California Prehistory

California Prehistory
Author: Terry L. Jones
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780759108721

Reader of original synthesizing articles for introductory courses on archaeology and native peoples of California.

The Way the Wind Blows

The Way the Wind Blows
Author: Roderick J. McIntosh
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2012-07-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0231528809

-- Robert W. Harms, Yale University

Orderly Anarchy

Orderly Anarchy
Author: Robert L. Bettinger
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2015-01-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520959191

Orderly Anarchy delivers a provocative and innovative reexamination of sociopolitical evolution among Native American groups in California, a region known for its wealth of prehistoric languages, populations, and cultural adaptations. Scholars have tended to emphasize the development of social complexity and inequality to explain this diversity. Robert L. Bettinger argues instead that "orderly anarchy," the emergence of small, autonomous groups, provided a crucial strategy in social organization. Drawing on ethnographic and archaeological data and evolutionary, economic, and anthropological theory, he shows that these small groups devised diverse solutions to environmental, technological, and social obstacles to the intensified use of resources. This book revises our understanding of how California became the most densely populated landscape in aboriginal North America.

Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis

Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis
Author: Michael Glassow
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2012-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1938770536

How does the practice of archaeology benefit from faunal analysis? Michael Glassow and Terry Joslin's Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis: Insights from California Archaeology addresses this question. Contributors to this volume demonstrate how faunal remains can be used to elucidate subsistence, settlement, technological systems, economic exchange, social organization, adaptation to variability in resource distribution and abundance, and the impacts of historic land use. The sheer prevalence of faunal remains in California archaeological sites means that most archaeologists working in the state inevitably must give these resources their close attention-and yet methodological challenges remain. The chapters in this thoughtfully edited volume tackle these challenges, providing strategies for identifying and mitigating sample bias and recommending quantitative techniques borrowed from a variety of disciplines. The volume also presents examples that illustrate the use of faunal data to test hypotheses derived from microeconomic theory, the applicability of bone and shell chemistry to faunal analysis, and the relevance of faunal data to addressing issues in biology.

Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Southwestern United States

Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Southwestern United States
Author: Noel D. Justice
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2002-05-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780253108821

The American Southwest is the focus for this volume in Noel Justice's series of reference works that survey, describe, and categorize the projectile point and cutting tools used in prehistory by Native American peoples. Written for archaeologists and amateur collectors alike, the book describes over 50 types of stone arrowhead and spear points according to period, culture, and region. With the knowledge of someone trained to fashion projectile points with techniques used by the Indians, Justice describes how the points were made, used, and re-sharpened. His detailed drawings illustrate the way the Indians shaped their tools, what styles were peculiar to which regions, and how the various types can best be identified. There are hundreds of drawings, organized by type cluster and other identifying characteristics. The book also includes distribution maps and color plates that will further aid the researcher or collector in identifying specific periods, cultures, and projectile types.