ARCHIT SOCIAL BOUNDARIES

The Archaeology of Social Boundaries demonstrates that the search for social boundaries in material culture patterning can benefit from the study of both technological and stylistic qualities. Fourteen contributors examine an array of media -- from ceramics and personal ornaments to architecture and site structure -- in small-scale societies and apply methods from both sides of the Atlantic to explore how technical choices made in the creation of everyday objects can both reflect and define social boundaries. By uniting two disparate intellectual traditions, this book contributes to a growing archaeological theory of material culture.