Overview

This long awaited book discusses both ancient and modern shamanism, demonstrating its longevity and spatial distribution. The book is divided into eleven thought-provoking chapters that are organised into three sections: mind-body, nature, and culture. It discusses the clear associations with this sometimes little-understood ritualised practice, and asks what shamanism is and if tangible evidence can be extracted from a largely fragmentary archaeological record. The book offers a novel portrayal of the material culture of shamanism by collating carefully selected studies by specialists from three different continents, promoting a series of new perspectives on this idiosyncratic and sometimes intangible phenomenon.

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9781527500075

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Reviews

This holistic volume takes a close look at shamanism from several different, engaging perspectives. Its international contributors draw on a diverse range of research, expertise, and methods from across the globe. One of the greatest strengths of the book is that it showcases a diverse range of archaeological, historical, anthropological, and practical approaches, adopted in different countries, which lead to a better appreciation of its overarching subject. Rufus Malim, Current World Archaeology 2019

Author Information

Dragos Gheorghiu is Professor in Anthropology and an experimental archaeologist whose studies focus on the process of cognition and material culture of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies of South Eastern Europe. His most recent research is concerned with the reconstruction at large scale of prehistoric contexts and their analysis. He is the author, editor and co-editor of multiple books on archaic technologies and semiotics of material culture.Emilia Pasztor is an archaeologist who specialises in European Prehistory. She is a dedicated researcher of Bronze Age sky-lore and a consistent promoter of archaeoastronomy. She has conducted fieldwork in several parts of Europe and in Asia, developing teaching material on the indigenous astronomical cultural heritage of the Carpathian Basin. She is a founding member of the research team 'Investigation of prehistoric earthworks in Zala county' at Balatoni Museum, Hungary, and is the editor and co-editor of three books and the author of more than 60 research papers.Herman Bender is an independent researcher with a background in geology, astronomy and industry. He has published in the fields of archaeoastronomy, prehistoric trail research, petroform research, applied geophysics and cultural landscape studies. As a specialist in Plains and Woodland Native American astronomy traditions and cosmologies, much of his work is related to Native American land claims, repatriation issues and establishing cultural identity.George Nash is a Research Fellow at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Bristol, UK, an Associate Professor at the Museum of Prehistoric Art, Portugal, and a member of the teaching staff at IPT, Tomar, Portugal. George is also a professional archaeologist who has undertaken extensive fieldwork on prehistoric rock-art and mobility art in Chile, Denmark, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Norway, Sardinia, Spain and Sweden. Dr Nash has also directed a number of high-profile sites, including the excavation of the Neolithic sites La Hougue Bie on Jersey, Delancey Park on Guernsey and preliminary trial excavations at Westminster Hall (Palace of Westminster), London.

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