10 books found
This biographical dictionary provides information on 322 men and women who have made or are making significant contributions in the field of anthropology. A short biography highlights each person's professional and private background and detailed analysis of the theories or approaches that each contributed to his or her individual field and a guide to their major published works are provided. A chronological appendix lists each person's date of birth, full name, and primary field of study, guiding readers to entries covering 1681 to 2006. An extensive glossary explains technical terms used throughout the work.
by Edward Winslow Gifford, William Egbert Schenck
1926
Iroquois Journey is the warm and illuminating memoir of William N. Fenton (1908?2005), a leading scholar who shaped Iroquois studies and modern anthropology in America. The memoir reveals the ambitions and struggles of the man and the many accomplishments of the anthropologist, the complex and sometimes volatile milieu of Native-white relations in upstate New York in the twentieth century, and key theoretical and methodological developments in American anthropology. ø Fenton?s memoir, completed shortly before his death, takes us from his ancestors? lives in the Conewango Valley in western New York to his education at Yale. It affords valuable insights into the decades of his celebrated fieldwork among the Senecas, his distinguished scholarship at the Bureau of American Ethnology in Washington, DC, and his research at the New York State Museum in Albany. Offering portraits ofø legendary scholars he encountered and enriched through wonderful personal anecdotes, Fenton?s memoir is a testament to the importance of anthropology and a reminder of how much the field has changed over the years.
Although some have attributed the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition primarily to gunpowder and gumption, historian William R. Swagerty demonstrates in this two-volume set that adopting Indian ways of procuring, processing, and transporting food and gear was crucial to the survival of the Corps of Discovery. The Indianization of Lewis and Clark retraces the well-known trail of America’s most famous explorers as a journey into the heart of Native America—a case study of successful material adaptation and cultural borrowing. Beginning with a broad examination of regional demographics and folkways, Swagerty describes the cultural baggage and material preferences the expedition carried west in 1804. Detailing this baseline reveals which Indian influences were already part of Jeffersonian American culture, and which were progressive adaptations the Corpsmen made of Indian ways in the course of their journey. Swagerty’s exhaustive research offers detailed information on both Indian and Euro-American science, medicine, cartography, and cuisine, and on a wide range of technologies and material culture. Readers learn what the Corpsmen wore, what they ate, how they traveled, and where they slept (and with whom) before, during, and after the return. Indianization is as old as contact experiences between Native Americans and Europeans. Lewis and Clark took the process to a new level, accepting the hospitality of dozens of Native groups as they sought a navigable water route to the Pacific. This richly illustrated, interdisciplinary study provides a unique and complex portrait of the material and cultural legacy of Indian America, offering readers perspective on lessons learned but largely forgotten in the aftermath of the epic journey.
by William Duncan Strong, William Egbert Schenck, Julian Haynes Steward
1930 · Berkeley : University of California Press
by William R. Fowler, Jr.
1991 · CRC Press
This book presents discussions on the formation of complex society of Southeastern Mesoamerica throughout pre-Columbian times. These societies include ones from the Early Preclassic or Formative period to those encountered by the Spaniards when they arrived in the early 16th century. Diverse classes of data from archaeology, ethnography, and ethnohistory are utilized. The book provides wide spatial and temporal coverage, as well as a wide diversity of theoretical perspectives. Anyone interested in archeology or the evolution of prehistoric complex societies will find this book fascinating.
Since prehistoric times, Andean societies have been organized around the ayllu, a grouping of real or ceremonial kinspeople who share labor, resources, and ritual obligations. Many Andean scholars believe that the ayllu is as ancient as Andean culture itself, possibly dating back as far as 6000 B.C., and that it arose to alleviate the hardships of farming in the mountainous Andean environment. In this boldly revisionist book, however, William Isbell persuasively argues that the ayllu developed during the latter half of the Early Intermediate Period (around A.D. 200) as a means of resistance to the process of state formation. Drawing on archaeological evidence, as well as records of Inca life taken from the chroniclers, Isbell asserts that prehistoric ayllus were organized around the veneration of deceased ancestors, whose mummified bodies were housed in open sepulchers, or challups, where they could be visited by descendants seeking approval and favors. By charting the temporal and spatial distribution of chullpa ruins, Isbell offers a convincing new explanation of where, when, and why the ayllu developed.