Publications

Bookshelves filled completely with books of different colors and sizes.

Publications

The Peabody Museum has long published a variety of print and electronic publications relating to collections, projects, and excavations conducted by Peabody Museum staff and Department of Anthropology faculty.

Current publications can be found under Books with links to purchase, while pre-1970s publications include links to texts when available. 

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Books

The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization

Citation:

Martha Lamberg-Karlovsky. 10/18/2020. The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization, Pp. 152. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization

Abstract:

For much of the twentieth century, Mesopotamia was thought to he the singular "Cradle of Civilization;" and the agents of change that brought it about were thought to be demographic, ecological, and technological. Bronze Age Mesopotamian accomplishments were believed to have diffused outward, influencing the development of civilization in the rest of the world. Part of this Mesopocentric view was revised as archaeological evidence revealed that other unique civilizations had existed in both the Old and New Worlds, but the traditional Near Eastern pattern of development continued to serve as a model.

In the mid-1980s, however, Harvard’s Kwang-chih Chang proposed in Symbols--a publication of Harvard’s Peabody Museum and Department of Anthropology--that China’s first civilization did not evolve according to the conventional Mesopotamian model and argued instead for a new paradigm for understanding the origins of civilization in ancient China and the New World.

In this collection of subsequent Symbols articles and other essays, Maya and Near Eastern studies specialists engage in a stimulating debate of Chang’s thesis, also presented here.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

The Cerro Colorado Site and Pithouse Architecture in the Southwestern United States prior to A.D. 900

The Cerro Colorado Site and Pithouse Architecture in the Southwestern United States prior to A.D. 900

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Papers Volume 44, no. 2
Last updated on 01/03/2022

The Changing Physical Environment of the Hopi Indians of Arizona

Citation:

John T. Hack. 1942. The Changing Physical Environment of the Hopi Indians of Arizona, Pp. 128. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. READ ONLINE
The Changing Physical Environment of the Hopi Indians of Arizona

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Papers Volume 35, no. 1

(Report no. 1, Peabody Museum Awatovi Expedition)

Last updated on 01/03/2022

The Chultunes of Labná, Yucatan: Report of Explorations by the Museum, 1888–89 and 1890–91

The Chultunes of Labná, Yucatan: Report of Explorations by the Museum, 1888–89 and 1890–91

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Memoirs Volume 1, no. 3
Last updated on 01/03/2022

The Copan Sculpture Museum

Citation:

Barbara W. Fash. 9/12/2011. The Copan Sculpture Museum, Pp. 216. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
The Copan Sculpture Museum

Abstract:

 

Ancient Maya Artistry in Stucco and Stone

 

The Copan Sculpture Museum in western Honduras features the extraordinary stone carvings of the ancient Maya city known as Copan. The city’s sculptors produced some of the finest and most animated buildings and temples in the Maya area, in addition to stunning monolithic statues and altars. The ruins of Copan were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980, and more than 150,000 national and international tourists visit the ancient city each year.

Opened in 1996, the Copan Sculpture Museum was initiated as an international collaboration to preserve Copan’s original stone monuments. Its exhibits represent the best-known examples of building façades and sculptural achievements from the ancient kingdom of Copan. The creation of this on-site museum involved people from all walks of life: archaeologists, artists, architects, and local craftspeople. Today it fosters cultural understanding and promotes Hondurans’ identity with the past.

In The Copan Sculpture Museum, Barbara Fash—one of the principle creators of the museum—tells the inside story of conceiving, designing, and building a local museum with global significance. Along with numerous illustrations and detailed archaeological context for each exhibit in the museum, the book provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and culture of the ancient Maya and a model for working with local communities to preserve cultural heritage.

