On the Zooarchaeology of Bears in Southeastern North America

Summary

Ever since Irving Hallowell's classic 1926 study of the special mythic status of bears in the Subarctic, anthropologists are generally aware that many peoples throughout the world have treated bears as something more than a straight forward subsistence resource. Hallowell attributed that special relationship between Subarctic humans and bears to some striking parallels between bear and human behaviors and physiologies. If that were indeed the case, then one would expect to see similar relationships outside the Subarctic, although in fact Hallowell found little evidence for special treatment of bears in southern North America. However, no one has yet surveyed the considerable zooarchaeological, artifactual, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic information on bears in southeastern North America. By taking into account the zooarchaeological evidence of bear hunting in this region, and specifically by employing the human ecological perspective long advocated by Elizabeth Reitz -including such factors as bear demography, reproductive rate, habitat use, seasonal availability, and trophic level- we can reconsider the roles of bears in the various cultures of southeastern Native North America.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• 2016 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Elizabeth J. Reitz

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