| The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific 2003 Edition Contributor(s): Fitzhugh, Ben (Author) |
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ISBN: 030647753X ISBN-13: 9780306477539 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $161.49 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 2003 Annotation: Complex hunter-gatherers have captivated anthropological and archaeological interest in the past two decades. Where it was once commonplace to view hunting and gathering as little more than a starting point for social evolution, today 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. This book 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 seven thousand 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. This 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. As such, it provides readers with an intimate look at archaeological evidence integrated into a problem-oriented study of emergent complexhunter-gatherers. It will be of interest to professional archaeologists, anthropologists, students of archaeology and anthropology, and general readers interested in social evolution, complex hunter-gatherers, and/or Alaskan prehistory. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - General - Social Science | Archaeology - Social Science | Anthropology - General |
| Dewey: 979.84 |
| LCCN: 2003051330 |
| Series: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology |
| Physical Information: 1.07" H x 6.28" W x 9.24" (1.60 lbs) 332 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In 1987, I had the good fortune to join in the excavation of a phenomenal archae- ological site on the western coast of Kodiak Island, in Alaska. The New Karluk site (a. k. a., "Karluk One") was perched on the edge of the small village of Karluk at the mouth of the river of the same name, once one of the most productive salmon rivers in the North Pacific. I had just completed my sophomore year of college, and under the direction of Richard Jordan, I enthusiastically joined sev- eral other students in the Kodiak Archaeology Projects New Karluk excavation. I had participated in my father's archaeological research in Eastern Canada since early childhood, but the Karluk dig was unlike any archaeology I had experienced before. For three months, we peeled back layers of grass, wood, and earth floors separated by remnants of ancient sod roofs. Due to the unusual preservation and richness of the site, at every tum we uncovered perishable items such as bent-wood bowls, masks, dolls, puffin-beak rattles, grass baskets, fragments of fiber netting, locks of hair, and food waste. Preservation was so excellent, in fact, that we often exposed grass blades still green after hundreds of years, which once exposed to air would tum brown before our eyes. |