Reconsidering Mississippian Communities and Households

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Publisher : University Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817320881
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Reconsidering Mississippian Communities and Households by : Elizabeth Watts Malouchos

Download or read book Reconsidering Mississippian Communities and Households written by Elizabeth Watts Malouchos and published by University Alabama Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the archaeology of Mississippian communities and households using new data and advances in method and theory Published in 1995, Mississippian Communities and Households, edited by J. Daniel Rogers and Bruce D. Smith, was a foundational text that advanced southeastern archaeology in significant ways and brought household-level archaeology to the forefront of the field. Reconsidering Mississippian Communitiesand Households revisits and builds on what has been learned in the years since the Rogers and Smith volume, advancing the field further with the diverse perspectives of current social theory and methods and big data as applied to communities in Native America from the AD 900s to 1700s and from northeast Florida to southwest Arkansas. Watts Malouchos and Betzenhauser bring together scholars researching diverse Mississippian Southeast and Midwest sites to investigate aspects of community and household construction, maintenance, and dissolution. Thirteen original case studies prove that community can be enacted and expressed in various ways, including in feasting, pottery styles, war and conflict, and mortuary treatments.

Mississippian Communities and Households

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Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817307680
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Mississippian Communities and Households by : J. Daniel Rogers

Download or read book Mississippian Communities and Households written by J. Daniel Rogers and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 1995-11-30 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Mississippian period (approximately A.D. 1000-1600) in the midwestern and southeastern United States a variety of greater and lesser chiefdoms took shape. Archaeologists have for many years explored the nature of these chiefdoms from the perspective common in archaeological investigations—from the top down, investigating ceremonial elite mound structures and predicting the basic domestic unit from that data. Because of the increased number of field investigations at the community level in recent years, this volume is able to move the scale of investigation down to the level of community and household, and it contributes to major revisions of settlement hierarchy concepts.

Authority, Autonomy, and the Archaeology of a Mississippian Community

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Publisher : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 1683401239
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (834 download)

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Book Synopsis Authority, Autonomy, and the Archaeology of a Mississippian Community by : Erin S. Nelson

Download or read book Authority, Autonomy, and the Archaeology of a Mississippian Community written by Erin S. Nelson and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first detailed investigation of the important archaeological site of Parchman Place in the Yazoo Basin, a defining area for understanding the Mississippian culture that spanned much of what is now the United States Southeast and Midwest before the mid-sixteenth century. Refining the widely accepted theory that this society was strongly hierarchical, Erin Nelson provides data that suggest communities navigated tensions between authority and autonomy in their placemaking and in their daily lives. Drawing on archaeological evidence from foodways, monumental and domestic architecture, and the organization of communal space at the site, Nelson argues that Mississippian people negotiated contradictory ideas about what it meant to belong to a community. For example, although they clearly had powerful leaders, communities built mounds and other structures in ways that re-created their views of the cosmos, expressing values of wholeness and balance. Nelson’s findings shed light on the inner workings of Mississippian communities and other hierarchical societies of the period. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Ancient Foodways

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Publisher : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 0813070244
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Ancient Foodways by : C. Margaret Scarry

Download or read book Ancient Foodways written by C. Margaret Scarry and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2022-12-30 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How archaeology can shed light on past foodways and social worlds Through various case studies, Ancient Foodways illustrates how archaeologists can use bioarchaeology, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, architecture, and other evidence to understand how food acquisition, preparation, and consumption intersect with economics, politics, and ritual. Spanning four continents and several millennia of human history, this volume is a comprehensive and contemporary survey of how archaeological data can be used to interpret past foodways and reconstruct past social worlds.  This volume is organized around four major themes: feasting and politics; sacrifice, ritual, and ancestors; diet, landscape, and health; and integrative methods. Contributors weave together multiple threads of evidence relating to plants, animals, craft production, and human health and reconnect the material remnants with behaviors, practices, and meanings. The case studies show the varied and creative ways that multiple sources of evidence can be used to shed light on past foodways.  Ancient Foodways demonstrates how environmental and cultural factors shaped past subsistence strategies and cooking practices and reveals the role food played in shaping cultural identity and exchange networks, while also examining how food production methods can lead to environmental destruction and the detrimental role of dietary constraints on human health. 

