How to Find the Unfindable: A New Method for Replicating Perishable Indigenous Technologies of Conflict

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Defining Perishables: The How, What, and Why of Perishables and Their Importance in Understanding the Past" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This study provides an innovative multidisciplinary model operationalizing the study of perishable weaponry through experimental archaeology. In this model, I focus on war clubs, a type of Indigenous weapon commonly found across North America. Most of these weapons were made wholly of organic materials that decompose, resulting in low visibility in the archaeological record that creates a challenge for reconstructing their form and potential specialized role in conflict. The goal of this study is to connect archival and ethnohistoric data to archaeological evidence for violent trauma through experimental archaeology, inferring how these weapons were engineered for violent conflict. My methodology utilizes archival, museum study, and experimental archaeology analyses to elaborate on features of design, manufacture, use, and tactics of war club technologies. To operationalize this model, I focus on a case study of conflict technology in the Lower Colorado River Basin from 1540-1857. Despite war clubs being prolific and an integral part of the technological systems of conflict in this region, this is the initial in-depth material analysis of this weapon type. From this study we can begin to infer how and why weapons systems were chosen, designed, created, and used through the experiential and embodied process of making.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Defining Perishables: The How, What, and Why of Perishables and Their Importance in Understanding the Past   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36118.0