Andrew Shryock

Daniel Lord Smail

Timothy K. Earle

This breakthrough book brings science into history to offer a dazzling new vision of humanity across time. Team-written by leading experts in a variety of fields, it maps events, cultures, and eras across millions of years to present a new scale for understanding the human body, energy and ecosystems, language, food, kinship, migration, and more.

The Architecture of Past and Present

Deep History

This book is basically about power-how people came to acquire it and the implications that contrasting paths to power had for the development of societies. Earle argues that chiefdoms, being a regional polity with governance over a population of a few thousand to tens of thousands of people, and with some social stratification, possessed the same fundamental dynamics as those of states, and that the origin of states is to be understood in the emergence and development of chiefdoms. His arguments are developed by three case studies-Denmark during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age (2300-1300) BC, the high Andes of Peru from the early chiefdoms through the Inka conquest (AD 500-1534), and Hawai'i from early settlement to its incorporation in the world economy (AD 800-1824). After summarizing the cultural history of the three societies over a thousand years, he considers the sources of chiefly power-the economy, military power and ideology-and how these sources were linked together.

The Political Economy in Prehistory

How Chiefs Come to Power

Francoise Audouze

John Disney Professor of Archaeology Cyprian Broodbank

Nathan Schlanger

Colin Renfrew

Timothy Taylor

Professor of Anthropology Norman Yoffee

Wendy Ashmore

Andrew Sherratt

Professor of Archaeology Tim Murray

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

Timothy K. Earle

Books

Your next favorite book is out there