bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Human Impacts on Nearshore Shellfish Taxa: A 7,000 Year Record from Santa Rosa Island, California
Authors: Braje Todd J. , Kennett Douglas J. , Erlandson Jon M. , Culleton Brendan J.
Published: May 2010

Within the broad framework of historical and behavioral ecology, we analyzed faunal remains from a large habitation site (CA-SRI-147) on Santa Rosa Island to explore a 7,000 year record of coastal subsistence, nearshore ecological dynamics, and human impacts on shellfish populations. This long, stratified sequence provides a rare opportunity to study the effects of prolonged human predation on local intertidal and nearshore habitats. During the past 7,000 years, the Island Chumash and their predecessors had significant impacts on nearshore ecosystems, caused by growing human populations and depletion of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. At CA-SRI-147, local depletion of higher ranked shellfish species stimulated dietary expansion and a heavier reliance on lower-ranked shellfish taxa and more intensive exploitation of nearshore and pelagic fishes. In the Late Holocene, as local ecosystems were increasingly depleted, the Island Chumash relied increasingly on craft specialization and trade to meet their subsistence needs. Native peoples clearly impacted Channel Island ecosystems, but data from CA-SRI-147 suggest that they adjusted their subsistence strategies toward productive fisheries that sustained the high population densities and sociopolitical complexity recorded by early Spanish chroniclers at European contact.
A Microscopic View of Ceramic Production: An Analysis of Thin-Sections from Monte Albán
Authors: Fargher Lane F.
Published: May 2010

This paper presents the results of a recent petrographic study of Monte Albán grayware pottery. Using INEGI bedrock maps, optical mineralogy, and sedimentary petrology techniques, I demonstrate that the organization of gray-ware production changed greatly through time at Monte Albán. During the Late-Terminal Formative period (Monte Albán I-II), the majority of the gray wares consumed at Monte Albán were probably imported to this hilltop center from some distance. Furthermore, I found the paste composition of this pottery was highly variable, suggesting that many small-scale part-time specialists were engaged in gray-ware production at this time. With the transition to the Classic period (Monte Albán III-IV), the organization of gray-ware production may have changed dramatically and nearly all of the gray wares recovered from Monte Albán were probably produced at this hilltop center. At the same time, we see extensive evidence of specialized gray-ware production at Monte Albán from both survey and excavation data.
In Search of an Ancient Maya Market
Authors: Dahlin Bruce H. , Jensen Christopher T. , Terry Richard E. , Wright David R. , Beach Timothy
Published: May 2010

Market economies are notoriously difficult to identify in the archeological record. This is particularly true in the subtropical Maya lowlands of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize because most utilitarian items and consumables were made of highly perishable materials. We explore the hypothesis that ancient marketplaces can be identified through analysis of chemical residues in soils from open and easily accessible spaces in and about ancient Maya cities. We compared soil chemical signatures from a credible ancient marketplace location in the specialized trade center of Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico to those from a modern marketplace at Antigua, Guatemala. We found extraordinarily high concentrations of phosphorus and zinc in the soil of Chunchucmil's proposed marketplace and the same high concentrations correlate well with food preparation and vegetable sales areas at the modern marketplace. These methods hold promise in resolving the vexing question of how large ancient Maya urban populations were sustained.
Ancient Settlement, Urban Gardening, and Environment in the Gulf Lowlands of Mexico
Authors: Stark Barbara L. , Ossa Alanna
Published: May 2010

Urban settlement in the western lower Papaloapan River basin in the Gulf lowlands was dispersed and likely employed intensive gardening near domiciles. Land surrounding homes also may have played a symbolic role in these agrarian societies. Water works—formal ponds associated with temple platforms and other prominent structures as well as with many residential mounds—support the idea of symbolic as well as practical functions in land use around buildings. Dispersed occupation occurs in low elevations suited to recessional planting, a technique that takes advantage of dry season ground moisture in low areas where rain and flood waters recede as the water table drops. We analyze elevational zones to show greater settlement density in the low-lying Blanco River delta than in higher elevations upriver. Analysis of distances between archaeological residences and wetlands and drainages shows that residences generally were close to seasonally flooded areas. We also highlight anthropogenic qualities in the alluvial landscape, offering a land use perspective distinct from other views of agricultural intensification. The settlement pattern is compatible with Mesoamerican forms of urbanism.
Lurin Valley, Peru: Early Intermediate Period Settlement Development
Authors: Earle Timothy K.
Published: May 2010

The relationships between the social development in the upper Lurin valley and an expanding Early Intermediate period Lima state are examined. Internally, population growth and irrigation complexity progress together in the Lurin. Warfare, although not directly caused by population expansion, may function to regulate population. With irrigation and population expansion, a local social stratification originates but political control remains highly dispersed. A centralized control is only initiated by the external introduction of direct dominance by the Lima state.
The Business Trip: Maritime Networks in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Miller Michael B.
Published: May 2010

