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Archaeology

11 Articles

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The Year in Review

The Editors

[long_description] As the end of the year approaches, the editors are delighted to present our second annual review, highlighting the essays that best represent our aims, ambitions, attitudes, and even our animadversions. Collected here are some notable essays we published this year, some illuminating exchanges from our letters section, and a selection of our favorite links from The Rambler.

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A Mirror of Nature

Mike Edmunds

[short_description] The Antikythera mechanism, an astronomical calculator found in a first-century BCE shipwreck, has proven to be mechanically more sophisticated than anything known from the subsequent millennium.

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The Riddle of the Mountain

Edmund Richardson

[short_description] For almost 2,000 years, the Behistun Inscription lay unread. Written in cuneiform, the inscription had “baffled for centuries the most learned men” until Henry Rawlinson set his mind to solving it.

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Anarchaeology

Lawrence Rosen

[short_description] In The Dawn of Everything, speculative archaeology meets a personal advocacy of anarchy, and the result is “a new history of humanity.” Welcome anarchaeology.

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The Footsteps of Artemis

Denis Knoepfler

[short_description] After a centuries-long search, archeologists finally located a lost sanctuary for Artemis. Clues came in the form of ancient manuscripts, Apollonian symbolism, wandering stones, and a scribal error…

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The Pre-Clovis Peoples

Yuichi Nakazawa

[short_description] Scholars have long debated the timing and route by which humans first arrived in the New World. A new study finds evidence of human activity 2,800 years earlier than previously thought.

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Central Saharan Rock Art

Jean-Loïc Le Quellec

[short_description] On the sunburnt rocks of the central Sahara, ancient peoples inscribed testimony of their way of life. Jean-Loïc Le Quellec reviews the field of research into ancient central Saharan rupestrian art.

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A Means to an End

Alberto Prieto

[short_description] Can scientific and data-driven approaches help researchers reconstruct Roman history? Alberto Prieto reviews The Science of Roman History: Biology, Climate, and the Future of the Past.

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Another Great Story

Wendy Doniger

[short_description] Of myths and legends. Wendy Doniger reviews Asko Parpola’s The Roots of Hinduism. Astonishingly erudite, Parpola often allows his imagination and desire to reach beyond the available evidence.

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Decoding the Earliest Symbols

Ian Tattersall

[short_description] What are the abstract symbols found in many Ice Age caves? Ian Tattersall reviews Genevieve von Petzinger’s The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbols.

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The Rediscovery of the Neolithic

Shawn Witkowski

[short_description] Trajectoires is a Neolithic archaeology lab at the University of Nanterre in France. Shawn Witkowski outlines its history and politics, focused on the work of Jean-Paul Demoule and his team.

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