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Description: This book, the first comparative study of specialized production in prehistoric societies, examines both adaptionist and political approaches to specialization and exchange. What forms of specialization and exchange promote social stratification, political integration, and institutional specialization? Can increases in specialization always be linked to improved subsistence strategies or are they closely related to efforts of political elites to strengthen coalitions and establish new institutions of control? These and other questions are analyzed in the contexts of ten prehistoric societies, ranging from the incipient complexity of Mississippian chiefdoms through to the more complex systems of West Africa, Hawaii and Bronze Age Europe, to the agrarian states of Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, Peru and Yamato Japan. A specialist considers the interplay of specialization, exchange and social complexity in each society.
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