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Splendid Read
This is history at its greatist, at its finest and purest; though amort, unquestionably, Prusin has the rare skill of analyzing the topic in the powerful and fair methods that men have tried to accomplish since the begining of writing yet few have since achieved. Prusin has spent what seems like a lifetime gathering information for this well-stocked book. overall a great read for the history lover in all of us and standard material for any intro to Russian/Soviet History class. ... Read more

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As the first book to examine the origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Europe and Asia as a whole, this major contribution should be essential reading for archaeologists, anthropologists, biologists and geographers. Adopting a novel approach to the subject, the authors examine it first in terms of seven different disciplinary perspectives: social, ecological, genetic, linguistic, biomolecular, epidemiological and geogrpahical. Then, 20 case studies are presented, which are based primarily on archaeological and biological evidence and which relate to three major regions: Southwest Asia, Europe and Central Asia to the Pacific. The book concludes with an overview of Eurasia as a whole.; The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture had revolutionary consequences for human society. It led to the emergence of urban civilizations and ultimately to humanity's almost complete dependence on relatively few domesticated animals and plants. The subject has been much studied, but the results have tended to be interpreted largely in terms of local cultural sequences, with insufficient comparison made with evidence from other areas. In contrast, this book provides a continental- scale framework, with its scope extended to pastoralism because in Eurasia both the raising of livestock and the cultivation of crops were integral components of the agricultural "revolution" from its inception some 10,000 years ago.; Comprehensive and authoritative, "The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia" should appeal strongly to the wide readership of students and specialists concerned with the prehistoric antecedents of modern civilization. ... Read more

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Weiner provides a detailed examination of the history of the area; the causes of the Revolutions of 1989; and the key problems associated with the post-communist transition. In addition to a country-by-country analysis, Weiner looks at possible models of change and foreign policy in the region. ... Read more

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Eastern Europe after the Wall Comes Down
This three-star book by Robert Weiner is a history of the monumental changes in the governments - from Communism toward democracy - that took place in Poland, Hungary, The Czech and Slovak Republics, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and the Former Yugoslavia after the wall that separated East Berlin from West Berlin came down, signaling the end of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Robert Weiner is top notch.
Professor Weiner is one of the top experts in the U.S. on Eastern Europe, and conveys his thoughts in a truly understandable manner.

Rather than seeking to talk down to you the reader, he seeks to fascinate you with the amazing events of the pre/post Cold War era.

I had him as a Professor at U-Mass Boston. ... Read more

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This is the first academic book which concentrates on the discoveries of medieval date (6th- 13th centuries) from the territory of modern Poland. The book covers the principal research questions, such as the origins of the Slavs, societies of the proto-state period and the origins of the Polish state. The volume also includes a discussion of the most interesting, sometimes controversial, archaeological discoveries or issues. These include pagan Slavonic holy places, the monumental mounds of Little Poland, the first traces of medieval writing, exceptional strongholds, the origins of Polish towns, rural landscapes, archaeology of the oldest monastic complexes, and the question of locals and aliens viewed through archaeological evidence and many other topics.The book is meant mainly for students, archaeologists and historians. It can also be useful for a wider audience interested in the history and archaeology of central Europe. In November 2006 "The Archaeology of Early Medieval Poland" received the KLIO Award from the Association of Polish History Publishers. ... Read more

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A landmark work in the sphere of modern German-Jewish cultural life, The Face of East European Jewry is also a window on a lost world. First published in 1920 and never before translated into English, this work brings together the impassioned writing of one of Weimar Germany's most celebrated authors, Arnold Zweig, and the equally poignant illustrations by renowned graphic artist and lithographer Hermann Struck.As members of the German wartime press division at Ober-Ost, both Zweig and Struck spent the final years of the First World War on the eastern front, on the outskirts of the Lithuanian city of Kovno (Kaunas). There they observed the life of the so-called Ostjuden, or East European Jews. Reflecting the rise of Zionism and the experience of the war, The Face of East European Jewry offers a dramatic and moving perspective on the short-lived romance of disenchanted Western Jews with the idea of a more authentic, more meaningful lifestyle in the East. Illustrations: 52 line drawings ... Read more

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Unsuitable for the non-specialist
I am not qualified to review this book, because it is written in High Academic style. I did manage to learn something about the Neanderthal way of life, but I couldn't make myself finish it. Even as an archaeological and historical enthusiast, I could not derive any pleasure from the contents -- information that may be very well conveyed, but it's dry as a bone. And I usually like bones.

