Product Description

The author wrote this book primarily for his archaeology students, to show them how dangerous anthropological analogy is and how variable the actual practices of foragers of the recent past and today are. His survey of anthropological literature points to differences in foraging societies' patterns of diet, mobility, sharing, land tenure, exchange, gender relations, division of labour, marriage, descent and political organisation. By considering the actual, not imagined, reasons behind diverse behaviour, this book argues for a revision of many archaeological models of prehistory.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #555867 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 462 pages

About the Author
by Robert L Kelly

Customer Reviews

The empirical nature of subsistence patterns
are examined very succinctly in this text. Beginning students of hunting and foraging behaviors will realize that the answer to the question "what do we eat?" is not an arbitrary cultural choice, but is instead both measurable and predictable. According to The Foraging Spectrum, such predictions are based on geographical area, climatology, and primary production, to name a few.