front cover of Societies in Eclipse
Societies in Eclipse
Archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands Indians, A.D. 1400-1700
Edited by David S. Brose, C. Wesley Cowan, and Robert C. Mainfort
University of Alabama Press, 2001
Combines recent research with insights from anthropology, historiography, and oral tradition to examine the cultural landscape preceding and immediately following the arrival of Europeans

After establishing the distribution of prehistoric and historic populations from the northeastern Appalachian forests to the southern trans-Mississippian prairies, the contributors consider the archaeological and cultural record of several specific groups, including Mohawk and Onondaga, Monacan, Coosa, and Calusa. For each, they present new evidence of cultural changes prior to European contact, including populations movements triggered by the Little Ice Age (AD 1550–1770), shifting exchange and warfare networks, geological restriction of effective maize subsistence, and use of empty hunting territories as buffers between politically unstable neighbors. The contributors also trace European influences, including the devastation caused by European-introduced epidemics and the paths of European trade goods that transformed existing Native American-exchange networks.

While the profound effects of European explorers, missionaries, and traders on Eastern Woodlands tribes cannot be denied, the archaeological evidence suggests that several indigenous societies were already in the process of redefinition prior to European contact. The essays gathered here show that, whether formed in response to natural or human forces, cultural change may be traced through archaeological artifacts, which play a critical role in answering current questions regarding cultural persistence.
 
[more]

front cover of Structure and Process in Southeastern Archaeology
Structure and Process in Southeastern Archaeology
Edited by Roy Dickens Jr and H. Trawick Ward
University of Alabama Press, 1985

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication
 

Within the general structure-and-process theme of this compendium, the authors have focused on either intrasite problems (those dealing with the formation and structure of a site, type of site, or type of feature) or intersite problems (those dealing with behavioral organization and process as developed from comparative site data). These papers, from a broad range of specialists, present a comprehensive study of southeastern archaeology.

Section I: Intrasite Structure and Formation Processes

Formation Processes for the Practical Prehistorian: An Example from the Southeast, J. Jefferson Reid

The Form, Function, and Formation of Garbage-filled Pits on Southeastern Aboriginal Sites: An Archaeobotanical Analysis, Roy S. Dickens Jr.

Feature Zones and Feature Fill: More Than Trash, Jack H. Wilson Jr.

Social Implications of Storage and Disposal Patterns, H. Trawick Ward

The Form and Function of South Carolina's Early Woodland Shell Rings, Michael B. Trinkley

A New Way of Looking at Old Holes: Methods for Excavating and Interpreting Timber Structures, Alexander H. Morrison II

Section II: Intersite Comparisons and Regional Chronology

Archaeology and the Archaic Period in the Southern Ridge-and-Valley Province, Jefferson Chapman

Intersite Assemblage Variability in the Lower Little Tennessee River Valley: Exploring Extinct Settlement Systems Through Probabilistic Sampling, R. P. Stephen Davis Jr.

Lithic Scatters in the South Carolina Piedmont, Veletta Canouts and Albert C. Goodyear III

Tradition and Typology: Basic Elements of the Carolina Projectile Point Sequence, Billy L. Oliver

Model and Sequence in the Maryland Archaic, Kit W. Wesler

Spheres of Cultural Interaction across the Coastal Plain of Virginia in the Woodland Period, Keith T. Egloff

Early Hopewellian Ceremonial Encampments in the South Appalachian Highlands, John A. Walthall

Deep Water and High Ground: Seventeenth-Century Settlement Patterns on the Carolina Coast, Stanley South and Michael O. Hartley

Epilogue: Joffre Lanning Coe: The Quiet Giant of Southeastern Archaeology, James B. Griffin

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter