Cabot Explorations in North America

Abstract

The map of Tenochtitlan published along with a Latin version of Hernán Cortés's letters (Nuremberg, 1524) was the first picture Europeans had of the Culhua‐Mexica city, the capital of the Aztec empire. The source of this woodcut map is unknown, and the author argues here that it was based on an indigenous map of the city. Once published in Europe, the city map and its companion map of the Gulf Coast, while certainly documentary, also assumed a symbolic function in supporting Cortés's (and thereby Spain's) just conquest of the Amerindian empire.     

Successful Performance in North America

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Bowling Regions of North America

The five indoor bowling games of the Anglo-American culture realm and French Canada—tenpins, fivepins, duckpins, candlepins and rubberband duckpins— all occupy specific regions. Tenpins is played everywhere except in the Canadian Maritimes. Fivepins is an exclusively Canadian game, strongest in western Canada. Candlepins is restricted to Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and parts of the Maritimes. Duckpins occupies two regions, one around Baltimore/Washington and the second in southern New England. Rubberband duckpins is the dominant game in Quebec and dying out in its region of origin around Pittsburgh. The four small-ball games developed in the late 19th and early 20th century as innovators in Worcester, Massachusetts (candlepins), Toronto (fivepins), Pittsburgh (rubberband duckpins) and an unknown location (duckpins) changed the equipment and rules of tenpins to find a less strenuous and technically more challenging game. All the games quickly won local converts and some succeeded in expanding their region of play as population moved and organizations were founded to spread the games. Today tenpins and fivepins dominate bowling in the United States and Canada, but in the East small-ball games still exist as a case of persistent regional variation within a national popular culture.     

Historical Archaeology and the Post-Columbian World of North America

Historical archaeology, with its interest in material culture and its use of the broader perspectives of anthropology and anthropological archaeology, has contributed to a distinctive understanding of the North American experience. Historical archaeologists have, to varying degrees, investigated the material traces of class, race, gender, and state formation. These studies provide an understanding of the origin of many of the social practices that undergird modern culture, a necessary, though neglected, case in a unified anthropological archaeology's goal of writing innovative world histories.     

Thermal springs and heat flow in North America

Thermal springs are commonly thought to be an indicator of geothermal resource potential. However, there have been few analyses of the relationship between thermal springs and the underlying thermal regime. An examination of temperature and discharge rates for a large database of thermal springs in North America demonstrates that there is not a simple relationship between these measurements made at the surface and subsurface heat flow. Hydrogeological factors appear to exert strong controls on the temperature and discharge at these springs and should be carefully considered in geothermal resource assessments.     

北美植物考古学评述

植物考古学在中国还是一门年轻的学问。虽然自20世纪50年代起考古学家和植物学家已开始关注考古遗址出土的植物遗存,尤其是水稻等农作物遗存,但真正开展系统的植物考古学研究还是近十几年的事情。随着浮选法的推广,中国植物考古学研究,特别是植物大遗存的研究近年来有了较大的进展"!$#。不过,与欧美植物考古学相比,我国植物考古学目前仍处在初级阶段,     

The Hohokam of Southwest North America

The Hohokam reached an apex of sociopolitical development between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in the Sonoran Desert of North America. Hallmarks of the Hohokam tradition included red-on-buff pottery, large-scale canal irrigation agriculture, and monumental buildings, including ball courts, platform mounds, towers, and Great Houses. The development and elaboration of Hohokam society from their ceramic-producing predecessors during more than two millennia (ca. 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1450, or later) is a remarkable example of an arid land adaptation in the New World. The enigmatic collapse of Hohokam society took place shortly before European colonialists entered the North American Southwest in the mid–sixteenth century. Various agents (e.g., floods, disease, warfare) of this event are poorly understood and require additional study. So, too, does the degree of historical continuity between contemporary indigenous peoples and precontact archaeological cultures (e.g., Hohokam) in what is now Arizona and northern Mexico.     

美国独立前奴隶主人口的地区分布研究

独立之前,英属北美所有殖民地都存在奴隶主.但是奴隶主人口分布呈现出显著的地区差异,北部殖民地奴隶主人口较少,蓄奴规模也较小,大奴隶主寥寥无几.而在南部殖民地,奴隶主人口较多,蓄奴规模较大,大奴隶主人数也相对较多.奴隶主人口分布的地区差异,既确定了南北地区社会结构的差异,又对未来社会发展产生了决定性影响.独立之后美国北部能够废除奴隶制,而南部继续坚持奴隶制,根本原因就与历史上形成的奴隶主人口地区差异相关联.     

