Samuel M. Wilson

Structure and History

This chapter is an exploration of some of the problems encountered in combining archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data in synthetic studies of culture change in the contact period. Combining these sorts of data effectively is critical for understanding cultural change in the context of contact situations. It is worth exploring the kinds of problems we often encounter in combining these various data because the examination points to theoretical, disciplinary, and epistemological conflicts that can frustrate the objectives of research concerning culture change undertaken in the context of a contact situation.

Preceramic Connections between Yucatan and the Caribbean

Archaeologists have long noted similarities between the lithic artifacts of the first colonists of the Greater Antilles (ca. 3500-2000 B.C.) and those from the eastern Yucatdn Peninsula. Recent archaeological work in northern Belize has provided additional archaeological information on the characteristics and dating of the mainland assemblages. New findings by Caribbean archaeologists also have contributed to a clearer picture of the circumstances surrounding the first human migration to the Greater Antilles. A Yucatecan origin for the first Caribbean migrants is now considered probable.

Historical Dynamics in the Contact Era

The 500-year anniversary of the dramatic encounter of Old and New World peoples initiated by the Columbian voyages lends a somewhat artificial perspective to the phenomenon of “culture contact.” Although this volume and, to an extent, our individual research interests are conditioned by the quincentenary of a remarkable event, we are primarily interested in the contact period as the beginning of an extended process of mutual discovery and cultural change that continues to the present day.

‘Treasures… of black wood, brilliantly polished’: five examples of Taíno sculpture from the tenth–sixteenth century Caribbean

Five wooden sculptures from the pre-contact Caribbean, long held in museum collections, are here dated and given a context for the first time. The examples studied were made from dense Guaiacum wood, carved, polished and inlaid with shell fastened with resin. Dating the heartwood, sapwood and resins takes key examples of ‘Classic’ Taíno art back to the tenth century AD, and suggests that some objects were treasured and refurbished over centuries. The authors discuss the symbolic properties of the wood and the long-lived biographies of some iconic sculptures.

Modelling randomness in locational archaeology

Abstract Many analytical techniques in locational archaeology and spatial geography involve comparing observed distributions of point patterns with theoretically-modelled random distributions. In this paper we suggest that comparing observed data with large numbers of empirically generated random distributions offers a more accurate, robust, and intuitively obvious estimate of deviations from randomness in distributional data. Specifically, the nearest-neighbour and linear nearest-neighbour statistics are discussed, and a randomization method of generating random patterns of data is applied to both theoretical models of point pattern distributions and to archaeological data. We have found that the theoretical values associated with a random point distribution (e.g. about 1·00 for the nearest-neighbour statistic) only hold for very specific site geometries and that the randomization approach, because it makes no assumption about the shape of a region, is more widely applicable to real archaeological data. Similarly, the randomization routine we offer provides a more robust test of the statistical significance of deviations from randomness, which are not burdened by the underlying assumptions of statistical models regularly applied to this question.

Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis of Pottery from the George C. Davis (41Ce19) Site, Texas

The George C. Davis Site (41CE19) in central East Texas holds a prominent position in American archaeology. Fifty prehistoric ceramic specimens from early Caddoan contexts (A.D. 800–1200) were analyzed by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) at the Missouri University of Missouri Research Reactor Center (MURR). The chemical compositions of the Davis ceramics were compared with previously identified Caddoan ceramic compositional groups. Early Caddoan ceramics from the Davis site likely originate from local alluvial clays in the Neches River Basin. Investigating issues of ceramic production, we conclude that clays from multiple sources and/or different ceramic recipes were used to make various Caddoan pottery types.