Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America

Demonstrating the wide variation

among complex hunter-gatherer communities in coastal settings



This

book explores the forms and trajectories of social complexity among fisher-hunter-gatherers

who lived in coastal, estuarine, and riverine settings in pre-Columbian North

America. Through case studies from several different regions and intellectual traditions,

the contributors to this volume collectively demonstrate remarkable variation

in the circumstances and histories of complex hunter-gatherers in maritime environments.



The

volume draws on archaeological research from the North Pacific and Alaska, the

Pacific Northwest coast and interior, the California Channel Islands, and the

Southeastern U.S. and Florida. Essays trace complex social configurations

through monumentality, ceremonialism, territoriality, community organization,

and trade and exchange. They show that while factors such as boat travel,

patterns of marine and riverine resource availability, and sedentism and

village formation are common unifying threads across the continent, these

factors manifest in historically contingent ways in different contexts.



Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity

in North America offers

specific, substantive examples of change and transformation in these

communities, emphasizing the wide range of complexity among them. It considers the

use of the term "complex hunter-gatherer" and what these case studies show

about the value and limitations of the concept, adding nuance to an ongoing

conversation in the field.



A volume

in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by

Victor D. Thompson and Scott M. Fitzpatrick