Settlement-Subsistence Variability In The Glenwood Locality,Southwestern Iowa

Abstract

Central Plains tradition settlement distribution in Southwest Iowa is poorly understood. Patterns of both nucleated and dispersed forms seem to be represented. The known distribution in the Glenwood locality is examined and an algorithm presented that could explain the existing variability. Initial locality occupants relied heavily on hunting and gathering with minimal horticulture during the Neoatlantic climatic episode. Isolated homesteads were an efficacious adaption. During the dryer Pacific climatic episode attendant reduction of natural resources forced intensified horticulture which eventuated a more nucleated settlement pattern.     

Pryor Stemmed: A Specialized Late Paleo-Indian Ecological Adaptation

Abstract

One of the late Paleo-Indian cultural groups in the Bighorn-Pryor Mountains area of southern Montana and northern Wyoming is characterized by a lanceolate projectile point with a distinctive alternate beveling on blade edges. Present evidence indicates a settlement pattern restricted to the mountains and foothills and an intense hunting and gathering subsistence strategy. They appear also to have been separate from contemporary cultural groups on the open high plains. A number of site investigations and radiocarbon dates indicate that this cultural group of around 8000 years ago and referred to as Pryor Stemmed was probably about the last of the late Paleo-Indian cultural complexes in the area.     

新石器时代关中地区人类生业模式演变的生物考古学证据

农业的起源与发展,改变了人类食物资源的获取方式。作为史前文化发展的中心,关中地区史前人类生业模式演变规律与影响因素的探索,将为北方地区农业的起源、发展与传播,文化交流对农业发展的影响,人类对环境变迁的适应等热点问题研究提供重要依据。本文对关中地区史前不同文化、不同遗址人与动物骨骼的稳定同位素以及动植物遗存进行了综合分析。结果显示,受文化的发展与交流、区域地理环境的差异、气候的演变等因素影响,关中地区史前先民生业模式呈现时空差异。老官台文化先民的生业模式中旱作农业与狩猎采集并重。仰韶文化早期,旱作农业成为先民生业模式的主体,但不同区域发展水平不同;另外,家畜饲养的发展速度要滞后于农作物。仰韶文化中、晚期至龙山文化早期,水稻与小麦先后传入,形成以粟、黍旱作农业为主,兼营水稻、大豆等的多元化农业结构;水稻对仰韶文化中期先民的食谱产生影响,而同时期家畜饲养主要依赖于粟黍类农作物。龙山文化,黍、粟农业比重下降,水稻含量相对增加,并对先民与家畜的食谱产生影响;肉食获取方式以饲养活动为主,渔猎活动为辅。     

The Middle Missouri Tradition: the Late Stage

Abstract

Two prehistoric complexes in the northern part of the Middle Missouri area, the Thomas Riggs and Huff Foci, comprise the late stage of the Middle Missouri Tradition. Although transitional sites are as yet lacking, this late stage is regarded as an outgrowth of the early stages of the same tradition, localized further south along the Missouri River in South Dakota. The Huff Focus postdates the Thomas Riggs Focus and is a direct outgrowth of Thomas Riggs, both foci being assigned to the Fire Heart Aspect. This aspect is the prehistoric antecedent for the Heart River Focus, the protohistoric express ion of Historic Mandan culture. Brief comments are offeredon the history, or1g1ns, distribution, characteristics, dating, and relationships of the Thomas Riggs and Huff Foci.     

