Alasdair Whittle and Vicki Cummings (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264140
- eISBN:
- 9780191734489
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology
The processes involved in the transformation of society from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers were complex. They involved changes not only in subsistence but also in how people ...
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The processes involved in the transformation of society from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers were complex. They involved changes not only in subsistence but also in how people thought about themselves and their worlds, from their pasts to their animals. Two sets of protagonists have often been lined up in the long-running debates about these processes: on the one hand incoming farmers and on the other indigenous hunter-gatherers. Both have found advocates as the dominant force in the transitions to a new way of life. North-west Europe presents a very rich data set for this fundamental change, and research has both extended and deepened our knowledge of regional sequences, from the sixth to the fourth millennia bc. One of the most striking results is the evident diversity from northern Spain to southern Scandinavia. No one region is quite like another; hunter-gatherers and early farmers alike were also varied and the old labels of Mesolithic and Neolithic are increasingly inadequate to capture the diversity of human agency and belief. Surveys of the most recent evidence presented here also strongly suggest a diversity of transformations. Some cases of colonization on the one hand and indigenous adoption on the other can still be argued, but many situations now seem to involve complex fusions and mixtures. This wide-ranging set of papers offers an overview of this fundamental transition.Less
The processes involved in the transformation of society from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers were complex. They involved changes not only in subsistence but also in how people thought about themselves and their worlds, from their pasts to their animals. Two sets of protagonists have often been lined up in the long-running debates about these processes: on the one hand incoming farmers and on the other indigenous hunter-gatherers. Both have found advocates as the dominant force in the transitions to a new way of life. North-west Europe presents a very rich data set for this fundamental change, and research has both extended and deepened our knowledge of regional sequences, from the sixth to the fourth millennia bc. One of the most striking results is the evident diversity from northern Spain to southern Scandinavia. No one region is quite like another; hunter-gatherers and early farmers alike were also varied and the old labels of Mesolithic and Neolithic are increasingly inadequate to capture the diversity of human agency and belief. Surveys of the most recent evidence presented here also strongly suggest a diversity of transformations. Some cases of colonization on the one hand and indigenous adoption on the other can still be argued, but many situations now seem to involve complex fusions and mixtures. This wide-ranging set of papers offers an overview of this fundamental transition.
Peter Linehan
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198219453
- eISBN:
- 9780191678349
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219453.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
Fernando I (1037–65) had begun his reign by having himself anointed at Leon cathedral, the Historia reports. There are two remarks to be made about this. One is that whereas imperial and royal ...
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Fernando I (1037–65) had begun his reign by having himself anointed at Leon cathedral, the Historia reports. There are two remarks to be made about this. One is that whereas imperial and royal anointings of the Carolingians and Anglo-Saxons were customarily staged on Sundays or major feast-days, 22 June 1038 was an ordinary Thursday of no particular consequence. The other is that the event was reported at all. Whether it was because the monastic historian was a Leonese patriot interested in enhancing Leon's reputation, or because he was not a bishop, his description of the occasion broke the 170-year long conspiracy of silence which Sampiro had instituted and his own contemporary Pelayo of Oviedo contrived to maintain. It therefore sheds a little light on the question of changing attitudes to past and present in mid-12th-century northern Spain.Less
Fernando I (1037–65) had begun his reign by having himself anointed at Leon cathedral, the Historia reports. There are two remarks to be made about this. One is that whereas imperial and royal anointings of the Carolingians and Anglo-Saxons were customarily staged on Sundays or major feast-days, 22 June 1038 was an ordinary Thursday of no particular consequence. The other is that the event was reported at all. Whether it was because the monastic historian was a Leonese patriot interested in enhancing Leon's reputation, or because he was not a bishop, his description of the occasion broke the 170-year long conspiracy of silence which Sampiro had instituted and his own contemporary Pelayo of Oviedo contrived to maintain. It therefore sheds a little light on the question of changing attitudes to past and present in mid-12th-century northern Spain.
Dana Velasco Murillo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780804796118
- eISBN:
- 9780804799645
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804796118.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The conclusion offers some thoughts on the fate of the city’s native communities and population after Mexico gained independence from Spain and the nature of mestizaje in northern New Spain. In ...
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The conclusion offers some thoughts on the fate of the city’s native communities and population after Mexico gained independence from Spain and the nature of mestizaje in northern New Spain. In Zacatecas, the dissolution of the native pueblos in 1832, and Mexican laws prohibiting classifications of native people as Indians, undermined indigenous leadership, organizations, and corporate structures. The decline of indigenous institutions and societies accelerated Zacatecas’s demographic and cultural mestizaje. Yet the chapter’s argument that the mestizaje of the city occurred much later than is usually presented in the scholarship—beginning in earnest only in the late eighteenth century—provides a more nuanced picture of the complex cultural changes and transformations that shaped Mexico’s mestizo north.Less
The conclusion offers some thoughts on the fate of the city’s native communities and population after Mexico gained independence from Spain and the nature of mestizaje in northern New Spain. In Zacatecas, the dissolution of the native pueblos in 1832, and Mexican laws prohibiting classifications of native people as Indians, undermined indigenous leadership, organizations, and corporate structures. The decline of indigenous institutions and societies accelerated Zacatecas’s demographic and cultural mestizaje. Yet the chapter’s argument that the mestizaje of the city occurred much later than is usually presented in the scholarship—beginning in earnest only in the late eighteenth century—provides a more nuanced picture of the complex cultural changes and transformations that shaped Mexico’s mestizo north.
