John Disney Professor of Archaeology Cyprian Broodbank

Colin Renfrew

Timothy Taylor

Professor of Anthropology Norman Yoffee

Andrew Sherratt

Professor of Archaeology Tim Murray

Concentrating their attention on the Pacific Islands, the contributors to this book show how the tightly focused social and economic systems of islands offer archaeologists a series of unique opportunities for tracking and explaining prehistoric change. From the 1950s onwards, excavations in such islands as Fiji, Palau and Hawaii revolutionised Oceanic archaeology and, as the major problems of cultural origins and island sequences were resolves, archaeologists came increasingly to study social change and to integrate newly acquired data on material culture with older ethnographic and ethnohistorical materials. The fascinating results of this work, centring on the evolution of complex Oceanic chiefdoms into something very much like classic 'archaic states', are authoritatively surveyed here.

Archaeological Approaches to Evolution and Transformation

Island Societies

A series of case studies which combine an awareness of recent developments in hunter-gatherer theory with a commitment to the analysis and interpretation of prehistoric material.

A European Perspective

Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory

Francoise Audouze

Nathan Schlanger

Wendy Ashmore

Timothy K. Earle

Elizabeth M. Brumfiel

This book, a comparative study of specialised production in prehistoric societies, examines approaches to specialization and exchange.

Specialization, Exchange and Complex Societies

Jonathan Haas

Shelia Pozorski

Thomas Pozorski

This volume brings together research on the evolution of civilisation in the Andean region of South America from the work of sixteen leading scholars, at one time actively engaged in fieldwork in Peru. Beginning with early chiefdom societies living along the Peruvian coast 2000 years before Christ, the authors trace the growing complexity of Andean states and empires over the next 3000 years. They examine the accomplishments of the ancient Andeans in the rise of magnificent monumental architecture and the construction of unparalleled prehistoric irrigation systems. They also look at the dominant role of warfare in Andean societies and at the collapse of empires in the millennia before the arrival of the Spanish in 1534. Together, the contributors provide the first systematic study of the evolution of polities along the dry coastal plains and high mountain valleys of the Peruvian Andes.

The Origins and Development of the Andean State

Susan Kent

Farmers as hunters analyses from an essentially ethnographic perspective the role of hunters in small-scale farming societies. The twelve contributors examine the effects of hunting and mobility on behaviour, diet, economy and material culture at both culture-specific and cross-cultural levels. The influence of sedentism and the increasing use of domesticates is also explored across a wide range of societies from the American southwest and Amazonian to Africa, New Guinea and the Phillipines. Differing perceptions of the status of animals and plants are reviewed and cultural values are throughout given due weight in a field where discussion too often verges on the economically deterministic.

The Implications of Sedentism

Farmers as Hunters

Professor of Archaeology Tim Murray

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