Plant Cultivation on the Northwest Coast: A Reconsideration

Conventional wisdom suggests that the peoples of the Northwest Coast did not cultivate plants prior to European contact. Considerable evidence suggests the contrary, however, particularly the well-documented practice of estuarine root gardening among the Kwakwaka'wakw and other indigenous peoples of the region. These gardens were maintained through transplanting, weeding, selective harvesting, soil modifications, and the production of mounds or low terrace-like structures within individually demarcated root plots. The scholarly oversight of these practices can be attributed to a number of biases rooted in the colonial and academic agendas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In turn, scholarly legitimation of the region's “nonagricultural” label has served to undermine indigenous land claims on estuarine sites into the present day.     

Quantifying the defensiveness of defended sites on the Northwest Coast of North America

Defensive architectural features are used to evaluate the scale and pervasiveness of conflict in antiquity around the world, but in the archaeology of conflict on the Northwest Coast, the relationship between physical landscapes, built defensive features and warfare has never been tested using quantifiable measures. We argue here that the syntax of biomechanical control, reflecting the universality of the parameters of the human body, is inherent in architectural analyses of conflict, and develop an index of defense (DI) based on commonly invoked constituent measures of defensiveness. The DI is represented in a single value, derived from four individual measures (visibility, elevation, accessibility and area), each with constituent variables. We test this quantitative measure using a sample of identified defensive and non-defensive sites on the Northwest Coast of North America in order to evaluate this system of quantifying the contribution of site location and architectural features to the overall defensiveness of communities and discuss some of the implications of this measure on interpreting the role of conflict on the Northwest Coast.     

Human Ecology of Shellfish Exploitation at a Prehistoric Fishing-Farming Village on the Pacific Coast of Mexico

ABSTRACT

Shellfish remains excavated from an early agricultural village on the Pacific Coast of Mexico (Guerrero) indicate a dietary shift from locally obtained estuarine shellfish (1400–1100 BC) to a greater diversity of mollusks collected from more distant marine environments (900–500 BC). The timing of this shift suggests that it occurred as human populations increased and impacted the availability of local estuarine resources. We argue that this prompted the incorporation of a more diverse array of shellfish species harvested at greater distances or obtained via trade, possibly with the use of boats to transport shellfish and other resources back to the village.     

新疆史前考古所出角觿考

青铜时代至早期铁器时代的新疆考古材料中,命名为"觿"的器物数量极少。根据先秦文献佩觿的记载、中原考古材料和民族志材料,可以确定此类器物的角形形制和解结打结功能以及用于弓弦的挂取等。此类器物命名为"角觿"更为科学,在新疆史前考古材料中可辨识出大量的"角觿"。"角觿"在新疆史前社会适应了解结绳索等需要,为内陆欧亚畜牧业诸民族重要的文化构成。     

Hunter-gatherer tobacco smoking: earliest evidence from the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America

Chemical analysis of residue extracted from stone pipes and pipe fragments excavated at sites in the southern Pacific Northwest Coast of North America demonstrate that hunter-gatherers smoked the psychostimulant tobacco (Nicotiana sp.) by at least AD 860. Non-farming ethno-historic Native Americans throughout the west gathered and sometimes cultivated tobacco for ritual and religious purposes, but until now the antiquity of the practice on this part of the continent was unknown. Method validation includes chemical characterization of a suite of smoke plants and experimental reproduction of “smoked” pipe chemistry; results indicate biomarkers are traceable for several species commonly smoked by ethnographic native peoples, including tobacco (nicotine, cotinine), tree tobacco (anabasine), and kinnikinnick (arbutin). Developed methods—where residue is extracted directly from the stone or clay matrix of whole and fragmentary archaeological pipes—may be applied in similar studies investigating the spread and use of ritual smoke plants in the ancient Americas and elsewhere.     

