Abstract

Abstract

This study contains a definition of the Redbird Focus of the Chouteau Aspect, in north central Nebraska, and attempts to relate it to the problem of Ponca prehistory. The four excavated sites of this focus, near the mouth of the Niobrara River (25HT2, 25HT3, 25KX4, and 25KX9), are small open villages of circular earth lodges. Unexcavated camp sites are also identified on the lower Niobrara River and on the middle reaches of the Elkhorn River. The remains from these sites are similar to those of the Lower Loup and La Roche foci, but they are sufficiently distinct to warrant designating them as a new focus. Trade goods at 25KX9 date it at about A.D. 1700, but the other sites lack trade goods. Redbird is estimated to date between A.D. 1600 and 1700, or perhaps somewhat later. Shelltempered pottery in two of the sites implies contemporaneity with the Oneota Aspect, perhaps the Orr Focus, which is identified as the remains of the protohistoric Iowa Indians. Site location, settlement patterns and size, burial data, and the dating of the focus intimates that it is attributable to the Ponca Indians. Conflicting data must be resolved before this identification is verified.     

The Redbird Focus: Cranial Evidence in Tribal Identification

Abstract

The Redbird Focus was defined in 1956, and was initially (Wood 1956) related to both Lower Loup and historic Pawnee Focus materials. Wood (1965) later took the position that Redbird was a more probable antecedent to the historic Ponca. These opposing hypotheses are tested using human crania representing the relevant populations. Samples of the following were available: Arikara from 39ST216, Pawnee from 25BU1 and 25WT1, Omaha from 25DK10 and 25DK2A, Ponca from 25KX1, and Redbird from 25KX9. Cranial measurements in a multivariate context were employed to test Wood’s suggestions regarding: (1) Ponca identification of remains from the Ponca Fort site, 25KX1, and (2) the tribal identity of the Redbird Focus crania. The Ponca Fort site is identified as historic Ponca, but with the probable presence of some Arikara females. The hypothesis that Redbird is antecedent to Ponca is found tenable on the basis of available cranial evidence.     

Theodore H. Lewis and his Northeastern Nebraska “Forts”1

Abstract

The inveterate fieldman and surveyor, T. H. Lewis, visited northeastern Nebraska in his quest for archaeological sites in the fall of 1890. He recorded four earthworks there, only one of which (Ponca Fort, 25KX1) was recorded by later workers. His field maps, published here for the first time, are accompanied by comments on the success the author has had in relocating these earthworks. Only Ponca Fort is clearly identifiable today. One enclosure, near the town of Wynot, may be part of the “Bad Village” of the Omaha; another, near Hartington, has been plowed level and yields no surface remains. The fourth earthwork, near the town of Ponca, cannot be located.     

The Identity of La Salle’S Pana Slave

Abstract

In June 1682 Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was presented with a “Pana” boy by the Illinois Michigamea Indians. The boy told La Salle of his history as a captive in four Indian tribes. He described Indian village locations and listed the tribes which had “many” horses. The significance of the information for which he was the source depends on the tribal identity of the captive. It has been suggested in anthropological literature that “Pana” indicated “Pawnee,” Ponca, Arikara, Wichita, even Apache. After examination of evidence-linguistic, cultural, historical - it seems most likely he was a Southern Pawnee, a Wichita. If this was so, then his information substantiates the theory of Kroeber, Brant and others that some Kiowa Apaches were still living in the southern Plains in the late 17th century.     

Craniometric Variation In The Northern And Central Plains

Abstract

Cranial measurements of 13 male and 12 female samples from the Central and Northern Plains region were subjected to canonical analysis. The samples include historic or protohistoric crania that can be ascribed to the Arikara, Mandan, Pawnee, Ponca and Omaha tribes. In addition, two samples belong to the archaeologically defined St. Helena Focus. Both sexes yielded five significant canonical variates, although only four were readily interpretable. The first canonical variate is clearly a Siouan-Caddoan discriminator and reflects variation in cranial vault height. St. Helena sites associate with the Arikara on this axis, supporting previous craniometric analyses which suggest a relationship between these two groups. Subsequent canonical variates deal with more particular aspects of craniometric variation among groups, but are still interpretable in historic or evolutionary terms. The classificatory analysis shows that the Arikara sites are closely related. A major exception to this is the Sully site, which frequently misclassifies with non-Arikara groups. This suggests that the Sully crania have little collective reality; and that there may be non-Arikara components represented at the Sully Site.     