Global maritime business networks channeled the flows of people and goods for modern production and consumption societies. The principal instrument for constructing and sustaining these networks was the business trip. In the course of their travels, shipping-company and trading-company executives founded new commercial networks, established new routes and services, inspected agents, gathered business intelligence, and promoted new contacts and connections. These trips relied on a business culture that combined cosmopolitanism with national preferences and competitiveness with gentlemanly codes. Personal relationships remained fundamental to the networking process, despite a bureaucratization of business structures. An examination of the business trips of Belgian, British, Dutch, French, and German maritime firms reveals the centrality of global networks in modern economies, shows how such networks were constructed and maintained, and argues that face-to-face relationships continued to characterize business life deep into the twentieth century.
Gentlemanly Price-Fixing and Its Limits: Collusion and Competition in the U.S. Explosives Industry during the Civil War Era
Authors: Wilson Mark R.
Published: May 2010

During the Civil War era, when the U.S. explosives industry was already dominated by a handful of firms, the leading manufacturers of black powder tried repeatedly–with mixed success–to fix prices in commercial and military markets. Their surviving correspondence reveals some of the dynamics of oligopolistic collusion and competition. In commercial markets, price-fixing by leading explosives makers was undermined not only by competition from small powder manufacturers but also by rivalry among their own selling agents. The same agency problems that made price-fixing more difficult, however, may have actually made it easier for manufacturers to sustain the social foundations of cooperation by allowing them to blame the failures of their agreements on forces outside their control. Maintaining cooperative relations over the long run proved useful to manufacturers in wartime military markets, in which price agreements were easier to sustain. But during the Civil War, the leading powder producers found that even successful collusion in the military supply business did not guarantee high profits, because government bureaus could prove to be demanding consumers.
“Poisoned at the Source”? Telegraphic News Services and Big Business in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Nalbach Alex
Published: May 2010

Nineteenth-century newspapers, exchanges, and governments relied heavily for their daily information upon an alliance of four international telegraph services: Havas (Paris), Reuters (London), Wolff's (Berlin), and the Associated Press (New York). The connections of the wire services to financial and official circles bred suspicions that they offered privileged information and suppressed or inserted reports on behalf of special interests. Corporate and official records reveal the wire services’ reliance upon the subsidies, information, and telegraph facilities of firms and governments. As a result, world news coverage was, if not “poisoned” at the source, at least dammed up, filtered, channeled, or watered down.
Building Businesses, Creating Communities: Residential Segregation and the Growth of African American Business in Southern Cities, 1880–1915
Authors: Ingham John N.
Published: May 2010

Patterns of residential segregation in late-nineteenth-century southern cities had great influence on the type of African American business that developed. They also affected the relative stability of business enterprise. In neighborhoods with a higher degree of segregation, African American entrepreneurs were able to develop vital businesses that survived the worsening climate of race relations around the turn of the century.
HuayrachinasandTocochimbos: Traditional Smelting Technology of the Southern Andes
Authors: Van Buren Mary , Mills Barbara H.
Published: May 2010

Metal production has been a key economic activity in the southern Andes for the last 2,000 years, but relatively little is known about the indigenous technology used to process and smelt ores, in part because these activities are often difficult for investigators to identify in the archaeological record. In 2001 and 2002, members of the Proyecto Arqueológico Porco-Potosí had the opportunity to observe the use of indigenous smelting technology to produce silver in southern Bolivia. The data generated by these ethnographic observations, as well as by historical texts that describe traditional smelting, are used to interpret a sixteenth-century metal production site excavated by the authors in Bolivia and two production locales reported from Argentina and Chile. This assessment suggests that a great deal of variability existed in the metallurgical traditions of the southern Andes, and that the full spectrum will only be understood if archaeologists can recognize the material correlates of different types of technological processes.
Agricultural Rhythms and Rituals: Ancient Maya Solar Observation in Hinterland Blue Creek, Northwestern Belize
Authors: Zaro Gregory , Lohse Jon C.
Published: May 2010

Agriculture in prehispanic Mesoamerica necessitated not only a wide range of knowledge regarding soil types, fertility, and the growing cycles of different plants, but also the attendant rituals that firmly situated agrarian production into a shared Mesoamerican worldview. Due primarily to archaeological visibility, those attendant rituals have traditionally been investigated within the context of large centers. Recent investigations at the site of Quincunx, a hinterland architectural complex in northwestern Belize of the Maya Lowlands, provide evidence that some rural communities may also have had access to and control over esoteric knowledge involved in agricultural practice in the Late Classic period. Our findings are discussed in the context of ethnographic accounts and archaeological data that reveal the deep significance of quincuncial designs in Maya society and Mesoamerican ritual practices.
Selective Faunal Provisioning in the Southern Highlands of Formative Ecuador
Authors: Stahl Peter W.
Published: May 2010

