How and why people develop, maintain, and change cultural boundaries through time are central issues in the social and behavioral sciences in generaland anthropological archaeology in particular. What factors influence people to imitate or deviate from the behaviors of other group members? How are social group boundaries produced, perpetuated, and altered by the cumulative outcomeof these decisions? Answering these questions is fundamental to understanding cultural persistence and change. The chapters included in this stimulating, multifaceted book address these questions. Working in several subdisciplines, contributors report on research in the areas of cultural boundaries, cultural transmission, and the socially organized nature of learning. Boundaries are found not only within and between the societies in these studies but also within and between the communities of scholars who study them. To break down these boundaries, this volume includes scholars who use multiple theoretical perspectives, including practice theory and evolutionary traditions, which are sometimes complementary and occasionally clashing. Geographic coverage ranges from the indigenous Americas to Africa, the Near East, and South Asia, and the time frame extends from the prehistoric or precontact to colonial periods and up to the ethnographic present. Contributors include leading scholars from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Together, they employ archaeological, ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological,experimental, and simulation data to link micro-scale processes of cultural transmission to macro-scale processes of social group boundary formation, continuity, and change.

Defining "culture" is an important step in undertaking archaeological research. Any thorough study of a particular culture first has to determine what that culture contains-- what particular time period, geographic region, and group of people make up that culture. The study of archaeology has many accepted definitions of particular cultures, but recently these accepted definitions have come into question. As archaeologists struggle to define cultures, they also seek to define the components of culture. This volume brings together 21 international case studies to explore the meaning of "culture" for regions around the globe and periods from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age and beyond. Taking lessons and overarching themes from these studies, the contributors draw important conclusions about cultural transmission, technology development, and cultural development. The result is a comprehensive model for approaching the study of culture, broken down into regions (Russia, Continental Europe, North America, Britain, and Africa), materials (Lithics, Ceramics, Metals) and time periods. This work will be valuable to all archaeologists and cultural anthropologists, particularly those studying material culture.

The field of material culture, while historically well established, has recently enjoyed something of a renaissance. Methods once dominated by Marxist- and commodity-oriented analyses and by the study of objects as symbols are giving way to a more ethnographic approach to artifacts. This orientation is the cornerstone of the essays presented in Material Cultures. A collection of case studies which move from the domestic sphere to the global arena, the volume includes examinations of the soundscape produced by home radios, catalog shopping, the role of paper in the workplace, and the relationship between the production and consumption of Coca-Cola in Trinidad. The diversity of the essays is mediated by their common commitment to ethnography with a material focus. Rather than examine objects as mirages of media or language, Material Cultures emphasizes how the study of objects not only contributes to an understanding of artifacts but is also an effective means for studying social values and contradictions.

"This book examines three interlocking topics that are central to all archaeological and anthropological inquiry: the role of technology in human existence; the reproduction of social traditions; the factors that generate cultural diversity and change. The overall aim is to outline a new kind of approach for researching variability and transformation in human material culture, and the main argument is that these technological traditions exhibit heritable continuity: they consist of information stored in human brains and then passed onto others through social learning. Technological traditions can therefore be understood as manifestations of a complex transmission system, and applying this new perspective to human material culture builds on, but also largely transcends, much of the earlier work conducted by archaeologists and anthropologists into the significance, function and social meanings associated with tools, objects and vernacular architecture"--

Defining "culture" is an important step in undertaking archaeological research. Any thorough study of a particular culture first has to determine what that culture contains-- what particular time period, geographic region, and group of people make up that culture. The study of archaeology has many accepted definitions of particular cultures, but recently these accepted definitions have come into question. As archaeologists struggle to define cultures, they also seek to define the components of culture. This volume brings together 21 international case studies to explore the meaning of "culture" for regions around the globe and periods from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age and beyond. Taking lessons and overarching themes from these studies, the contributors draw important conclusions about cultural transmission, technology development, and cultural development. The result is a comprehensive model for approaching the study of culture, broken down into regions (Russia, Continental Europe, North America, Britain, and Africa), materials (Lithics, Ceramics, Metals) and time periods. This work will be valuable to all archaeologists and cultural anthropologists, particularly those studying material culture.

"In his interdisciplinary review of material culture, Ian Woodward goes beyond synthesis to offer a theoretically innovative reconstruction of the field. It is filled with gems of conceptual insight and empirical discovery. A wonderful book." - Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University "A well-grounded and accessible survey of the burgeoning field of material culture studies for students in sociology and consumption studies. While situating the field within the history of intellectual thought in the broader social sciences, it offers detailed and accessible case studies. These are supplemented by very useful directions for further in-depth reading, making it an excellent undergraduate course companion." - Victor Buchli, University College London Why are i-pods and mobile phones fashion accessories? Why do people spend thousands remodelling their perfectly functional kitchen? Why do people crave shoes or handbags? Is our desire for objects unhealthy, or irrational? Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the disciplines that study social relations too. This book offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture. Surveying the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption, and symbolization, this book: introduces the key concepts and approaches in the study of objects and their meanings presents the full sweep of core theory - from Marxist and critical approaches to structuralism and semiotics shows how and why people use objects to perform identity, achieve social status, and narrativize life experiences analyzes everyday domains in which objects are important shows why studying material culture is necessary for understanding the social. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, consumer behaviour studies, design and fashion studies.

There is substantial debate over the extent to which the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition and the dispersal of anatomically modern humans from Africa into Eurasia at the end of the Pleistocene were the result of the same process, related processes, or unrelated but coincident processes. The current debate shows a gap in archaeological method and theory for understanding how different cultural transmission processes create patterning in the material culture of foragers at the resolution of Paleolithic palimpsests. This research project attempts to bridge this gap with a middle-range theory connecting cultural transmission and dual inheritance theory with the archaeological study of flintknappers' flake-by-flake choices in the production of lithic assemblages. The project thus combines a new middle-range theory as well as a new approach to characterizing Paleolithic assemblages for systematic comparison of units of analysis appropriate to distinguishing forces of change in cultural evolution.