The Highland bagpipe, widely considered 'Scotland's national instrument', is one of the most recognized icons of traditional music in the world. It is also among the least understood. However, since the bagpipeOCOs unprecedented surge in public visibility and scholarly attention since the 1990s, a greater interest in the emic has led the consideration of both the globalization of Highland piping and piping as rooted in local culture. The contributors of this collection discuss the bagpipe in oral and written history, anthropology, ethnography, musicology, material culture and modal aesthetics. The book will appeal to ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, as well as those interested in international bagpipe studies and traditions."

Papers from the 1999 conference by the Museum of Scotland. Aims to generate international comparison and debate about interpretation and presentation of heritage assets, and to examine the role of museums in shaping national identity.

The Celtic World is a detailed and comprehensive study of the Celts from the first evidence of them in the archaeological and historical record to the early post-Roman period. The strength of this volume lies in its breadth - it looks at archaeology, language, literature, towns, warfare, rural life, art, religion and myth, trade and industry, political organisations, society and technology. The Celtic World draws together material from all over pagan Celtic Europe and includes contributions from British, European and American scholars. Much of the material is new research which is previously unpublished. The book addresses some important issues - Who were the ancient Celts? Can we speak of them as the first Europeans? In what form does the Celtic identity exist today and how does this relate to the ancient Celts? For anyone interested in the Celts, and for students and academics alike, The Celtic World will be a valuable resource and a fascinating read.

This study examines Middle–Late Bronze Age (c. 1750–600 BC) domestic settlement patterns in Ireland. The results reveal a distinct rise in the visibility, and a rapid adaption, of domestic architecture, which seems to have occurred earlier in Ireland than elsewhere in western and northern Europe.

Field Marshal Alexander Leslie was the highest ranking commander from the British Isles to serve in the Thirty Years’ War. Though Leslie’s life provides the thread that runs through this work, the authors use his story to explore the impacts of the Thirty Years’ War, the British Civil Wars and the age of Military Revolution.

For 7,000 years after the last ice age, the people of the British Isles subsisted by hunting wild game and gathering fruits of the forest and foreshore. Belonging to the late Upper Palaelithic and Mesolithic periods, these hunter-gatherers have hitherto been viewed mainly in terms of stone tool typologies. late Stone Age Hunters of the British Isles departs from this conventional approach, reassessing the archaeological evidence and placing it within a wider ecological and geographical context. This well illustrated study, which includes case studies, maps and photographs, provides a balanced approach to the study of a period that demands multi-disciplinary treatment. It outlines a range of considerations that have a bearing on the study of early societies in the British Isles, and also forms a useful guide to communiites themselves as represented by known archaeological sites.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1910.

The Quest for the Irish Celt is the fascinating story of Harvard University’s five-year archaeological research programme in Ireland during the 1930s to determine the racial and cultural heritage of the Irish people. The programme involved country-wide excavations and the examination of prehistoric skulls by physical anthropologists, and was complemented by the physical examinations of thousands of Irish people from across the country; measuring skulls, nose-shape and grade of hair colour. The Harvard scientists’ mission was to determine who the Celts were, what was their racial type, and what element in the present-day population represented the descendants of the earliest inhabitants of the island. Though the Harvard Mission was hugely influential, there were theories of eugenics involved that would shock the modern reader. The main adviser for the archaeology was Adolf Mahr, Nazi and Director of the National Museum (1934–39). The overall project was managed by Earnest A. Hooton, famed Harvard anthropologist, whose theories regarding biological heritage would now be readily condemned for their racism. Mairéad Carew explores this extraordinary archaeological mission, examining its historic importance for Ireland and Irish-America, its landmark findings, and the unseemly activities that lay just beneath the surface.

Where did the human species originate, why are tropical peoples much more diverse than those at polar latitudes, and why can only Japanese peoples digest seaweed? In Humankind, U. C. Davis professor Alexander Harcourt answers these questions and more, as he explains how the expansion of the human species around the globe and our interaction with our environment explains much about why humans differ from one region of the world to another, not only biologically, but culturally. What effects have other species had on the distribution of humans around the world, and we, in turn, on their distribution? And how have human populations affected each other’s geography, even existence? For the first time in a single book, Alexander Harcourt brings these topics together to help us understand why we are, what we are, where we are. It turns out that when one looks at humanity's expansion around the world, and in the biological explanations for our geographic diversity, we humans are often just another primate, just another species. Humanity's distribution around the world and the type of organism we are today has been shaped by the same biogeographical forces that shape other species.