Notes on the Ethnogeography of the Yankton Dakota

Abstract

The study of man’s relationship to his natural environment is of increasing interest at the present time. This concern with the environment has fostered interest in cultures with simpler technologies and their uses of their environments. Because they lacked the technological advantages of later European and American invaders, such cultures usually represented a much closer response to the opportunities of the land on which they lived. The cultural ecology of one such group of American Indians, the Yankton Dakota, is examined using archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic information. Place names still used by Yankton informants often provide valuable information regarding use of their traditional historic domain.     

Bodily Proportions as Guides to Lineal Measurements among the Blackfoot Indians

Elderly Blackfoot informants a quarter century ago recalled certain bodily proportions used by craftsmen and women as guides to lineal measurement in prereservation days. Still other measurements of similar character appear to have been introduced to these Indians by white traders. [Blackfoot, Assiniboin, Omaha, measurements, arrow-making, trade goods]     

Mandan And Hidatsa Villages In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

This paper attempts to specify, as precisely as possible, whichvillages the Mandan 11nd Hidatsa occupied in the period c. 1675 to c. 1800, how long each one was occupied, and the reasons why movement from one to another took place. It isbased primarily on the literary sources, but also makes considerable use of archaeological data, particularly unpublished material supplied by D. J. Lehmer. The evidence relating to the Mandan villages in the century or so before the greatsmallpox epidemic of 1781 is examined in detail, and it is demonstrated that there were about half-a-dozen of these villages in the Heart River district, and two or three others further up the Missouri. There follows a short accountC of the Hidatsa sites of the same period. The paper then details what is known of the northward movement of the Mandan and Hidatsa villages between 1781 and 1787, by which last date most of them had settled near the Knife River. Several accounts ofthese villages in the years before the arrival of Lewis and Clark (1804) are analyzed. The two tribes continued to live near the Knife until after the second great smallpox epidemic, in 1837. New dates are proposed for changes of villagelocations in this period (1804-1837), and it is shown that after 1834 there was only one Hidatsa village near the Knife. The paper ends with brief comments on the obscure period 1837-1845 and with a discussion of the site of the last independent Mandan village, Nuptadi, which was 11bandoned in about 1860.     

Traditional Knowledge,Use, and Management of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aphandra natalia</Emphasis> (Arecaceae) in Amazonian Peru

Traditional Knowledge, Use, and Management of Aphandra natalia (Arecaceae) in Amazonian Peru. Along the Pastaza and Urituyacu rivers in Peru, 100 informants in four villages knew 17 different uses of the piassaba fiber palm, Aphandra natalia (Balslev and Henderson) Barfod. Human consumption of fruits, extraction of fibers for trade, and harvesting leaves for thatch were the most frequently reported uses. Twenty uses were documented previously in the literature, and eight are reported here for the first time. Knowledge concerning the use of A. natalia among villagers varied significantly with ethnicity, village, and gender, but not with education or age; Amerindian informants knew more than non-Amerindian informants, and men knew more than women. Old and young informants knew about the same numbers of uses, and those who had little formal school training knew as many as those who had attended school for a longer time. Although 44% of our informants knew about fiber extraction, trade involving Aphandra fibers was not of great economic importance in our study area. Because fiber extraction has been documented as the most important use in all previous studies of A. natalia, it was surprising to find that people in one of the studied villages did not use A. natalia for that purpose at all. In contrast to previous observations, the extraction of fibers involved the destructive felling of the palms. We recommend implementing non-destructive extraction techniques so that local communities could exploit the fiber resource in a sustainable way. Non-destructive extraction methods involve cutting leaves from standing palms instead of felling the entire tree and leaving a few leaves on each extracted palm. However, given the limited economic incentive to the extractor, market mechanisms may be the greatest barrier to implementing sustainable extraction techniques.     