Cross Ranch: A Study of Variability in a Stable Cultural Tradition

Abstract

Work in the Missouri River valley has yielded information on the earliest through historic sedentary, horticultural occupations. In the Cannonball region of North Dakota, previous studies have (1) established the presence of two cultural traditions (the Middle Missouri and Coalescent), and (2) outlined major shifts in intra-tradition and occupational patterns. Tests and excavations at the Cross Ranch (320L 14) and Clark’s Creek (32ME 1) sites provide the first information on the early sedentary occupation of the Knife-Heart region. Remains from these sites are similar to those in Middle Missouri tradition sites in the adjacent Cannonball region. This study defines and evaluates variation in the ceramic and lithic technologies within the seemingly stable Middle Missouri cultural tradition by using new analytic techniques, statistical methods and computer analysis. Previously reported material and new data are analyzed and compared. Radiocarbon dates which range from the 12th through mid-15th centuries provide temporal control. Analysis of the fauna and flora indicate a stable subsistence based on hunting and horticulture. The artifact assemblages suggest general cultural stability and persistence. There are, however, subtle differences in the lithics and ceramics, most of which reflect changes through time by people sharing the same general potting and stone working practices. It is hypothesized that Clark’s Creek represents a northern component of the Fort Yates phase. A Nailati phase is posited on the basis of formal and temporal variation between Cross Ranch and the Fort Yates phase sites.     

Investigation of the Swift Bird House (39DW233) in the Oahe Reservoir,South Dakota

Abstract

The Swift Bird House (39DW233) is a prehistoric structure of indeterminate characteristics. The associated artifacts are directed to a Northern Plains horticulture and hunting complex. A tenuous relationship to the Anoka Focus and a possible occupation date of about A. D. 1500 is suggested for the site     

A Model of Prehistoric Adaptation in Northern Texas

Abstract

This paper focuses upon the nature of prehistoric adaptation to the prairies, cross timbers and rolling plains of northern Texas. Adaptation to both the natural and cultural environment of the region is considered through the presentation of a diachronic model. This model emphasizes the economic, demographic and social aspects of adaptation to northern Texas from the earliest human occupation through the end of the prehistoric period.     

Ceramics From the Highwalker Site: a Study of Late Prehistoric Period Cultural Systematics on the Northwestern Plains

Abstract

The Highwalker site is a two component prehistoric encampment located in the Pine Parklands region of southeastern Montana. The Late Prehistoric period occupation represents a briefly used, special purpose site occupied by a Native American group primarily engaged in the final butchering of bison and the processing of its by-products. Two radiocarbon samples date the Late Prehistoric period occupation between A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1100. Ceramics recovered from this component shed some light on the debate concerning “Crow Pottery” and Late Prehistoric period cultural systematics. The ceramics represent the earliest known representatives of a localized Powder River Basin pottery tradition which appears to be related to Extended Middle Missouri Tradition ceramics. These nomadic Powder River Basin ceramic-using groups maintained contact with the Middle Missouri village farmers and were influenced by their pottery technology. Later when the ethnographically known Crow moved into the area, the Powder River Basin hunting groups either were amalgamated into Crow society or were driven from the area.     

Settlement Pattern Variability in Brush Creek Valley,Platte County,Missouri

Abstract

During the summer of 1971, a field party from the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Kansas conducted an intensive archaeological- ·survey along Brush Creek, a tributary of the Missouri River four miles west of Parkville, Missouri. Data collected during this survey provides a preliminary characterization of the local environmental setting and a comparativecontrastive statement on prehistoric settlement pattern variability from the Early Archaic to the Steed-Kisker phase.

Topographic, geological, and botanical features of importance in establishing the parameters of effective biophysical environments for prehistoric occupants are summarized, and four resource zones tentatively identified: an upland prairie zone, an oak-history forest zone, a river-bottom forest zone and the Missouri River itself. Although the time depth for these resource zones is unknown, their presence throughout the history of man’s presence is a possibility.

Aspects of the human occupation and utilization of Brush Creek valley, which began as early as 8000 B.C., are viewed as adaptations to the local environmental setting. During the Archaic period (8000 B.C.-A.D. 1), £rush Creek valley was apparently exploited by hunters and gatherers who established short-duration camps. A large and probably permanent village was established during the period of Kansas City Hopewell occupation (A.D. 1-500), although small, temporary, camps were also in evidence. The Late Woodland occupation (A.D. 500-1 000) is marked by small sites with little evidence of any long term occupation. The final occupation of the valley, by Steed-Kisker peoples (A.D. 1 000-1250), is characterized by a pattern of many small homesteads occupied by populations who made their living through a combination of hunting, gathering, and horticulture.     

