-
Early Beringian Traditions: Functioning and Economy of the Stone Toolkit from Swan Point CZ4b, Alaska American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-04-08 Eugénie Gauvrit Roux, Yan Axel Gómez Coutouly, Charles E. Holmes, Yu Hirasawa
The pressure knapping technique develops circa 25,000 cal BP in Northeast Asia and excels at producing highly standardized microblades. Microblade pressure knapping spreads throughout most of Northeast Asia up to the Russian Arctic, and Alaska, in areas where the human presence was unknown. Swan Point CZ4b is the earliest uncontested evidence of human occupation of Alaska, at around 14,000 cal BP.
-
Fiber Artifacts from the Paisley Caves: 14,000 Years of Plant Selection in the Northern Great Basin American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Elizabeth Kallenbach
Paleoethnobotanical remains from basketry and cordage from the Paisley Caves offer an opportunity to explore how people engaged with plant communities over time. Fiber identification of textiles, together with radiocarbon dating, contributes new information about landscape use within the Summer Lake Basin. Expanded marshlands during the terminal Pleistocene / Early Holocene created suitable plant communities
-
A Folsom Foreshaft from the Blackwater Draw Site American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Frederic Sellet, Justin Garnett
This article describes a bison rib bone foreshaft from the Blackwater Draw site, New Mexico. The object was recovered by James Hester in 1963, during the excavation of locality 4, and it was subsequently cataloged as a modified bone tool but not recognized as a hafting element. It is currently held in the Blackwater Draw Museum collections. This analysis provides a detailed description of the artifact's
-
Starch Granule Yields from Open-Air Metates Unaffected by Environmental Contamination American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Stefania L. Wilks, Samantha A. Paredes, Lisbeth A. Louderback
The morphological characteristics of starch granules preserved on ancient ground stone tools can reveal which plant species were processed and consumed and even infer tool function. Bedrock metates are commonly associated with the processing of localized seasonal resources, providing potential evidence for past human lifeways, including foods collected and processed, social gatherings, settlement patterns
-
Thematic Analysis of Indigenous Perspectives on Archaeology and Cultural Resource Management Industries American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Alec McLellan, Cora A. Woolsey
This article explores Indigenous perspectives on archaeology in Canada and the United States and the role of archaeologists in engaging with Indigenous communities. As part of our study, we interviewed Indigenous community members about their experiences in archaeology and their thoughts on the discipline. We analyzed each interview thematically to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset and
-
Tracking Mississippian Migrations from the Central Mississippi Valley to the Ridge and Valley with a Unified Absolute Chronology American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Lynne P. Sullivan, Kevin E. Smith, Scott C. Meeks, Shawn M. Patch
As regional chronologies become better defined, we are better able to track large-scale population movements and related cultural change. A dataset of 156 radiocarbon dates from the Middle Cumberland Region (MCR), evaluated with 199 more dates from the Ridge and Valley portions of northern Georgia and East Tennessee, enable modeling of population movements from the Central Mississippi Valley into the
-
Middle Ohio Valley Maize Histories: New Dates from the Crossroads of the Midcontinent American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Aaron R. Comstock, Robert A. Cook
The transition to maize agriculture frames important cultural shifts in the Eastern Woodlands. However, the tempo and mode of this transition are unclear, particularly when analytical techniques are not standard across the region. In this article, we present evidence of directly dated maize macrobotanical fragments from the Turpin site in southwest Ohio that date between cal AD 552–649 and 684–994
-
Examining the Seventeenth-Century Copper Trade: An Analysis of Smelted Copper from Sites in Virginia and North Carolina American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Christopher M. Stevenson, Madeleine Gunter-Bassett, Laure Dussubieux
When the colonists who made up the Virginia Company of London established James Fort on the banks of the James River in 1607, they brought with them sheets of scrap copper. Based in large part on the experience of the earlier Roanoke Colony, the English knew that copper was a highly prized material among Native peoples of the Chesapeake, and they brought it with them as a trade item. Artifacts made
-
Chihuahuan Desert Shrine Caves: Refining Chronologies of Religious Iconography and Social Histories for the Jornada and Mimbres Mogollon Regions of the North American Southwest American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Myles R. Miller, Darrell G. Creel, Phil R. Geib