The Archaeology of Arcuate Communities

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Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817361553
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis The Archaeology of Arcuate Communities by : Martin Menz

Download or read book The Archaeology of Arcuate Communities written by Martin Menz and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2024-06-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides case studies of social dynamics and evolution of ring-shaped communities of the Eastern Woodlands

Life in a Mississippian Warscape

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Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817321381
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Life in a Mississippian Warscape by : Meghan E. Buchanan

Download or read book Life in a Mississippian Warscape written by Meghan E. Buchanan and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Meghan Buchanan, following anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom, posits that, to understand the big histories of warfare, political fragmentation, and resilience in the past, archaeologists must also analyze and interpret the microscale actions of the past: the daily activities of people before, during, and after historical events. Within warscapes, battles take place in peoples' front yards, family members die, and the impacts of violence in near and distant places are experienced on a daily basis. "Life in a Mississippian Warscape" explores the microscale of daily lives of people living at the Common Field site during the period of Cahokia's abandonment and the spread of violence and warfare throughout the Southeast. Common Field was a large, palisaded Mississippian mound center founded circa 1250 and burned in a catastrophic event shortly before Cahokia's abandonment. Linking together ethnographic, historic, and archaeological sources, Buchanan proposes a multiscalar approach to an archaeology of daily life in wartime. She draws on analysis of museum collections as well as the results from her field excavations. She discusses the evidence that the people of Common Field engaged in novel and hybrid practices during this period of escalating warfare. At the microscale, they erected a substantial palisade with specially prepared deposits, adopted new ceramic tempering techniques, produced large numbers of serving vessels decorated with warfare-related imagery, and adapted their food practices. The overall picture that emerges from the daily practices at Common Field is of a people who engaged in risk-averse practices that minimized their exposure to outside of the palisade and attempted to seek intercession from the supernatural realm through public ceremonies involving warfare-related iconography. Chapter 1 introduces the concept of warscapes, highlighting ethnographic and historic accounts of cultural creativity and social experiences during wartime around the world, especially in Native American societies. Buchanan links the materiality of daily life, technological production, creativity, and hybridity during periods of war and shows where the impacts of warfare on daily practices may be visible archaeologically. Chapter 2 explores the theoretical orientations and archaeological approaches to warfare in the southeastern United States and the evidence for violence and warfare in the precontact past. Chapter 3 introduces the Common Field site and outlines some of the research that has been conducted at the site and other Mississippian Period sites in the region. Buchanan proposes a culture history for region, highlighting important sites, material practices, and historical trends. Chapter 4 presents the results of analyses conducted on ceramics and fauna related to daily practices and explores how lives inside the palisade walls were impacted by external threats of violence. The analyses show that the people living at Common Field were engaged in risk-averse practices that mitigated exposure outside of palisade walls. In chapter 5, the results of the research conducted at Common Field are interpreted within the warscape lens. Particular focus considers the effects of regional warfare on the ceramic practices, foodways, and spatial organization of the people. Chapter 6 tacks between the small-scale effects of warfare, as seen at Common Field, and the larger-scale, historical impacts of Mississippian Period violence. Drawing on the idea of "big histories," Buchanan argues that the small details of peoples' lives have ramifications for larger regional and historical phenomena such as the abandonment and migration out of the Cahokia area and the cascade effects of violence elsewhere in the Southeast"--

Cahokian Dispersions

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Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 9811973652
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (119 download)

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Book Synopsis Cahokian Dispersions by : Melissa R. Baltus

