Paleoamerican Odyssey
Paleoamerican Odyssey

Author: Kelly E. Graf

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2014-08-20

Total Pages: 1087

ISBN-13: 1623492335

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As research continues on the earliest migration of modern humans into North and South America, the current state of knowledge about these first Americans is continually evolving. Especially with recent advances in human genomic studies, both of living populations and ancient skeletal remains, new light is being shed in the ongoing quest toward understanding the full complexity and timing of prehistoric migration patterns. Paleoamerican Odyssey collects thirty-one studies presented at the 2013 conference by the same name, hosted in Santa Fe, New Mexico, by the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. Providing an up-to-date view of the current state of knowledge in paleoamerican studies, the research gathered in this volume, presented by leaders in the field, focuses especially on late Pleistocene Northeast Asia, Beringia, and North and South America, as well as dispersal routes, molecular genetics, and Clovis and pre-Clovis archaeology.

Clovis Lithic Technology
Clovis Lithic Technology

Author: Michael R. Waters

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2011-10-12

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13: 9781603442787

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Some 13,000 years ago, humans were drawn repeatedly to a small valley in what is now Central Texas, near the banks of Buttermilk Creek. These early hunter-gatherers camped, collected stone, and shaped it into a variety of tools they needed to hunt game, process food, and subsist in the Texas wilderness. Their toolkit included bifaces, blades, and deadly spear points. Where they worked, they left thousands of pieces of debris, which have allowed archaeologists to reconstruct their methods of tool production. Along with the faunal material that was also discarded in their prehistoric campsite, these stone, or lithic, artifacts afford a glimpse of human life at the end of the last ice age during an era referred to as Clovis. The area where these people roamed and camped, called the Gault site, is one of the most important Clovis sites in North America. A decade ago a team from Texas A&M University excavated a single area of the site—formally named Excavation Area 8, but informally dubbed the Lindsey Pit—which features the densest concentration of Clovis artifacts and the clearest stratigraphy at the Gault site. Some 67,000 lithic artifacts were recovered during fieldwork, along with 5,700 pieces of faunal material. In a thorough synthesis of the evidence from this prehistoric “workshop,” Michael R. Waters and his coauthors provide the technical data needed to interpret and compare this site with other sites from the same period, illuminating the story of Clovis people in the Buttermilk Creek Valley.

Paleoamerican Odyssey
Paleoamerican Odyssey

Author: Kelly E. Graf

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 590

ISBN-13:

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As research continues on the earliest migration of modern humans into North and South America, the current state of knowledge about these first Americans is continually evolving. Especially with recent advances in human genomic studies, both of living populations and ancient skeletal remains, new light is being shed in the ongoing quest toward understanding the full complexity and timing of prehistoric migration patterns. Paleoamerican Odyssey collects thirty-one studies presented at the 2013 conference by the same name, hosted in Santa Fe, New Mexico, by the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. Providing an up-to-date view of the current state of knowledge in paleoamerican studies, the research gathered in this volume, presented by leaders in the field, focuses especially on late Pleistocene Northeast Asia, Beringia, and North and South America, as well as dispersal routes, molecular genetics, and Clovis and pre-Clovis archaeology.

PaleoAmerican Archaeology in Virginia
PaleoAmerican Archaeology in Virginia

Author: Wm Jack Hranicky

Publisher: Universal-Publishers

Published: 2017-10-10

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1627341102

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This book is a full-color study of over 500 pre-Clovis stone artifacts of Virginia. With the 22K-year date of the Cinmar bipoint in Virginia, there is ample evidence of artifact classes that are older than Clovis. Over 50 tool types are illustrated and discussed. Artifact single-site collections are documented. The book argues the differences between Holocene biface technology with the blade and core technology of the Pleistocene era. The requirements for identifying Pleistocene artifacts is presented, such as platforms, remaining cortex, and invasive retouch. They are presented in a tool model. Major stones, namely jasper, are discussed as a lithic determinism. The east coast distribution is presented for various tool types. Additionally, as a major focus, cross-Atlantic flake/blade identical tools from Europe are illustrated with Middle Atlantic artifacts. Artifact ergonomics, such as right-left handed tools, hypothetical tool center, are argued. Structural and functional axis are shown and described on how to identify them on tools. Overall, this book presents an initiating view of the archaeology needed to study Pleistocene era artifacts on the American east coast.

The Architecture of Hunting
The Architecture of Hunting

Author: Ashley Lemke

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2022-08-24

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 1623499232

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As one of the most significant economic innovations in prehistory, hunting architecture radically altered life and society for hunter-gatherers. The development of these structures indicates that foragers designed their environments, had a deep knowledge of animal behavior, and interacted with each other in complex ways that reach beyond previous assumptions. Combining underwater archaeology, terrestrial archaeology, and ethnographic and historical research, The Architecture of Hunting investigates the creation and use of hunting architecture by hunter-gatherers. Hunting architecture—including blinds, drive lanes, and fishing weirs—is a global phenomenon found across a broad spectrum of cultures, time, geography, and environments. Relying on similar behaviors in species such as caribou, bison, guanacos, antelope, and gazelles, cultures as diverse as Sami reindeer herders, the Inka, and ancient bison hunters on the North American plains have employed such structures, combined with strategically situated landforms, to ensure adequate food supplies while maintaining a nomadic way of life. Using examples of hunting architecture from across the globe and how they influence forager mobility, territoriality, property, leadership, and labor aggregation, Ashley Lemke explores this architecture as a form of human niche construction and considers the myriad ways such built structures affect hunter-gatherer lifeways. Bringing together diverse sources under the single category of “hunting architecture,” The Architecture of Hunting serves as the new standard guide for anyone interested in hunter-gatherers and their built environment.