This article presents radiocarbon dates on 29 perishable objects deposited in shrine caves in the Jornada and Mimbres Mogollon regions of far west Texas and southern New Mexico. The dated objects include tablita fragments, effigies, prayer sticks, hafted projectile point foreshafts, and flat curved sticks. Analysis of the dates reveals three significant trends: a particular set of Indigenous ritual
-
Chronological Hygiene and Bayesian Modeling of Poverty Point Sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley, circa 4200 to 3200 cal BP American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Tristram R. Kidder, Seth B. Grooms
Developments in radiocarbon dating and analysis provide new opportunities to develop high-resolution chronologies to explore changes through time. We explore the temporality of what has been called the Poverty Point culture of the lower Mississippi Valley circa 4200 to 3200 cal BP, especially the chronology of the type site, Poverty Point. Because of its complicated material culture elaboration without
-
Early Canal Systems in the North American Southwest American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Gary Huckleberry
Current evidence suggests that Indigenous farmers in the North American Southwest began canal irrigation in the second millennium BC, marking an important change in food production technology. Early canal systems are preserved in alluvial floodplains of the US-Mexico Borderlands region, tend to be deeply buried, and can appear as natural fluvial features. Here I discuss some of the challenges in identifying
-
From Mind to Matter: Patterns of Innovation in the Archaeological Record and the Ecology of Social Learning American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Kathryn Demps, Nicole M. Herzog, Matt Clark
Archaeology and cultural evolution theory both predict that environmental variation and population size drive the likelihood of inventions (via individual learning) and their conversion to population-wide innovations (via social uptake). We use the case study of the adoption of the bow and arrow in the Great Basin to infer how patterns of cultural variation, invention, and innovation affect investment
-
Where Worlds Collide: Late Woodland Potting Practice and Social Interaction in Upstate South Carolina American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-12-11 C. Trevor Duke, David M. Markus, Joshua Casmir Catalano
Many anthropologists have now adopted a relational view of the culture concept. Much research has shown that, far from being bounded or self-replicating, cultures emerge through interactions between social Others. These findings are particularly important to research on borderlands and peripheries, where communities routinely encounter wide-ranging social and political diversity. We present ceramic
-
Combining Paleohydrology and Least-Cost Analyses to Assess the Vulnerabilities of Ancestral Pueblo Communities to Water Insecurity in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Michael J. Aiuvalasit, Ian A. Jorgeson
We developed a new approach to identify vulnerabilities to water insecurity across entire archaeological culture areas by combining a paleohydrological model of the sensitivites of hydrological systems to droughts with least-cost analyses of the costs to acquire domestic water. Using a custom Python script integrated into ArcGIS Pro software, we calculated the pairwise one-way cost in time for walking
-
On Sherds, Vessels, and Pragmatics: Reaction to Feathers American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-11-03 Michael J. Shott
Feathers addresses the dual challenges of inferring original vessel counts from sherds and inference to use life from reconstructed vessels. His solution assumes the validity of sherd assemblages as units of observation that considerable research invalidates and overlooks methods that estimate original vessels from sherds. Feathers also doubts that use life can be inferred for reconstructed vessels
-
Indigenous Foodways as Persistence in the Alta California Mission System American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-10-13 Sarah J. Noe
This article investigates Indigenous persistence within Mission Santa Clara de Asís in central California through the analysis of animal food remains. The Spanish colonial mission system within Alta California had a profound social and ecological impact on Indigenous peoples, altering traditional subsistence strategies and foodway patterns. Past research has highlighted the continued use of precolonial
-
Units in Ceramic Analysis and the Problem of Vessel Use Life American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 James K. Feathers
Shott (2022, American Antiquity 87:794–815) argues that making inferences from ceramic data requires first inferring use lives of vessels—something that is difficult to do. This comment argues that the problem of differential use life becomes more tractable if the assemblage, rather than the vessel, is the unit of analysis. Aside from empirical reasons, theoretical considerations also favor the assemblage
-
Turning Over a New Leaf: Experimental Investigations into the Role of Developmental Plasticity in the Domestication of Goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri) in Eastern North America American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-09-18 Megan E. Belcher, Daniel Williams, Natalie G. Mueller
