Brian M Fagan
Biographic Data
| ID | 89720 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brian M Fagan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brian M |
| FAMILY NAME | Fagan |
| SIGNATURE | FAGAN B M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1102-4580 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 173 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 508 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 172 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1959 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Research in Retrospect
This brief report describes the animal bones from the first millennium BC discovered during Graham Connah’s excavations at Daima Mound in northeastern Nigeria in 1965–66. The faunal research was completed by the author in 1973, but, owing to various circumstances, it has not been possible to publish the report until now. Eighty percent of the 657 positively identified bones come from domestic cattle, probably a small-statured breed. They were mos…
Archaeology
Settlement and Landscape
Ancient Civilizations
Ancient Civilizations offers a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world’s first civilizations and how they were discovered, drawing on many avenues of inquiry including archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and both historical and ethnohistorical records. This book covers the earliest civilizations in Eurasia and the Americas, from Egypt and the Sumerians to the Indus Val…
The dawn of everything
This 526-page discourse is a reasoned argument for rejecting the notion of steady progress in the human past that challenges our assumptions about the origins of many aspects of modern human behavior, including farming, property, cities, democracy, and slavery. The authors take an anarchic position. They conclude that since we have organized ourselves in many ways in the past, so there are other ways of organizing ourselves beyond the current dom…
Little History of Archaeology
The thrilling history of archaeological adventure, with tales of danger, debate, audacious explorers, and astonishing discoveries around the globe What is archaeology? The word may bring to mind images of golden pharaohs and lost civilizations, or Neanderthal skulls and Ice Age cave art. Archaeology is all of these, but also far more: the only science to encompass the entire span of human history—more than three million years! This Little History…
What We Did in Bed
Grahame Clark
The British archaeologist Grahame Clark was a seminal figure in European and world archaeology for more than half of the twentieth century, but, at the same time, one whose reputation has been outshone by other, more visible luminaries. His works were never aimed at a wide general public, nor did he become a television or radio personality. Clark was, above all, a scholar, whose contributions to world archaeology were enormous. He was also convin…
The Mesolithic Settlement of Northern Europe
Climate Change in Human History
"Climate Change in Human History: Prehistory to the Present." History: Reviews of New Books, 46(5), pp. 137–138
Abundance
According to the introduction, abundance in this edited volume refers to the large numbers of particular objects found in archaeological sites, signifying their importance, whether for food, ornamentation, or utilitarian use. Abundance became a sign of ritual cohesion; it was not only a social marker but also a distinguishing feature of social stratification. The highest ranks in society displayed their power through largesse and iconography.The …
Fishing
Three Stones Make a Wall
Popular books on archaeology come in many guises. Some are edited volumes, others are textbooks, a few have a narrower focus or cater to National Geographic kinds of readers. All of them have a specific audience in mind. Many cater to undergraduates. Others aim firmly at very broad audiences, which is where Eric Cline assumes that his Three Stones belongs. The subtitle calls it “The Story of Archaeology,” which means that the book does not necess…
Re-dating the Ingombe Ilede burials
Several burials excavated during 1960 at Ingombe Ilede in southern Africa were accompanied by exceptional quantities of gold and glass beads, bronze trade wire and bangles. The burials were indirectly dated to the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries AD, prior to the arrival of the Portuguese on the East Coast of Africa. New AMS dates on cotton fabric from two of the burials now relocate them in the sixteenth century. This was a dynamic period when …
The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium
Pimentel’s book about a rhinoceros and a giant fossil sloth is an astute account of scientific imagination at work. Pimentel draws from a broad range of seamlessly integrated disciplines, ranging from biology and geology to archaeology and paleontology, to create an engrossing and meticulous historical analysis.In 1515, a rhinoceros named Ganda spent four months caged in a ship’s hold, sailing from Goa in India to Lisbon—a gift from an Indian sul…
