Peter N. Peregrine

Peter N. Peregrine (born November 29, 1963) is an American anthropologist, registered professional archaeologist, and academic. He is well known for his staunch defense of science in anthropology, and for his popular textbook Anthropology (with Carol R. Ember and Melvin Ember). Peregrine did dissertation research on the evolution of the Mississippian culture of North America, and then did fieldwork on Bronze Age cities in Syria. He is currently Professor of Anthropology at Lawrence University and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Peregrine developed a comprehensive data set and methodology for conducting diachronic cross-cultural research. This work has produced the Atlas of Cultural Evolution and the Encyclopedia of Prehistory (with Melvin Ember), and also forms the basis for the Human Relations Area Files eHRAF Archaeology. Peregrine has published extensively on the Mississippian culture and on archaeological method and theory.
Peregrine serves on the editorial boards of American Anthropologist, Cross-Cultural Research, and is past-president of the Society for Anthropological Sciences. In 2011 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Peregrine argued that Mississippian cultures should be seen as participants in a large system that integrated much of eastern North America in a single political economy. He initially employed world-systems theory to do this, arguing that large centers were cores of political and economic authority which were supported by peripheral regions though the exchange of objects used in rituals of social reproduction such as initiation and marriage. The Mississippian cores themselves competitively manufactured and traded these objects, linking them into what Peregrine called a prestige-goods system. Polities vied for power over exchange, and rose and fell as their ability to control prestige-goods strengthened or waned. The response to Peregrine’s view was mixed, with some calling it “exaggerationalist” and others adopting it into their own work.

In the mid-1990s Peregrine and colleagues Richard Blanton, Gary M. Feinman, and Steven Kowalewski developed “dual-processual” theory, which Peregrine applied to Mississippian polities. Dual-processual theory posits that political leaders adopt strategies for implementing power ranging along a continuum from being highly exclusionary to highly inclusive. Exclusionary (or network) strategies are like those Peregrine argued were in place among Mississippian polities. Peregrine argued that inclusive (or corporate) ones were in place among some Ancestral Puebloan polities. While not without controversy, dual processual theory has come to be seen as a valuable tool for understanding both Mississippian and Ancestral Puebloan polities.

More recently Peregrine and colleague Steven Lekson have argued that the Mississippian and Ancestral Puebloan worlds should be viewed as linked together, along with Early Postclassic Mesoamerica, in a continent-wide “oikoumene”. They argue that only such a continental perspective can allow archaeologists to understand broad processes of coordinated change such as the emergence of urban-like communities in many parts of North America around 900 CE. Again, though not without controversy, Peregrine’s drive to promote a multi-regional perspective has been seen as useful for addressing some questions in North American archaeology.

In addition to archaeology Peregrine has also made a number of contributions to cross-cultural studies. The focus of his work has been on developing archaeological correlates for various types of behavior, including warfare, postmarital residence, and social stratification. Peregrine also developed a sampling universe for conducting diachronic cross-cultural research using archaeological cases. The Outline of Archaeological Traditions, as this sampling universe is called, formed the basis of the Encyclopedia of Prehistory and the Human Relations Area Files Collection of Archaeology.

Peregrine played John Muir's father Daniel Muir in the Emmy Award winning film John Muir in the New World (American Masters, PBS, 2011).

Peregrine lives in Appleton, Wisconsin with his wife and two daughters.