In eastern North America, Indigenous peoples domesticated several crops that are now extinct. We present experimental data that alters our understanding of the domestication of one of these—goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri). Ancient domesticated goosefoot has been recognized on the basis of seed morphology, especially a decrease in the thickness of the seed coat (testa). Nondomesticated goosefoot
-
Resetting Archaeological Interpretations of Precontact Indigenous Agriculture: Maize Isotopic Evidence from Three Ancestral Mohawk Iroquoian Villages American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 John P. Hart, Susan Winchell-Sweeney
Archaeologists working in eastern North America typically refer to precontact and early postcontact Native American maize-based agriculture as shifting or swidden. Based on a comparison with European agriculture, it is generally posited that the lack of plows, draft animals, and animal manure fertilization resulted in the rapid depletion of soil nitrogen. This required Indigenous farmers to move their
-
Geoarchaeology and Coastal Morphodynamics of Harbor Key (8MA15): Indigenous Persistence at a Partially Inundated Native Shell Mound Complex in Tampa Bay, Florida American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Kendal Jackson, Thomas J. Pluckhahn, Jaime A. Rogers, Ping Wang, Victor D. Thompson
Applying a coastal-geoarchaeological approach, we synthesize stratigraphic, sedimentological, mollusk-zooarchaeological, and radiometric datasets from recent excavations and sediment coring at Harbor Key (8MA15)—a shell-terraformed Native mound complex within Tampa Bay, on the central peninsular Gulf Coast of Florida. We significantly revise the chronological understanding of the site and place it
-
An Inventory of Precontact Burial Mounds of Iowa American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-09-07 William E. Whittaker
A long-term project to map and catalog all precontact Native American burial mounds in Iowa provides information about the number, location, form, survivorship, and rate of loss of mounds. This analysis reveals previously undocumented mound manifestations, including a large cluster of 200 linear mounds along the central Des Moines River valley. Historical records reveal that at least 7,762 mounds were
-
The Heterogeneity of Social Network and Institutional Covariance in the American Southeast American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-09-07 Jacob Holland-Lulewicz
Social, political, and economic institutions covary with one another in heterogenous ways across space and time. Social Network Analysis (SNA) offers a set of analytical tools and conceptual frameworks that have allowed for formal comparisons of interactions, affiliations, and relationships in reconstructing historical trajectories of institutional change. Although archaeologists have made full use
-
Mobility, Lineage, and Land Tenure: Interpreting House Groups at Early Agricultural Settlements in the Tucson Basin, Southern Arizona American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-09-01 Erina P. Gruner
During the Early Agricultural period (2100 BC–AD 50), preceramic farmers in the Sonoran Desert invested considerable labor in canal-irrigated field systems while remaining very residentially mobile. The degree to which they exercised formal systems of land tenure, or organized their communities above the household level, remains contested. This article discusses the spatial and social organization
-
And Still, Ancestors Remain Out of Their Graves: Reflections on Past, Present, and Future Bioarchaeological Practices while Building an Indigenous Cultural Heritage Database in Quebec American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Diane Martin-Moya, Christine Zachary-Deom, Gaetan Nolet, Katsitsahente Cross-Delisle, Manek Kolhatkar, Isabelle Ribot
This article addresses past and present bioarchaeological practices and human remains management in Quebec; it focuses on the challenges of creating a bioarchaeological database during a two-phase project initiated in 2018–2019 by the Kahnawake Mohawk Council. Its goal was to help Indigenous communities engaged in repatriation and rematriation procedures. Key information regarding human remains’ current
-
Great Basin Survivance (USA): Challenges and Windfalls of the Neoglaciation / Late Holocene Dry Period (3100–1800 cal BP) American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-08-24 David Hurst Thomas, David Rhode, Constance I. Millar, Douglas J. Kennett, Thomas K. Harper, Scott Mensing
The Late Holocene Dry Period (LHDP) was a one-plus millennial megadrought (3100–1800 cal BP) that delivered challenges and windfalls to Indigenous communities of the central Great Basin (United States). New pollen and sedimentation rate studies, combined with existing tree-ring data, submerged stump ages, and lake-level evidence, demonstrate that the LHDP was the driest Great Basin climate within the
-
Indigenous Agave Use in the Ocampo Caves Vicinity, Tamaulipas, Mexico American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-06-23 J. Kevin Hanselka
