Archaeology of Warfare Prehistories of Raiding And Conquest

"An excellent source of information on the current state of warfare research in archaeology. [It] chronicles the complex history of warfare in different time periods and world regions while simultaneously exploring the environmental and social variables that appear to have influenced if, when, how, and on what scale warfare was conducted."-Patricia M. Lambert, Utah State University These essays explore the development of warfare in preindustrial, non-Western societies, addressing why some societies fight endemic wars while others do not and how frequent warfare affects the basic choices people make about where to live, whom to fight, on whom to confer power, and how to form social groups. Archaeological research dispels the myth of a peaceful past and demonstrates the sobering fact that war played a greater role in human prehistory than previously thought. These detailed regional case studies from leading archaeologists show the inextricable web of warfare and other social institutions and highlight their complex co-evolution in pre-state and early state societies. The volume includes chapters on the pre-Columbian cultures of North America of the last millennium, the origins of statehood in Mesoamerica and Neolithic China, a centuries-long sequence of warfare in Andean South America, warring peoples of Oceania, and East African cultures devastated by the slave trade. In addition, the contributors offer new insights into how to study warfare in the past and point toward new directions in this field.Arkush, Elizabeth N. is the author of 'Archaeology of Warfare Prehistories of Raiding And Conquest', published 2006 under ISBN 9780813029306 and ISBN 0813029309.