Results by title
1677 books match the query 'Archaeology' and 54 start with h
Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of the Colorado High Country
Mark Stiger
University Press of Colorado, 2001
Synthesizing research from several important, previously neglected sites, the book anchors its findings in a massive body of data that Mark Stiger gathered over eight years at Tenderfoot - a large lithic-scatter site once categorized as insignificant. Advances in spatial analysis, theoretical approaches, and excavation methods have allowed lithic-scatter sites, once considered less revealing than intact structures and similar sites, to yield startlingly rich cultural evidence.
Presenting artifactual data that reflects changes in houses, game drives, fire pits, stone tools, and debitage, Stiger explains the cultural sequence in the Upper Gunnison Basin and its connections to changes across the West. He relates environmental and cultural changes, relying on paleoenvironmental evidence, changes in floral and faunal usage patterns, and data recovered in multi-year, repetitive surface collections. An overview and critique of past research in the region complements discussion of the advantages of horizontally extensive block excavations and other contemporary ways of excavating and analyzing surface sites.
Stiger's findings hold promise for future research, as high-altitude surface sites are common, under-researched, and relatively well-preserved. The advances in archaeological method and theory that enabled Stiger's outstanding results in the Upper Gunnison Basin will allow many other Western sites to yield fascinating evidence.
Hunter-Gatherer Mortuary Practices during the Central Texas Archaic
By Leland C. Bement
University of Texas Press, 1995
Beginning over 10,000 years ago and continuing until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s, hunter and gatherer societies occupied the Edwards Plateau of central Texas. Archaeological studies over the past eighty years have reconstructed their subsistence, technology, and settlement patterns, but until now little information has been available on their burial practices, due to the scarcity of known burial sites. This detailed archaeological report describes the human skeletal remains, burial furnishings, and fauna recovered from Bering Sinkhole in Kerr County, the first carefully excavated hunter-gatherer burial site in central Texas.
The remains in Bering Sinkhole were deposited from 7,500 to 2,000 years ago. Leland Bement's analysis reveals a growing elaboration in burial rituals during the period and also uncovers important data on the diet and health of the hunter-gatherers. He discusses climate change based on faunal remains and compares burial goods such as bone, antler, freshwater shell, marine shell, turtle, and stone artifacts with those found at other Texas mortuary sites and with deposits at hunter-gatherer habitation sites in Central Texas.
Hunters of the Mid-Holocene Forest
Old Cordilleran Culture Sites at Granite Falls, WashingtonJames C. Chatters, Jason B. Cooper, and Philippe D. LeTourneau
University of Utah Press, 2020
This volume examines an almost purely lithic record known in the Puget Sound region as the Olcott Complex. Only loosely described off and on since the early 1960s by a series of researchers, none of whom used the same analytical approach, the Olcott record has never been systematically analyzed until now. As a result, this book fills in enormous gaps in our knowledge regarding the age, mode of subsistence, and adaptive strategy of the Olcott Complex. Chatters and colleagues describe the intensive excavation of three Olcott sites that were threatened by highway construction. The book concludes by pulling those findings together to place the Olcott Complex into its proper place in regional prehistory. An exemplary model of how to conduct archaeological research, the volume demonstrates how important research issues can be addressed in a cultural resource management context.
Extensive appendices available online.
Hunting for Hides
Deerskins, Status, and Cultural Change in the Protohistoric AppalachiansHeather A. Lapham
University of Alabama Press, 2006
Through research on faunal remains and mortuary assemblages, Lapham tracks both the products Native Americans produced for colonial trade--deerskins and other furs--as well as those items received in exchange--European and native prestige goods that end up in burial contexts. Zooarchaeological analyses provide insights into subsistence practices, deer-hunting strategies, and deer-hide production activities, while an examination of mortuary practices contributes information on the use of the nonlocal goods acquired through trade in deerskins. This study reveals changes in economic organization and mortuary practices that provide new insights into how participation in the colonial deerskin trade initially altered Native American social relations and political systems.