Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This symposium presents current research on the social and political organization of fisher-hunter-gatherer communities that occupied coastal and riverine locations in North America. In particular, papers focus on groups that were politically complex, maintained institutional inequality, or organized themselves in unexpected ways. Archaeology, ethnography, and historic records have all documented instances of such non-agrarian coastal groups, and while these developments are not entirely unique to coastal foragers, access to aquatic resources and avenues of transportation can have dramatic effects on social trajectories. Paradigms for evaluating complexity and social organization can vary regionally because of substantive differences among case studies, and because of the influence of distinct research traditions. This session brings scholars of North American fisher-hunter-gatherers in conversation with one another, with the broader aims of examining those paradigms we use for investigating social organization, untangling criteria of categorization, and comparing regional histories.