Religion at Work in a Neolithic Society: Vital Matters

Description

This book tackles the topic of religion, a broad subject exciting renewed interest across the social and historical sciences. The volume is tightly focused on the early farming village of Catalhoeyuk, which has generated much interest both within and outside of archaeology, especially for its contributions to the understanding of early religion. The volume discusses contemporary themes such as materiality, animism, object vitality, and material dimensions of spirituality while at the same time exploring broad evolutionary changes in the ways in which religion has influenced society. The volume results from a unique collaboration between an archaeological team and a range of specialists in ritual and religion.

Ian Hodder is Dunlevie Family Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Archaeology Center. He previously taught at Leeds University and Cambridge University. His main large-scale excavation projects have been at Haddenham in the east of England and at Catalhoeyuk in Turkey, where he has worked since 1993. He has been awarded the Oscar Montelius Medal by the Swedish Society of Antiquaries and the Huxley Memorial Medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute, has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and has Honorary Doctorates from Bristol and Leiden Universities. His main books include Spatial Analysis in Archaeology (Cambridge University Press, 1976), Symbols in Action (Cambridge University Press, 1982), Reading the Past (Cambridge University Press, 1986), The Domestication of Europe (1990), The Archaeological Process (1999), The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Catalhoeyuk (2006) and Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships Between Humans and Things (2012).

'Ian Hodder presents Catalhoeyuk in a new perspective and invites an exciting interdisciplinary group to respond. It is like a particle accelerator in action, as their collisions spin off all sorts of new insights from a site at a pivotal Neolithic moment in human history.' Trevor Watkins, University of Edinburgh 'Catalhoeyuk has long stimulated the imagination and provoked bold ideas. Continuing an innovative project already remarkable for its daring, Ian Hodder has again put into conversation scholars bringing an impressive range of disciplinary perspectives.' Webb Keane, University of Michigan 'This innovative and path-breaking book provides indispensable insights into the material and immaterial worlds of Neolithic community, ritual, and religion. The essays of these international scholars will quickly draw readers into the exciting worlds of Neolithic life in general, and Catalhoeyuk in particular, and reshape debate and discussion of daily life within Neolithic communities for years to come.' Ian Kuijt, University of Notre Dame