Reddit mentions: The best archaeology books

We found 51 Reddit comments discussing the best archaeology books. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 35 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

1. Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice

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Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice
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2. The Isles: A History

The Isles: A History
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3. Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future

Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future
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5. Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction (Proceedings of the 9th ICAZ Conference)

Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction (Proceedings of the 9th ICAZ Conference)
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Release dateAugust 2016
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6. Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice (Sixth Edition)

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Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice (Sixth Edition)
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7. Principles of Archaeology

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8. Archaeology: An Introduction

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9. Northwest Coast Archaeology As Deep History

Northwest Coast Archaeology As Deep History
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10. Wonders of the Ancient World (Metro Books Edition)

Wonders of the Ancient World (Metro Books Edition)
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11. Gardens and Gardeners of the Ancient World: History, Myth and Archaeology

Gardens and Gardeners of the Ancient World: History, Myth and Archaeology
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12. Bulletin de la Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude, 1898, Vol. 9 (Classic Reprint) (French Edition)

Bulletin de la Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude, 1898, Vol. 9 (Classic Reprint) (French Edition)
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13. Ancient Lives: An Introduction to Archaeology and Prehistory

Ancient Lives: An Introduction to Archaeology and Prehistory
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15. The Bluffer's Guide to Archaeology: Bluff Your Way in Archaeology (Bluffer's Guides (Oval))

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17. The Annals of London

The Annals of London
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19. Greater Mesoamerica: The Archaeology of West and Northwest Mexico

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🎓 Reddit experts on archaeology books

The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where archaeology books are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
Total score: 39
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 2
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Total score: 1
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Relevant subreddits: 1

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Top Reddit comments about Archaeology:

u/LRE · 8 pointsr/exjw

Random selection of some of my favorites to help you expand your horizons:

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great introduction to scientific skepticism.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a succinct refutation of Christianity as it's generally practiced in the US employing crystal-clear logic.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt is the best biography of one of the most interesting men in history, in my personal opinion.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a jaw-dropping book on history, journalism, travel, contemporary events, philosophy.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a great tome about... everything. Physics, history, biology, art... Plus he's funny as hell. (Check out his In a Sunburned Country for a side-splitting account of his trip to Australia).

The Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland is a thorough primer on art history. Get it before going to any major museum (Met, Louvre, Tate Modern, Prado, etc).

Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier is a detailed refutation of the whole 'Christianity could not have survived the early years if it weren't for god's providence' argument.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman are six of the easier chapters from his '63 Lectures on Physics delivered at CalTech. If you like it and really want to be mind-fucked with science, his QED is a great book on quantum electrodynamics direct from the master.

Lucy's Legacy by Donald Johanson will give you a really great understanding of our family history (homo, australopithecus, ardipithecus, etc). Equally good are Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade and Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, though I personally enjoyed Before the Dawn slightly more.

Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel gives you context for all the Bible stories by detailing contemporaneous events from the Levant, Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.

After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton is an awesome read if you don't know much about Islam and its early history.

Happy reading!

edit: Also, check out the Reasonable Doubts podcast.

u/steadycoffeeflow · 4 pointsr/history

There's quite a few books on zooarchaeology and paleoarch that you might find useful.

Starting off, there's more of a trade-appeal book that might lack more academic, research upmh but should get the overall job done - Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World by Richard Francis.

However, more in the same vein but seems to be a bit more researched is Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History by a two experts in the field who have spent almost three decades researching canine evolution. Rather than link wolves to domestic dogs, it traces back for the common ancestor through genetics and fossilized remains.

Then I suggest Dogs: History, Myth, Art, if only because it's pretty and I read it over a break once. Has a lot of illustrations and material evidence of humans depicting dogs throughout the ages. Just kind of fun and relevant.

Now if you want academic papers edited into one volume, there's Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction but that doesn't just look at the evolution of dogs through genetics like the first two. Rather, it examines the social place dogs have in human society, and how those roles have shifted depending on culture, location, time, and religious influences. In the same vein as Dogs (above) but not as fun? Definitely more dense and I've only read a few of the selected papers for reference.