Subsistence hunting among the Waimiri Atroari Indians in central Amazonia, Brazil

Subsistence hunting among the Waimiri Atroari Indians in central Amazonia, Brazil, was studied from September 1993 to October 1994 to assess the current levels of resource exploitation. Hunting effort, harvesting yields and species composition of the hunt were recorded daily in five villages varying in number of people, location and age of the settlement. The Waimiri Atroari harvested a total of 3004 individuals of 41 species in one year. Lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris), white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), collared peccary (T. tajacu) and spider monkey (Ateles paniscus) represented 87% of the total yearly game weight. Sex ratios of spider monkeys killed were heavily biased towards females indicating a stronger hunting pressure on those individuals. Harvesting yields was proportional to hunting efforts indicating no evident game depletion in the study period. However, capture per unit of effort was significantly different among villages. Differences in total game mass harvested may be explained by local resource depletion associated with age and size of the settlement. However, this relationship is confounded by the capacity of some villages to exploit distant hunting sites. Data obtained in one village showed that harvest rates were higher in hunting sites located far from settlement indicating game depletion in hunting sites surrounding the village.     

An Alternative Hypothesis For The Origin of the Name Blackfoot

Abstract

Recent ethnographic work with Cree informants supports the hypothesis that the original Cree. term for “Blackfoot” Indians referred to animal (perhaps horse’s) hooves rather than to artificially blackened feet or moccasins.     

Adoption Practices of The Blood Indians of Alberta,Canada

Abstract

Adoption is practiced in many parts of the world, but its mechanics are rarely spelled out in detail. The following paper is an effort to correct this lack for the Blood (Blackfoot) Indians living in Alberta in 1939. The introduction of a money economy and life on a reservation brought about certain modifications, but at the time this investigation was made “the Indians themselves” said adoption was “frequent in former times.” There is reason to believe that the motives for adoption and the varying attitudes of those who adopt and of those who are adopted have not changed radically through the years. Many parallels in adoption are apparent, not only in other Blackfoot tribes, but also in such North American Indian groups as the Crow, Omaha, Winnebago and Ojibwa.     

The influence of cultural factors on the demography and pattern of gene flow from the Makiritare to the Yanomama Indians

A single village of Yanomama Indians was found to have frequencies of Di^a of 0.06 and of Ap^a of 0.08, in contrast to 40 other villages whereDi^a was absent and Ap^a quite rare. The source of these genes was identified as a village of Makiritare Indians, but the two allele frequencies were approximately the same or even higher in the Yanomama than in the Makiritare village. Demographic, social and cultural parameters affecting marriage and reproduction in the two tribes explain this. Genealogical relationships and informants' accounts collected in the field, when viewed against the traditional marriage practices, reproductive advantages of headmen, and differential treatment of captured women, indicate that the mating and reproduction parameters inherent in tribal social organization of this kind constitute an essential part of the explanation of the genetic findings. It is argued that mating systems of this sort are such that the probability of a new gene introduced by a captive surviving in the recipient population is a function of the sex of the initial carrier. The implications for tribalization and potentially radical changes in allele frequencies are briefly explored by considering aspects of settlement pattern and population fissioning known to characterize the tribes in question. Finally, it is shown that genetic sampling from a single location can and does result in unrepresentative allele frequencies when this single sample is taken to characterize the tribe as a whole.     

