TUM Library

"The future of humanity is urban, and knowledge of urbanism's deep past is critical for us all to navigate that future. The time has come for archaeologists to rethink this global phenomenon by asking what urbanism is and, more to the point, was. Can we truly understand ancient urbanism by only asking after the human element, or were the properties and qualities of landscapes, materials, and atmospheres equally causal? The ten authors of New Materialisms Ancient Urbanisms seek less anthropocentric answers to questions about the historical relationships between urbanism and humanity in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. They analyze the movements and flows of materials, things, phenomena, and beings--human and otherwise--as these were assembled to produce the kinds of complex, dense, and stratified relationships that we today label urban. In so doing, the book emerges as a work of both theory and historical anthropology. It breaks new ground in the archaeology of urbanism, building on the latest 'New Materialist,' 'relational-ontological,' and 'realist' trends in social theory. This book challenges a new generation of students to think outside the box, and provides scholars of urbanism, archaeology and anthropology with a fresh perspective on the development of urban society"-- Provided by publisher.

Introducing new materialisms, rethinking ancient urbanisms / Timothy R. Pauketat -- From weeping hills to lost caves : a search for vibrant matter in greater Cahokia / Susan M. Alt -- Chaco gathers : experience and assemblage in the ancient Southwest / Ruth M. Van Dyke -- Assembling the city : Monte Albán as a mountain of creation and sustenance / Arthur A. Joyce -- Assembling Tiwanaku : water and stone, humans and monoliths / John Wayne Janusek -- Immanence and the spirit of ancient urbanism at Paquimé and Liangzhu / Timothy R. Pauketat -- The gathering of Swahili religious practice : mosques-as-assemblages at 1000 CE / Jeffrey Fleisher -- Urbanism and the temporality of materiality on the medieval Deccan : beyond the cosmograms of social and political space / Andrew M. Bauer -- Cities, the underworld, and the infrastructure : the ecology of water in the Hittite world / Ömür Harmansah -- Commentary: The city and the city / Oliver J.T. Harris.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.