Laid bare: the sex life of the ancient Greeks in all its physical glory

An Athens exhibition looks unflinchingly at classical perceptions of love and lust . . .

A Gaelic longboat, and the healing power of heritage

Some of Scotland's most deprived citizens are finding how liberating history  . . .

India 'arrogant' to deny global warming link to melting glaciers

A leading climate scientist today accused the Indian environment ministry of "arrogance" after the release of a government report claiming that there is no evidence climate change has caused "abnormal" shrinking of Himalayan glaciers . . .

Claude Lévi-Strauss obituary

French anthropologist whose analysis of kinship and myth gave rise to structuralism as an intellectual force . . .

Les trésors antiques du Rhône exposés à Arles

Ancient treasures from the Rhône Valley on display in Arles

Climate map shows world after 4C rise

A map launched at the Science Museum in London has been developed using the latest peer-reviewed science from the Met Office Hadley Centre and other leading impact scientists. It shows that the land will heat up more quickly than the sea, and high latitudes, particularly the Arctic, will have larger temperature increases . . .

Who's the modern Cicero – Barack Obama or Peter Mandelson?

The great Roman orator is a politician who speaks loud and clear to our own times . . .

Discovery Of The Oldest Adornments In The World

The discovery of small perforated sea shells, in the Cave of Pigeons in Taforalt, eastern Morocco, has shown that the use of bead adornments in North Africa is older than thought. Dating from 82 000 years ago, the beads are thought to be the oldest in the world . . .

Lost Greek city that may have inspired Atlantis myth gives up secrets

The secrets of a lost city that may have inspired one of the world's most enduring myths – the fable of Atlantis – have been brought to light from beneath the waters off southern Greece . . .

Mammoth remains from the Russian permafrost offer up rich bounty

Discoveries give scientists insight into animals' demise as reindeer herders turn chance finds into lucrative paydays . . .

'Second Stonehenge' discovered near original

Archaeologists have discovered evidence of what they believe was a second Stonehenge located a little more than a mile away from the world-famous prehistoric monument . . .

The secrets of ancient Rome

The discovery of a major new archaeological site in Italy is a reminder that the world is still stuffed with secrets . . .

Fossil Ardi reveals the first steps of the human race

The remains of a woman who lived and died at the dawn of humanity have been uncovered in Ethiopia, giving the clearest picture yet of the origin of our species . . .

Fresh autopsy of Egyptian mummy shows cause of death was TB not cancer

The mysterious death of an Egyptian woman, whose mummy became a public spectacle in Georgian Britain, has been solved by a team of researchers in London . . .

Tutorial Week 3 Sept 28th – Oct 2nd CCI

The Neolithic Revolutiuon- Childe, Cauvin, Catal Höyük: Hodder’s Entanglement
47-51 84- 120

1. Define: subsistence, sedentary, predicated on, Levant, historiography, stratigraphy, Anatolia, naturalistic, schematic, figurative; [5] dialectic [2].
2. Explain the significance of Jarmo and Jericho (47-49). [4]
3. What are Mithen’s three features of the Mesolithic (lecture) and Cauvin's definition of 'neolithisation' (93). [5]
4. “Unless knowledge is defined as the endless accumulation of factual information, it is pointless to ask of prehistoric archaeology only that it confirms what we have already ‘known’ since the middle of the nineteenth century, or one is confusing science with ideology.” (89) Cauvin argues against a merely descriptive neolithic historiography and against the limitations of the “conception, founded on unverified ‘materialist’ premises concerning human nature . . . “ (89). Explain his argument. (86-90) [10]*
5. What have researchers under Hodder’s influence sought to achieve by means of ‘symbolic archaeology’? [2]
6. "What 'characterizes' a period is almost always prefigured in the period that precedes it. The cultural blossoming of the last hunter-gatherer cultures which would contribute to the Natufian culture was the product of this continuity." (Cauvin, 93). Describe the features of the Kebaran Culture.
7. Describe the cultural and economic features of the Natufian Peoples. (93-6) [6]
8. Explain the ‘new’ and ‘unique “ideology”’ found throughout the Near & Middle Eastern Neolithic? (97-102) [7]
9. Hodder’s interpretive strategy for understanding the material evidence at Catal Höyük is to speak of ‘four spheres of activity’. Explain these. (103-117) [12]
10. “To move the location of an oven may not seem like much, but in its entanglements such a change can have broad impact.” (Hodder, 116- 120) Explain, with examples, Hodder’s idea of ‘entanglement’. [16]

Historical Materialism: The class struggle in the Roman Republic

"Today we begin publication of an important new series by Alan Woods, which provides a Marxist explanation of the processes that led to the collapse of the Roman Republic. Here the method of historical materialism is used to shed light on an important turning-point in world history . . .

The whole of science is based on two basic assumptions: 1) that the world exists independently of ourselves and 2) that we are capable of understanding it. If science can explain the mechanisms that govern the social organisms of bees, ants and chimpanzees, why should it be impossible to explain the workings of human society and the forces that determine its development? Marxism rejects the view that history is a string of meaningless and incomprehensible events. Historical materialism asserts that the history of human society has its own laws, and that they can be analyzed and understood. The laws that govern social development were first laid bare by Karl Marx. In the famous introduction to The Critique of Political Economy, Marx explains the basis of historical materialism in the following terms:

 “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.”

With these words, the founder of scientific socialism once and for all disposed of all metaphysical, idealist and subjective explanation of human history . . ."

