Description:
Marking the Land investigates physical landscape marking by hunter-gatherers. When and why do hunter-gatherer groups of varying sociocultural complexity and scale place markers on their landscape? When and why are such markers limited to simple, informational signs? When and why are markers invested with symbolic meaning? And when and why is such symbolic meaning raised to the level of sacred significance? With few answers to these questions currently available this book provides a systematic consideration of these aspects of hunter-gatherer adaptation and the varied environments within which they live.
Review Quotes:
'This indispensable theoretical and empirical companion to editors Brian Codding and Karen Kramer's Why Forage? (CH, Jan'17, 54-2326) focuses on understanding the multidimensional bases for hunter-gatherer perceptions and constructions of environmental value and meaning. Thirteen essays are appropriately divided among specialists in archaeology, ethnography/ethnology, ethnoarchaeology, and anthropological linguistics. They convincingly demonstrate that the creation, marking, and maintenance of sacred places help to "embed patterns of behavior and behavioral responses that articulate with environmental variability [both spatial and temporal] in an adaptive way." Excellent addition to the archaeological and ethnographic literature on hunting-gathering societies. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.' - B. Tavakolian, Denison University, in CHOICE
"This volume should be in university libraries, and there are enough outstanding individual papers and enough topical variety and theoretical coherence overall to make this a useful addition to personal libraries." - Aubrey Cannon, McMaster University, Canada