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Cambridge World Archaeology aspires to define the state of the field by providing definitive regional archaeological syntheses, thematic accounts of core issues, and comparative analyses that put world areas into conversation. The books are intended for a global audience of professional archaeologists, scholars, students, and anyone else wanting an up-to-date account of the discipline. Regional syntheses have long been a defining focus of CWA books. We seek books on regions both well-known and neglected. Some region’s covered by earlier publications in CWA’s list are ready for re-study that can bring them up to date with new data and emerging interpretive priorities. Thematic studies in areas such as colonization and decolonization, heritage, gender, sovereignty, liberation, climate, and ecology provide an opportunity to develop a global vision of world archaeology. We are looking for themes that will resonate widely across world areas and set the agenda for archaeology in the years that follow. Comparative analyses enhance CWA’s regional focus by bringing two (or more) world areas into conversation, illuminating a general theoretical problem and deepening understanding of all areas under discussion. We seek books that can revive traditional areas of comparison but also open new pathways for multi-regional analysis.

  • General Editors: Adam T. Smith, Cornell University, New York, Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan, Emeritus
  • Editorial Boards: Tom Dillehay, Vanderbilt University , Tennessee, Corisande Fenwick, University College London, Lindsay Montgomery, University of Toronto, Dmitri Nakassis, University of Colorado, Boulder, François Richard, University of Chicago, Liv Nilsson Stutz, Linnaeus University, Sweden, Miriam Stark, University of Hawai’i, David Wengrow, University College London, Astrid Van Oyen, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Alice Yao, University of Chicago

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31 results in Cambridge World Archaeology

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The Archaeology of the Caribbean
  • Samuel M. Wilson
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    30 July 2007
  • A comprehensive synthesis of Caribbean prehistory from the earliest settlement by humans more than 4000 years BC, to the time of European conquest of the islands. The Caribbean was the last large area in the Americas to be populated, and its relative isolation allowed unique cultures to develop. Samuel Wilson reviews the evidence for migration and cultural change throughout the archipelago, dealing in particular with periods of cultural interaction when groups with different cultures and histories were in contact. He also examines the evolving relationship of the Caribbean people with their environment, as they developed increasingly productive economic systems over time, as well as the emergence of increasingly complex social and political systems, particularly in the Greater Antilles in the centuries before the European conquest. Wilson also provides a review of the history of Caribbean archaeology and the individual scholars and ideas that have shaped the field.

Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica
  • Christopher Pool
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    26 February 2007
  • The foundations for the Maya and other civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica were laid down over 2400 years ago during the early and middle phases of the Formative period. The most elaborate of these formative Mesoamerican societies are represented by the archaeological culture called Olmec, which merged some 3500 years ago in the tropical lowlands of southern Veracruz and Tabasco, Mexico. Flourishing over the next 1000 years, the Olmecs created the most complex social and political hierarchies of their time on the North American continent. Olmec rulers expressed their material and religious power in the first monumental stone art of Mesoamerica, remarkable for its sophistication and naturalism, as well as massive buried offerings of wealth obtained from great distances. Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica offers the most thorough and up-to-date book-length treatment of Olmec society and culture available.

The Archaeology of China
  • From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age
  • Li Liu, Xingcan Chen
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    30 April 2012
  • This book explores the roles of agricultural development and advancing social complexity in the processes of state formation in China. Over a period of about 10,000 years, it follows evolutionary trajectories of society from the last Palaeolithic hunting-gathering groups, through Neolithic farming villages and on to the Bronze Age Shang dynasty in the latter half of the second millennium BC. Li Liu and Xingcan Chen demonstrate that sociopolitical evolution was multicentric and shaped by inter-polity factionalism and competition, as well as by the many material technologies introduced from other parts of the world. The book illustrates how ancient Chinese societies were transformed during this period from simple to complex, tribal to urban, and preliterate to literate.

The Palaeolithic Settlement of Asia
  • Robin Dennell
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    15 December 2008
  • This book provides the first analysis and synthesis of the evidence of the earliest inhabitants of Asia before the appearance of modern humans 100,000 years ago. Asia has received far less attention than Africa and Europe in the search for human origins, but is no longer considered of marginal importance. Indeed, a global understanding of human origins cannot be properly understood without a detailed consideration of the largest continent. In this study, Robin Dennell examines a variety of sources, including the archaeological evidence, the fossil hominin record, and the environmental and climatic background from Southwest, Central, South, and Southeast Asia, as well as China. He presents an authoritative and comprehensive framework for investigations of Asia's oldest societies, challenges many long-standing assumptions about its earliest inhabitants, and places Asia centrally in the discussions of human evolution in the past two million years.

The First Africans
  • African Archaeology from the Earliest Toolmakers to Most Recent Foragers
  • Lawrence Barham, Peter Mitchell
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    23 June 2008
  • Africa has the longest record - some 2.5 million years - of human occupation of any continent. For nearly all of this time, its inhabitants have made tools from stone and have acquired their food from its rich wild plant and animal resources. Archaeological research in Africa is crucial for understanding the origins of humans and the diversity of hunter-gatherer ways of life. This book is a synthesis of the record left by Africa's earliest hominin inhabitants and hunter-gatherers, combining the insights of archaeology with those of other disciplines, such as genetics and palaeo-environmental science. African evidence is critical to important debates, such as the origins of stone tool making, the emergence of recognisably modern forms of cognition and behaviour, and the expansion of successive hominins from Africa to other parts of the world.

