Author Description

A strong understanding of material culture – that is, tools, containers, clothing, and myriad other kinds of artifacts that people make – is required for a true understanding of any culture as a whole. In the encyclopedic five volume series, The Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere, Travis Hudson and Thomas Blackburn carefully document virtually every type of cultural artifact known to have been made and used by the Chumash and the neighboring peoples with whom they traded both goods and ideas. This series combines information from historic, ethnographic, and archaeological sources to provide a more comprehensive picture of lifeways of the Native Americans populating the Santa Barbara Channel region. Volume II focuses on activities and artifacts in the domestic sphere. These topics are presented through ethnographic accounts, artifact descriptions, illustrations, and photographs in chapters pertaining to items used in storage and processing of foodstuffs, cooking and serving, house construction, firemaking, and household furnishings.