Eighteen papers on archaeology and tribal societies, derived from a Symposium held at the Annual Meetings of the Society for American Archaeology in Chicago, Illinois, 1999

Since the inception of the New Archaeology in the 1960s anthropological archaeologists have been attempting to develop models that will let them better understand the evolution of human social organization. The vast majority of this research has focused specifically upon the development of so-called 'complex' societies, which frequently are characterized by institutionalized social inequality, craft specialization, and developed social hierarchy. Conversely, a good deal of research also has focused upon the variability exhibited by highly mobile hunting and gathering societies. Somewhere in...