Focused on the connections between archaeology and Israeli society, this book examines the development of Israeli archaeological research, taking historical, sociological, and political contexts into account. Adopting a Foucauldian framework of power and knowledge, the author begins by focusing on archaeological knowledge as a hegemonic discipline, buttressing the national Zionist identity after the establishment of the State of Israel. The liberalization of political culture in the late 1970s, it is argued, opened the door for a more democratized archaeological discipline. Making use of in-depth interviews with archaeologists belonging to various groups in Israeli society as well as documents from the Israel State Archives (ISA), the book touches on multiple fields of research, including Near Eastern archaeology, religious Jewish society, Israel/Palestine relations, and the status of women in Israel. Moreover, although the book deals with the sociology of Israeli archaeology specifically, the author’s comparative approach—which highlights the mirroring of social processes and the archaeological discipline—can also be applied to other societies. The book will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of archaeology, sociology, and Israel Studies, as well as to readers with a general interest in the archaeology of the Holy Land.

This edited volume offers a new critical approach to the study of Zionist history and Israeli-Palestinian relations, based on the encounter between history and anthropology. Informed by the anthropological method of setting large questions to intimate settings, the book examines processes of Zionist colonization, nation-building and Palestinian dispossession by focusing on encounters between members of different national, religious and ethnic groups “from below”—through paying close attention to life stories and reconstructing everyday practices and micro-histories of places and communities. Thus, it tells a complex story in which the practices of historical actors are not simply reducible to a single underlying logic of colonization, even as they participate in the production and reproduction of colonial structures. This approach effectively undermines the prevailing tendency to study national communities in isolation, projecting onto the past an essentialist and rigid separation. Rather than assuming two clearly bounded and monolithic national groups, caught from the start in perpetual conflict, this volume probes their historical production through their evolving relationships, and their varied and shifting political, social, economic and cultural manifestations. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in an array of fields, including the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, anthropological perspectives on settler colonialism, and Zionism.

This volume explores major theoretical and empirical themes in the study of the economic history of the Middle East. Despite the relative neglect of economic history in Middle Eastern studies, this book makes a case for its importance as a discipline of study. On the one hand, it shows promise in illuminating the economic base of historical trends and events; on the other, it can elucidate the historical foundations of economic continuity and change. The chapters employ an array of theoretical and methodological approaches and ultimately demonstrate how economics and history, along with political economy, complement each other in studying the Middle East. Among the substantive topics explored are the trajectories of the Arab Spring, institutional change and economic development in the early Ottoman Empire, the destructive effects of the reordering property rights in Iraq by the American-led occupation authority, the evolution of the political economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the determinants of movements in the yields of Egyptian and Ottoman sovereign debt following political and economic crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of economic history, political economy, and the Middle East.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of authority structures in Saudi Arabia during the twentieth century, as presented in two leading Western newspapers, The London Times and The New York Times. Beginning with a history of Saudi Arabia – from the building of the Kingdom in 1901, when Ibn Saud left his exile in Kuwait to recover Riyadh back from Al-Rasheed’s rule, until the death of King Fahd in 2005 – the author then outlines the theoretical framework of the book, specifically Weber’s original conception of authority. Weber’s notion of authority as having three types – traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal – is applied to an analysis of the two newspapers over the course of the twentieth century. A timeline is devised to aid this analysis, based on significant turning points in Saudi history, including Ibn Saud’s declaration of the Kingdom in 1932 and King Faisal’s assassination in 1975. Ultimately, this analysis discloses the many ways in which conceptions of authority in the Middle East were presented to Western audiences, whilst illuminating the political agendas inherent to this coverage in the UK and the US. This book is vital reading for anyone interested in Saudi Arabian history, Western perspectives of the Middle East, and the sociology of media.

