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The Early Settlement of North America is an examination of the first recognisable culture in the New World: the Clovis complex. Gary Haynes begins his analysis with a discussion of the archaeology of Clovis fluted points in North America and a review of the history of the research on the topic. He presents and evaluates all the evidence that is now available on the artefacts, the human populations of the time, and the environment, and he examines the adaptation of the early human settlers in North America to the simultaneous disappearance of the mammoths and mastodonts. Haynes offers a compelling re-appraisal of our current state of knowledge about the peopling of this continent and provides a significant new contribution to the debate with his own integrated theory of Clovis, which incorporates vital new biological, ecological, behavioural and archaeological data.
On July 28, 1996, two young men stumbled upon human bones in the shallow water along the shore of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. Was this an unsolved murder? The remnants of some settler's or Native American's unmarked grave? What was the story behind this skeleton? Within weeks, scientific testing yielded astonishing news: the bones were more than 9,000 years old! The skeleton instantly escalated from interesting to extraordinary. He was an individual who could provide firsthand evidence about the arrival of humans in North America. The bones found scattered in the mud acquired a name: Kennewick Man. Authors Sally M. Walker and Douglas W. Owsley take you through the painstak...
In 1959, what appeared to be the bones of a mastodon were found in a western New York pasture. When researchers began to investigate further in the early 1980s, the site proved to hold far more. Known as the Hiscock Site, it contained an astonishingly rich trove of fossils and artifacts dating from the late Ice Age through the onset of European settlement. For nearly three decades, work at the site—the “Byron Dig”—unearthed new evidence of changing fauna, flora, cultures, and environments over the past 13,000 years. In Two Acres of Time, Richard S. Laub—the principal investigator of the project—tells the story of the Byron Dig. Recounting twenty-nine years of intensive excavation...
In prehistoric societies children comprised 40–65% of the population, yet by default, our ancestral landscapes are peopled by adults who hunt, gather, fish, knap tools, and make art. But these adults were also parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who had to make space physically, emotionally, intellectually, and cognitively for the infants, children, and adolescents around them. Growing Up in the Ice Age is a timely and evidence-based look at the lived lives of Paleolithic children and the communities of which they were a part. By rendering these ‘invisible’ children visible, readers will gain a new understanding of the Paleolithic period as a whole, and in doing so will learn how children have contributed to the biological and cultural entities we are today.
The southeastern United States has one of the richest records of early human settlement of any area of North America. This book provides the first state-by-state summary of Paleoindian and Early Archaic research from the region, together with an appraisal of models developed to interpret the data. It summarizes what we know of the peoples who lived in the Southeast more than 8,000 years ago—when giant ice sheets covered the northern part of the continent, and such mammals as elephants, saber-toothed tigers, and ground sloths roamed the landscape. Extensively illustrated, this benchmark collection of essays on the state of Paleoindian and Early Archaic research in the Southeast will guide f...
The chapters in this edited volume present multi-disciplinary case studies of prehistoric archaeological sites located on now-submerged portions of the continental shelf. Each chapter represents an extension of the known prehistoric record beyond the modern shoreline. Case studies represent central themes of landscape change, climate change and societal development, using new technologies for mapping, monitoring and managing these sites.
The end of the Pleistocene era brought dramatic environmental changes to small bands of humans living in North America: changes that affected subsistence, mobility, demography, technology, and social relations. The transition they made from Paleoindian (Pleistocene) to Archaic (Early Holocene) societies represents the first major cultural shift that took place solely in the Americas. This event—which manifested in ways and at times much more varied than often supposed—set the stage for the unique developments of behavioral complexity that distinguish later Native American prehistoric societies. Using localized studies and broad regional syntheses, the contributors to this volume demonstr...
Stretching from Canada to Texas and the foothills of the Rockies to the Mississippi River, the North American Great Plains have a complex and ancient history. The region has been home to Native peoples for at least 16,000 years. This volume is a synthesis of what is known about the Great Plains from an archaeological perspective, but it also highlights Indigenous knowledge, viewpoints, and concerns for a more holistic understanding of both ancient and more recent pasts. Written for readers unfamiliar with archaeology in the region, the book in the SAA Press Current Perspectives Series emphasizes connections between past peoples and contemporary Indigenous nations, highlighting not only the h...
"This multi-author volume reflects on the history and continuity of zooarchaeology in North America and honors one of its most notable contemporary contributors, Walter E. Klippel. Klippel came to the University of Tennessee in 1977 as an assistant professor of anthropology and, over the next forty years, mentored countless students, published more than fifty journal articles and book chapters, and assembled a zooarchaeological comparative collection of national significance. Developed by friends, students, and colleagues of the professor, this wide-ranging collection of essays is organized by the prevailing themes of Klippel's career, including geological and landscape contexts, taphonomy, and the incorporation of actualistic methodologies and new technologies into zooarchaeological analyses. The diversity of topics alone suggests how extensive Klippel's research interests have been and how much contemporary zooarchaeology owes to his vision. Seeking to extend and not only celebrate that vision, the contributors also turn to explore new uses for the zooarchaeological framework in nontraditional settings. Foreword by Bonnie W. Styles and R. Bruce McMillan"--
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