Archaeology on the Threshold

New perspectives on transitions in human

history



This

book is about transitional periods of cultural and environmental change as seen

through the lenses of archaeology and ethnography. Incorporating data from

across six continents and tracing the human experience from the Late

Pleistocene to the present, these chapters offer a global comparative perspective

on transitional states. Questions

of causality are considered, as are hypotheses about the processes of cultural

change.



Archaeology on the

Threshold

focuses on major transitions such as the shift from foraging to agriculture,

the adoption of new technologies, the emergence of large-scale societies, the

transition from egalitarian to inegalitarian leadership, and changes that occur

in socioeconomic and ideological systems as a result of climate change and

disease. Theoretical approaches range from processual to postprocessual,

humanistic, and interpretive. Methodologies include ethnoarchaeology, the use

of ethnographic analogy,

cross-cultural comparisons and large-scale data approaches, oral history, the

historical record, participant observation, and focus group discussions.



Challenging archaeologists to query long-held

assumptions and theoretical positions, this volume aims to refocus inquiry into

change-causing and larger evolutionary processes to problematize notions of

revolutionary, irrevocable change. These case studies examine and shed light on assumptions regarding the

linearity and oscillations of adaptations, with intriguing implications for

archaeological inferences.