This open access volume provides for the first time a comprehensive description and scientific evaluation of underwater archaeological finds referring to human occupation of the continental shelf around the coastlines of Europe and the Mediterranean when sea levels were lower than present. These are the largest body of underwater finds worldwide, amounting to over 2500 find spots, ranging from individual stone tools to underwater villages with unique conditions of preservation. The material reviewed here ranges in date from the Lower Palaeolithic period to the Bronze Age and covers 20 countries bordering all the major marine basins from the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Norway to the Black Sea, and from the western Baltic to the eastern Mediterranean. The finds from each country are presented in their archaeological context, with information on the history of discovery, conditions of preservation and visibility, their relationship to regional changes in sea-level and coastal geomorphology, and the institutional arrangements for their investigation and protection. Editorial introductions summarise the findings from each of the major marine basins. There is also a final section with extensive discussion of the historical background and the legal and regulatory frameworks that inform the management of the underwater cultural heritage and collaboration between offshore industries, archaeologists and government agencies. The volume is based on the work of COST Action TD0902 SPLASHCOS, a multi-disciplinary and multi-national research network supported by the EU-funded COST organisation (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The primary readership is research and professional archaeologists, marine and Quaternary scientists, cultural-heritage managers, commercial and governmental organisations, policy makers, and all those with an interest in the sea floor of the continental shelf and the human impact of changes in climate, sea-level and coastal geomorphology.

An international and multidisciplinary team addresses significant ethical questions about the rights to access, manage and interpret the material remains of the past.

Quaternary Paleoenvironments examines the drowned landscapes exposed as extensive and attractive territory for prehistoric human settlement during the Ice Ages of the Pleistocene, when sea levels dropped to 120m-135m below their current levels. This volume provides an overview of the geological, geomorphological, climatic and sea-level history of the European continental shelf as a whole, as well as a series of detailed regional reviews for each of the major sea basins. The nature and variable attractions of the landscapes and resources available for human exploitation are examined, as are the conditions under which archaeological sites and landscape features are likely to have been preserved, destroyed or buried by sediment during sea-level rise. The authors also discuss the extent to which we can predict where to look for drowned landscapes with the greatest chance of success, with frequent reference to examples of preserved prehistoric sites in different submerged environments. Quaternary Paleoenvironments will be of interest to archaeologists, geologists, marine scientists, palaeoanthropologists, cultural heritage managers, geographers, and all those with an interest in the drowned landscapes of the continental shelf.

Society for American Archaeology Book Award Winner Many fundamental studies of the origins of states have built upon landscape data, but an overall study of the Near Eastern landscape itself has never been attempted. Spanning thousands of years of history, the ancient Near East presents a bewildering range of landscapes, the understanding of which can greatly enhance our ability to infer past political and social systems. Tony Wilkinson now shows that throughout the Holocene humans altered the Near Eastern environment so thoroughly that the land has become a human artifact, albeit one that retains the power to shape human societies. In this trailblazing book—the first to describe and explain the development of the Near Eastern landscape using archaeological data—Wilkinson identifies specific landscape signatures for various regions and periods, from the early stages of complex societies in the fifth to sixth millennium B.C. to the close of the Early Islamic period around the tenth century A.D. From Bronze Age city-states to colonized steppes, these signature landscapes of irrigation systems, tells, and other features changed through time along with changes in social, economic, political, and environmental conditions. By weaving together the record of the human landscape with evidence of settlement, the environment, and social and economic conditions, Wilkinson provides a holistic view of the ancient Near East that complements archaeological excavations, cuneiform texts, and other conventional sources. Through this overview, culled from thirty years' research, Wilkinson establishes a new framework for understanding the economic and physical infrastructure of the region. By describing the basic attributes of the ancient cultural landscape and placing their development within the context of a dynamic environment, he breaks new ground in landscape archaeology and offers a new context for understanding the ancient Near East.

This 1982 volume of essays attempts to promote discussion about the purpose and practice of historical geography.

The exciting field of biblical archaeology has revolutionized our understanding of the Bible -- and no one has done more to popularise this vast store of knowledge than Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, who revealed what we now know about when and why the Bible was first written in The Bible Unearthed. Now, with David and Solomon, they do nothing less than help us to understand the sacred kings and founding fathers of western civilization. David and his son Solomon are famous in the Bible for their warrior prowess, legendary loves, wisdom, poetry, conquests, and ambitious building programmes. Yet thanks to archaeology's astonishing finds, we now know that most of these stories are myths. Finkelstein and Silberman show us that the historical David was a bandit leader in a tiny back-water called Jerusalem, and how -- through wars, conquests and epic tragedies like the exile of the Jews in the centuries before Christ and the later Roman conquest -- David and his successor were reshaped into mighty kings and even messiahs, symbols of hope to Jews and Christians alike in times of strife and despair and models for the great kings of Europe. A landmark work of research and lucid scholarship by two brilliant luminaries, David and Solomon recasts the very genesis of western history in a whole new light.