Ben Fitzhugh - Böcker

LEWIS R. BINFORD AND AMBER L. JOHNSON The organizers of this volume have brought together authors who have worked on local sequences, much as traditional archaeologists tended to do, however, with the modern goal of addressing evolutionary change in hunter-gatherer systems over long time spans. Given this ambitious goal they wisely chose to ask the authors to build their treatments around a focal question, the utility of the forager-eollector continuum (Binford 1980) for research on archaeological sequences. Needless to say, Binford was flat­ tered by their choice and understandably read the papers with a great deal of interest. When he was asked to write the foreword to this provoca­ tive book he expected to learn new things and in this he has not been disappointed. The common organizing questions addressed among the contributors to this volume are simply, how useful is the forager-eollector continuum for explanatory research on sequences, and what else might we need to know to explain evolutionary change in hunter-gatherer adaptations? Most sequences document systems change, in some sense. Though we don't necessarily know how much synchronous systemic variability there might have been relative to the documented sequence, most authors have tried to address the problem of within systems variability. In this sense, most are operating with sophistication not seen among traditional culture historians. The primary problem for archaeologists of the generation prior to Binford was how to date archaeological materials.

Complex hunter-gatherers have captivated anthropological and archaeological interest during the last two decades of the 20th century. Where it was once commonplace to view hunting and gathering as little more than a starting point for social evolution, in the 21st century, scholars appreciate great diversity in past and present hunter-gatherer societies. The challenge of explaining the development of complexity in hunter-gatherer groups breathes new life into hunter-gatherer studies, focusing not only on adaptive variation but also on evolution and history. This book makes a contribution to the developing field of complex hunter-gatherer studies with an archaeological analysis of the development of one such group. It examines the evolution of complex hunter-gatherers on the North Pacific coast of Alaska. It strives to account for the dynamics and processes that transformed a population from low density, disaggregated, relatively mobile, and relatively egalitarian organizations into the demographically dense, sedentary, aggregated, militaristic, and ranked/stratified populations around the North Pacific by the time of ethnographic contact.To do so, this book examines 7000 years of archaeological history on the Kodiak Archipelago - a region that 250 years ago was part of a broader phenomenon of complex hunter-gatherers ringing the North American Pacific Northwest Coast from California to the Aleutian Islands.

Complex hunter-gatherers have captivated anthropological and archaeological interest during the last two decades of the 20th century. Where it was once commonplace to view hunting and gathering as little more than a starting point for social evolution, in the 21st century, scholars appreciate great diversity in past and present hunter-gatherer societies. The challenge of explaining the development of complexity in hunter-gatherer groups breathes new life into hunter-gatherer studies, focusing not only on adaptive variation but also on evolution and history. This book makes a contribution to the developing field of complex hunter-gatherer studies with an archaeological analysis of the development of one such group. It examines the evolution of complex hunter-gatherers on the North Pacific coast of Alaska. It strives to account for the dynamics and processes that transformed a population from low density, disaggregated, relatively mobile, and relatively egalitarian organizations into the demographically dense, sedentary, aggregated, militaristic, and ranked/stratified populations around the North Pacific by the time of ethnographic contact.To do so, this book examines 7000 years of archaeological history on the Kodiak Archipelago - a region that 250 years ago was part of a broader phenomenon of complex hunter-gatherers ringing the North American Pacific Northwest Coast from California to the Aleutian Islands.

JOHNSON The organizers of this volume have brought together authors who have worked on local sequences, much as traditional archaeologists tended to do, however, with the modern goal of addressing evolutionary change in hunter-gatherer systems over long time spans.