Lastly, definitely more broad and applicable to more animals than JUST dogs, there's Care or Neglect? that seems just to be archaeological research into how people cared for animals, nursing them through diseases and injuries. It predominantly features dogs (and horses) though because of their importance to humans.

Steady reading, hope this helps that novel!

Edit: Oh! And if you want even more reads, I know there's quite a bit in Egyptology fields about animal care and remains, some of which focus on dogs and others more on myths. Not quite evolutionary track, like you seem to be asking for, but still of fringe relevance.

u/timelady84 · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

The books that I most need are:

Principles of Archaeology

Field Methods in Archaeology

Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice

They are kinda pricey, which is why I haven't been able to get them yet, but nowhere near $100. And used is perfectly fine. I've just been borrowing from the library whenever they are available, so it's not urgent that I get them, but it would be nice to not have to stay in the library for hours, because you can't leave with textbooks. And in case it wasn't obvious, my major is Anthropology with a specialization in Archaeology. I am taking about four archeology classes this semester alone.

Also, if those are way too out of price range, I have a whole wishlist full of learning resources. Anything would help!

Archaeology Learning And Resources Wishlist

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Ok, we can look at that for a moment. Before we start though, let's frame the discussion in a more academic light and say: "His views do not correspond with the current consensus of the research community." That way it's not about "right" and "wrong" but about what is "most likely" the correct outcome.

We should begin by noting that Hancock is not trained in history, archaeology or anthropology. Please recognize that this does not make him wrong by default, but it does make his claims more susceptible to criticism by individuals who are trained in those fields.

Wikipedia suggests that works by Fagan, Regal and Greene contain criticisms of Hancock's work. The wiki page on pseudoarchaeology also contains some discussion of Hancock. More importantly however, the wiki page lists characteristics of pseudoarchaeology that we can use to examine the claims that Hancock makes.

Not being my direct area of study, I don't know the location of strong academic resources, but I suspect that if you sent an e-mail to your local university's department of history/archaeology they would be more than happy to point you in the right direction.

I hope that this helps!

Edit: You might also try messaging one of the archaeology folks on the panel of experts for asksocialscience. They may not have checked in, but you might be able to get more direct answers from them.

u/earthvexing_dewberry · 36 pointsr/AskHistorians

I think that the best way of answering this is by focusing on the strictly archaeological perspective of the 'historical' Jesus, as opposed to any other spiritual of ideological view-points.

In this case I think it is fairly important to delineate between an archaeological approach and a historical approach, an archaeological one being based on the material evidence and the historical, being based on the written word. As you say, the Jewish people tended to be good at documenting (particularly their own) history and thus the 'Historical Jesus' crops up.

However, what you are asking really is dealing with an 'archaeological Jesus,' and therein lies the complication. As has been mentioned by a previous commenter, there isn't really that much surprise that there isn't any archaeological evidence for Jesus. To take it down to the bare facts, to trace a single individual, a member of (what we could consider) the lower classes, who is not known for his coin-minting or building projects, nor stone masonry, there really isn't very much to work with.

While we could work this in to a discussion of relics and whether these could be counted among the true 'archaeological' remains of a 'historical Jesus' is another issue altogether, as these have had a tendency to be more along the lines of Medieval 'replicas' of what was imagined to be the (for instance) part of the remains of the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

For more research into the subject I'd recommend A Very Short Introduction to Biblical Archaeology and A Very Short Introduction to Jesus both of which will be able to have a far more erudite argument than mine here, and have recommendations for further reading. If you are interested in furthering your knowledge of the archaeological perspective (in a general sense, not related to biblical archaeology) then investigating Renfrew and Bahn's Book, 'Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice' would also be good (although if at all possible borrow it from a library as it is a little on the weighty text-book side of research!).

u/Solivaga · 1 pointr/Archaeology

In terms of actual archaeological theory (as in, not methods, techniques and practice) I'd agree absolutely - easily the best text on archaeological theory available, and damned comprehensive too.

