In this innovative volume, Jerry D. Moore discusses public architecture in the context of the cultural, political and religious life of the pre-hispanic Andes. Archaeologists have invested enormous effort in excavating and documenting prehistoric buildings, but analytical approaches to architecture remain as yet undeveloped. Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes uses new analytical methods to approach architecture and its relationship to Andean society, exploring three themes in particular: the architecture of monuments, the architecture of ritual, and the architecture of social...

Teotihuacan was the largest urban center in the New World in the first two centuries AD, and the Feathered Serpent Pyramid was a spectacular symbol of state power. Saburo Sugiyama investigates the ritual sacrifice of some 200 men and women that marked the erection of the Pyramid in this volume, the first substantial archaeological analysis of the political institutions of Teotihuacan based on stratigraphically recorded evidence. In the process, he illuminates our understanding of urbanization, the ritual behavior of elites, and the role of warfare and sacrifice in early Teotihuacan...

The societies of the European Bronze Age produced elaborate artifacts and were drawn into a wide trade network extending over the whole of Europe, yet they were economically and politically undiversified. Kristian Kristiansen attempts to explain this paradox using a world-systems analysis, and provides a rich body of evidence to support his case. The result is a coherent overview of this period of European prehistory that addresses some of the larger questions raised in the study of the period.

Drawing on evidence from several disciplines, Ann Brower Stahl reconstructs the daily lives of Banda villagers of west central Ghana, from the time that they were drawn into the Niger trade (around 1300 AD) until British overrule was established early in the twentieth century. The case study aims to closely integrate perspectives drawn from archaeology, history and anthropology in African studies.

The Yellow River valley of China, during the period ca. 7000-1500, saw the transformation of egalitarian societies into stratified chiefdoms giving rise to early states. This book examines that transformation, emphasizing the interplay of many factors affecting these processes, such as climatic fluctuation, population movements, inter-group competition, warfare, and long-distance exchange of valuables.

The Iberians inhabited southern and eastern Spain between the Greek and Phoenician colonization beginning in the eight century BC and the Roman conquest. This was a period of urban growth, and the adoption of ideological symbols and technological innovations from the colonists created an important and unique Iron Age culture. The Archaeology of the Iberians is an up-to-date, theoretically informed synthesis of what is now known about the world of the Iberians and a fascinating case study of change within a specific complex society.

Using data drawn primarily from the American Southwest, Stephen Plog shows that there are basic problems with the methods archaeologists traditionally use to classify and analyse prehistoric pottery. Archaeologists have studied the painted designs and other stylistic (that is, non-functional) characteristics on different types of prehistoric artifacts in order to infer information about prehistoric social organization and cultural change. Such studies usually argue that the degree of similarity between the designs found on ceramic vessels at different prehistoric sites were occupied or from...

Thoughtful Foragers is about hunter-gatherer decision making. The author explores the implications of the human mind as a product of biological evolution for the way in which humans solve foraging problems. He draws on studies form ethology, psychology and ethnography prior to turning his attention to prehistoric hunter-gatherers. He attempts to construct explanations for patterns in the archaeological record by an explicit focus on decision making by individuals. Thoughtful Foragers will appeal to specialists in European prehistory as well as to those interested in archaeological theory and...

How, when and why did inherited differences of wealth, status and power arise in human communities? At the heart of Emerging Complexity is the thesis that complex societies developed independently during the Copper and Bronze Ages in south-east Spain, and in the wider context of the Iberian peninsula and the west Mediterranean. Chapman rejects the concept of diffusion from the Aegean and east Mediterranean, until recently seen as the cradle of complex society in later prehistoric Europe. The unprecedented amount of new data on south-east Spain since the 1970s unavailable to many...

Problems in Neolithic Archaeology is a notable contribution to the debate about how we can write prehistory. Drawing on both processual and post-processual approaches, it reaffirms the central role of theory and interpretation while accepting as permanent the uncertainty which makes the testing of archaeological hypotheses difficult or even impossible. Dr Whittle asserts in particular the need for greater self-confidence and for the formulation of new theory and questions more appropriate to the archaeological record. The book's specific strength lies, however, in a close contextual study of...