Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Review Of Skeletal Biology In The Great Plains: Migration, Warfare, Health, And Subsistence, Edited By Douglas W. Owsley And Richard L. Jantz. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. 415 Pages., Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

First paragraph:

The editors and contributors to this large, impressive volume present thirty-two chapters that deal with Great Plains skeletal biology. The goal of these diverse investigations was to derive critical information from human skeletal remains about past inhabitants of the Plains, including prehistoric and historic Indians, as well as Euro-Americans. These contributions are organized topically into five parts: (1) archaeology; (2) demography and paleopathology; (3) biological distance measures and skeletal morphology; (4) diet and subsistence strategies; and (5) warfare. The studies represent the collaborative efforts of archaeologists, physical anthropologists, ethnologists, ethnohistorians, and physical scientists. A major impetus for these …

Aboriginal Adaptations On The Colorado Plateau: A View From The Island-In-The-Sky, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, Alan J. Osborn, Jesslyn Brown, Galen Burgett, Linda Scott Cummings, Ralph J. Hartley, Susan Vetter, Jennifer Waters, Tony Zalucha

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This final report documents the results of archaeological inventory, excavation, and analysis of prehistoric cultural resources within a 45-kilometer (28-mile) long corridor in the Island-in-the-Sky District of Canyonlands National Park, Utah. During three field seasons of survey, mapping, and excavation in 1983-1985, the research team recorded 32 artifact scatters, plotted 90,000 prehistoric artifacts and 250 historic items, completed 600 one-square-meter test pits, and conducted 10 block excavations. Block excavations at two locations in Gray's Pasture revealed a plant processing/hunting field camp (42SA16858) and a disturbed pithouse (42SA8506). Associated features and materials included a puddled clay-lined hearth, a slab-lined pit, a …

Review Of The Origins Of Agriculture And Settled Life By Richard S. Macneish. Norman And London: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1992. 433 Pages., Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Excerpt:

Following a brief review of the "environmentalist's" (e. g., Ratzel, de Candolle, Childe, Braidwood, and Flannery) and the "materialist's" (e. g., Marx, Vavilov, D. Harris, Binford, and Cohen) accounts, MacNeish presents his "trilinear theory." It consists of "three hypothetical models and three hypotheticaI sets of causes" for the development of plant domestication and sedentism. This "trilinear theory" is a world culture history similar to the multilinear developmental frameworks proposed "by Julian Steward (The Theory of Culture Chtange: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution, 1955). MacNeish's multilinear scheme is cross-cut by three developmental stages, i. e., food collectors, transitional …

The Spatial Dimension Of Time, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeological research depends on the temporal structural of archaeological deposits. Temporal structure includes deposit age and the sequencing or the relative temporal order of one deposit to another. Another aspect is the temporal scale and resolution, or the degree of contemporaneity shared by deposits, Archaeology is also concerned with ethnographic time, that domain in which formation events occur, i.e., the temporal characteristics of activities with respect to the piece of land on which those activities occur. This chapter explores the issue of temporal resolution or deposit grain is it relates to the tempo of use witnessed by a locale.

An Isolated Storage Vessel At Site 42sa20779 In Glen Canyon National Recreation Area: Adaptive Storage And Caching Behavior In The Prehistoric Southwest, Anne M. Wolley, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This report documents the excavation and analysis of a large, isolated ceramic vessel discovered in the spring of 1988 in the Hite Marina area of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah Project #89-NA-051N. Several college students from Western State College in Colorado (Dean Brian, Matt How, Cathy Arvey, and Mike Donaldson) were hiking in the area when Dean Brian discovered the pot. Aware of the possible significance of such a find, Matt How immediately contacted Park Archaeologist Kris Kincaid and informed her of the vessel's location. Matt later returned with his family, Micky and JoNell How, when archaeologists Kincaid and …

Review Of Early Prehistoric Agriculture In The American Southwest, By W. H. Wills. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School Of American Research Press, 1988. 196 Pages., Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Last paragraph:

Wills's book provides archeologists with an innovative account of why and how past hunter-gatherers initially expanded their food-getting activities to include the cultivation of domesticated crops. His study makes use of a variety of subjects including r- and K-selection, density-dependent responses, risk minimization, the forager-collector continuum, maize phenology, Holocene environments, technological change, stylistic variation, social boundaries, and mating networks. Wills also offers new information and reassessments of the archeological record at Bat, Tularosa, Cordova, and Cienega Creek caves in the Mogollon highlands. He approaches the archeological literature for the American Southwest with healthy skepticism. And he challenges many …

