Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines

Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was trained as a lawyer, but in the second part of his life he focused his attention on the emerging science of ethnography. Covering areas of North and Central America, Morgan's last book, Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines, was the first to regard a set of problems that is still currently debated: what does domestic architecture show anthropologists and archaeologists about social organization, and how does social organization combine with a system of production technology and ecological adjustment to influence domestic and public architecture? As William Longacre makes clear in the new foreword, the development of anthropological archaeology was profoundly affected by this book, and its impact continues to resonate. Demonstrating a lack of ethnocentrism rare for his day, Morgan gathered most of his own data from the field and from a gigantic correspondence. The result is a lively, readable work that remains fascinating and instructive today.Morgan, Lewis H. is the author of 'Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines' with ISBN 9780874807547 and ISBN 0874807549.