Last updated on 05/31/2022
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Series

The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A 200,000-Year Record of Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and Society

The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A 200,000-Year Record of Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and Society

Abstract:

A decade of zooarchaeological fieldwork (1992-2001) went into Mary Stiner’s pathbreaking analysis of changes in human ecology from the early Mousterian period through the end of Paleolithic cultures in the Levant. Stiner employs a comparative approach to understanding early human behavioral and environmental change, based on a detailed study of fourteen bone assemblages from Hayonim Cave and Meged Rockshelter in Israel’s Galilee. Principally anthropological in outlook, Stiner’s analysis also integrates chemistry, foraging and population ecology, vertebrate paleontology, and biogeography. Her research focuses first on the formation history, or taphonomy, of bone accumulations, and second on questions about the economic behaviors of early humans, including the early development of human adaptations for hunting large prey and the relative "footprint" of humans in Pleistocene ecosystems of the Levant.

Last updated on 01/10/2022
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Making Dead Birds: Chronicle of a Film

Citation:

Robert Gardner. 3/30/2008. Making Dead Birds: Chronicle of a Film, Pp. 160. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Making Dead Birds: Chronicle of a Film

Abstract:

Honorable Mention, 2008 NEMA Awards (Books Over $10)

Robert Gardner’s classic Dead Birds is one of the most highly acclaimed and controversial documentary films ever made. This detailed and candid account of the process of making Dead Birds, from the birth of the idea through filming in New Guinea to editing and releasing the finished film, is more than the chronicle of a single work. It is also a thoughtful examination of what it meant to record the moving and violent rituals of warrior-farmers in the New Guinea highlands and to present to the world a graphic story of their behavior as a window onto our own. Letters, journals, telegrams, newspaper clippings, and over 50 images are assembled to recreate a vivid chronology of events. Making Dead Birds not only addresses the art and practice of filmmaking, but also explores issues of representation and the discovery of meaning in human lives.

Gardner led a remarkable cast of participants on the 1961 expedition. All brought back extraordinary bodies of work. Probably most influential of all was Dead Birds, which marked a sea change in nonfiction filmmaking. This book takes the reader inside the creative process of making that landmark film and offers a revealing look into the heart and mind of one of the great filmmakers of our time.

Last updated on 01/10/2022

Shell Gorgets: Styles of the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Southeast

Citation:

Jeffrey P. Brain and Philip Phillips. 3/29/1996. Shell Gorgets: Styles of the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Southeast, Pp. 544. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Shell Gorgets: Styles of the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Southeast

Abstract:

Engraved shell gorgets are found throughout prehistoric southeastern North America. The artistic sophistication of these gorgets lends itself to the sensitive stylistic and chronological analysis offered here. In part one of this volume, the gorgets are classified into styles; in part two, described archaeological sites are analyzed for associations and chronology; and in part three, information about the gorgets is correlated with other artifactual evidence, and patterns of intersite distribution are examined for chronological insights and dynamic interpretations.

Last updated on 01/10/2022

Shooting Cameras for Peace / Disparando Cámaras para la Paz

Citation:

Alexander L. Fattal. 12/1/2020. Shooting Cameras for Peace / Disparando Cámaras para la Paz, Pp. 252. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Shooting Cameras for Peace / Disparando Cámaras para la Paz

Abstract:

Bronze Medal, 2021 IPPY Awards

Winner, 2021 John Collier Jr. Award

Honorable Mention, 2022 LASA Visual Culture Section Book Award

As a young Fulbright scholar in Bogotá determined to democratize the photographic gaze and bring new visions and voices to public debate about Colombia’s armed conflict, Alexander L. Fattal founded Disparando Cámaras para la Paz (Shooting Cameras for Peace). The project taught photography to young people in El Progreso, a neighborhood on the city’s outskirts that was home to families displaced by violence in the countryside. Cameras in hand, the youth had a chance to record and reimagine their daily existence.

Shooting Cameras for Peace / Disparando Cámaras para la Paz is a penetrating look at one of Latin America’s most dynamic participatory media projects. The haunting and exuberant photographs made under its auspices testify to young people’s will to play, to dream, and to survive. The images bear witness to the resilience and creativity of lives marked by a war that refuses to die.

With text in English and Spanish, Shooting Cameras for Peace / Disparando Cámaras para la Paz makes vital contributions to studies of collaborative media, photographic activism, and peace and conflict in Colombia. Fattal’s insightful text offers critical reflection on the genre of participatory photography and the structural challenges faced by similar media projects.

