Written by Naomi F. Miller, Katherine M. Moore, and Kathleen Ryan | ISBN 978-1-934536-19-3

Sustainable Lifeways addresses forces of conservatism and innovation in societies dependent on the exploitation of aquatic and other wild resources, agriculture, and specialized pastoralism. The volume gathers specialists working in four areas of the world with significant archaeological and paleoenvironmental databases: West Asia, the American Southwest, East Africa, and Andean South America, and contributing to research in three broad time scales: long term (spanning millennia), medium term (archaeological time, spanning centuries or a few thousand years), and recent (ethnohistoric or ethnographic, spanning years or decades).

By bringing an archaeological eye to an examination of human response to unpredictable environmental conditions, informed by an understanding of contemporary traditional peoples, the contributors to this volume develop a more detailed picture of how societies perceive environmental risk, how they alter their behavior in the face of changing conditions, and under what challenges the most rapid and far-reaching changes in adaptation have taken place. Sustainable Lifeways enhances our understanding of both the forces of conservatism and innovation which may have been in play in major transitions in the past, such as the development of complex society, and the expansions of early empires. Studies present examples of cattle herders in East Africa, hunter-gatherers and pastoralists in the Levant, South American fisher/farmers, and farmer/hunters of the U.S. Southwest.

At the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Naomi F. Miller is Research Project Manager in the Near East Section, Katherine M. Moore is Consulting Scholar in the American Section, and Kathleen Ryan is Consulting Scholar in the African Section.

A podcast interview with the editors is available at the Penn Press Podcast page.

Written by Maude de Schauensee | ISBN 978-1-934536-17-9

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has had a long-standing interest in the archaeology of Iran. In 1956, Robert H. Dyson, Jr., began excavations south of Lake Urmia at the large mounded site of Hasanlu. Although the results of these excavations await final publication, the Hasanlu Special Studies series—of which this monograph is the fourth volume—describes and analyzes specific aspects of technology, style, and iconography. This volume describes a group of ongoing research projects, most of which provide new information on Iron Age technology. A theme that runs through these studies is the degree to which ancient workers varied the composition of their products to create desirable colors and textures.

The book begins with a description of the wooden furniture fragments along with fittings and decorative elements for furniture. It presents the first detailed description of the charred textiles, and places these textiles in their archaeological contexts, suggesting the roles that textiles may have played in daily life. Later chapters assess the significance of Hasanlu in the history of glassmaking, describe the archaeometallurgy of the Hasanlu IVB bronzes, and present a catalog of the bladed weapons. Also, the book presents the evidence for deliberate violence against individuals as indicated by their skeletal injuries and the results of a project undertaken to determine whether DNA could be used to obtain a better understanding of the population history at Hasanlu.

This publication also includes an accompanying DVD with appendices and color plates.

Maude de Schauensee, Associate Editor of the Hasanlu Publications Series and former Keeper of the Near East Section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, is the author of articles on bronze working at Hasanlu, horse trappings and Assyrian reliefs, and other northwestern Iranian topics.

Written by Paula L.W. Sabloff  | ISBN 978-1-934536-18-6

With its small population and low GDP, Mongolia is frequently deemed "unique" or tacked onto various area studies programs: Inner Asia, Central Asia, Northeast Asia, or Eurasia. This volume is a response to the concern that countries such as Mongolia are marginalized when academia and international diplomacy reconfigure area studies borders in the postsocialist era.

Would marginalized countries such as Mongolia benefit from a reconfiguration of area studies programs or even from another way of thinking about grouping nations? This book uses Mongolia as a case study to critique the area studies methodology and test the efficacy of another grouping methodology, the "-scapes" method proposed by Arjun Appadurai. Could the application of this approach for tracing individuals' social networks by theme (finance, ethnicity, ideology, media, and technology) be applied to nation-states or peoples? Could it then prevent Mongolia from slipping through the cracks of academia and international diplomacy? Experts from ecology, genetics, archaeology, history, anthropology, and international diplomacy contemplate these issues in their chapters on Mongolia through the ages. Their work includes over 30 maps to help situate Mongolia in its geologic, geographic, economic, and cultural matrix. By comparing maps of different time periods and intellectual orientations, readers can consider for themselves the place of Mongolia in the world community and the relative benefits of these and other grouping methodologies.

Paula L. W. Sabloff is Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and a former member of the Asian Section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She is the author of Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Written by Naomi F. Miller | ISBN 978-1-934536-15-5

The archaeological site of Gordion is most famous as the home of the Phrygian king Midas and as the place where Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot on his way to conquer Asia. Located in central Anatolia (present-day Turkey) near the confluence of the Porsuk and Sakarya rivers, Gordion also lies on historic trade routes between east and west as well as north to the Black Sea. Favorably situated for long-distance trade, Gordion's setting is marginal for agricultural cultivation but well suited to pastoral production. It is therefore not surprising that with the exception of a single Chalcolithic site, the earliest settlements in the region are fairly late—they date to the Early Bronze Age (late 3rd millennium B.C.). The earliest known levels of Gordion, too, date to the Early Bronze Age, and occupation of at least some part of the site was nearly continuous through at least Roman times (second half of the 1st century B.C.).

