Emergent Complexity: The Evolution of Intermediate Societies

by Jeanne E. Arnold

Overview

Serious interest in the evolution and dynamics of intermediate societies has grown by leaps and bounds during the past decade. The purpose of this volume is to suggest new ways to model the many stimuli and processes by which cultural complexity emerges, emphasizing major organizational changes, not the appearance and disappearance of specific traits. All contributors share the view that it is time to fundamentally reconsider a variety of ideas about the emergence of complex organization. Their chapters present data from a broad range of case studies, including the Northwest Coast and British Columbia Plateau, California, the Plains, the Mississippian Southeast, the American Southwest, Spain, and Northern Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781879621213
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	03/01/1996
Series:	International Monographs in Prehistory: Archaeological Series , #9
Pages:	126
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jeanne E. Arnold is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published extensively on the history of the American Pacific Coast, focusing on Native American community and household organization, specialized labor and occupations, and the emergence of hierarchical socioeconomic and political relationships in traditional societies.

Table of Contents

Contents: Jeanne E. Arnold, Understanding the Evolution of Intermediate Societies; John M. O’Shea and Alex W. Barker, Measuring Social Complexity and Variation: A Categorical Imperative?; Robert D. Drennan, One for All and All for One: Accounting for Variability without Losing Sight of Regularities in the Development of Complex Society; Robert W. Chapman, Problems of Scale in the Emergence of Complexity; Brian Hayden, Thresholds of Power in Emergent Complex Societies; Jeanne E. Arnold, Organizational Transformations: Power and Labor among Complex Hunter-Gatherers and Other Intermediate Societies; Gary Coupland, This Old House: Cultural Complexity and Household Stability on the Northern Northwest Coast of North America; Winifred Creamer, Developing Complexity in the American Southwest: Constructing a Model for the Rio Grande Valley; James N. Hill, W. Nicholas Trierweiler and Robert W. Preucel, The Evolution of Cultural Complexity: A Case from the Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico

Editorial Reviews

…a rousing and comprehensive exploration of key issues in the origins of social complexity.

Elizabeth S. Chilton