Robert E. Warren

Digital enhancement and grey‐level slicing of aerial photographs: Techniques for archaeological analysis of intrasite variability

Interpretive problems often arise during the analysis of aerial photographs of archaeological sites when unwanted background variation obscures the signatures of cultural features. A three‐step app...

Historic Settlement Patterns

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the patterns of location of pioneer farmsteads with respect to two major classes of dimensions or variables: (1) environmental and (2) social. It also explores a third dimension—agricultural specialization—to determine whether the location of settlement varies directly with different kinds of specialized activity. These aspects of settlement location are at the heart of the settlement system and form the nucleus for investigations of other portions of the system. The chapter presents the background of the typical project area immigrant and describes the correlation between location of land entry and the three aforementioned dimensions. To facilitate the study of land entry decisions in relation to environmental variables, especially in terms of internal variability within the timber zone, a multiple regression was carried out in a study described in the chapter. The number of days a tract of land remained unsold was the dependent variable, and a series of environmental dimensions were used as independents. Four environmental dimensions that vary with soil series and that were significant to early 19th century pioneer agriculturists were used to create 26 environmental classes. A paradigmatic classification was used to order the soil series in terms of attributes of the environmental dimensions. The four dimensions were slope, vegetation, topography, and soil drainage.

2 – The Approach

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the approach taken by the Cannon Reservoir Human Ecology Project. It discusses the aspects of ecological theory such as territoriality, patch ecology, grain response, and species diversity in terms of their applicability to human populations. The chapter explains various environmental and cultural changes in the middle Salt River valley throughout the Holocene. If ecology is the study of interrelationships among organisms and their environment and all components of ecosystems are interrelated systemically, one must avoid placing arbitrary and potentially undesirable limits on sets of factors considered during analysis. Regional analysis is the analysis of a specific unit of geographic space in which study is focused on a specific population. In such an analysis, the interactions of the population within a delimited geographic context are investigated. The chapter discusses two aspects of regional analysis: settlement pattern analysis and community pattern analysis.

13 – Prehistoric Community Patterns: Subsurface Definition

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the structure and organization of prehistoric communities derived from excavated data. The basic tenet, an outgrowth of the model of prehistoric cultural development in the Cannon Project area, is that pre-Mississippian societies were egalitarian in nature. Based on findings to date, no archeological evidence indicating a level beyond this type of organization has been found. Therefore, it is assumed that household clusters will show complementary form and function, that is, they will not differ significantly within or between contemporaneous sites. The chapter discusses the composition of a community, presenting examples of various archeological features that together comprise a typical egalitarian residential community. It discusses the spatial configuration of a number of communities, highlighting similarities and differences among them.

Models of Adaptation and Change

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the significance of contextual factors with respect to settlement and subsistence practices of past residents of the Cannon Reservoir Human Ecology project area and discusses general theoretical expectations in more specific terms appropriate to the analysis of traces of human behavior in the Cannon Reservoir region. The chapter presents models that have been abstracted from a variety of sources including environmental studies of the Cannon Reservoir region, reconstructions of cultural development elsewhere in the Midwest, and theoretical perspectives on cultural adaptation and change. The models themselves are not necessarily explanatory. They are merely sets of hypothetical generalizations that focus on select aspects of human behavior. The formulation of the models and stages is an essential step toward understanding the cultural change in the project area and represents a significant advance over the normative pattern approach. The historic development model employs several important ecological concepts and focuses on changing locational behavior from the perspective of settlement geography. The structure of the model is adapted from Hudsons (1969) theory of rural settlement location, which explains changes in settlement configurations over time.

Chronology of the Preceramic Period

Publisher Summary The use of projectile point styles as index fossils, reflecting the cultural and temporal ordering of archeological components, has a long and proven history in archeological research. However, efforts along these lines often are limited by the lack of projectile point sequences from dated, stratified deposits. This chapter presents the results of work geared toward the creation of a stylistic sequence for the pre-ceramic period in the middle Salt River valley. The term projectile point is used in the traditional sense, referring to lithic artifacts generally displaying symmetry of form, bifacial flaking, and usually some form of hafting modification. Pigeon Roost Creek contains a discontinuous series of four major pre-ceramic occupation zones ranging in age from about 8500 to 2900 B.P. The analysis of projectile point classes in relation to stratigraphic units and radiometric determinations indicates that a number of important stylistic trends are present and implies the four major components actually contain many discrete occupations.

4 – Holocene Dynamics

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the changing physical and social contexts of the Cannon Reservoir Human Ecology project area and presents a framework for evaluating the probable effects of those changes on local populations. The paleo-environmental studies provide strong evidence that Holocene climatic change significantly affected regional environments in the Prairie Peninsula. Cool, moist episodes raised levels of effective precipitation, causing expansions of forests and increases in numbers of places capable of sustaining mesophytic species. Warm dry episodes reversed these effects. Moreover, it is possible to rank major segments of the Holocene on a gradient of effective moisture. Trends in the Cannon Project region are consistent with other places in the southern Prairie Peninsula. Detailed soil maps are available for most of the project area, including all of Shelby and Monroe counties and most of Rails County. The studies of environment and culture in the Midwest document a great deal of change during the past 10,000 years. Environmental change, which influences changes in cultural systems, is brought about mainly through climatic fluctuations, though it may be affected to some degree by the activities of man.