Download or read book Archaeology on the Threshold written by Joseph D. Wardle and published by . This book was released on 2022-12-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New perspectives on transitions in humanhistory Thisbook is about transitional periods of cultural and environmental change as seenthrough the lenses of archaeology and ethnography. Incorporating data fromacross six continents and tracing the human experience from the LatePleistocene to the present, this book offers a global comparative perspectiveon transitional states. Questionsof causality are considered, as are hypotheses about the processes of culturalchange. Archaeology on theThresholdfocuses on major transitions such as the shift from foraging to agriculture,the adoption of new technologies, the emergence of large-scale societies, thetransition from egalitarian to inegalitarian leadership, and changes that occurin socioeconomic and ideological systems as a result of climate change anddisease. Theoretical approaches range from processual to postprocessual,humanistic, and interpretive. Methodologies include ethnoarchaeology, the useof ethnographic analogy,crosscultural comparisons and large-scale data approaches, oral history, thehistorical record, participant observation, and focus group discussions. Challenging archaeologists to query long-heldassumptions and theoretical positions, this volume aims to refocus inquiry intochange-causing and larger evolutionary processes to problematize notions ofrevolutionary, irrevocable change. These case studies examine and shed light on assumptions regarding thelinearity and oscillations of adaptations, with intriguing implications forarchaeological inferences.