Natural Science and Indigenous Knowledge
Natural Science and Indigenous Knowledge

Author: Edward A. Johnson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2024-04-30

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1009416677

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This book considers the similarities and differences between Indigenous knowledge and science and how, when taken together, they enrich one other. Advanced students and researchers in natural resource management, ecology, conservation, and environmental sciences will learn about the practices of Indigenous people in the natural world.

Middle Atlantic Prehistory
Middle Atlantic Prehistory

Author: Heather A. Wholey

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-03-05

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1442228768

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Regional identities and practices are often debated in American archaeology, but Middle Atlantic prehistorians have largely refrained from such discussions, focusing instead on creating chronologies and studying socio-political evolution from the perspective of sub-regions. What is Middle Atlantic prehistoric archaeology? What are the questions and methods that identify our practice in this region or connect research in our region to larger anthropological themes? Middle Atlantic Prehistory: Foundations and Practice provides a basic survey of Middle Atlantic prehistoric archaeology and serves as an important reference for situating the development of Middle Atlantic prehistoric archaeology within the present context of culture area studies. This edited volume is a regional, historic overview of important themes, topics, and approaches in Middle Atlantic prehistory; covering major practical and theoretical debates and controversies in the region and in the discipline. Each chapter is holistic in its review of the historical development of a particular theme, in evaluating its contributions to current scholarship, and in proposing future directions for productive scholarly work. Contributing authors represent the full range of professional practice in archaeology and include university professors, cultural resources professionals, government regulatory/review archaeologists and museums curators with many years of practical and theoretical immersion in his/her chapter topic, and is highly regarded in the discipline and in the region for their expertise. Middle Atlantic Prehistory provides a much-needed synthesis and historical overview for academic and cultural resource archaeologists and independent scholars working in the Middle Atlantic region in particular.

The Prehistory of Human Migration
The Prehistory of Human Migration

Author: Rintaro Ono

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2024-07-10

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1803553669

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The Prehistory of Human Migration - Human Expansion, Resource Use, and Mortuary Practice in Maritime Asia presents the current state of archaeological research on the migration and expansion of the first modern humans (Homo sapiens) into the maritime regions of Asia and Oceania. This area, which stretches geographically from the North and Southeast Asian mainland through the archipelagos of Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia all the way to Oceania, has provided us with numerous new insights and discoveries based on data from archaeological and bioanthropological research, thus revealing the cognitive abilities as well as the behavioural adaptations and technological innovations of these early islanders and seafarers that led to the successful colonization of this unique island world. In seven chapters devoted to the themes ‘Modern Human Migration to Maritime Asia and Oceania’, ‘Modern Human Migration, Technology and Resource Use in Maritime Asia’, and ‘Modern Human Migration and Mortuary Practices in Maritime Asia’, leading archaeologists present their research in Wallacea, the Ryukyu Islands (East Asia), and the coastal regions of Northeast and Northeast Asia, and discuss their findings on early modern human migration to Maritime Asia, the utilization of its diverse resources, and the belief systems of these early islanders during the Late Pleistocene.

America Before
America Before

Author: Graham Hancock

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2019-04-23

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 1250153743

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The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, has made it his life's work to find out--and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago – amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago – many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. Hancock's research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient "New World" cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected "Old World" cultures. Have archaeologists focused for too long only on the "Old World" in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the "New World"? America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock's body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.

Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas
Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas

Author: Michael David Frachetti

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-07-20

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 331915138X

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Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas contains contributions by leading international scholars concerning the character, timing, and geography of regional migrations that led to the dispersal of human societies from Inner and northeast Asia to the New World in the Upper Pleistocene (ca. 20,000-15,000 years ago). This volume bridges scholarly traditions from Europe, Central Asia, and North and South America, bringing different perspectives into a common view. The book presents an international overview of an ongoing discussion that is relevant to the ancient history of both Eurasia and the Americas. The content of the chapters provides both geographic and conceptual coverage of main currents in contemporary scholarly research, including case studies from Inner Asia (Kazakhstan), southwest Siberia, northeast Siberia, and North and South America. The chapters consider the trajectories, ecology, and social dynamics of ancient mobility, communication, and adaptation in both Eurasia and the Americas, using diverse methodologies of data recovery ranging from archaeology, historical linguistics, ancient DNA, human osteology, and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Although methodologically diverse, the chapters are each broadly synthetic in nature and present current scholarly views of when, and in which ways, societies from northeast Asia ultimately spread eastward (and southward) into North and South America, and how we might reconstruct the cultures and adaptations related to Paleolithic groups. Ultimately, this book provides a unique synthetic perspective that bridges Asia and the Americas and brings the ancient evidence from both sides of the Bering Strait into common focus.