Books by "Mike Parker Pearson"
5 books found
An award-winning archaeologist and journalist chronicles England’s history—as told through the country’s recent archaeological discoveries. Digging Up Britain traces the history of Britain through key discoveries and excavations. With British archaeologist Mike Pitts as a guide, this book covers the most exciting excavations of the past ten years, gathers firsthand stories from the people who dug up the remains, and follows the latest revelations as one twist leads to another. Britain, a historically crowded place, has been the site of an unprecedented number of discoveries—almost everywhere the ground is broken, archaeologists find evidence that people have been there before. These discoveries illuminate Britain’s ever-shifting history that we now know includes an increasingly diverse array of cultures and customs. Each chapter of the book tells the story of a single excavation or discovery. Some are major digs, conducted by large teams over years, and others are chance finds, leading to revelations out of proportion to the scale of the original project. Every chapter holds extraordinary tales of planning, teamwork, luck, and cutting-edge archaeological science that produces surprising insights into how people lived a thousand to a million years ago.
Starting with the dawn of what we would recognise as modern human thought, this book journeys through 35,000 years of our human past. It shows how our earliest ancestors learnt to enter trance states and the revolutionary effect this had on the way they interacted with their world. Moreover, by marrying the very latest research with vivid first-person reconstructions, the book will actually take readers back in time. In its pages we join Stone Age hunting parties, steal food from desperate, starving cannibals, sit eye-to-eye with a mouldy Bronze Age mummy and join the Celts for a feast where you truly are what you eat. The story of our past has never been told this way before and has never been brought to life with such vividness. This is the past as our ancestors would have known it.
Forensic Archaeology
by W. J. Mike Groen, Nicholas Márquez-Grant, Rob Janaway
2015 · John Wiley & Sons
Forensic archaeology is mostly defined as the use of archaeological methods and principles within a legal context. However, such a definition only covers one aspect of forensic archaeology and misses the full potential this discipline has to offer. This volume is unique in that it contains 57 chapters from experienced forensic archaeological practitioners working in different countries, intergovernmental organisations or NGO’s. It shows that the practice of forensic archaeology varies worldwide as a result of diverse historical, educational, legal and judicial backgrounds. The chapters in this volume will be an invaluable reference to (forensic) archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, humanitarian and human rights workers, forensic scientists, police officers, professionals working in criminal justice systems and all other individuals who are interested in the potential forensic archaeology has to offer at scenes of crime or places of incident. This volume promotes the development of forensic archaeology worldwide. In addition, it proposes an interpretative framework that is grounded in archaeological theory and methodology, integrating affiliated behavioural and forensic sciences.
Drawing on a lifetime’s study and a decade of new research, archaeologist Mike Pitts explores the mystery of how Stonehenge was built. There is nothing like Stonehenge: the simple, graphic genius of these great, arranged blocks. The stones seem to rise from the ground in some antediluvian heave of the Earth: lintels, great horizontal slabs, roughly squared, the grey rock now covered in subtle lichen green. But who made it? When did they make it? And most importantly, how was it built? How it was constructed is perhaps the central question about Stonehenge and likely the most common query from its many visitors. Yet it’s one of the least-researched aspects of the site, which author Mike Pitts aims to correct in this new book. With a unique focus on the monument itself, How to Build Stonehenge describes the site as it is today, what we know about the different types of stone, how they were carved and positioned to create the ultimate in megalithic architecture, and how this was taken down and left to ruin until the decay was arrested in the twentieth century with substantial restoration works. Pitts then examines the latest research on the site, interrogating the key questions: the sources of the various stones, how they were transported, and how it was all put together. The book considers the first significant study of sarsen, the stone most of Stonehenge is made of, in detail. Recent groundbreaking discoveries using cutting-edge scientific techniques have given us incredible new detail on the sources of these immense stones and brings it into the wider context of other megalith buildings around the world, as well as placing Stonehenge at the center of a network of European Bronze Age cultures.
"In a relatively short period of time the pursuit of archaeology has evolved from an antiquarian interest to a specialised scientific activity. Part of this evolution has always included the interest of the public and archaeologists' efforts to educate them. As each new method and technique is developed, and each new specialism is created, the challenge of making archaeology available as a learning resource grows with it. Today, for example, the issues which surround archaeology and heritage, such as the pressures of tourism on sites, now form part of many formal educational curricula. This book, the first to deal with the subject in such depth, examines the place of education and outreach within the wider archaeological community. Written by one of Britain's leading archaeological educationalists, it charts the sometimes difficult and painful growth and development of "education and archaeology". Packed full of informative and enlightening case studies, from the circus at Colchester to Sutton Hoo and Hadrian's Wall, this work examines exactly how we have reached the point we are at, where that place is and suggests areas for future development. By drawing upon many decades of experience at the front line of archaeological education, the author has produced a key text that will play a major role in the on-going development of the heritage industry"--Publisher's website.