Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology of Mobility (Paperback)

This collection of chapters by archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnoarchaeologists, biological archaeologists, and behavioral ecologists considers how humans have practiced mobility across several continents and thousands of years, raising questions about human adaptation and offering a diversity of approaches for measuring ancient mobility of small-scale societies. Mobility is a critical aspect of human adaptation, and humans are unique in their ability to adapt to an immense range of physical habitats. This capacity is at least partially dependent on strategies of population and labor movement within environments. The number of moves, the distance traveled, the frequency of movement, and the people who move all are relevant as archaeologists and anthropologists bring a variety of tools to bear in reading the vast archaeological record of environmental adaptation. This volume should appeal to professional archaeologists as well as many cultural anthropologists, and will be of special interest to researchers of hunter-gatherer, pastoral, and small-scale agricultural societies.