Overview
- Discusses the multiple pathways by which social complexity first emerged on a global scale of analysis
- Includes contributions from some of the most influential and internationally-recognized scholars and experts in their respective fields
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation (STHE, volume 8)
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Table of contents (17 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
The advent of social complexity has been a longstanding debate among social scientists. Existing theories and approaches involving the origins of social complexity include environmental circumscription, population growth, technology transfers, prestige-based and interpersonal-group competition, organized conflict, perennial wartime leadership, wealth finance, opportunistic leadership, climatological change, transport and trade monopolies, resource circumscription, surplus and redistribution, ideological imperialism, and the consideration of individual agency.
However, recent approaches such as the inclusion of bioarchaeological perspectives, prospection methods, systematically-investigated archaeological sites along with emerging technologies are necessarily transforming our understanding of socio-cultural evolutionary processes. In short, many pre-existing ways of explaining the origins and development of social complexity are being reassessed.
Ultimately, the contributors to this edited volume challenge the status quo regarding how and why social complexity arose by providing revolutionary new understandings of social inequality and socio-political evolution.
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Richard J. Chacon is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Winthrop University. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia among the Yanomamo of Venezuela, the Yora of Peru and the Achuar (Shiwiar) of Ecuador. In the Andes, he has conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the Otavalo and Cotacachi Indians of Highland Ecuador. His research interests include collective action, optimal foraging theory, indigenous subsistence strategies, natural resource conservation, warfare, belief systems, the development of social complexity, ethnohistory, ethics and the effects of globalization on indigenous peoples.
Dr. Rubén G. Mendoza is Professor and Chair of the Division of Social, Behavioral, and Global Studies at the California State University, Monterey Bay. He has conducted archaeological and ethnohistorical investigations in California, Colorado, the US Southwest, and Mesoamerica. His research interests include Mesoamerican and South American civilizations and social complexity, long-distance trade and exchange, conflict interaction, and Hispanicized Indian and Amerindian traditional technologies and material cultures. In addition, he is the coordinator for both the Archaeological Science, Technology, and Visualization, and Global Studies, programs at CSU Monterey Bay.
Contact information: Dr. Rubén G. Mendoza, Ph.D., RPA, Professor/Chair, Division of Social, Behavioral & Global Studies, California State University, Monterey Bay, Seaside, CA, USA. E-mail: rumendoza@csumb.edu
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Feast, Famine or Fighting?
Book Subtitle: Multiple Pathways to Social Complexity
Editors: Richard J. Chacon, Rubén G. Mendoza
Series Title: Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48402-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-48401-3Published: 27 January 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-83933-2Published: 18 July 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-48402-0Published: 20 January 2017
Series ISSN: 1574-0501
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXIX, 490
Number of Illustrations: 41 b/w illustrations, 108 illustrations in colour
Topics: Anthropology, Community & Population Ecology, Archaeology, Social Theory