Kenneth E. Sassaman

Indian Fires in the Prehistory of New England

Humans have inhabited the northeastern United States for approximately 12,000 years (Figure 1). During that period the vegetation of the region changed first from tundra to boreal spruce and fir forests. For the past 8,000 years or so, mixtures of pines, spruces, fir, hemlock, and a variety of hardwoods including beech, several oaks, maples, hickories, and birches have occupied the landscape. Changing climate and the differential migration of plant species were responsible for the vegetation changes that occurred over time periods spanning several hundred to a few thousand years (Davis 1983). Today we see a vegetation pattern that can be related to regional variations in climate, topography, soils, and human settlement. Alpine tundra is found at high elevations in the White Mountains, spruce and fir forests cover much of northern Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and pitch pine and oaks occupy the xeric, sandy soils of southern coastal areas. Mesic forest species occur over a broad area of central New England (Westveld et al. 1956).

Lithic Technology and the Hunter-Gatherer Sexual Division of Labor

A technological change from formal to expedient core reduction marks the “transition” from mobile to sedentary prehistoric societies in many parts of the world. The phenomenon has often been attributed to changes in the organization of mens activities, particularly hunting. Considering, however, that the change coincides with the adoption of pottery, technology usually attributed to women, an alternative explanation must be considered. From the standpoint of archaeological systematics, the addition of pottery turns our focus away from places where hafted bifaces were discarded toward places where pottery was discarded. The latter are largely domestic contexts: locations at which women, as well as men, employed expedient core technology for a variety of tasks. Thus, the perceived change in core technology reflects the increased visibility of womens activities in the archaeological record. This recognition provides a basis for incorporating gender variables into our interpretations of prehistoric technology and labor organization.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE IN THE EARLY POTTERY TRADITIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOUTHEAST

The oldest pottery traditions of the southeastern United States include a series of punctated wares geographically clustered in three locales of the Savannah River region. Although potters in each locale decorated and used pots in virtually identical fashion, they tempered clays and formed vessels in appreciably different ways. Situated learning theory offers a framework for interpreting these divergent trends in early pottery by focusing attention on the multiple communities of practice in which potters participated. Independent data on the handedness of potters supports the inference that techniques for making pottery were transmitted cognately, whereas decorative expression and methods of cooking crosscut residential units as a result of affinal relations. Potential contradictions arising from different types and changing forms of community membership may have contributed to radical changes in pottery technology and decoration after some fifteen generations of relative stability.

Mid-Holocene cultural dynamics in southeastern North America

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the cultural dynamics as a result of climatic changes in the Southeastern region of North America. During the middle Archaic period in the Southeast, corresponding to the mid-Holocene era, from 8000 to 5000 14C yr BP, monumental construction began in a number of areas. The mid-Holocene was a period of dramatic cultural change in the Midsouth and in the immediately adjacent lower Midwest. During this period ceremonial shell/earthen mound construction was initiated, long-distance exchange networks spanning much of the region appeared, new tool forms such as bannerstones and grooved axes were adopted, and there was increased evidence for interpersonal violence or warfare. These trends are attributed to climate change and continued and even accelerated during the ensuing Late Archaic, and it was at the very start of this period, soon after 5000 14C yr BP (ca. 5750 cal yr BP), that pottery appeared. During the mid-Holocene, use of the southeastern coastal plain decreased dramatically, and extensive use of shellfish resources appeared for the first time along the major rivers of the interior and in coastal areas. With the onset of essentially modern climate and resource structure after 5000 14C yr BP (ca. 5750 cal yr BP), a dramatic increase in regional population levels is indicated. The social complexity observed over the mid-Holocene Southeast North America is related to differences in regional physiography, resource structure, climate, intensity of intergroup interaction, and the historical traditions prevalent in each region.

Dating and Explaining Soapstone Vessels: A Comment on Truncer

A recent paper by Truncer (2004) perpetuates the recalcitrant misconception that soapstone vessel technology uniformly predates the inception of pottery across eastern North America. Whereas soapstone vessels indeed preceded the local adoption of pottery in limited areas, the bulk of stratigraphic and independent radiometric data supports the conclusion that soapstone vessels either accompanied or postdated the inception of pottery in many parts of the Eastern Woodlands. I reiterate here my criticism of benchmark studies that have been uncritically accepted to support the greater antiquity of soapstone. Given the coincidence of pottery and soapstone in many areas of the Eastern Woodlands, any explanation for the use of soapstone vessels must consider the relative costs and benefits of alternative container technology. Moreover, evidence for use of soapstone vessels in mortuary contexts, caches, and in locations far from geological sources of soapstone suggests that their significance resided not simply in the domestic economy of nut processing, as suggested by Truncer, but in the political economy of group formation and alliance.

Stallings island revisited : New evidence for occupational history, community pattern, and subsistence technology

For nearly 150 years Stallings Island, Georgia has figured prominently in the conceptualization of Late Archaic culture in the American Southeast, most notably in its namesake pottery series, the oldest in North America, and more recently, in models of economic change among hunter-gatherer societies broadly classified as the Shell Mound Archaic. Recent fieldwork resulting in new radiocarbon assays from secure contexts pushes back the onset of intensive shellfish gathering at Stallings Island several centuries; enables recognition of a hiatus in occupation that coincides with the regional advent of pottery making; and places abandonment at ca. 3500 B.P. Analysis of collections and unpublished field records from a 1929 Peabody expedition suggests that the final phase of occupation involved the construction of a circular village and plaza complex with household storage and a formalized cemetery, as well as technological innovations to meet the demands of increased settlement permanence. Although there are too few data to assess the degree to which more permanent settlement led to population-resource imbalance, several lines of evidence suggest that economic changes were stimulated by ritual intensification.

