Bridging History and Prehistory: General Reflections and Particular Quandries (original) (raw)
Related papers
Despite the fact that archaeological ceramics have long been viewed as a proxy for ethno-political identity, recent research exploring the precise relationship between ceramics and identity during the historic-era southeastern United States provides increasing support for the conclusion that geographic variability in archaeological ceramics is best viewed through the lens of practice, and that archaeological phases correspond better to communities of practice than communities of identity. When viewed through the lens of practice theory and social learning theory, it becomes clear that the coexistence of both communities of practice and communities of identity within the same social landscape does not guarantee automatic correspondence between the two realms, nor even does any demonstrated correspondence necessarily prove a causal link between a community of practice and a community of identity that happen to be coterminous. Each type of community must be studied independently using appropriate and available data, and only by first disentangling the two can any demonstrable connection between communities of practice (such as archaeological phases) and communities of identity (such as historically-documented polities or ethnies) be established empirically. Only then can the exact reasons for any congruence (or lack thereof) be explored in a systematic and rigorous manner.
American Antiquity, 2020
Hernando de Soto's expedition through the southeastern United States between 1539 and 1543 is often regarded as a watershed moment for the collapse of Indigenous societies across the region. Historical narratives have proposed that extreme depopulation as a result of early contact destabilized Indigenous economies, politics, networks, and traditions. Although processes of depopulation and transformation were certainly set in motion by this and earlier colonial encounters, the timing, temporality, and heterogeneous rhythms of postcontact Indigenous histories remain unclear. Through the integration of radiocarbon and archaeological data from the Mississippian earthen platform mound at Dyar (9GE5) in central Georgia, we present a case of Indigenous endurance and resilience in the Oconee Valley that has long been obfuscated by materially based chronologies and typologies. Bayesian chronological modeling suggests that Indigenous Mississippian traditions persisted for up to 130 years beyond contact with European colonizers. We argue that advances in modeling radiocarbon dates, along with meaningful consultation/collaboration with descendant communities, can contribute to efforts that move us beyond a reliance on materially based chronologies that can distort and erase Indigenous histories.
Transitions in Social Organization: A Predictive Model from Southwestern Archaeology
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 1996
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Archaeologists have tended to overemphasize spatial and temporal boundaries between social groups at the expense of crosscutting and historical links. This bias is rooted in ethnographic conceptions of cultural identity and fails to make use of the time depth that is archaeology's primary advantage in the study of human behavior. An emphasis on synchronic, bounded spatial units like culture areas has obscured diachronic dimensions of identity, especially linear and historical constructs that are common among many indigenous groups. Incorporating these indigenous perspectives into archaeological research is a productive means of advancing archaeological theory and practice regarding identity. A case study from the American Southwest illustrates this approach.
Langford and Fisher ceramic traditions: Moiety, ethnicity or power relations in the Upper Midwest?
Recently, researchers have reexamined the relationships among several Upper Mississippian groups and Cahokia during the period of circa A.D. 1100-1440. One researcher has suggested that two currently defined ceramic traditions, Langford and Fisher wares, represent the material culture signature of moieties within a single cultural group, defined generically as Oneota. He argues that processual archaeologists have misinterpreted the culture history of the Prairie Peninsula due to a lack understanding concerning Native American power relationships. This study sets out what is currently known about Langford and Fisher material culture, and demonstrates that Langford and Fisher ceramics are material culture remains of related, but distinct, cultural groups.
Pottery Production and Social Organization at Angel Mounds, a Mississippian Archaeological Site
In this dissertation, fragments of over 1,400 Mississippi Plain pottery (MPP) rimsherds from the late pre-Columbian Mississippian archaeological site of Angel Mounds (12VG1) were examined to address questions about individual and group pottery production and consumption practices. Samples of coarse shell-tempered, undecorated rimsherds were drawn from four spatially-distinct and coeval areas within the site: two village “neighborhoods,” and two mound contexts. Most samples were originally recovered in early 20th century excavations; thus, this research included reanalysis of legacy collections. Samples were also taken from recent excavations at Unit A, a supposed “Potter’s House.” A new pottery analysis methodology was developed and tested, which was inspired by prior pre-Columbian ceramic research, and designed to measure the extensive variability of technological styles in MPP production. Specifically, a detailed ceramic analysis was completed, resulting in the sorting of rimsherd samples into vessel shape and size categories, and the documentation of MPP morphological variability (e.g. varied rim angles, thicknesses, and lip shapes). Quantitative and qualitative analyses of MPP variability revealed culturally-meaningful patterns of variation linked to vessel type, size, and function, differential consumption practices at mound versus village locations, and small-group and individual production techniques and consumption preferences that support the hypothesis of spatially-distinct neighborhood communities of practice within Angel. Idiosyncratic variations in MPP also revealed aspects of personal identity for Angel pottery producers and consumers (e.g. skill level). The results of this dissertation complement prior studies of decorated pottery at Angel and other Mississippian sites that documented type/variety classifications, suggested chronological markers via pottery styles, and debated the presence of elite material and ideological control over material culture. This research is innovative as it addresses variation within a single pottery type (MPP), which is the most common material culture form on many Mississippian sites. Utilizing a theoretical frame in materiality, practice theory, and consumption, this research highlights the role of “ordinary” people and their objects in culture-making in Mississippian societies. Everyday actions that included the use and contextualization of material culture are shown to be significant practices in creating and transforming social processes, including social organizations, subsistence, and identity formation.
Communities of Practice in the Early Pottery Traditions of the American Southeast
The oldest pottery traditions of the southeastern United States include a series of punctated wares geographically clustered in three locales of the Savannah River region. Although potters in each locale decorated and used pots in virtually identical fashion, they tempered clays and formed vessels in appreciably different ways. Situated learning theory offers a framework for interpreting these divergent trends in early pottery by focusing attention on the multiple communities of practice in which potters participated. Independent data on the handedness of potters supports the inference that techniques for making pottery were transmitted cognately, whereas decorative expression and methods of cooking crosscut residential units as a result of affinal relations. Potential contradictions arising from different types and changing forms of community membership may have contributed to radical changes in pottery technology and decoration after some fifteen generations of relative stability.
Journal of Historical Sociology, 2010
This paper explores the hybridized realities of European, Native American and Afro-Caribbean/Afro-American residents of Sylvester Manor, New York and Constant Plantation, Barbados during the seventeenth century. It draws on archaeological and landscape evidence from two plantations that were owned and operated by different members of the same family during the seventeenth century. One of plantations, known as Sylvester Manor, encompassed all 8,000 acres of Shelter Island, New York. It was established in 1652 primarily to help in the provisioning of two large sugar plantations on Barbados, Constant and Carmichael plantations. Sylvester Manor was operated by Nathaniel Sylvester; an Englishman who spent the first twenty years of life living in Amsterdam where his father was a merchant. Constant and Carmichael plantations were operated by his brother Constant Sylvester. Both the Barbados and New York plantations relied upon a labor force of enslaved Afro-Caribbean's. Archaeological evidence from Sylvester Manor has also revealed that Native American laborers played a prominent role in the daily activities of this northern plantation. Material and landscape evidence reveal the construction of hybridized identities that in the case of Barbados, are still part of the fabric of a postcolonial reality. Evidence from Sylvester Manor provides detailed insights into the construction of hybridized identities under the exigencies of a plantation economy whose global connections are dramatically visible in the archaeological record.