Analysis of a large animal bone assemblage from the Formative archaeological site of Challuabamba in Ecuador’s southern highlands provides additional evidence for the existence of local and extra-local trade connections during the second millennium B.C. Previous archaeological research has established that Formative occupants of this highland region accessed various maritime and terrestrial routes for the long-distance exchange of exotic goods with different highland and lowland areas throughout the Andes. The Formative zooarchaeological record at Challuabamba clearly implicates the provisioning of select high yield body portions of deer and the importation of exotic taxa, or parts thereof most likely from lowland sources directly to the west. Taphonomic analyses and zooarchaeological identification of the Challuabamba assemblage offer additional corroborating evidence for the early operation of prehispanic trade systems in the Northern Andes.
Reassessing the Traditional Interpretation of “Manioc” Artifacts in the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela
Authors: Perry Linda
Published: May 2010

There exists general consensus in the archaeological literature that bitter manioc was a staple crop in precontact agricultural systems in the lowlands of South America. This view is based upon the indirect evidence derived from archaeological ceramic and lithic assemblages rather than archaeobotanical evidence, the preserved remains of bitter manioc itself. Studies of microlithic “manioc” grater flakes from Pozo Azul Norte-1, a site located in the middle Orinoco valley of Venezuela, reveal a much more complex function of these artifacts involving the processing of several starchy roots including arrowroot, guapo, yam, and ginger, as well as seeds including maize and possibly palm. The starch and use-wear data collected in these investigations indicate that archaeobotanical data are a more reliable means of assessing the function of these tools than are ethnographic analogues.
Khipu Archives: Duplicate Accounts and Identity Labels in the Inka Knotted String Records
Authors: Urton Gary
Published: May 2010

Accounts from the Spanish chronicles regarding Inka record-keeping practices by means of the knotted string devices called khipu (“knot”) indicate that these accounts were compiled in a system of “checks and balances.” Each community in the empire had a minimum of four khipu accountants, all of whom are said by the chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega to have kept the same records. This study examines several examples of matching khipu accounts identified among sets of two or three khipu. The identification of matching khipu accounts has been facilitated by the recent development of a khipu database at Harvard University. It is argued that certain three-term numerical sequences recorded in one set of three matching khipu from Chachapoyas, northern Peru, represent a type of numerical signifier that may have served as identity labels of the information recorded in this set of khipu. The long-range objective of this research is to investigate the information recorded on khipu from various provenience zones around the former Inka Empire that may represent the remains of khipu archives.
Detecting “Invisible” Dwellings in the Maya Area Using Electromagnetic Induction: Significant Findings of a Pilot Study at Chau Hiix, Belize
Authors: Sweely Tracy L.
Published: May 2010

Settlement studies of the prehispanic Lowland Maya have tended to rely upon dwelling remains that are visible at the ground surface, though floors and living surfaces that leave no surface indications are known to exist. Such “invisible” dwellings have been encountered beneath platforms and in “vacant terrain” lacking surface indications of architecture, and given more systematic attention, could represent a sizable and socially significant segment of the prehispanic populations in the region. This paper describes the application of electromagnetic induction, a geophysical technique, for locating nonplatform dwellings at Chau Hiix, Belize. A conductivity signature for nonplatform dwellings was identified that includes plaster, nonplatform floors, both in an area of vacant terrain and beneath a residential terrace, in association with trash pits and episodes of limestone bedrock mining, presumably for the acquisition of raw material for the floor. The technique also holds promise for locating ground-level floors, use-areas, and possibly footpaths. While this pilot study was limited in scope, it demonstrates the enormous potential of electromagnetic induction for locating these otherwise elusive features.
Culture Contact or Colonialism? Challenges in the Archaeology of Native North America
Authors: Silliman Stephen W.
Published: May 2010

What has frequently been termed “contact-period“ archaeology has assumed a prominent role in North American archaeology in the last two decades. This article examines the conceptual foundation of archaeological “culture contact” studies by sharpening the terminological and interpretive distinction between “contact” and “colonialism.” The conflation of these two terms, and thereby realms of historical experience, has proven detrimental to archaeologists’ attempts to understand indigenous and colonial histories. In light of this predicament, the article tackles three problems with treating colonialism as culture contact: (1) emphasizing short-term encounters rather than long-term entanglements, which ignores the process and heterogeneous forms of colonialism and the multifaceted ways that indigenous people experienced them; (2) down-playing the severity of interaction and the radically different levels of political power, which does little to reveal how Native people negotiated complex social terrain but does much to distance “contact” studies from what should be a related research focus in the archaeology of African enslavement and diaspora; and (3) privileging predefined cultural traits over creative or creolized cultural products, which loses sight of the ways that social agents lived their daily lives and that material culture can reveal, as much as hide, the subtleties of cultural change and continuity.
Nineteenth-Century Arrow Wounds and Perceptions of Prehistoric Warfare
Authors: Milner George R.
Published: May 2010