Relocating Ingombe Ilede in the history of south-central Africa
We thank the four commentators for adding new dimensions and important data relevant to interpreting the new Ingombe Ilede dates. These contribute to the recent wave of reassessments and critiques of earlier interpretations and frameworks for the development of trade and complexity in southern Africa. Such reconsiderations are made possible by more sophisticated and precise radiocarbon dating, expanded investigation of both new and previously exc…
Ancient Civilizations
Ancient Civilizations offers a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world’s first civilizations and how they were discovered, drawing on many avenues of inquiry including archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and both historical and ethnohistorical records. This book covers the earliest civilizations and the great powers in the Near East, moving on to the first Aegean civil…
People of the Earth
Ancient Civilizations
Drawing on many avenues of inquiry: archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and on both historical and ethnohistorical records; Ancient Civilizations, 3/e provides a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world's first civilizations and a brief summary of the way in which they were discovered
Artifact and Artifice
August 01 2014 Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historians Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historians. By Jonathan M.Hall (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2014) 258 pp. $45.00 Brian Fagan Brian Fagan Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Brian Fagan Online ISSN: 1530-9169 Print ISSN: 0022-1953 © 2014 by The Massachusetts Inst…
Lewis Roberts Binford (1931-2011)
The Archaeology of the Gravel Terraces of the Upper and Middle Thames
Acquisitors among the Ottoman Monuments From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus
Bruce Graham Trigger (1937-2006)
From Stonehenge to Samarkand
Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa
In the belief that the results of this system of absolute dating are of considerable interest to historians and others concerned with the pre-colonial history of Africa, the Journal of African History has decided to publish from time to time lists of dates since c . 1000 B.C. which are being established for sub-Saharan Africa by the Radiocarbon (Carbon 14) method. (A description of this technique will be found in Professor F. E. Zeuner's Dating t…
Ivuna
Dr. Fagan is now Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In this article, written in collaboration with a colleague from Harvard University who joined in the excavations, he describes the Iron Age sequence from the Ivuna salt pans in the Rukwa Trough. The research was carried out when Dr. Fagan was Director of the Bantu Studies Project of the Institute
The Date of the Ingombe Ilede Burials
Recent excavations and radiocarbon dates provide evidence that the rich Ingombe Ilede burials date from the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries a.d. , not from the ninth/tenth centuries as was previously supposed. There is thus little evidence for intensive trade between the Middle Zambezi and the Moçambique coast before ca . a.d. 1400
Early trade and raw materials in South Central Africa
Three raw materials were essential to Iron Age peoples in South Central Africa: iron, copper and salt. This paper discusses some of the archaeological evidence for the development of regional and long-distance trade in these commodities during the earlier Iron Age. A distinction is drawn between regional trade in items for which there is local demand, and longer distance commerce in raw materials, which may have been conducted with the aid of som…
Ancient North America
entire course of native American history is traced in this book, from the first appearance of humans in the New World, more than 14,000 years ago, to the cataclysmic aftermath of European settlement. This text has been completely revised and expanded. It includes an updated account of controversies over first settlement, and new material on the eastern Plains farmers, the rock paintings of the Pecos areas and the archaeology of the Northwest Plat…
Charcoals, Sands, and Channel Decorated Pottery from Northern Rhodesia1
The Greefswald Sequence
The Iron Age sites known as Mapungubwe and Bambandyanalo on the farm Greefswald, 55 miles west of Messina in the northern Transvaal, South Africa, have aroused world-wide speculation ever since their discovery in the early 1930s. This international interest has been considerably stimulated by the publication of the second volume of the Mapungubwe report in late 1963. Much unnecessary confusion as to the significance of The Mapungubwe and Bambandy…
The Archaeology of Benin
The Distribution of Prehistoric Culture in Angola
The Rape of the Nile
The Hunter-Gatherers of Gwisho
Africa in the Iron Age
In the Beginning
Sebanzi
Brian M. Fagan, D. W. Phillipson, Sebanzi: The Iron Age Sequence at Lochinvar, and the Tonga, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Jul. - Dec., 1965), pp. 253-294