The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages
  • Ludmila Koryakova, Andrej Vladimirovich Epimakhov
  • Published online:
    03 February 2010
    Print publication:
    08 January 2007
  • This book is the first synthesis of the archaeology of the Urals and Western Siberia. It presents a comprehensive overview of the late prehistoric cultures of these regions, which are of key importance for the understanding of long-term changes in Eurasia. At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the Urals and Western Siberia are characterized by great environmental and cultural diversity which is reflected in the variety and richness of their archaeological sites. Based on the latest achievements of Russian archaeologists, this study demonstrates the temporal and geographical range of its subjects starting with a survey of the chronological sequence from the late fourth millennium BC to the early first millennium AD. Recent discoveries contribute to an understanding of issues such as the development of Eurasian metallurgy, technological and ritual innovations, pastoral nomadism and its role in Eurasian interactions, and major sociocultural fluctuations of the Bronze and Iron Ages.

European Societies in the Bronze Age
  • A. F. Harding
  • Published online:
    25 January 2010
    Print publication:
    18 May 2000
  • The Bronze Age, roughly 2500 to 750 BC, was the last fully prehistoric period in Europe and a crucial element in the formation of the Europe that emerged into history in the later first millennium BC. This book focuses on the material culture remains of the period, and through them provides an interpretation of the main trends in human development that occurred during this timespan. It pays particular attention to the discoveries and theoretical advances of the last twenty years that have necessitated a major revision of received opinions about many aspects of the Bronze Age. Arranged thematically, it reviews the evidence for a range of topics in cross-cultural fashion, defining which major characteristics of the period were universal and which culture and area-specific. The result is a comprehensive study that will be of value to specialists and students, while remaining accessible to the non-specialist.

The Early Neolithic in Greece
  • The First Farming Communities in Europe
  • Catherine Perlès
  • Illustrated by Gerard Monthel
  • Published online:
    18 December 2009
    Print publication:
    04 October 2001
  • Farmers made a sudden and dramatic appearance in Greece around 7000 BC, bringing with them new ceramics and crafts, and establishing settled villages. They were Europe's first farmers, and their settlements provide the link between the first agricultural communities in the Near East and the subsequent spread of the new technologies to the Balkans and on to Western Europe. In this 2001 book, Catherine Perlès argues that the stimulus for the spread of agriculture to Europe was a colonisation movement involving small groups of maritime peoples. Drawing evidence from a wide range of archaeological sources, including often neglected 'small finds', and introducing daring new perspectives on funerary rituals and the distribution of figurines, she constructs a complex and subtle picture of early Neolithic societies, overturning the traditional view that these societies were simple and self-sufficient.

The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland
  • Richard Bradley
  • Published online:
    04 December 2009
    Print publication:
    05 March 2007
  • Sited at the furthest limits of the Neolithic revolution and standing at the confluence of the two great sea routes of prehistory, Britain and Ireland are distinct from continental Europe for much of the prehistoric sequence. In this landmark 2007 study - the first significant survey of the archaeology of Britain and Ireland for twenty years - Richard Bradley offers an interpretation of the unique archaeological record of these islands based on a wealth of current and largely unpublished data. Bradley surveys the entire archaeological sequence over a 4,000 year period, from the adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic period to the discovery of Britain and Ireland by travellers from the Mediterranean during the later pre-Roman Iron Age. Significantly, this is the first modern account to treat Britain and Ireland on equal terms, offering a detailed interpretation of the prehistory of both islands.

The Archaeology of Micronesia
  • Paul Rainbird
  • Published online:
    23 November 2009
    Print publication:
    03 June 2004
  • This was the first book-length archaeological study of Micronesia, a collection of island groups in the Western Pacific Ocean. Drawing on a wide range of archaeological, anthropological and historical sources, the author explores the various ways that the societies of these islands have been interpreted since European navigators first arrived there in the sixteenth century. Considering the process of initial colonisation on the island groups of Marianas, Carolines, Marshalls and Kiribati, he examines the histories of these islands and explores how the neighbouring areas are drawn together through notions of fusion, fluidity and flux. The author places this region within the broader arena of pacific island studies and addresses contemporary debates such as origins, processes of colonisation, social organisation, environmental change and the interpretation of material culture. This book will be essential reading for any scholar with an interest in the archaeology of the Pacific.

The Archaeology of Elam
  • Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State
  • D. T. Potts
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    29 July 1999
  • From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC until the coming of Cyrus the Great, southwestern Iran was referred to in Mesopotamian sources as the land of Elam. A heterogeneous collection of regions, Elam was home to a variety of groups, alternately the object of Mesopotamian aggression, and aggressors themselves; an ethnic group seemingly swallowed up by the vast Achaemenid Persian empire, yet a force strong enough to attack Babylonia in the last centuries BC. The Elamite language is attested as late as the Medieval era, and the name Elam as late as 1300 in the records of the Nestorian church. This book examines the formation and transformation of Elam's many identities through both archaeological and written evidence, and brings to life one of the most important regions of Western Asia, re-evaluates its significance, and places it in the context of the most recent archaeological and historical scholarship.

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