List of illustrations Preface 1. The relevance of archaeological history 2. Classical archaeology and antiquarianism 3. The beginnings of scientific archaeology 4. The imperial synthesis 5. Culture-historical archaeology 6. Soviet archaeology 7. Functionalism in Western archaeology 8. Neo-evolutionism and the New Archaeology 9. The explanation of diversity 10. Archaeology and its social context Bibliographical essay References Index.

A History of Archaeological Thought

Time perspectives, palimpsests and the archaeology of time

Human populations and their use of land have transformed most of the terrestrial biosphere into anthropogenic biomes (anthromes), causing a variety of novel ecological patterns and processes to emerge. To assess whether human populations and their use of land have directly altered the terrestrial biosphere sufficiently to indicate that the Earth system has entered a new geological epoch, spatially explicit global estimates of human populations and their use of land were analysed across the Holocene for their potential to induce irreversible novel transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Human alteration of the terrestrial biosphere has been significant for more than 8000 years. However, only in the past century has the majority of the terrestrial biosphere been transformed into intensively used anthromes with predominantly novel anthropogenic ecological processes. At present, even were human populations to decline substantially or use of land become far more efficient, the current global extent, duration, type and intensity of human transformation of ecosystems have already irreversibly altered the terrestrial biosphere at levels sufficient to leave an unambiguous geological record differing substantially from that of the Holocene or any prior epoch. It remains to be seen whether the anthropogenic biosphere will be sustained and continue to evolve.

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Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere

Social Stratification in Polynesia

Hunter-Gatherers and Their Neighbors from Prehistory to the Present [and Comments and Replies]

The "chopper-chopping-tool tradition" proposed by Movius in 1948 as a characterization of Lower Palaeolithic assemblage variability in East Asia is here examined and rejected. It is argued that its uncritical acceptance in the Western literature has resulted in an inaccurate perception of technological variability and change in this vast region. A brief summary of recent primary source material clearly indicates (1) that there are variable quantities of "classic" Acheulian bifacial handaxes in some Korean, Chinese, and Mongolian Lower Palaeolithic assemblages and (2) that a dichotomous pattern of assemblage variability characterized by handaxes in the West and choppers/chopping tools in the East in an unrealistic and oversimplified schematization of the East Asian Palaeolithic, which rivals in its complexity contemporaneous assemblages in the West. A better approximation of the Northeast Asian Lower Palaeolithic is Jia and Wei's two-series hypothesis, based upon recent excavations at Zhoukoudian Locality ...

Observations on the Lower Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia [and Comments and Reply]

/pdf/economic-exchange-and-social-interaction-in-southeast-asia-21k25udljc.pdf

Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from Prehistory, History and Ethnography.

Windows on the Japanese Past reports the state of the art in the archaeology and prehistory of Japan by presenting both original research and reflections by leading scholars on both sides of the Pacific. The 649-page book is divided into five sections: Part I. BackgroundPart II. Race, Language, and Culture: Japanese IdentityPart III. Prehistory, Culture History, and SocietyPart IV. Typological Studies in Japanese ArchaeologyPart V. Japanese Cultural Resource ManagementThe discussions move from studies of the vegetational history of Japan and premodern "archaeology" to studies of Japan's link--in race, language, and culture--to continental peoples and cultures. The third section presents detailed analyses of current archaeological research in Japan. These articles are grouped to provide the reader with a history of Japan as seen through archaeology--the section is subdivided into the Paleolithic, Jomon, and Yayoi/Kofun periods. Section four focuses on typology, and both presentations outline the way in which Japanese archaeologists formulate their typological categories, as distinct from Western archaeologists. Pottery is the main focus. The final section details the intricate system that Japan has devised for preserving archaeological sites, as well as the problems surrounding those preservation efforts. The 110-page glossary of Japanese archaeological terms is itself an important scholarly contribution.

Windows on the Japanese past : studies in archaeology and prehistory

Recent archaelogical work has directed attention toward Southeast Asia. However, while the substantive results of this research are significant for tracing worldwide prehistoric developments, the integration of these findings into a regional archaeological framework continues to be a problem. Most traditional chronological-developmental frameworks of Southeast Asian prehistory were patterned after the European paradigm of five prehistoric ages. It was implied that cultural developments occurred in several major stages and were relatively uniform throughout the region. The results of several recent excavations as well as ethnographic evidence contradict these assumptions. It is argued here that an explanation for these contradictions can be found in the ecology of Southeast Asia. Much of the region falls within the zone of the perhumid tropics. Resource distribution and a number of other ecological conditions of that zone are responsible for a high degree of geographical discontinuity of the human ecology ...

Karl L. Hutterer

Papers

Hunter-Gatherers and Their Neighbors from Prehistory to the Present [and Comments and Replies]

Observations on the Lower Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia [and Comments and Reply]

Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from Prehistory, History and Ethnography.

Windows on the Japanese past : studies in archaeology and prehistory

An Evolutionary Approach to the Southeast Asian Cultural Sequence [and Comments and Reply]