Beyond Subsistence
Beyond Subsistence
Plains Archaeology and the Postprocessual Critique
A series of essays, written by Plains scholars of diverse research interests and backgrounds, that apply postprocessual approaches to the solution of current problems in Plains archaeology
Postprocessual archaeology is seen as a potential vehicle for integrating culture-historical, processual, and postmodernist approaches to solve specific archaeological problems.
The contributors address specific interpretive problems in all the major regions of the North American Plains, investigate different Plains societies (including hunter-gatherers and farmers and their associated archaeological records), and examine the political content of archaeology in such fields as gender studies and cultural resource management. They avoid a programmatic adherence to a single paradigm, arguing instead that a mature archaeology will use different theories, methods, and techniques to solve specific empirical problems. By avoiding excessive infatuation with the correct scientific method, this volume addresses questions that have often been categorized as beyond archaeological investigations.
'Beyond Subsistence is the most important book relating to Plains archaeology to be published in the last decade and, together with Duke's 1991 publication, Points in Time: Structure and Event in a Late Northern Plains Hunting Society, marks the proverbial 'coming of age' of Plains archaeology.' —Journal of Anthropological Research
Some very important issues are discussed in this book that, it is hoped, will be taken up and developed further by these and other scholars.' —American Antiquity
Philip Duke is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado.
Michael C. Wilson is Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Calgary.