Hunting as a Source of Local and Traditional Ecological Knowledge among Campesinos in Nicaragua

Campesinos are the most numerous hunters in Latin America. Yet, local and traditional knowledge (LTK) among campesinos about hunting is often invisible to conservationists who perceive them as nonindigenous or illegal hunters. Moreover, research and methods for accessing campesino hunting LTK are limited in theory and practice. Conservationists therefore know little about campesinos’ cultural understandings of hunting. We assessed the LTK of Nicaraguan campesinos to determine whether they shared cultural hunting knowledge. Through 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork, an ethnoecology framework, and cultural consensus analysis, we found that campesino hunting LTK was shared across the study community. This knowledge extended from a worldview that emphasized subsistence and hunting secrets to ensure bountiful harvests, expressed through folk taxonomies, hunting strategies, campesino-dog relationships, and preparation of hunted animals. Campesino hunting LTK emerged from campesino culture, yielding numerous implications for conservation in Latin America.

     

The Southwest and the Plains: Ecology and Economics

Abstract

The ecological concept of niche is used to provide a better understanding of prehistoric interactions between the Plains and the Puebloan Southwest. A diachronic model is presented based on concepts of energy flow and regional microvariation in net energy input. At a general level, such use of ecological models and principles enables changes in human systems to be seen as an example of a general increase in ecosystem complexity. The application of more powerful theoretic and methodological concepts and constructs can then lead to a more powerful theory of human cultural evolution.     

Radiocarbon Dates from the Sutter Site,Northeastern Kansas

Abstract

Five radiocarbon dates from the deeply buried, preceramic Sutter site (14JN309) are evaluated. Its relative chronological position in late Plano times is substantiated by a cluster of dates at approximately 6000 B.C. Comments are made concerning the Great Plains hunting and gathering subsistence pattern.     

The Grass Valley Horse

Abstract

The head and part of the neck of a baked clay horse figurine from an archaeological site in Lander County is described. It suggested the presence of the Grass Valley horse in Central Nevada reaffirms the strong cultural ties between the PlateauShoshone and the buffalo hunting; horse-nomad Shoshone of the Western Plains, ties already indicated by Shoshone pottery and other plains type artifacts indigenous to the area.     

Prehistoric bird extinctions and human hunting

Holocene fossils document the extinction of hundreds of bird species on Pacific islands during prehistoric human occupation. Human hunting is implicated in these extinctions, but the impact of hunting is difficult to disentangle from the effects of other changes induced by humans, including habitat destruction and the introduction of other mammalian predators. Here, we use data from bones collected at a natural sand dune site and associated archaeological middens in New Zealand to show that, having controlled for differences in body mass and family membership (and hence for variation in life-history traits related to population growth rate), birds that were more intensively hunted by prehistoric humans had a higher probability of extinction. This result cannot be attributed to preservation biases and provides clear evidence that selective hunting contributed significantly to prehistoric bird extinctions at this site.     

Continuity and change in the eastern Aleutian archaeological sequence

The eastern Aleutian prehistoric archaeological sequence is key for understanding population movements, cultural exchanges, and adaptations to environmental changes over a wide area of the north Pacific and Bering Sea during the Holocene. An important question is, Can the settlement history of the eastern Aleutians be understood as a single continuous tradition lasting some 9,000 years, or were there major population and cultural influxes along with periods of widespread population abandonment? We review the available archaeological evidence with reference to recent mtDNA and nucleic DNA studies of prehistoric and contemporary Arctic and Subarctic populations and conclude that the evidence points to an overall cultural continuity with notable incursions and excursions of people and cultural elements into and out of the eastern Aleutians.     