This work is a contribution to both the archaeobotany of west Asia and the archaeology of the site of Gordion. The book's major concern is understanding long-term changes in the environment and in land use. An important finding, with implications for modern land management, is that the most sustainable use of this landscape involves mixed farming of dry-farmed cereals, summer-irrigated garden crops, and animal husbandry. The large number of samples from the 1988-89 seasons analyzed here make this a rich source for understanding other materials from the Gordion excavations and for comparison with other sites in west Asia.

Naomi F. Miller is an archaeobotanist and member of the Near East Section at the Penn Museum. She is author of Drawing on the Past: An Archaeologist's Sketchbook, editor of Economy and Settlement in the Near East: Analyses of Ancient Sites and Materials, and coeditor (with Kathryn Gleason) of The Archaeology of Garden and Field, all of which are available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Written by David R. Harris | ISBN 978-1-934536-16-2

In Origins of Agriculture in Western Central Asia, archaeologist David R. Harris addresses questions of when, how, and why agriculture and settled village life began east of the Caspian Sea. The book describes and assesses evidence from archaeological investigations in Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Iran, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan in relation to present and past environmental conditions and genetic and archaeological data on the ancestry of the crops and domestic animals of the Neolithic period. It includes accounts of previous research on the prehistoric archaeology of the region and reports the results of a recent environmental-archaeological project undertaken by British, Russian, and Turkmen archaeologists in Turkmenistan, principally at the early Neolithic site of Jeitun (Djeitun) on the southern edge of the Karakum desert.

This project has demonstrated unequivocally that agropastoralists who cultivated barley and wheat, raised goats and sheep, hunted wild animals, made stone tools and pottery, and lived in small mudbrick settlements were present in southern Turkmenistan by 7,000 years ago (c. 6,000 BCE calibrated), where they came into contact with hunter-gatherers of the "Keltiminar Culture." It is possible that barley and goats were domesticated locally, but the available archaeological and genetic evidence leads to the conclusion that all or most of the elements of the Neolithic "Jeitun Culture" spread to the region from farther west by a process of demic or cultural diffusion that broadly parallels the spread of Neolithic agropastoralism from southwest Asia into Europe.

By synthesizing for the first time what is currently known about the origins of agriculture in a large part of Central Asia, between the more fully investigated regions of southwest Asia and China, this book makes a unique contribution to the worldwide literature on transitions from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

David R. Harris is Emeritus Professor of Human Environment at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London and a Fellow of the British Academy. His many publications include The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia and (with Gordon Hillman) Foraging and Farming: The Evolution of Plant Exploitation.

Written by Andrzej Weber, M. Anne Katzenberg, and Theodore G. Schurr | ISBN 978-1-934536-11-7

Siberia's Lake Baikal region is an archaeologically unique and emerging area of hunter-gatherer research, offering insights into the complexity, variability, and dynamics of long-term culture change. The exceptional quality of archaeological materials recovered there facilitates interdisciplinary studies whose relevance extends far beyond the region. The Baikal Archaeology Project—one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted in the history of subarctic archaeology—is conducted by an international multidisciplinary team studying Middle Holocene (about 9,000 to 3,000 years B.P.) hunter-gatherers of the region. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the project includes scholars in archaeology, physical anthropology, ethnography, molecular biology, geophysics, geochemistry, and paleoenvironmental studies.

This book presents the current team's research findings on questions about long-term patterns of hunter-gatherer adaptive strategies. Grounded in interdisciplinary approaches to primary research questions of cultural change and continuity over 6,000 years, the project utilizes advanced research methods and integrates diverse lines of evidence in making fundamental and lasting contributions to hunter-gatherer archaeology.

Andrzej Weber is Professor of Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology, University of Alberta, Edmonton. M. Anne Katzenberg, F.R.S.C., is University Professor, University of Calgary. Theodore G. Schurr is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.

Written by Edited by James E. Snead, Clark L. Erickson, and Andrew Darling | ISBN 978-1-934536-13-1

Landscapes of Movement originates from the premise that trails, paths, and roads are the physical manifestation of human movement through the landscape and are central to an understanding of that movement. The study of these features connects with many intellectual domains, engaging history, geography, environmental studies, and, in particular, anthropology and archaeology. These diverse fields together provide not only a better understanding of infrastructure but also of social, political, and economic organization, cultural expressions of patterned movement, and the ways in which trails, paths, and roads reflect a culture's traditional knowledge, worldview, memory, and identity.

The contributors to Landscapes of Movement document these routes across different times and cultures, from those made by hunter-gatherers in the Great Basin of North America to causeways in the Bolivian Amazon to Bronze Age towns in the Near East, examined through aerial and satellite photography, surface survey, historic records, and archaeological excavation. The essays consider many factors in the development and use of trails, paths, and roads, including labor, technology, terrain characteristics, landscape features, access, and ownership. Diverse scales of movement are also addressed, ranging from paths between home and fields to roads used for long-distance journeying. Overall, the book makes the case for the centrality of paths, trails, and roads as an organizing element of human lives throughout history.

James E. Snead is Associate Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University.

Clark L. Erickson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Associate Curator of the American Section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

J. Andrew Darling is Coordinator of the Cultural Resource Management Program at the Gila River Indian Community.