North America - Midwest (Geographic Keyword)
76-100 (329 Records)
In American archaeology, as practiced in the context of cultural resource management, recognition and protection of sacred places requires application of bureaucratic standards that may not co-exist peacefully with the cultural norms of those most concerned about such protection. Definitions of the sacred exist in an awkward balance between the regulatory need for a precise, legally defensible definition and the reality that sacredness is a culturally-based concept that resists easy...
Dendrochronological Dating of a Burned Native American Structure at Fort Ouiatenon, Indiana (2017)
While dendrochronology has been used successfully to date standing historic period structures in the Midwest, its application in archaeological contexts has been limited. Recently, a large Native American structure was partially excavated from a village area adjacent to Fort Ouiatenon, in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. The wigwam-like structure was circular and 6.2 meters in diameter. Though Native American occupation of the Fort Ouiatenon vicinity is known from ca. 1709 through 1791, very few...
Detecting and Characterizing Archaeological Deposits Using In Situ Shallow Subsurface Spectroscopy (2016)
Geophysical prospection is now a common field technique employed by archaeologists across the globe. Likewise, chemical analyses of soils, residues, and other samples in laboratory settings have been part of archaeological research for decades. This paper examines a new technique, still in an experimental phase, which allows archaeologists to refine the results of geophysical surveys by conducting chemical characterizations of deposits in situ using shallow subsurface spectroscopy. A near...
Detecting Mounds Using Airborne LiDAR: Case Studies from Iowa and Minnesota (2015)
Between 2009 and 2012, researchers at the the University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist (OSA) conducted a number of pilot studies in the application of airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to find and map prehistoric burial mounds. Studies were conducted in Iowa and Minnesota, two states that have invested in high quality, statewide LiDAR data. These studies began with the master's thesis research of OSA GIS specialist, Melanie Riley, and included the NCPTT-funded development...
Developing Demographic Proxies for Archaic Faunal Database Integration (2016)
In conjunction with multi-scalar integrative faunal research on the use of aquatic resources by Archaic period hunter-gatherers, the EAFWG has been required to focus on both environmental and demographic reconstructions for both specific locales and larger regions within the interior of the North American Eastern Woodlands. Although the importance of social and ethnic factors has increasingly been recognized, both environmental change and variability and human population growth and aggregation...
Development of Magnetic Susceptibility Instrumentation and Applications (2015)
A 1997 NCPTT grant to develop a prototype down-hole magnetic susceptibility instrument arose out of frustration with existing technology and a desire to expand archeological field studies of magnetic susceptibility. This instrument allowed high-resolution vertical investigations of susceptibility within a small diameter (ca. 2.5 cm) hole made with a push-tube corer. An NSF grant supported improvement of the prototype via robust laboratory and field testing, resulting in a final engineered...
Did Bears Make the Fur Trade Possible? Seasonal Resource Scheduling during Wisconsin’s Early and Middle Historic Periods (2017)
Data have been found to suggest increased consumption of bear meat at Eastern Wisconsin sites during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While bear remains are rare at these sites, they occur at generally higher densities than at Late Prehistoric Late Woodland and Oneota sites in the same region. Ethnohistoric evidence, supported by zooarchaeological data from the eighteenth century Meskwaki Grand Village (Bell Site) indicate that ritualized disposal behaviors may have impacted the...
Diet at the Edge of Fort Ancient: Preliminary Faunal Analysis from an Unusually Positioned House at the Guard Site, Dearborn County, Indiana (2015)
This study analyzes faunal remains from a recently excavated house at the Guard Site in southeast Indiana, which was occupied by the Fort Ancient culture between AD 1000 and AD 1300 during a period of optimal climate in the American Midwest. During such periods, abundant resources and low stress allow people to pursue more desired resources. In the case of Fort Ancient, the key species was the white-tailed deer. We hypothesize that Guard’s inhabitants were free to pursue large deer in the primes...
