Download or read book Archaeologies of Complexity written by Robert Chapman and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Chapman addresses the nature of contemporary archaeology and the study of social change, and debates the transition from perceived simple, egalitarian societies to our complex modern world.
Download or read book Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology written by Dries Daems and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology turns to complex systems thinking in search of a suitable framework to explore social complexity in Archaeology. Social complexity in archaeology is commonly related to properties of complex societies such as states, as opposed to so-called simple societies such as tribes or chiefdoms. These conceptualisations of complexity are ultimately rooted in Eurocentric perspectives with problematic implications for the field of archaeology. This book provides an in-depth conceptualisation of social complexity as the core concept in archaeological and interdisciplinary studies of the past, integrating approaches from complex systems thinking, archaeological theory, social practice theory, and sustainability and resilience science. The book covers a long-term perspective of social change and stability, tracing the full cycle of complexity trajectories, from emergence and development to collapse, regeneration and transformation of communities and societies. It offers a broad vision on social complexity as a core concept for the present and future development of archaeology. This book is intended to be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the field of archaeology and related disciplines such as history, anthropology, sociology, as well as the natural sciences studying human-environment interactions in the past.
Download or read book Agent Based Modeling for Archaeology written by Iza Romanowska and published by SFI Press. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To fully understand not only the past, but also the trajectories, of human societies, we need a more dynamic view of human social systems. Agent-based modeling (ABM), which can create fine-scale models of behavior over time and space, may reveal important, general patterns of human activity. Agent-Based Modeling for Archaeology is the first ABM textbook designed for researchers studying the human past. Appropriate for scholars from archaeology, the digital humanities, and other social sciences, this book offers novices and more experienced ABM researchers a modular approach to learning ABM and using it effectively. Readers will find the necessary background, discussion of modeling techniques and traps, references, and algorithms to use ABM in their own work. They will also find engaging examples of how other scholars have applied ABM, ranging from the study of the intercontinental migration pathways of early hominins, to the weather–crop–population cycles of the American Southwest, to the trade networks of Ancient Rome. This textbook provides the foundations needed to simulate the complexity of past human societies, offering researchers a richer understanding of the past—and likely future—of our species.
Download or read book Connections and Complexity written by Shinu Anna Abraham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compilation of original research articles highlight the important cross-regional, cross-chronological, and comparative approaches to political and economic landscapes in ancient South Asia and its neighbors. Focusing on the Indus Valley period and Iron Age India, this volume incorporates new research in South Asia within the broader universe of archaeological scholarship. Contributions focus on four major themes: reinterpreting material culture; identifying domains and regional boundaries; articulating complexity; and modeling interregional interaction. These studies develop theoretical models that may be applicable researchers studying cultural complexity elsewhere in the world.
Download or read book The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies written by Michael E. Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-05 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of a resurgence in the comparative study of ancient societies, this book presents a variety of methods and approaches to comparative analysis through the examination of wide-ranging case studies. Each chapter is a comparative study, and the diverse topics and regions covered in the book contribute to the growing understanding of variation and change in ancient complex societies. The authors explore themes ranging from urbanization and settlement patterns, to the political strategies of kings and chiefs, to the economic choices of individuals and households. The case studies cover an array of geographical settings, from the Andes to Southeast Asia. The authors are leading archaeologists whose research on early empires, states, and chiefdoms is at the cutting edge of scientific archaeology.
Download or read book Complex Communities written by Benjamin W. Porter and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: the persistence of community -- Communal complexity on the margins -- Measuring social complexity in the early iron age -- Producing community -- Managing community -- Conclusion: the complex community.
Download or read book The Archaeology of the Upper Amazon written by Ryan Clasby and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together archaeologists working in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia to construct a new prehistory of the Upper Amazon, outlining cultural developments from the late third millennium B.C. to the Inca Empire of the sixteenth century A.D. Encompassing the forested tropical slopes of the eastern Andes as well as Andean drainage systems that connect to the Amazon River basin, this vast region has been unevenly studied due to the restrictions of national borders, remote site locations, and limited interpretive models. The Archaeology of the Upper Amazon unites and builds on recent field investigations that have found evidence of extensive interaction networks along the major rivers—Santiago, Marañon, Huallaga, and Ucayali. Chapters detail how these rivers facilitated the movement of people, resources, and ideas between the Andean highlands and the Amazonian lowlands. Contributors demonstrate that the Upper Amazon was not a peripheral zone but a locus for complex societal developments. Reaching across geographical, cultural, and political boundaries, this volume shows that the trajectory of Andean civilization cannot be fully understood without a nuanced perspective on the region’s diverse patterns of interaction with the Upper Amazon. Contributors: Ryan Hechler | Kenneth R. Young | J. Scott Raymond | Warren Deboer | Inge Schjellerup | Charles Hastings | Atsushi Yamamoto | Bebel Ibarra Asencios | Francisco Valdez | Jason Nesbitt | Warren B. Church | Sonia Alconini | Rachel Johnson | Ryan Clasby | Estanislao Pazmino
Download or read book The Collapse of Complex Societies written by Joseph Tainter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.
