The Chumash World at European Contact
Power, Trade, and Feasting Among Complex Hunter-Gatherers
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of California Press
Published:13th Sep '11
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
When Spanish explorers and missionaries came onto Southern California's shores in 1769, they encountered the large towns and villages of the Chumash, a people who at that time were among the most advanced hunter-gatherer societies in the world. The Spanish were entertained and fed at lavish feasts hosted by chiefs who ruled over the settlements and who participated in extensive social and economic networks. In this first modern synthesis of data from the Chumash heartland, Lynn H. Gamble weaves together multiple sources of evidence to re-create the rich tapestry of Chumash society. Drawing from archaeology, historical documents, ethnography, and ecology, she describes daily life in the large mainland towns, focusing on Chumash culture, household organization, politics, economy, warfare, and more.
"In this masterful combination of empirical research, controlled comparison, and attention to contemporary theories regarding the social formations of hunger-gatherers, Gamble has contributed an authoritative, richly documented and illustrated synthesis of this fascinating time and place in protohistoric California." -- W. S. Simmons Choice "An important book... One of the most vivid and sophisticated studies of any Indian group in North America at the point of their first sustained contact with Europeans." -- Steven W. Hackel Journal Of American History "Gamble's careful scholarship makes this text a fine template to be followed." Journal Of World History "Gamble presents a significant contribution, both descriptively and methodologically, that will be of interest to a wide variety of anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and other researchers in California and around the world." -- Todd J. Braje American Anthropologist
ISBN: 9780520271241
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 25mm
Weight: 544g
376 pages