The symbiotic relationship between people and the genus Agave spans millennia and a vast geographical area encompassing Mexico, the southwestern United States, and the Texas borderlands. In the early 1950s, Richard MacNeish's investigations in Tamaulipas yielded evidence of past agave use in the mountains of northeastern Mexico. Excavations in the Ocampo Caves revealed 9,000 years of sporadic occupations
-
Gendered Crafts in the Great Salt Lake Desert: A Comparative Analysis of Late Holocene Cordage and Coiled Basketry American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Marion M. Coe
Perishable artifacts are invaluable tools for reconstructing past lifeways of hunter-gatherers, and when preserved in arid settings, they can inform on dynamic interactions between communities and the environment. Many such materials were recovered from early archaeological surveys in Utah and Nevada but were largely excluded from contemporary analyses because of small sample sizes, their fragmentary
-
Gender, Institutional Inequality, and Institutional Diversity in Archaeology Articles in Major Journals and Sapiens American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-06-19 Scott R. Hutson, James Johnson, Sophia Price, Dorian Record, Marcus Rodriguez, Taylor Snow, Tera Stocking
Studies in the sociopolitics of archaeology have shown patterns of inequality in publishing. Because this inequality affects the richness of perspectives on the past, the extent of unevenness requires continual documentation. This article explores gendered and institutionally based patterns of authorship in prominent archaeology journals, archaeology papers in general science journals, and Sapiens
-
The Injury Costs of Knapping American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-05-25 Nicholas Gala, Stephen J. Lycett, Michelle R. Bebber, Metin I. Eren
For at least three million years, knapping stone has been practiced by hominin societies large and small, past and present. Thus, understanding knapping, knappers, and knapping cultures is fundamental to anthropological research around the world. Although there is a general sense that stone knapping is inherently dangerous and can lead to injury, little is formally, specifically, or systematically
-
Understanding the Rise of Complexity at Cahokia: Evidence of Nonlocal Caddo Ceramic Specialists in the East St. Louis Precinct American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-05-25 Shawn P. Lambert, Paige A. Ford
This article investigates the rise of social complexity of Cahokia's multiethnic city through a robust stylistic grammar analysis of early Caddo fine ware vessels at Cahokia's East St. Louis Precinct. We explore ceramic production and distribution to shed light on whether Caddo-like fine wares were produced by Caddo potters who lived and crafted at Cahokia, were produced by local Cahokia potters who
-
Building the Ohio Hopewell Chronology: An Incremental Approach to Historical Reckoning American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Mark F. Seeman, Kevin C. Nolan
Ohio Hopewell is an archaeological concept that is known worldwide but that suffers from “a disarray of radiocarbon results” (Lynott 2015:60). Here, we establish a comprehensive dataset of 425 14C dates from Ohio Hopewell sites and apply formal chronometric hygiene criteria to all dates. We then iteratively assess the temporal placement and span of the six most important Ohio Hopewell sites—the Hopewell
-
Two Types of Ritual Space at the Poverty Point Site 16WC5 American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 R. Berle Clay
Two types of features at the Late Archaic period Poverty Point site in Louisiana—large timber post circles and repetitively used activity surfaces later covered by mounding—are examined as spaces that were the products of historical event sequences involving their construction, their entwined but differing ritual uses, and their final deconstruction or removal. This approach is a particularizing, historicizing
-
An Army Marches on Its Stomach: Comparing Military Provisioning across North American Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-Century Forts American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Martin H. Welker, Nicole M. Mathwich
Military garrisons in North America were provisioned with a diet based primarily on domesticates. A relationship between colonial diets and nationality has been an assumed truism, encouraging the belief that colonial diets were static and predetermined by European norms and leading to devaluation of colonists’ adaptability and agency. We challenge that perspective using zooarchaeological data on soldiers’
-
Bladelets, Blood, and Bones: Integrating Protein Residue, Lithic Use-Wear, and Faunal Data from the Moorehead Circle, Fort Ancient American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Robert V. Riordan, G. Logan Miller, Abigail Chipps Stone
Modified teeth and jaws have long been recognized as important ceremonial objects during the Middle Woodland period of eastern North America. Direct evidence for the manufacture of the objects is exceedingly rare because they are typically recovered from mortuary contexts or ceremonial caches. Here, we present multiple lines of evidence pointing to the manufacture of modified teeth and jaws at the