A very detailed overview of Ice-Age Eastern Europe...
John F. Hoffecker gives us a book about Ice-Age settlement in Eastern Europe.Starting with the Neanderthals and moving on to modern humans, he writes about how both adapted to the cold climates with technology, social organization, language and even the use of, or lack of, symbols.
'Desolate Landscapes' is one of the most detailed, most complete record of archaeological information I have ever found in any book.Primary sources from Russian literature added greatly to the knowledge we already have about Neanderthals and early modern man.Not light reading, but it can be delightful reading if you enjoy books on early humans or history.

Highly scholarly treatment of an amazing tale of survival
First of all, it should be clarified that John F. Hoffecker's version of what constitutes "Eastern Europe" is the land between the Carpathian Mountains on the west and the Ural Mountains on the east. (Compare this with my review of "The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe"). The imprecise title may cause disappointment to some readers expecting a wider geographical scope for the book.

While this book can be seen a follow-up to his mentor Richard G. Klein's 1973 work "Ice-Age Hunters of the Ukraine", Mr. Hoffecker brings to the subject his own unique expertise in the general study of the archeology of people living in cold environments and applies it to the specific case of these people who amazingly managed to survive in this highly inhospitiable environment during the height of the Ice Age.

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.

In reading this work I was struck by the ingenuity of these people in the ways they adapted to survive (such as cutting "meat freezers" into the permafrost ground to preserve food for leaner months ahead), and felt that they were much more intelligent than we generally credit prehistoric people as having been. Given the same materials and conditions to survive under, I doubt that I could do half as well as they did.

In summary, this book makes an extremely worthy contribution to the dire lack of knowledge about this subject available in English. The author makes extensive use of the work of Russian and Ukrainian archeologists, as well as knowledge gained from his own participation in digs in the area and access to collections of finds previously closed to Western scholars during the Soviet era.

My only reason for giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 is due to some disappointment with the illustrations in the book. All of them are merely reproductions of drawings of artifacts from earlier Soviet-era publications. With his access to the jealously-guarded collections Mr. Hoffecker has written of, it would seem to have been desirable to include new photographs of at least some of these artifacts which have never been seen by Western eyes.

It is hoped that this oversight can be remedied in the future by some sort of companion volume which focuses more on providing a visual record of the artifacts and sites in question to supplement the excellent information the author has provided in the present work. ... Read more

Product Description
This book offers a new approach to the problem of Slavic ethnicity in southeastern Europe between c. 500 and c. 700. The author shows how Byzantine authors "invented" the Slavs, in order to make sense of political and military developments taking place in the Balkans. Making extensive use of archaeology to show that such developments resulted in the rise of powerful leaders, responsible for creating group identities and mobilizing warriors for successful raids across the frontier. The author rejects the idea of Slavic migration, and shows that "the Slavs" were the product of the frontier. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Independent studies in correlation
Since both reviewers before me made a detailed review, I would like to interpret the content of this scientificaly very well supported scholar work in a larger context. First of all, I would like to inform/remind future readers that the concept of "Slavic migrations" is a residue of the 19-th century scholarship whose conclusions were "firmly based" on the scarcity of the archaeological material and the "prima facie" interpretation of the mediveal Byzantine texts. Curta uses: much more material artefacts, his common sense and analytical approach to the written material. Consequently, it is no surprise that he comes to the conclusion that there was no "arrival of the Slavs" and there were no "massive Slavic migrations" on the Balkans in the early middle ages. The reader will find it difficult to draw a different conclusion on the basis of the presented evidence in the book.

However, the conclusions of Dr. Curta concerning the Slavic ethnogenesis are supported by at least two more independent streams of scholar work.

The first one comes in a form of recent breakthroughs in the field of genetics. The analyses of genetic founder linages on the populations in the Balkans (and eastern Europe) showed that only 10% of the extant mt DNA genetic pool (maternal ancestry)is of recent date (recent = starting from Metal ages onwards). The rest (90%)of the lineages are from Paleo-Mezo-Neolithic migrations that ceased some 5000 -6000 years before present. Similar results were found for the Y-chromosome lineages (paternal ancestry).

