Bloodletting, Totems, and Feasts: Reconsidering Garfish in the Archaeological Record of the Prehistoric Southeast (original) (raw)
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"People with Animals: Perspectives and Studies in Ethnozooarchaeology," edited by Lee Broderick, pp.103-114 , 2016
The zooarchaeological remains of garfish (Lepisosteidae) appear throughout the Southeastern United States from the Archaic through the late Prehistoric periods (ca. 8,000 BC - AD 1450) and have been predominantly interpreted as food remains or the residue of feasting events. However, ethnographic and ethnohistoric data from the region provide conflicting views on how these fish were used by Native Americans, and suggest a fresh examination of the role of gar is needed. By examining ethnohistoric accounts, modern ethnographic studies, and archaeofaunal remains we attempt to explore the full range of gar use in the ethnographic past and present, and suggest new interpretive possibilities for archaeologists faced with gar remains from prehistoric contexts.
Looking Beyond Diet: Faunal Remains and Ritual Behavior in the American Bottom
The examination of prehistoric faunal assemblages has traditionally focused on dietary patterns, resource availability, ecology, and other aspects of faunal exploitation. In recent years, greater emphasis has been accorded to understanding the role of animals and their products in ritual and ceremonial activities. Typically infrequent in the archaeological record, zooarchaeological remains reflecting Late Woodland Patrick phase ritual behavior were recently identified at the Fish Lake site. The faunal data from Fish Lake and other Late Prehistoric sites provide increased insight on animal remains and ritual behavior in the American Bottom.
The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2009
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The examination of prehistoric faunal assemblages has traditionally focused on dietary patterns, resource exploitation, and ecological reconstruction. Only limited attention has been given to the ritual use of animal remains. In the American Bottom, despite an abundance of archaeological sites and assemblages, few studies have explored this aspect of Native American ritual behavior. This article provides an overview of Late Woodland, Terminal Late Woodland, and Mississippian ritual use of bone and shell in the American Bottom and considers broad patterns of animal part use and changes in use over time. Using approaches formulated within social zooarchaeology, examination of this aspect of ritual behavior provides further insight into human-animal relations during the late prehistoric period.
American Anthropologist, 2008
Eastern Cherokee Fishing, by Heidi M. Altman, is a welcome addition to the corpus of literature on Cherokee ethnoecology. Using a diachronic approach, Altman interweaves archaeological, linguistic, and historical documentary information with her own ethnographic field research to examine traditional and contemporary fishing practices among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians living on the Qualla Boundary, western North Carolina. Her objectives are to understand the function of fishing in past and present-day Cherokee economy, to examine indigenous ecological knowledge and its adaptation to local changes, to analyze the boundaries of identity construction within the context of today's ethnotourism, and to compare fish terminology between Cherokee and English vernacular. The resulting publication is an informative presentation of how Cherokee fishing evolved from a seasonally significant aspect of a mixed subsistence economy in the past to a profitable, nearly year-round role in a cash-based tourist economy today. Moreover, from the perspective of fishing, Altman explores cultural, linguistic, and environmental changes, as related to aquatic resources, spanning the period from European contact to the present.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2015
Feasts are important social events but their traces in the archaeological record are often ambiguous. The residues of feasts among mobile hunter–gatherers are particularly difficult to discern due to the rarity of association with structural remains and anthropological expectations for large feasts to be limited to complex societies. This article considers the potential of isolated single event pit features in documenting the scale and composition of feasts among small scale foragers. The results of faunal analysis from a large pit feature associated with a burial mound at the late pre-Columbian Parnell site in northern Florida demonstrate the importance of pits in representing discrete depositional events that followed feasts. While the taxa, element distribution, and associated artifacts would be impossible to differentiate from domestic refuse in a midden context, the discrete and isolated context at Parnell, far from residential sites and the influence of Mississippian chiefdoms, gives visibility to a large social event incommensurate with the density of population in the area. The orchestration of such a large feast, likely associated with a funeral event, denotes networks of obligation that extended beyond those typical of small scale foragers, indicating a degree of social complexity belied by other categories of archaeological remains.
Evidence for Local Fish Catch In Zooarchaeology
Journal of Ethnobiology, 2012
Fish bones at archaeological sites may be used to address anthropological questions about past fishing practices and trade, as well as biological questions about past species distributions. In both cases, it is important to distinguish fish caught locally from those transported longer distances to the disposal site. The necessary standard of proof may vary by the geographic scale of the study and proximity to fish habitat, but multiple lines of evidence should be brought to bear, such as regional ethnography or oral history, fishing artifacts, available local habitat, skeletal parts frequencies, and bone chemistry. An example from the American Pacific Northwest demonstrates the complexity of determining catch location. The question at the Grissom site was whether the bones could demonstrate past salmonid and other fish occurrence in the adjacent Caribou Creek. Of seven fish species identified, three species were interpreted as local catch, one as local but indicating a change in range, and three as equivocal.
Ritualized Deposition and Feasting Pits: Bundling of Animal Remains in Mississippi Period Florida
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2015
Interactions with the bodies of hunted animals often follow prescriptions pertaining to social relationships among human and non-human persons. Despite this, deposits of archaeological food remains are seldom considered in terms of deliberate placement, instead serving primarily as reflections of preparation and consumption activities. The residues of feasts, in particular, are often highlighted as indexes of special consumption events, although such salient occasions might also be expected to highlight ritualized depositional practices as well. This study reconsiders the archaeological residues of feasts through the vantage of a fauna-filled pit in late Pre-Columbian Florida. Most of the contents of the feature correlate with a large feast, but the structure of the deposit and inclusion of specific elements reflects scrupulous emplacement. Drawing on North American relational ontologies, we explore the idea that this pit feature was created as a deliberate bundle, the result of an intentional act of interment that was concerned with positioning its contents in ways that manifested and shaped various relationships.