-
Replicability in Lithic Analysis American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-04-12 Justin Pargeter, Alison Brooks, Katja Douze, Metin Eren, Huw S. Groucutt, Jessica McNeil, Alex Mackay, Kathryn Ranhorn, Eleanor Scerri, Matthew Shaw, Christian Tryon, Manuel Will, Alice Leplongeon
The ubiquity and durability of lithic artifacts inform archaeologists about important dimensions of human behavioral variability. Despite their importance, lithic artifacts can be problematic to study because lithic analysts differ widely in their theoretical approaches and the data they collect. The extent to which differences in lithic data relate to prehistoric behavioral variability or differences
-
The Archer and the Shield-Bearing Warrior American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-03-29 Lawrence L. Loendorf, Karen L. Steelman, Amanda M. Castañeda
At the Painted Coulee site (24JT86), pictographs depicting both atlatl and bow technology are present. We utilized plasma oxidation followed by accelerator mass spectrometry to directly radiocarbon date the organic material in two paint samples. A red painting of an anthropomorph with a shield and a possible atlatl in conflict with a fleeing person holding a bow was dated to 1790 ± 50 RCYBP (cal AD
-
Reevaluating the Suma Occupation in the Casas Grandes Valley, Chihuahua, Mexico American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-03-08 John E. Douglas, Linda J. Brown
In 1584, Baltasar de Obregón described the people he met in the Casas Grandes Valley (CGV), Northwest Chihuahua, Mexico. He juxtaposed these “rustic” people with the sophistication of the ancient builders of Paquimé who had lived in the CGV. Seventy years later, the Spanish missionaries called the people in the CGV “Suma” and enlisted them to build Mission San Antonio de Padua de Casas Grandes. Scholars
-
Iridescent Beetle Adornments Suggest Incipient Status Competition among the Earliest Horticulturalists in Bears Ears National Monument American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Michael L. Terlep, Francis E. Smiley, Randall Haas
Anthropological research has long theorized that emergent food-producing economies catalyzed high levels of inequality in human societies, as evident in the earliest use of jewelry made from gold, copper, and other precious minerals among early agricultural populations. Although the US Southwest appears to have been an exception, we report the discovery of two Basketmaker II period necklaces constructed
-
Dating Marine Shell: A Guide for the Wary North American Archaeologist American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Carla S. Hadden, Ian Hutchinson, Andrew Martindale
Radiocarbon dates on marine shell and other materials of marine origin appear significantly older than contemporaneous samples of terrestrial/atmospheric origin. Misunderstandings regarding the mechanisms that give rise to this “marine reservoir effect” (MRE), the terminology used to define it, and the mathematics used to describe it cause many coastal archaeologists to distrust or misinterpret marine
-
Making Community: Implications of Hybridity and Coalescence at Morton Village American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Jodie A. O'Gorman, Michael D. Conner
Recent investigations of Morton Village, a Mississippian and Oneota community formed following Oneota migration into the central Illinois River valley around AD 1300, focus on evaluating the social context for the remarkable violence evidenced at the adjacent Norris Farms 36 cemetery. Here, we use the concepts of thirdspace and hybridity to examine three areas of village life: creation of the physical
-
Rethinking Stone Drill Manufacture American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 William Engelbrecht
Drills and projectile points from a site often share a similar shaped base, and it is typically assumed that these drills are reworked hafted points. Measurements of triangular-shaped drills and triangular arrow points from an Iroquoian site indicate that, on average, these drills had narrower bases and were thicker than points. Additionally, most preserved point foreshafts from the western United
-
The Role of Plants and Animals in the Termination of Three Buildings at the Spring Lake Tract Neighborhood, Cahokia American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 Sarah E. Baires, Melissa R. Baltus, Kathryn Parker, Steven Kuehn
Plants and animals play a vital role in the human experience, from providing basic sustenance to creating unique social practices that may govern familial, political, or religious experiences; reconstitute identities; or forge social relationships. In this article, we present analyses on the ethnobotanical and zoological remains recently recovered from the Spring Lake Tract, Cahokia, a neighborhood
-
Understanding Turkey Management in the Mimbres Valley of Southwestern New Mexico Using Ancient Mitochondrial DNA and Stable Isotopes American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-10-21 Sean G. Dolan, Andrew T. Ozga, Karl W. Laumbach, John Krigbaum, Aurélie Manin, Christopher W. Schwartz, Anne C. Stone, Kelly J. Knudson
