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Sampson, Christina Perry, Victor D. Thompson, and Scott M. Fitzpatrick, eds. 2023. Fisher-

Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America. First Edition. Gainesville: University Press of 

Florida. 

Keywords: prehistory, complex societies, historical processualism, subsistence, landscape. 

Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America offers a collaborative examination of the 

dynamic and intricate nature of prehistoric societies that once thrived in aquatic environments 

across North America. Spanning from the southeastern coast of the United States to the Aleutian 

Islands of the North Pacific, this edited volume underscores the pivotal role that coastal, riverine, 

and estuarine landscapes played as catalysts for the emergence of sociocultural complexity among 

fisher-hunter-gatherer communities. To confront progressivist orientations and evolutionary 

paradigms, this book adopts a historical processualist perspective to understand the shared 

experiences of communities living near water, reconcile human agency with multiscalar cultural 

processes, and analyze the interplay of ecology, history, and landscape engagement in shaping the 

trajectories of fisher-hunter-gatherers.   

Following a compelling introductory chapter by C. Perry Sampson, which outlines the theoretical 

frameworks and methodological foundations of the book, the volume presents eight diverse yet 

thematically linked case studies. Together, these chapters investigate five central themes that recur 

throughout the volume: (1) how people used and transformed landscapes, (2) the mechanisms and 

meanings behind social memory, (3) the evolution of social organization, (4) the development of 

craft specialization, and (5) the interaction via travel and exchange networks. 

Regarding landscape use and manipulation, C. Grier (Chapter 2) examines the historical 

development of the Salish Sea region over the past 2,500 years, emphasizing how landscapes—

both terrestrial and intertidal—were shaped and inscribed with meaning through construction and 

engineering practices. Drawing on archaeological data from major sites, Grier demonstrates that 

landscape modification was closely tied to shifts in community organization and household 



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structure. These transformations were instrumental in facilitating emerging elite strategies that 

controlled resources, reconfigured social hierarchies, and expressed collective identities.  

The examination of high-intimacy transmission and social memory persistence as indicators of 

complexity is led by C. Funk et al. in Chapter 4. They examine the material and immaterial results 

of transmitting curated information through time (intergenerationally) and space (across 

interconnected communities on the Rat Islands of Alaska). The authors review oral histories and 

archaeologically identifiable evidence of social memory and information transmission, which 

include earthen moundbuilding, the patterned harvest of birds, and plant management. They 

conclude that social memory, or the shared knowledge of ways of doing things and its 

manifestation in ritual behaviors, narratives, and objects and representations, was only possible by 

intense multilevel cooperation and horizontal and vertical interconnectedness.  

A.M. Prentiss et al. (Chapter 3) bridge the topics of social memory and organization in the 

continuation and maintenance of complexity. They examine the ethnographic and archaeological 

records in the Middle Fraser Canyon of southern British Columbia during 1000-1300 cal BP, a 

period that witnessed high levels of demographic density and complex cultural practices. To 

understand their demographic organization, the authors analyze village size, spatial organization, 

settlement stability, degrees of social inequality, and the potential autonomy of individual villages. 

Subsequently, they conclude that the sociopolitical landscape does not align with the expectations 

of the egalitarian band model often associated with the Plateau region, nor with a traditional 

chiefdom framework. Instead, they propose a Ranked Local Group model by which the Mid-Fraser 

societies were composed of clan-based intervillage entities that afforded their members unequal 

access to resources. These sociopolitical formations supported internal ranking systems based on 

competition for prestige and authority. 

Likewise, T. Pluckhan et al. (Chapter 6) delve into the dynamics of social complexity. They 

examine the changes in cooperation from Middle to Late Woodland periods (300BC-AD1050) 

along Florida’s central Gulf Coast and identify two main stages. First, an escalation in continued 

cooperation between the neighboring shell mound and midden complexes of Crystal River and 

Roberts Island during the Middle Woodland, evolving from episodic to more sustained 

collaboration. The second shift occurred in the transition to Late Woodland, when cooperation was 



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concentrated but intensified among related households. These kin-based units worked together 

more intensively in the production and consumption of both subsistence and ceremonial goods.  