The Fakes of Hacilar, from Time magazine 1971

Few things anger archaeologists and art historians more than being taken in by fake antiquities. A recent series of laboratory tests gives them good reason to be furious. A team of British and European experts, using a new dating technique, has reported that 48 of 66 objects thought to be from Hacilar, a settlement that existed 7,000 years ago in southwestern Turkey, are forgeries . . .

Tutorial Week 2 Sept 21st- 25th CCI

Braudel & Lewis-Williams 52-83

1. Where does Palaeolithic art have its source, in Braudel’s opinion? [2]
2. How does L-W define “method”? [2]
3. Explain L-W’s ideas about discovery, theory and evidence. (61-2)[7]
4. Explain the terms ‘art mobilier’, ‘parietal’, ‘anthropomorphic’, ‘therianthropes’. [2]
5. List three ways in which ‘Neanderthal Man’ differed from Homo sapiens. Why does L-W think that anthroplogists transported back in time would be at a loss among Neanderthals but not so a few thousand years later in the Upper Palaeolithic? [5]
6. Why was ‘the very idea of Palaeolithic art deeply disturbing’ initially? [3]
7. What are some limitations of the theory of explanation of ‘art for art’s sake’? [5]
8. Briefly explain the ‘problem’ Reinach created and his and the Abbé Breuil’s Totemism and sympathetic magic hypothesis. [5]
9. What did Vico think the essence of being human is and what is meant by ‘humanity created itself’? [5]
10. Explain the terms langue and parole, and synchronic and diachronic. [4]
11. Define ‘infer’, ‘induce’, ‘deduce’, ‘binary opposition’. [4]
12. Explain the difference between ‘superstructure’ and ‘infrastructure’, why would a ruling class seek to ‘mystify the social relations of production? (76-8) [7]
13. How does Lévi-Strauss explain the role and function of myth? (78) [4]
14. How can Leroi-Gourhan’s mythogram be said to be a ‘clear version of Lévi-Strauss’ Structuralism’? [3]
15. What is the ‘epistemological principle’ on which L-W’s later chapters are posited? (81-2)[4]

Largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in Staffordshire

A harvest of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver so beautiful it brought tears to the eyes of one expert, has poured out of a Staffordshire field - the largest hoard of gold from the period ever found . . .

BBC Report 1999: First farmers discovered

A preview of Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler

The story of Moctezuma, last king of the Aztecs, is one of absolute power – and abject surrender. And now it is the subject of a haunting new exhibition at the British Museum.

The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara

Turkey stands at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. The lands within its borders and the surrounding Black Sea region have seen centuries of fascinating history and pre-history. Their legacy: knowledge and lessons of potentially vital importance for all our futures. The British Institute at Ankara (BIAA) is internationally renowned for over 60 years’ work supporting, enabling and encouraging world-class research in Turkey and the Black Sea region in the fields of history, archaeology and related social sciences . . .

Çatalhöyük

This Web site is designed for those interested in the ongoing excavations at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Its aim is to provide information about the activities of the Project and of the different aspects of the research being conducted at Çatalhöyük.

Museum of Altamira

Lascaux Official Site

Frozen in time at Britain's new Ice Age centre

Britain's National Ice Age Centre in the news . . .

Find a very well designed Art History site here

. . . with some excellent resources, including podcasts, for Ancient Studies.

"Smarthistory.org is a free multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker began smARThistory in 2005 by creating a blog featuring free audio guides in the form of podcasts for use in The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Soon after, we embedded the audio files in our online survey courses. The response from our students was so positive that we decided to create a multi-media survey of art history web-book. We created audios and videos about works of art found in standard art history survey texts, organized the files stylistically and chronologically, and added text and still images . . ."

Free Podcast of Plato's Republic

Boris likes Horace. So what?

The study of Ancient History and Literature has long suffered from its defenders and the ideological assumptions with which bourgeois culture is most comfortable . . .

Latin and Greek are the keys to a breathtaking intellectual playground whether you come from Eton or a state school

opines Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian . . .

Cannes film festival falls in love with Ancient mathematician

Democritus's atomic theory and Aristarchus's heliocentric model of the universe are not subjects that can often be said to delight audiences at the Cannes film festival.
But Alejandro Amenabar's Agora did just that

Ancient Technology: Was the Antikythera Mechanism the world’s first computer?

In October, 2005, a truck pulled up outside the National Archeological Museum in Athens, and workers began unloading an eight-ton X-ray machine that its designer, X-Tek Systems of Great Britain, had dubbed the Bladerunner. Standing just inside the National Museum’s basement was Tony Freeth, a sixty-year-old British mathematician and filmmaker, watching as workers in white T-shirts wrestled the Range Rover-size machine through the door and up the ramp into the museum. Freeth was a member of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project—a multidisciplinary investigation into some fragments of an ancient mechanical device that were found at the turn of the last century after two thousand years in the Aegean Sea, and have long been one of the great mysteries of science . . .

A Chimp throwing stones demonstrates human behaviour . . .

Earliest Human Footprints Found

Sanskrit Primer Audio Files

Learn Sanskrit through self study

The myths of 'ancient Greece' dispelled

Paul Cartledge, the first ever professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge, aims to promote the public understanding of the Greek world . . .

Scientists unravel Neanderthal genome

Scientists have unravelled the genetic make-up of the Neanderthal, the long-faced, barrel-chested relative of modern humans.
Anthropologists analysed more than a billion fragments of ancient DNA plucked from three Croatian fossils to reconstruct a first draft of the Neanderthal genome.
The extraordinary feat gives scientists an unprecedented opportunity to clarify the evolutionary relationship between humans and Neanderthals that may ultimately shed light on the great mystery of how we became the most formidable species on the planet . . .

SCANS REVEAL EGYPTIAN SECRETS