Jan Driessen

Peter Tomkins

Ilse Schoep

Ever since their first discovery, more than a century ago, the Minoan Palaces have dominated scholarship on the Cretan Bronze Age. Opinion long held that their first appearance, seemingly at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, marked a pivotal transformation point, during which the simple, egalitarian societies of the Early Bronze Age were transformed into something significantly more complex, hierarchical and civilized. Over the last three decades, however, theoretical developments, together with new research and discoveries, have so thoroughly undermined this conceptualization of the Early and Middle Bronze Age that it seemed advisable to go back to the beginning, reevaluate our theories and models and ask anew what we really know about social and political complexity on Crete from the end of the Neolithic to Middle Minoan II (c.3600-1750/00 BC). Back to the Beginning explores this theme through fifteen papers. They cover both the principal central Cretan urban centuries of Knossos, Malia and Phaistos and the smaller communities that lay beyond them in central and eastern Crete. Many present significant new bodies of settlement and cemetery data, whether recently acquired or reinterpreted from older excavations. All place a clear and concerted emphasis on breaking down complexity into different social processes and relations and building up an understanding of society, from the bottom up, as a host of interacting and potentially conflicting agents or scales of identity. All too are concerned with addressing long-standing and fundamental research questions. When, in fact, does the Bronze Age begin in real terms? How did socioeconomic diversity play out across the Cretan landscape? When and where did the monumental Court Complexes, which convention terms Palaces, emerge; how did they function and how did this vary? Were the Court Complexes entirely new phenomena or were they rooted more firmly in preexisting traditions and practices? What happened in MM I and how, more generally, might we frame and explain the Early and Middle Bronze Age in more inclusive terms? How were different communities structured and how did this vary? Is it appropriate to talk of urbanism and state formation during this period and if so, when and where? By taking us significantly closer to resolving these questions, Back to the Beginning ushers in a new era of understanding for the Early and Middle Bronze Age on Crete.

Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete During the Early and Middle Bronze Age

Back to the Beginning

Christopher Bird

SAVIEZ-VOUS QUE LES PLANTES AUSSI POUVAIENT S'ÉVANOUIR DE DOULEUR OU DE JOIE ? Peter Tompkins et Christopher Bird ont rassemblé dans ce livre fascinant tout ce que les recherches nous permettent de savoir sur la sensibilité végétale et sur les rapports entre la plante et l'homme. Plantes qui détectent les mensonges, plantes sentinelles, plantes télépathes, plantes qui réagissent à la musique... À travers cent récits significatifs, voici cent révélations qui ouvrent sur les secrets d'un monde vivant, sensible, doué d'intelligence et d'émotion et jusqu'alors demeuré inconnu. On découvre que la conscience n'est pas l'apanage du seul homme et qu'il existe autant de relations, tout aussi étonnantes, voire bouleversantes, entre l'homme et le végétal qu'entre l'homme et l'animal. C'est dire la richesse de ce livre. Après la lecture de cet ouvrage de référence, vous saurez avec certitude que l'on n'obtient rien des plantes sans amour : un message à méditer pour retrouver l'harmonie avec la nature. Un voyage captivant au coeur du monde végétal...

Peter Tomkins

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