Big Picture History in North America: Integrating Narratives of Our Continent’s Past

Summary

No society exists in isolation. In order to understand the history of North America it is therefore critical to see the continent as a landscape of mutually known and interacting places and peoples. One of the goals of this panel is to bring together specialists from different corners of the continent to share narratives of regional interaction in their areas. This paper will introduce the thematic and theoretical groundings for the session, suggesting that both systemic and historical models for understanding the past can be usefully combined in an approach that sees the continent as a known world with a shared history. We will use case studies from California’s Northern Channel islands to argue for the importance of integrating regional histories and events into our models past processes and social changes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The North American Continental System: Interaction and Exchange across the Continent   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15000