North America - Midwest (Geographic Keyword)
226-250 (329 Records)
Over the past 20 years, nitrogen stable isotope ratios have been used to explore infant feeding practices in ancient populations. In spite of many productive studies, uncertainties remain about how to interpret juvenile isotope ratios in regard to comparing feeding behavior across different populations, and the relationships of infant feeding practices to health, subsistence modes, environment, and social organization. Infant feeding practices are likely to be constrained by the biological...
One Project, Multiple Perspectives: An Example of Successful Section 106 Consultation in Northwest Indiana (2016)
When completing the Section 106 process, the parties involved often have differing opinions and goals regarding the consideration of cultural resources. Recent completion of a Phase III data recovery of a prehistoric site in northwest Indiana highlights the Section 106 process as a successful tool for communication between the federal agency, project applicant, SHPO, Native American tribes, and the CRM contractor regarding the consideration of significant cultural resources. While each of the...
Oneota Household Dynamics at the Koshkonong Creek Village (2017)
Despite a long history of research into the Late Prehistory of the Upper Great Lakes, insufficient attention has been paid to the nature of early Oneota households. Little is known about their size or composition, nor the nature or degree of interaction between and among them. Contemporaneous houses of different sizes and styles have been noted together at Oneota sites in the southeastern Wisconsin, further emphasizing the need for a greater understanding of Oneota household dynamics. This study...
Oneota Risk Management Strategies and Agricultural Practices (2017)
By its nature, agriculture is a risky endeavor. Unsatisfactory conditions for innumerable environmental or social factors can shift harvests from a bumper crop to famine (e.g., drought, poorly timed frost, enemy raids). All agricultural societies develop practices to mitigate this risk; however, the methods employed are dependent on the environmental contexts, social settings, and historical trajectories of a given group. This study examines paleoethnobotanical and landscape data to determine...
Oneota Subsistence Practices at the Christenson Site (13PK407) (2015)
The Christenson site (13PK407) is a Moingona phase Oneota site along the Des Moines River, dating to around AD 1250. Excavations took place in both 1983 and 2001 in order to salvage the site from erosion by the Des Moines River. Analysis of the 1983 deer remains indicated a mid- to late-winter season of death, suggesting that the Christenson site represented a winter occupation, This season of occupations differs from other Moingona phase Oneota sites, and this reanalysis of the 2001 faunal...
The Organizational Implications of Architecture at Moundville and Cahokia (2017)
What practices generated the largest and most complex Mississippian centers? We examine this issue through an analysis of Mississippian public and ritual architecture from Moundville in west-central Alabama and Cahokia in southwestern Illinois. Politico-religious buildings and associated practices or powers constituted the historical development of both places. Cahokians created a wider variety and more complicated distribution of such buildings than did Moundvillians. We argue that the Cahokian...
Osage Cultural Continuity and Change in the Contact Era: evidence from the flaked stone assemblages at the Brown and Carrington sites (2017)
Many traditional anthropological studies used acculturation theory to understand Colonial era Native American cultural dynamics. Acculturation theory assumes a process of gradual culture change through the adoption of European culture. More recently, anthropologists have incorporated additional concepts including agency, scales of analysis, and historical silencing to more productively investigate not only indigenous culture change but also continuity during the historic period. The project...
Ouiatenon and its Informational Analogs: Making Connections in Colonial Archaeology Less Hard to Handle with the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) (2015)
The archaeological remains of forts, outposts, settlements, extraction sites, and other activity areas established during European colonial ventures in North America span several hundred years and thousands of kilometers. The intricacies and interconnectedness of these sites are not easy to quantify or describe within the traditional limits of archaeological data management. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) can reveal colonial sites and their neighborhoods of effect on a...
Paleoindians on the Postglacial Margin: Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Mobility in Northern Wisconsin (2015)
The area south Lake Superior was first colonized by Late Paleoindian groups during the Early Holocene after the final retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet from the region. As a result, Paleoindian sites in the area are ideal for testing ideas about the nature of hunter-gatherer adaptive responses to early postglacial environments. This project presents data from reanalysis of the lithic assemblages from a number of sites spread across northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The first...