Having called the OP lazy above, I will say that if OP is looking more for method and practice (and not theory) then Renfrew and Bahn's Archaeological Theories, Methods and Practice is probably the best overall reader available.

u/qmackie · 2 pointsr/Archaeology

I'd definitely recommend Madonna Moss's "Northwest Coast Archaeology as Deep History". It's fairly recent (2011), is an easy read, and would point you deeper into the literature. It's available as a paperback (despite what Amazon says) or as an e-book, the latter is only 10$ I think.

Also, The Midden, which is the newsletter of the Archaeological Society of BC has recently gone digital and open access. Link..

u/SpruceWayne · 3 pointsr/WTF

credit where credit is due: Inspired by this post, which is art from this book.

u/AlchemistImaging · 2 pointsr/Archeology

Fagan's Ancient Lives is the Archaeology 101 textbook at Arizona State University, where I am completing my degree. I greatly enjoyed it.
https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Lives-Introduction-Archaeology-Prehistory/dp/1138188794/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K9JJFHA5QDMBQ0KFZRKK

u/IrreverentArchaeolog · 3 pointsr/MapPorn

Arctic archaeology is certainly an interesting thing to study at the moment. A lot of questions are unanswered and there's a hell of a lot of work to be done. So I think that the archaeological community is divided on a lot of issues. There are some that view the people living in the Arctic (at least in Canada and Greenland) as fairly isolated. So they would say that no or little interaction occurred between the Dorset, Norse, and Thule. I am of the thought that we are very much underestimating the size of networks at this time (at least the networks between Arctic peoples). Lots of new archaeological evidence too is pointing to a much more complex situation.

I would say that studying the Arctic is still very much divided into those regions you mentioned. In some ways, it has to do with modern boundaries and in others it does reflect the realities of the past. There is certainly a lot of evidence that shows population movements between Greenland and Canada than there is between Greenland and Siberia. And, indeed Greenlandic Inuit are different from Canadian Inuit. I would say that cultures within those regions certainly interacted with each other and there is some very interesting links that are being drawn between the Saami, Siberian people, and Dorset (the archaeology of shamanism book I linked in my first post talks about this a lot). They certainly did not contact each other but there are some interesting cultural continuities among Arctic groups of different regions. Hell, there is even a case where you get ritually buried walrus skulls in a Norse site in Greenland and a Dorset site in southern Baffin Island (slight differences between the two but still very similar).

Unfortunately, there is no single "go-to" book concerning Arctic history. There is one book called "Prehistory of the Eastern Arctic" (1985) by Moreau Maxwell but it costs a small fortune. I would suggest reading Ancient People of the Arctic and The Last Imaginary Place both by Robert McGhee (a legendary Arctic archaeologist). The latter even goes into Siberian cultures too. They can generally be found fairly cheap and most libraries would have a copy. They are written for a wider audience too so they never get too bogged down in the specifics. There's also Voices in Stone by Peter Schledermann (another fantastic Arctic archaeologist). I've found this book slightly harder to find but the writing is just as strong. The Schledermann book also focuses more on the High Arctic (e.g. Ellesmere Island) since that is where the author did most of his fieldwork.

u/notdiscovery · 1 pointr/Archaeology

grab this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Bluffers-Guide-Archaeology-Guides/dp/1902825470

it'll help you sound like a pro in no time.

u/verveinloveland · 2 pointsr/atheism

Based on the evidence of historians etc. Most experts would concede the evidence for the case of a person named "Jesus" existing justifies the claim. However this says nothing to the claims of his actions, miracles etc.

one audiobook I was listening to Myths and mysteries in archeology was mentioning a letter from a man named Jesus to a man named Jesus about a third man named Jesus... Good book if you get a chance...

u/buried_treasure · 1 pointr/UKhistory

A good book that treats Britain (and Ireland) as a frequently-varying collection of nations rather than as a single political entity is The Isles: A History by Norman Davies.

u/Rattus_Faber · 2 pointsr/history

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Isles-History-Norman-Davies/dp/0333692837

This is a good overview which also covers a bit of Ireland. British history is almost always conflated with English history which this book avoids.

u/klystron · 10 pointsr/MapPorn

The name Dilmun in the South-East of the map brought back a memory. Read Looking for Dilmun: The search for a lost civilization A great tale of travel and archaeological research in the Persian Gulf.

u/lanthano · 2 pointsr/HomeworkHelp

This Amazon page offers an "About the Author" section that provides the following information:

  • In addition to The Annals John Richardson has written a social history of London as well as histories of Covent Garden, Camden Town, Hampstead, Islington, Highgate and Kentish Town.

