Archaeology, as with all of the social sciences, has always been characterized by competing theoretical propositions based on diverse bodies of locally acquired data. In order to fulfill local, regional expectations, different goals have been assigned to the practitioners of Archaeology in different regions. These goals might be entrenched in local politics, or social expectations behind cultural heritage research.

This comprehensive book explores regional archaeologies from a sociological perspective-to identify and explain regional differences in archaeological practice, as well as their existing similarities. This work covers not only the currently-dominant Anglo-American archaeological paradigm, but also Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, all of which have developed their own unique archaeological traditions. The contributions in this work cover these "alternative archaeologies," in the context of their own geographical, political, and socio-economic settings, as well as the context of the currently accepted mainstream approaches.

This book contributes to better recognition and comprehension of the interconnection between archaeology and political pressure, especially imposed by the totalitarian communist regimes. It explains why, under such political conditions, some archaeological reasoning and practices were resilient, while new ideas leisurely penetrated the local scenes. It attempts to critically evaluate the political context and its impact on archaeology during the communist era world wide and contributes to better perception of the relationship between science and politics in general. This book analyzes the pressures inflicted on archaeologists by the overwhelmingly potent political environment, which stimulates archaeological thought and controls the conditions for professional engagement. Included are discussions about the perception of archaeology and its findings by the public.

Communal-level resource management successes and failures comprise complex interactions that involve local, regional, and (increasingly) global scale political, economic, and environmental changes, shown to have recurring patterns and trajectories. The human past provides examples of long-term millennial and century-scale successes followed by undesired transitions ("collapse"), and rapid failure of collaborative management cooperation on the decadal scale. Management of scarce resources and common properties presents a critical challenge for planners attempting to avoid the "tragedy of the commons" in this century. Here, anthropologists, human ecologists, archaeologists, and environmental scientists discuss strategies for social well-being in the context of diminishing resources and increasing competition. The contributors in this volume revisit "tragedy of the commons" (also referred to as "drama" or "comedy" of the commons) and examine new data and theories to mitigate pressures and devise models for sustainable communal welfare and development. They present twelve archaeological, historic, and ethnographic cases of user-managed resources to demonstrate that very basic community-level participatory governance can be a successful strategy to manage short-term risk and benefits. The book connects past-present-future by presenting geographically and chronologically spaced out examples of communal-level governance strategies, and overviews of the current cutting-edge research. The lesson we learn from studying past responses to various ecological stresses is that we must not wait for a disaster to happen to react, but must react to mitigate conditions for emerging disasters.

Up until now, mountain ecosystems have not been closely studies by social scientists as they do not offer a readily defined set of problems for human exploitation as, do for instance, tropical forests or arctic habitats. But the archaeological evidence had shown that humans have been living in this type of habitat for thousands of year. From this evidence we can also see that mountainous regions are often frontier zones of competing polities and form refuge areas for dissident communities as they often are inherently difficult to control by centralized authorities. As a consequence they fuel or contribute disproportionately to political violence. But we are now witnessing changes and increasing vulnerability of mountain ecosystems caused by human activities. Human adaptability to mountain ecosystems. This volume presents an international and interdisciplinary account of the exploitation of - and human adaptation to - mountainous regions over time. The contributions discuss human cultural responses to key physical and cultural stressors associated with mountain ecosystems, such as aridity, quality of soils, steep slopes, low productivity, as well as transient phenomena such as changing weather patterns, deforestation and erosion, and the possible effects of climate change. This volume will be of interest to anthropologists, ecologists and geologists as mountainous landscapes change fast and cultures disappear and they need to be recorded, and mountain regions are of interest for studies on environmental change and cultural responses of mountain populations provide clues for us all. Critical to understanding mountain adaptations is our comprehension of human decision-making and how people view short- and long-term outcomes.

There is a growing realization that human intent and activity are not easily separated from natural forces in the shaping of landscapes. The pervasive Western dichotomy of culture and nature has proved to be a poor basis for scientific research and long-term environmental management. Humans have been major factors in environmental change for thousands of years using fire, intensive hunting and a wide range of agricultural strategies to transform most ecosystems on the earth long before the Industrial Revolution. All these activites contribute to the making of cultural landscapes which incorporate elements generally classified in two groups: tangible empirical evidence of human behavior, and intangible, symbolic meanings.

This book investigates the newly emerging scope of interests and project agendas to investigate and preserve cultural landscapes. It presents the historic, archaeological, ethnographic, and environmental traditions of cultural landscape study and the attempts to reconstruct and analyze the complex processes of cultural changes through prehistoric and historic times.

The "guiding light" of the book is that the fullest understanding of a cultural landscape will materialize through interdisciplinary cooperation, which should involve an ecological approach with historical ecology as the guiding tool, applied archaeology, and environmental planning. The book addresses issues of interest to policymakers-makers and planners and those who investigate cultural landscapes.

This book contributes to better recognition and comprehension of the interconnection between archaeology and political pressure, especially imposed by the totalitarian communist regimes. It explains why, under such political conditions, some archaeological reasoning and practices were resilient, while new ideas leisurely penetrated the local scenes. It attempts to critically evaluate the political context and its impact on archaeology during the communist era world wide and contributes to better perception of the relationship between science and politics in general. This book analyzes the pressures inflicted on archaeologists by the overwhelmingly potent political environment, which stimulates archaeological thought and controls the conditions for professional engagement. Included are discussions about the perception of archaeology and its findings by the public.