Last updated on 08/18/2022

Still Points

Citation:

Robert Gardner. 9/10/2018. Still Points, Pp. 112. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Still Points

Abstract:

Still Points is a collection of remarkable and evocative still photographs taken by award-winning nonfiction filmmaker and author Robert Gardner during his anthropological and filming expeditions around the world. Thousands of his original photographic transparencies and negatives from the Kalahari Desert, New Guinea, Colombia, India, Ethiopia, Niger, and other remote locations are now housed in the Photographic Archives of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. This elegantly produced volume presents a curated selection of more than 70 color and black-and-white images made by Gardner between the 1950s and the 1980s. Edited by Adele Pressman, Gardner’s wife and literary executor, and with a foreword by Eliot WeinbergerStill Points both honors an important and influential artist and reveals new dimensions in his work.

Last updated on 01/13/2022
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Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Effigy Pottery from the Edwin Curtiss Collection

Citation:

John H. House. 1/22/2004. Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Effigy Pottery from the Edwin Curtiss Collection, Pp. 120. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Effigy Pottery from the Edwin Curtiss Collection

Abstract:

Foreword by Ian W. Brown

In 1879 Edwin Curtiss set out for the wild St. Francis River region of northeastern Arkansas to collect archaeological specimens for the Peabody Museum. By the time Curtiss completed his fifty-six days of Arkansas fieldwork, he had sent nearly 1,000 pottery vessels to Cambridge and had put the Peabody on the map as the repository of one of the world’s finest collections of Mississippian artifacts. John House brings us a lively account of the work of this nineteenth-century fieldworker, the Native culture he explored, and the rich legacies left by both. The result is a vivid re-creation of the world of Indian peoples in the Mississippi River lowlands in the last centuries before European contact. The volume’s focus is Curtiss’s collection of charming and expressive effigy vessels: earthenware bowls and bottles that incorporate forms of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and humans, including the Peabody’s famous red-and-white head vase.

John H. House is Station Archaeologist, Pine Bluff Research Station, and Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Hunters, Carvers & Collectors: The Chauncey C. Nash Collection of Inuit Art

Citation:

Maija M. Lutz. 11/12/2012. Hunters, Carvers & Collectors: The Chauncey C. Nash Collection of Inuit Art, Pp. 128. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Hunters, Carvers & Collectors: The Chauncey C. Nash Collection of Inuit Art

Abstract:

In the late 1950s, Chauncey C. Nash started collecting Inuit carvings just as the art of printmaking was being introduced in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), an Inuit community on Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Nash donated some 300 prints and sculptures to Harvard’s Peabody Museum—one of the oldest collections of early modern Inuit art. The Peabody collection includes not only early Inuit sculpture but also many of the earliest prints on paper made by the women and men who helped propel Inuit art onto the world stage.

Author Maija M. Lutz draws from ethnology, archaeology, art history, and cultural studies to tell the story of a little-known collection that represents one of the most vibrant and experimental periods in the development of contemporary Inuit art. Lavishly illustrated, Hunters, Carvers, and Collectors presents numerous never-before-published gems, including carvings by the artists John Kavik, Johnniebo Ashevak, and Peter Qumalu POV Assappa. This latest contribution to the award-winning Peabody Museum Collections Series fills an important gap in the literature of Native American art.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Painted by a Distant Hand

Citation:

Steven A. LeBlanc. 4/30/2005. Painted by a Distant Hand, Pp. 120. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Painted by a Distant Hand

Abstract:

Foreword by Rubie Watson

Photographs by Hillel S. Burger

1st place, 2006 NEMA Awards (Books Over $10)

Highlighting one of the Peabody Museum’s most important archaeological expeditions—the excavation of the Swarts Ranch Ruin in southwestern New Mexico by Harriet and Burton Cosgrove in the mid-1920s—Steven LeBlanc’s book features rare, never-before-published examples of Mimbres painted pottery, considered by many scholars to be the most unique of all the ancient art traditions of North America. Made between A.D. 1000 and 1150, these pottery bowls and jars depict birds, fish, insects, and mammals that the Mimbres encountered in their daily lives, portray mythical beings, and show humans participating in both ritual and everyday activities. LeBlanc traces the origins of the Mimbres people and what became of them, and he explores our present understanding of what the images mean and what scholars have learned about the Mimbres people in the 75 years since the Cosgroves’ expedition.

