Settlement Pattern Studies in the Americas: Fifty Years since Viru

In Settlement Pattern Studies in the Americas , 17 distinguished scholars recount the history of settlement pattern archaeology and detail current case studies ranging from Alaska to Oaxaca to Peru. The contributors show how the interplay between settlement pattern research and site excavation has sharpened the discussion of such topics as inequality, warfare, ideology, subsistence and craft production, exchange, demography and political interactions. Explaining that new data sets have brought settlement pattern studies to the brink of an exciting era in data collection and spatial analysis, the contributors present innovative and diverse uses for this significant field methodology.