North America - Midwest (Geographic Keyword)
301-325 (329 Records)
Having been a professional archaeologist for a very long time, I have used a variety of different tools. Since 1988, I have actively employed digital tools for archaeological research, teaching, and public engagement. This work has primarily been based in the Midwestern US, and has included both prehistoric and historic sites. In this paper, I highlight three examples and discuss the epistemological implications of the digital tools. The first is a Wisconsin projectile point book prepared almost...
"A Thousand Beads to Each Nation:" A social interpretation of glass trade bead distribution in the Upper Great Lakes region of North America (2015)
Through LA-ICP-MS elemental analyses of 874 glass trade beads from 31 early colonial-era archaeological sites in the Upper Great Lakes region of North America, and from late 17th century contexts historically associated with French exploration of the Gulf Coast of Texas, I identify patterning in the spatial and temporal distribution of European glass-bead recipe groups. Trading relationships among Indigenous peoples and outsiders in this French "Upper Country" took place on a complex "middle...
Tribal History Partnerships and the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley Ethnohistory Collection at Indiana University (2016)
Relationships initiated through NAGPRA-related consultation can foster collaborations to provide access to historic resources to federally recognized tribes. The Great Lakes and Ohio Valley Ethnohistory Collection at the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at IU was gathered by Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin to provide evidence for 20th century Indian Claims Commission lawsuits. Tribal scholars are collaborating with IU staff to plan and implement a digitization program to make archives available...
Troubled Times in Late Prehistoric Wisconsin: Violent Skeletal Trauma Among the Winnebago Phase Oneota (2016)
In 1991, Milner et al. published a groundbreaking article that showed the Native American Oneota culture in a new light. Their research at the Norris Farms #36 cemetery in west-central Illinois indicated that the Oneota there were plagued by intergroup violence and small-scale tribal warfare. Milner et al. examined 264 skeletons and discovered evidence for trauma on 43 (16.29%). At least one-third of adults at Norris Farms #36 died violent deaths. However, the group at Norris Farms #36 was part...
Understanding Oneota Stone Tool Functions: A Case Study of Precision and Accuracy in Use-Wear Analysis (2015)
A combination of assemblage analysis, microwear analysis and blood residue analysis allows us to build a new understanding of the role of lithic material in the technological economy of Oneota groups in eastern Wisconsin. One foundation of this approach is accurate and replicable recognition of use-wear patterns. Blind tests have been an essential component of use-wear research since the 1970s. In this paper, we describe a study of 100 experimentally made and used chipped stone tools. Made...
Understanding settlement organization through geophysical survey at the Morton Village Site, IL (2015)
Geophysical surveys at the Morton Village site are revealing the nature and distribution of occupation across this landscape and helping to guide the excavation program. Magnetometer surveys undertaken between 2010 and 2014 of 7.3 ha have identified numerous structures and pits. Results indicate a densely occupied village covering about 3.5 ha with more dispersed facilities outside this core. No evidence of a stockade has been found. By targeting specific magnetic anomalies, excavation is...
Ungulate Bone Fat Exploitation at the Adoption of Horticulture in Western Iowa (2017)
Fat in the form of bone marrow and/or grease is a valued resource among foragers, and is more frequently exploited during times of subsistence stress. Risk-reduction in the face of resource stress is one potential theory for why prehistoric people incorporated horticulture into existing hunting and gathering practices. During the Woodland period (2800-1350 BP), the tallgrass prairie region of western Iowa provided a rich environment where numerous prey species could be found, including bison and...
Unraveling the Site Formation Process at Finch (47JE0902): A Multicomponent Habitation in Southeastern Wisconsin (2015)
The Finch site is a multicomponent open-air habitation located in southeastern Wisconsin. Archaeological excavations conducted at the site yielded numerous artifacts and cultural features indicating recurrent and/or continuous occupation (or use) spanning twelve thousand years, from the Early Paleoindian through Late Woodland periods. The site is situated on the rim and side slopes of a kettle basin formed in matrix-supported glacial till overlying outwash and glaciolacustrine deposits. The till...
