Dean R. Snow

European Contact and Indian Depopulation in the Northeast: The Timing of the First Epidemics

In order to estimate prehistoric Indian population sizes in the New World it is first necessary to gain a better understanding of the demographic effects of European-introduced diseases. To that end we have reexamined the timing of the first introduction of these diseases into one region the [northeastern United States]. A careful reexamination of the ethnohistoric record combined with a study of the history and process of smallpox has led us to conclude that this and other such diseases did not enter the Northeast until the seventeenth century long after the well-documented initial epidemics of the Caribbean and Mexico. Reasons for the lag are suggested. (EXCERPT)

Microchronology and demographic evidence relating to the size of pre-columbian north american Indian populations.

Recent estimates for the size of the aggregate North American Indian population in A.D. 1492 vary from about 18 million to less than 2 million. The unusually favorable archaeological characteristics of Mohawk Iroquois sites in eastern New York have allowed a detailed demographic reconstruction of one case for the period A.D. 1400 to 1776. The case indicates that exogenous epidemics did not reach the region until the 17th century and supports arguments favoring the lower populations estimates for North America as a whole.

Sexual dimorphism in Upper Palaeolithic hand stencils

Sexual roles in deep prehistory are among the most intriguing puzzles still to solve. Here the author shows how men and women can be distinguished by scientific measurement in the prints and stencils of the human hand that occur widely in Upper Palaeolithic art. Six hand stencils from four French caves are attributed to four adult females, an adult male, and a sub-adult male. Here we take a step closer to showing that both sexes are engaged in cave art and whatever dreams and rituals it implies.

More on Migration in Prehistory: Accommodating New Evidence in the Northern Iroquoian Case

Crawford and Smith have developed important new evidence that bears on the hypothesis that the Northern Iroquoians migrated into the lower Great Lakes region sometime after A.D. 900. Clarification of the Princess Point Complex in Ontario forces a revision of the hypothesis. While an Appalachian origin for the Northern Iroquoians and their subsequent migration is not rejected, new evidence strongly suggests that the population shift took place three centuries earlier than I previously proposed. The situation calls for both further refinement of paleodemographic theory and new empirical research into Owasco and other earlier Northern Iroquoian complexes.

Sexual Dimorphism in European Upper Paleolithic Cave Art

Preliminary research on hand stencils found in the Upper Paleolithic cave sites of France and Spain showed that sexual dimorphism in human hands is expressed strongly enough to allow empirical determination of the sexes of the individuals who made some of them. Further research increased the sample of measurable cases from 6 to 32, a large enough sample to show that persons who made hand stencils in the caves were predominantly females. This finding rebuts the traditional assumption that human hand stencils in European parietal art were made by male artists, either adults or subadults. Findings further suggest that the sexual dimorphism of hands was more pronounced during the Upper Paleolithic than it is in modern Europeans. Attempts to apply the same algorithms to a sample of North American Indian handprints confirms the view that different populations require separate analyses.

Determining the sexual identities of prehistoric cave artists using digitized handprints: a machine learning approach

The sexual identities of human handprints inform hypotheses regarding the roles of males and females in prehistoric contexts. Sexual identity has previously been manually determined by measuring the ratios of the lengths of the individuals fingers as well as by using other physical features. Most conventional studies measure the lengths manually and thus are often constrained by the lack of scaling information on published images. We have created a method that determines sex by applying modern machine-learning techniques to relative measures obtained from images of human hands. This is the known attempt at substituting automated methods for time-consuming manual measurement in the study of sexual identities of prehistoric cave artists. Our study provides quantitative evidence relevant to sexual dimorphism and the sexual division of labor in Upper Paleolithic societies. In addition to analyzing historical handprint records, this method has potential applications in criminal forensics and human-computer interaction.

In Mohawk country : early narratives about a Native people

With general introductions, and in some cases, new translations, this collection comprises all of the 38 principle narratives, written from 1634 to 1810, describing the Mohawk valley and its Iroquois inhabitants. It provides a detailed look at an American Indian nation.

The Ethnohistoric Baseline of the Eastern Abenaki

Sources on the Eastern Abenaki dating to about 1600 are crucial in establishing the ethnohistorical baseline, the initial cultural state from which all subsequent historical changes occurred. Scholarly opinion is seriously divided over the proper interpretation of certain early documentary sources. It is argued here that the original inhabitants of the Penobscot, Kennebec and adjacent river drainages were occupied by the Abenaki rather than by the Malecite-Passamaquoddy as some have stated. Local groups were defined on the basis of river drainages, each being headed by a chief sagamore assisted by a second sagamore. Prior to the major epidemics of the early 1 7th century, there were 22 villages giving a total Eastern Abenaki population of about 10,000 persons. The Eastern Abenaki are a rich subject for the ethnohistorian. Of the early historical records of the native inhabitants of the Northeast, some of the very earliest concern these people. Throughout the colonial period they survived on the frontier between the English and French, even as many related tribes were annihilated or dispersed. Their descendants survive today, almost 450 years after Verrazzano wrote our earliest description of them. In the 17th century, the Eastern Abenaki controlled an area that is almost entirely contained within the modern State of Maine. Their major divisions coincided with four major river drainages within the larger area. From west to east, those divisions were Pigwacket, Arosaguntacook, Kennebec, and Penobscot corresponding to the Presumpscot, Androscoggin, Kennebec and Penobscot drainages. Colonial period sources provide a staggering number of synonyms and misnomers for the Eastern Abenaki and their various subdivisions, but these four seem to be the common denominators. Only the Penobscot survive in place today. Descendants of the others can be found in the old Abenaki refugee colonies of St. Francis and Becancour, Quebec. The years, events, and systemic processes that separate the Eastern Abenaki of the 17th century from their surviving descendants will keep ethnohistorians busy for years to come. It seems to me that a proper understanding of the sources that cluster around 1600 is crucial to that research. Sixteen-hundred is our point of departure; it is after this that contacts between the Eastern Abenaki, English, and French become continuous and fairly well documented. By the second decade of the 17th century epidemics of European disease wiped out some villages, and reduced the sizes of others drastically. We must have some basic understanding of the initial cultural state of the Eastern Abenaki if we are to understand what happened subsequently in terms of anything more than a simple historical

Recent archaeological research in the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada

The Northeast is comprised of interior and coastal areas that were historically occupied by Iroquoians and Algonquians respectively. This brief review sets aside most Euroamerican historical archaeology and developments prior to A.D. 900 to concentrate on recent research that has dominated regional attention and is most likely to be of interest to archaeologists working elsewhere. The review argues that while Iroquoian archaeologists often work with or against broad controlling models of long standing, archaeologists in the Maritimes and New England more often focus on technical problems that are relevant to shared interests in broad topical issues. The contrast relates to both differences in the their databases and differences in how archaeological research is conceived.

Iroquoia: The Development of a Native World. William Engelbrecht 2002. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York, xvi + 231 pp.

dence, Most of us appreciate the difficulties inherent in that task, both from the perspective of producers and consumers of evidence and ideas, and we all seek to do the best job possible. Still, reasonable people can and do disagree, and should be able to do so without being subject to charges of bias, hidden agendas, limited intellectual capacity, and the like. Questioning received wisdom, engaging in debate, and seeking alternative explanations are the ways in which any science progresses. Once an investigator forges a personal link or identity with his/her site or theory, the search for truth shifts to the search for vindication. In the final analysis, Adovasios book is the latter.