Craft Specialization and Social Evolution: In Memory of V. Gordon Childe

Description

Editor: Wailes, Bernard (1934-2012)

Publisher: University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

Pub Date: 1996

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Good. Binding tight.  No marks, tears, bends or folds.  Without dust jacket, as issued.  Gilt on spine and front board still sharp, very readable.  Very light edge and corner wear.

Notes: University Museum Monograph 93.  University Museum Symposium Series Volume VI.  Festschrift.  V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957) spent the bulk of his anthropological career in England, Scotland, and Australia.  His theories of dating became outmoded by the development of radiocarbon dating, and his chronology of European archaeology was repudiated.  He was a confirmed Marxist, which factored into his theories about craft specialization (metalsmiths as the first craftsmen, who lived off societal surplus).  “Whatever the sequential relationship between sociopolitical complexity and craft production, that interrelationship remains a critical one, so critical that one might ask, rhetorically, just how complex would any society have become with craft specialization?”  (From the Preface).  Great teacher, prolific writer, not so great field man.