Steven A. LeBlanc is an archaeologist and former Director of Collections at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

Rubie Watson is Curator of Comparative Ethnology in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages

Citation:

Jeffrey Quilter. 2/28/2011. The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages, Pp. 172. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages

Abstract:

Peru’s ancient Moche culture is represented in a magnificent collection of artifacts at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. In this richly illustrated volume, Jeffrey Quilter presents a fascinating introduction to this intriguing culture and explores current thinking about Moche politics, history, society, and religion.

Quilter utilizes the Peabody’s collection as a means to investigate how the Moche used various media, particularly ceramics, to convey messages about their lives and beliefs. His presentation provides a critical examination and rethinking of many of the commonly held interpretations of Moche artifacts and their imagery, raising important issues of art production and its role in ancient and modern societies.

The most up-to-date monograph available on the Moche—and the first extensive discussion of the Peabody Museum’s collection of Moche ceramics—this volume provides an introduction for the general reader and contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions. Quilter’s fresh reading of Moche visual imagery raises new questions about the art and culture of ancient Peru.

Last updated on 12/13/2022
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Manifest: Thirteen Colonies

Citation:

Wendel White. 2024. Manifest: Thirteen Colonies, Pp. 298. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Radius Books and Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Manifest: Thirteen Colonies

Abstract:

Manifest | Thirteen Colonies is a photographic project and journey through the repositories of African American material culture found in libraries, museums, and archives of the original thirteen English colonies and Washington, DC. Conceived by photographer Wendel A. White, this project is a personal reliquary of the remarkable evidence of Black agency and racial oppression stored in public collections. Accompanying his imagery, White discusses his approach to finding, selecting, and photographing artifacts—from rare singular objects to more quotidian materials—and highlights their significance as forensic evidence of Black life and history in the United States. 

Manifest: Thirteen Colonies will be open to the public at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University from May 18, 2024-April 13, 2025.

Wendel A. White (b. 1956, Newark, NJ) is currently Distinguished Professor of Art at Stockton University and has taught photography at the School of Visual Arts; The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art; the International Center of Photography; and the Rochester Institute of Technology. His work has received various awards and fellowships, including: Doctor of Arts (hc), Oakland University; Robert Gardner Fellow in Photography, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Photography; Bunn Lectureship in Photography, Bradley University; three artist fellowships from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; and New Works Photography Fellowship from En Foco Inc. His work is represented in museum and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; among many others.


 
Last updated on 02/28/2024

NEPAL: 1975–2011

Citation:

Kevin Bubriski. 9/30/2014. NEPAL: 1975–2011, Pp. 224. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press and Radius Books. BUY THIS BOOK
NEPAL: 1975–2011

Abstract:

Preface by Robert Gardner

Essay by Charles Ramble

Third Place, 2015 New England Book Show (Cover)

Photographer Kevin Bubriski has been visually documenting the country and people of Nepal since his first visit in 1975. Sent as a young Peace Corps volunteer to the northwest Karnali Zone, the country’s remotest and most economically depressed region, he spent three years walking the length and breadth of the Karnali, planning and overseeing construction of gravity flow drinking water pipelines. He also photographed the local villagers, producing an extraordinary series of 35mm and large format black-and-white images. For nearly four decades, Bubriski has maintained his close association with Nepal and its people. Both visual anthropology and cultural history, this remarkable body of photographic work documents Nepal’s evolution from a traditional Himalayan kingdom to a rapidly changing, globalized society. Nepal: 1975–2011 also offers an incisive and comprehensive look at the aesthetic evolution of an important contemporary photographer.

