How, when and why did inherited differences of wealth, status and power arise in human communities? At the heart of Emerging Complexity is the thesis that complex societies developed independently during the Copper and Bronze Ages in south-east Spain, and in the wider context of the Iberian peninsula and the west Mediterranean.  Meer

This book is about post-Pleistocene adaptive change among the aboriginal cultures of the mountains and deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. Conceived essentially as a natural science alternative to the prevailing culture history paradigm, it offers both a general theoretical framework for interpreting the archaeological record of the American South-West and a persuasive evolutionary model for the shift from a hunter-gatherer economy to horticulture at the Mogollon/Anasazi interface.  Meer

Following the theoretical perspective of his earlier book, Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (1985), Dean Arnold's ethnoarchaeological study explores the relationships of ceramic production to society and its environment in the Peruvian Andes.  Meer

This 1999 book re-examines traditional assumptions about the nature of social relationships in Greek households during the Classical and Hellenistic periods.  Meer

Analysing the material remains left by Maryland's colonists in the eighteenth century in conjunction with historical records and works of art, archaeologists have reconstructed the daily life of the aristocratic British family of the governor of Maryland.  Meer

This much-praised book aims to develop a theory of ceramics which will elucidate the complex relationship between ceramics and culture and society. Drawing upon the theoretical perspectives of systems theory, cybernetics and cultural ecology, Dr Arnold develops cross-cultural generalizations to explain the origins and evolution of the craft of pottery making.  Meer

Anna Maria Bietti Sestieri, one of the finest Italian protohistorians, deals in this monograph with a major archaeological site, the Iron Age cemetery of Osteria dell'Osa, near Rome.  Meer

The development of European archaeology as a scholarly discipline in the nineteenth century was closely connected with the appearance of systematic methods for dating archaeological materials and these methods evolved largely in Scandinavia.  Meer

Problems in Neolithic Archaeology is a notable contribution to the debate about how we can write prehistory. Drawing on both processual and post-processual approaches, it reaffirms the central role of theory and interpretation while accepting as permanent the uncertainty which makes the testing of archaeological hypotheses difficult or even impossible.  Meer

Drawing on evidence from several disciplines, Ann Brower Stahl reconstructs the daily lives of Banda villagers of west central Ghana, from the time that they were drawn into the Niger trade (around AD 1300) until British overrule was established early in the twentieth century.  Meer

Jacques Cauvin has spent many years researching the beginnings of the Neolithic in the Near East, excavating key sites and developing new ideas to explain the hugely significant cultural, social and economic changes which transformed mobile hunter-gatherers into the first village societies and farmers in the world.  Meer

Thoughtful Foragers is about hunter-gatherer decision making. The author explores the implications of the human mind as a product of biological evolution for the way in which humans solve foraging problems.  Meer

Drawing extensively on anthropological theory and ecological models of human adaptation, Forest Farmers and Stockherders explores the single most radical transformation in all European prehistory - the growth of a food-producing economy in the period 5000–3000 BC.  Meer

This study of the changing relationships between burial rituals and social structure in Early Iron Age Greece will be required reading for all archaeologists working with burial evidence, in whatever period.  Meer

In this study Roland Fletcher argues that the built environment becomes a constraint on the long-term development of a settlement. It is costly to move settlements, or to demolish and rebuild from scratch, so the initial layout and buildings, and the forms of communication that result, may come to shackle further development and also to place constraints on social and political change.  Meer

This book studies the formation of complex societies in prehistoric China during the Neolithic and early state periods, c. 7000–1500 BC. Archaeological materials are interpreted through anthropological perspectives, using systematic analytic methods in settlement and burial patterns.  Meer

Nomads in Archaeology addresses the problem of how to study mobile peoples using archaeological techniques. It therefore deals not only with the prehistory and archaeology of nomads but also with current issues in theory and methodology, particularly the concept of 'site structure'.  Meer

In this innovative study, James Whitley examines the relationship between the development of pot style and social changes in the Dark Age of Greece (1100-700 BC).  Meer

Since the 1950s, when the phrase 'industrial archaeology' was coined, there has been an enormous growth of interest in what have come to be seen as the monuments of our more recent past.  Meer

Archaeology has made enormous advances recently, both in volume of discoveries and in its character as an intellectual discipline; new techniques have helped to further the range and rigour of enquiry, and encouraged interdisciplinary communication.  Meer