Evaluation of the efficacy of Olyset® Plus in a village‐based cohort study in the Cukurova Plain,Turkey, in an area of hyperendemic cutaneous leishmaniasis

The aim of this study was to measure the protective efficacy of Olyset® Plus, a new long‐lasting factory‐treated insecticidal net (LLIN) incorporated with 2% permethrin and 1% of the synergist piperonyl butoxide (PBO), against cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) transmission under field conditions. A village‐scale trial, promoting the use of LLIN by the local inhabitants of the study area was conducted as a pilot study in a new hyperendemic focus of CL caused by a Leishmania infantum/L. donovani hybrid parasite transmitted by proven vector species Phlebotomus tobbi in Cukurova Plain, Adana, Turkey, between May, 2013 and May, 2014. The study area comprised eight villages; two of them were selected as an intervention village with Olyset® Plus net (Kizillar) and a control village without net application (Malihidirli). Six villages with surrounding allopatric barriers were utilized as a buffer zone cluster between intervention and control villages. Monthly entomological surveys were performed in the intervention and control villages and Damyeri, representing the other six villages, to collect adults of Phlebotomus tobbi. Results showed a significant reduction in cutaneous leishmaniasis incidence in the intervention village from 4.78% to 0.37%. The protective efficacy rate of LLIN was 92.2%. In contrast, incidence rates increased in the control village from 3.67% to 4.69%. We also evaluated residual insecticide levels of used nets after six and 12 months of usage. It was determined that the nets had retained full insecticidal strength. These results highlight the value of real‐world data on bed net effectiveness and longevity to guide decisions regarding sand fly control strategies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first field study to evaluate Olyset® Plus efficacy in a hyperendemic cutaneous leishmaniasis area.     

Viewing the past: Ethnoarchaeology at al‐Hiba

An ethnoarchaeological project at al‐Hiba on the edge of the marshes in southern Iraq examines some of the ways that ethnoarchaeological evidence enriches conventional ideas of the relation between behavior and material remains, of the interpretation of materials in the archaeological record and of both the process and nature of change. The author stresses the importance of the visual in recording and understanding ethnographic detail and believes that only long‐term, intensive observation can protect us from pur own preconceptions, the pitfalls of relying on biased, ignorant, or culture‐protective informants or the danger of questionnaires which are too easily manipulated by intention or accident.     

Fourier analysis of acetabular shape in native American Arikara populations before and after acquisition of horses

The goal of this study was to identify changes in acetabular morphology associated with the use of horses by Native Americans. Previous studies reported "elongate" acetabula in horseback-riding members of the Omaha and Ponca populations. Such a difference in acetabular shape is a potentially useful osteological marker of habitual horseback riding. This report compares acetabula of adult males from two Native American Arikara populations known to have differed substantially in their use of horses. Population samples were from separate sites in South Dakota: Larson (nonriding) and Leavenworth (riding). Outlines of acetabular rims were digitized and analyzed, using a simplified 12-point Fourier analysis. A Fourier series with six terms accurately described acetabular shape. Significant differences (P<0.10) between riding and nonriding populations were observed in two Fourier coefficients. Acetabula of riding Arikara were found to have smaller B(4) coefficients (P = 0. 061) and more positive B(2) coefficients (P = 0.080), indicating expanded anterior-superior borders relative to acetabula of non-riding Arikara.     

An Analysis of Charcoal from the Brewster Site (13CK15), Iowa

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) To report the results of the examination of charcoal samples from 13CK 15 and; (2) to demonstrate the importance of the preservation and identification of archaeological woody materials which may serve as environmental indicators.     

Fire-Cracked Rock As Tools: Wear-Pattern Analysis

Abstract

Within the last ten years, lithic studies have focused intensively on chipped stone tool technology, particularly biface reduction procedures. Recent analysis of lithic materials from a multi-component Middle Missouri Village site (32ME7) in North Dakota revealed the necessity for intensively examining another artifact class, fire-cracked rock. A considerable quantity of fire-cracked granitic stones exhibited one or more wear patterns assumed to represent wear suggesting recycled procurement and utilization of a common resource. Supplemented by archaeological analogs and analysis of secondary attributes (i.e., archaeological context and systemic context), the wear pattern study resulted in the identification of five functional classes of fire-cracked rock tools.