More Than Shelter from the Storm: Hunter-Gatherer Houses and the Built Environment

This volume explores the relationship between hunter-gatherer societies and the built environment, highlighting the cultural significance and social inheritance of houses as places of shelter, memory, history, and social cohesion. It utilizes a diverse array of methodologies to reframe the conversation and demonstrates that meaningful relationships with architecture are not limited to sedentary societies.

Format: Hardback
Length: 276 pages
Publication date: 30 August 2022
Publisher: University Press of Florida

Hunter-gatherer societies' relationship to the built environment is frequently disregarded or reduced to a purely utilitarian perspective in archaeological research. This volume delves into deeper questions of cultural significance and social inheritance, offering a comprehensive examination of houses as not only shelters but also repositories of memory, history, and social cohesion within these communities. By drawing from case studies across Europe, Asia, and North and South America, More Than Shelter from the Storm employs a diverse range of methodologies, including radiocarbon dating, geoarchaeology, refitting studies, and material culture studies, to reimagine the discourse surrounding hunter-gatherer houses. Contributors explore how these societies established a sense of home through symbolic decoration, ritual, and transformative engagement with the landscape, spanning from the Pleistocene to the Late Holocene periods. This volume emphasizes that meaningful relationships with architecture extend beyond sedentary societies that construct permanent houses, showcasing the complexity of mobile cultures and highlighting the role of place-making and the built environment in shaping their worldviews.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780813069371