The Woodland and Mississippian traditions in the prehistory of Midwestern North America

Cultural developments in Midwestern North America between 5000 and 400 B.P. are reviewed and related to two overlapping, but contrasting, cultural traditions: Woodland and Mississippian. Significant changes in prehistoric subsistence systems, settlement patterns, and sociopolitical organization are reviewed within a three-division framework, beginning with a Transitional period (5000–2000 B.P.) when Late Archaic and Early Woodland societies settled into different regions, constructed regional markers (cemeteries, mounds, earthworks), and established economic and social relations with both neighboring and more distant groups. This was followed by the Middle Woodland period (2000–1500 B.P.) that is associated with the Hopewell climax of long-distance exchange of exotic materials, mound building, and ceremonial activities, although all Middle Woodland groups did not participate in this Hopewell interaction sphere. In the Late Prehistoric period (1500–400 B.P.), the Woodland tradition persisted in some areas, while the Mississippian tradition developed from local Late Woodland societies elsewhere. Finally, the patterns of interaction between the two traditions are discussed.     

Warfare in Prehistoric and Early Historic Eastern North America

Recent criticisms of the use of historically and ethnographically recorded conflicts as models for warfare in prehistoric times force archaeologists to reexamine assumptions about the frequency, severity, and effects of intergroup fighting. In eastern North America, skeletons of victims and palisaded settlements—the only information consistently available on intergroup hostilities—indicate that the prevalence of conflicts varied greatly over time and space. Occasionally the attacks, typically ambushes of small numbers of people, cumulatively resulted in numerous casualties.Variation in palisade strength is consistent with the organizational structure and warrior mobilization potential of late prehistoric societies in different parts of the Eastern Woodlands.     

Early Domestic Dogs in North America and Their Origins

Abstract

Archaeologists have contributed much new information relating to types of domestic dogs that were present in pre-Columbian North America. Questions yet to be answered are: Where did the basal stock for these early Western Hemisphere dogs originate? What were they like morphologically? Some reported early canids, particularly those from late Pleistocene deposits, are subject to question as to their domestic role. These and related problems are discussed.     

Werra Ware in Britain,Ireland and North America

Abstract

Werra slipware is a high-quality tableware, made in the Werra valley of northern Germany during the period c. 1570–1630. The history of the study of this ware is described. Its occurrence on 175 sites in Britain and Ireland, and 13 in North America, is documented and discussed. The market for this ware was very largely coastal and urban. In some instances its use may be related to communities of Strangers. The dating, vessel forms and decoration of this ware are also considered.     

From Categories to Connections in the Archaeology of Eastern North America

Journal of Archaeological Research - A renewed adoption of relational perspectives by archaeologists working in eastern North America has created an opportunity to move beyond categorical...     

Historicizing territorial currencies: monetary space and the nation-state in North America

In the growing scholarly literature analysing the origins of the territoriality of modern states, the historical roots of territorially homogeneous and exclusive national currencies have been quite neglected. This neglect is surprising not only because these `territorial currencies' are seen as one of the central symbols of the modern nation-state, but also because it is in the monetary realm where challenges to the practice of territoriality are particularly apparent in the contemporary age. This article analyses the historical reorganization of monetary structures that produced territorial currencies focusing on the North American region. It demonstrates that this development involved a set of elaborate and extensive state initiatives which took place at different speeds after the mid-nineteenth century in Canada, the United States and Mexico. I argue that the different timing of these reforms across the three countries demonstrates well how this monetary transformation was associated closely with the broader political project of building modern nation-states on the North American continent, a process that followed a different trajectory in each country. Specifically, I show that the creation of territorial currencies was seen by state authorities to be intricately connected with the consolidation of three dimensions of nation-states in North America: their economic territoriality, the direct link created between state and domestic society, and the sense of collective identity among their inhabitants. The analysis contributes to scholarship that historicizes territoriality and the nation-state, as well as to our understanding of the nature and significance of challenges to territorial currencies in the contemporary age.     

Reinterpreting Springwells Ceramics in the Great Lakes Region of North America

The original ceramics typology developed for Younge/Western Basin Tradition Springwells phase (ca. AD 1160–1420) assemblages included three variants known as Macomb Linear, Macomb Interrupted Linear, and Springwells Net Impressed ceramics. This discussion considers how subregional variation in Springwells decorative styles reflects participation in a larger regional social network.