This volume considers regional approaches to social complexity from a variety of perspectives and at a global scale. John F. Cherry has been a key figure in regional-scale inquiry and broader disciplinary interfaces throughout his career, producing, mentoring, and inspiring a remarkably diverse body of work, which nevertheless remains oriented around this central theme. While Cherry's work is the inspiration for this volume and the papers within it, this should not be seen as a traditional festschrift, or piecemeal homage to the honorand's career. Rather, it aims to explore this core concern of regional approaches to society and complexity in comparative perspective, first in the Aegean, then branching out to the wider Mediterranean, New World, and finally reflecting on relevant issues of concern to all archaeologists working at levels above the site.
Alex R. Knodell is Assistant Professor of Classics and Co-Director of the Archaeology Program at Carleton College. He currently co-directs the Mazi Archaeological Project (Northwest Attica, Greece) and previously served as field director of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (Petra, Jordan). Other research interests include the development of complex societies in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Mediterranean, especially in relation to the Euboean Gulf of Greece. Recent articles have appeared in Antike Kunst, Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Field Archaeology, and World Archaeology. Thomas P. Leppard is Renfrew Fellow in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. His research concerns the comparative archaeology of island societies in the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Pacific, especially issues of colonization, mobility, and emergent social complexity. Recent articles on these subjects have appeared in Human Ecology, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Current Anthropology, Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, and World Archaeology. He currently conducts fieldwork in Micronesia and Sardinia.
"All the papers here have benefitted from the lucidity and the reflexive attention to method which Cherry has consistently applied and promoted. It is because this volume exemplifies those qualities so effectively, as well as advocating them so coherently, that it will become a landmark publication in the advocacy of good, theoretically robust archaeology, with a respectful approach to the collection and analysis of data." from the Foreword by Colin Renfrew

Alex R. Knodell

Thomas P. Leppard