What’s New?

Sander E. van der Leeuw is a Foundation Professor at Arizona State University and co-director of the ASU-SFI Center for Biosocial Complex Systems. His research interests include Archaeology of the later Holocene; Ancient and Modern Human-Environment Relationships; Sustainability; Innovation; Complex Systems Approaches; History and Archaeology of Techniques; Urbanization and Urban Dynamics. In 2012 he was awarded the "Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation" prize by the United Nations Environment Program.Robin Torrence is Senior Fellow, Archaeology and Geosciences at the Australian Museum Research Institute. Dr Torrence's archaeological research focuses on the roles of ancient material culture, especially stone tools, in peoples’ daily lives, social strategies, and exchange systems. Her current research aims to understand social change in western Pacific societies over the past c. 50,000 years, since earliest colonization of the region.

• Introduction: what’s new about innovation? 1. Innovation and the integration of sociocultural systems 2. Pellaport 3. Alternative technologies and socio-economic contexts of adaptation: a study of the coastal fishermen of Saurashtra in western India 4. The genesis of coaxial field systems 5. Dynamics of production intensification in precontact Hawaii 6. The impact of Inca conquest on local technology in the Upper Montaro Valley, Peru 7. Technological change as social rebellion 8. Technological continuity and change among the Andrea peasants: opposition between local and global strategies 9. Ignoring innovation–denying change: the role of iron and the impact of external influences on the transformation of Scandinavian societies 800–500 BC 10. The beginnings of pottery as an economic process 11. The context of adoption of brass technology in northeastern Nigeria and its effects on the elaboration of culture 12. Innovation theory made plain 13. Modelling innovation and change 14. Modelling the innovative component of social change 15. Risk, perception, innovation 16. Cultural transmission and cultural change