| Abstract: |
The editors' preface defines subsistence (what people live on), and economy (their management of resources). Chapters 2-5 deal with the methodological advances deemed necessary, while 6-9 are case studies of selected regions and available models. Chapter 1 (editors, pp 1-31) is entitled Beyond domestication: a strategy for investigating the process and consequences of social complexity [why and how to investigate subsistence behaviour in complex prehistoric societies]. 2, J M Maltby (33-74), Patterns in faunal assemblage variability [factors causing this, and ways to isolate and analyse their effects; differential recovery, taphonomy, symbolism, trade in animal products, etc]; Roger Cribb (75-106), The analysis of ancient herding systems: an application of computer simulation in faunal studies [uses FLOCKS program to simulate herd structure; includes productivity indices for meat, milk, and wool production, Iron Age to Saxon]; Martin Jones (107-28), Archaeobotany beyond subsistence reconstruction [development of a behavioural approach to remove the 'barrier' between 'site' and 'environment']; Andrew Fleming (129-46), Land tenure, productivity and field systems [need to know system of tenure, since collective ownership tends to more flexibility in operation than individual peasant farms; implications of fences and meaning of field system formation]. Case studies: M Zvelebil (147-80) (N Russia and NE Baltic); Nigel Mills (181-203), Regional survey and settlement trends: studies from prehistoric France [S France Neo and Auvergne Iron Age]; James Lewthwaite (205-31), (Balearic prehistory); Klavs Randsborg (233-65), Subsistence and settlement in Northern Temperate Europe in the 1st millennium AD [isolates trends such as increased reliance on cereals and changes in preferences therein; environmental controls on stock raising; climatic pressures at this time; varied responses of communities to outside factors]. |
