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This page contains references and resources related to "Survival Archaeology," a new approach to prehistory investigating sources of change and variability in prehistoric hominins' solutions to major survival challenges, namely.
It was originally intended to appear as an appendix to The Unstoppable Human Species (Shea 2023), but I decided to publish only a shorter list of recommended readings in that book. Also, putting the longer bibliography online allows easier updating and editorial remarks that would not get past my Editors at Cambridge University Press.
Bushcraft and Wilderness Survival Annotated Bibliography
© Copyright 2024 by John J. Shea.
A vast “survival” and “bushcraft” literature serves diverse audiences. It also varies widely in quality. Those sources listed below are those I consider the best among the many more that I have read. I have ONLY listed works that I have read. I have not received any of these works as gifts from their authors or publishers or in exchange for including them here.
With few exceptions, I have not listed websites. My main reason for not doing so is their sheer numbers. On June 7, 2020, Google searches returned 31.5 million sources for “bushcraft” and 112 million results for “primitive technology.” Three other reasons justify doing this namely ,
Stability –universal resource locators (URLs) often change without notice.
Verifiability –none are “peer-reviewed” in any meaningful sense.
Fairness –many websites are advertisements for “survival schools,” or other commercial enterprises. Listing them here to the exclusion of others might appear to endorse their services more so than others not listed. I have, nevertheless, listed a few whose services I used for research.
I have listed the works below into two categories, ancestral skills and survival skill. The two subjects overlap somewhat. Many works about ancestral skills mention “survival” in their titles, for example. In making these assignments, in each case I asked myself whether the work in question was telling readers “things people used to do” (ancestral skills) or things you should know in order to self-rescue (survival skills).
I. ANCESTRAL SKILLS
General works
Blankenship, Bart, and Robin Blankenship. 2008 Earth Knack: Stone Age Skills for the 21st Century. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs-Smith, Publisher. A wide range of various handicraft-type skills and activities. Illustrations are mainly line-drawings, but good ones.
Callahan, Errett. 1987. Primitive Technology: Practical Guidelines for Making Stone Tools, Pottery, Basketry, etc. The Aboriginal Way. Lynchburg, VA: Piltdown Productions. This slender work is a series of posters the author used in teaching. They are jam-packed with information, but the print is small. Use a magnifying glass.
Elpel, Thomas J. 2004. Primitive Living, Self-Sufficiency, and Survival Skills: A Field Guide to Primitive Living Skills. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press. An assortment of chapters on a wide range of primitive skills. Well illustrated.
Jones, Scott. 2008. A View to the Past: Experience and Experiment in Primitive Technology. Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing. Mainly articles from the author’s contributions to the Bulletin of Primitive Technology.
McPherson, John, and Geri. McPherson. 1993. Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills. Randolph, KS: Prairie Wolf Publications.
McPherson, John, and Geri. McPherson. 1996. Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills: Applied and Advanced. Randolph, KS: Prairie Wolf Publications.
These exceptionally well-illustrated works compile a series of shorter booklets on specific topics.
Plant, John. 2019. Primitive Technology: A Survivalist's Guide to Building Tools, Shelters, and More in the Wild. New York, NY: Clarkson Potter. This book lacks detail, but it is a good introduction to Plant’s popular, narration-free “Primitive Technology” videos on his Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA
Watts, Steve. N. 2004. Practicing Primitive: A Handbook of Aboriginal Skills. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs-Smith. An assortment of chapters on different topics.
Westcott, David. Editor. 1999. Primitive Technology: A Book of Earth Skills. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs-Smith, Publisher (for the Society of Primitive Technology).
Westcott, David. Editor. 2001. Primitive Technology II: Ancestral Skills. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs-Smith, Publisher. Westcott’s two works compile “best of” articles from the Bulletin of Primitive Technology, the journal of the Society for Primitive Technology (1991-2011). Many of these works are exceptionally well-illustrated.
