Archaeology on the Threshold: Studies in the Processes of Change - Hardcover

Joseph D. Wardle (editor); Robert K. Hitchcock (editor)

 
9780813069531: Archaeology on the Threshold: Studies in the Processes of Change
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 081306953X ISBN 13: 9780813069531
Publisher: University Press of Florida, 2022

Synopsis

New perspectives on transitions in human history

This book is about transitional periods of cultural and environmental change as seen through the lenses of archaeology and ethnography. Incorporating data from across six continents and tracing the human experience from the Late Pleistocene to the present, this book offers a global comparative perspective on transitional states.

Questions of causality are considered, as are hypotheses about the processes of cultural change.

Archaeology on the Threshold focuses on major transitions such as the shift from foraging to agriculture, the adoption of new technologies, the emergence of large-scale societies, the transition from egalitarian to inegalitarian leadership, and changes that occur in socioeconomic and ideological systems as a result of climate change and disease. Theoretical approaches range from processual to postprocessual, humanistic, and interpretive. Methodologies include ethnoarchaeology, the use of ethnographic analogy, crosscultural comparisons and large-scale data approaches, oral history, the historical record, participant observation, and focus group discussions.

Challenging archaeologists to query long-held assumptions and theoretical positions, this volume aims to refocus inquiry into change-causing and larger evolutionary processes to problematize notions of revolutionary, irrevocable change.

These case studies examine and shed light on assumptions regarding the linearity and oscillations of adaptations, with intriguing implications for archaeological inferences.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Joseph D. Wardle is a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan.

Robert K. Hitchcock is professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico.

Matthew Schmader is adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico.

Pei-Lin Yu is an archaeologist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and affiliate professor of anthropology at Boise State University.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
University Press of Florida
Publication date
2022
Language
English
ISBN 10 
081306953X
ISBN 13 
9780813069531
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
277