S. Sunell and C. Jazwa explore the complexities of settlement and craft production in Chapter 7. 

They analyze settlement organization in California’s Northern Channel Islands between 1500 and 

650 BP. During this period, there was a shift from widely distributed and relatively homogenous 

sites, to fewer but larger coastal sites with evidence of increasing inter and intra-site variation. This 

transition in household size between the Middle and Late Holocene periods occurred in tandem 

with the development of the bead industry.  

The production of specialized crafted goods is frequently associated with inter-community 

exchange. C. Perry Sampson (Chapter 5) compares the regional trade of crafted goods on the 

central Gulf Coast of peninsular Florida during the Late Woodland and early Mississippian periods. 

Focusing on the production and movement of marine shell artifacts, Sampson argues that coastal 

Safety Harbor residents used community-level specialization to shift their relationships with 

neighboring groups strategically to partake as artisans, exporters, and consumers. That way, marine 

shell trade provided a mechanism for community cohesion and ritual expression, while facilitating 

relationships of power with remote communities through long-distance trade.  

Similarly, M. Fauvelle and J. Perry (Chapter 8) investigate the interconnections between ritual 

economy and regional political organization in the Channel Islands and adjacent mainland areas 

of southern California during the period of European contact. The authors demonstrate that the 

intensification of trade networks during the Middle and Late periods (500 BCE to 1782 CE) was 

tied to cyclical ritual events. These events, including feasts and ceremonies often orchestrated by 

elites, catalyzed the circulation of a diverse range of value-added goods. The ritualized exchange 

of commodities not only underpinned the development of complex regional economies but also 

contributed to the emergence of sociopolitical hierarchies and institutional complexity in the 

region. 

Chapter 9, authored by T.R. Kidder, serves as a reflective conclusion to the volume, offering a 

critical historiographic analysis of the concept of “complexity” as it has been applied to hunter-

fisher-gatherer societies. While acknowledging the epistemological value of embracing variability 

within complex social formations, Kidder underscores several persistent challenges in the 

discourse. These include the overly expansive use of the term “complex,” the predominant focus 



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on political and economic dimensions, and the scholarly tendency to impose binary categorizations 

such as simple versus complex. In response, Kidder advocates for a more nuanced understanding 

of human social organization—one that recognizes individuals’ capacity to enact multiple roles 

across different social domains concurrently. To illustrate this perspective, he examines the 

archaeological site of Poverty Point in northeast Louisiana, the largest known Archaic-period 

hunter-fisher-gatherer settlement in North America. While the site reveals evidence of complexity 

in its monumental earthworks and extensive lithic economy, it lacks indicators typically associated 

with hierarchical social organization, such as social stratification, political centralization, or 

economic specialization. Poverty Point thus exemplifies how communities can simultaneously 

exhibit elements of both complexity and simplicity. 

In conclusion, this volume demonstrates that aquatic environments were not passive backgrounds 

but active agents in the formation and development of social complexity among prehistoric 

societies in North America. The advantages afforded by the proximity to water— the reliable 

access to subsistence resources and long-distance trade through navigable waterways—enabled 

the emergence of often sedentary communities characterized by varying degrees of social, 

political, and economic organization. By focusing on variability and context-specific trajectories, 

the book questions paradigms that equate complexity with linear progression models, critically 

reconsiders mid-twentieth-century typologies, and offers a more nuanced and pluralistic 

understanding of hunter-fisher-gatherer lifeways and worldviews. In doing so, it makes a 

substantive contribution to ongoing anthropological debates about the nature of complexity and 

enmeshment of ecological and historical factors in defining prehistoric societies in North America. 

 

 

Dr. Irene Martí Gil is the Educational Outreach Coordinator and Anthropology Collections 

Manager at the LSU Museum of Natural Science in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She obtained a Ph.D. 

in Anthropology from Louisiana State University in 2023, which Fulbright sponsored. Previously, 

she earned her master’s degree in Cultural Heritage from University College London (London), a 

bachelor’s degree in Archaeology from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-Université Paris-

Sorbonne IV (Barcelona-Paris), and a degree in Liberal Arts from Escuela de Liderazgo 

Universitario-Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid). Her field of research encompasses a 



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broad range of topics including archaeological looting and antiquities trafficking, southeastern US 

anthropology, museology, and digital anthropology, among others. 

 

 

© 2025 Irene Martí Gil 

 