The Iron Age Sequence in the Southern Province of Northern Rhodesia
The Iron Age cultures of Northern Rhodesia have until fairly recently remained unknown, whilst work in Southern Rhodesia and in South Africa has revealed a long sequence in both those territories. Mr R. R. Inskeep undertook some excavations in 1958, and since 1959 Iron Age research has expanded considerably. Work has been concentrated in the Southern Province of the territory with the aid of a grant from the Nuffield Foundation, and a number of l…
Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa
This list contains many scattered dates, most of them from sites either provisionally dated from other sources, or recently excavated. An important series of dates from the Sahara confirm earlier readings for food production in that area. The Daima sequence from Nigeria is dated from the middle of the first millennium A.D. to the closing centuries of the Iron Age. In East and Southern Africa, two important early Iron Age dates from Kenya have bee…
Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa
The Sixth List contains many dates from Eastern and Southern Africa. An important sequence of dates from Malawi is published, indicating that the Iron Age there had begun as early as the third century A.D. The beginnings of the Zambian Early Iron Age are well established by the fourth century, while important new dates for ‘Dimple-based’ wares in Rwanda and Kenya place that pottery type within the same time span. The Palabora dates from the Trans…
Kibiro
Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa—IV
The fourth radiocarbon list contains many new and important dates. Only isolated readings are still available from West Africa, but some later Iron Age sites have recently been dated. The first samples for the Kenya Highlands date food production in that region to the first millennium b.c. , while important dates from Uganda confirm the traditional datings of Bigo and Bweyerore. Samples from Kilwa on the Tanzanian coast are somewhat at variance w…
Gundu and Ndonde, Basanga and Mwanamaimpa
Re-dating the Ingombe Ilede burials
Several burials excavated during 1960 at Ingombe Ilede in southern Africa were accompanied by exceptional quantities of gold and glass beads, bronze trade wire and bangles. The burials were indirectly dated to the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries AD, prior to the arrival of the Portuguese on the East Coast of Africa. New AMS dates on cotton fabric from two of the burials now relocate them in the sixteenth century. This was a dynamic period when …
The House of the Sea
The Chumash tomol, a sophisticated planked canoe, came into use in the Santa Barbara Channel region of Southern California about 1,500 years ago. It is often assumed that planked watercraft were first developed in the region at about that date. This paper argues, on theoretical grounds, that planked canoes were developed much earlier in Southern California, perhaps as early as 8,500 years ago
An Ivory Trumpet from Sofala, Mozambique
The trumpet was found in association with the ruins of the Portuguese fort at Sofala, some 75 miles south of Beira on the Mozambique coast. Sofala was an important trading centre for many centuries of the African Iron Age. Trade routes from the gold and ivory regions of the Rhodesian interior converged on the Sofala region, one of the southernmost outposts of the East Coast trade. The exact date at which Sofala itself was first occupied is unknow…
Early Iron Age Pottery in Eastern and Southern Africa
In this article Dr Fagan reviews the archaeological evidence in relation to the origins and migrations of the early Iron Age peoples of Eastern and Southern Africa
Pre-European Ironworking in Central Africa with Special Reference to Northern Rhodesia
Pre-European ironworkers in Central Africa reached a high standard of metallurgical skill, culminating in the production of beautiful ceremonial objects and instruments which show a Congo origin and inspiration. Many of these specimens, especially hoes, were traded over enormous distances. One can probably detect three phases of ironworking in Northern Rhodesia: (1) The Earliest Period ( c . a.d. 0 to ? a.d. 1000). Little is known about these ear…
Cropmarks in Antiquity
There is one straung thing seen ther that in certen Partes of the Ground withyn the Waulles, the Corne is mervelus faire to the Yee, and ready to show Perfecture, it decayith'.This passage, written by John Leland (1503-1552) after his visit to Silchester in 1541, is perhaps the earliest recorded observation of a cropmark. His account of Silchester was used by most serious workers on the site for the next two hundred years, and treated with the re…
Recent Developments in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe
The Glentyre Shelter and Oakhurst Re-Examined
