W. C. McKern and the Midwestern Taxonomic Method

W. C. McKern and the Midwestern Taxonomic Method

Author: R. Lee Lyman

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0817312226

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume explains the deep influence of biological methods and theories on the practice of Americanist archaeology by exploring W.C. McKern's use of Linnaean taxonomy as the model for development of a pottery classification system.


Applying Evolutionary Archaeology

Applying Evolutionary Archaeology

Author: Michael J. O'Brien

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-05-08

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0306474689

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Anthropology, and by extension archaeology, has had a long-standing interest in evolution in one or several of its various guises. Pick up any lengthy treatise on humankind written in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the chances are good that the word evolution will appear somewhere in the text. If for some reason the word itself is absent, the odds are excellent that at least the concept of change over time will have a central role in the discussion. After one of the preeminent (and often vilified) social scientists of the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer, popularized the term in the 1850s, evolution became more or less a household word, usually being used synonymously with change, albeit change over extended periods of time. Later, through the writings of Edward Burnett Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, and others, the notion of evolution as it applies to stages of social and political development assumed a prominent position in anthropological disc- sions. To those with only a passing knowledge of American anthropology, it often appears that evolutionism in the early twentieth century went into a decline at the hands of Franz Boas and those of similar outlook, often termed particularists. However, it was not evolutionism that was under attack but rather comparativism— an approach that used the ethnographic present as a key to understanding how and why past peoples lived the way they did (Boas 1896).


Handbook of Archaeological Theories

Handbook of Archaeological Theories

Author: R. Alexander Bentley

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9780759100336

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This handbook gathers original, authoritative articles from leading archaeologists to compile the latest thinking about archaeological theory. The authors provide a comprehensive picture of the theoretical foundations by which archaeologists contextualize and analyze their archaeological data. Student readers will also gain a sense of the immense power that theory has for building interpretations of the past, while recognizing the wonderful archaeological traditions that created it. An extensive bibliography is included. This volume is the single most important reference for current information on contemporary archaeological theories.


Cherokee Archaeology

Cherokee Archaeology

Author: Bennie C. Keel

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published: 1987-06

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780870495465

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Appalachian Summit is the southernmost and highest part of the Appalachian mountain system. It is also the ancient home of the Cherokee Indians. The archaeology of the region has been poorly understood, however, primarily because the details of the archaeological remains of the prehistoric Cherokees and their antecedents have been virtually unknown. In Cherokee Archaeology Bennie Keel closes this longstanding gap in the study of the archaeology of North America by presenting and examining a wealth of recently excavated material evidence of the prehistoric peoples who once lived in the area.


Woodland Period Systematics in the Middle Ohio Valley

Woodland Period Systematics in the Middle Ohio Valley

Author: Darlene Applegate

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2005-10-09

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0817352376

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This collection provides a comprehensive vocabulary for defining the cultural manifestation of the term “Woodland” The Middle Ohio Valley is an archaeologically rich region that stretches from southeastern Indiana, across southern Ohio and northeastern Kentucky, and into northwestern West Virginia. In this area are some of the most spectacular and diverse Woodland Period archaeological sites in North America, but these sites and their rich cultural remains do not fit easily into the traditional Southeastern classification system. This volume, with contributions by most of the senior researchers in the field, represents an important step toward establishing terminology and taxa that are more appropriate to interpreting cultural diversity in the region. The important questions are diverse. What criteria are useful in defining periods and cultural types, and over what spatial and temporal boundaries do those criteria hold? How can we accommodate regional variation in the development and expression of traits used to delineate periods and cultural types? How does the concept of tradition relate to periods and cultural types? Is it prudent to equate culture types with periods? Is it prudent to equate archaeological cultures with ethnographic cultures? How does the available taxonomy hinder research? Contributing authors address these issues and others in the context of their Middle Ohio Valley Woodland Period research


North American Projectile Points

North American Projectile Points

Author: Wm Jack Hranicky

Publisher: Author House

Published: 2014-06-28

Total Pages: 567

ISBN-13: 1496910664

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Jack Hranicky is a retired U.S. Government contractor, but he has been involved with archaeology as a full-time passion for over 40 years. His main interest is the Paleo-Indian period; however, he has worked in all facets of American archaeology. He has published over 250 papers and over 35 books in archaeology with his most recent being a two-volume, 800-page, 10,000-artifact book on the material culture of Virginia. In Virginia, he is considered an expert on prehistoric stone tools and rockart. The prehistoric Spout Run Observatory site was investigated by him which dated 10,470 YBP. He has served as president of the Archeological Society of Virginia (ASV) and Eastern States Archeological Federation (ESAF), and been past chairman of the Alexandria Archaeology Commission in Virginia. He is a charter member of the Registry of Professional Archaeologists (RPA). And, since he joined the Archeological Society of Virginia (ASV) in 1966, he is its senior member. And finally, his major publication is Bipoints Before Clovis.


Method and Theory in American Archaeology

Method and Theory in American Archaeology

Author: Gordon R. Willey

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2001-02-14

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 0817310886

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication This invaluable classic provides the framework for the development of American archaeology during the last half of the 20th century. In 1958 Gordon R. Willey and Philip Phillips first published Method and Theory in American Archaeology—a volume that went through five printings, the last in 1967 at the height of what became known as the new, or processual, archaeology. The advent of processual archaeology, according to Willey and Phillips, represented a "theoretical debate . . . a question of whether archaeology should be the study of cultural history or the study of cultural process." Willey and Phillips suggested that little interpretation had taken place in American archaeology, and their book offered an analytical perspective; the methods they described and the structural framework they used for synthesizing American prehistory were all geared toward interpretation. Method and Theory served as the catalyst and primary reader on the topic for over a decade. This facsimile reprint edition of the original University of Chicago Press volume includes a new foreword by Gordon R. Willey, which outlines the state of American archaeology at the time of the original publication, and a new introduction by the editors to place the book in historical context. The bibliography is exhaustive. Academic libraries, students, professionals, and knowledgeable amateurs will welcome this new edition of a standard-maker among texts on American archaeology.