Craft Production in Complex Societies

Craft Production in Complex Societies
Author: Izumi Shimada
Publisher: Foundations of Archaeological
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2007
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780874809022

A work that redresses the skewed conception and approach to craft production focused on separate, single medium crafts, and expresses a need for a balanced evaluation of the roles of producer and consumer, and the importance of properly contextualized workshop excavations.

Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China

Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China
Author: Anne P. Underhill
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1461506417

This book offers an anthropological analysis of how craft production changed in relation to the development of complex societies in northern China. It focuses on the production and use of food containers-pottery and bronze vessels-during the late prehistoric and early historic periods. A major theme is how production and use of prestige vessels changed in relation to increase in degree of social inequality. The research and writing of this book took place intermittently over a period of several years. When I first outlined the book in 1994, I planned to offer a more limited and descriptive account of social change during the late prehistoric period. In considering the human desire to display status with prestige goods, my initial approach emphasized how the case of northern China was similar to other areas of the world. I began to realize that in order to adequately explain how and why craft production changed in ancient China, it was crucial to consider the belief systems that motivated produc tion and use of food containers. Similarly, a striking characteristic of ancient China that I needed to include in the analysis was the preponderance of food containers, rather than other goods, that were buried with the deceased. I decided to investigate the social and ritual uses of food, bever ages, and containers during more than one period of Chinese history. Some strong patterns could have emerged during the late prehistoric period.

The Political Economy of Craft Production

The Political Economy of Craft Production
Author: Carla M. Sinopoli
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2003-10-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781139440745

The study of specialized craft production has a long tradition in archaeological research. Through analyses of material remains and the contexts of their production and use, archaeologists can examine the organization of craft production and the economic and political status of craft producers. This study combines archaeological and historical evidence from the author's twenty years of fieldwork at the imperial capital of Vijayanagara to explore the role and significance of craft production in the city's political economy of the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. By examining a diverse range of crafts from poetry to pottery, Sinopoli evaluates models of craft production and expands upon theoretical and historical understandings of empires in general and Vijayanagara in particular. It is the most broad-ranging study of craft production in South Asia, or in any other early state empire.

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology
Author: Deborah L. Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 996
Release: 2012-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195390938

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies—from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations—and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.

Ancient Complex Societies

Ancient Complex Societies
Author: Jennifer C. Ross
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 585
Release: 2017-01-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315305615

Ancient Complex Societies examines the archaeological evidence for the rise and functioning of politically and socially “complex” cultures in antiquity. Particular focus is given to civilizations exhibiting positions of leadership, social and administrative hierarchies, emerging and already developed complex religious systems, and economic differentiation. Case studies are drawn from around the globe, including Asia, the Mediterranean region, and the American continents. Using case studies from Africa, Polynesia, and North America, discussion is dedicated to identifying what “complex” means and when it should be applied to ancient systems. Each chapter attempts to not only explore the sociopolitical and economic elements of ancient civilizations, but to also present an overview of what life was like for the later population within each system, sometimes drilling down to individual people living their daily lives. Throughout the chapters, the authors address problems with the idea of complexity, the incomparability of cultures, and the inconsistency of archaeological and historical evidence in reconstructing ancient cultures.

Craft Specialization and Social Evolution

Craft Specialization and Social Evolution
Author: Bernard Wailes
Publisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1996-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780924171437

V. Gordon Childe was the first scholar to attempt a broad and sustained socioeconomic analysis of the archaeology of the ancient world in terms that, today, could be called explanatory. To most, he was remembered only as a diligent synthesizer whose whole interpretation collapsed when its chronology was demolished. There was little recognition of his insistence that the emergence of craft specialists, and their very variable roles in the relations of production, were crucial to an understanding of social evolution. The interrelationship between sociopolitical complexity and craft production is a critical one, so critical that one might ask, just how complex would any society have become without craft specialization. This volume derives from the papers presented at a symposium at the American Anthropological Association meetings on the centenary of Childe's birth. Contributors to the volume include David W. Anthony, Philip J. Arnold III, Bennet Bronson, Robert Chapman, John E. Clark, Cathy L. Costin, Pam J. Crabtree, Philip L. Kohl, D. Blair Gibson, Antonio Gilman, Vincent C. Piggott, Jeremy A. Sabloff, Gil J. Stein, Ruth Tringham, Anne P. Underhill, Bernard Wailes, Peter S. Wells, Joyce C. White, Rita P. Wright, and Richard L. Zettler. Symposium Series Volume VI University Museum Monograph, 93

Archaeology at the Millennium

Archaeology at the Millennium
Author: Gary M. Feinman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2007-09-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 0387726101

In this book, internationally distinguished contributors consider hot topics in turn-of-the-millennium archaeology and chart an ambitious agenda for the future.

The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies

The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies
Author: Michael E. Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2011-09-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1139502034

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.

Approaches to the Analysis of Production Activity at Archaeological Sites

Approaches to the Analysis of Production Activity at Archaeological Sites
Author: Anna K. Hodgkinson
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2020-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789695589

Proceedings of a workshop held in Berlin, 2018, focusing on manufacturing activities identified at archaeological sites. New excavation techniques, ethnographic research, archaeometric approaches, GIS, experimental archaeology, and theoretical issues associated with how researchers understand production in the past, are presented here.

Rethinking Craft Specialization in Complex Societies

Rethinking Craft Specialization in Complex Societies
Author: Zachary X. Hruby
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2007
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

The contributions to this volume are introduced via a critical review of terms and concepts used in craft production studies today. Recent detailed contextual and technological analyses of artifacts from all aspects of complex societies have revealed interesting patterns that are difficult to conceptualize using a purely economic framework. Furthermore, interest in practice theory, and sociocultural theory in general, has shifted some foci of archaeological investigation toward the social aspects of production and specialization.