研究五帝历史必须改变思路--《五帝时代研究》读后感

中国素称有五千年文明,但这五千年文明史迄今并没有落实."夏商周断代工程"也只证明夏代为信史,说明中国有四千年文明,距五千年文明尚有一千年的差距,许顺湛先生著<五帝时代研究>,就是要解决中国有五千年文明这个大问题.     

An archaeological test of the “Exchange Expansion Model” of contact era change on the Northwest Coast

Recent anthropological studies show that traditional views of indigenous communities in the wake of European colonialism are constrained by Eurocentric biases. These biases can be overcome, in part, by greater reliance on archaeological data as an independent line of evidence and increased attention to indigenous internal sociocultural processes. This study uses these strategies to examine colonial era shifts in indigenous exchange systems on the Northwest Coast of North America. Obsidian artifact data from late precontact and early postcontact deposits are used to test what I call the “Exchange Expansion Model” (EEM) of colonial period shifts in Northwest Coast exchange systems. According to the EEM, both the volume and geographic scope of supralocal exchange among indigenous communities increased as a result of European influences. This study tests the model using obsidian artifact data from three Lower Columbia River sites – Cathlapotle (45CL1), Clahclellah (45SA11), and Meier (35C05). The results support the hypothesized increase in volume, but not the hypothesized increase in geographic scope, of indigenous supralocal exchange. To explain the departure from expectations, I propose a revised version of the EEM which considers more fully how Native demography and internal sociocultural dynamics developed in the context of introduced diseases, horses, and the fur trade. I suggest these variables facilitated increases in the flow of prestige goods, but declines in the flow of less valued goods such as obsidian, from interior sources to the Lower Columbia River. Exchange alliances between Lower Columbia Chinookans and nearby Willamette Valley inhabitants were more resistant to disruption, so obsidian importation from the Willamette Valley to the Lower Columbia stabilized, and perhaps intensified, during the postcontact era. These findings illustrate the power of archaeology for empirically testing ethnohistorical models of colonialism and for illuminating the significance of indigenous internal sociocultural processes in colonial entanglements.     

Modeling ground slate knife production and implications for the study of household labor contributions to salmon fishing on the Pacific Northwest Coast

Despite longstanding anthropological concerns with the origins of intensive delayed-return subsistence economies and the timing of the development of increasingly complex political systems on the Northwest Coast, the use and production of slate knives—one of the most archaeologically visible tools used to process seasonally available salmon—has received little attention in the archaeological literature. This can be attributed, in part, to the persistence of artifact typologies that have failed to generate behavioral implications for variability in slate artifact assemblages. In this article, I use data derived from ethnographic, experimental, and actualistic research to develop an approach to the classification of slate artifacts expected of knife-production activities. Emphasis is placed on framing slate knife production as a temporally emergent and situated activity, but also as an operational sequence that can be modeled due to regularity in the decisions and motions expected of tool makers producing functionally specific tools. Using slate assemblages recovered during the partial excavation of seven Late and Contact period Coast Salish houses in southern British Columbia, I then evaluate and demonstrate the utility of this approach by considering variability in household labor contributions to salmon fishing.     

我国史前祭祀遗迹初探

史前祭祀遗迹在史前考古研究中占有相当重要的位置。本文通过对史前祭祀遗迹的综合考察,试图将常见的祭祀形式划分为4类：1．“坛”祭;2．“(土单)”祭;3．“坎”祭;4．“庙”祭。我们认为,史前先民根据不同的祭祀对象和目的,已经开始有意识地选择不同的祭祀形式,并且不同祭祀形式也反映了当时人们的原始宗教思想。     

史前社会复杂化进程的理论探索

复杂化是社会在其生存基础、社会结构、意识形态等各个方面从简单到复杂,从平等社会向等级社会过渡的一种进程.这是史前社会一种全球性的趋势,造成这一趋势最基本的动力是人口压力,它迫使群体采取强化食物生产、从事战争或贸易等直接刺激复杂化出现的措施.复杂化的实现手段是对包括经济权力、军事权力、思想意识在内的几种主要的权力的控制来...     

