The Wet and the Dry by Patrick Vinton Kirch (9780226437491)

Description - The Wet and the Dry by Patrick Vinton Kirch

In this work, archaeologist Patrick Kirch challenges the hypothesis that the ability to irrigate is crucial to the development of civilizations. He provides a detailed account of the role of "wet" and "dry" cultivation systems in the development of complex sociopolitical structures. Examining research on cultural adaptation and ecology in Western Polynesia and utilizing extensive data from a variety of important South Pacific sites, Kirch not only reveals how particular systems of production developed within the constraints imposed by environmental conditions, but also explores the tension that arises between contrasting productive systems with different abilities to produce surplus. He argues that the near-total neglect of short-fallow dryland cultivation, as well as arboriculture, or tree-cropping, has seriously distorted the picture that archaeologists and anthropologists have of agricultural intensification and its relation to complex social structure.

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