some reading lists

I'm thinking about things I want to read but haven't gotten around to because I don't actually have to, so other books keep intervening. Here is a resolution of sorts, a couple of short lists of books I plan to read this year.

1) Archaeology books outside my own area:
The Archaeology of Death and Burial by Mike Parker Pearson.
Provincial Power in the Inka Empire by Terry D'Altroy.
Landscapes of Power, Landscapes of Conflict by Tina Thurston.

2) Nonarchaeological books that relate to archaeology:
Political Power in Pre-colonial Buganda by Richard Reid.
The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society by Jack Goody.
The Government of Philip Augustus by John Baldwin.

Some of these have been gathering dust on my shelves for many years. I'd be curious whether anyone has anything to say about these books, or has lists like this of their own.

Edit: I should add a couple of books I got halfway through last year and then put aside. I really ought to go back to them first.
Archaeology of Aboriginal Culture Change in the Interior Southeast by Marvin Smith.
An Introduction to Information Theory by John Pierce.

For me, it's more a matter of the ones I should read, but haven't had time.

Gathering Hopewell is taking forever. "Thick Prehistory" indeed.

I've read the review of Gathering Hopewell in Antiquity - it looks like there's rather a lot of Chris Carr in there, which does not bode well for easy readability...it sounds like an interesting effort, though. People don't often enough put together so many different kinds of data when doing these syntheses. Does the book hang together, despite covering so much ground?

Hmm... the RSS feed seems to only notify me in case of new threads and not new posts.

I'm not sure. I'm still sifting through it. I'm about 5 chapters in and it's pretty interesting. There are certain things I like about Carr's approach and his overlying ideas about cooperation rather than status. OTOH, the book only covers a few of the core areas and doesn't really address how all of this affects the peripheries, which I think would also inform the interpretation of the core.

Also reading Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms, which doesn't seem to be working with the touchstones.

I have the Talk page default set to "Your groups" so I can check there easily if there are new posts in existing threads.

This problem of spatial variation vs. depth of synthesis is something I've been struggling with in a different setting. It's not so hard to synthesize various kinds of data for a small region, or to compare one kind for a more inclusive space, but once you start trying to compare different kinds of data over a spatial extent where things are going to be working differently in some places, it can be hard to figure out how to manage it. And then there's the problem of temporal change going differently in different places!

I don't really know enough about Middle Woodland to have any grasp at all of what the issues are with core areas vs. peripheries, but I suppose it must have to do with the degree to which the Hopewell-ish elements fit into the same kind of system/structure. That's the sort of thing I think is difficult to compare - but yes, probably necessary for understanding either structure.

My problem is that traffic in this group is so light that I eventually forget to check it (unless I get some sort of RSS reminder).

On the synthesis issue, I think we're starting to see microvariation within phases that suggests a certain type of non-hierarchical social complexity. To attempt to do such a thing is an enormous task, though, so not many people do it (or even want to).

For the Hopewellian influence (I'm going to try to leave the MTS out of this), the authors in the Gathering Hopewell volume have done a nice job at showing the complexities between multiple ritual traditions, but leaves open how to apply that to areas outside the core, which still maintain at least some of the non-ritually based diagnostic artifacts, but not the ritually charged mortuary systems that were the bases for Carr et al.'s synthesis. I always end up with more questions than answers.

"My problem is that traffic in this group is so light that I eventually forget to check it"

Yeah, that's why I use a setting that causes threads with activity to show up at the top of the list. Otherwise I'd never notice them.

"I'm going to try to leave the MTS out of this"

Probably wise, and I don't know a focus from an aspect, so I'd be lost ;) It seems to me that applying it in the periphery is a different problem from showing how it works in the core. Going with the definition that the periphery has some of the diagnostic artifacts but not the full ritual complex, it seems like understanding the periphery depends on how the Hopewell elements are being fitted into the local system and, looking at it from the other side, to what degree these elements of Hopewell culture lose their original meaning when taken out of context.