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Multiscalar Approaches to Studying Social Organization and Change in the Isthmo-Colombian Area
Chapters offer new understandings of how ranked societies emerged and developed in prehistoric southern Central America and northern South America (the "Isthmo-Colombian Area"). The emphasis is on integrating the results of studies of social units at a range of different scales from the household to the local commuity to the region and beyond. Complete text in English and Spanish.
Urban Life in the Distant Past
The book describes a novel approach to early cities that is transdisciplinary, scientific, historical, and based on social-science knowledge.
Understanding Chipped Stone Tools
This is a unique and engaging book on prehistoric stone tools. It advocates an experiential approach in which analysts try to understand stone tool designs from the users' perspectives, and employs a universal logic of designing tools to solve practical problems and evaluating various possible solutions. However, to do so it is also necessary to understand how stone can be mechanically modified to serve specific functions. The author enlists a rich array of ethnographic observations and considerable background as a flintknapper to show the basic ways in which stones can be flaked and modified and what these characteristics can reveal about prehistoric problem-solving strategies and design constraints. This is an invaluable primer for anyone contemplating the study of prehistoric stone tools."
Ancient Mesoamerican Population History
"This book critically re-examines Mesoamerican archaeological approaches to estimating populations associated with ancient cities, settlement systems, and regions. Archaeological data and lidar are both employed to demonstrate how complex ancient Mesoamerican societies were and how they changed over time"--
Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism
Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism tears down entrenched misconceptions of Maya cities to build a new archaeology of Maya urbanism by highlighting the residential dynamics that underwrote one of the most famous and debated civilizations of the ancient Americas. Exploring the diverse yet interrelated agents and processes that modified Maya urban landscapes over time, this volume highlights the adaptive flexibility of urbanization in the tropical Maya lowlands. Integrating recent lidar survey data with more traditional excavation and artifact-based archaeological practices, chapters in this volume offer broadened perspectives on the patterns of Maya urban design and planning by viewing b...
Hongshan Regional Organization in the Upper Daling Valley
A detailed report on regional-, local-, and household-scale research on Hongshan societies (4500-3000 BCE) in northeastern China. Regional demography and community patterns are analyzed for an area of 200 square kilometers surrounding the excavated ceremonial site of Dongshanzui. More intensive study of Hongshan residential remains through surface collection, magnetometer survey, and stratigraphic tests informs the interpretation of the results of regional-scale survey. Dongshanzui's public architecture, along with additional unexcavated ceremonial platforms, are shown to be at the heart of a regional-scale concentration of Hongshan residential occupation that represents an independent small chiefly polity with no more than 1,000 inhabitants. Its neighbors were other similar small polities related to each other through peaceful interaction but without larger-scale political integration. Complete text in English and Chinese.
Ancient Oaxaca
Over two thousand years ago, Oaxaca, Mexico, was the site of one of the New World's earliest episodes of primary state formation and urbanism, and today it is one of the world's archaeologically best-studied regions. This volume, which thoroughly revises and updates the first edition, provides a highly readable yet comprehensive path to acquaint readers with one of the earliest and best-known examples of Native American state formation and its consequences as seen from the perspectives of urbanism, technology, demography, commerce, households, and religion and ritual. Written by prominent archaeological researchers who have devoted decades to Oaxacan research and to the development of suitable social theory, the book places ancient Oaxaca within the context of the history of ideas that have addressed the causes and consequences of social evolutionary change. It also critically evaluates the potential applicability of more recent thinking about state building grounded in collective action and related theories.
A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms
Chiefs are political operatives who hold titles of leadership over groups larger than intimate kin-based communities. Although they rule with the consent of their group, they are all about building personal power and respect. Many scholars have viewed chiefs as problem solvers--defending groups against aggressors, resolving disputes, providing support under hardship, organizing labor for community projects, and redistributing goods among those in need. Chiefs do these things, but much of what chiefs do is accumulate benefits for themselves, staying in power and legitimizing control. Anthropological archaeology is well suited to pursue the study of chiefs, their leadership institutions (chiefdoms), and long-term historical processes. The author argues that studying chiefdoms is essential to understanding the role of elemental powers in social evolution. As an illustration, he studies chiefs and their power strategies in historically independent prehistoric and traditional societies and discusses how they continue to exist as powerful actors within modern states.
Global Perspectives on Landscapes of Warfare
Copublished with Editorial de la Universidad del Magdalena Global Perspectives on Landscapes of Warfare examines the effects of conflict on landscapes and the ways landscapes have shaped social and political boundaries over time. Contributors from different archaeological traditions introduce a variety of methodologies and theories to understand and explain how territories and geographies in antiquity were modified in response to threat. Drawing from eleven case studies from periods ranging over eight thousand years in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, contributors consider how social groups moved and concentrated residences, built infrastructure, invested resources, created alliances and nego...
Regional Settlement Demography in Archaeology
Archaeological analysis at the regional scale investigates the past by studying how people distributed themselves and their activities across a landscape of hundreds or thousands of square kilometers. Archaeological field survey methods developed over half a century combine with powerful new quantitative tools for spatial analysis (including GIS) to unleash new potential for identifying and studying ancient local communities and regional polities. Varied approaches to estimating regional population sizes in both relative and absolute terms are synthesized and their advantages and disadvantages assessed. Tools for quantitative analysis of regional demographic data are presented. Field survey methods developed around the world are compiled from widely scattered sources and best practices for collecting archaeological data to sustain demographic analysis are delineated. Concepts for improved sampling design in regional survey work are derived from fundamental statistical principles. In conclusion, promising directions for future methodological development are identified.