In recent years, prehistoric warfare has increasingly attracted the attention of archaeologists in North America, much like other parts of the world. Skeletons with several forms of trauma, including arrow wounds, are often used as evidence of intergroup conflict, although opinion is divided over what these casualties might mean in terms of the effect of warfare on everyday life. Information on 191 patients from the nineteenth-century Indian Wars in the American West indicates that only about one in three arrows damaged bone, and as many as one-half of wounded lived for months or years following their injuries. Arrow wound distributions vary among Indian Wars cases, modern Papua New Guinea patients, and prehistoric skeletons from eastern North America, in large part because of differences in how fighting was conducted. Despite arguments to the contrary, it is reasonable to infer that even low percentages of archaeological skeletons with distinctive conflict-related bone damage indicate that warfare must have had a perceptible impact on ways of life.
Publishing Archaeology in Science and Scientific American, 1940–2003
Authors: Lyman R. Lee , O'Brien Michael J. , Schiffer Michael Brian
Published: May 2010

Many new, or processual, archaeologists of the 1960s argued that Americanist archaeology became scientific only in the 1960s. The hypothesis that the rate of publication of archaeological research in Science and Scientific American increased after about 1965, as new archaeologists sought to demonstrate to their peers and other scientists that archaeology was indeed a science, is disconfirmed. The rate of archaeological publication in these journals increased after 1955 because the effort to be more scientific attributed to the processualists began earlier. Higher publication rates in both journals appear to have been influenced by an increased amount of archaeological research, a higher rate of archaeological publication generally, and increased funding. The hypothesis that editorial choice has strongly influenced what has been published in Science is confirmed; articles focusing on multidisciplinary topics rather than on narrow archaeological ones dominate the list of titles over the period from 1940 through 2003.
The Emergence of Complex Hunter-Gatherers on the Canadian Plateau: A Response to Hayden
Authors: Prentiss William C. , Lenert Michael , Foor Thomas A. , Goodale Nathan B.
Published: May 2010

Brian Hayden argues that our analysis of Keatley Creek stratigraphy and dates offers inaccurate conclusions. Although our data demonstrate that the village appeared late and was somewhat unstable, Hayden continues to support a model of early emergence and high stability. Hayden offers no new data to support his position. Consequently, we argue that there is no reason to reject our revised view.
Deerskins and Domesticates: Creek Subsistence and Economic Strategies in the Historic Period
Authors: Pavao-Zuckerman Barnet
Published: May 2010

Previous research indicates that, following European colonization, animal husbandry did not replace hunting as the primary source of meat in the diet of southeastern Native Americans until the early nineteenth century. However, while the introduction of Eurasian domesticated animals had little immediate impact on the lives of indigenous peoples in the Southeast, the expansion of the European market economy had profound implications for the economic and subsistence strategies of Native Americans in all regions. In response to European demands for deerskins, furs, and other goods, Native Americans of the Southeast and elsewhere intensified exploitation of indigenous resources. The Creeks became one of the largest producers of deerskins for the European commodities trade in the Southeast. Ethnohistoric and zooarchaeological evidence indicates that the intensification of localized resource exploitation had a suppressive effect on the adoption of animal husbandry by the Creeks. It was only after the collapse of the deerskin trade in the Southeast that animal husbandry replaced hunting as the primary source of meat in the subsistence strategy of the Creeks.
Palynological Evidence of the Effects of the Deerskin Trade on Forest Fires during the Eighteenth Century in Southeastern North America
Authors: Foster II H. Thomas , Cohen Arthur D.
Published: May 2010

Three palynological cores from the coastal plain of Georgia and Alabama were analyzed for paleobotanical remains. Results show that the Indians of southeastern North America increased forest fires used in hunting as a response to the demand for deer hides during the early eighteenth century. Palynological data are consistent with known anthropogenic changes in the region. Charcoal abundance increased significantly between A.D. 1715 and 1770, which is the period of the most intensive hunting by the Indians. This study shows that forest fires from hunting had a significant and measurable effect on the evolution of the biophysical environment.
Clay, Conflict, and Village Aggregation: Compositional Analyses of Pre-Classic Pottery from Taos, New Mexico
Authors: Fowles Severin M. , Minc Leah , Duwe Samuel , Hill David V.
Published: May 2010