Keeping Pace With Rising Sea: The First 6 Years of the Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey, Gulf Coastal Florida

ABSTRACT Low-gradient coastlines are susceptible to inundation by rising water, but they also promote marsh aggradation that has the potential to keep pace with sea-level rise. Synergies among hydrodynamics, coastal geomorphology, and marsh ecology preclude a simple linear relationship between higher water and shoreline transgression. As an archive of human use of low-gradient coastlines, archaeological data introduce additional mitigating factors, such as landscape alteration, resource extraction, and the cultural value of place. The Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey (LSAS) is an ongoing effort to document the history of coastal dwelling since the mid-Holocene, when the rate and magnitude of sea-level rise diminished and the northern Gulf coast of Florida transitioned into an aggradational regime. Results of the first 6 years of the LSAS suggest that multicentury periods of relative stability were punctuated by site abandonment and relocation. Subsistence economies involving the exploitation of oyster and fish, however, were largely unaffected as communities redistributed themselves with changes in shoreline position and estuarine ecology. After AD 200, civic-ceremonial centers were established at several locations along the northern Gulf coast, fixing in place not only the infrastructure of daily living (villages), but also that of religious practice, notably cemeteries and ceremonial mounds. Intensified use of coastal resources at this time can be traced to a ritual economy involving large gatherings of people, terraforming, feasting, and the circulation of socially valued goods. To the extent that religious practices buffered the risks of coastal living, large civic-ceremonial centers, like aggrading marshes, afforded opportunities to “outpace” sea-level rise. On the other hand, centers introduced a permanence to coastal land-use that proved unsustainable in the long term.

Production for Exchange in the Mid-Holocene Southeast: A Savannah River Valley Example

ABSTRACTAt various places across the American Southeast during the mid-Holocene, bifaces were produced for nonsubsistence purposes, including mortuary offerings and exchange. Examples of biface caches and oversized forms are not uncommon at sites in the Midsouth, and locations of biface production have been noted at numerous sites near sources of high-quality chert. Unfortunately, analyses of production debris have not been conducted, so there exists no information on the scale and intensity of production for exchange. In contrast, discrete concentrations of debitage and production failures at sites in the middle Savannah River Valley lend themselves to analysis of scale of production. At the Pen Point site, for instance, 200–300 preforms were manufactured and transported from the site in what appears to be a single production event. Alternative explanations for this scale of production are examined. Given emerging evidence for nonsubsistence uses of bifaces in the Savannah River Valley and its probable h...

SITUATING THE CLAIBORNE SOAPSTONE VESSEL CACHE IN THE HISTORY OF POVERTY POINT

A cache of 12 soapstone vessels from the Claiborne site in Mississippi was recently repatriated to the state after being excavated in 1968 and removed to Ohio. As a locus of Poverty Point affiliation, Claiborne was positioned along a Gulf Coast route for the influx of soapstone into the lower Mississippi valley from quarries in the southern Appalachians, hundreds of kilometers to the east. Although residents of Claiborne were likely to have been active traders during the heyday of Poverty Point exchange, ca. 3600–3400 cal BP, new AMS assays on carbon deposits from seven of the soapstone vessels show that the cache was emplaced ~200 years later, during or shortly before the abandonment of Poverty Point. Reported here are the results of AMS assays, observations on vessel form and function, and preliminary inferences about the significance of the cache in the context of environmental and cultural change after 3200 cal BP. Un depósito votivo de doce vasijas de esteatita, procedentes del sitio Claiborne en Misisipi, fue repatriado recientemente a su estado de origen después de haber sido excavado en 1968 y reubicado en el estado de Ohio. Siendo uno de los centros asociados con Poverty Point, Claiborne fue establecido en la ruta de la costa del Golfo de México para el ingreso y circulación de la esteatita en el Valle Bajo del Misisipi; dicho mineral proviene de los yacimientos ubicados al sur de los Apalaches, a cientos de kilómetros al este. Si bien es posible que los pobladores de Claiborne participaron activamente en el intercambio inter-regional durante el apogeo de Poverty Point, aproximadamente 3600–3400 años cal A.P., nuevas pruebas de datación por AMS (trad. es. Espectrometría de Masas con Aceleradores) en los residuos carbónicos que fueron extraídos de siete de las doce vasijas de esteatita indican que el conjunto votivo fue depositado cerca de 200 años después, durante o poco antes del abandono de Poverty Point. A continuación, se presentan los resultados de las pruebas por AMS, las observaciones sobre la forma y función de estas vasijas, y las inferencias preliminares sobre la importancia de este depósito votivo en el contexto de los cambios ambientales y culturales ocurridos después de 3200 años cal A.P.

The Chattahoochee Chiefdoms. John H. Blitz and Karl G. Lorenz. 2006. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, xvi + 287 pp.

images of Classic Mimbres painted ceramics and looked at gendered tasks using painted designs. She documents a division of labor in Classic Mimbres society and argues that womens roles were more constrained than mens roles. Males apparently participated more in ceremonies and are more often depicted in social settings, so it is likely that they had more access to power and status than women. In an interesting take on ceramic production, Steven LeBlanc (chapter 7) explores the possibility that Classic Mimbres decorated bowls were made by individual artists. Using several lines of evidence (some of which may be challenged), he argues that only a few producers of decorated bowls were present. He estimates the number of artists and number of bowls produced, arguing that each large village had one or two potters and small villages may not have had any. Although he sees craft specialization evident in the data, he argues that this does not require social complexity. He notes that his results are preliminary; it will be interesting to see if his interpretations are supported by additional research.