Kevin Bubriski is Assistant Professor of Photography at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, and was the 2010 recipient of the Robert Gardner Visiting Artist Fellowship at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.

Co-published with Radius Books.

Last updated on 03/08/2023

Sacred Spaces: A Journey with the Sufis of the Indus

Citation:

Samina Quraeshi. 3/31/2010. Sacred Spaces: A Journey with the Sufis of the Indus, Pp. 296. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Sacred Spaces: A Journey with the Sufis of the Indus

Abstract:

Winner, 2009 New England Book Show (General Trade, Illustrated)

Silver Medal, 2010 IPPY Awards (Multicultural Non-Fiction Adult)

Silver Medal, 2010 IPPY Awards (Religion & Multi-Cultural)

Bronze Medal, 2009 Foreword Magazine Awards (Religion)

With essays by Ali S. AsaniCarl W. Ernst, and Kamil Khan Mumtaz

Sufism, the mystical path of Islam, is a key feature of the complex Islamic culture of South Asia today. Influenced by philosophies and traditions from other Muslim lands and by pre-Islamic rites and practices, Sufism offers a corrective to the image of Islam as monolithic and uniform.

In Sacred Spaces, Pakistani artist and educator Samina Quraeshi provides a locally inflected vision of Islam in South Asia that is enriched by art and by a female perspective on the diversity of Islamic expressions of faith. A unique account of a journey through the author’s childhood homeland in search of the wisdom of the Sufis, the book reveals the deeply spiritual nature of major centers of Sufism in the central and northwestern heartlands of South Asia. Illuminating essays by Ali S. AsaniCarl W. Ernst, and Kamil Khan Mumtaz provide context to the journey, discussing aspects of Sufi music and dance, the role of Sufism in current South Asian culture and politics, and the spiritual geometry of Sufi architecture.

Quraeshi relies on memory, storytelling, and image making to create an imaginative personal history using a rich body of photographs and works of art to reflect the seeking heart of the Sufi way and to demonstrate the diversity of this global religion. Her vision builds on the centuries-old Sufi tradition of mystical messages of love, freedom, and tolerance that continue to offer the promise of building cultural and spiritual bridges between peoples of different faiths.

Samina Quraeshi is Gardner Fellow and Visiting Artist, Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

Ali S. Asani is Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures and Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, with a joint appointment in the Committee on the Study of Religion and the Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; Sanskrit and Indian Studies; and African and African-American Studies, at Harvard University.

Carl W. Ernst is William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kamil Khan Mumtaz is an architect living in Pakistan.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Stephen Dupont: Piksa Niugini Portraits and Diaries

Citation:

Stephon Dupont. 11/13/2013. Stephen Dupont: Piksa Niugini Portraits and Diaries, Pp. 216. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Stephen Dupont: Piksa Niugini Portraits and Diaries

Abstract:

Foreword by Robert Gardner
Essay by Bob Connolly

"Best Books 2013...The attraction of Dupont's books is that his photographs exhibit enormous passion and enthusiasm and are an effort to unlock the nature of the relationship between photographer and subject."
THE Magazine

This publication records acclaimed Australian photographer Stephen Dupont’s journey through some of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) most important cultural and historical zones: the Highlands, Sepik, Bougainville, and the capital city of Port Moresby. Through images and personal diaries, Dupont’s remarkable body of work captures the human spirit of the people of PNG in their transition from tribalism to globalization. The project was conducted in 2011 with the support of the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography given by Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology.

Piksa Niugini consists of two hardcover books inside a special slipcase. The first volume is a collection of portraits in luscious duotone and 4-color reproduction; the second is a vibrant collection of the diaries, drawings, contact sheets, and documentary photographs that chronicle Dupont’s experience and working process and richly contextualize the more formal images in volume one. An exhibition of Dupont's New Guinea photographs is on display at the Peabody through September 2, 2013.