Usewear and Assemblage Composition: The Role of Endscrapers in Paleoindian Technological Organization (2017)
Historically, microwear studies have focused around resolving issues centered on tool form and function. However, microwear also offers the opportunity to investigate site level activities surrounding "soft" technology, particularly in situations where organic preservation is poor or absent. In addition, when combined with a holistic approach to assemblage composition, microwear can provide larger insights into the organization of technology and larger patterns of adaptation. In this paper I...
Using Flouride Analysis and Artifact Density to Examine Household Formation in Prehistoric Villages: A Fort Ancient Example (2017)
Examining the formation histories of houses within prehistoric villages is difficult in cases with coarse resolution of radiocarbon dates and lack of stratigraphic relationships. Here we examine this problem by using two relative dating techniques, accumulation studies of artifacts and fluoride dating of animal bone, at the Guard site, an early (ca., AD 1000-1300) Fort Ancient village located in southeast Indiana. The sampling strategy involved excavating test units in all houses to assess the...
Using PXRF technology to aid in the recovery and analysis of human remains (2015)
Excavation and analysis of human remains from the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery (MCIG) provided an opportunity to test the effectiveness of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) as both a field and laboratory tool. During the fieldwork portion of the project, excavations exposed soils that visual inspection suggested might harbor a concentration of toxic materials. PXRF was used on site to determine the nature of the potential toxins and determine the risk factor...
Using Stable Isotope Analysis to Demonstrate Humans' Role in Faunal Diet Construction at the Collier Lodge Site (12PR36) (2016)
Previous research on the faunal assemblage recovered from the Collier Lodge site (12PR36) centered on the presence and absence of taxa to reconstruct a possible diet breadth for inhabitants of this historic Indiana site. However, the focus of this year’s research is the inferences drawn from stable isotope analysis of said assemblage; specifically, the ratio of 12C to 13C and 15N to 14N. The former provides insights into the source of carbon obtained through diet, while the latter gives clues to...
Variability in Large-Area Magnetic Surveys at Hopewell Earthworks and the Challenges of Big Data (2016)
Many Ohio Hopewell earthworks present an interesting challenge to archaeological geophysics: they are very large and contain vast amounts of what seems to be empty space. Both have limited our understanding of the breadth of the archaeological record at these complex sites; that is, until very recently. Large-area surveys at three Hopewell earthwork complexes in Ross County, Ohio (Hopewell Mound Group, High Bank Works, and Hopeton Works, ca. 30 ha each), have uncovered a wealth of new features,...
Vessels of Change: Everyday relationality in the rise and fall of Cahokia (2016)
By replacing representational thinking with a relational perspective, archaeologists hope to better understand the past-as-lived and experienced. Here I seek to locate the relational in the “mundane”, with a consideration of pottery production, use, and deposition as part of the many changing relationships associated with the urbanization and abandonment of the pre-Columbian city of Cahokia. These relationships include pastes as well as potters, engaging humans and non-humans, in the shifting...
Viewsheds and Variability: the Red Ochre Burial Complex Revisited Geographically (2015)
The Red Ochre Burial Complex, like it’s later and more intensively studied Adena and Hopewell counterparts faces questions about its usefulness in understanding the cultural prehistory of the Western Great Lakes region. Over 50 years ago the complex was defined using a "trait list" approach. These traits are, for better or worse, still the clearest depiction of what is and is not a Red Ochre mortuary site. This study utilizes GIS to bring together disparate cultural data on a variety of Red...
Visions of Substance in Eleventh Century Mid-America (2016)
Various archaeological approaches exaggerate relations with objects at the expense of the affectivity of substances, phenomena, materials, and spaces. New data from the 11th century foundations of the Cahokian world suggest that the experience of substantial, phenomenal, material and spatial qualities were the primary constituents of a form of religious conversion also known as Mississippianization. Circular buildings at the Emerald site embodied these qualities and point to the creation of...
Warfare in the Mississippian World: Comparing Variation in War across Small and Multi-Mound Centers (2017)
Warfare during the Mississippian Period (ca. AD 1000-1500) of the U.S. Midcontinent and Southeast has been hypothesized as an important political and social practice throughout the region. This paper will explore diachronic and synchronic evidence of warfare, comparing and contrasting evidence between large and small sites. Particular emphasis will be placed on observations of warfare patterns in the Central Illinois Valley of west-central Illinois. Skeletal remains with warfare-trauma have been...
