Description
The new and updated edition of The Archaeology of Religion explores how archaeology interprets past religions, offering insights into how archaeologists seek out the religious, ritual, and symbolic meaning behind what they discover in their research.
The book includes case studies from around the world, from the study of Upper Palaeolithic and hunter-gatherer religions to religious structures and practices in complex societies of the Americas, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. Steadman also includes chapters on the origins and development of key contemporary religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, among others—to provide an historical and comparative context. Three main themes are threaded throughout the book. These main themes involve the intersection between cultural and religious structures (“religion reflects culture”), including the importance of environment in shaping a culture’s religion, the role religion can sometimes play as a method of social control, and the role religion can sometimes play as a key component in revitalizing a culture.
Updated with new discoveries and theories and with two new chapters (Hunter-Gatherer Religions; and Cultures in East Asia) and with new sections on Neolithic Western Asia, the book remains an ideal introduction for courses that include a significant component on past cultures and their religions.
Table of Contents
Part I: Method, Theory, and the Study of Religion – Chapter 1: Introducing the Archaeology of Religion; Chapter 2: Interpreting Religion in the Archaeological Past; Chapter 3: The World of the Shaman; Part II: The Emergence of Religion in Human Culture – Chapter 4: The First Spark of Religion: Neanderthals; Chapter 5: Hunter-Gatherer Religions in North Asia and the Early Americas; Chapter 6: Rock Art and Ritual in Africa and Australia; Part III: Religions in Europe and Western Asia – Chapter 7: Europe and Western Asia in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic: From Cave to Village; Chapter 8: European Megaliths, Religion, and Power; Part IV: Religions in the Americas – Chapter 9: The Mound-Building Cultures of North America; Chapter 10: Puebloan Cultures of the American Southwest; Chapter 11: Mesoamerica and the Religions of Empire; Chapter 12: Lords and Gods: Religions of Andean South America; Part V: Religions in South and East Asia – Chapter 13: From Harappans to Hinduism and Beyond: Religions in South Asia; Chapter 14: Religion in Ancient China: Elites and Ancestors; Part VI: Africa and the Middle East – Chapter 15: Religion and Empire in Egypt; Chapter 16: Ancient Sumer and Religions in Ancient Mesopotamia; Chapter 17: Levantine Religions and the Origins of Judaism; Chapter 18: Revitalizing the People: The Origins of Christianity and Islam; Bibliography; Index.
