Description
Book SynopsisHumans have occupied mountain environments and relied on mountain resources since the terminal Pleistocene. Their continuous interaction with the land from generation to generation has left material imprints ranging from anthropogenic fires to vision quest sites. The diverse case studies presented in this collection explore the material record of North American mountain dwellers and habitual users of high-elevation resources in terms of social investment—the intergenerational commitment of a group to a particular landscape.
Contributors look creatively at the significance of social investment and its material and nonmaterial consequences, addressing landscape engineering at different times using diverse, theoretical standpoints and archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data from varied mountain environments.
Engineering Mountain Landscapes offers substantive ideas of broad intellectual interest, specific case studies with state-of-the-art methodology, and a wealth of comparative data.
Trade Review“This volume elucidates important archaeological and ethnographic cases in which mountains transform, and become transformed by, human agency. The multi-disciplinary contributions document sophisticated landscape modification strategies that range from construction of facilities and features, to innovative high altitude settlements, to alteration of the very rhythms of mountain ecosystems. Only through the synthesis of science and Native domains of knowledge could a book like this bear witness to human resiliency, adaptation, and innovation in mountain cultures.”
—Pei-Lin Yu, author of
Rivers, Fish, and the People “Early in the history of North American archaeology, mountains were seen as unimportant fringes and barriers with little to attract prehistoric populations. This volume joins the growing body of literature challenging those initial misconceptions with solid archaeology and enthnography.…The overall message found in Scheiber and Zedeno’s edited volume is that for people across the West (and other directions, too) mountains were, and still are, central to their everyday lives.”—
Journal of Anthropological Research “Intriguing and informative.”—
American Antiquity