Dietary DNA Analysis of Mississippian Dog Coprolites (2017)
Traditional methods for assessing diet of animal coprolite samples include targeted PCR and sequencing of specific genes. While useful for species identification, focusing on a single gene region disregards the plant and animal DNA fragments that are from other parts of the genome. Here we used next-generation sequencing methods to sequence DNA from coprolite samples from Terminal Late Woodland and Mississippian dogs from the Janey B. Goode site in Southern Illinois. BLAST searches were used to...
Differential use of copper in northern and southern Wisconsin socieities (2016)
Avocational collectors in Wisconsin have collected thousands of copper artifacts over the last century and half. This copper has gone largely unexamined by the professional archaeological community. The archaeological literature is therefore silent on basic facts such as size ranges and changes in use of the raw material from society to society. Copper entered the economic systems of these Archaic Wisconsin societies as an innovative, but ultimately redundant raw material given the existence of...
Digging without Dirt: An Excavation Simulation (2015)
Efforts to simulate archaeological excavations typically include the seeding of objects in plastic tubs, sandboxes, and even cakes. Although these activities may spark excitement in students at the discovery of artifacts, they are often simple caricatures of the methods employed in actual archaeological investigations. Far worse, this treasure-hunting approach tends to reinforce the quest for "things", while also undermining key aspects of excavation that educators hope to instill, namely, the...
Digital Public Archaeology Reconsidered: Lessons From Michigan State University’s Campus Archaeology Program (2015)
Since 2008, Michigan State University has had an official Campus Archaeology Program (http://campusarch.msu.edu) which trains students, engages with a varied public, and mitigates all ground-disturbing activity undertaken by the campus, regardless of whether it falls under state or federal law. I created and continue to direct this unique program. No other campus has the extensive mandate, budget, or administrative support that we have been able to create, and while I oversee all activities,...
Direct Comparison of LA-ICP-MS and Handheld XRF Elemental Analysis of Copper Artifacts: A Methodological Case Study in the Exploration of Hopewell Valuables Exchange Systems (2017)
We evaluate the sensitivity of handheld X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis in reliable identification of geological sources of copper artifacts with varying levels of corrosion. As part of a larger project, we analyzed 52 copper artifacts and dozens of copper samples from known geological sources with Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) (Hill et al. 2016), and analysis of the same source samples with pXRF. In both of these previous analyses, we have achieved...
Discourses of the Haunted: Community-Based Archaeology at the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School (2016)
Haunting is a way to conceptualize and recognize traumatic events of the past. In some cases, past trauma becomes so well hidden that it produces specters whose origin and source may not be readily identified or acknowledged, yet still have the power to do harm. This metaphor of haunting is especially apt when considering the United States Federal Indian Boarding School era. The cultural genocide attempted by Federal Indian boarding schools is still felt in American Indian communities as...
Diving into Environmental Change: Underwater Archaeology of a Holocene Refugium in the Great Lakes (2016)
While many paleoenvironmental methods have achieved extraordinary resolution, regional reconstructions based on these methods are rarely as accurate or as refined as often assumed. Data points are typically few and far between, and are interpolated over a heterogeneous landscape; concealing significant variability. These problems are particularly acute in the Great Lakes region, where fluctuating lake levels and environmental changes during the early Holocene were diverse and punctuated. Recent...
Documentation of Missouri White-tailed Deer Chronoclines: Implications for Archaeology, Paleoecology, and Conservation Biology (2015)
Multiple ecological factors (e.g., Bergmann’s rule, competition, reproductive rate, home range size, food quality and quantity) may cause changes in animal body size over time. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are ideal for studying these variables due to their importance today (to hunters and to wildlife enthusiasts), their known phenotypic plasticity in response to ecological factors, and their high frequency in zooarchaeological collections. Using post-craninal, weight-bearing bone...
The Domestication and Migration of Zea mays L. in Association with Holocene Climatic Variance (2015)
Maize is known to have originated in Mesoamerica from which it spread north and south adapting to many varied climatic and environmental conditions. This study details the origin of the species Zea mays L. The teosinte hypothesis and the concepts of seasonality and scheduling are used to discuss the domestication of maize by means of human selection. This information is used to highlight the basic circumstances necessary within a human population for maize agriculture to be adopted. Furthermore,...
