Unavailable for too long, this new edition reprints the original text of Renfrew's groundbreaking study, supplemented with a new introduction by the author and a foreword by John Cherry (Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology, Brown University), in order to make this landmark publication available once again to the scholarly community.
The Emergence of Civilisation describes in detail the processes at work during the millennium which preceded the development of prehistoric Aegean civilisation and, using the framework of a systems model, offers insight into the forces transforming an early farming society into a full civilisation, possessing a social organisation, craft technology and palatial centres far beyond the scope of a simple subsistence economy.
Part I (Culture Sequence) presents a detailed survey of Aegean archaeology and chronology in the third millennium BC. Special attention is given to the Cycladic Islands. The ensuing study of Culture Process (Part II) focuses successively on population, farming and subsistence, metallurgy, craft technology, social organisation, symbolic systems (language, art, religion) and communication.