Fire making
Hume, David. 2018. Fire Making: The Forgotten Art of Conjuring Flame with Spark, Tinder, and Skill. New York: The Experiment. A combination of experiment-based advice and description of ethnographic methods for making fire.
Shelter
Beard, D. C. 2004. Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties: The Classic Guide to Building Wilderness Shelters. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Cooking
Wood, Jacqui. 2001. Prehistoric Cooking. Mount Pleasant, SC: Tempus Publishing.
Focused mainly on the Old World, this work surveys evidence for cooking in various time periods, and lists some recipes for different foods.
Hide-tanning/Leatherwork
Riggs, Jim. 2003. Blue Mountain Buckskin: A Working Manual (2nd edition): Backcountry Publishing.
Hobson, Phyllis. 1977. Tan Your Hide: Home Tanning Leathers and Furs. Pownal, Vermont: Storey Communications.
Stoneworking
Waldorf, D. C., and V. Waldorf. 2006. The Art of Flint Knapping (5th Edition). Branson, MO: Mound Builder Books.
Whittaker, John C. 1994. Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Patten, Bob. 2009. Old Tools–New Eyes: A Primal Primer of Flintknapping; Second Edition. Denver, CO: Stone Dagger Publications.
Carving wood, bone, stone, cordage, basketry, ceramics, etc.
In addition to the general works listed above, the Bulletin of Primitive Technology contains dozens of articles on ancestral arts, crafts, and toolmaking. The Bulletin and the Society for Primitive Technology are no longer active, but the Society’s webpage (https://www.primitive.org/) offers a searchable database of all issue contents as well as back issues for sale.
Navigation
Gooley, Tristan. 2015. The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals―and Other Forgotten Skills. New York, NY: The Experiment. This book covers natural navigation skills.
Tracking (selected exemplary works)
Stuart, Chris, and Tilde Stuart. 2000. A Field Guide to the Tracks and Signs of Southern and East African Wildlife. Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers of South Africa.
Elbroch, Mark, Louis Liebenberg, and Adriaan Dr Louw. 2010. Practical Tracking: A Guide to Following Footprints and Finding Animals. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.
Halfpenny, James, and Jim Bruchac. 2015. Scats and Tracks of the Northeast: A Field Guide to the Signs of 70 Wildlife Species. New York, NY: Falcon Guides (Rowan and Littlefield).
This is one of many regional editions in Falcon Guides’ Scats and Tracks Series.
II. BUSHCRAFT & SURVIVAL SKILLS
General Works
Bushman, Arizona 2018 The Complete Survival in the Southwest. Middletown, DE: John Campell.
Canterbury, Dave. 2014. Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival. Holbrook, MA: Adams Media. This is a very popular book, but it covers some topics rather briefly. It is first in a series of similar books Canterbury has written on bushcraft/survival.
Editors of Stackpole Books (compiled by Amy Rost). 2007. Survival Wisdom & Know How: Everything You Need to Know to Subsist in the Wilderness. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. A massive (480 pages) encyclopedia of bushcraft and wilderness survival information compiled from Stackpole Books’ many shorter books on these topics. NOTE: This book is very large (10.5 x 0.8 x 13.8 inches/26.8 x 2.0 x 35.1 cm) with very small print.
Estela, Kevin. 2019. 101 Skills You Need to Survive in the Woods: The Most Effective Wilderness Know-How on Fire-Making, Knife Work, Navigation, Shelter, Food and More. Salem, Massachusetts: Page Street Publishing. A quick and engaging tour of to a wide range of subjects. An excellent choice for an entry-level introduction.
Fears, J. Wayne. 2018. The Scouting Guide to Survival: An Officially-Licensed Book of the Boy Scouts of America. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing. For parents and children. One of several in the BSA Guides Series.
