In this volume, the authors report on the excavation of Moccasin Bluff, a prehistoric site on the banks of the St. Joseph River in Berrien County, Michigan. The features and artifacts (including lithics, ceramics, and stone and bone objects) indicate a series of occupations over roughly 7500 years: from Archaic times to European contact. Betterel and Smith present descriptions and analyses of the structures, artifacts, and burials found at the site. They also situate the site within the Woodland cultures of the region.
Archaeologists across the Midwest have pooled their data and perspectives to produce this indispensable volume on the Native cultures of the Late Woodland period (approximately A.D. 300?1000). Sandwiched between the well-known Hopewellian and Mississippian eras of monumental mound construction, theøLate Woodland period has received insufficient attention from archaeologists, who have frequently characterized it as consisting of relatively drab artifact assemblages. The close connections between this period and subsequent Mississippian and Fort Ancient societies, however, make it especially valuable for cross-cultural researchers. Understanding the cultural processes at work during the Late Woodland period will yield important clues about the long-term forces that stimulate and enhance social inequality. Late Woodland Societies is notable for its comprehensive geographic coverage; exhaustive presentation and discussion of sites, artifacts, and prehistoric cultural practices; and critical summaries of interpretive perspectives and trends in scholarship. The vast amount of information and theory brought together, examined, and synthesized by the contributors produces a detailed, coherent, and systematic picture of Late Woodland lifestyles across the Midwest. The Late Woodland can now be seen as a dynamic time in its own right and instrumental to the emergence of complex late prehistoric cultures across the Midwest and Southeast.
A remarkable multifaceted history, Contested Territories examines a region that played an essential role in America's post-revolutionary expansion—the Lower Great Lakes region, once known as the Northwest Territory. As French, English, and finally American settlers moved westward and intersected with Native American communities, the ethnogeography of the region changed drastically, necessitating interactions that were not always peaceful. Using ethnohistorical methodologies, the seven essays presented here explore rapidly changing cultural dynamics in the region and reconstruct in engaging detail the political organization, economy, diplomacy, subsistence methods, religion, and kinship practices in play. With a focus on resistance, changing worldviews, and early forms of self-determination among Native Americans, Contested Territories demonstrates the continuous interplay between actor and agency during an important era in American history.
The Schultz site is an Early Woodland site on the Tittabawassee River in Saginaw County, Michigan. In this volume, author Doreen Ozker describes the site: its stratigraphy and plant and faunal remains, as well as ceramics and lithics. She also situates the site in the context of the Early Woodland community. She distinguishes Late Archaic and Early Woodland from each other, and as a result, redefines Early Woodland culture.
Dramatic economic changes transformed an isolated 13th-century village of farmer-hunters in the arid grasslands of southeastern New Mexico into a community heavily engaged in long-distance bison hunting and intense exchange with the Puebloan world to the west.
Fort St. Joseph Revealed is the first synthesis of archaeological and documentary data on one of the most important French colonial outposts in the western Great Lakes region. Located in what is now Michigan, Fort St. Joseph was home to a flourishing fur trade society from the 1680s to 1781. Material evidence of the site—lost for centuries—was discovered in 1998 by volume editor Michael Nassaney and his colleagues, who summarize their extensive excavations at the fort and surrounding areas in these essays. Contributors analyze material remains including animal bones, lead seals, smudge pits, and various other detritus from daily life to reconstruct the foodways, architectural traditions, crafts, trade, and hide-processing methods of the fur trade. They discuss the complex relationship between the French traders and local Native populations, who relied on each other for survival and forged links across their communities through intermarriage and exchange, even as they maintained their own cultural identities. Faunal remains excavated at the site indicate the French quickly adopted Native cuisine, as they were unable to transport perishable goods across long distances. Copper kettles and other imported objects from Europe were transformed by Native Americans into decorative ornaments such as tinkling cones, and French textiles served as a medium of stylistic expression in the multi-ethnic community that developed at Fort St. Joseph. Featuring a thought-provoking look at the award-winning public archaeology program at the site, this volume will inspire researchers with the potential of community-based service-learning initiatives to tap into the analytical power at the interface of history and archaeology. Contributors: Rory J. Becker | Kelley M. Berliner | José António Brandão | Cathrine Davis | Erica A. D’Elia | Brock Giordano, RPA | Joseph Hearns | Allison Hoock | Mark W. Hoock | Erika Hartley | Terrance J. Martin | Eric Teixeira Mendes | Michael S. Nassaney | Susan K. Reichert
The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents temporal dimension. Major traditions are an attempt to provide basic information also defined by a somewhat different set of on all archaeologically known cultures, sociocultural characteristics than are eth covering the entire globe and the entire nological cultures. Major traditions are prehistory of humankind. It is designed as defined based on common subsistence a tool to assist in doing comparative practices, sociopolitical organization, and research on the peoples of the past. Most material industries, but language, ideology, of the entries are written by the world's and kinship ties play little or no part in foremost experts on the particular areas their definition because they are virtually and time periods. unrecoverable from archaeological con The Encyclopedia is organized accord texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and ing to major traditions. A major tradition kinship ties are central to defining ethno is defined as a group of populations sharing logical cultures.
Foundations of Ethnobotany: 21st Century focusses on the role played by cultivated plants in changing the face of modern civilization It is important to assess the distribution of cultivated plants in time and space to understand how Ethnobotany can play a role in contributing to the progress and needs of human race in 21st century. The plants contributed by the societies Neolithic to The Bronze Age; Ancient Near East; Bronze Age Europe; Pre-Columbian Americas; Iron Age; Middle Eastern civilizations; South Asian civilizations; East Asia civilizations; Eurasian civilizations; Africa; Medieval to Early Modern; Mughal India; Asia; china, Japan, Southeast Asia; Mesomerican civilizations; Andean civilizations; African civilizations; Modern; Intermediate world; Greater Middle East; Eastern world; East Asia; South Asia and Southeast Asia are discussed.
The temple mound and mortuary at Town Creek, in Montgomery County, is one of the few surviving earthen mounds built by prehistoric Native Americans in North Carolina. It has been recognized as an important archaeological site for almost sixty years and, as a state historic site, has become a popular destination for the public. This book is Joffre Coe's illustrated chronicle of the archaeological research conducted at Town Creek, a project with which Coe has been intimately involved for more than fifty years, since its inception as a WPA program in 1937. Written for visitors as well as for scholars, Town Creek Indian Mound provides an overview of the site and the archaeological techniques pioneered there, surveys the history of the excavations, and features more than 200 photographs and maps. The book carefully reconstructs the archaeological record, including plant and animal remains, pottery sherds, stone tools, and clay ornaments. In a concluding interpretive section, Coe reflects on what Town Creek and its artifacts tell us about this prehistoric Native American society. Originally published in 1995. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Consisting of 18 earthen mounds and numerous additional habitation areas dating to A.D. 12501550, the Bottle Creek site was first professionally investigated in 1932 when David L. DeJarnette of the Alabama Museum of Natural History began work there to determine if the site had a cultural reipconnected to the north by a river system. This volume builds on earlier investigations to present extensive recent data from major excavations conducted from 1991 to 1994 and supported in part by an NEH grant. Ten anthropologists examine various aspects of the site, including mound architecture, prehistoric diet, pottery classification, vessel forms, textiles used to make pottery impressions, a microlithic stone tool industry, water travel, the persistence of mound use into historic times, and the position of Bottle Creek in the protohistoric world.