Download or read book Alternative Pathways to Complexity written by Lane F. Fargher and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alternative Pathways to Complexity focuses on the themes of architecture, economics, and power in the evolution of complex societies. Case studies from Mesoamerica, Asia, Africa, and Europe examine the relationship between political structures and economic configurations of ancient chiefdoms and states through a framework of comparative archaeology. A group of highly distinguished scholars takes up important issues, theories, and methods stemming from the nascent body of research on comparative archaeology to showcase and apply important theories of households, power, and how the development of complex societies can be extended and refined. Drawing on the archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic records, the chapters in this volume contain critical investigations on the role of collective action, economics, and corporate cognitive codes in structuring complex societies. Alternative Pathways to Complexity is an important addition to theoretical development and empirical research on Mesoamerica, the Old World, and cross-cultural studies. The theoretical implications addressed in the chapters will have broad appeal for scholars grappling with alternative pathways to complexity in other regions as well as those addressing diverse cross-cultural research. Contributors: Sarah B. Barber, Cynthia L. Bedell, Christopher S. Beekman, Frances F. Berdan, Tim Earle, Carol R. Ember, Gary M. Feinman, Arthur A. Joyce, Stephen A. Kowalewski, Lisa J. LeCount, Linda M. Nicholas, Peter N. Peregrine, Peter Robertshaw, Barbara L. Stark, T. L. Thurston, Deborah Winslow, Rita Wright
Download or read book Archaic Societies written by Thomas E. Emerson and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 895 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essential overview of American Indian societies during the Archaic period across central North America.
Download or read book Complex Systems and Archaeology written by R. Alexander Bentley and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity science transects many fields ranging from physics to economics to biology. Its focus is the study of systems of interacting factors, which has lately been extended to include behavior in human societies. In prehistoric societies, whether these agents are defined at the scale of individuals, groups, households, or villages all agents are connected in such a way that change in the actions of one affects many others. Complex Systems and Archaeology presents a useful introduction to complexity theory followed by a series of case studies in which human societies and environments are viewed as open systems into and out of which matter or energy can flow. Examples of such systems include the introduction of new crops, the creation of new artifacts, or the flux of products in a market. This volume will have important implications for how archaeologists understand the dynamics of culture change and how they think about chronological stages, unique events, and the role of human agents.
Download or read book Diversity and Complexity in Prehistoric Maritime Societies written by Bruce J. Bourque and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New England archaeology has not always been everyone's cup of tea; only late in the Golden of nineteenth-century archaeology, as archaeology's focus turned westward, did a few pioneers look northward as well, causing a brief flurry of investigation and excavation. Between 1892 and 1894, Charles C. Willoughby did some exemplary excavations at three small burial sites in Bucksport, Orland, and Ellsworth, Maine, and made some models of that activity for exhibition at the Chicago World's Fair. These activities were encouraged by E Putnam, director of the Harvard Peabody Museum and head of anthropology at the "Columbian" Exposition. Even earlier, another director of the Peabody, Jeffries Wyman, spawned some real interest in the shellheaps of the Maine coast, but that did not last very long. Twentieth-century New England archaeology, specifically in Maine, was--for its first fifty years--rather low key too, with short-lived but important activity by Arlo and Oric (a Bates Harvard student) prior to World War Later, I. another Massachusetts institution, the Peabody Foundation at Andover, took some minor but responsible steps toward further understanding of the area's prehistoric past.
Download or read book The Power of Ritual in Prehistory written by Brian Hayden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-13 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secret societies in tribal societies turn out to be key to understanding the origins of social inequalities and state religions.
Download or read book Socialising Complexity written by Sheila Kohring and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Socialising Complexity introduces the concept of complexity as a tool, rather than a category, for understanding social formations. This new take on complexity moves beyond the traditional concern with what constitutes a complex society and focuses on the complexity inherent in various social forms through the structuring principles created within each society. The aims and themes of the book can thus be summarized as follows: to introduce the idea of complexity as a tool, which is pertinent to the understanding of all types of society, rather than an exclusionary type of society in its own right; to examine concepts that can enhance our interpretation of societal complexity, such as heterarchy, materialization and contextualization. These concepts are applied at different scales and in different ways, illustrating their utility in a variety of different cases; to reestablish social structure as a topic of study within archaeology, which can be profitably studied by proponents of both processual and post-processual methodologies.
Download or read book Regional Pathways to Complexity written by P. A. J. Attema and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deze bundel is een mijlpaal in het onderzoek naar de Oude Middellandse Zee. Met behulp van een vergelijkende aanpak, zijn drie verschillende regionale landschappen van Italièe uitvoerig onderzocht door archeologen. Om een zeer gedetailleerd beeld te krijgen van de ontwikkeling van menselijke activiteiten van de late Bronstijd tot de opkomst van het Romeinse Rijk, is er minutieus onderzoek gedaan naar nederzettingen, heiligdommen en begraafplaatsen. De milieugeschiedenis van deze gebieden en de geschiedenis van het door mensen gebruikte land zijn parallel geanalyseerd door gespecialiseerde projecten. Wat ontstaat, is een ongeèevenaarde reeks van inzichten in hoe regionale samenlevingen zich intern ontwikkelen en reageren op externe interventies zoals het kolonialisme, imperialisme en internationale handel.
Download or read book Beyond Collapse written by Ronald K. Faulseit and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book interprets how ancient civilizations responded to various stresses, including environmental change, warfare, and the fragmentation of political institutions. It focuses on what happened during and after the decline of once powerful regimes, and posits that they experienced social resilience and transformation instead of collapse.
Download or read book Entangled written by Ian Hodder and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful and innovative argument that explores the complexity of the human relationship with material things, demonstrating how humans and societies are entrapped into the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds Argues that the interrelationship of humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture Offers a nuanced argument that values the physical processes of things without succumbing to materialism Discusses historical and modern examples, using evolutionary theory to show how long-standing entanglements are irreversible and increase in scale and complexity over time Integrates aspects of a diverse array of contemporary theories in archaeology and related natural and biological sciences Provides a critical review of many of the key contemporary perspectives from materiality, material culture studies and phenomenology to evolutionary theory, behavioral archaeology, cognitive archaeology, human behavioral ecology, Actor Network Theory and complexity theory