Gerke, Randy. 2010. Outdoor Survival Guide. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Johnson, Mark 2003. The Ultimate Desert Handbook: A Manual for Desert Hikers, Campers, and Travelers. Ragged Mountain Press (McGraw-Hill).
Kochanski, M. 1987. Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Lone Pine Publishing. This “classic” works emphasizes skills relevant to northern forest habitats.
Grylls Bear. 2017. How to Stay Alive: The Ultimate Survival Guide for Any Situation. New York: William Morrow. Mostly modern survival strategies for a very wide range of topics. Of the many books Grylls has written, this is one of the most practical. Others tend to focus on philosophy and adventure stories.
Lundin, Cody. 2003. 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith. A quirky, witty book, by an unconventional author, but one that is packed with important insights from an experienced survival instructor. For other works and classes, see (www.codylundin.com).
MacWelch, Tim., and Editors of Outdoor Life.
2014. Hunting and Gathering Survival Manual: 221 Primitive and Wilderness Survival Skills. Richmond, CA: Weldon Owen.
2017. The Ultimate Bushcraft Survival Manual: 272 Skills from Lost in the Woods to at Home in the Wild. Richmond, CA: Weldon Owen.
2018. Ultimate Survival Hacks. Richmond, CA: Weldon Owen. MacWelch’s books mix together traditional bushcraft and primitive skills, as well as modern post-disaster/”grid-down” information. They are well-researched, but the illustrations are more “notional” than instructive. That is, they suggest something one could do, but the details on precisely HOW to do it vary.
Mears, Ray. 2003. Essential Bushcraft: A Handbook of Survival Skills from around the World. London, UK: Hodder and Stoughton.
Olsen, Larry Dean. 1973. Outdoor Survival Skills. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press. A classic work, but sparsely illustrated. Chiefly interesting for historical purposes.
Pewtherer, Mark. 2010. Wilderness Survival Handbook: Primitive Skills for Short-Term Survival and Long-Term Comfort. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. A mix of survival skills and primitive living (between which it carefully distinguishes). The sections on making shelter, leather & rawhide, and pottery are particularly good.
Rinella, Steven. 2020. The Meateater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival. New York: Random House. Comprehensive. Pitched mainly at recreational hunters, hikers, focuses mainly on solutions to short-term emergencies.
Stewart, Creek. 2016. 365 Essential Survival Skills: Knowledge That Will Keep You Alive. Iola, WI: Krause Publications. A list of “fast facts” and “hacks,” one or two-per page. Stewart has also published many short books on specific bushcraft topics. He lists these on his website, http://www.creekstewart.com/
Stroud, Les, and Michael Vlessides. 2008. Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere - Alive. New York, NY: HarperCollins. A general work about modern bushcraft skills.
Towell, Colin. 2020. The Survival Handbook: New Edition. New York, NY: DK Publishing. A work originally commissioned for the Boy Scouts of America, this an impressively comprehensive and superbly-illustrated bushcraft/wilderness survival work available.
Survival at Sea
Emory, Kenneth. P. 1943. South Sea Lore. Honolulu, HI: Bishop Museum (Special Publication 33). Survival guide issued to sailors and airmen in the Pacific Theater during World War 2.
Wilderness First Aid
Alton, Joseph, and Amy Alton. 2013. The Survival Medicine Handbook: A Guide for When Help is Not on the Way (Second Edition). Lexington, KY: Doom and Bloom.
Schimelpfenig, Tod. 2016. NOLS Wilderness Medicine (6th Edition). Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
Werner, David, Carol Thurman, and Jane Maxwell. 2010. Where There is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook. Berkeley, CA: Hesperian.
Navigation/Search and Rescue
Burns, Bob. 2015. Wilderness Navigation: Finding Your Way Using Map, Compass, Altimeter & GPS, 3rd Edition. Mountaineers Outdoor Basics. Seattle, WA: Mountaineers. This work covers modern navigation aids.
