Time, Process and Structured Transformation in Archaeology

by McGlade,James; McGlade,James

• ISBN13: 9780415117883
• ISBN10: 0415117887
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-05-23
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In a discipline which essentially studies how modern man came to be, it is remarkable that there are hardly any conceptual tools to describe change. This is due to the history of Western thought and the scientific tradition, which for a long time considered mechanics over dynamics, and the study of stability over change. Change was primarily deemed due to external events. Revolutionary innovations in the natural and life sciences, often erroneously referred to as "chaos theory", suggest that there are ways to overcome this problem. A wide range of processes can be described in terms of autopoietic dynamical systems, and modern computing methods enable us to investigate many of their properties. This volume presents a cogent argument for the use of such approaches, and a discussion of a number of its aspects by a range of scientists from the humanities and natural sciences, and archaeology.

Table of Contents

List of figures	vii	(6)
List of tables	xiii	(2)
List of contributors	xv	(2)
Preface	xvii
1 Introduction: Archaeology and non-linear dynamics - new approaches to long-term change	1	(32)
James McGlade
Sander E. van der Leeuw
Part I Dynamical approaches to social processes	33	(110)
2 Models of creativity: towards a new science of history	39	(18)
Peter M. Allen
3 The dynamics of peer polities	57	(40)
Harry R. Erwin
4 City-size dynamics in urban systems	97	(21)
Denise Pumain
5 Expectations and social outcomes	118	(25)
Natalie S. Glance
Bernardo A. Huberman
Part II Models for archaeology	143	(230)
6 Archaeological interpretation and non-linear dynamic modelling: between metaphor and simulation	151	(25)
Henri-Paul Francfort
7 Simulating mammoth hunting and extinctions: implications for North America	176	(40)
Steven J. Mithen
8 Clusters of death, pockets of survival: dynamic modelling and GIS	216	(38)
Ezra Zubrow
9 Fractal environmental changes and the evolution of culture	254	(15)
Geoffrey C. P. King
Allan G. Lindh
10 Why does cultural evolution proceed at a faster rate than biological evolution?	269	(14)
Robert G. Reynolds
11 Distributed artificial intelligence and emergent social complexity	283	(15)
Jim Doran
12 The limits of social control: coherence and chaos in a prestige-goods economy	298	(33)
James McGlade
13 Structural change and bifurcation in urban evolution: a non-linear dynamical perspective	331	(42)
Sander E. van der Leeuw
James McGlade
Part III Issues in modelling	373	(91)
14 Are our modelling paradigms non-generic?	383	(13)
Robert Rosen
15 On wholeness, reflexive complexity, hierarchies, structures and system dynamics	396	(30)
Graham P. Chapman
16 Towards an `appropriate metrology' of human action in archaeology	426	(23)
H. Martin Wobst
17 Dynamic modelling and new social theory of the mid- to long term	449	(15)
Tim Murray
Index	464