Interrogating the Alterity of Hunter-Gatherers in Bioarchaeological Context: Adaptability, Transformability, and Resilience of Hunter-Gatherers in the Past

The study of hunter-gatherers began as an intellectual exercise in producing social and economic structures that contrasted with industrial capitalism. Paradigms derived from this approach resulted in the evaluation of hunter-gatherers as a progressive phase in cultural evolution, despite the random, non-progressive nature of evolution. Modern anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers continued to emphasize an evolutionary approach, with a select few scholars advocating for inquiries into purposeful behavior. Bioarchaeological studies followed this intellectual trajectory by juxtaposing hunter-gatherers as a constant and abiding comparative sample used to measure the success of agricultural and urban economic structures. Resilience theory represents one way that the empirical evolutionary approach may be integrated with paradigms emphasizing the humanistic goals of practice theory in the study of hunter-gatherers. This chapter introduces resilience theory as a useful way to evaluate the adaptive cycles of hunter-gatherer cultural and socioecological evolution in bioarchaeological perspective and sets forth the goals for this volume.