Koester, Robert J. 2008. Lost Person Behavior: A Search and Rescue Guide on Where to Look - for Land, Air and Water. Charlottesville, VA: dbS Productions. This is a handbook intended to aid search and rescue personnel in the field. It is also one of the finest studies of human behavioral variability in print.
Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Animals
Bourne, Wade. 2015. Basic Fishing: A Beginner's Guide. New York: Skyhorse.
Livingston, Eustace Hazard. 2012. The Trapper's Bible: The Most Complete Guide on Trapping and Hunting Tips Ever. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing.
Nelson R, Nelson H. Mother Nature is Not Trying to Kill You: A Wildlife and Bushcraft Survival Guide. Coral Gables, FL: Mango Publishing; 2021. Mostly concerns dangers of various sorts of animals.
Rinella, Steve. 2015. The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1: Big Game. New York, NY: Spiegel and Grau.
Rinella, Steve. 2015. The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 2: Small Game. New York, NY: Spiegel and Grau.
Sterling, Newt (as told to Bob Noonan) Snaring for Survival. (Location unknown): Newt Sterling (self-published). ISBN: 978-1947758636.
Sullivan, Hal 2005. Snaring 2000: 21st Century Snaring Techniques. (Location unknown) Sullivan Promotions.
Plant identification, trapping, and foraging.
Boudreau, David, and Mykel Hawke. Foraging for Survival: Edible Wild Plants of North America. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing. Mostly a guide to identifying plants, edible and otherwise. Good color photos of every plant listed.
Brill, S. 1994. Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places. New York, NY: William Morrow Paperbacks.
Brill, Steve 2017. Foraging New York: Finding, Identifying, and Preparing Edible Wild Foods. Foraging Series. Guilford, CT: Falcon Guides.
Elpel, Thomas J. 2004. Botany In A Day-The Patterns Method of Plant Identification: Thomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families (5th Edition). Pony, MT: Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School. Simple and straightforward introductory-level reference work annotated with information about plant uses. Illustrations are line drawings, rather than photos.
Elpel, Thomas J., and Kris Reed. 2014. Foraging the Mountain West: Gourmet Edible Plants, Mushrooms, and Meat. Pony, MT: Hops Press.
Gibbons, Euell 1962/2020. Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Guilford, CT: Stackpole Books.
Gibbons, Euell 1964/2020. Stalking the Blue-Eyed Crab. Guilford, CT: Stackpole Books.
Kallas, J. 2010. Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate (The Wild Food Adventure Series, Book 1). The Wild Food Adventure Series, Book 1. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith.
Kershner, Bruce, Daniel Matthews, Gil Nelson, Richard Spellenberg, Terry Purinton, Andrew Block, Gerry Moore, and John W. Thieret. 2008. National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to the Trees of North America. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing. Excellent reference work with color illustrations, focuses mainly on identification rather than on uses.
Zachos, Ellen. 2013. Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing. Good coverage of common suburban plants (mostly Northeast USA), clear color photos.
Selected Websites (out of a much larger number.
Aboriginal Living Skills School in Prescott, Arizona offers small-enrollment skills and survival course focused on montane and desert habitats (www.codylundin.com).
Alderleaf Wilderness College in Monroe, Washington offers a variety of online, printed, and face-to-face instructional resources. (https://www.wildernesscollege.com/)
The Boulder Outdoor Survival School in Boulder, Utah, enjoys a long-standing and national reputation for excellence in wilderness survival instruction (https://www.boss-inc.com/).
Ready.gov US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) website.
Urban/Suburban Survival and Disaster Preparation
Aguirre, Fernando 2019 Street Survival Skills: Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Modern Survival. (No location given): Fernando Aiguirre.
Groene, Janet. 2016. The Survival Food Handbook: Provisioning at the Supermarket for your Boat, Camper, Vacation Cabin, and Home emergencies. New York: McGraw-HIll. Good guidance about food choices, food preparation.
