AD 1150 to the Present: Ancient Political Economy to Contemporary Materiality—Archaeological Anthropology in Honor of Jeanne E. Arnold

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "AD 1150 to the Present: Ancient Political Economy to Contemporary Materiality—Archaeological Anthropology in Honor of Jeanne E. Arnold" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This symposium honors the legacy of Jeanne E. Arnold, a leading voice in California archaeology and a remarkably impactful mentor who made an indelible impact on the field of archaeological anthropology. On the whole, Jeanne’s scholarship reframed complex hunter-gatherer-fisher societies as not mere exceptions to normative cultural evolutionary patterns but rather exemplars of creative social, political, and economic strategies that defy easy generalization and complicate expectations of agriculture as requisite to the emergence of institutionalized power differentials in and among human societies. Jeanne wrote and published prolifically, contributing seven books and 70 articles and book chapters to myriad theory-imbued discussions—technological innovation, craft specialization, the evolution of leadership, the organization of household labor, apprenticeship, consumption and leisure, and contemporary materializations of meaning and identity, among others. This impressive record of scholarship includes numerous publications with her students as well as with scholars from a wide swath of disciplines, demonstrating a remarkable commitment to collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches to studying the human condition. This symposium brings together an ensemble of scholars whose collective work exemplifies the dispositions, methodological rigor, analytic approaches, and theoretical foci pursued and championed by Jeanne E. Arnold.