Download or read book Cahokian Dispersions written by Melissa R. Baltus and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-14 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the possibility and role of a Cahokian diaspora to understand cultural influence, complexity, historicity, and movements in the Mississippian Southeast. Collectively the chapters trace how the movements of Cahokian and American Bottom materials, substances, persons, and non-human bodies converged in the creation of Cahokian identities both within and outside of the Cahokia homeland through archaeological case studies that demonstrate the ways in which population movements foment social change. Drawing initial inspiration from theories of diaspora, the book explores the dynamic movements of human populations by critically engaging with the ways people materially construct or deconstruct their social identities in relation to others within the context of physical movement. This book is of interest to students and researchers of archaeology, anthropology, sociology of migration and diaspora studies. Previously published in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Volume 27, issue 1, March 2020

Methods, Mounds, and Missions

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Publisher : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 168340338X
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (834 download)

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Book Synopsis Methods, Mounds, and Missions by : Ann S. Cordell

Download or read book Methods, Mounds, and Missions written by Ann S. Cordell and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Methods, Mounds, and Missions offers innovative ways of looking at existing data, as well as compelling new information, about Florida’s past. Diverse in scale, topic, time, and region, the volume’s contributions span the late Archaic through historic periods and cover much of the state’s panhandle and peninsula, with forays into the larger Southeast and circum-Caribbean area. Subjects explored in this volume include coastal ring middens, chiefly power and social interaction in mound-building societies, pottery design and production, faunal evidence of mollusk harvesting, missions and missionaries, European iron celts or chisels, Hernando de Soto’s sixteenth-century expedition, and an early nineteenth-century Seminole settlement. The essays incorporate previously underexplored markers of culture histories such as clay sources and non-chert lithic tools and address complex issues such as the entanglement of utilitarian artifacts with sociocultural and ritual realms. Experts in their topical specializations, this volume’s contributors build on the research methods and interpretive approaches of influential anthropologist Jerald Milanich. They update current archaeological interpretations of Florida history, developing and demonstrating the use of new and improved tools to answer broader and larger questions. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Archaeology of Communities

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135125430
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (351 download)

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Book Synopsis Archaeology of Communities by : Marcello-Andrea Canuto

Download or read book Archaeology of Communities written by Marcello-Andrea Canuto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Archaeology of Communities develops a critical evaluation of community and shows that it represents more than a mere aggregation of households. This collection bridges the gap between studies of ancient societies and ancient households. The community is taken to represent more than a mere aggregation of households, it exists in part through shared identities, as well as frequent interaction and inter-household integration. Drawing on case studies which range in location from the Mississippi Valley to New Mexico, from the Southern Andes to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Madison County, Virginia, the book explores and discusses communities from a whole range of periods, from Pre-Columbian to the late Classic. Discussions of actual communities are reinforced by strong debate on, for example, the distinction between 'Imagined Community' and 'Natural Community.'

An Archaeology of the Cosmos

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0415521289
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (155 download)

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Book Synopsis An Archaeology of the Cosmos by : Timothy R. Pauketat

Download or read book An Archaeology of the Cosmos written by Timothy R. Pauketat and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Archaeology of the Cosmos seeks answers to two fundamental questions of humanity and human history. The first question concerns that which some use as a defining element of humanity: religious beliefs. Why do so many people believe in supreme beings and holy spirits? The second question concerns changes in those beliefs. What causes beliefs to change? Using archaeological evidence gathered from ancient America, especially case material from the Great Plains and the pre-Columbian American Indian city of Cahokia, Timothy Pauketat explores the logical consequences of these two fundamental questions. Religious beliefs are not more resilient than other aspects of culture and society, and people are not the only causes of historical change. An Archaeology of the Cosmos examines the intimate association of agency and religion by studying how relationships between people, places, and things were bundled together and positioned in ways that constituted the fields of human experience. This rethinking theories of agency and religion provides readers with challenging and thought provoking conclusions that will lead them to reassess the way they approach the past.