Dupont’s photographs have received international acclaim for their artistic integrity and valuable insight into peoples, cultures, and communities that are under threat or in the process of rapid change. The photographer’s many awards include a Robert Capa Gold Medal citation from the Overseas Press Club of America, a Bayeux War Correspondent’s Prize, and first places in the World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, the Australian Walkleys, and Leica/CCP Documentary Award. In 2007 Dupont was the recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography for his ongoing project on Afghanistan. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, Aperture, Newsweek, GQ, French and German GEO, Le Figaro, Liberation, The Sunday Times Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Stern, Time, and Vanity Fair.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

A Preliminary Study of the Prehistoric Ruins of Nakum, Guatemala: A Report of the Peabody Museum Expedition, 1909–1910

A Preliminary Study of the Prehistoric Ruins of Nakum, Guatemala: A Report of the Peabody Museum Expedition, 1909–1910

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Memoirs Volume 5, no. 3
Last updated on 01/03/2022

Archaeological Researches in Yucatan: Reports of Explorations for the Museum

Citation:

Edward H. Thompsonv. 1904. Archaeological Researches in Yucatan: Reports of Explorations for the Museum, Pp. 45. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. READ ONLINE
Archaeological Researches in Yucatan: Reports of Explorations for the Museum

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Memoirs Volume 3, no. 1
Last updated on 01/03/2022
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A Chancay-Style Grave at Zapallan, Peru: An Analysis of Its Textiles, Pottery and Other Furnishings

Citation:

S. K. Lothrop and Joy Mahler. 1957. A Chancay-Style Grave at Zapallan, Peru: An Analysis of Its Textiles, Pottery and Other Furnishings, Pp. 92. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. READ ONLINE
A Chancay-Style Grave at Zapallan, Peru: An Analysis of Its Textiles, Pottery and Other Furnishings

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Papers Volume 50, no. 1
Last updated on 01/03/2022

A Possible Solution of the Number Series on Pages 51 to 58 of the Dresden Codex

Citation:

Carl E. Guthe. 1921. A Possible Solution of the Number Series on Pages 51 to 58 of the Dresden Codex, Pp. 41. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. READ ONLINE
A Possible Solution of the Number Series on Pages 51 to 58 of the Dresden Codex

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Papers Volume 6, no. 2
Last updated on 01/10/2022

A Stone Age Cave Site in Tangier: Preliminary Report on the Excavations at the Mugharet El ‘Aliya, or High Cave, in Tangier

A Stone Age Cave Site in Tangier: Preliminary Report on the Excavations at the Mugharet El ‘Aliya, or High Cave, in Tangier

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Papers Volume 28, no. 1
Last updated on 01/10/2022
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Anthropology at Harvard: A Biographical History, 1790–1940

Citation:

David L. Browman Stephen and Williams. 7/15/2013. Anthropology at Harvard: A Biographical History, 1790–1940, Pp. 602. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Anthropology at Harvard: A Biographical History, 1790–1940

Abstract:

"A monumental achievement"—American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Anthropology at Harvard recounts the rich and complex history of anthropology at America’s oldest university, beginning with the earliest precursors of the discipline within the study of natural history. The story unfolds through fascinating vignettes about the many individuals—famous and obscure alike—who helped shape the discipline at Harvard College and the Peabody Museum. Lively anecdotes provide in-depth portraits of dozens of key individuals, including Louis and Alexander Agassiz, Frederic Ward Putnam, Mary Hemenway, Alice Cunningham Fletcher, Sylvanus Morley, A. V. Kidder, and Antonio Apache. The text also throws new light on longstanding puzzles and debates, such as Franz Boas’s censure by the American Anthropological Association and the involvement of Harvard archaeologists in espionage work for the U.S. government during World War I.

The authors take a “cohort” perspective, looking beyond the big names to the larger network of colleagues that formed the dynamic backdrop to the development of ideas. The significant contributions of amateurs and private funders to the early growth of the field are highlighted, as is the active participation of women and of students and scholars of diverse ethnic backgrounds. A monumental achievement, Anthropology at Harvard makes an important contribution to the history of Americanist anthropology.