As was the case throughout much of north-central New Mexico, the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries marked a period of rapid settlement pattern change in the Taos District as dispersed pithouse and small pueblo hamlets were replaced by tightly clustered pueblos and ultimately by the emergence of large aggregated villages. Here we consider the effects of this transition on the manner in which local potters procured raw clay for the production of black-on-white ceramics. Adopting the Rio Grande del Rancho drainage as our study area, we first outline the major clay sources within the drainage. We then report on neutron activation and petrographic analyses of both modern clays as well as archaeological ceramics from sites that span the settlement transition in question. These analyses suggest that settlement aggregation was accompanied by a noticeable reduction in the diversity and quality of clay sources used by local potters, most likely as a result of newly restricted procurement strategies associated with the formation of buffer zones between village aggregates. The paper concludes with a consideration of the implications of this trend with respect to the economic situation of early large villages in the area.
Retouched Notches at Combe Grenal (France) and the Reduction Hypothesis
Authors: Hiscock Peter , Clarkson Chris
Published: May 2010

A detailed attribute analysis of notched flakes from upper layers of Combe Grenal, a key site in the debates about the nature of Middle Paleolithic assemblage variation in France, is used to evaluate the applicability to Combe Grenal of the reduction model offered by Holdaway, McPherron, and Roth as an explanation for morphological and size variation within notched specimens. We conclude that traditional implement types can be viewed as arbitrary divisions in a continuum of size and notch abundance, which can be explained by reference to a model of differential reduction. Specimens with greater numbers of notches are inferred to have been more reduced than specimens with fewer notches. Notch dimensions did not change as more notches were added, but complex notches were more commonly constructed in the middle of the reduction process rather than at the beginning or end. The location and abundance of notches were probably constrained by the size and shape of the flake blank: more notches were added to long flakes and to their distal end, indicating regular patterns of blank selection and treatment. These inferences can be used to suggest that flake blanks may have been an important factor in constraining the position, frequency, and perhaps even kind of notches that were placed on retouched flakes. We discuss implications of this proposition.
Temporal Data Requirements, Luminescence Dates, and the Resolution of Chronological Structure of Late Prehistoric Deposits in the Central Mississippi River Valley
Authors: Lipo Carl P. , Feathers James K. , Dunnell Robert C.
Published: May 2010

Our ability to order chronologically the archaeological record has long been linked to our capacity to generate explanations. Evolutionary explanations make even greater demands on chronological data requirements than most other approaches. Single date characterizations of deposits are wholly inadequate. Rather, we require distributions of dates that can be used to estimate duration and rates of assemblage formation. In addition, the events dated must have direct archaeological relevance such as artifact manufacture or deposition. In a study of the evolution of social complexity in the late prehistoric record of the central Mississippi River valley, luminescence dates of sherds that have been assigned to a single culture historical type provide a means of determining the chronological character of assemblages derived from large village deposits. In this way, the temporal data requirements for evolutionary accounts can be met reliably.
Rifts in the Theoretical Landscape of Archaeology in the United States: A Comment on Hegmon and Watkins
Authors: Moss Madonna L.
Published: May 2010

Recent papers by Michelle Hegmon (2003) and Joe Watkins (2003) purport to “map the terrain” of North American archaeology. Yet these two metaphorical maps present very different views of the contours of North American archaeology. Taken together, the two papers highlight problematic divisions between (1) theory and practice in North American archaeology, and (2) academic archaeology and cultural resource management. What are the roles archaeological theory plays in the contemporary practice of archaeology? Why do discussions of archaeological theory have so little to offer stakeholders other than academic archaeologists? Although Hegmon has shown many areas of convergence in archaeological theory, her depiction of “processual-plus” archaeologies dulls the edge of postprocessual critiques of the processual status quo. I argue that feminist, Marxist, and postcolonial archaeologies cannot be subsumed by this label because some of their practitioners aspire to contribute to social change beyond the realm of archaeology itself. These practitioners realize that the practice of archaeology always has political consequences, not just for academic archaeologists, but for a diverse set of stakeholders.
Tasmanian Knowledge and Skill: Maladaptive Imitation or Adequate Technology?
Authors: Read Dwight
Published: May 2010

A recent article has suggested that maintenance of complex tools and associated tasks in a group depends on the presence of skilled individuals to serve as targets for imitation. The expected number of skilled target individuals, it is argued, relates to the population size. It is predicted that population size and maximum complexity of tools and/or tasks should correlate, hence a decrease in population size could lead to maladaptive loss of skills. Data from Tasmania are said to support the argument. However, the argument neither agrees with the archaeological data from Tasmania nor ethnographic observations on hunter-gatherer societies. Instead of being an example of a group that underwent maladaptive loss, the indigenous people of Tasmania appear to have used tools sufficient for the tasks at hand. An alternative model is proposed that distinguishes between motor skills and knowledge needed to do tasks effectively and takes into account assessment of the time cost for developing skills. Loss of skills more likely relates to change in the mode of resource procurement or change in technology rather than a shortage of skilled, target individuals due to decrease in population size.
Collapse of Crucial Resources and Culture Change: A Model for the
Woodland to Oneota Transformation in the Upper Midwest
Authors: Theler James L. , Boszhardt Robert F.
Published: May 2010