The second stream of scholar work that discards the idea of massive Slavic migrations in the early middle ages is the Theory of continuity of professor Mario Alinei. This theory (which is strongly corroborated by the above mentioned genetic findings)claims that the populations and languages in Europe are more or less geographically autohtonous. On several places in his two volume study ( Il Mulino editions 1996 & 2000) he points out that the idea of recent Slavic migrations is inconsistent and unsupported either by archaeological or linguistic evidence.
(I hope that this extremly important and up to date study will be published in English soon).

Those strong correlations between Curta's and Alinei's evidence and conclusions, on the one side, and the genetic evidence on the other, make a really strong case against the concept of Slavic migrations and offers a much more supported model of the prehistory and history of Balkans.

Seen in this larger context, the content of Dr. Curta's book represents a basic component of the new paradigm that emerges in the scholar work.

We cordially hope that time has come to make significant changes in the elementary school and high school history textbooks which are still based on the interpretations of the 19-th century scholar work.

Bravo!
This is a superb work of scholarship, putting to shame most histories of the Balkans which deal with this time period (e.g., Fine's). Curta smashes modern notions of the Slavic migrations derived mostly through (Byzantine) Roman sources, most of which are purely second hand accounts.

Curta begins with a history of the current thought on the Slavic migrations, influenced primarily by 19th century prejudices and Soviet Union "scholarship" emphasising the reigning hegemony there. He then goes on to offer a critical reading of texts, first those contemporaneous to the period under review, then the centuries immediately following. What's so important is that these readings are truly critical, as opposed to accepting or dismisive: how do these people know what they are writing? All of these texts have value, the argument goes, but they all have different value. What do these texts tell us about their authors?

Curta then reviews the archaeological evidence for the Byzantine-Roman fortifications built along the Danube. He finds Procopius' reports of these forts to be very accurate, but notes a significant absense of evidence that many were destroyed by violence; most were abandonded (and wait until you read his arguments about the coin hordes, a nerd's delight!).

Then Curta reveals the evidence for an actual Slavic culture north of the Danube. What he finds, using distributions of sites and artifacts, correspondence analyses, and cluster analyses, is a complex, well-organized and far-ranging system for the distribution of goods. His tentative conclusion is that this notion of Slav is one, while perhaps taken from a tribe somewhere along the northern border, that is projected onto a heterogeneous group of individuals that have long-ranging relationships from just east of Bavaria to east of Crimea to the Baltic seas! In short, there was no migration as such, they were always there, but had not yet formed this group identity they were given. (He does not deny raids into Byzantine-Roman territory, but who didn't raid their territory?)

What I didn't like: Curta has quite a beef with linguists and tars the entire field in his introduction. Linguists, he claims, have used spurious analyses of the Slavic lexicon to invent a purely fictional Slavic Urheimat (roughly, homeland/place of origin). While this might be true, this sort of folk etymology has little place in modern linguistics. Worse, Curta implies that he doesn't believe that Slavic languages are part of the Indo-European family! Anyone who knows a little of a Slavic language will recognize this as fantasy... Curta doesn't bother to justify his claim. It's hard to know how he would answer for this, particularly given that he doesn't seem especially up to date in linguistics.

But that's not the thrust of the book. The evidence is placed in the archaeology and a truly critical reading of the contemporaneous texts. This is a well substantiated iconoclasm that should be read by every student of European history.