The Allocation Of Parental Care Among The Ye'kwana, Raymond B. Hames

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

It is well known that human children require more care or parental investment than any other primate species (Lancaster and Lancaster 1983). While this dimension of human behavior is well documented in the psychological literature for Euroamerican populations (Babchuck et al. 1985), it has received scant, quantitative attention by anthropologists working among tribal populations (for exceptions see Whiting and Whiting 1975, Katz and Konner 1981, Hurtado et al. 1985, Hewlett, this volume (Chapter 16), Turke, this volume (Chapter 10)). The role of alloparental care (care of non-offspring children) has received even less quantitative attention by social scientists (for a review …

Introduction To Perspectives On Archaeological Resources Management In The "Great Plains", Alan J. Osborn, Robert C. Hassler

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The past two decades of archaeological investigations in the United States have been shaped significantly by cultural resource management (CRM) legislation. Although federal laws designed to protect the nation's archaeological record can be traced to the late 1800s, necessary funding was not made available for extensive work until 1974 with passage of the Moss-Bennett Bill (Judge 1982). The availability of federal monies for archaeological investigations at this time was unprecedented. Marked changes occurred in the discipline of archaeology that involved disruption of the traditional ties linking academic institutions and archaeological research throughout the country (Fowler 1982; Brose 1985).

Scientific Research Programmes: Toward A Synthesis And Evaluation Of Crm Archaeology, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeologists involved in conservation archaeology and/or cultural resource management have frequently been confronted with the dilemma described by Fowler (1982). Cultural resource management projects most generally have to be conducted within a restricted geographical area within a specified period of time. Many archaeologists have chosen to deal with the resource management dilemma in one of three ways. First, there are those that have chosen to view cultural resource management primarily as a professional service. Practitioners of "service" archaeology conduct archaeological surveys and excavations in order to determine the frequency, location, and extent of cultural remains within a specified area. Investigations …

Archaeological Conservation As Process And Product: A Federal Perspective, Ronald D. Anzalone

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Countless books and articles have either explored in some depth, or at least touched upon, the conservation of our cultural heritage. For the purposes of this volume, it would be an exercise in futility to attempt to detail current procedural requirements for historic preservation through various federal statutes and regulations. A number of sources have attacked this task in the past (e.g., Scovill, Gordon and Anderson 1977; King, Hickman, and Berg 1977). None has managed to provide completely up-to-date information on even the regulatory oscillations current that year, and there have been a myriad of changes since 1977. If there …

Knife River Indian Villages Archaeological Program: An Overview, F. A. Calabrese

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The Knife River Indian Villages are located in North Dakota near the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers, just north of the contemporary town of Stanton, North Dakota. They lie within the area between the Garrison Dam to the north and the Oahe Reservoir to the south, the last remaining unflooded segment of the Missouri River valley in the Dakotas. Within the area are river floodplains, terraces, dissected breaks and upland rolling terrain. Forests occur on the floodplain and lower terraces with a variety of native and exotic grasses found on the breaks and uplands. A number of relatively …

"Preface" To Perspectives On Archaeological Resources Management In The "Great Plains", Alan J. Osborn, Robert C. Hassler

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

When faced with compiling an edited volume addressing cultural resources management the overriding problem is to maintain some resemblance of contemporanity with the current status of the field. Major changes have occurred over the last decade within "contract", "salvage" or "conservation" archaeology, now commonly referred to as cultural resources management. Some of these changes are due to additional state, provincial and federal rules, regulations and statutes requiring consideration of cultural materials to be affected by public "undertakings" in North America. Other changes are resultant of the boom and bust cycle of public-licensed private developments. The constant state of flux in …

Distribution Archaeology: Survey, Mapping, And Analysis Of Surface Archaeological Materials In The Green River Basin, Wyoming, James I. Ebert, Signa Larralde, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeology in America today is in a quandary. This is especially true for that portion of the profession responsible for investigating and managing the surface archaeology of large tracts of land. The quandary concerns how to maximize the amount of information about the archaeology of an area given finite budgets. Predictive modeling, a technique for projecting knowledge derived from a sample to its universe, has been proposed as one response to this dilemma. We shall present another response, distributional archaeology, which is designed to collect quality information about the archaeological record and is consistent with the formation and structure of …

Ye'kwana Basketry: Its Cultural Context, Raymond B. Hames, Ilene Hames

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The aim of this article is to describe an aspect of Ye'kwana (Makiritare) technology, basketry, in its overall cultural context. We will not only describe basketry as technology per se but the role it plays in Ye'kwana symbolism, ecology, economy and social organization. Also, we will discuss its role in inter-village and inter-ethnic trade and how this role has implications for understanding socio-cultural change in the immediate area of the Padamo River Basin, Territorio Federal Amazonas, Venezuela.