The Driftless Area of the Upper Midwestern United States offers a case study for
the transition from hunter-gatherer (Late Woodland Effigy Mound) to agricultural
(Oneota) societies between ca. A.D. 950 and 1150, a period that coincided with
northward expansion of Middle Mississippian cultures from the American Bottom.
Previous studies have not adequately explained the regional disappearance of
Effigy Mound cultures, the appearance of Oneota cultures, or the cultural
changes that occurred during this period. Our analysis considers ecological
(deer and firewood) and cultural (population packing, community organization,
hunting technology, and warfare) factors to develop a testable model applicable
to broader regions. We propose that increasing Late Woodland populations reached
the region's “packing threshold,” disrupting a flexible seasonal
round based on residential mobility and triggering shortages of two essential
resources, white-tailed deer and firewood, which in turn led Late Woodland
groups to abandon vast portions of the Driftless Area. The intrusion of Middle
Mississippian peoples from the south created additional disruption and conflict.
Remnant Woodland and Mississippian peoples amalgamated briefly in the region's
first villages, which were palisaded. After A.D. 1150, Oneota cultures emerged,
reoccupying specific localities in clustered settlements.
Stallings Island Revisited: New Evidence for Occupational History, Community Pattern, and Subsistence Technology
Authors: Sassaman Kenneth E. , Blessing Meggan E. , Randall Asa R.
Published: May 2010

For nearly 150 years Stallings Island, Georgia has figured prominently in the conceptualization of Late Archaic culture in the American Southeast, most notably in its namesake pottery series, the oldest in North America, and more recently, in models of economic change among hunter-gatherer societies broadly classified as the Shell Mound Archaic. Recent fieldwork resulting in new radiocarbon assays from secure contexts pushes back the onset of intensive shellfish gathering at Stallings Island several centuries; enables recognition of a hiatus in occupation that coincides with the regional advent of pottery making; and places abandonment at ca. 3500 B.P. Analysis of collections and unpublished field records from a 1929 Peabody expedition suggests that the final phase of occupation involved the construction of a circular village and plaza complex with household storage and a formalized cemetery, as well as technological innovations to meet the demands of increased settlement permanence. Although there are too few data to assess the degree to which more permanent settlement led to population-resource imbalance, several lines of evidence suggest that economic changes were stimulated by ritual intensification.
Performing the Feast: Visual Display and Suprahousehold Commensalism in the Puebloan Southwest
Authors: Mills Barbara J.
Published: May 2010

Ceramic bowls from the Greater Southwest are used to show how changes in the exterior decoration of serving vessels are associated with the proxemics of ritual performances. Across the northern Southwest the first use of exterior designs and polychrome ceramics is during the Pueblo III period, which corresponds to a shift in settlement aggregation and the use of open plaza spaces. With the transition to the more enclosed plazas of the Early Pueblo IV period, smaller and less visible exterior designs were used. The trend reversed itself with the use of larger plazas at later Pueblo IV period sites, where serving bowls with greater visual impact were used. Panregional trends are bolstered by a case study from the Mogollon Rim region of Arizona to show how changes in the visual performance characteristics of bowls are associated with the spatial and social proxemics of suprahousehold feasting rituals. I use several characteristics of serving bowls including their size, slip colors, paint and slip contrasts, and the size of exterior designs. These are related to the size and diversity of performance spaces, including plazas, and to other evidence for changes in feasting practices, such as roasting features and faunal remains. I conclude that the changes seen in serving vessels are important for looking at shifts in the scale, visibility, and diversity of public gatherings within Ancestral Pueblo social and ritual trajectories.
Bifacial Cores and Flake Production Efficiency: An Experimental Test of Technological Assumptions
Authors: Prasciunas Mary M.
Published: May 2010

Many researchers assume that the greater flake tool production efficiency of bifacial versus amorphous cores helps explain the prevalence of bifacial core technology among mobile populations. This paper describes experiments that test whether bifacial cores are more efficient carriers of flake cutting edge than amorphous cores. The first experiment established a size threshold of flake cutting efficiency. The second experiment reduced ten bifacial and ten amorphous cores to exhaustion and calculated the amount of usable and total flake edge produced by each core type, excluding flakes beneath the size threshold. Results indicate that bifacial cores are not significantly more efficient producers of usable or total flake edge than amorphous cores. Bifaces do produce flakes with significantly higher edge-to-weight ratios than do amorphous cores, but more of the weight of bifacial cores is lost to waste during the flake production process. Flake production efficiency therefore does not explain the use of bifacial cores among mobile populations.
Ballcourts and Ceramics: The Case for Hohokam Marketplaces in the Arizona Desert
Authors: Abbott David R. , Smith Alexa M. , Gallaga Emiliano
Published: May 2010