  • He participated in founding the London Arts Board.

  • He lives in London.

    A review from Reed Business Information (on the same web page) describes Mr. Richardson as an "historian, writer, lecturer, publisher, and borough politician."

    Though the web doesn't seem to reveal much more, you could try seeking further information from Mr. Richardson directly by writing to him through Historical Publications, a publishing house he founded. His e-mail address is available on the company's web site.
u/BroGinoGGibroni · 79 pointsr/creepy

Yeah, and it's only $624.26 on Amazon! Get your copy today!

u/not-drowning-waving · 1 pointr/history

I recommend Norman Davies book The Isles: A History which partly covers this period.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Isles-History-Norman-Davies/dp/0333692837

u/Mictlantecuhtli · 1 pointr/history

The earrings are really common in the figures. In fact, I think they were the only culture in Mesoamerica to use multiple earrings rather than ear spools (ancient equivalent of gauges).

Here are some examples,

http://www.archaeology.org/images/ND2013/Tattoos/western-shaft-tomb-tattoo.jpg

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253536

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253548

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253549

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253566

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253588

http://collections.lacma.org/node/179319

http://collections.lacma.org/node/184399

http://collections.lacma.org/node/188689

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253589

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253548

http://collections.lacma.org/node/253616

http://collections.lacma.org/node/237937

http://collections.lacma.org/node/2159024

Also, if you want a book to read, my advisor (Beekman) and his colleague recently put out an edited volume on the shaft tomb peoples

https://www.amazon.com/Shaft-Tombs-Figures-Mexican-Society/dp/0981979998/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481411553&sr=8-1&keywords=shaft+tomb

Here are some other common books

https://www.amazon.com/Shaft-Tomb-Figures-West-Mexico/dp/B002N7KAXA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1481411553&sr=8-2&keywords=shaft+tomb

https://www.amazon.com/Sculpture-Ancient-West-Mexico-Collection/dp/082631175X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481411616&sr=1-4&keywords=west+mexico

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-West-Mexico-archaeology-past/dp/0865591717/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481411616&sr=1-5&keywords=west+mexico

https://www.amazon.com/Sculpture-Ancient-West-Mexico-Collection/dp/0875870406/ref=sr_1_31?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481411647&sr=1-31&keywords=west+mexico

https://www.amazon.com/Heritage-Power-Sculpture-Collection-Metropolitan/dp/030010488X/ref=sr_1_35?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481411647&sr=1-35&keywords=west+mexico

https://www.amazon.com/Anecdotal-sculpture-ancient-Angeles-Publication/dp/B0006W0TB2/ref=sr_1_55?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481411676&sr=1-55&keywords=west+mexico

https://www.amazon.com/Greater-Mesoamerica-Archaeology-Northwest-Mexico/dp/0874809509/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481411791&sr=1-1&keywords=greater+mesoamerica

https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-West-Northwest-Mesoamerica/dp/0813302013/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481411822&sr=1-1&keywords=michael+foster+phil+weigand

u/acroninj · 2 pointsr/Louisville

I don't envy you. The used versions of most of those books on amazon are still more than $80.

This one is less than $10:
http://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Theories-Methods-Practice-Edition/dp/0500287139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345575926&sr=8-1&keywords=9780500287132

u/w4rfr05t · 13 pointsr/WTF

Goddamn, Man After Man was a cool book. There is some seriously disturbing shit in there.

The giant blobby meat-humans in particular.

I'd never have pictured that as a holiday card, but y'know...it really works!