Circular Villages of the Monongahela Tradition

Circular Villages of the Monongahela Tradition
Author :
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
Total Pages : 210
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780817315733
ISBN-13 : 081731573X
Rating : 4/5 (33 Downloads)

Synopsis Circular Villages of the Monongahela Tradition by : Bernard K. Means

Between A.D. 1000 and 1635, the inhabitants of southwestern Pennsylvania and portions of adjacent states—known to archaeologists as the Monongahela Culture or Tradition—began to reside regularly in ring-shaped village settlements. These circular settlements consisted of dwellings around a central plaza. A cross-cultural and cross-temporal review of archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic cases demonstrates that this settlement form appeared repeatedly and independently worldwide, including throughout portions of the Eastern Woodlands, among the Plains Indians, and in Central and South America. Specific archaeological cases are drawn from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, that has the largest number of completely excavated Monongahela villages. Most of these villages, excavated in the 1930s as federal relief projects, were recently dated. Full analysis of the extensive excavations reveals not only the geometric architectural patterning of the villages, but enables an analysis of the social groupings, population estimates, and economic status of residents who inhabited the circular villages. Circular patterning can be revealed at less fully excavated archaeological sites. Focused test excavations can help confirm circular village plans without extensive and destructive excavations.

The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 693
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780190241094
ISBN-13 : 0190241098
Rating : 4/5 (94 Downloads)

Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology by : Timothy R. Pauketat

The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology reviews the continent's first and last foragers, farmers, and great pre-Columbian civic and ceremonial centers, from Chaco Canyon to Moundville and beyond.

The Archaeology of Ancient North America

The Archaeology of Ancient North America
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 735
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780521762496
ISBN-13 : 0521762499
Rating : 4/5 (96 Downloads)

Synopsis The Archaeology of Ancient North America by : Timothy R. Pauketat

Unlike extant texts, this textbook treats pre-Columbian Native Americans as history makers who yet matter in our contemporary world.

The Moundbuilders: Ancient Societies of Eastern North America: Second Edition

The Moundbuilders: Ancient Societies of Eastern North America: Second Edition
Author :
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
Total Pages : 440
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780500775455
ISBN-13 : 0500775451
Rating : 4/5 (55 Downloads)

Synopsis The Moundbuilders: Ancient Societies of Eastern North America: Second Edition by : George R. Milner

Brought up to date with the latest research, The Moundbuilders is the definitive visual guide to North America’s eastern region and the societies that forever changed its landscape. Hailed by Bruce D. Smith, curator of North American archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution, as “without question the best available book on the pre-Columbian . . . societies of eastern North America,” this wide-ranging and richly illustrated volume covers the entire prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands and the thousands of earthen mounds that can be found there, built between 3100 BCE and 1600 CE. The second edition of The Moundbuilders has been brought fully up-to-date, with the latest research on the peopling of the Americas, including more coverage of pre-Clovis groups, new material on Native American communities in the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries CE, and new narratives of migration drawn from ancient and modern DNA. Far-reaching and illustrated throughout, this book is the perfect visual guide to the region for students, tourists, archaeologists, and anyone interested in ancient American history.

Middle Atlantic Prehistory

Middle Atlantic Prehistory
Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages : 397
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781442228764
ISBN-13 : 1442228768
Rating : 4/5 (64 Downloads)

Synopsis Middle Atlantic Prehistory by : Heather A. Wholey

Regional identities and practices are often debated in American archaeology, but Middle Atlantic prehistorians have largely refrained from such discussions, focusing instead on creating chronologies and studying socio-political evolution from the perspective of sub-regions. What is Middle Atlantic prehistoric archaeology? What are the questions and methods that identify our practice in this region or connect research in our region to larger anthropological themes? Middle Atlantic Prehistory: Foundations and Practice provides a basic survey of Middle Atlantic prehistoric archaeology and serves as an important reference for situating the development of Middle Atlantic prehistoric archaeology within the present context of culture area studies. This edited volume is a regional, historic overview of important themes, topics, and approaches in Middle Atlantic prehistory; covering major practical and theoretical debates and controversies in the region and in the discipline. Each chapter is holistic in its review of the historical development of a particular theme, in evaluating its contributions to current scholarship, and in proposing future directions for productive scholarly work. Contributing authors represent the full range of professional practice in archaeology and include university professors, cultural resources professionals, government regulatory/review archaeologists and museums curators with many years of practical and theoretical immersion in his/her chapter topic, and is highly regarded in the discipline and in the region for their expertise. Middle Atlantic Prehistory provides a much-needed synthesis and historical overview for academic and cultural resource archaeologists and independent scholars working in the Middle Atlantic region in particular.

