Introduction

This volume examines the socially and ideologically structured actions and long-term histories of hunter-gatherers, as mediated through objects, animals, plants and places in the landscape. The individual papers view the imaginary of belief, perception and value as the essential matrix that makes action in the world possible. From this perspective, the daily, seasonal and annual activities of hunter-sher-gatherers are motivated and enabled by cosmology, social relations, perceptions and values. Actions, conceptual frameworks and materialities are also mutually determined; they affect and reect one another in both sustaining and, at times, transforming relationships. Although often considered beyond the realm of archaeology, the central role of materialities in these relationships allows archaeology insight into conceptual frameworks via the familiar evidence of artefacts, bones and settlement patterns, as well as through burials and more expressive visual depictions. Insight into patterns of thought, or worldview, is essential for comprehensive explanation of patterned behaviour and transition over time. The actions and histories of hunter-gatherers cannot be accounted for simply as optimal behaviour in relation to environmental conditions or as the product of historical contingencies. Change over time also cannot be explained solely in relation to the external stimulus of environmental change or population growth. Responses to economic concerns and environmental circumstances are always a function of cultural perceptions and values. Indeed, worldviews are the essence of cultural diversity and change. This is as true for foraging peoples as it is for any other culture or society. The key contribution of this volume is its use of readily available archaeological evidence, more commonly the subject of economic and technological interpretation, to discern the nature and implications of culturally specic patterns of thought and belief. The result is fuller comprehension of growing archaeological knowledge of hunter-gatherer cultures and their histories, which in many cases has exceeded the scope of materialist or evolutionary explanation alone. The diverse studies in this volume illustrate a variety of ways archaeologists can use their evidence and insight to achieve an appreciation and understanding of worldview and of its material and historical implications. The papers open new dimensions of research into the nature and long-term archaeological histories of hunter-gatherer cultures beyond the issues of ecology and social complexity that have been the guiding inspirations for the discipline for the past forty years.