Don’t Drink the Water: Differential Diagnosis of a Pathological Process Present at the Ray Site and Discussion of Environmental Context. (2015)
In environments with naturally high or anthropogenically increased fluoride levels (>1.5mg/l), communities are at risk for toxic exposure to fluoride. Groups exposed to toxic levels of fluoride have higher incidence of maladies of the musculoskeletal, reproductive, and neurological systems. With chronic exposure individuals may develop skeletal fluorosis, a condition characterized by osteosclerotic activity evidenced by the ossification of ligamentous and tendinous attachments, along with an...
Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone: Examining Relationships between the Living and the Dead through Decorated Headstones (2015)
Cemetery grave sites allow a continual dialogue between the deceased and their descendants. Many living relatives choose to decorate graves with flowers, ceramic figurines, flags, letters, and decorative seasonal items. This study was aimed to examine the relationship between the deceased and loved ones who choose to decorate graves after burial. Two cemeteries in Evansville, Indiana were examined in order to investigate the typology of decorations and the length of time graves remained...
The EAFWG and Multi-scale Analyses of the Use of Fauna During the Archaic Period in the Interior Eastern Woodlands (2017)
The formation of the Eastern Archaic Faunal Working Group (EAFWG) has brought together zooarchaeologists responsible for the analysis and interpretation of a large number of significant faunal assemblages from Archaic period sites. Our collaboration has led to the preservation of nearly 60 significant faunal datasets from 21 archaeological sites in several areas of the U.S. interior Eastern Woodlands in the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR). This collection of datasets has been integrated...
The earliest domesticated dogs in the Midcontinent: Chronology, Morphology, and Paleopathology (2015)
The Midwest has the earliest and possibly richest record of dog burials in North America. New direct AMS 14C dates on Archaic-period canids from the region confirms this pattern (Koster Horizon XI, 10,130-9680 cal BP; Stilwell II, 10,200-9630 cal BP; Rodgers Shelter, 9000-8600 cal BP; Rodgers Shelter 8560-8210 cal BP). We use 2D and 3D geometric morphometrics to assess variability in the morphology of wild and domesticated Canidae from midwestern Archaic assemblages (10,000-6000 cal BP). Health...
Early Holocene Foraging Strategies in the Eastern United States: A View from Koster (2015)
Over the last several decades, Dolores Piperno has made significant methodological and theoretical contributions to our archaeological understanding of the past. This paper draws on these insights to explore Early Holocene foraging strategies in the Lower Illinois River Valley and how these practices fit within their paleoenvironmental and social contexts. These data offer insights into the long trajectory toward plant domestication in eastern North America and the construction of space and...
Earthworks as Landscapes: An Examination of the Sampling Issue in Lithic Microwear Analysis (2016)
Lithic microwear analysis remains a powerful tool for anthropological archaeology by providing insights into stone tool function. As the method continues to mature, practitioners have recently made important advances in documenting and quantifying variation in wear patterns. Since its inception, however, little discussion has focused on the role of sampling in microwear studies. As a result, sample sizes in published microwear reports vary widely. A related issue involves generating a...
Ecology, Culture, Conflict and Diet: Comparisons of Two Late Prehistoric Sites in Southeastern Wisconsin (2015)
The late prehistoric landscape of Southeastern Wisconsin was characterized by the dynamic interaction of at least three distinct ceramic cultures. The Aztalan site (47JE001) has yielded both Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian vessels dating between A.D. 1000-1200, indicating a period of cultural coexistence. At the nearby Crescent Bay Hunt Club Site (47JE904), in the Lake Koshkonong locality, Upper Mississippian Oneota ceramics have been recovered; no indication of a coexistent occupation...
Economics, Culture, and Ecology: A Comparative Study of Oneota Localities in Wisconsin (2016)
The manifestation of different cultural history trajectories of Late Prehistoric Oneota groups from eastern and western Wisconsin can be seen in multiple material classes, including faunal remains. Despite the generally similar use of shell as a ceramic tempering agent and generic vessel shapes, Wisconsin Oneota groups vary among localities in settlement and subsistence practices. The relationship among Oneota groups and wild rice, maize, aquatic and upland game, as well as the choice of...