In the US Southwest and Northwest Mexico, people and turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) have had a reciprocal relationship for millennia; turkeys supplied feathers, meat, and other resources, whereas people provided food, shelter, and care. To investigate how turkeys fit within subsistence, economic production, sociopolitical organization, and religious and ritual practice in the Mimbres Valley of southwestern
-
Great Kivas and Community Integration at the Harris Site, Southwestern New Mexico American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-10-18 Barbara J. Roth, Danielle Romero
Great kivas served as important ritual spaces and played significant roles in community integration throughout the Pithouse period (AD 550–1000) occupation of the Mimbres Mogollon region of southwestern New Mexico. This article uses data from excavations at the Harris site, a large pithouse village located in the Mimbres Valley, to explore the role of great kivas and an associated plaza in community
-
Archaeology and Social Justice in Native America American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-08-19 Nicholas C. Laluk, Lindsay M. Montgomery, Rebecca Tsosie, Christine McCleave, Rose Miron, Stephanie Russo Carroll, Joseph Aguilar, Ashleigh Big Wolf Thompson, Peter Nelson, Jun Sunseri, Isabel Trujillo, GeorgeAnn M. DeAntoni, Greg Castro, Tsim D. Schneider
Over the past 20 years, collaboration has become an essential aspect of archaeological practice in North America. In paying increased attention to the voices of descendant and local communities, archaeologists have become aware of the persistent injustices these often marginalized groups face. Building on growing calls for a responsive and engaged cultural heritage praxis, this forum article brings
-
Inferring Use-Life Mean and Distribution: A Pottery Ethnoarchaeological Case Study from Michoacán American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-08-05 Michael J. Shott
Archaeologists see the value, if not the allure, of formation theory. Before inferring what happened in the past and why, we must know how the material record formed. Pottery is abundant and informative, therefore a common analytical subject. Understanding size and composition of ceramics assemblages requires formation theory, including knowledge of vessel use life. This fundamental quantity has two
-
Material Culture Studies in the Age of Big Data: Digital Excavation of Homemade Face-Mask Production during the COVID-19 Pandemic American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-08-03 Matthew Magnani, Jon Clindaniel, Natalia Magnani
This manuscript presents a novel approach to the study of contemporary material culture using digital data. Scholars interested in the materiality of past and contemporary societies have been limited to information derived from assemblages of excavated, collected, or physically observed materials; they have yet to take full advantage of large or complex digital datasets afforded by the internet. To
-
Range Limits: Semiferal Animal Husbandry in Spanish Colonial Arizona American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-08-02 Nicole M. Mathwich
In North America, the introduction of livestock as part of the Columbian Exchange had profound social and ecological consequences for cultural environments, yet the landscape impacts of these animals have been difficult to identify, particularly in the first decades of sustained contact. Between 1701 and 1775, at a Spanish colonial mission near what is today Nogales, Arizona, O'odham groups and Spanish
-
The Early Materialization of Democratic Institutions among the Ancestral Muskogean of the American Southeast American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-18 Victor D. Thompson, Jacob Holland-Lulewicz, RaeLynn A. Butler, Turner W. Hunt, LeeAnne Wendt, James Wettstaed, Mark Williams, Richard Jefferies, Suzanne K. Fish
Democratic cooperation is a particularly complex type of arrangement that requires attendant institutions to ensure that the problems inherent in collective action do not subvert the public good. It is perhaps due to this complexity that historians, political scientists, and others generally associate the birth of democracy with the emergence of so-called states and center it geographically in the
-
Down the Rabbit Hole: Comment on Sundstrom and Walker (2021) American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Julie Francis, Lawrence L. Loendorf, Marcel Kornfeld, Mary Lou Larson, James M. Adovasio
The Sheep Mountain juniper bark net, originally thought to be of Paleoindian age, was redated by Sundstrom and Walker (2021) to the Late Prehistoric period. Although the original investigators convincingly argued that the net was intended for use with mountain sheep or deer, Sundstrom and Walker suggest it was used to trap small game such as rabbits or sage grouse. Unfortunately, the authors ignore
-
Where's the Mutton? American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Linea Sundstrom, Danny N. Walker
Francis et alia (2022) propose that the Sheep Mountain net (48PA1022) was used for large game; however, they present no data to support this proposed function. The size and configuration of the net fall within the range for rabbit nets recorded elsewhere.
