Archaeological Visibility and the Underclass of Southwestern Prehistory

1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steadman Upham
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Development ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Developmental Sequences ◽  
Low Visibility ◽  
Minor Significance ◽  
Discontinuous Model

Archaeologists interpreting the patterns of prehistory in the American Southwest have been influenced dramatically by the obtrusiveness of certain kinds of archaeological remains and by the remarkable record of continuity they suggest. Low-visibility archaeological remains and discontinuous developmental sequences have been accorded only minor significance in southwestern prehistory, in spite of the fact that occupational "discontinuities" are evident in the archaeological record of many regions. In this paper, two examples are presented to show how low-visibility archaeological remains support a discontinuous model of cultural development on the Colorado Plateaus.

scholarly journals SURVEI SIDE SCAN SONAR DALAM PENELITIAN ARKEOLOGI BAWAH AIR DI PERAIRAN SUNGAI: STUDI KASUS PADA DAERAH ALIRAN SUNGAI BRANTAS [SIDE SCAN SONAR SURVEY IN RIVERINE UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH: CASE STUDY IN THE BRANTAS BASIN]

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Agni Mochtar ◽  
Firman Setiawan ◽  
Shinatria Adhityatama
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Side Scan Sonar ◽  
Maritime Cultural Landscape ◽  
Old Maps ◽  
Low Visibility ◽  
Survey Results

Aplikasi metode geofisika menggunakan side scan sonar dalam penelitian arkeologi bawah air belum banyak dilakukan di Indonesia. Tulisan ini memaparkan penggunaan side scan sonar untuk pemetaan dasar sungai dan identifikasi tinggalan arkeologi di dasar sungai dalam penelitian “Sungai Brantas dalam Perspektif Lanskap Kultur Maritim”, serta interpretasi hasil survei side scan sonar tersebut dalam konteks kesejarahan. Selain itu, dalam tulisan ini akan dibahas potensi pengembangan penggunaan side scan sonar dalam penelitian arkeologi bawah air di Indonesia, terutama di perairan sungai. Akuisisi data dilakukan dengan menggunakan side scan sonar Starfish 450H dengan sistem posisi GNSS Trimble R8s. Sementara itu, interpretasi diperoleh dengan melakukan analisis terhadap data peta dan arsip Belanda untuk memahami konteks temporal dari objek yang dideteksi oleh alat side scan sonar. Survei berhasil menunjukkan sedimen di dasar sungai berupa lempung dan lanau, serta beberapa objek yang diduga sebagai bangkai kapal, yang diperkirakan berasal dari pasca abad ke-19 Masehi. Hasil survei side scan sonar menunjukkan tingkat akurasi cukup hingga tinggi dan dapat menjadi pendukung penelitian arkeologi bawah air yang efisien, terutama di perairan yang keruh. Side scan sonar survey as one of the geophysics methods is still scarcely applied in underwater archaeological research in Indonesia. This paper describes the application of side scan sonar survey in mapping riverbed and identifying underwater archaeological remains in the “Sungai Brantas in the Perspective of Maritime Cultural Landscape” project, as well as interpreting its historical context based on survey results. This paper also explores the development of utilizing side scan sonar in underwater archaeological research in Indonesia, particularly in rivers. Data was acquisitioned by using the side scan sonar Starfish 450H and GNSS Trimble R8s positioning system. The interpretation was drawn by analysing related Dutch old maps and archives to understand the historical context of the survey findings. The result shows clay and silt sediment covering most of the riverbed and a number of objects, possibly shipwrecks, estimated as from the nineteenth century. The survey result has a medium to high accuracy. Thus, this method is able to serve as an efficient instrument for underwater archaeological research, especially in the low-visibility waters.

The Evolution of Social Behavior in the Prehistoric American Southwest

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
George J. Gumerman ◽  
Alan C. Swedlund ◽  
Jeffrey S. Dean ◽  
Joshua M. Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Quantitative Reconstruction ◽  
Black Mesa ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Alluvial Geomorphology

Long House Valley, located in the Black Mesa area of northeastern Arizona (USA), was inhabited by the Kayenta Anasazi from circa 1800 B.C. to circa A.D. 1300. These people were prehistoric precursors of the modern Pueblo cultures of the Colorado Plateau. A rich paleoenvironmental record, based on alluvial geomorphology, palynology, and dendroclimatology, permits the accurate quantitative reconstruction of annual fluctuations in potential agricultural production (kg maize/hectare). The archaeological record of Anasazi farming groups from A.D. 200 to 1300 provides information on a millennium of sociocultural stasis, variability, change, and adaptation. We report on a multi-agent computational model of this society that closely reproduces the main features of its actual history, including population ebb and flow, changing spatial settlement patterns, and eventual rapid decline. The agents in the model are monoagriculturalists, who decide both where to situate their fields and where to locate their settlements.

Perception and Interpretation in Contemporary Southwestern Archaeology: Comments on Cordell, Upham, and Brock

1989 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 802-814 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jefferson Reid ◽  
Michael B. Schiffer ◽  
Stephanie M. Whittlesey ◽  
Madeleine J. Hinkes ◽  
Alan P. Sullivan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
American Southwest ◽  
Recent Effort ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Southwestern Archaeology

A recent effort in archaeological critique by Cordell et al. (1987) is undermined by confusion, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation. This comment on their paper illustrates how confusion may arise when the literature of the American Southwest is not read carefully and the causes of variability in the archaeological record are understood incompletely.

