Richard L Bland - Böcker

Franz Boas in Translation is the ultimate study of the legendary anthropologist Franz Boas and his work on the American Northwest. This groundbreaking study analyses what Boas did with local Native American legends passed down by the region's tribal groups. Three translations, originally published in 1888 and 1895, are presented here and constitute Boas's early attempts to define the cultural history of Pacific Northwest tribes. Using definitive plots, details, and incidents from a large collection of myths, comparative myths from other indigenous cultures, and a statistical method of multivariant analysis, Boas not only defined the historical relations of the regional tribes but also the role of diffusion in those relations.

This book offered to the reader's attention is an ethnographic study devoted to the traditional pottery of Yakutia. The author, A. A. Savvin, collected materials for the book during field research in 1939–1941, when ceramic tableware had largely already lost its former role in the household way of the Yakuts. But the skills for its manufacture were still preserved in certain localities. Savvin managed to document the last "living" evidence of a craft that had a centuries-old history and established traditions. It is noteworthy that the research conducted by Savvin was a scientific project in the modern sense of the term. It was carefully planned and executed in accordance with a pre-written program, which is also included in this edition. The sources of information were not only direct observations of the working processes of the production of ceramic tableware but also conversations-interviews with potters, memoirs of representatives of the older generation. A special layer of research consisted of materials of folklore, folk beliefs, and customs related to pottery.

This volume contains five chapters that present highly original research on Siberia's unique history by five Russian scholars. The volume is edited by Prof. Elena A. Okladnikova, a faculty member of the Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, Russia. The articles include discussions of seafaring along the Siberian coast, ethnolinguistic considerations, the worldview of inner Asian nomads, and ethnocultural understandings of civilization crossroads.

Spatial Analysis of Housing and Economic Complexes in the Upper Palaeolithic of Transbaikal (Southern Siberia) provides a brief overview of the history in the development of methods of spatial analysis in Russian archaeology in the context of studies of Palaeolithic dwellings. The results of an analysis of the spatial organisation of the Upper Palaeolithic complexes in Transbaikal region are presented in detail. The concept of contextual analysis is introduced as applied to the archaeology of ancient settlements. The planigraphy of housing and economic structures and, in general, the cultural horizons of the multi-layered Studenoe 2 site are examined in detail. An ethnographic block is presented separately, characterising the details of the frame dwellings of the northern peoples based on the rich photographic collection of the Russian Ethnographic Museum. This book is for archaeologists, historians, and Quaternary geologists, including undergraduate and graduate students, and academics.