The author wrote this book primarily for his archaeology students, to
show them how dangerous anthropological analogy is and how variable the
actual practices of foragers of the recent past and today are. His
survey of anthropological literature points to differences in foraging
societies' patterns of diet, mobility, sharing, land tenure, exchange,
gender relations, division of labour, marriage, descent and political
organisation. By considering the actual, not imagined, reasons behind
diverse behaviour this book argues for a revision of many archaeological
models of prehistory. From the reviews "[A]n excellent overview of key
issues in hunter-gatherer studies." Alan Barnard in American Ethnologist
"Not since Man the Hunter has there been such a synthesis and such a mix
of stimulating ideas. This will be the authoritative work on
hunter/gatherers for a good number of years." Brian Hayden in Canadian
Journal of Archaeology "[A]uthoritative, comprehensive, and highly
readable. . . . A well-worn and heavily annotated copy should be the
companion of anyone claiming an interest or expertise in present or past
hunter-gatherers." Bruce Winterhalder in American Antiquity
Prepublication praise "The Foraging Spectrum [is] a well-written,
scrupulously researched synthesis of modern approaches to foraging
behavior, both past and present." David Hurst Thomas, American Museum of
Natural History "A tour de force of scholarship in behavioral ecology."
Mathias Guenther, Wilfred Laurier University