From Cahokia to Larson to Moundville

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Publisher : Univ Tennessee Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 706 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis From Cahokia to Larson to Moundville by : A. Martin Byers

Download or read book From Cahokia to Larson to Moundville written by A. Martin Byers and published by Univ Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The orthodox view of the Mississippian social world hinges on the ideas that chiefdoms--dominance based hierarchical societies in the Eastern Woodlands of North America--vied for power, often violently bit at times cooperatively, through political and economic avenues. These chiefdoms represented something of a feudal state in prehistoric North America, which lasted up to the contact period with Europeans around 1500 A.D. In From Cahokia to Larson to Moundville, noted archaeologist A. Martin Byers challenges these assumptions and offers a contrasting view by deconstructing the chiefdom model and offering instead an autonomous social world that focused on spiritual renewal and sacred rituals. Byers presents his case through the archaeological record of Cahokia, Larson, and Moundville's monumental earthworks and, in doing so, reveals the Mississippian social community to be more complex, and more cooperative, than previously envisioned. A. Martin Byers, now retired, was a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal.

The Archaeology of Houses and Households in the Native Southeast

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Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817319492
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis The Archaeology of Houses and Households in the Native Southeast by : Benjamin A. Steere

Download or read book The Archaeology of Houses and Households in the Native Southeast written by Benjamin A. Steere and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book explores changes in houses and households in the southeastern United States from the Woodland to the Historic Indian Period (ca. 200 B.C. to A.D. 1800). Most studies of domestic architecture in the Southeast have been conducted at the single-site scale. As a result, broader spatial and temporal patterns of variation in houses and households are not well understood. To address this problem, Steere constructed a database that catalogues the architectural features of 1,258 structures from 65 sites in the Southern Appalachian region and surrounding areas. Significant trends identified by this comparative study include changes in the size and spacing of houses, changes in architectural investment, and a secular trend toward the increasing segmentation of houses. Using a theoretical framework developed from household archaeology and anthropology, Steere argues that certain aspects of this architectural variation can be explained by changes in household economics and household composition, symbolic behavior, status differentiation, and settlement patterning. More generally, he proposes that large-scale patterns of diachronic and synchronic variation in domestic architecture are best explained by changes in social organization"--Provided by publisher.

Beyond Collapse

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Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809333996
Total Pages : 553 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond Collapse by : Ronald K. Faulseit

Download or read book Beyond Collapse written by Ronald K. Faulseit and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book interprets how ancient civilizations responded to various stresses, including environmental change, warfare, and the fragmentation of political institutions. It focuses on what happened during and after the decline of once powerful regimes, and posits that they experienced social resilience and transformation instead of collapse.

Archaeology of the Night

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Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1607326787
Total Pages : 442 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Archaeology of the Night by : Nancy Gonlin

Download or read book Archaeology of the Night written by Nancy Gonlin and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did ancient peoples experience, view, and portray the night? What was it like to live in the past when total nocturnal darkness was the norm? Archaeology of the Night explores the archaeology, anthropology, mythology, iconography, and epigraphy of nocturnal practices and questions the dominant models of daily ancient life. A diverse team of experienced scholars uses a variety of methods and resources to reconstruct how ancient peoples navigated the night and what their associated daily—and nightly—practices were. This collection challenges modern ideas and misconceptions regarding the night and what darkness and night symbolized in the ancient world, and it highlights the inherent research bias in favor of “daytime” archaeology. Numerous case studies from around the world (including Oman, Mesoamerica, Scandinavia, Rome, Great Zimbabwe, Indus Valley, Peru, and Cahokia) illuminate subversive, social, ritual, domestic, and work activities, such as witchcraft, ceremonies, feasting, sleeping, nocturnal agriculture, and much more. Were there artifacts particularly associated with the night? Authors investigate individuals and groups (both real and mythological) who share a special connection to nighttime life. Reconsidering the archaeological record, Archaeology of the Night views sites, artifacts, features, and cultures from a unique perspective. This book is relevant to anthropologists and archaeologists and also to scholars of human geography, history, astronomy, sensory studies, human biology, folklore, and mythology. Contributors: Susan Alt, Anthony F. Aveni, Jane Eva Baxter, Shadreck Chirikure, Minette Church, Jeremy D. Coltman, Margaret Conkey, Tom Dillehay, Christine C. Dixon, Zenobie Garrett, Nancy Gonlin, Kathryn Kamp, Erin Halstad McGuire, Abigail Joy Moffett, Jerry D. Moore, Smiti Nathan, April Nowell, Scott C. Smith, Glenn R. Storey, Meghan Strong, Cynthia Van Gilder, Alexei Vranich, John C. Whittaker, Rita Wright