-
Leonard Rockshelter Revisited: Evaluating a 70-Year-Old Claim of a Late Pleistocene Human Occupation in the Western Great Basin American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Geoffrey M. Smith, Sara Sturtz, Anna J. Camp, Kenneth D. Adams, Elizabeth Kallenbach, Richard L. Rosencrance, Richard E. Hughes
Robert Heizer excavated Leonard Rockshelter (26Pe14) in western Nevada more than 70 years ago. He described stratified cultural deposits spanning the Holocene. He also reported obsidian flakes purportedly associated with late Pleistocene sediments, suggesting that human use extended even farther back in time. Because Heizer never produced a final report, Leonard Rockshelter faded into obscurity despite
-
The View from Jaketown: Considering Variation in the Poverty Point Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Grace M. V. Ward, Seth B. Grooms, Andrew G. Schroll, Tristram R. Kidder
Recent research at Jaketown, a Late Archaic earthwork site in the Lower Mississippi Valley, suggests that the culture-historical framework used to interpret Jaketown and contemporary sites in the region obscures differences in practices across sites. As an alternative, we propose a framework focused on variation in material culture, architecture, and foodways between Jaketown and Poverty Point, the
-
The Big Picture versus Minutiae: Geophytes, Plant Foods, and Ancient Human Economies American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-06 Jon M. Erlandson, Kristina M. Gill, Todd J. Braje
In a rejoinder to Gill et alia (2021), Martin (2022) accuses us of perpetuating misconceptions about human nutrition and erroneously describing geophytes as a dietary staple. We provide authoritative definitions for the terms “essential” and “dietary staple” to show that it is Martin who mischaracterizes and misunderstands the foundational role of geophytes and other plant foods to human diets and
-
Misunderstandings Regarding Carbohydrates in Human Nutrition American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-06 Steve L. Martin
In a recent issue of American Antiquity, two articles (Gill et al. 2021; Lyons et al. 2021) perpetuate the common misconception that dietary carbohydrates are an essential component of the human diet and that plants—the main source of dietary carbohydrates—must be consumed to promote health. In fact, carbohydrate is a nonessential macronutrient with adequate amounts of energy—the sole function of carbohydrates
-
Wapato as an Important Staple Carbohydrate in the Northwest Coast Diet: A Response to Martin American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-06 Tanja Hoffmann, Natasha Lyons, Michael Blake, Andrew Martindale, Debbie Miller, Cynthia Larbey
In response to Steve L. Martin's critique of our recent paper we provide further evidence in support of our central contention: that geophytes were a nutritionally important part of the precontact diet, and that they functioned as dietary, cultural, and economic staple foods for many peoples of the Pacific Northwest.
-
Communication in the Chaco World: A Consideration of Time and Labor Mobilization American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-05-05 W. H. Wills, Paulina F. Przystupa, Katharine Williams
The construction of great houses during the Bonito Phase (ca. AD 850–1200) in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, required massive amounts of building material and efficient mobilization and coordination of large labor pools. We employ least cost path analysis (LCA) to explore the potential communication network among great house communities in the Chaco “core” area and its relevance in managing sustained labor
-
Bronze Age Worlds: A Social Prehistory of Britain and Ireland. ROBERT JOHNSTON. 2021. Routledge, London. xv + 374 pp. $160.00 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-13803-787-8. $46.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-13803-788-5. $46.95 (e-book), ISBN 978-1-31517-763-2. American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-04-25 Matthew J. Walsh
-
British Forts and Their Communities: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives. CHRISTOPHER R. DECORSE and ZACHARY J. M. BEIER, editors. 2018. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. xvi + 314 pp. $84.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-8130-5675-3. American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Travis Parno
-
Early Maize (Zea mays) in the North American Central Plains: The Microbotanical Evidence American Antiquity (IF 3.129) Pub Date : 2022-04-20 Mary J. Adair, Neil A. Duncan, Danielle N. Young, Steven R. Bozarth, Robert K. Lusteck
Artifacts, including ceramics, ground stone, and soil samples, as well as dental calculus, recovered from sites in the eastern North American central Plains were submitted to multiple laboratories for analysis of microbotanical remains. Direct accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) dates of 361–197 cal BC provide evidence for the earliest use of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) in this region. Squash (Cucurbita