Peter E. Siegel

Ideology and Culture Change in Prehistoric Puerto Rico: A View from the Community

AbstractMany Native American settlements in lowland South America are physical models of the cosmos. Social behavior, relations of power, and activity organization are structured by how the participants interact with and interpret cosmology. Culture change in the Amazon Basin and the West Indies is rooted in increasingly asymmetrical power relationships and control over ideology. In this paper, I explore linkages between the archaeological record at the community level and ideology to discuss culture change in the West Indies. Anthropological theory, ethnohistorical documents, ethnographic observations, and archaeological data all were employed in this analysis.

Shipibo archaeo‐ethnography: Site formation processes and archaeological interpretation

Abstract The structures of two Shipibo house compounds are considered. One described by DeBoer and Lathrap (1979) represents the on‐going ethnographic context. The other was recently abandoned and therefore represents the archaeological record. A k‐means cluster analysis program is used to investigate the spatial structures of both the ethnographic and archaeological contexts. In doing so, the systemic context becomes a model against which the archaeological setting may be compared. We find that there is a variety of spatial relationships between use and discard locations manifested by a single cultural group, the precise nature of which is constrained by the range of activities conducted by the occupants of the group. Based upon this analysis we suggest that the correspondence between use and discard areas should not only be examined in terms of occupational intensity or enclosed vs. open‐air activities, but should also include a consideration of the variability in the settlement activity organization. T...

Functional Variability Within an Assemblage of Endscrapers

AbstractIn light of the issue concerning artifact form and function archaeologists recently have been interested in examining patterns of use-wear within and across morphologically discrete types. To this end, assemblages and morphologically distinct artifact types have been shown to display varying degrees of functional specificity. Further, it has been found that the results of analyses pertaining to specific morphological types for a given assemblage cannot be generalized for the same morphological types across assemblages (either spatially and/or temporally).In this study, a low-magnification microwear analysis is conducted on an assemblage of 67 late prehistoric/early historic, Northwest Alaskan Inupiat Eskimo endscrapers. Based upon ethnographic observations and considerations of edge angles, Eskimo endscrapers traditionally have been associated with hide working activities. Through the microwear analysis I have documented a wider range of functional variation in these endscrapers than hide processi...

Demographic and Architectural Retrodiction: An Ethnoarchaeological Case Study in the South American Tropical Lowlands

This paper focuses on the demographic and architectural organization of a South Amerindian tropical-forest community. The household, as the most important social, economic, and behavioral unit in this society, is reflected in the strong quantitative relations between the floor areas of the various structure types and the associated number of occupants. In contrast, floor area/number of occupants relations at the nuclear-family level are quantitatively weak. Since the aboriginal household was also the most important economic and demographic social unit in the South American tropics, the present study ma} be used to estimate prehistoric settlement population levels using excavated data. As such, this study encourages the use of the direct-historical approach by archaeologists working in the lowlands of South America.

Edge Angle As A Functional Indicator: A Test

AbstractArchaeologists traditionally have relied upon the examination of stone tool edge angles as an efficient method for defining and attributing use categories to the tools. However, this approach has not been adequately tested by researchers. In the present study the results of a low-magnification microwear analysis of 67 morphologically defined end scrapers are presented. Six categories of scraper wear were observed, and the mean edge angle values for each group were compared. Based upon an analysis of variance test, it was found that there are no statistically significant differences between the different functionally defined scraper groups in terms of edge angles. It was concluded that edge angle might be a useful variable to monitor in narrowing down gross categories of tool use (i.e., longitudinally vs. transversely oriented motion). However, to derive more specific functional assignations, one needs to conduct an intensive use-wear analysis of all tools.

Confronting Caribbean heritage in an archipelago of diversity: Politics, stakeholders, climate change, natural disasters, tourism, and development

Abstract The Caribbean archipelago is a series of independent island nations and overseas departments, territories, colonies, or commonwealths of developed countries. About 250 generations of human occupation in the Caribbean have produced a blend of traditions sometimes called a “cultural kaleidoscope.” Eight thousand years of shifting cultural identities are recorded in archaeological, architectural, documentary, and ecological records, and in memories and oral traditions known as “heritagescapes.” Caribbean heritagescapes are increasingly threatened by a combination of socioeconomic needs of modern society, ineffective governmental oversight, profit-driven multinational corporations, looters, and natural environmental processes. Balancing the needs of society against the protection and management of heritage requires careful thought and measured dialogue among competing stakeholders. Here we review the status of heritage in the Caribbean and offer a way forward in managing a diminishing supply of heritage resources in the face of current socioeconomic demands, and the unique legislative environments of independent island nations and overseas possessions of developed countries.

Plantation Soilscapes: Initial and Cumulative Impacts of Colonial Agriculture in Antigua, West Indies

ABSTRACT This paper examines physical, chemical, and biological properties of soils and sediments from landforms in eastern Antigua, West Indies, to better understand the long-term consequences of colonial plantation agriculture for soil health. Plantation farming played a central role in the history of Caribbean societies, economies, and environments since the seventeenth century. In Antigua, the entire island was variably dedicated to agricultural pursuits (mostly sugarcane monoculture) from the mid-1600s until independence from the United Kingdom in 1981, when most commercial cultivation ceased. Today’s soilscapes are highly degraded, although it is unknown what the role of the island’s plantation legacy has played in this process. Our research combines geoarchaeological survey and sampling, sediment core analysis, and historical archival research to model the initial and cumulative impacts of the plantation industry on the island. We focus on the region surrounding Betty’s Hope, the island’s first large-scale sugarcane plantation in operation from 1674 to 1944. We find that current erosion and degradation issues experienced by today’s farmers are not attributable to intensive plantation farming alone, but rather are part of a complex mosaic of human-environmental interactions that include abandonment of engineered landscapes.

Curating the Past: Caribbean Archaeology at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

ABSTRACT Well-curated archaeological collections can be used as sources of information in developing new research programs or to complement established ongoing projects. In addition, with the pace of modern development and subsequent archaeological site destruction, museums may become increasingly important as the only repositories of an obliterated cultural patrimony. I review the papers presented here from the perspective of current issues in Caribbean archaeology.

Taíno Indian Myth and Practice: The Arrival of the Stranger King

Taı́no Indian Myth and Practice: The Arrival of the Stranger King. By William F. Keegan. Florida Museum of Natural History Ripley P. Bullen series. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. 2007. ISBN 978–0-8130–3038-8 (Hardcover US

The Archaeology of Pacific Nicaragua

39.95), 230 pp, 25 illustrations, 11 tables, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. In the foreword, series editor Jerald Milanich, notes that this “is a potstirrer of a book” and that “not everyone will agree with [Keegan], but all of us have been given more to think about.” This is a fair assessment. The book includes theoretical discussions of culture and various interpretations of it; reviews of ethnohistory, Táıno social organization and mythology; and summary archaeological site reports. I must confess that I did not understand much of the theoretical discussion with statements like “by following the orbits of circulating reference we can explode the core of hermeneutic understanding” that “we confront the realization that the concept of a hermeneutic spiral, even a hermeneutic double helix, is