The Archaeology Of Tribal Societies

Anthropological archaeologists have long attempted to develop models that will let them better understand the evolution of human social organization. In our search to understand how chiefdoms and states evolve, and how those societies differ from egalitarian 'bands', we have neglected to develop models that will aid the understanding of the wide range of variability that exists between them. This volume attempts to fill this gap by exploring social organization in tribal - or 'autonomous village' - societies from several different ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological contexts - from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period in the Near East to the contemporary Jivaro of Amazonia.

First Published in 2014. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 2014. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Native American societies, often viewed as unchanging, in fact experienced a rich process of cultural innovation in the millennia prior to recorded history. Societies of the Hocking River Valley in southeastern Ohio, part of the Ohio River Valley, created a tribal organization beginning about 2000 bc. Edited by Elliot M. Abrams and AnnCorinne Freter, The Emergence of the Moundbuilders: The Archaeology of Tribal Societies in Southeastern Ohio presents the process of tribal formation and change in the region based on analyses of all available archaeological data from the Hocking River Valley. Drawing on the work of scholars in archaeology, anthropology, geography, geology, and botany, the collection addresses tribal society formation through such topics as the first pottery made in the valley, aggregate feasting by nomadic groups, the social context for burying their dead in earthen mounds, the formation of religious ceremonial centers, and the earliest adoption of corn. Providing the most current research on indigenous societies in the Hocking Valley, The Emergence of the Moundbuilders is distinguished by its broad, comparative overview of tribal life.

First Published in 2014. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book provides comprehensive information on enlargement of methodological and empirical choices in a multidisciplinary perspective by breaking down the monopoly of possessing tribal studies in the confinement of conventional disciplinary boundaries. Focusing on anyone of the core themes of history, archaeology or anthropology, the chapters are suggestive of grand theories of tribal interaction over time and space within a frame of composite understanding of human civilization. With distinct cross-disciplinary analytical frames, the chapters maximize reader insights into the emerging trend of perspective shifts in tribal studies, thus mapping multi-dimensional growth of knowledge in the field and providing a road-map of empirical and theoretical understanding of tribal issues in contemporary academics. This book will be useful for researchers and scholars of anthropology, ethnohistory ethnoarchaeology and of allied subjects like sociology, social work, geography who are interested in tribal studies. Finally, the book can also prove useful to policy makers to better understand the historical context of tribal societies for whom new policies are being created and implemented.

As an archaeologist Shereen Ratnagar has been long involved in studying the enigma of early kin-organized, small-scale and non-specialized societies which lack private landed-property and are free of a money economy; societies that we call tribal. Having conducted ethno-archaeological research amongst the tribal people in eastern Gujarat, she spent a few months living with them to investigate how, in spite of their miniscule land holdings, they are able to raise cash crops, year after year. Far from being abject or 'primitive', tribal people schedule their subsistence in a rational way, which is diversified in more ways that one, and families are self-sufficient to a considerable extent. That households think years ahead, is also abundantly clear from their provisions for the storage of food. Being Tribal attempts to define tribal society, traces tribal migrations in history, and examines their modes of agricultural production, This book also comes to the conclusion that tribal culture is robust, and that Indian society owes it to the tribal population--repeatedly displaced and marginalized in the interests of the powerful--to give them full scope to live out their destinies in their own way.