PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGY
1988-2004
“Problems in Paradigms: Cultural 'Complexity' in Coastal California”
Jon M. Erlandson
Abstract
The complexity of California's maritime peoples is well established in historical and ethnographic accounts, as well as Late Holocene archaeological records. Tracing the emergence of such complexity, however, one of the primary goals of California archaeologists for the last 20 years, is fraught with difficulties. In this paper, I discuss some problems relating to defining and identifying “complexity” in the archaeology of the California coast. I conclude that the archaeological concept of complexity, as well as some of the processual paradignm used in its identification, is problematic.