Seeking a Richer Harvest
The Archaeology of Subsistence Intensification, Innovation, and Change
Editors: Thurston, Tina, Fisher, Christopher T (Eds.)
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- About this book
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Subsistence intensification, innovation and change have long figured prominently in explanations for the development of social complexity among foragers and horticulturalists, and the rise of chiefly societies and archaic states, yet there is considerable debate over the actual mechanisms that promote these processes. Traditional approaches to the "intensification question" emphasize population pressure, climate change, bureaucratic management, or even land degradation as prerequisites for the onset of new or changing strategies, or the construction and maintenance of agricultural landscapes. Most often these factors are modeled as external forces outside the realm of human decision-making, but recent archaeological research presents an alternative to this suggesting that subsistence intensification is the result of human driven strategies for power, prestige and status stemming from internal conditions within a group. When responding to environmental adversity, human groups were less frequently the victims, as they have been repeatedly portrayed. Instead human groups were often vigorous actors, responding with resilience, ingenuity, and planning, to flourish or survive within dynamic and sometimes unpredictable social and natural milieux.
- Table of contents (12 chapters)
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Seeking a Richer Harvest
Pages 1-21
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Classic Period Agricultural Intensification and Domestic Life at el Palmillo, Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico
Pages 23-61
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The Wet or the Dry?
Pages 63-90
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Agricultural Intensification in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin
Pages 91-106
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Chinampa Cultivation in the Basin of Mexico
Pages 107-124
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Table of contents (12 chapters)
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- Download Sample pages 2 PDF (1.1 MB)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Seeking a Richer Harvest
- Book Subtitle
- The Archaeology of Subsistence Intensification, Innovation, and Change
- Editors
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- Tina Thurston
- Christopher T Fisher
- Series Title
- Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation
- Series Volume
- 3
- Copyright
- 2007
- Publisher
- Springer US
- Copyright Holder
- Springer-Verlag US
- eBook ISBN
- 978-0-387-32762-4
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-0-387-32762-4
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-0-387-32761-7
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-1-4419-4102-2
- Series ISSN
- 1574-0501
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- X, 274
- Topics