY OF THE FIRST EMPEROR OF THE QIN DYNASTY
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS?
12. An Explosion of Complexity
Mesoamerica
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
12.1 THE MAYA
Seeing the Maya Through the Trees
Maya Writing
Peak of the Maya
12.2 WHO WERE THE RULERS OF COPÁN?
The Grandeur that was Copán
Post-Classic Reorganization
12.3 TEOTIHUACÁN
Teotihuacán History
A Monumental City
The Teotihuacan Jaguars
Residences of Teotihuacán's Citizens
The Reach of Teotihuacán
Monte Albán
12.4 THE AZTECS
Feeding Hungry Gods
ISSUES AND DEBATES
12.5 WERE THE MAYA ASTRONOMERS?
12.6 WHY DID THE MAYA COLLAPSE?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
SUMMARY?
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
13. An Explosion of Complexity
South America
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
13.1 MOCHE
13.2 NAZCA
13.3 EMPIRES: TIWANAKU
13.4 EMPIRES: WARI
13.5 EMPIRES: CHIMU
13.6 EMPIRES: THE INKA
Inka Royalty?
Inka Agricultural Infrastructure
How Did the Inka Support Their Economic System?
The Inka Military Empire
A State Without Writing
The End of the Inka State
Complexity in Ancient Amazonia
ISSUES AND DEBATES
13.7 WHY DO CIVILIZATIONS COLLAPSE?
Puma Punku: Spaceport of the Ancient Aliens
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
13.8 ARE WE DESTINED TO COLLAPSE?
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
13.9 Cry for the Children
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
14. An Explosion of Complexity
North America
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
PRELUDE
CHRONICLE
14.1 COMPLEXITY IN PREHISTORIC AMERICA NORTH OF MEXICO
The Development of Complexity
The Mississippian Civilization
Cahokia
14.2 THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST
Hohokam
Mogollon
Ancestral Puebloan
The "Lost" World of Chaco Canyon
Rich and Powerful, Even in Death
All Roads Lead to-and from-Chaco
The Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde?
14.3 NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA
ISSUES AND DEBATES
14.4 WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ANCESTRAL PUEBLOANS?
MESSAGES FROM THE PAST
14.5 TIME TRAVELING: YOU CAN VISIT THE PAST
CASE STUDY CLOSE-UP
14.6 THE DEATH OF A KING
SUMMARY
TO LEARN MORE
KEY TERMS
Evolutionary Epilogue
CHRONOLOGY OF ANCIENT COMPLEX SOCIETIES
LOCATIONS OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES
HOMININ SPECIES GLOSSARY
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
GLOSSARY
REFERENCES
INDEX