Weaving Meaning into Mississippian Ritual (2017)
Fabric is rarely recovered from Mississippian sites, although there have been a few spectacular finds. There are however other lines of evidence that speak to the use and meaning of fabric in the Mississippian world. We have recovered the charred remains, or at times structured ash of what were once bags, mats, baskets or other fabric items during excavations at a few Cahokia related sites in the American Bottom region of Illinois. The Emerald Shrine Center in particular has produced these...
What Could Archaeology’s Impact Be On Education? (2015)
Twenty-five years from now, as America’s educators put into place yet another "new" set of standards, and classroom teachers endure yet another pedagogical adjustment, will archaeology be at the table, included as an appendix, or invisible? Predicting the future is risky business, but the intrigue of the past never fails to engage learners. It’s our responsibility as educators to nurture that engagement and channel it toward understanding. Drawing from the preliminary results of a piloting...
What Remains: Using LiDAR to examine the effects of plowing on memories and mounds in Illinois (2016)
Constructing monuments is, in essence, a construction of memory. Conversely, destruction of monuments can be the erosion of memory. Pre-Columbian peoples in the Americas built and maintained monuments as a form of memory-making and place-making. Digital Elevation Models (DEM) provide us an opportunity to re-discover the monuments and re-animate the memories that have been obscured since European arrival. Using LiDAR data, geo-referenced with historic maps, we look at the present state of...
What's in a Hole? Memory, Knowledge, and Personhood in the Cache Pit Food Storage Features of Northern Michigan (2017)
Physical food storage is one mechanism hunter-gatherers use to even out the variability of subsistence resources throughout seasonal cycles. Food storage facilities are typically plain, undecorated constructions basic to mundane needs and as such, food storage features do not necessarily appear at first look as social technology, that is, as objects that extend personhood. However, we suggest food storage facilities, in ensuring the fundamental continuation of the human body, can never be...
What’s in a grave?: a preliminary analysis of material culture from the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Cemetery (2015)
The Milwaukee County Institution Grounds (MCIG) Cemetery is located in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. This historic cemetery was in use from 1878 to 1974 and interred Milwaukee County’s indigent. The individuals represented consist mostly of poor European immigrants, subsequent generations, institutionalized residents, and the unclaimed deceased. The material culture associated with the 2013 MCIG cemetery excavations recovered from 685 individual graves, was stabilized, inventoried and accessioned....
Where the Buffalo Roam and the Antelope Play: A Comparison of Soils in the Walnut River Valley of South-Central Kansas and associated Woodland and Late Prehistoric Period Settlements Using ArcGIS . (2015)
Hughes’s (1988) dissertation showed a relationship between late prehistoric settlement patterns on the Washita River of Oklahoma and the soils of that region, among other variables. This paper is an effort to extend that research north into the Walnut River Valley of Kansas. The valley of the Walnut in Butler and Cowley Counties is a rich archeological area that has had little synthetic analysis conducted. As a first step in the process of a new regional synthesis, this project will...
Where the Hunters Hunted: Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the submerged archaeological landscapes of the Alpena-Amberley Ridge, Lake Huron (2015)
Understanding of early Holocene hunter-gatherer archaeological sites relies heavily on paleoenvironmental data, as many of these sites are ephemeral and have little archaeological visibility on the landscape. In rare cases, such as on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge in Lake Huron, highly visible hunting structures are preserved which offer a unique insight into early hunter-gatherer lifeways, while targeted sediment sample collection provides high-resolution paleoenvironmental information. Since 2011,...
Who, what, where, when and how: a comprehensive archival investigation of the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Cemeteries, 1882-1925 (2015)
Since its discovery during the original 1990s excavations, the Register of Burials at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery has been the foundation for most historical and archaeological research involving the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery. Until recently the register was considered a complete listing of most, if not all, burials on the Milwaukee County Grounds between 1882 and the final burial in 1974. However, new excavations during the summer of 2013 as well as comprehensive...