Hawke, Myke. 2009. Hawke's Green Beret Survival Manual. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press. (In 2011, Hawke published a shorter and more portable version of this work as Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook: The Portable Guide to Getting Out Alive.)
Lundin, Cody. 2007. When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes. Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith.
MacWelch, Tim., and Editors of Outdoor Life.
2018. Ultimate Survival Hacks. Richmond, CA: Weldon Owen.
2019 Prepare for Anything Survival Manual: 333 Essential Skills.
MacWelch’s books combine traditional bushcraft and primitive skills with modern ones. They appear well-researched, but the illustrations are more “notional” than instructive. That is, they suggest something one could do, but the details on precisely HOW to do it vary.
Mayer, Bob. 2020. The Green Beret Preparation and Survival Guide: A Common Sense, Step-By-Step Handbook to Prepare for and Survive Any Emergency. Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Green-Beret-Preparation-Survival-Guide-ebook/dp/B08668N9J2/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bob+mayer+green+beret+survival&qid=1611529284&sr=8-1 One among several of Mayer’s books on modern-day survival. It provides sensible general advice for civilians based on the author’s military service. The electronic version of the book has useful hyperlinks to websites offering for sale gear and supplies the author recommends. On the other hand and compared to other works listed here, it is somewhat under-illustrated.
Pogue, David 2021. How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos. New York: Simon & Schuster. A wide-ranging work about strategies for dealing with near-term disasters related to global warming focused on North Americ. Bottom line: Move to the northern US Midwest/central southern Canada.
Torres, John E. 2021. Dr. Disaster’s Guide to Surviving Everything. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Wide-ranging advice about various urban/suburban, and wilderness recreational issues. Especially strong advice about first aid. The author is NBC News’ Senior Medical Correspondent, a medical doctor, and military veteran.
Survivor behavior and psychology.
Ripley, Amanda 2009 The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes–and Why. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Gonzalez, Laurence 2017. Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. New York: W.W. Norton.
Nonfiction accounts of survival ordeals.
Lansing, Alfred. 2015. Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. New York: Basic Books
Arguably one of the greatest survival stories of all time, that of the 1914 British expedition to Antarctica, the shipwreck, and the crew’s self-rescue.
Druett, Joan. 2019. Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World. New York: Algonquin Books. Two shipwrecks on opposite sides of the same island. The story follows the survivors’ divergent paths. One, disorganized, fell into chaos, the other self-organized for survival.
Donner Party (Survival in Sierra Nevada Mountains, 1846)
Brown, Daniel James. 2006. The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride. New York: William Morrow.
Stewart, George R. 1992. Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Wallis, Michael. 2017. The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny. New York: Liveright
Fiction/history for children.
There is a LOT of such works out there for adults and much variation in their quality and accuracy. Here, I list the best works that I have read myself.
George, Jean Craighead 1959. My Side of the Mountain. New York: E. P. Dutton. Young teenage boy runs away from home in New York City, lives on his own it the Catskills for a year. Newberry Prize Honor.
Williams, Nathan Hale 2013. Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party. New York: Harry N. Abrams. A graphic novel whose “framing” is that American Revolutionary War Hero Nathan Hale (1755-1776) postpones his execution for spying by telling tales from future American history. The first in the series is One Dead Spy (2012).
Kraske, Robert. 2005. Marooned: The Strange but True Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, the Real Robinson Crusoe. New York: Clarion Books.
O’Dell, Scott. 1960. Island of the Blue Dolphins. New York: HMH Books for Young Readers. Set in the 1800s, this book tells the story of a young woman marooned on girl spent eighteen years alone on a rocky island far off the coast of California. This book won the Newberry Award, a prize for books for younger readers.
Paulsen, Gary. 2006. Hatchet. New York: Simon and Schuster. First in a series of books for readers ages 12-14 and up, the book describes a young teenager’s survival following a small-plane crash in northern Canada. Hatchet won the Newberry Award, a prize for books for younger readers.