Archaeology, as with all of the social sciences, has always been characterized by competing theoretical propositions based on diverse bodies of locally acquired data. In order to fulfill local, regional expectations, different goals have been assigned to the practitioners of Archaeology in different regions. These goals might be entrenched in local politics, or social expectations behind cultural heritage research. This comprehensive book explores regional archaeologies from a sociological perspective-to identify and explain regional differences in archaeological practice, as well as their existing similarities. This work covers not only the currently-dominant Anglo-American archaeological paradigm, but also Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, all of which have developed their own unique archaeological traditions. The contributions in this work cover these "alternative archaeologies," in the context of their own geographical, political, and socio-economic settings, as well as the context of the currently accepted mainstream approaches.

Up until now, mountain ecosystems have not been closely studies by social scientists as they do not offer a readily defined set of problems for human exploitation as, do for instance, tropical forests or arctic habitats. But the archaeological evidence had shown that humans have been living in this type of habitat for thousands of year. From this evidence we can also see that mountainous regions are often frontier zones of competing polities and form refuge areas for dissident communities as they often are inherently difficult to control by centralized authorities. As a consequence they fuel or contribute disproportionately to political violence. But we are now witnessing changes and increasing vulnerability of mountain ecosystems caused by human activities. Human adaptability to mountain ecosystems This volume presents an international and interdisciplinary account of the exploitation of--and human adaptation to--mountainous regions over time. The contributions discuss human cultural responses to key physical and cultural stressors associated with mountain ecosystems, such as aridity, quality of soils, steep slopes, low productivity, as well as transient phenomena such as changing weather patterns, deforestation and erosion, and the possible effects of climate change. This volume will be of interest to anthropologists, ecologists and geologists as mountainous landscapes change fast and cultures disappear and they need to be recorded, and mountain regions are of interest for studies on environmental change and cultural responses of mountain populations provide clues for us all. Critical to understanding mountain adaptations is our comprehension of human decision-making and how people view short- and long-term outcomes.

This volume offers a new perspective on social dynamics and culture change in the North Central European Plains (NCEP) from 600 to 900 CE. It discusses long-term causal processes leading to the formation of state at the fringes of the Merovingian and Frankish Kingdoms, the Carolingian and the Holy Roman Empire, the Scandinavian Kingdoms, the Czech Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Rus. The central problem addressed is how to account for and explain the transition from noncomplex to supra-tribal polities between 600 and 900 CE. The examined evidence shows that a very basic community-level management of common pool resources seems a successful strategy to manage short term risk and may lead to sustainable higher level political organization. In conclusion it present a models of social dynamics of the NCEP, 600-900 CE that suggests that the state formation process was an outcome of spontaneous processes and deterministic factors occurring within a period of approximately 400 years, of which the last two hundred years (800-900 CE) were the most critical. In a broader context, the point discussed is that decisions with short-term goals have long-term consequences.

Communal-level resource management successes and failures comprise complex interactions that involve local, regional, and (increasingly) global scale political, economic, and environmental changes, shown to have recurring patterns and trajectories. The human past provides examples of long-term millennial and century-scale successes followed by undesired transitions ("collapse"), and rapid failure of collaborative management cooperation on the decadal scale. Management of scarce resources and common properties presents a critical challenge for planners attempting to avoid the "tragedy of the commons" in this century. Here, anthropologists, human ecologists, archaeologists, and environmental scientists discuss strategies for social well-being in the context of diminishing resources and increasing competition. The contributors in this volume revisit "tragedy of the commons" (also referred to as "drama" or "comedy" of the commons) and examine new data and theories to mitigate pressures and devise models for sustainable communal welfare and development. They present twelve archaeological, historic, and ethnographic cases of user-managed resources to demonstrate that very basic community-level participatory governance can be a successful strategy to manage short-term risk and benefits. The book connects past-present-future by presenting geographically and chronologically spaced out examples of communal-level governance strategies, and overviews of the current cutting-edge research. The lesson we learn from studying past responses to various ecological stresses is that we must not wait for a disaster to happen to react, but must react to mitigate conditions for emerging disasters.

There is a growing realization that human intent and activity are not easily separated from natural forces in the shaping of landscapes. The pervasive Western dichotomy of culture and nature has proved to be a poor basis for scientific research and long-term environmental management. Humans have been major factors in environmental change for thousands of years using fire, intensive hunting and a wide range of agricultural strategies to transform most ecosystems on the earth long before the Industrial Revolution.All these activities contribute to the making of cultural landscapes which incorporate elements generally classified in two groups: tangible empirical evidence of human behavior, and intangible, symbolic meanings. This book investigates the newly emerging scope of interests and project agendas to investigate and preserve cultural landscapes. It presents the historic, archaeological, ethnographic, and environmental traditions of cultural landscape study and the attempts to reconstruct and analyze the complex processes of cultural changes through prehistoric and historic times. The 'guiding light' of the book is that the fullest understanding of a cultural landscape will materialize through interdisciplinary cooperation, which should involve an ecological approach with historical ecology as the guiding tool, applied archaeology, and environmental planning.The book addresses issues of interest to policymakers-makers and planners and those who investigate cultural landscapes.