Hunter-Gatherer Adaptation and Resilience
A Bioarchaeological Perspective

Explores the variety of ways in which hunter-gatherer societies have responded to external stressors while maintaining their core identity.

Daniel H. Temple (Edited by), Christopher M. Stojanowski (Edited by)

9781107187351, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 December 2018

404 pages, 80 b/w illus. 28 tables
25.2 x 17.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.95 kg

Hunter-gatherer lifestyles defined the origins of modern humans and for tens of thousands of years were the only form of subsistence our species knew. This changed with the advent of food production, which occurred at different times throughout the world. The chapters in this volume explore the different ways that hunter-gatherer societies around the world adapted to changing social and ecological circumstances while still maintaining a predominantly hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Couched specifically within the framework of resilience theory, the authors use contextualized bioarchaeological analyses of health, diet, mobility, and funerary practices to explore how hunter-gatherers responded to challenges and actively resisted change that diminished the core of their social identity and worldview.

1. Interrogating the alterity of hunter-gatherers in bioarchaeological context: adaptability, transformability and resilience of hunter-gatherers in the past Daniel H. Temple and Christopher M. Stojanowski
2. Regional continuity and local challenges to resilience among holocene hunter-gatherers of the Greater Cape Floristic Region, South Africa Susan Pfeiffer and Lesley Harrington
3. Hunter-gatherer persistence and demography in Patagonia (Southern South America): the impact of ecological changes during the Pleistocene and Holocene Valeria Bernal, S. Ivan Perez, María Bárbara Postillone and Diego D. Rindel
4. The success and failure of resilience in the European Mesolithic Rick J. Schulting
5. Persistence of time: resilience and adaptability in prehistoric Jomon hunter-gatherers from the inland sea region of Southwestern Honshu, Japan Daniel H. Temple
6. Biomechanics, habitual activity, and resilience among Southern African hunter-gatherers and herders Michelle E. Cameron and Jay Stock
7. Biocultural adaptation and resilience in the hunter-gatherers of Lagoa Santa, Central-Eastern Brazil Pedro Da-Gloria and Lucas Bueno
8. Resiliency among hunter-gatherers in Southern California before and after European colonization: a bioarchaeological perspective Erin E. Bornemann and Lynn H. Gamble
9. Persistence or pastoralim: the challenges of studying hunter-gatherer resilience in Africa Christopher M. Stojanowski
10. Ancient mortuary ritual and cultural resilience on the northwest coast of North America Bryn Letham and Gary Coupland
11. Bioarchaeological evidence for cultural resilience at Point Hope, Alaska: persistence and memory in the ontology of personhood in northern hunter-gatherers Lauryn C. Justice and Daniel H. Temple
12. Biocultural perspectives on interpersonal violence in the prehistoric San Francisco Bay Area Eric J. Bartelink, Viviana I. Bellifemine, Irina Nechayev, Valerie A. Andrushko, Alan Leventhal and Robert Jurmian
13. The discovery and rapid demise of the Sadlermiut Charles F. Merbs
14. When resilience fails: fences, water control, and Aboriginal history in the Western Riverina, Australia Judith Littleton
15. Models, metaphors, and measures Jane E. Buikstra.

Subject Areas: Early man [PSXE], Physical anthropology [JHMP], Anthropology [JHM]