David E. Jones – författare

From the Chickasaw fighting the Choctaw in the Southeast to the Sioux battling the Cheyenne on the Great Plains, warfare was endemic among the North American Indians when Europeans first arrived on this continent. An impressive array of offensive weaponry and battle tactics gave rise to an equally impressive range of defensive technology. Native Americans constructed very effective armor and shields using wood, bone, and leather. Their fortifications ranged from simple refuges to walled and moated stockades to multiple stockades linked in strategic defensive networks. In this book, David E. Jones offers the first systematic comparative study of the defensive armor and fortifications of aboriginal Native Americans. Drawing data from ethnohistorical accounts and archaeological evidence, he surveys the use of armor, shields, and fortifications both before European contact and during the historic period by American Indians from the Southeast to the Northwest Coast, from the Northeast Woodlands to the desert Southwest, and from the Sub-Arctic to the Great Plains. Jones also demonstrates the sociocultural factors that affected warfare and shaped the development of different types of armor and fortifications. Extensive eyewitness descriptions of warfare, armor, and fortifications, as well as photos and sketches of Indian armor from museum collections, add a visual dimension to the text.

Biological warfare is a menacing twenty-first-century issue, but its origins extend to antiquity. While the recorded use of toxins in warfare in some ancient populations is rarely disputed (the use of arsenical smoke in China, which dates to at least 1000 BC, for example) the use of "poison arrows" and other deadly substances by Native American groups has been fraught with contradiction. At last revealing clear documentation to support these theories, anthropologist David Jones transforms the realm of ethnobotany in Poison Arrows. Examining evidence within the few extant descriptive accounts of Native American warfare, along with grooved arrowheads and clues from botanical knowledge, Jones builds a solid case to indicate widespread and very effective use of many types of toxins. He argues that various groups applied them to not only warfare but also to hunting, and even as an early form of insect extermination. Culling extensive ethnological, historical, and archaeological data, Jones provides a thoroughly comprehensive survey of the use of ethnobotanical and entomological compounds applied in wide-ranging ways, including homicide and suicide. Although many narratives from the contact period in North America deny such uses, Jones now offers conclusive documentation to prove otherwise. A groundbreaking study of a subject that has been long overlooked, Poison Arrows imparts an extraordinary new perspective to the history of warfare, weaponry, and deadly human ingenuity.

First published in 2002. The image of a dragon- magnificent, terrifying, voracious and powerful- is ingrained in our culture. But where di it originate? And how is that people from Africa to China to America picture it the same? An Instinct for Dragons is anthropologist David E. Jones' account of his search for the mysterious birth of this ubiquitous monster. Nit only does virtually every culture in the world have a name for dragons- smok in Polish, tatsu in Japanese, unktena in Cherokee- but dragons everywhere share many of the same characteristics: multiple heads, blazing eyes, earth-shaking roars, fiery breath, and the abduction of princesses. Spanning dragon lore from all paces and periods, Jones scrutinizes sightings and references from dragon inscriptions on cave walls, cliffs and pots to the Loch Ness monster to the Internet. Jones' research is erudite, and his conclusion is stunning; not only is our fear and fascination with dragons a direct result of the predators who threatened our evolution, but humankind is essentially 'hardwired' to believe in the dragon. This book will fascinate any reader interested in the cultural history of this most venerable of monsters.

This is the first book to describe martial arts and martial behaviors as serious topics deserving of serious study. Although there have been a number of readers dealing with warfare, this is the only one that, among other things, focuses on the warrior, both ancient and modern.Presents a collection of readings which introduce the study of martial behaviors in a cross-cultural context. The subject matter ranges from a consideration of the warclub as weapon and status symbol among the chiefdoms of the American Southwest at the time of European contact to contemporary ritual warfare in the highlands of Bolivia.All over the world, warriors have left their mark on culture. Their codes of behavior become the basis of diplomacy, models of service, and courage in the protection of social institutions. Chivalry in the West arose from the codes of the noble knights and ^IBushido^R, (The Way of the Warrior), the Bible of the Samurai, still serves as the basis of etiquette in modern Japan. In practically every society myths and tales of culture heroes who are warriors are important in the enculturation and socialization of children. Martial arts, which are stylized behaviors displaying techniques related to those practiced on the battlefield, are considered here to be more about culture, art, and history than about fighting.

Women Warriors takes the reader back through history and around the world to uncover a clear pattern of women as warriors. It is a fascinating comment on the nature of gender, on the power of the warrior image, and on the image's source in history.