Prehistoric activity and environment on the North York Moors

A synoptic view and interpretation of archaeological material from the mesolithic to the end of the Iron Age is provided, and this is viewed in the context of available palaeoenvironmental information. The evidence of various settlement forms suggests that mesolithic folk occupied the region for a long period, but their environmental impact appears to have been low although not negligible. In neolithic times a probably higher population density was capable of more thorough changes of vegetation but the total permanent alteration of ecosystems is thought to be small. Evidence for settlement is entirely inferential. By contrast, the Bronze and Iron Ages were periods of considerable clearance of forest and subsequent ecological changes like the leaching of soils increased, and traces of settlement are plentiful. New data on Iron Age settlements shows a downward movement of settlement sites and some Celtic fields are noted, though they are sparse compared with other uplands in Great Britain. A number of unanswered questions are posed, mostly about the nature of the settlement pattern in mesolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age times. No complete synthesis of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data is yet possible at this scale but certain parts of the moors have a high potential for reconstructing prehistoric geography.     

吉林史前玉器试探

吉林省位于中国东北地区中部,在研究史前玉器起源和该地区的文化交流中起着重要作用。据不完全统计,在１９处遗址中共发掘出土４９件史前玉器,近几年发掘了左家山、西断梁山和腰井子三个遗址。出土玉器主要有斧、凿、镞等,通过对相关遗址的材料比较研究表明,吉林省的史前玉器可以分成三个阶段：第一阶段年代在公元前７５００年－公元前６５００年,第二和第三阶段年代在公元前５５００年－公元前４０００年。吉林和黑龙江出土的史前玉器有许多共同特征,且明显不同于辽宁西部和内蒙东南部出土的玉器。     

The Northeast Asian - Northwest American Microblade Tradition (NANAMT)

Abstract

In 1935, N. C. Nelson raised the possibility of a prehistoric trans-Beringian migration. His hypothesis was unique in that it was based upon specific artifactual evidence. New data from northern British Columbia and comparative technotypological analysis of microblade core production provide additional support for Nelson's hypothesis. It is possible to recognize a Northeast Asian-Northwest American Microblade Tradition (NANAMT) and to define several subtraditions. The distribution of NANAMT manifestations through space and time indicate the spread of the tradition from its presumed origin in southern Siberia/northern China to other parts of Asia and across Beringia to the New World.

The “spread” of the culture complex may have been brought about through diffusion, migration, or both. In evolutionary terms, it seems to be the Advanced Palaeolithic-Mesolithic northeast Asian equivalent of southwest Asia's microlithic industries.     

The Paleolithic of Dzungaria (Xinjiang,Northwest China) Based on Materials from the Luotuoshi Site

The paper reports the results of an analysis of surface collections of artifacts made at the Luotuoshi site in Dzungaria, Xinjiang, northwest China. The site was discovered in 2004 by a joint Chinese-Russian-American archaeological expedition. A techno-typological analysis of the artifacts was carried out noting aeolian abrasion of the artifacts’ surfaces. This technocomplex is quite homogenous and is characterized by a combination of Levallois-like and subprismatic blade-based reduction techniques. Analogs of the Luotuoshi assemblage have been identified within the lithic industries of the Altai, the Orkhon-1 and Tolbor-4 sites in Mongolia, and at Shuidonggou in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China, all of which have been attributed to the Early Upper Paleolithic. Luotuoshi is the first site associated with the blade-based Early Upper Paleolithic discovered in northwest China and its particular features make it possible to correlate this technocomplex with those from southern Siberia and northern Central Asia.     

(Sea)ways of Perception: an Integrated Maritime-Terrestrial Approach to Modelling Prehistoric Seafaring

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - The seaways have played a significant role in the movement of people, goods and ideologies since prehistory; yet, the ephemerality of movement combined...