Hunting and Extinctions in Southwest Asia and North America: The Silent Testimony of Communal Game Traps explores
communal game traps for harvesting ungulate herds in two continents,
utilizing a comparative approach addressing settings, species, and the
hunters’ societies.
The kites of Southwest Asia have been known to archaeologists for
almost one hundred years but with the advent of high‑resolution
satellite images, thousands of sites have been found. Using the rich
data from the Southwest and Central Asia and North America, this book
addresses some of the important questions that arise concerning the
social, economic and environmental implications of ancient and recent
use of large game traps. This book has four major parts. The first
introduces the book and reviews the evolution of human hunting. The
second part presents examples of desert kites from various areas of
Southwest and Central Asia. Detailed case studies are included that use a
variety of evidence such as aerial surveys, field surveys, excavations,
eye witnesses accounts, and petroglyph depictions. Environmental and
geographical settings of the isolated traps, the clusters of traps, and
the long chains are explored to provide conceptual models regarding past
herd behavior and their seasonal migrations. The third part presents
examples of communal game traps in various regions in North America,
addressing the same issues discussed in the second part. The fourth part
provides a comparative study of game traps in North America with the
kites of Southwest Asia, focusing on the settings, species, and social
organization of the hunters.
With the research on communal game traps increasing rapidly, this
book provides the first inclusive synthesis on the subject and is for
archaeologists, anthropologists, zoologists, ecologists, and
environmentalists who are interested in past interactions between humans
and their environments, and the impact of past human communities on the
landscape and on target game populations, as well as the consequences
that are still relevant today.
eBook Published 7 December 2025
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|46 pages
Introduction
Title
part 2|122 pages
The Kites of Southwest-Central Asia
Title
part 3|110 pages
The Traps of North America
Title
part 4|92 pages
Discussion – Southwest Asia and North America
Title
Size: 4.29 MB
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