The Archaeology of Arcuate Communities

The Archaeology of Arcuate Communities
Author :
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
Total Pages : 290
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780817361556
ISBN-13 : 0817361553
Rating : 4/5 (56 Downloads)

Synopsis The Archaeology of Arcuate Communities by : Martin Menz

Provides case studies of social dynamics and evolution of ring-shaped communities of the Eastern Woodlands

Levanna

Levanna
Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages : 217
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781538128305
ISBN-13 : 1538128306
Rating : 4/5 (05 Downloads)

Synopsis Levanna by : Jack Rossen

Levanna was a famous and well-visited archaeological site in central New York, along the eastern side of Cayuga Lake, during the Great Depression. It was primarily known for its spectacular animal effigies. But were they real or forgeries? Jack Rossen takes us on a journey through the 1920s and 1930s, the era of an outdoor museum, and professional attempts by the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) to suppress it. Larger than life characters include Arthur C. Parker, future President of the SAA, William A. Ritchie, future State Archaeologist of New York, and Harrison C. Follett, the entrepreneurial archaeologist. The book also takes us through the 2007-2009 re-excavation of Levanna and the related 2011-2014 excavations at the Myers Farm site. Along the way, Cayuga history is reinterpreted as more peaceful than previously believed, and the case is made for a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy more than one thousand years old. An older confederacy is more in line with oral traditions than previous archaeological ideas of a brief confederacy that began either just before or after European contact. The work was conducted through the framework of indigenous collaborative archaeology with leaders of the Cayuga and Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The narrative approach includes stories of the contemporary people, both Native and non-Native, who protected the site, supported the research, and provided ideas, wisdom, inspiration, and friendship.

Building the Past

Building the Past
Author :
Publisher : University Press of Florida
Total Pages : 437
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780813055091
ISBN-13 : 0813055091
Rating : 4/5 (91 Downloads)

Synopsis Building the Past by : Brian G. Redmond

The study of ancient architecture reveals much about the social constructs and culture of the architects, builders, and inhabitants of the structures, but few studies bridge the gap between architecture and archaeology. This comprehensive examination of sites in the Ohio Valley, going as far north as Ontario, integrates structural engineering and wood science technology into the toolkit of archaeologists. Presenting the most current research on structures from pre-European contact, Building the Past allows archaeologists to expand their interpretations from simply describing postmold patterns to more fully envisioning the complex architecture of critical locations like Hopewell, Moorehead Circle, and Brown’s Bottom.

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 617
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199875078
ISBN-13 : 0199875073
Rating : 4/5 (78 Downloads)

Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology by : William F. Keegan

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology provides an overview of archaeological investigations in the insular Caribbean, understood here as the islands whose shores surround the Caribbean Sea and the islands of the Bahama Archipelago. Though these islands were never isolated from the surrounding mainland, their histories are sufficiently diverse to warrant their identification as distinct areas of culture. Over the past 20 years, Caribbean archaeology has been transformed from a focus on reconstructing culture histories to one on the mobility and exchange expressed in cultural and social dynamics. This Handbook brings together, for the first time, examples of the best research conducted by scholars from across the globe to address the complexity of the Caribbean past. The Handbook is divided into five sections. Part I, Islands of History and the Precolonial History of the Caribbean Islands, provides an introduction to Caribbean Archaeology and its history. The papers in the following Ethnohistory section address the diversity of cultural practices expressed in the insular Caribbean and develop historical descriptions in concert with archaeological evidence in order to place language, social organization, and the native Taínos and Island Caribs in perspective. The following section, Culture History, provides the latest research on specific geographical locations and cross-cultural engagements, from Jamaica and the Bahama archigelago to the Saladoid and the Isthmo-Antillean Engagements. Creating History, the fourth section, includes papers on specific issues related to the field, such as Zooarchaeology, Rock Art, and DNA analysis, among others. The final section, World History, centers on the consequences of European colonization.

Shovel Ready

Shovel Ready
Author :
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
Total Pages : 330
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780817357184
ISBN-13 : 0817357181
Rating : 4/5 (84 Downloads)

Synopsis Shovel Ready by : Bernard K. Means

Beginning in March 1933 with the excavation of the Marksville mound site in Louisiana, and throughout the next decade, ordinary citizens labored in New Deal jobs programs and participated in archaeological excavations across the United States. Under the auspices of work relief programs, people were provided the opportunity to explore and document American Indian villages and mounds, important historic places, and homes associated with events and people critical to the foundation of the country.