"Cambridge-Peshawar Universities Joint Expedition, 1977-78."

"Cambridge-Peshawar Universities Joint Expedition, 1977-78."

The Prehistory of Food sets subsistence in its social context by focusing on food as a cultural artefact. It brings together contributors with a scientific and biological expertise as well as those interested in the patterns of consumption and social change, and includes a wide range of case studies.

From 1985 to 2001, the collaborative research initiative known as the Bannu Archaeological Project conducted archaeological explorations and excavations in the Bannu region, in what was then the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. This Project involves scholars from the Pakistan Heritage Society, the British Museum, the Institute of Archaeology (UCL), Bryn Mawr College and the University of Cambridge. This is the third in a series of volumes that present the final reports of the exploration and excavations carried out by the Bannu Archaeological Project. This volume presents the first synthesis of the archaeology of the historic periods in the Bannu region, spanning the period when the first large scale empires expanded to the borders of South Asia up until the arrival of Islam in the subcontinent at the end of the first and beginning of the second millennium BC. The Bannu region provides specific insight into early imperialism in South Asia, as throughout this protracted period, it was able to maintain a distinctive regional identity in the face of recurring phases of imperial expansion and integration.

Afghanistan is at the cultural crossroads of Asia, where the great civilisations of Mesopotamia and Iran, South Asia and Central Asia overlapped and sometimes conflicted. Its landscape embraces environments from the high mountains of the Hindu Kush to the Oxus basin and the great deserts of Sistan; trade routes from China to the Mediterranean, and from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea cross the country. It has seen the development of early agriculture, the spread of Bronze Age civilisation of Central Asia, the conquests of the Persians and of Alexander of Macedon, the spread of Buddhism and then Islam, and the empires of the Kushans, Ghaznavids, Ghurids and Timurids centred there, with ramifications across southern Asia. All of which has resulted in some of the most important, diverse and spectacular historical remains in Asia.First published in 1978, this was the first book in English to provide a complete survey of the immensely rich archaeological remains of Afghanistan. The contributors, all acknowledged scholars in their field, have worked in the country, on projects ranging from prehistoric surveys to the study of Islamic architecture. It has now been thoroughly revised and brought up to date to incorporate the latest discoveries and research.