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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.
As an archaeologist with primary research and training experience
in North American arid lands, I have always found the European
Stone Age remote and impenetrable. My initial introduction, during
a survey course on world prehis tory, established that (for me, at
least) it consisted of more cultures, dates, and named tool types
than any undergraduate ought to have to remember. I did not know
much, but I knew there were better things I could be doing on a
Saturday night. In any event, after that I never seriously
entertained any notion of pur suing research on Stone Age
Europe-that course was enough for me. That's a pity, too, because
Paleolithic Europe-especially in the late Pleistocene and early
Holocene-was the scene of revolutionary human adaptive change. Iron
ically, all of it was amenable to investigation using precisely the
same models and analytical tools I ended up spending the better
part of two decades applying in the Great Basin of western North
America. Back then, of course, few were thinking about the late
Paleolithic or Me solithic in such terms. Typology, classification,
and chronology were the order of the day, as the text for my
undergraduate course reflected. Jochim evidently bridled less than
I at the task of mastering these chronotaxonomic mysteries, yet he
was keenly aware of their limitations-in particular, their silence
on how individual assemblages might be connected as part of larger
regional subsis tence-settlement systems."
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.
Orderly Anarchy delivers a provocative and innovative reexamination
of sociopolitical evolution among Native American groups in
California, a region known for its wealth of prehistoric languages,
populations, and cultural adaptations. Scholars have tended to
emphasize the development of social complexity and inequality to
explain this diversity. Robert L. Bettinger argues instead that
"orderly anarchy," the emergence of small, autonomous groups,
provided a crucial strategy in social organization. Drawing on
ethnographic and archaeological data and evolutionary, economic,
and anthropological theory, he shows that these small groups
devised diverse solutions to environmental, technological, and
social obstacles to the intensified use of resources. This book
revises our understanding of how California became the most densely
populated landscape in aboriginal North America.
The introduction of plant and animal agriculture represents one of
the most important milestones in human evolution. It contributed to
the development of cities, alphabets, new technologies, and
ultimately to civilizations, but it has also presented a threat to
both human health and the environment. Bringing together research
from a range of fields including anthropology, archaeology,
ecology, economics, entomology, ethnobiology, genetics and
geography, this book addresses key questions relating to
agriculture. Why did agriculture develop and where did it
originate? What are the patterns of domestication for plants and
animals? How did agroecosystems originate and spread from their
locations of origin? Exploring the cultural aspects of the
development of agricultural ecosystems, the book also highlights
how these topics can be applied to our understanding of
contemporary agriculture, its long-term sustainability, the
co-existence of agriculture and the environment, and the
development of new crops and varieties.
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