The research described in this paper was carried out while the writer was temporary Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Cape Town from March to May 1960. The Glentyre shelter was excavated by the late Professor A. J. H. Goodwin on three visits from 1938 to 1940, and his excavation notes were discovered among his papers. During the examination of the collections from the site, which are housed in the South African Museum, it became
The Application of Quantitative Methods in Archaeology
Pre-European Ironworking in Central Africa with Special Reference to Northern Rhodesia
Pre-European ironworkers in Central Africa reached a high standard of metallurgical skill, culminating in the production of beautiful ceremonial objects and instruments which show a Congo origin and inspiration. Many of these specimens, especially hoes, were traded over enormous distances. One can probably detect three phases of ironworking in Northern Rhodesia: (1) The Earliest Period ( c . a.d. 0 to ? a.d. 1000). Little is known about these ear…
Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa
In the belief that the results of this system of absolute dating are of considerable interest to historians and others concerned with the pre-colonial history of Africa, the Journal of African History has decided to publish from time to time lists of dates since c . 1000 B.C. which are being established for sub-Saharan Africa by the Radiocarbon (Carbon 14) method. (A description of this technique will be found in Professor F. E. Zeuner's Dating t…
A Note on Potmaking Among the Lungu of Northern Rhodesia
A Collection of Nineteenth Century Soli Ironwork from the Lusaka Area of Northern Rhodesia
B. M. Fagan, A Collection of Nineteenth Century Soli Ironwork from the Lusaka Area of Northern Rhodesia, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 91, No. 2 (Jul. - Dec., 1961), pp. 228-250
Archaeology in the U.S.S.R
Two Soli Smelting Furnaces from Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia
Bored Stones from the Kalomo Culture
Radiocarbon dates for Sub-Saharan Africa (from c . 1000 B.C.)—II
This is the second list of radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa which are considered to be of interest to historians and others working on the pre-colonial history of Africa. The first list was published in vol. II, no. I, of the Journal
Situmpa Ware and the Kalomo Culture
The Kalomo/Choma Iron Age Project (1960-1963)
The Iron Age Sequence in the Southern Province of Northern Rhodesia
The Iron Age cultures of Northern Rhodesia have until fairly recently remained unknown, whilst work in Southern Rhodesia and in South Africa has revealed a long sequence in both those territories. Mr R. R. Inskeep undertook some excavations in 1958, and since 1959 Iron Age research has expanded considerably. Work has been concentrated in the Southern Province of the territory with the aid of a grant from the Nuffield Foundation, and a number of l…
The Date of the Kalomo Skeleton, Northern Rhodesia
Radiocarbon Dates
The Greefswald Sequence
The Iron Age sites known as Mapungubwe and Bambandyanalo on the farm Greefswald, 55 miles west of Messina in the northern Transvaal, South Africa, have aroused world-wide speculation ever since their discovery in the early 1930s. This international interest has been considerably stimulated by the publication of the second volume of the Mapungubwe report in late 1963. Much unnecessary confusion as to the significance of The Mapungubwe and Bambandy…
Two Channel-Decorated-Pottery Sites from Northern Rhodesia
Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa (from c . 1000 b.c.)—III
The third list of radiocarbon dates for Sub-Saharan Africa later than 1000 b.c. is considerably longer than its predecessors. As new laboratories commence operations, so more and more dates become available. During the last eighteen months, many more dates from Rhodesian Iron Age sites have been processed, where the earliest Iron Age peoples are now dated to the fourth century a.d. if not earlier. The Kalomo culture in Zambia is now securely date…
The Prehistory of East Africa
Sebanzi
Brian M. Fagan, D. W. Phillipson, Sebanzi: The Iron Age Sequence at Lochinvar, and the Tonga, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Jul. - Dec., 1965), pp. 253-294
Charcoals, Sands, and Channel Decorated Pottery from Northern Rhodesia1
Comments and Replies
Wooden Implements from Late Stone Age Sites at Gwisho Hot-springs, Lochinvar, Zambia
Discoveries of organic remains are rare on Late Stone Age sites in southern Africa. However, it is known from numerous historical records that in the case of the Wilton people the perishable elements of the material culture were in many cases the most important aspects of the tool-kit of Late Stone Age man. The prehistoric settlements at Gwisho hot-springs, Lochinvar, Zambia, assume particular importance, for excellent circumstances of preservati…
Archaeology (116 works) · History (116 works) · Geography (105 works) · History (64 works) · Ancient history (46 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (32 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (32 works) · Art (31 works) · Sociology (28 works) · Fagan inspection (27 works)