Foundations Of Chumash Complexity (Perspectives in California Archaeology)
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
Published: December 31, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 190
ISBN-13: 9781931745185
Subjects: North American archaeology; Social Science; History - General History; Channel Islands; United States - State & Local - General; History - U.S.; Material culture; Sociology; North America; California; Archaeology; Ethnic Studies - Native American Studies; Antiquities; Chumash Indians; Hunting and gathering societie; Hunting and gathering societies
Description: "This volume highlights the latest research on the foundations of sociopolitical complexity in coastal California. The populous maritime societies of southern California, particularly the groups known collectively as the Chumash, have gone largely unrecognized as prototypical complex hunter-gatherers, only recently beginning to emerge from the shadow of their more celebrated counterparts on the Northwest Coast of North America. While Northwest cultures are renowned for such complex institutions a ceremonial potlatches, slavery, cedar plank-house villages, and rich artistic traditions, the Chumash are increasingly recognized as complex hunter-gatherers with a different set of organizational characteristics: ascribed chiefly leadership, a strong maritime economy based on oceangoing canoes, an integrative ceremonial system, and intensive and highly specialized craft production activities. Chumash sites provide some of the most robust data on these subjects available in the Americas."--BOOK JACKET.