A pan-neotropical analysis of hunting preferences

Hunting in the neotropics is a widespread form of resource extraction. However, there is increasing concern that current activities are leading to the decline and extirpation of vulnerable species; particulary ateline primates, large ungulates (such as tapirs and white-lipped peccaries) and large birds such as curassows. Hunting patterns are expected to be a product of two principal influences: the value of return for a given amount of effort invested into hunting, and cultural factors that determine the prestige and usefulness of prey. Previous work has suggested that hunting profiles change in a predictable way over time, becoming more diverse and more dependent on smaller bodied species as preferred, large-bodied prey become scarcer. In this paper, we evaluate the hunting profiles of 78 neotropical communities in Central and South America. We investigate the uniformity of species preferences, whether communities that are geographically closer have similar hunting profiles, and whether the age and size of settlements can be used to predict the type and diversity of species targeted. We found that there was only a weak correlation between the structure of communities’ hunting profiles and their geographical proximity. Neither a community’s size nor age was a good predictor of the shape and structure of its hunting profile. Our data suggest that either the availability of prey or the cultural influences dictating the value of different species can change rapidly over small distances, and that older and larger settlements do not impact prey species distributions in a predictable way.     

Heat Treating of Chert: Methods of Interpretation and Their Application

Abstract

The practice of heating chert to facilitate its flaking has been documented for primitive cultures widely distributed in time and space. The basic procedure for interpreting evidence of prehistoric heat treating is analogy with ethnographic and experimental findings. When this procedure is properly structured in its logic and employs suitable measures of physical property change, sound inferences are possible. In Kentucky, evidence for heat treating of cherts by various prehistoric groups is emerging and indicates that the practice was important in several cultural periods and was practiced widely in the state.     

Osteoporotic bone loss in two prehistoric Indian populations

To examine the demineralizing effects of the ageing process on the human skeleton, a photon absorptiometric method was employed which measured bone mineral mass. Rates and amounts of demineralization were compared in two prehistoric Indian populations: Indian Knoll (dated between 2500 and 2000 B.C. ) of the Archaic Period and Pete Klunk (dated between 50 B.C. and 250 A.D. ) of the Middle Woodland or Woodland or Hopewell Period. The former was exclusively a hunting and gathering group while the latter supplemented its hunting and gathering with part-time agriculture. Archaeological and osteometric data suggest that Hopewell had a more nutritionally adequate and reliable diet than Indian Knoll. By regression slope analysis it was shown that, as in modern populations, trabecular and female rates of loss are greater, respectively, than cortical or male rates. Hopewell males and females lost bone at a faster rate than Indian Knoll males and females. When amounts of demineralization in these two groups were compared to that of a contemporary group, the Indian Knoll and contemporary populations were found to lose the same amount while Hopewell lost the greatest amount. It is suggested from these comparisons that dietary sufficency does not contribute significantly to skeletal maintenance during ageing.     

The Concept of an Altithermal Cultural Hiatus in Northern Plains Prehistory

The concept of a cultural hiatus, when it is believed the Northern Plains was essentially abandoned by prehistoric bison-hunting cultures because of extremely adverse climatic conditions in the interval 5500–3000 B.C. has become generally entrenched in archaeological thought and literature. However consideration of the current palynological data and climatic models indicate that a grassland environment which supported a viable bison population existed at this time. Examination of the archaeological data indicates the lack of evidence for human occupation is a result of sampling, geological variables and nonrecognition of the artifact types in surface collections. It is concluded that the area supported a viable human population at this time whose primary adaptive strategy centered around the communal hunting of bison.     

Population parameters of indigenous populations ofMyocastor coypus: the effect of hunting pressure

The coypu or nutriaMyocastor coypus Molina, 1782 is a semiaquatic rodent intensively harvested for fur in its native region. We studied population parameters at four sites differing in hunting pressure and characterised hunting activity in north-eastern Buenos Aires province, Argentina. Our interviews with hunters, local inhabitants and wildlife managers revealed that hunting is a cultural tradition in the countryside with the coypu being used as meat and, fur and the young occasionally used as pets. Quarterly live trapping captured a high proportion of all coypus present at each site. In sites with higher hunting pressure, low density of coypus was associated with high population losses and immigration. I n these sites the proportion of juveniles and pregnant females was similar to that obtained at sites with no hunting pressure. No foraging deficiencies were evident from diet quality analysis. Our results suggest that harvesting determines the dynamics of coypu populations in, this region where hunting pressure can be assessed by accessibility of hunting sites, their distance to urban or rural settlements, effective control of hunting, and human population density of the area.