Anthropology without Informants

"It is my sincere hope that this volume will be much read and reflected upon by new generations of American students of prehistoric archaeologists. Freeman's career is a model for long-term international collaboration, theoretical eclecticism, the centrality of field research, and the ability to 'dream big,' but with a commonsense approach to the record and its limitations."

—Lawrence Guy Straus, Journal of Anthropological Research

L.G. Freeman is a major scholar of Old World Paleolithic prehistory and a self-described "behavioral paleoanthropologist." Anthropology without Informants is a collection of previously published papers by this preeminent archaeologist, representing a cross section of his contributions to Old World Paleolithic prehistory and archaeological theory.

A sociocultural anthropologist who became a behavioral paleoanthropologist late in his career, Freeman took a unique approach, employing statistical or mathematical techniques in his analysis of archaeological data. All the papers in this collection blend theoretical statements with the archeological facts they are intended to help the reader understand.

Although he taught at the University of Chicago for the span of his 40-year career, Freeman is not well known among Anglophone scholars, because his primary fieldwork and publishing occurred in Spain. He has, however, been a major player in Paleolithic prehistory, and this volume will introduce him to American archaeologists unfamiliar with his work.