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The Archaeology of Seafaring in Small-Scale Societies

Name: The Archaeology of Seafaring in Small-Scale Societies
Author: Alberto García-Piquer
ISBN: 9780813081274

Negotiating Watery Worlds

Edited by Alberto García-Piquer, Mikael Fauvelle and Colin Grier

Published by: University Press of Florida

Series: Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology

Focusing on small-scale societies in saltwater environments, this volume explores the development of seafaring technology and examines how watercraft have served as groundbreaking innovations throughout human history.

320 Pages6.13 × 9.2567 b/w illus., 5 tables, bibliography, index

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9780813081274
Published: December 16, 2025

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9780813079493
Published: December 16, 2025

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Description
Authors
Praise
Table of Contents

This book is available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support by the Lund University Library and the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology at Lund University.

Exploring how ancient peoples developed seafaring technology and used watercraft to support and transform their societies

The development of seafaring technology throughout history expanded geographical and social horizons—powering human mobility and interaction, structuring social contexts, shaping worldviews, and effecting political centralization. This volume examines how watercraft have served as groundbreaking innovations throughout human history, focusing on small-scale societies in saltwater environments.

Using archaeological, historical, and ethnographic evidence, contributors examine settlement patterns in western Patagonia, whale hunting by Megalithic societies in Brittany, maritime mobility in Baja California, Coast Salish trip lengths, and Inuit connections to boats and the sea in the Eastern Arctic. Themes explored include the technological capacities of watercraft and the humans who propelled them, the role of watercraft in production and consumption of resources, the impacts of widespread travel on social networks, and the phenomenological experience of seafaring. The Archaeology of Seafaring in Small-Scale Societies illuminates the complex interplays that sustained past watery worlds and highlights the necessity of studying the subject with a holistic and globally comparative approach.

Alberto García-Piquer is a postdoctoral scholar at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. Mikael Fauvelle is associate professor of archaeology and ancient history at Lund University. Fauvelle is coeditor of An Archaeology of Abundance: Reevaluating the Marginality of California’s Islands. Colin Grier is professor of anthropology at Washington State University.

“Each chapter presents unique data to address processes of change and how watercraft were instrumental to them. The methods and approaches used by the authors are varied, from agent-based modeling of waterways to ontological studies of canoe beings, investigations of the ratcheting up of political and social complexity by the adoption of watercraft, and bioarchaeological data that shows people do not just shape boats but are also shaped by their boats in return. A must read.”—Ashley Lemke, author of Anthropological Archaeology Underwater
“This volume makes a strong, varied case that boats are socially, symbolically, and materially important. Thought-provoking, it offers a coherent agenda for necessary future research on the topic.”—Christina Perry Sampson, editor of Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America

List of Figures

List of Tables

Foreword

Acknowledgments

1. Why Boats Matter: Breaking Down Terrestrial Bias in Archaeology

Mikael Fauvelle, Alberto García-Piquer, and Colin Grier

2. Navigating Paradigms: Seafaring, Settlement Patterns, and Social Interaction in Southernmost South America

Alberto García-Piquer

3. Seascapes of the Unreal: Using Agent-Based Modeling to Examine Traditional Coast Salish Maritime Mobility

Adam N. Rorabaugh

4. Were Sperm Whales Hunted by Megalithic Communities in Brittany, France, During the Fifth Millennium cal BCE?

Bettina Schulz Paulsson

5. Seascapes and Society on the Forgotten Peninsula: The Watercraft and Conceptual Geography of Baja California, Mexico

Matthew R. Des Lauriers and Claudia García-Des Lauriers

6. Kanči: Indigenous Seafaring, Watercraft Diversity, and Cultural Contact in Southern Patagonia

Nelson Aguilera Águila, Alberto García-Piquer, and Raquel Piqué

7. Collective Action, Transport Costs, Watercraft Technologies, and the Engineered Ancestral Landscapes of Southern Florida

Victor D. Thompson

8. The Transformative Power of Boats: Seafaring, Maritime Interaction, and Social Complexity

Mikael Fauvelle and Peter Jordan

9. Going by Boat-Being: An Indigenous Ontological Approach to Watercraft in the Pacific Northwest Coast

Erin M. Smith

10. Precontact Inuit Watercraft and the Hunter–Prey Actantial Hinge

Peter Whitridge

11. Caballito de Totora Assemblages in Ancient and Modern Huanchaco, Peru

Jordi A. Rivera Prince

12. Toward, Not To: Seafaring Worldviews from Viking Age and High Medieval Norway

Greer Jarrett

13. Negotiating Watery Worlds: Crafting a Research Agenda

Colin Grier, Mikael Fauvelle, and Alberto García-Piquer

List of Contributors

Index

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

The Archaeology of Seafaring in Small-Scale Societies

Negotiating Watery Worlds

The Archaeology of Seafaring in Small-Scale Societies

Negotiating Watery Worlds

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