Prehistoric Cultural Development in the Southern Californian Deserts

1962 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Stone Tools ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Ancient Lake ◽  
Major Research ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Desert Region ◽  
The Third ◽  
Lake Mohave

AbstractArchaeological remains from the southern Californian desert region, spanning a period from 7000 B.C. to historic times, are segregated into four broad cultural horizons. The earliest certain evidences of human occupation consist of stone tools and weapons from the shore line of ancient Lake Mohave. The Lake Mohave artifacts comprise types designed primarily for hunting and related activities. Next in sequence are the lithic materials from Pinto Basin and other localities that demonstrate a mixed hunting-gathering economy. The third or Amargosa period is inadequately known. Triangular arrowpoints, pottery, and numerous seed-grinding implements distinguish the closing aboriginal phase. The major research needs are indicated.

Reinterpreting Jornada Mogollon Prehistory

1988 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Reed
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Processes Of Change ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
New Approach ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
New Perspective

The prehistory of the Jornada branch of the Mogollon culture has traditionally been interpreted narrowly, using a framework that emphasizes the high visibility portion of the archaeological record. Recently, some archaeologists have broadened this focus to include lower visibility archaeological remains. Proponents of this new approach have reached conclusions quite different from, and often times in conflict with, traditional interpretations. This new perspective provides a theoretical foundation that guides analysis of key issues in Jornada prehistory—settlement patterns, chronology, and processes of change. The integration of new ideas with the older, descriptive data allows for a reinterpretation of Jornada prehistory. Implications of such a reinterpretation go beyond the Jornada area and affect our understanding of Southwestern prehistory.

scholarly journals Contextualizing Ancestral Pueblo Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo spp.) Management

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyler Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Meleagris Gallopavo ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
Animal Management ◽  
Human Management ◽  
Human Animal

AbstractPenning turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo spp.) in the Ancestral Pueblo American Southwest/Mexican Northwest (SW/NW) involved the creation or use of a variety of spaces and contexts throughout AD 1–1600 and into the post-contact era. Turkey pens, or captivity, occur through simple tethering, reuse of abandoned pit houses or surface rooms, or creation of pens within villages, plazas, and elsewhere. Turkey dung, droppings, and eggshells are fundamental for determining the presence or absence of pens at archaeological sites. In this paper, I review the archaeological record for turkey pens and focus on three main questions: (1) how are turkey pens identified in the SW/NW, (2) if turkey pen construction or evidence for turkey captivity shifts through time, and (3) what the record of turkey penning informs us regarding the long-term human management of these birds and global perspectives on human–bird/human–animal management. Ancestral Pueblo peoples created an adaptive and flexible strategy for turkey penning, which successfully integrated these birds into ceremonial and socioeconomic processes for approximately 1600 years.

Mesoamerican civilization and the idea of transcendence

Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (200) ◽  
pp. 205-215
Author(s):  
Gordon R. Willey
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Development ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Methods ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Complex Question

How do ideas, or ideologies, articulate with other cultural systems? This is a complex question, and archaeologists, in their study of the rise and growth of civilizations, have been hesitant to address it. There are obvious reasons for this hesitancy. Even in those instances where the archaeological record is text-aided it is difficult, and it is still more so where contemporaneous documentary materials are lacking or equivocal, as in Precolumbian America. Then, too, it is my impression that while many archaeologists are willing to grant ideology a role in cultural development they tend to look upon it as causally ‘secondary’. Subsistence, demography, technology, and ecology—perhaps because they are more directly susceptible to archaeological methods and inferences than are idea systems—are more apt to be seen as the seats of ‘prime cause’.

Testing for Mississippian Period Turkey Management in the Archaeological Record of the Southeastern United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Erin Kennedy Thornton ◽  
Tanya Peres ◽  
Kelly Ledford Chase ◽  
Brian M. Kemp ◽  
Ryan Frome ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
Meleagris Gallopavo ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Intensive Management ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Dna Analyses ◽  
Combined Data

People living in Mesoamerica and what is now the eastern and southwestern United States used turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) as sources of meat, eggs, bones, and feathers. Turkey husbandry and domestication are confirmed in two of these regions (Mesoamerica and the American Southwest), but human-turkey interactions in Eastern North American (eastern United States and Canada) are not fully explored. We apply stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) and ancient mitochondrial DNA analyses to archaeofaunal samples from seven sites in the southeastern United States to test whether turkeys were managed or captively reared. These combined data do not support prolonged or intensive captive rearing of turkeys, and evidence for less intensive management is ambiguous. More research is warranted to determine whether people managed turkeys in these areas, and whether this is generalizable. Determining whether turkeys were managed or reared in the southeastern United States helps define cultural and environmental factors related to turkey management or husbandry throughout North America. This inquiry contributes to discussion of the roles of intensified human-animal interactions in animal domestication.

scholarly journals FROM LANDSCAPES OF MEANING TO LANDSCAPES OF SIGNIFICATION IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 642-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Liebmann
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Landscape Archaeology ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Symbolic Meaning ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dynamic Studies ◽  
European Colonization

This article builds upon two convergent trends in landscape archaeology: (1) investigations of symbolic meaning and (2) collaboration with descendant and stakeholder communities. The recent merger of these research agendas in the Southwest US provides an innovative approach to addressing meaning in the past. But the interpretations that result can inadvertently propagate notions of static and unchanging indigenous landscapes. Archaeologists can develop more dynamic studies of meaning and landscape by paying greater attention to the indexical properties of the archaeological record. To illustrate this point, I present a case study focused on ancestral Jemez (Pueblo) meanings associated with the Valles Caldera in northern New Mexico between AD 1300 and 1700. By combining contemporary Jemez understandings of this landscape with the indexical properties of obsidian revealed through pXRF analysis, this study illustrates how the uses of this landscape changed through time, particularly as a result of European colonization in the seventeenth century. It concludes that increased attention to the indexical properties of the archaeological record is critical for archaeological studies of meaning to reconstruct more robust and dynamic past landscapes.

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