A History of American Archaeology
A History of American Archaeology

Author: Gordon Randolph Willey

Publisher: W H Freeman & Company

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780716723714

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**** New edition of a textbook that, in its second edition (1980), was cited in BCL3. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Method and Theory in American Archaeology
Method and Theory in American Archaeology

Author: Gordon R. Willey

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2001-02-14

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 0817310886

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A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication This invaluable classic provides the framework for the development of American archaeology during the last half of the 20th century. In 1958 Gordon R. Willey and Philip Phillips first published Method and Theory in American Archaeology—a volume that went through five printings, the last in 1967 at the height of what became known as the new, or processual, archaeology. The advent of processual archaeology, according to Willey and Phillips, represented a "theoretical debate . . . a question of whether archaeology should be the study of cultural history or the study of cultural process." Willey and Phillips suggested that little interpretation had taken place in American archaeology, and their book offered an analytical perspective; the methods they described and the structural framework they used for synthesizing American prehistory were all geared toward interpretation. Method and Theory served as the catalyst and primary reader on the topic for over a decade. This facsimile reprint edition of the original University of Chicago Press volume includes a new foreword by Gordon R. Willey, which outlines the state of American archaeology at the time of the original publication, and a new introduction by the editors to place the book in historical context. The bibliography is exhaustive. Academic libraries, students, professionals, and knowledgeable amateurs will welcome this new edition of a standard-maker among texts on American archaeology.

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology
The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology

Author: Deborah L. Nichols

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-09-24

Total Pages: 1000

ISBN-13: 0199996342

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The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed by regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies--from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations--and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.

American Antiquities
American Antiquities

Author: Terry A. Barnhart

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2015-11

Total Pages: 595

ISBN-13: 0803284314

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Writing the history of American archaeology, especially concerning eighteenth and nineteenth-century arguments, is not always as straightforward or simple as it might seem. Archaeology's trajectory from an avocation, to a semi-profession, to a specialized, self-conscious profession was anything but a linear progression. The development of American archaeology was an organic and untidy process, which emerged from the intellectual tradition of antiquarianism and closely allied itself with the natural sciences throughout the nineteenth century--especially geology and the debate about the origins and identity of indigenous mound-building cultures of the eastern United States. Terry A. Barnhart examines how American archaeology developed within an eclectic set of interests and equally varied settings. He argues that fundamental problems are deeply embedded in secondary literature relating to the nineteenth-century debate about "Mound Builders" and "American Indians." Some issues are perceptual, others contextual, and still others basic errors of fact. Adding to the problem are semantic and contextual considerations arising from the accommodating, indiscriminate, and problematic use of the term "race" as a synonym for tribe, nation, and race proper--a concept and construct that does not, in all instances, translate into current understandings and usages. American Antiquities uses this early discourse on the mounds to frame perennial anthropological problems relating to human origins and antiquity in North America.

New Perspectives on the Origins of Americanist Archaeology
New Perspectives on the Origins of Americanist Archaeology

Author: David L Browman

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2002-02-19

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0817311289

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In this landmark book, experienced scholars take a retrospective look at the developing routes that have brought American archaeologists into the 21st century. In 1996, the Society for American Archaeology's Committee on the History of Archaeology established a biennial symposium named after Gordon R. Willey, one of the fathers of American archaeology, to focus on the history of the discipline. This volume grew out of the second symposium, presented at the 1998 meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Interest in the intellectual history of the field is certainly nothing new-the first such volume appeared in 1856-but previously, focus has been on individuals and their theories and methods, or on various government agencies that supported, developed, or mandated excavations in North America. This volume, however, focuses on the roots of Americanist archaeology, including its pre-1915 European connections, and on some of the earliest work by women archaeologists, which has been largely overlooked. Full of valuable insights for archaeologists and anthropologists—both professional and amateur—into the history and development of Americanist archaeology, New Perspectives will also inspire and serve as a model for future research. David Browman is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Program in Archaeology at Washington University. Stephen Williams is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Harvard University.