The Wide Lens in Archaeology

This book honors the memory of Brian Hesse, a scholar of Near Eastern archaeology, a writer of alliterative and punned publication titles, and an accomplished amateur photographer. Hesse specialized in zooarchaeology, but he influenced a wider range of excavators and ancient historians with his broad interpretive reach. He spent much of his career analyzing faunal materials from different countries in the Middle East-including Iran, Yemen, and Israel, and his publications covered themes particular to animal bone studies, such as domestication, ancient market economics, as well as broader themes such as determining ethnicity in archaeology. The essays in this volume reflect the breadth of his interests. Most chapters share an Old World geographic setting, focusing either on Europe or the Middle East. The topics are diverse, with the majority discussing animal bones, as was Hesse's specialization, but some take a nonfaunal perspective related to the problems with which Hesse grappled. The volume is also broad in temporal scope, ranging from Neolithic Iran to early Medieval England, and it addresses theoretical matters as well as methodological innovations including taphonomy and the history of computers in zooarchaeology. Several of the essays are direct revisits to, inspirations from, or extensions of Hesse's own research. All the contributions reflect his intense interest in social questions about antiquity; the theme of social archaeology informed much of Brian Hesse's thinking, and it is why his work made such an impact on those working outside his own disciplinary research.
About the Author: Justin Lev-Tov (PhD University of Tennessee) was assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama Birmingham from 2003 through 2005. Since that time, Justin has worked for cultural resource management firms in the U.S. In his spare time, he continues to conduct and publish zooarchaeological research as a part of various excavation projects in Israel and Jordan, most recently the Tel Akko Total Archaeology Project in Israel. Paula Wapnish Hesse (PhD Columbia University) served as staff zooarchaeologist for the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon (Israel) from 1985 the conclusion of excavations. She continues to research and publish on many of Ashkelon's unique features, such as the dog burials and the worked bone and ivory industries. Allan S. Gilbert is Professor of Anthropology at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. After early research in the zooarchaeology of the Near East, Gilbert has been engaged in geoarchaeology and the historical archaeology of New York City during the past two decades.