Curta, The Making of the Slavs
The main purpose of this volume is "to explore the nature and construction of the Slavic ethnic identity in the light of the current anthropological research on ethnicity". The author proposes an innovative vision about the archaeological evidence, considering that the ethnic boundaries were marked by items of material culture (features of an "emblemic style" used by an ethnic group in order to be different). The `ethnie' results from the interaction of groups with different emblemic styles. Significant changes in the material culture can thus show what Curta calls "the making of the Slavs": the emergence of a new ethnie. This approach is completely new from all what was written before about the Slavic ethnogenesis.
The sources about the early Slavs are classified in three categories according to the position of their authors: eyewitness, possible contact and second-hand information. The interest of the Byzantine writers was focused on the Slavs only in some periods when they were a real danger. The sources are showing that the inroads occurred when the Danubian limes was weak because the Byzantine army was involved in other wars. A major change took place in the Slavic society around 550-560: the anarchy recorded by Procopius was replaced by war operations commanded by several chiefs whose names were preserved in the further sources. The Byzantine answer to the Slavic threat was the building of three defence lines inside the eastern Balkan provinces. The migration of the Slavs south of the Danube can be dated only since the first years of Heraclius. Only after their settlement, the Byzantine sources recorded several real tribal names, replacing the Byzantine ethnic label that was the generic name Sclavenoi.
Curta examines the Byzantine Balkan region, in order to explain how the classical urbanized society turned into a ruralized one in the period of the Slavic invasions. After a detailed archaeological overview of the main cities in the Balkan provinces, the author concludes that the economic decline occurred because they were not supplied with food from the hinterland. The fortified network established by Justinian fell because the state was not able to support the permanent garrisons of the limes with the central distribution of grain; in the same time, the few number of peasants made impossible a defence based on their service. The withdraw of the Balkan troops in the early years of Heraclius was the natural result of the interruption of the annona taken from Egypt. Therefore, the economic decline and the withdraw of the army from the Danube were not caused by the Slavic invasions; both had internal reasons, remarkably emphasized by Curta.
Objects like amber beads, bow fibulae or pots with stamped decoration are items of two well-defined `emblemic styles' developed by the Gepids and the Lombards. The ethnic identity was constructed on the basis of different types of imported objects with symbolic value bore by elite people (especially by women). The spreading of these objects in different areas matches with the territories inhabited by the Gepids and the Lombards. Aristocratic women, with their garnment, played the main role in the establishment and the transmission of the emblemic style and, as a consequence, of the ethnic identity (they were "symbolic vehicles for the construction of social identities"). The need to emphasize the emblemic style increased in periods of instability and competition between neighboring groups. In this way, Curta finally comes to the making of the early Slavic emblemic style. Like the Gepids or Lombards, the Slavs used specific types of pottery and bow fibulae to construct an emblemic style. This does not means that such objects were genuine Slavic products. Curta argues that the earliest specimens of the so-called "bow fibulae" were found in Mazuria and in Crimea. Their diffusion does not show migrations, but another kind of mobility: "gifts or women married to distant groups in forging alliances" and their function was to express a kind of heraldry displayed on the female dressing. The bow fibulae became a part of the Slavic emblemic style shortly before 600, in the same time with a wider change in the material culture which took place during the climax of the raiding activity of the Slavic rulers.
The individual houses were settled according to a pattern that implied specialized sectors for production or for ceremonies involving food consumption. Food was prepared in ceramic pots, whose shape was determined only by practical reasons. Curta points that the pottery shapes "should be interpreted in relation to food preparation, not to emblemic style". Hundreds of hand-made and wheel-made ceramic vessels belong to the same set of shapes. The pots from the sites ascribed to the Slavs have similar shapes with pieces from Gepidic cemeteries and from Danubian early Byzantine fortresses. If so, the `Prague type', which was defined as the genuine Slavic pottery, is an artificial construct of the archaeologists.
The Lower Danubian settlements are earlier than those from the Zhitomir area (the chronology was established with the aid of the metallic objects, including coins). This contradicts the usual theory of the Slavic migration. In this way, Curta comes to one of his main conclusions: "it appears that instead of a `Slavic culture' originating in a homeland and then spreading to surrounding areas, we should envisage a much broader area of common economic and cultural traditions". This means that large migrations should be replaced with short-distance movements caused by the itinerant agriculture. The population from this wide area became Slavic because acquired an identity during the second half of the 6th century. This identity was expressed through a specific emblemic style defined by bow-fibulae and pottery decorated with finger impressions.
The final chapter deals with the political organization of the early Slavs. Curta applies the anthropological theories on chiefdom, distinguishing between great-men (warriors), big-men (rich men with authority inside their community), and chiefs (rulers of organized polities with control over a group of subjects). The Slavs evolved during the 6th century from a "segmentary society" (lack of hierarchy) to a society ruled by chiefs who fought between them. The emergence of the political organization was the result of the contacts with the Byzantine state. By this military elite the Slavs came into being as a new ethnicity.
The book written by Florin Curta will be a turning point both for the Byzantine and the Slavic studies. ... Read more

Product Description
This bibliography cites works that treat archaeological and literary evidence bearing on the layout, design, and physical accoutrements of the temples of Israel, Egypt, Mesopotamia, as well as the subsequent temple systems which belonged to the Graeco-Roman world. In addition, it treats certain features of the temple, such as the role of the priesthood in the operation of the temple, the sacred vestments of the priests, sacrifice and other priestly rituals, the cosmic associations of the temple, and the temple as the locus of kingly authority and the site of his coronation. The bibliography is divided into specific categories, such as Temples of Jerusalem, Temples of Egypt, Priesthood, Sacrifice, and others. Within each of these categories the relevant bibliography is listed alphabetically by author. ... Read more

