
Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest
Proceedings of the Workshop "Resource Stress, Economic Uncertainty, and Human Response in the Prehistoric Southwest," Held February 25-29, 1992 in Santa Fe, NM
Westview Press Inc
1st Edition
Published on 1. January 1996
Book
Paperback/Softback
284 pages
978-0-201-87040-4 (ISBN)
Description
Cultural behaviour exhibits many of the features of complex adaptive systems, but is in some ways distinctive. Cultural complexity is enigmatic, improbable, and difficult to maintain. It constrains behaviour, limits understanding of processes, and imposes economic burdens. The advantages of complexity are modified by human cognition and limited by economic and environmental costs. This book explores in detail how and why prehistoric Southwestern societies changed in complexity, and thus offers important new perspectives on the evolution of culture.The papers discuss the factors that made prehistoric Southwesterners vulnerable to an arid environment, and their strategies to lessen risk and stress. The topics of the book link Southwestern data to fields such as economics, climatology, and evolutionary theory. In addition to a readership of archaeologists and anthropologists, this volume will be of interest to specialists in these related fields and to those concerned with complex adaptive systems and the work of the Santa Fe Institute.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Boca Raton
United States
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Inc
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
490 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-201-87040-4 (9780201870404)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Joseph A. Tainter
Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest
Proceedings of the Workshop "Resource Stress, Economic Uncertainty, and Human Response in the Prehistoric Southwest," Held February 25-29, 1992 in Santa Fe, NM
Book
05/2019
1st Edition
CRC Press
€206.80
Shipment within 15-20 days

Joseph A. Tainter
Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest
E-Book
05/2018
1st Edition
CRC Press
€69.99
Available for download

Joseph A. Tainter
Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest
E-Book
05/2018
1st Edition
CRC Press
€69.99
Available for download
Persons
Joseph A. Tainter is project leader of Cultural Heritage Research, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has taught anthropology at the University of New Mexico, and is the author or editor of many articles and monographs. His book The Collapse of Complex Societies develops a long-standing research interest in the evolution of socioeconomic complexity. His work has been recognized in several fields, and has led to invitations to lecture to organizations as diverse as the Getty centre for the History of Art and the Humanities and the International Society for Ecological Economics.Bonnie Bagley Tainter is an archaeologist, poet, editor, and private consultant. Her academic interests range from vertebrate and invertebrate evolution to Southwestern archaeology, and include historic preservation planning for her home community of Corrales, New Mexico. She previously contributed to the editing of several papers for the book Effects of War on Society, and has done research on the architecture of Hovenweep National Monument and on prehistoric settlement changes in the Albuquerque area.
Content
About the Santa Fe Institute -- Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity -- Introduction: Prehistoric Societies as Evolving Complex Systems -- Demography, Environment, and Subsistence Stress -- Notes on Economic Uncertainty and Human Behavior in the Prehistoric North American Southwest -- Hunting, Gathering, and Health in the Prehistoric Southwest -- Technological Strategies Responsive to Subsistence Stress -- Risk, Anthropogenic Environments, and Western Anasazi Subsistence -- The Calculus of Self-interest in the Development of Cooperation: Sociopolitical Development and Risk Among the Northern Anasazi -- Risk, Reciprocity, and the Operation of Social Networks -- Variability in Food Production, Strategies of Storage and Sharing, and the Pithouse-to-Pueblo Transition in the Northern Southwest -- Models and Frameworks for Archaeological Analysis of Resource Stress in the American Southwest