"Overall, Anthropology at Harvard provides a comprehensive view of the East Coast development of the discipline and handles a prodigious amount of data remarkably well."—Donald McVicker, Isis >> read the full review

 

"Anthropology at Harvard will serve as an important, though limited, work of reference for historians of archaeology and anthropology."—Vincent Crapanzano, "Natives," The Times Literary Supplement >> read the full review

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites

Citation:

Lorna J. Marshall. 1/24/2000. Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites, Pp. 400. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites

Abstract:

With style and depth, Lorna Marshall leads the reader through the intricacies, ambiguities, and silences of !Kung beliefs. Her narrative, based on fieldwork among the Bushmen of the Kalahari in the early 1950s, brings into focus a way of life that appears to have existed for millennia. She presents the culture, beliefs, and spirituality of one of the last true hunting-and-gathering peoples by focusing on members of different bands as they reveal their own views. This account, with photography by John Marshall, presents a system of beliefs, one in which personified deities and unpersonifled supernatural forces (n!ow and n/um) interact with man and the natural world. The !Kung believe that this interaction accounts for much of the mystery of life and the vicissitudes of the good and evil that befall mankind. The book also depicts an egalitarian lifestyle based on sharing and group awareness, a lifestyle that has not survived intact the increasing integration of the Bushmen into the modern world.

A companion volume to her 1976 work, The !Kung of Nyae Nyae, this book was published to mark the one-hundredth birthday of Lorna Marshall (1898 – 2002).

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Remembering Awatovi: The Story of an Archaeological Expedition in Northern Arizona, 1935-1939

Citation:

Hester A. Davis. 12/15/2008. Remembering Awatovi: The Story of an Archaeological Expedition in Northern Arizona, 1935-1939, Pp. 240. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Remembering Awatovi: The Story of an Archaeological Expedition in Northern Arizona, 1935-1939

Abstract:

Winner, 2008 New England Book Show (General Trade, Cover)

Gold Medal, 2009 IPPY Awards (West Mountain - Best Regional Non-Fiction)

Remembering Awatovi is the engaging story of a major archaeological expedition on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona. Centered on the large Pueblo village of Awatovi, with its Spanish mission church and beautiful kiva murals, the excavations are renowned not only for the data they uncovered but also for the interdisciplinary nature of the investigations. In archaeological lore they are also remembered for the diverse, fun-loving, and distinguished cast of characters who participated in or visited the dig.

Hester Davis’s lively account—part history of archaeology, part social history—is told largely in the words of the participants, among whom were two of Davis’s siblings, artist Penny Davis Worman and archaeologist Mott Davis. Life in the remote field camp abounded with delightful storytelling, delicious food, and good-natured high-jinks. Baths were taken in a stock tank, beloved camp automobiles were given personal names, and a double bed had to be trucked across the desert and up a mesa to celebrate a memorable wedding.

Remembering Awatovi is illustrated with over 160 portraits and photographs of camp life. Essays by Eric Polingyouma and Brian Fagan enrich the presentation.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization

Citation:

Martha Lamberg-Karlovsky. 10/18/2020. The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization, Pp. 152. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization

Abstract:

For much of the twentieth century, Mesopotamia was thought to he the singular "Cradle of Civilization;" and the agents of change that brought it about were thought to be demographic, ecological, and technological. Bronze Age Mesopotamian accomplishments were believed to have diffused outward, influencing the development of civilization in the rest of the world. Part of this Mesopocentric view was revised as archaeological evidence revealed that other unique civilizations had existed in both the Old and New Worlds, but the traditional Near Eastern pattern of development continued to serve as a model.

In the mid-1980s, however, Harvard’s Kwang-chih Chang proposed in Symbols--a publication of Harvard’s Peabody Museum and Department of Anthropology--that China’s first civilization did not evolve according to the conventional Mesopotamian model and argued instead for a new paradigm for understanding the origins of civilization in ancient China and the New World.

In this collection of subsequent Symbols articles and other essays, Maya and Near Eastern studies specialists engage in a stimulating debate of Chang’s thesis, also presented here.

Last updated on 01/13/2022
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