Cultural Geography and the Upper Great Lakes Region

The Upper Great Lakes region often is interpreted as a cultural mosaic of ethnic groups identified with marginal farming, forestry and mining settlements. Despite its early history of a large, foreign-horn population, many of the region's pioneer settlers can be identified with an international source region, neither truly American nor truly Canadian, the upper St. Lawrence Valley. Forest-fringe agriculture, seasonal work for cash wages and employment in large-scale resource extraction were part of the way of life brought from the St. Lawrence district to the northern portions of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The southern limit of the so-called “Cutover” region coincides with a transition toward a preponderance of settlers from western New York, who brought traditions of wheat and dairy farming, compact settlements and democratic institutions to the upper Middle West.     

Settlement Patterns of Logging Camps in the Great Lakes Region

Logging camps in the Great Lakes States experienced enormous changes between the 1840s and the 1940s. Research discloses an almost infinite variety in logging camp arrangements through time. The various buildings oj a camp sometimes stood side by side, other times they formed an “L” or “I” shape and still others were irregularly arranged. The camp buildings displayed increasing functional specialization through time. In the earliest camps a single building might serve for cooking, eating and sleeping. The later camps typically contained separate buildings to serve each of these functions besides a granary, blacksmith shop, van (store), saw filing shed, etc. Not surprisingly, the bunkhouse and the cookhouse or kitchen were always next to each other, as were the barn or stable and the blacksmith shop. Although the camps gradually increased in size during the pine-river drive era, the largest camps were associated with the hardwood-rail era. There was, however, great variation within any period. Whether a camp was that of a large company, small independent company or jobber largely determined the number of buildings it contained. The bunkhouse, kitchen-mess hall, stables or barns were always the largest structures of a camp. There is little chance that they would be confused with the office, blacksmith shop or any of the other structures commonly associated with logging camps. Structures at jobber camps were smaller than at corporate camps. The influence of different cultural groups, the increasing size of operations, the changing technology of logging and log transportation were among the factors that influenced settlement patterns at logging camps in the Great Lakes Stales.     

Measuring Paleoindian range mobility and land-use in the Great Lakes/Northeast

Distance and direction to source data were compiled on the main toolstones employed at 83 Paleoindian sites with concave-based points (ca. 11,000–10,000 B.P.) from across the recently deglaciated Great Lake-Northeastern area of North America. These data were used in order to more rigorously evaluate several much debated ideas about annual range mobility scale and land use patterns and how they changed over time as these groups colonized and settled into the area. Movements are significantly biased to north–south axes, strongly suggesting these represent mainly seasonal moves and procurement of toolstones during regular travels rather than by specialized task groups. Means of comparing the scale of range mobility to ethnographic norms are explored and the results clearly show that these groups, especially the earliest occupants, had large annual range mobility scales and distinctive patterns of land use that are rarely seen or approached historically. They had to have been intensively targeting widely spaced but relatively abundant resources on the landscape. The only ethnographic groups who come close to such patterns historically were all caribou hunters, a perspective consistent with the idea these groups regularly exploited that resource. As long suggested, these land use patterns are probably related to the colonization of new lands in which there were little or no existing populations.     

凭湖而舞 东非大裂谷中的湖泊与动物

<正>不上升到万米高空,很难看到这条地球的"伤痕"——东非大裂谷。这条大裂谷是一座天然的储水库,集中了非洲30多个湖泊。其中,博戈尼亚湖(Lake Bogoria)、纳库鲁湖(Lake Nakuru)、埃尔门泰塔湖(Lake Elementaita)三个浅水盐湖,总面积达320.34平方千米,是大裂谷中湖泊价值的核心体现。这片区域是世界上鸟类种类非常丰富的地区之一,有13种鸟类是濒危物种。这里不仅是小火烈鸟最重要的觅食之所,也是白鹈鹕筑巢和繁殖基地,还生活着大量大型哺乳动物,如狮子、黑犀牛、长颈鹿、扭角林羚、狮子、猎豹、野狗等。基于这片区域具有为数不少的濒危物种,及对研究重大生态过程具有重要价值,2011年"肯尼亚东非大裂谷湖泊系统"被联合国教科文组织列入世界遗产名录。     

Towards a Socialised Archaeology of Ceramics in Great Lakes Africa

This paper presents results of recent research in Kenya and Uganda on ceramics from the first and early to mid second millennia ad. Whereas previous research has tended to emphasise the role of ceramics as chronological tools, or as an index of past ethno-linguistic identity, this paper will emphasise the role of ceramics as functioning tools. Combining archive and published data with new results from fieldwork, the evidence presented here demonstrates continuity of settlement in the Victoria Nyanza region between first millennium Urewe users and second millennium Transitional Urewe and Entebbe ceramics, and the emergence of specialist lacustrine communities. The changing nature of ceramics over this time span is compared with evidence from historical linguistics to suggest a shift in social authority from the family home to the wider community in the second millennium, and the growing influence of economic wealth or individual leadership.     

Iron Age ceramic studies in Great Lakes eastern Africa: a critical and historiographical review

The influence of Merrick Posnansky's work on the development of Iron Age Great Lakes ceramic studies is traced and an historiographical analysis of the published material of associated African, American, Belgian and British Iron Age Africanist archaeologists is offered. The article examines the methodologies and concepts employed by archaeologists from the 1950s to the present, as they defined the chronological, classificatory, regional and stylistic boundaries of Urewe and rouletted pottery. Particular attention is paid to the influence of American, British and Belgian worldviews on Iron Age research priorities and consequent disparities between Early Iron Age and Later Iron Age studies. Also examined are conclusions about the ethnic identities of the makers of the ceramic material and the significance of the shift from Urewe to rouletted pottery. The paper concludes with some alternative explanations about the relative scarcity of Early Iron Age ceramics and the swift but widely dispersed introduction of rouletted pottery.

