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Burials are places where archaeologists reasonably expect gendered ideologies and practices to play out in the archaeological record. Yet only modest progress has been made in teasing out gender from these mortuary contexts. In this volume, methods for doing so are presented, cases of successful gender theorizing from mortuary data presented, and comparisons made between European and Americanist traditions in this kind of work. Cases are broad in temporal and geographic scope—from Inuit burials in Alaska and Oneota mortuary rituals to Viking Scandinavia, Neolithic China and Iron Age Britain. Methods for identifying and analyzing gender are suggested for cultures at various levels of social complexity with or without documentary or ethnoarchaeological evidence to assist in the analysis. A volume of great interest for those attempting to develop an archaeology of gender. Visit Bettina Arnold's web page
Rising above the northern Michigan landscape, prehistoric burial mounds and impressive circular earthen enclosures bear witness to the deep history of the region’s ancient indigenous peoples. These mounds and earthworks have long been treated as isolated finds and have never been connected to the social dynamics of the time in which they were constructed, a period called Late Prehistory. In Mound Builders and Monument Makers of the Northern Great Lakes, 1200–1600, Meghan C. L. Howey uses archaeology to make this connection. She shows how indigenous communities of the northern Great Lakes used earthen structures as gathering places for ritual and social interaction, which maintained conne...
Archaeologists across the Midwest have pooled their data and perspectives to produce this indispensable volume on the Native cultures of the Late Woodland period (approximately A.D. 300?1000). Sandwiched between the well-known Hopewellian and Mississippian eras of monumental mound construction, theøLate Woodland period has received insufficient attention from archaeologists, who have frequently characterized it as consisting of relatively drab artifact assemblages. The close connections between this period and subsequent Mississippian and Fort Ancient societies, however, make it especially valuable for cross-cultural researchers. Understanding the cultural processes at work during the Late ...
While contact with explorers, missionaries, and traders made a significant impact on natives of the Eastern Woodlands, Indian peoples cannot be solely understood from the historical record. Here, in Societies in Eclipse, archaeologists combine recent research with insights from anthropology, historiography, and oral tradition to examine the cultural landscape preceding and immediately following the arrival of Europeans. The evidence suggests that native societies were in the process of significant cultural transformation prior to contact.
Engaging a longstanding controversy important to archaeologists and indigenous communities, Repatriation and Erasing the Past takes a critical look at laws that mandate the return of human remains from museums and laboratories to ancestral burial grounds. Anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss and attorney James Springer offer scientific and legal perspectives on the way repatriation laws impact research. Weiss discusses how anthropologists draw conclusions about past peoples through their study of skeletons and mummies and argues that continued curation of human remains is important. Springer reviews American Indian law and how it helped to shape laws such as NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). He provides detailed analyses of cases including the Kennewick Man and the Havasupai genetics lawsuits. Together, Weiss and Springer critique repatriation laws and support the view that anthropologists should prioritize scientific research over other perspectives.
Using fresh evidence and nontraditional ideas, the contributing authors of Mississippian Beginnings reconsider the origins of the Mississippian culture of the North American Midwest and Southeast (A.D. 1000–1600). Challenging the decades-old opinion that this culture evolved similarly across isolated Woodland popu¬lations, they discuss signs of migrations, missionization, pilgrimages, violent conflicts, long-distance exchange, and other far-flung entanglements that now appear to have shaped the early Mississippian past. Presenting recent fieldwork from a wide array of sites including Cahokia and the American Bottom, archival studies, and new investigations of legacy collections, the contr...
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New essays from foodways archaeology related to cuisine in social, cultural, and environmental contexts This collection of original essays is the first to cover recent trends in foodways archaeology in the Midwest using the concept of cuisine: the selection of food ingredients and methods of food preparation, cooking, and serving/consumption in relation to their social, cultural, and environmental contexts. This work span the Early Archaic (9000 BC) to Late Precontact (up to around AD 1500) in ecological zones of present-day Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Manitoba. Chapters trace development from hunter-gathering to horticultural practices to the more ro...