Hunter Gatherer Archaeology As Historical Process

Combining the latest empirical studies of archaeological practice with the latest conceptual tools of anthropological and historical theory, this volume seeks to set a new course for hunter-gatherer archaeolog.

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 is one of the first books available to examine in depth the social evolution of a specific complex hunter-gatherer tradition on the North Pacific Rim and will be of interest to professional archaeologists, anthropologists, and students of archaeology and anthropology.

The study of hunter-gatherers has had a profound impact on thinking about human nature and about the nature of society. The subject has especially influenced ideas on social evolution and on the development of human culture. Anthropologists and archaeologists continue to investigate living hunter-gatherers and the remains of past hunter-gatherer societies in the hope of unearthing the secrets of our ancestors and learning something of the natural existence of humankind. Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology and Anthropology provides a definitive overview of hunter-gatherer historiography, from the earliest anthropological writings through to the present day. What can early visions of the hunter-gatherer tell us about the societies that generated them? How do diverse national traditions, such as American, Russian and Japanese, manifest themselves in hunter-gatherer research? What is the most up-to-date thinking on the subject and how does it reflect current trends within the social sciences? This book provides a much-needed overview of the history of thought on one of science's most intriguing subjects. It will serve as a landmark text for anthropologists, archaeologists and students researching anthropological theory or the history of social anthropology and related disciplines.

Hunter-gatherer research has played a historically central role in the development of anthropological and evolutionary theory. Today, research in this traditional and enduringly vital field blurs lines of distinction between archaeology and ethnology, and seeks instead to develop perspectives and theories broadly applicable to anthropology and its many sub disciplines. In the groundbreaking first edition of Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory (1991), Robert Bettinger presented an integrative perspective on hunter-gatherer research and advanced a theoretical approach compatible with both traditional anthropological and contemporary evolutionary theories. Hunter-Gatherers remains a well-respected and much-cited text, now over 20 years since initial publication. Yet, as in other vibrant fields of study, the last two decades have seen important empirical and theoretical advances. In this second edition of Hunter-Gatherers, co-authors Robert Bettinger, Raven Garvey, and Shannon Tushingham offer a revised and expanded version of the classic text, which includes a succinct and provocative critical synthesis of hunter-gatherer and evolutionary theory, from the Enlightenment to the present. New and expanded sections relate and react to recent developments—some of them the authors’ own—particularly in the realms of optimal foraging and cultural transmission theories. An exceptionally informative and ambitious volume on cultural evolutionary theory, Hunter-Gatherers, second edition, is an essential addition to the libraries of anthropologists, archaeologists, and human ecologists alike.

Hunter-gatherers are the quintessential anthropological topic. They constitute the subject matter that, in the last instance, separates anthropology from its sister social science disciplines: psychology, sociology, economics, and political science. In that central position, hunter-gatherers are the acid test to which any reasonably comprehensive anthropological theory must be applied. Several such theories-some narrow, some broad-are examined in light of the hunter gatherer case in this book. My purpose, then, is that of a review of ideas rather than of a literature. I do not-probably could not-survey all that has been written about hunter-gatherers: Many more works are ignored than considered. That is not because the ones ignored are uninteresting, but because it is my broader purpose to concentrate on certain theoretical contributions to anthro pology in which hunter-gatherers figure most prominently. The book begins with two chapters that deal with the history of anthro pological research and theory in relation to hunter-gatherers. The point is not to present a comprehensive or even-handed accounting of developments. Rather, I sketch a history of selected ideas that have determined the manner in which social scientists have viewed, and thus studied, hunter-gatherers. This lays the groundwork for subjects subsequently addressed and establishes two funda mental points. First, the social sciences have always portrayed hunter-gatherers in ways that serve their theories; in short, hunter-gatherer research has always been a theoretical enterprise. Second, these theoretical treatments have gener ally been either evolutionary or materialist-or both-in perspective.

For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities. Chapters provide in-depth archaeological, historical, and anthropological case-studies, and examine far-reaching questions about human social relations, attitudes to technology, ecology, and management of resources and the environment, as well as issues of diet, health, and gender relations—all central topics in hunter-gatherer research, but also themes that have great relevance for modern global society and its future challenges. The Handbook also provides a strategic vision for how the integration of new methods, approaches, and study regions can ensure that future research into the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers will continue to deliver penetrating insights into the factors that underlie all human diversity.

The label “hunter-gatherer” covers an extremely diverse range of societies and behaviors, yet most of what is known is provided by ethnographic and historical data that cannot be used to interpret prehistory. Foraging in the Past takes an explicitly archaeological approach to the potential of the archaeological record to document the variability and time depth of hunter-gatherers. Well-established and young scholars present new prehistoric data and describe new methods and theories to investigate ancient forager lifeways and document hunter-gatherer variability across the globe. The authors use relationships established by cross-cultural data as a background for examining the empirical patterns of prehistory. Covering underwater sites in North America, the peaks of the Andes, Asian rainforests, and beyond, chapters are data rich, methodologically sound, and theoretically nuanced, effectively exploring the latest evidence for behavioral diversity in the fundamental process of hunting and gathering. Foraging in the Past establishes how hunter-gatherers can be considered archaeologically, extending beyond the reach of ethnographers and historians to argue that only through archaeological research can the full range of hunter-gatherer variability be documented. Presenting a comprehensive and integrated approach to forager diversity in the past, the volume will be of significance to both students and scholars working with or teaching about hunter-gatherers. Contributors: Nicholas J. Conard, Raven Garvey, Keiko Kitagawa, John Krigbaum, Petra Krönneck, Steven Kuhn, Julia Lee-Thorp, Peter Mitchell, Katherine Moore, Susanne C. Münzel, Kurt Rademaker, Patrick Roberts, Britt Starkovich, Brian A. Stewart, Mary Stiner

How did warfare originate? Was it human genetics? Social competition? The rise of complexity? Intensive study of the long-term hunter-gatherer past brings us closer to an answer. The original chapters in this volume examine cultural areas on five continents where there is archaeological, ethnographic, and historical evidence for hunter-gatherer conflict despite high degrees of mobility, small populations, and relatively egalitarian social structures. Their controversial conclusions will elicit interest among anthropologists, archaeologists, and those in conflict studies.