First published in 1998. Did prehistoric humans walk to North America from Siberia? Who were the inhabitants of the spectacular Anasazi cliff dwellings in the Southwest and why did they disappear? Native Americans used acorns as a major food source, but how did they get rid of the tannic acid which is toxic to humans? How does radiocarbon dating work and how accurate is it? Written for the informed lay person, college-level student, and professional, Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia is an important resource for the study of the earliest North Americans; including facts, theories, descriptions, and speculations on the ancient nomads and hunter-gathers that populated continental North America.
This collection of papers offers insights into the Dorset Palaeo-Eskimo occupation of Arctic Canada, Newfoundland and Greenland. Topics include biological relationships in the Dorset population; succession and discontinuity in Palaeo-Eskimo occupations; Dorset technology in soapstone, metal, and skeletal materials; and social aspects of the late Dorset stone “longhouses”.
Despite its extreme climate, the North American Arctic holds a complex archaeological record of global significance. In this volume, leading researchers provide comprehensive coverage of the region's cultural history, addressing issues as diverse as climate change impacts on human societies, European colonial expansion, and hunter-gatherer adaptations and social organization.
This book makes a contribution to the developing field of complex hunter-gatherer studies with an archaeological analysis of the development of one such group. It examines the evolution of complex hunter-gatherers on the North Pacific coast of Alaska. It is one of the first books available to examine in depth the social evolution of a specific complex hunter-gatherer tradition on the North Pacific Rim and will be of interest to professional archaeologists, anthropologists, and students of archaeology and anthropology.
Interactions between societies are among the most powerful forces in human history. However, because they are difficult to reconstruct from archaeological data, they have often been overlooked and understudied by archaeologists. This is particularly true for hunter-gatherer societies, which are frequently seen as adapting to local conditions rather than developing in the context of large-scale networks. When Worlds Collide presents a new model for discerning interaction networks based on the archaeological record, and then applies the model to long-term change in an Arctic society. Max Friesen has adapted and expanded world-system theory in order to develop a model that explains how hunter-gatherer interaction networks, or world-systems, are structured—and why they change. He has utilized this model to better understand the development of Inuvialuit society in the western Canadian Arctic over a 500-year span, from the pre-contact period to the early twentieth century. As Friesen combines local archaeological data with more extensive ethnographic and archaeological evidence from the surrounding region, a picture emerges of a dynamic Inuvialuit world-system characterized by bounded territories, trade, warfare, and other forms of interaction. This world-system gradually intensified as the impacts of Euroamerican colonial activities increased. This intensification, Friesen suggests, was based on pre-existing Inuvialuit social and economic structures rather than on patterns imposed from outside. Ultimately, this intense interacting network collapsed near the end of the nineteenth century. When Worlds Collide offers a new way to comprehend small-scale world-systems from the point of view of indigenous people. Its approach will prove valuable for understanding hunter-gatherer societies around the globe.
Letters from the Field: Alice Cunningham Fletcher in Nez Perce Country, 1889-1892-Part 2 - Caroline D. Carley Calibrated Radiocarbon Dates and Culture Change: Implications for Socio-Complexity in the Mid-Fraser Region, British Columbia 1st Prize Student Paper, 54th Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference - Michael Lenert Lower Salmon River Cultural Chronology: A Revised and Expanded Model One of Two 2nd Prize Student Papers, 54th Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference - Loren G. Davis Artificial Cranial Deformation in the Koniag: Its Effects on Population Comparisons One of Two 2nd Prize Student Papers, 54th Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference - Jamelon Emmick
The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents also defined by a somewhat different set of an attempt to provide basic information sociocultural characteristics than are eth on all archaeologically known cultures, nological cultures. Major traditions are covering the entire globe and the entire defined based on common subsistence prehistory of humankind. It is designed as practices, sociopolitical organization, and a tool to assist in doing comparative material industries, but language, ideology, research on the peoples of the past. Most and kinship ties play little or no part in of the entries are written by the world's their definition because they are virtually foremost experts on the particular areas unrecoverable from archaeological con and time periods. texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and The Encyclopedia is organized accord kinship ties are central to defining ethno ing to major traditions. A major tradition logical cultures. There are three types of entries in the is defined as a group of populations sharing Encyclopedia: the major tradition entry, similar subsistence practices, technology, and forms of sociopolitical organization, the regional subtradition entry, and the which are spatially contiguous over a rela site entry. Each contains different types of tively large area and which endure tempo information, and each is intended to be rally for a relatively long period. Minimal used in a different way.
Many leading figures in the field of Athabaskan languages contributed to this volume, and their range of topics matches Robert Young's interests. Four papers deal with northern Athabaskan languages, which Young studied in the 1930s. The remaining essays focus on aspects of Navajo language and culture; Young has specialized in this area for over fifty years in collaboration with his mentor, William Morgan, Sr. Several essays present detailed analysis of verb and sentence structure in Navajo, two are studies of Navajo literacy, another examines Navajo philosophy, and one offers the first study of how children learn the complexities of the Navajo verb. Anyone interested in Navajo studies or Athabaskan languages will find these essays invaluable.
For the past 9,000 years, people lived and flourished along the 1,000-mile Aleutian archipelago reaching from the American continent nearly to Asia. The Aleutian chain and surrounding waters supported 40,000 or more people before the Russians arrived. Despite the antiquity of continuous human occupation, the size of the area, and the fascinating and complex social organization, the region has received scant notice from the public. This volume provides a thorough review describing the varied cultures of the ancestral Unangax̂, using archaeological reports, articles, and unpublished data; documented Unangax̂ oral histories, and ethnohistories from early European and American visitors, assessed through the authors’ multi-decade experience working in the Aleutian Archipelago. Unangam Tanangin ilan Unangax̂/Aliguutax̂ Maqax̂singin ama Kadaangim Tanangin Anaĝix̂taqangis (Culture and Archaeology of the Ancestral Unangax̂/Aleut of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska) begins with a description of the physical and biological world (The Physical Environment and The Living Environment) of which the Unangax̂ are part, followed by a description of the archaeological research in the region (The People). The rest of the book addresses ancestral Unangax̂ life including settlement on the land, and the characteristics of sites based on the activities that took place there (People on the Landscape). From this broad perspective, the view narrows to the people making a living through hunting, fishing, and collecting food along the shore-line, making their intricate tools, storing and cooking food, and sewing and weaving (Making a Living); household life including house construction, households, and the work done within the home (Life at Home); and the personal changes an individual goes through from the time they are born through death, including spiritual transitions and ceremonies (Transitions), and the evidence for these events in the material record. This book is written in gratitude to the Unangax̂ and Aleut people for the opportunity to work in Unangam Tanangin or the Aleutian Islands, and to learn about your culture. We hope you find this book useful. The purpose of this book is to introduce the broader public to the cultures of this North Pacific archipelago in a single source, while simultaneously providing researchers a comprehensive synthesis of archaeology in the region.