During the middle Sedentary period (ca. A.D. 1000-1070) in the deserts of southern and central Arizona, crowds from near and far regularly gathered at the centers of Hohokam villages to participate in ritual ballcourt festivities. These events were ideal venues for barter and exchange, leading some theorists to hypothesize that periodic marketplaces were associated with the ritual ballgames. Recent ceramic provenance and vessel-form evidence from the Phoenix basin have shown that the production of decorated and utilitarian pots was highly concentrated during this time and large numbers of bowls and jars were evenly distributed to far flung consumers. These findings have supported the marketplace hypothesis, suggesting that an efficient and reliable mechanism was available for moving large numbers of commodities across the region. The high volume of ceramic transactions, however, seems to have placed the Hohokam case beyond the capabilities of nascent marketplaces documented from ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence. In this paper, we support the idea that market-place barter was a central component of the Hohokam economy by presenting new ceramic data from the lower Salt River valley, which temporally links the demise of the ballcourt ceremonialism with a transformation in the organization of pottery production and distribution. We then examine some unusual circumstances pertaining to the Hohokam regional system that may help to explain how consumers could have so heavily depended on a network of horizontally organized, periodic marketplaces for basic necessities like earthenware containers.
"Formed from the Earth at That Place": The Material Side of Community at Poverty Point
Authors: Gibson Jon L.
Published: May 2010

Fisher-hunter-gatherers built the large earthwork at Poverty Point ca. 3500 cal. B.P. Based on the massive quantities of exotic rock and construction regularities with earlier regional mound complexes, Kenneth Sassaman proposes that builders were a cosmopolitan multiethnic collective with geographically extensive origins. Close examination of Poverty Point's goods fails to support his multiethnic model and suggests that a local communal structure prevailed in Poverty Point's homeland.
Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana
Authors: Saunders Joe W. , Mandel Rolfe D. , Sampson C. Garth , Allen Charles M. , Allen E. Thurman , Bush Daniel A. , Feathers James K. , Gremillion Kristen J. , Hallmark C. T. , Jackson H. Edwin , Johnson Jay K. , Jones Reca , Saucier Roger T. , Stringer Gary L. , Vidrine Malcolm F.
Published: May 2010

Middle Archaic earthen mound complexes in the lower Mississippi valley are remote antecedents of the famous but much younger Poverty Point earthworks. Watson Brake is the largest and most complex of these early mound sites. Very extensive coring and stratigraphic studies, aided by 25 radiocarbon dates and six luminescence dates, show that minor earthworks were begun here at ca. 3500 B.C. in association with an oval arrangement of burned rock middens at the edge of a stream terrace. The full extent of the first earthworks is not yet known. Substantial moundraising began ca. 3350 B.C. and continued in stages until some time after 3000 B.C. when the site was abandoned. All 11 mounds and their connecting ridges were occupied between building bursts. Soils formed on some of these temporary surfaces, while lithics, fire-cracked rock, and fired clay/loam objects became scattered throughout the mound fills. Faunal and floral remains from a basal midden indicate all-season occupation, supported by broad-spectrum foraging centered on nuts, fish, and deer. All the overlying fills are so acidic that organics have not survived. The area enclosed by the mounds was kept clean of debris, suggesting its use as ritual space. The reasons why such elaborate activities first occurred here remain elusive. However, some building bursts covary with very well-documented increases in El Niño/Southern Oscillation events. During such rapid increases in ENSO frequencies, rainfall becomes extremely erratic and unpredictable. It may be that early moundraising was a communal response to new stresses of droughts and flooding that created a suddenly more unpredictable food base.
Fields of Power: Upland Farming in the Prehispanic Casas Grandes Polity, Chihuahua, Mexico
Authors: Minnis Paul E. , Whalen Michael E. , Howell R. Emerson
Published: May 2010

Analysis of nearly 200 prehispanic upland farming locations around Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua indicates that land modification was widespread and involved a range of farming strategies depending on microtopographic setting. Most significantly, some cultivation seems to have been organized or controlled by the leaders of the Casas Grandes polity. Unusually large fields associate with small sites that likely served special administrative and/or ritual roles and that are in sparsely occupied locations.
Polynesian Seafaring and American Horizons: A Response to Jones and Klar
Authors: Anderson Atholl
Published: May 2010

The hypothesis presented by Jones and Klar (2005) that elements of prehistoric Chumash technology and language arrived from East Polynesia is considered. Trans-oceanic diffusion in general should not be rejected out of hand, but in this case it is improbable that it involved East Polynesia. There are substantial differences in the sewn-plank canoes at issue and the compound hooks are of a general form that is not confined to Polynesia. The chronology of East Polynesian colonization is probably too late for diffusion to southern California before A.D. 700. East Polynesian seafaring may have been inadequate to reach the Californian coast. If the explanation is diffusionary, then a source in East Asia is more plausible.
Climate Change and the Archaic to Woodland Transition (3000–2500 Cal B.P.) in the Mississippi River Basin
Authors: Kidder Tristram R.
Published: May 2010

