Middle Archaic Interaction Spheres Interpreted from Toolstone Distributions in the Tahoe Sierra

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Bloomer ◽  
Denise Jaffke
Keyword(s):  
Interaction Spheres ◽  
Middle Archaic

Geoarchaeology and Bayesian Statistical Modeling of Radiocarbon Dates from 40CH171, a Multicomponent Shell-Bearing Site in Cheatham County, Tennessee

2019 ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
D. Shane Miller ◽  
Thaddeus G. Bissett ◽  
Tanya M. Peres ◽  
David G. Anderson ◽  
Stephen B. Carmody ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Site Formation ◽  
State University ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
University Of Tennessee ◽  
Middle Tennessee State University ◽  
Blue Creek ◽  
Middle Archaic ◽  
Cumberland River ◽  
A Site ◽  
The University

Using multiple lines of evidence from 40CH171, including opportunistic sampling, geoarchaeology analysis, and Bayesian radiocarbon modeling, this chapter constructs a site formation process narrative based on fieldwork conducted from 2009 to 2010 by the University of Tennessee, Middle Tennessee State University, and the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. This chapter argues that the shell-bearing strata were deposited relatively close to an active channel of the Cumberland River and/or Blue Creek during the Middle Holocene (ca. 7170–6500 cal BP). This was followed by an abrupt shift to sandier sediments, indicating that deposition after the termination of the shell-bearing deposits at the Middle Archaic/Late Archaic boundary took place in the context of decreasing distance from the site to the Cumberland River and Blue Creek.

Maintaining Relations with Deer

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Moore ◽  
Richard W. Jefferies
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Southern Illinois ◽  
Green River ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
West Central ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Middle Archaic ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the way deer were entangled in the everyday lives of Middle Archaic peoples. The authors first delve into hunter-gatherer ethnography, principally from northern hunting societies, and argue that hunting cultures are rarely extractive at their core. Rather, human-animal relations in hunting societies are better conceived as a meshwork of entanglements and mutual obligations. They also draw on the Middle Archaic archaeological record, focusing on the Black Earth site in southern Illinois and several Green River Archaic sites in west central Kentucky, to argue that white-tailed deer were extremely important to Middle Archaic hunters, not only as sources of food but also as social and spiritual creatures.

A Middle Archaic Burial from East Central Kansas

2004 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Hoard ◽  
William E. Banks ◽  
Rolfe D. Mandel ◽  
Michael Finnegan ◽  
Jennifer E. Epperson
Keyword(s):  
Soil Horizon ◽  
Central Plains ◽  
Projectile Point ◽  
East Central ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Radiocarbon Age ◽  
The North ◽  
Wear Analysis ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
Middle Archaic

In late 2001, investigators excavated a solitary Middle Archaic burial from the Plains-Prairie border in east-central Kansas. The burial was contained in a dissected colluvial apron at the foot of the valley wall, in a soil horizon that began accumulating around 9000 B.P. Burial goods include deer bone, a drill, and a side-notched projectile point/knife, the morphology of which is consistent with side-notched Middle Archaic points of the North American Central Plains and Midwest. Use-wear analysis shows that the stone tools were used before being placed with the burial and were not manufactured specifically as burial goods. A radiocarbon assay of the deer bone in direct association with the burial yielded a radiocarbon age of 6160 ± 35 B.P. This is one of only a few burials older than 5,000 years in the region. Comparison of this burial to other coeval regional burials shows similarities in burial practices.

Site-Use Intensity, Cultural Modification of the Environment, and the Development of Agricultural Communities in Southern Arizona

2005 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Dean
Keyword(s):  
Human Impacts ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Agricultural Communities ◽  
Local Environments ◽  
Middle Archaic ◽  
Site Use ◽  
Transition To Agriculture ◽  
Cultural Modification

Some non-prey animals, including certain rodent and bird species, are particularly good indicators of local environments, and are argued to provide an alternative way to look at the emergence of sedentism before, during, and after the transition to agriculture. With the first villages and irrigated fields, human impacts on the environment opened new ecological niches and affected the composition of local pest populations. Some of these animals would have been attracted to the new food sources available in village environments, while others may have been driven away by the destruction of their habitat. In southern Arizona, changes in archaeological pest assemblages are a source of information on the degree of site-use intensity prehistorically and how it changed through the Archaic and Hohokam cultural sequence. Faunal data from the Hohokam region suggest that the earliest farmers in the region were not significantly more sedentary than their Middle Archaic predecessors, and indeed site-use intensity did not increase substantially until well after the introduction of domestic plants.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document