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Résumé Cet article retrace l'influence du travail de Merrick Posnansky sur le développment des études sur la céramique de l'âge de fer dans la région des grands lacs et présente une analyse historiographique des documents publiés par des archéologues africains, américains, belges et britanniques spécialisés dans l'âge de fer en Afrique. Cet article examine les méthodologies et les concepts utilisés par ces archéologues, des années 50 à maintenant, pour leur définition des limites chronologiques, classificatoires, régionales et stylistiques de la céramique d'Urewe et de la céramique décorée à la roulette. Il accorde une attention spéciale à l'influence des points de vue américains, britanniques et belges sur les priorités de la recherche sur l'âge de fer et les différences qui en découlent entre les études sur le début et sur la fin de cette période. Cet article examine également des conclusions sur les identités ethniques des fabricants de céramique et la signification du passage de la poterie d'Urewe à la poterie décorée à la roulette. Il conclut en donnant de nouvelles explications possibles sur la relative pénurie du début de l'âge de fer et l'introduction rapide mais largement disséminée de la poterie décorée à la roulette.

     

Absent husbands, single wives: success, domesticity, and seminuclear families in the nineteenth-century Great Lakes world

The industrial and transportation revolutions of nineteenth-century America separated work from home (at least for the growing middle class) and intensified the development of masculine and feminine spheres devoted to success and domesticity, respectively. This development tended to reduce the husband's traditional patriarchal roles to that of provider only, while leaving the wife and mother with enhanced authority over household management and child rearing, a development with consequences for feminism. This article examines two extreme cases of separation of work from home: absent husbands, respected professional men, who left their wives alone for months or years and, while they provided financial support, surrendered all household authority to "single" wives.     

From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentation in the Wabash Valley: Constructing Identity and Houses in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society

This study asks the question, “What happens when the colonizers become the colonized?” It examines the social, cultural and political-economic transformations that took place as first the British and then the Americans wrested control of Great Lakes fur trade from the French and their Native American allies. One result was the ethnic segmentation of the fur trade labor market, which attempted to relegate Canadiens to the role of fur trade laborers. In response Canadien traders constructed homes and identities that were constitutive of both their fur trade society heritage and their political-economic position.     

Lake levels,mobility and lithic raw material selection and reduction strategies: A Great Lakes case study

Abstract

It has recently been proposed that lowered lake levels after 4250 BP broadened opportunities for mobility and interaction patterns among hunter-gatherer populations in the Saginaw drainage and in Michigan more broadly (; ). Here, data are presented on chipped stone reduction strategies as reflected in two site assemblages in Bay City, Michigan (20BY28, 20BY387) that bridge this key point in time. The earliest Late Archaic components of these sites, occupied during the higher than modern post Nipissing recession ca. 3200 BP, are typified by on-site reduction of local cherts, often utilising a bipolar reduction strategy. Subsequent uses of the area largely shifted to lower elevations. The more recent site components contain both more diverse projectile styles, many of which can be linked with Ontario types, and higher occurrences of non-local raw materials, specifically Onondaga chert apparently arriving at the site as preforms. The last use of these sites occurred during the Late Woodland, also during lower water levels approaching modern, and reflecting the highest use of Onondaga chert. We suggest that these changes resulted from shifting mobility and exchange patterns, facilitated in part by lowered post Nipissing water levels.     

Lakes in Tibet

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Colonial Encounters,European Kettles,and the Magic of Mimesis in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Indigenous Northeast and Great Lakes

Copper kettles, in high demand among indigenous communities of the Northeast/Great Lakes, became prominent items in the exchange repertoires of early Basque, French and Dutch traders. Kettles’ origin with these “Others” and its connection to a medium (copper) that had held symbolic significance for millennia led them to be used in an indigenous ‘metaphorical’ value regime influencing trade during the late sixteenth/early seventeenth century. An artisan living on the threshold of colonial encounter in Northern Michigan between 1470 and 1660 CE—having seen European goods but not having access to them—harnessed the mimetic faculty to make a small, miniature, ceramic imitation or skeuomorph of a European trade kettle. Rather than the sincerest form of flattery, I suggest this imitation was made to acquire the power of the original to fend off the colonial danger and to connect to this symbolic value regime. I suggest the “magic” of mimesis offered personal and organizational power in the indigenous Northeast/Great Lakes during early contact. This specific case speaks more broadly to how mimesis can provide a robust framework for exploring the material cultures of colonial encounter.     

Four Holy Lakes in the Tibetan-Inhabited Areas

EDITOR'SNOTE:lnthemindoftheTibetans,mountainsrepresentthemaleaspectsofnature,whileIakesrepresentthefemale.Botharecon-sideredholyandarenottobeharmedinanyway.TheTibetan-inhabitedareasaredottedwithfourmajorholylakes:LakeMapamYumco,LakeYamzhogYumco,LakeNamCo,andQinghaiLake.ManyTibetanlegendsandfolktaleinvolvethesefoursacredlakes.BoSoMofTffEMoTHffi.LegendhasitthatMilhaRibaandNaruBenqoinfoughtalongtheshoresofLakeMapamYumcoforcontroloftheKangdeseMountainRange.ItwasMilhaRibawhowonin…     

Salt Lakes In Tibet

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