Partnerships, Preservation, and Public Archaeology: Working together to retrace the Trail of Tears across the Mark Twain National Forest (2016)
The Mark Twain National Forest manages slightly less than 1.5 million acres, accounting for approximately 5% of the landmass in the state of Missouri. As a variety of factors continue to influence, and sometimes complicate, the Forest’s land management practices, it has become increasingly important to work with other agencies and organizations in order to accomplish the shared goals of identifying, protecting and interpreting the significant cultural resources held in the public trust. As the...
Paying It Forward: Collaborative Heritage Stewardship in the Forest Service's Eastern Region (2016)
The US Forest Service-Eastern Region includes 16 National Forests and one Tallgrass Prairie in 20 states across the Great Lakes, New England, Mid Atlantic and Midwest. Over 40% of the U.S. population lives within the boundaries of the Region. The proximity of these Forests to urban centers, as well as to rural and tribal communities, provides bountiful opportunities for collaboration, partnerships and volunteer-based heritage stewardship. This short presentation touches on a variety of partner...
Performativity and Pedagogy: the Effect of Verbal and Nonverbal Instruction on Experimental Acheulian Handaxe Symmetry (2015)
The Acheulian techno-complex is comprised mostly of bifacal handaxes, which became increasingly symmetrical through time, especially after 400kya. Symmetry has recently been considered a highly significant aspect of the Acheulian toolkit. It has many potential opportunities for a better understanding of the evolution of cognition in early Homo; however, little is known about how this complex skill was transmitted. Could the increasing symmetry of handaxes in the archaeological record be evidence...
Perishable Technology in the Great Lakes Region during the Late Pleistocene: Evidence from Microwear Analysis (2015)
Lithic artifacts typically dominate the assemblages of Late Pleistocene sites in North America. Paleo Crossing (33ME274), a Clovis site in northeast Ohio, provides an excellent example of this pattern. Thousands of chipped stone artifacts have been recovered at the site during surface collections and subsurface excavations. However, lithic microwear analysis on a sample of artifacts from Paleo Crossing indicates that the site’s inhabitants expended a great deal of effort on the production of...
A petrographic and material science approach to understanding temper selection in the prehistoric ceramic sequence of the Scioto River Valley, Ross County, Ohio. (2017)
This research elucidates the complex nature of pottery tempers used in the Scioto River Valley of south central Ohio. The data suggest that during the Late Prehistoric Period indigenous potters began using composite temper types with concretionary hematite as a secondary temper — most often found alongside shell as the primary temper. This project involved two phases 1) petrographic research and 2) mechanical properties testing. The initial research phase involved a detailed analysis of the clay...
Pilgrimage Centers, Infrastructure, and Cahokian Politics (2015)
Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that pilgrimage centers were vital to the infrastructure, politics, and religions of cities and civilizations throughout the ancient world. The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia was no different. In this paper, I argue that the Emerald site, a major pilgrimage center east of Cahokia, was integral to the formation of a new political-religious order circa A.D. 1050. Ceramic, architectural, and botanical data show that large groups periodically gathered...
Pits, Posts, and Not Much Else: Sub-Mound Archaeology at Two Late Woodland Effigy Mound Sites (2016)
Effigy Mound is an archaeological taxon that references Late Woodland societies present in the western Great Lakes of North America from about A.D. 800 to A.D. 1050. Effigy Mound builders are known primarily by an estimated 15,000 – 20,000 mounds built in the shape of animals, supernatural beings and conical and linear forms. The end of the Effigy Mound period coincides with the adoption of maize horticulture by many Late Woodland groups as well as the appearance of new pottery traditions marked...
The politics of urbanization and the Anthropocene: a view from Cahokia (2017)
Anthropocene: a hotly debated geological epoch entangled with climate change, the Industrial Revolution, and the perceived deleterious effect of humans on the natural world. A dialectic surrounds the Anthropocene because identifying this epoch, geologically, has real implications for global politics and the future of humanity in a changing global environment. Crossland (2014) suggests that to understand the palimpsest of global human action that resulted in the Anthropocene requires us to...
Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) and Photogrammetric Studies In Illinois Rock Art Research (2017)
Illinois rock art studies conducted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries typically used drawings, tracings, and print photography to record prehistoric petroglyphs and pictographs. These types of studies have been replaced in recent years by a variety of new methods including digital photography, DSTRETCH enhancement, photogrammetry, pXRF analysis, and other technologies. These new techniques have greatly enhanced our ability to quickly and accurately record rock art sites in comparison to...
Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis of Copper Trace Element Composition: A Methodological Pilot Study (2015)
Copper artifacts are widely represented in prehistoric sites of eastern North America and their presence in any particular region is often used in reconstructing exchange and social networks. Early interpretations were predicated on assumptions that native copper from which materials derived from the extensive copper deposits in the Lake Superior region. However, as early as 1903, assessment of copper trace element composition has been used to test such hypotheses. A number of methods have...
The Potential for Submerged Prehistoric Sites Beneath Pennsylvania’s Lake Erie Waters (2015)
This paper presents the results of a preliminary model of submerged prehistoric site potential within the Pennsylvania portion of Lake Erie. The model takes into account both cultural and natural factors that may have influenced the placement and preservation of archaeological sites. Archaeological data from the current Lake Erie littorals of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York were used to model likely site locations based on known bottom features within Lake Erie, such as drowned shorelines and...
Pottery and Religion at Greater Cahokia’s Emerald Acropolis (2017)
Since 2012, large-scale survey and excavations at and around the Emerald site east of Cahokia have investigated the religious foundations of the rise of that American Indian city. Emerald was a shrine complex, where religion was performed by Cahokians and pilgrims beginning around AD 1000. Excavations have revealed dense stands of non-domestic, ceremonial and public architecture alongside seemingly temporary, short-term housing. A prominent aspect of the rituality of the place was the use of...
Pottery Function, Cooking, and Subsistence in the Upper Great Lakes: A View from the Middle Woodland Winter Site in Northern Michigan (2015)
The relationship between subsistence and food-processing technology is a burgeoning topic in archaeology and has the potential to yield new perspectives on resource choice and cuisine in the Upper Great Lakes. This paper presents the results of exploratory functional pottery analysis from the well-dated Winter site, a Middle Woodland habitation in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The analytic data discussed includes those physical properties affecting ceramic vessel performance, as well...
Power and Purpose: The role of animals in ritual context at a mid-continental site in the Fourteenth Century (2017)
A variety of ritual contexts are documented at the Oneota and Mississippian Morton Village site and the associated Norris Farms Cemetery in Fulton County, Illinois. These include multi-scalar mortuary contexts, communal ritual structures, and smaller domestic-related facilities. Animal remains from both food and faunal tools, along with artifacts that are imbued with animal symbolism, were found in each context. This paper explores the variability and looks for patterning of animal use within...
Practical and social storage among the Ohio Hopewell: Archaeobotanical and ethnoarchaeological evidence for delayed return of pre-maize crops (2015)
Social storage and social complexity indicated in the scale of Hopewell earthwork building, craft specialization, and mortuary goods suggest surplus created though subsistence intensification. However, artifacts and features associated with practical storage of such a surplus are uncommon at most Ohio Hopewell habitation sites. This study takes a step toward resolving this apparent contradiction by developing a predictive model from descriptive and quantitative characteristics of storage...
Pre-Columbian Burial Rites: Burial Practice Among Prehistoric Native Americans: Midwest Region, Volume III (2014)
Volume III of the PRE-COLUMBIAN BURIAL RITES series analyzes prehistoric mortuary practice in the Midwest Region of North America. The database consists of 32,998 individuals from 1,304 burial sites and covers the period from approximately 9000 B. P. until A. D. 1500. The region by now comprised of the following states: Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. The provinces are analyzed individually by prehistoric period, then the analysis is followed by...