Complex hunter-gatherers challenge traditional anthropological theory concerning the importance of agriculture to the emergence of cultural complexity. Complex hunter-gatherers — those societies with high population densities, sedentary settlement, developing political economies, and most importantly, pronounced social inequality — have been recorded ethnographically in a few areas of the world, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, but were otherwise thought to have been rare and anomalous. Recent archaeological studies show, however, that complex hunter-gatherers may have been much more common in the more distant past. In this course we will consider the meaning of complexity, look at the factors that are prerequisite to complexity among hunter-gatherers, and examine the ways in which complexity is maintained in hunting and gathering societies. We will also look at how archaeologists recognize evidence of complexity in the archaeological record. Finally, we will examine several case studies (in the form of student presentations) of complex hunter-gatherers from around the world.