Birds of the Sun
Birds of the Sun

Author: Christopher W Schwartz

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2022-03-15

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0816544743

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"The multiple, vivid colors of scarlet macaws and their ability to mimic human speech are key reasons they were and are significant to the Native peoples of the southwestern U.S. and northwest New Mexico. Although the birds' natural habitat is the tropical forests of Mexico and Central America, they were present at multiple archaeological sites in the region. Leading experts in southwestern archaeology explore the reasons why"--

The Historical Turn in Southeastern Archaeology
The Historical Turn in Southeastern Archaeology

Author: Robbie Ethridge

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2020-11-03

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1683401905

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This volume uses case studies to capture the recent emphasis on history in archaeological reconstructions of America’s deep past. Previously, archaeologists studying “prehistoric” America focused on long-term evolutionary change, imagining ancient societies like living organisms slowly adapting to environmental challenges. Contributors to this volume demonstrate how today’s researchers are incorporating a new awareness that the precolonial era was also shaped by people responding to historical trends and forces. Essays in this volume delve into sites across what is now the United States Southeast—the St. Johns River Valley, the Gulf Coast, Greater Cahokia, Fort Ancient, the southern Appalachians, and the Savannah River Valley. Prominent scholars of the region highlight the complex interplay of events, human decision-making, movements, and structural elements that combined to shape native societies. The research in this volume represents a profound shift in thinking about precolonial and colonial history and begins to erase the false divide between ancient and contemporary America. Contributors: Susan M. Alt | Robin Beck | Eric E. Bowne | Robert A. Cook | Robbie Ethridge | Jon Bernard Marcoux | Timothy R. Pauketat | Thomas J. Pluckhahn | Asa R. Randall | Christopher B. Rodning | Kenneth E. Sassaman | Lynne P. Sullivan | Victor D. Thompson | Neill J. Wallis | John E. Worth A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Historical Archaeology Through a Western Lens
Historical Archaeology Through a Western Lens

Author: Mark Warner

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2017-06

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1496200373

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A 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title The mythic American West, with its perilous frontiers, big skies, and vast resources, is frequently perceived as unchanging and timeless. The work of many western-based historical archaeologists over the past decade, however, has revealed narratives that often sharply challenge that timelessness. Historical Archaeology Through a Western Lens reveals an archaeological past that is distinct to the region—but not in ways that popular imagination might suggest. Instead, this volume highlights a western past characterized by rapid and ever-changing interactions between diverse groups of people across a wide range of environmental and economic situations. The dynamic and unpredictable lives of western communities have prompted a constant challenging and reimagining of both individual identities and collective understandings of their position within a broader national experience. Indeed, the archaeological West is one clearly characterized by mobility rather than stasis. The archaeologies presented in this volume explore the impact of that pervasive human mobility on the West—a world of transience, impermanence, seasonal migration, and accelerated trade and technology at scales ranging from the local to the global. By documenting the challenges of both local community-building and global networking, they provide an archaeology of the West that is ultimately from the West.

The Foundations of Research and Regional Survey in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia
The Foundations of Research and Regional Survey in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia

Author: Adam T. Smith

Publisher: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13:

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Until recently, the South Caucasus was a virtual /terra/ /incognita/ on Western archaeological maps of southwest Asia. The conspicuous absence of marked places, of site names, toponyms, and topography gave the impression of a region distant, unknown, and vacant. The Joint American-Armenian Project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies (Project ArAGATS) was founded in 1998 to explore this terrain. Our investigations were guided by two overarching goals: to illuminate the social and political transformations central to the regions unique (pre)history and to explore the broader intellectual implications of collaboration between the rich archaeological traditions of Armenia (former U.S.S.R.) and the United States. This volume provides the first encompassing report on the ongoing studies of Project ArAGATS, detailing the general context of contemporary archaeological research in the South Caucasus as well as the specific context of our regional investigations in the Tsaghkahovit Plain of central Armenia. The book opens with detailed examinations of the history of archaeology in the South Caucasus, the theoretical problems that currently orient archaeological research, and a comprehensive reevaluation of the material bases for regional chronology and periodization. The work then provides the complete results of our regional investigations in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, including the findings of the first systematic pedestrian survey ever conducted in the Caucasus. Thanks to the results presented in this volume, and Project ArAGATSs ongoing excavations in the area, the Tsaghkahovit Plain is today the best known archaeological region in the South Caucasus. The present volume thus provides archaeologists with both an orientation to the prehistory of the South Caucasus and the complete findings of the first phase of Project ArAGATSs field investigations.

Archaeological Anthropology
Archaeological Anthropology

Author: James M. Skibo

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780816525171

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For centuries, the goal of archaeologists was to document and describe material artifacts, and at best to make inferences about the origins and evolution of human culture and about prehistoric and historic societies. During the 1960s, however, a number of young, primarily American archaeologists, including William Longacre, rebelled against this simplistic approach. Wanting to do more than just describe, Longacre and others believed that genuine explanations could be achieved by changing the direction, scope, and methodology of the field. What resulted was the New Archaeology, which blended scientific method and anthropology. It urged those working in the field to formulate hypotheses, derive conclusions deductively and, most important, to test them. While, over time the New Archaeology has had its critics, one point remains irrefutable: archaeology will never return to what has since been called its Òstate of innocence.Ó In this collection of twelve new chapters, four generations of Longacre protŽgŽs show how they are building upon and developing but also modifying the theoretical paradigm that remains at the core of Americanist archaeology. The contributions focus on six themes prominent in LongacreÕs career: the intellectual history of the field in the late twentieth century, archaeological methodology, analogical inference, ethnoarchaeology, cultural evolution, and reconstructing ancient society. More than a comprehensive overview of the ideas developed by one of the most influential scholars in the field, however, Archaeological Anthropology makes stimulating contributions to contemporary research. The contributors do not unequivocally endorse LongacreÕs ideas; they challenge them and expand beyond them, making this volume a fitting tribute to a man whose robust research and teaching career continues to resonate.