Cultural Evolution: Contemporary Viewpoints

Drawing on Kent Flannery's forty years of cross-cultural research in the area, the contributors to this collection reflect the current diversity of contemporary approaches to the study of cultural evolutionary processes. Collectively the volume expresses the richness of the issues being investigated by comparative theorists interested in long-term change, as well as the wide variety of data, approaches, and ideas that researchers are employing to examine these questions.

'All of the chapters are top-knotch, and several make major strides toward understanding the emergence of complexity in more comprehensive theoretical terms. Flannery is definitely to be commended for stimulating such a broad body of research on the cultural evolution of political and economic complexity. Would I buy this book? My answer is another "Yes". Every faculty member interested in the subject certainly should add it to his professional library.'
Journal of Anthropological Research, 58 (2002)
`...this volume's coverage encompasses much of the diversity in conventional cultural evolutionary and processual paradigms and some of the chapters offer quite contemporary solutions to hitherto divisive issues. Overall, the contributions, written by renowned senior scholars, have the quality, depth, and breadth to be of wide interest to current evolutionary archaeologists.'
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8:4 (2002)

"In summary, this volume's coverage encompasses much of the diversity in conventional cultural evolutionary and processual paradigms and some of the chapters offer quite contemparary solutions to hitherto diversive issues. Overall, the contributions, written by renowned senior scholars, have the quality, depth, and breadth to be of wide interest to current evolutionary archaeologists." (Marilyn Masson; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8:4)