Environmental Reconstruction in Archaeological Science
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Earle, Timothy
Major Accomplishments
Elizabeth DeMarrais Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Strongly evolutionary in its orientation, Earle’s research is grounded in materialist approaches. Focused initially on the economic foundations of leadership, his interests widened to encompass ideology, culture, and agency, as well as exploring corporate forms of sociopolitical organization. The broad comparative sweep of his thinking is best reflected in The Evolution of Human Societies (first ed., 1987, second ed., 2000), coauthored with Allen Johnson. Unparalleled as a contribution to multi-linear social evolutionary theory, the book investigates the causes, mechanisms, and patterns of change through nineteen ethnographic and archaeological case studies. Subsistence intensification, political integration, and social stratification are characterized as interdependent processes that unfold in varied environments – at distinct societal scales – across the globe. Earle’s archaeological field projects, in Polynesia, the Andes, and Europe, have incorporated rigorous testing of economic questions alongside innovative methods. As a doctoral student investigating irrigation, he mapped engineered landscapes in Hawaii as part of Marshall Sahlins’ Hawaiian Social Morphology and Economy project (1971–1972). Demonstrating that land tenure translated into political control, Earle argued that redistribution mobilized surpluses predominantly to finance elite domination rather than to even out access to resources.
Basic Biographical Information Timothy Earle (Fig. 1) is an anthropological archaeologist whose interests center on the political economies of intermediate societies (chiefdoms) and archaic states. Earle received a B.A. from Harvard College (1969) and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (1973). He was Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1973 to 1995 and Director of UCLA’s Institute of Archaeology from 1987 to 1992. He spent a year at the University of Cambridge (1986–1987). In 1995, he joined Northwestern University as Chair of the Department of Anthropology and became Professor Emeritus in 2011. He was elected to the Executive Board of the Society for Economic Anthropology (2002–), the Editorial Board of the Society for Evolutionary Anthropology (2007–2011), and the Executive Committee of the Human Relations Area File (2008–2011). He served as President of the Archaeology Division of the American Anthropological Association (1993–1997). In 2002, he delivered the Archaeology Division’s annual distinguished lecture (Earle 2004).
C. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2, # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
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Earle, Timothy, Fig. 1 Tim Earle. Photo: Kristian Kristiansen
Before the word agency entered common parlance, Earle recognized that leaders can – and do – influence trajectories of sociopolitical change. He then elaborated upon his economic approach in a series of publ
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