The Archaeology of the Caddo

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Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 0803240465
Total Pages : 536 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis The Archaeology of the Caddo by : Timothy K. Perttula

Download or read book The Archaeology of the Caddo written by Timothy K. Perttula and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark volume provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the prehistory and archaeology of the Caddo peoples. The Caddos lived in the Southeastern Woodlands for more than 900 years beginning around A.D. 800–900, before being forced to relocate to Oklahoma in 1859. They left behind a spectacular archaeological record, including the famous Spiro Mound site in Oklahoma as well as many other mound centers, plazas, farmsteads, villages, and cemeteries. The Archaeology of the Caddo examines new advances in studying the history of the Caddo peoples, including ceramic analysis, reconstructions of settlement and regional histories of different Caddo communities, Geographic Information Systems and geophysical landscape studies at several spatial scales, the cosmological significance of mound and structure placements, and better ways to understand mortuary practices. Findings from major sites and drainages such as the Crenshaw site, mounds in the Arkansas River basin, Spiro Mound, the Oak Hill Village site, the George C. Davis site, the Willow Chute Bayou Locality, the Hughes site, Big Cypress Creek basin, and the McClelland and Joe Clark sites are also summarized and interpreted. This volume reintroduces the Caddos’ heritage, creativity, and political and religious complexity.

Lithic Technological Systems and Evolutionary Theory

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316194426
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (161 download)

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Book Synopsis Lithic Technological Systems and Evolutionary Theory by : Nathan Goodale

Download or read book Lithic Technological Systems and Evolutionary Theory written by Nathan Goodale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-22 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stone tool analysis relies on a strong background in analytical and methodological techniques. However, lithic technological analysis has not been well integrated with a theoretically informed approach to understanding how humans procured, made, and used stone tools. Evolutionary theory has great potential to fill this gap. This collection of essays brings together several different evolutionary perspectives to demonstrate how lithic technological systems are a by-product of human behavior. The essays cover a range of topics, including human behavioral ecology, cultural transmission, phylogenetic analysis, risk management, macroevolution, dual inheritance theory, cladistics, central place foraging, costly signaling, selection, drift, and various applications of evolutionary ecology.

Societies in Transition in Early Greece

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Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520380533
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Societies in Transition in Early Greece by : Alex R. Knodell

Download or read book Societies in Transition in Early Greece written by Alex R. Knodell and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Situated at the disciplinary boundary between prehistory and history, this book presents a new synthesis of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece, from the rise and fall of Mycenaean civilization to the emergence of city-states in the Archaic period. These centuries saw the growth and decline of varied political systems and the development of networks across local, regional, and Mediterranean scales. As a groundbreaking study of landscape, interaction, and sociopolitical change, Societies in Transition in Early Greece systematically bridges the divide between the Mycenaean period and the Archaic Greek world to shed new light on an often-overlooked period of world history. “This book reconfigures our understanding of early Greece on a regional level, beyond Mycenaean 'palaces' and across temporal boundaries. Alex Knodell's sophisticated arguments enable a fresh reading of the emergence of early Greek polities, revealing the microregions that put to the test overarching 'Mediterranean' models. His detailed study makes a convincing return to a comparative framework, integrating a 'small world' network and its trajectory with the larger picture of ancient complex societies.” SARAH MORRIS, Steinmetz Professor of Classical Archaeology and Material Culture, University of California, Los Angeles “A comprehensive, thoughtful treatment of the time period before the crystallization of the ancient Greek city states.” WILLIAM A. PARKINSON, Curator and Professor, The Field Museum and University of Illinois at Chicago “An important and must-read account. The strength of this book lies in its close analysis of the important different regional characteristics and evolutionary trajectories of Greece as it transforms into the Archaic and, later, the Classical world.” DAVID B. SMALL, author Ancient Greece: Social Structure and Evolution.