Below are just
some of the new titles recently ordered for the Lockwood collection. If you have a suggested title please email me at
cat2@buffalo.edu.
Enjoy!
Art and Writing in the Maya Cities, AD600-800: a poetics of line by Adam Herring 
Art and Writing in the Maya Cities, AD 600–800 examines an important aspect of the visual cultures of the ancient Maya in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. During a critical period of cultural evolution, artistic production changed significantly, as calligraphy became an increasingly important formal element in Maya aesthetics and was used extensively in monumental building, sculptural programs and small-scale utilitarian objects. Adam Herring’s study analyzes art works, visual programs, and cultural sites of memory, providing an anthropologically-informed description of ancient Maya culture, vision, and artistic practice. An inquiry into the contexts and perceptions of the ancient Maya city, his book melds epigraphic and iconographic methodologies with the critical tradition of art-historical interpretation.
Submarine Prehistoric Archaeology of the North Sea: research priorities and collaboration of industry by N.C. Flemming
This fascinating volume on submerged prehistoric landscapes of the North Sea brings together for the first time comparative archaeological evidence from Norway, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK. The reports describe a range of submerged sites, and artifacts, occupied or used during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene periods of glacially controlled low sea level when large areas of the north-west European continental shelf were dry land. They show that Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic peoples created settlements on the contemporaneous coastlines at periods of low sea level, and probably in the hinterlands of the central North Sea, sometimes known as Doggerland. 220p, illus., (Council for British Archaeology 2004).
Modern Morphometrics in Physical Anthropology by Dennis E. Slice
Morphometrics has undergone a revolutionary transformation in the past two decades as new methods have been developed to address shortcomings in the traditional multivirate analysis of linear distances, angles, and indices. While there is much active research in the field, the new approaches to shape analysis are already making significant and ever-increasing contributions to biological research, including physical anthropology. Modern Morphometrics in Physical Anthropology highlights the basic machinery of the most important methods, while introducing novel extensions to these methods and illustrating how they provide enhanced results compared to more traditional approaches.
Coming to the Edge of the Circle: Wiccan Initiation Ritual by Nikki Bado-Fralick 
This book offers an ethnographic study of the initiation ritual practiced by one coven of Witches located in Ohio. The participants are members of the religious community that describes itself as Wicca, the Old Religion, or the Craft. Within this community, initiation is seen both as the ceremony through which an individual becomes a member of the community and as a central transformative religious experience, expressed through performance and bodily praxis. In addition to contributing to our knowledge of this secretive religious movement, Nikki Bado-Fralick's analysis of the Wiccan initiation ceremony offers an important challenge to the commonly accepted anthropological model of "rites of passage." As a High Priestess within the coven as well as a scholar of religion, Bado-Fralick is in a unique position to contribute to our understanding of this ceremony and the tradition to which it belongs. Arguing the value of her dual role as scholar/participant, she also offers a thoughtful and perceptive self-analysis of the dilemmas this role involves.
Ethnic Distinctions, Local Meaning: negotiating cultural identities in China by Mary Rack
Mary Rack overturns many of the generalising tendencies characteristic of 'orthodox' anthropology, by demonstrating that the ethnic classifications so apparent in the administration and promotion of the area have little to do with the self-perceptions of those concerned—who recognise no such clear-cut distinctions—and everything to do with political and intellectual elites. The book explores in detail a variety of cultural events. Rack shows how so-called ethnic minority cultural events have become occasions for the exploration of personal identity by urban elites. She illustrates how demonstrations of political orthodoxy by rural cadres—for example, at local government-supported New Festivals—are attended by villagers, but are largely ignored by the wider population of the region. Of more significance to the inhabitants are the more politically-threatening cultural events—for instance, celebrating a shared border area experience at an unofficially restored temple. Rack suggests that, historically, ethnic classifications were drawn up as a result of elite concern to demonstrate the existence of a contrastingly homogeneous and superior Chinese civilisation. This study sheds new light on the ways in which Western anthropologists handle ethnicity and ethnic difference more generally.
New Method of Identifying Family Related SkullsForensic Medicine, Anthropology, Epigenetics by Zvonka Zupanic Slavec
In spite of the current feelings that today only molecular DNA analysis is the exact identification method - and that, if DNA cannot be isolated, it might be better to give up the identification - the author has used for the same purpose older, classical methods from physical anthropology to forensic medicine and especially a recent method of comparison of epigenetic traits, which proved to be very useful for identification of the family related skulls in connection with historical, genealogical and other data. These multidisciplinary methods can serve the same purpose as the reference method and can be applied in similar cases all over the world. The monograph presents the identification of 18 collectively interred skulls, supposedly belonging to the Counts of Celje (15th c.), and to family members, who lived on the territory of present-day Slovenia. Their kinship is established by comparison of X-ray images of paranasal cavities (frontal and maxillary sinuses, and also orbital and nasal cavities), the shape and size of which are autosomal dominant inherited characters. The comparison also extends to numerous other, likewise inherited, epigenetic trait similarities on the skulls. This work will be an invaluable guide for the identification and verification of kinship by skulls collectively interred (in family vaults), where isolation of DNA is no longer possible, even though the skeletal remains may not be old. This work based on the latest epigenetic research, is highly relevant for modern non-genetic identification studies. It is highly recommended to: scientists working on human identification and studying heredity, forensic scientists, physical anthropologists, radiologists, stomatologists, paleopathologists, geneticists, historians and many others.
