Crossing Frontiers of Disciplines and Countries. A Symposium Honoring Eileen Johnson
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)
We propose to honor the career of Eileen Johnson, because we believe her to be a "complete scientist" who goes beyond pragmatic training and theoretical issues to include public awareness and issues of ethics. During the course of her career she has integrated diverse some disparate disciplines including archaeology, zoology, taphonomy, geology, and museum science. Her 45-year career has primarily been devoted to interdisciplinary research on human-environment interactions on the U.S. Great Plains, emphasizing human subsistence, vertebrate taphonomy, and the reconstruction of Quaternary paleoenvironments. She has also applied these perspectives across the country and across the Americas. She has spent her professional career at the Museum of Texas Tech University, where she built a regional interdisciplinary Quaternary research program based around the Lubbock Lake archaeological site. In the Museum she also worked as a research scientist, curator, professor, and even director. In addition to her meticulous research, she has been closely involved with the care of the anthropology collection at the museum, working with students and peers, and eager to share what she learns with the public. The aim of this symposium is to highlight the many contributions Eileen has made to Great Plains archaeology and to interdisciplinary research.
Other Keywords
Paleoindian •
Hunter-Gatherers •
Taphonomy •
Clovis •
Lithic Analysis •
Mexico •
Geoarchaeology •
Bison •
Geochronology •
Cut Marks
Geographic Keywords
North America - Plains •
South America •
Mesoamerica •
Europe •
North America - Southwest
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)
- Documents (10)
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The Archaeology of Clovis Landscape Use at the Mockingbird Gap site, New Mexico and Surrounding Regions (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In this paper we discuss recent work at the Mockingbird Gap Clovis site, New Mexico, and the surrounding region, designed to understand how Clovis hunter-gatherers utilized and adapted to the regional landscape and its available resources. Focusing on lithic raw material use, we show that the Clovis occupants of Mockingbird Gap had access to a wide diversity of high quality raw materials from a large area of the Southwest. Moreover, Clovis raw material network analysis across the continent...
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Characterizing Cut Marks: A Comparison of Cooper and Badger Hole Butchery Patterns (2016)
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By describing tool cut marks on bones, Eileen Johnson elevated such incisions to the status of artifact. The size, shape, and morphology provided more than just details of cutting but also came with controversy as to whether these marks alone indicated a human presence. Building on the procedures employed by Johnson on the Southern Plains Cooper site bison bones, the Badger Hole kill assemblage is analyzed to provide a comparison of Folsom bison butchery at sites separated by only 0.7 km...
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Crossing Boundaries: Lubbock Lake Landmark as a Laboratory for the Study of Vertebrate Evolution (2016)
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The unique characteristics of the Lubbock Lake Landmark offer a rare opportunity to ask questions about how vertebrates respond to changes in the environment. In order to address such questions in the fossil record several qualities are required including a continuous sequence of fossils, reliable dates for the stratigraphic layers, large sample sizes of well preserved and homogenous skeletal elements, and a detailed understanding of the environmental conditions associated with each...
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Discovery Bias, Excavation Bias, Clovis Diet, and Archaeological Mythmaking (2016)
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The myth of Paleoindian big-game specialization has deep roots in our field. None of these roots run deeper than for the Clovis Period, where the vision of humans armed with stone-tipped spears attacking animals the size of extinct elephants has enchanted the public and professional imaginations almost equally. But issues of differential site discovery and investigation run equally deep, and this is especially so for Clovis archaeology. Ancient archaeological sites left by mobile hunters can be...
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Early Upper Paleolithic Horse Hunting on the East European Plain (2016)
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Between 40,000 and 30,000 cal B.P., small herds of horses were hunted in Europe. Much of the evidence is derived from the central plain of Eastern Europe, including multiple sites at Kostenki-Borshchevo on the Middle Don River (Russia) and Mira on the Lower Dnepr River (southern Ukraine). These sites contain large bone beds analogous to the bison bone beds of the Great Plains, and the analysis of their depositional context and taphonomic characteristics yields information on how horse mare-bands...
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Hunter-Gatherer Occupations at San Jon Site, Eastern New Mexico (2016)
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One of the hallmarks of Eileen Johnson's career was the establishment of long-term field research projects. Outcomes of this work include high quality datasets, and the development and fermentation of research ideas that can only occur from returning to the same localities year after year. The Lubbock Lake Landmark's regional research at the San Jon site (LA 6437) is an example of one of these projects. The San Jon site is located along the northwestern margin of the Southern High Plains of...
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Integrating Bones, Soils and Dates: Late Pleistocene-Holocene Settings and Human Occupations in the Pampas of Argentina (2016)
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A great increase of archaeological knowledge from the Pampean region of Argentina occurred in the last 20 years. Three main approaches were explored in detail by means of archaeological research that contributed to broadening our understanding of hunter-gatherers in the past: interdisciplinary studies, geochronology, and taphonomy. These perspectives were either initiated or reinforced in our projects by Eileen Johnson. The aim of this presentation is to highlight the main contributions that...
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A Landmark Career: The Professional Legacy of the Lubbock Lake Landmark Program (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
For more than forty years the Lubbock Lake Landmark Regional Research Program has provided an immersive participatory environment for students to actively engage with and understand the past. The interdisciplinary nature of the investigations and rich archaeological setting of the Landmark itself have attracted participants to the program from across the globe. From inception the program has followed an apprenticeship rather than traditional field school model. For many of the hundreds of alumni...
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New Approaches on the Mexican Quaternary Mammals Studies (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The Mexican Quaternary Mammal Database (MQMD) data are focused on published mammal occurrences in paleontological localities and archaeological sites in México, covering the last 2.6 million years and up to the early Holocene, although some unpublished data from museum collections are included, as well as “grey” literature. More than 15,000 records have been secured from 876 documents. That large database includes records for more than 800 localities and 250 mammal species pertaining to 12...
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Preliminary Analysis of Extinct Box Turtle Remains from the Late Pleistocene of the Southern High Plains (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
A diverse and abundant latest Pleistocene vertebrate fauna is currently being investigated at Macy Locality 100 on the southeastern edge of the Southern High Plains, Texas. Remains of an extinct box turtle (Terrapene carolina putnami) are common among the recovered material from the site's alluvial deposits. Believed to have been a mesic form, the extirpation of the eastern species from the region and the extinction of the T. c. putnami are ostensibly linked to ecological changes of the terminal...