Book
Unlike other recent works typically edited collections or theoretical analyses that challenge the pre-history/history divide, this well-written book provides an in-depth treatment of a single regional context. It successfully synthesizes an impressive range of data to highlight the cultural dynamics of hunter-gatherer identities over a four hundred-year span. Land of the Tejas also uses its anthropological and archaeological perspective on hunter-gatherers to speak to broader problems of the human condition in the modern world, addressing issues related to human-environmental interactions and sustainability. For its synthesis of a specified region, its archaeological perspective, and its intervention on identity formation, all readers interested in Texas history, hunter-gatherers, social identity, and broader issues of scale and temporality will find Arnn’s book relevant and enlightening.
Craig N. Cipolla, University of Leicester
Review (Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2014)
The Land of Tejas
Native American Identity and Interaction in Texas, A.D.1300 to 1700
Examining the complex interactions of numerous distinct groups of native peoples over a 400-year period, this book presents an entirely new archaeological conceptualization of Texas that links prehistory and history into a single continuum.