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illustrated throughout with figures, maps, and drawings.of the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge and the Department of Classics, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, held in late 1996. The main of the seminar was to give as clear a picture as possible of the Greeks settled in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Pontus. The work also includes a further paper by Yasemin Tuna-Norling, not given at the seminar, that extends the picture of the reason. ... Read more

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Transport amphorae were chosen as the theme of this colloquium because of their great potential for elucidating ancient economic history. As Peacock and Williams have noted, amphorae provide us "not with anindex of the transportation of goods, but with direct witness of the movement of certain foodstuffs which were of considerable economic importance.... It is hard to conceive of any archaeological material better suited to further our understanding of Roman trade." The same could be said with equal conviction about Hellenistic trade. However, while the study of transport amphorae was already an established discipline in the 19th century, it has traditionally focused on amphora stamps. Even in the 1970s, excavators in the eastern Mediterranean were still disregarding-and even discarding-unstamped fragments. Yet if amphora studies remain somewhat in the realm of epigraphy, they have also seen a great deal of activity in the last decade and drawn increasing attention from archaeologists, historians and other researchers.Jonas Eiring and John Lund are both classical archaeologists. Lund is a curator at the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. ... Read more

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This volume presents publications from three separate investigations conducted by the author between 1929 and 1948: firstly, a report of the Saracen castle of 'Ajlun in Jordan; secondly, a guide to the great Templar fortress of 'Atlit, known as Pilgrim's Castle, which remains the definitive account and is presented with the contemporaneous excavation reports; thirdly, a detailed report of the Citadel of Jerusalem. A final postcript is on "The Attempt to Colonize Palestine in the 12th and 13th Centuries". C.N. Johns was employed from 1930-1948 as Field Archaeologist, and later as deputy director of the Department of Antiquities of the Palestine Mandate; on its termination, he became principle investigator in the Royal Commission of Ancient Monuments in Wales until 1969. ... Read more

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The eastern Mediterranean was the centre of trade for many centuries, sitting at the junction of what are now Europe, Asia and Africa. It was the place where exotic produce and products could be traded or exchanged for things that had their origins perhaps thousands of miles away. But wherever trade takes place, a similar exchange of ideas, technology and culture also occurs. This book presents thirty papers on this very subject, looking at the ways in which we can measure the transmission of culture, and how this transmission varied across time and space. (Council for British Research in the Levant in association with Oxbow Books 2005) ... Read more

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This monograph is intended to contribute to the study of the orientalizing phase in archaic Greece, through a systematic examination of the evidence provided by copper alloy and iron helmets. Dezso also provides a framework for other material indicators of eastern contacts with Greece, by defining four distinct levels of orientalization as the basis of his analysis. ... Read more

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The large amount of cemetery data available from the Upper Seine Basin is exploited here in this study of regionality, gender and social differentiation, and cultural behaviour in the Iron Age. Analysing evidence such as body positioning and artefact placement, rather than the objects and human remains themselves, Thomas Evans looks for patterns in cultural behaviour and examines the ways in which people represented their identity in death. He concludes that a single cultural identity can be discerned from the evidence. This identity shows a lack of clear gender division, a growing emphasis on warfare and all its accoutrements (whether for real or symbolic purposes) through time, and that a system of prestige exchange was operating during the final Hallstatt and ealy La Tene periods. ... Read more

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Mycenaean influence was exerted on the islands of the south-eastern Aegean through the improvement of both people and ideas through migration, colonisation and invasion. This study explores Mycenaean influence through analysing the burial record of islands in the south-west and in particular Karpathos, Rhodes, Kos and Ialysos. Data on the architecture and types of burials found, treatment of the body, funerary ritual and grave goods, are used to build a picture of local and regional burial traditions and belief systems. Issues of ethnicity and culture, ideological and cosmological beliefs, as well as the social and political characteristics of these Mycenaean societies, are discussed and common traditions highlighted. ... Read more

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This important contribution to the study of Phrygian religious practice and spatial conceptualizations examines the role of the rock-cut monuments in Iron Age Anatolian and provides the reader with new aspects and theories of Phrygian cult and the Mother goddess Kybele. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Another must-have for Southeast Asian Archaeology
The editors have assembled an important collection of recent research on the art and archaeology of Southeast Asia in this volume. ... Read more