Archaeologists frequently assume the cultural transition from Archaic to Woodland (ca. 3000–2500 cal B.P.) in the Mississippi River basin is a gradual process. In the lower Mississippi Valley, however, there is an abrupt gap in the archaeological sequence at this time and pronounced differences between Late Archaic and Early Woodland archaeological remains. Elsewhere in the basin, this transition is marked by an occupation hiatus or decline and is accompanied by significant changes in settlement and material culture organization. In most parts of the floodplain of the Mississippi River and its tributaries there are few sites dating to this interval suggesting the river bottom was abandoned for several hundred years as a location for sustained habitation. High-resolution climate data demonstrates an episode of rapid global climate change involving significant alterations in temperature and precipitation in the period ca. 3000–2600 cal B.P. The proximate cause of this global climate occurrence is change in galactic cosmic ray intensity and solar irradiation possibly amplified by variations in the earth"s geomagnetic field. Global climate changes led to greatly increased flood frequencies and magnitudes in the Mississippi River watershed during the shift from Late Archaic to Early Woodland. In northeast Louisiana, increased flooding led to major fluvial reorganization that caused settlement abandonment and is associated with the demise of Poverty Point culture. Climate change and associated flooding is implicated as one cause of major cultural reorganization at the end of the Archaic throughout much of eastern North America.
Pots and Pox: The Identification of Protohistoric Epidemics in the Upper Mississippi Valley
Authors: Betts Colin M.
Published: May 2010

Exogenous diseases represent one of the principal agents of culture change associated with the historic period, yet the timing of their initial influence remains undocumented in many regions of North America. Settlement variables, cooking pot volume, and mortality profiles from Oneota tradition occupations are used to investigate the possible occurrence of epidemics in the Upper Mississippi River valley. Synchronous fluctuations in settlement and ceramic variables indicate that following at least two centuries of population growth a significant population decline occurred in the early seventeenth century. Several factors provide support for the role of disease in this decline, including its timing, magnitude, and the documented presence of epidemics in adjacent regions combined with substantial evidence for extensive contact with those areas. This event, prior to direct, sustained contact, is associated with the increased intensity of intergroup exchange occurring with the fur trade. The ability to identify the occurrence of such epidemics is essential for understanding protohistoric cultural dynamics as well as the transmission of disease on a continental level.
A Folsom Structure in the Colorado Mountains
Authors: Stiger Mark
Published: May 2010

Recent block excavations at the Mountaineer site near Gunnison, Colorado, have yielded an unusual assemblage of Folsom artifacts and features, including a prehistoric structure. The stone assemblage from this excavation is composed of 35,478 pieces. The tools are typical Folsom style, but, like the debitage, they are mainly of local material. Faunal material shows some processing of large mammals, including bison. The findings at Mountaineer evince additional variability in early Paleoindian adaptations beyond that ascribed by the familiar model of Folsom settlement.
Research Traditions, Public Policy, and the Underdevelopment of Theory in Plains Archaeology: Tracing the Legacy of the Missouri Basin Project
Authors: Mitchell Mark D.
Published: May 2010

For more than 40 years archaeologists have been engaged in a self-conscious appraisal of the factors influencing the development of archaeological theory. The importance of external social and political forces has been widely acknowledged; however, less attention has been paid to the ways in which routine disciplinary practices authorize and reproduce particular theoretical standpoints. To illustrate how the growth of archaeological theory is intertwined with the practice of archaeological research, the goals and structure of one of the nation's first large-scale public archaeology projects, the River Basin Surveys' Missouri Basin Project (MBP), are considered and their effects on contemporary theory in Plains archaeology are evaluated. Today, theory in Plains archaeology remains implicit and for many projects culture history remains the central focus. The persistence of this research tradition can be traced in part to the success of the MBP in establishing new standards of practice for the region. Throughout the 1950s, MBP archaeologists pursued a distinctive research agenda that institutionalized inductive, culture-historical investigations. However, by the late 1960s many American archaeologists had adopted a new model of preservation, one that necessitated a new set of research practices. Because the MBP was not replaced by a new exemplar of practice, the culture historical research it championed continues to influence theory in Plains archaeology today.
Contribution of Radiocarbon Dating to the Chronology of Eneolithic in Campania (Italy)
Authors: Passariello I. , Talamo P. , D'Onofrio A. , Barta P. , Lubritto C. , Terrasi F.
Published: May 2010

The paper presents new and important 14C data from eight Eneolithic sites in Campania measured at the Centre for Isotopic Research of Cultural and Environmental Heritage (CIRCE) AMS laboratory in Caserta (Italy). Twenty-four 14C determinations on bone and charcoal are used here for chronological reconstruction of human habitation and dating of some volcanic eruptions affecting the settlement activity. Our research has shed new light on absolute chronology of the whole Campanian Eneolithic, a period of profound cultural transformations triggered by introduction and use of metals, in particular copper.