Palaeoethnobotany of Princess Point, Lower Great Lakes Region, Southern Ontario, Canada


Book Description

This work explores the interrelationship between humans and plants within the Princess Point culture. Princess Point is the archaeological cultural context in which a shift from an economy based on foraging to one that incorporated horticulture occurred in what is now southern Ontario. The earliest dates for evidence of corn horticulture in Ontario are from the Princess Point period (ca. 1570 to 970 B.P.). The basis of this study of the Princess Point is to explore the origins of agriculture, together with plant use generally in southern Ontario, and to gain a better understanding of a time when people were changing their subsistence pattern from one based on wild plant resources during the Middle Woodland to one that incorporated crops. Contents: Chapter One: Introduction; Chapter Two: Princess Point; Chapter Three: Plant Evidence: Sampling and Methods; Chapter Four: Identification and Quantification of Plant Remains; Chapter Five: Princess Point Plant Use; Chapter Six: Discussion and Conclusions.




HISTORIES OF MAIZE


Book Description

Histories of Maize is the most comprehensive reference source on the botanical, genetic, archaeological, and anthropological aspects of ancient maize published to date.







Archaeology of the Iroquois


Book Description

This timely volume offers a compilation of twenty-four articles covering a wide spectrum of topics in Iroquoian archaeology. Culled from leading publications, the pieces collectively represent the current state of knowledge and research in the field. A comprehensive research bibliography with more than 500 entries will be a key resource for specialists and non-specialists alike. Both text and bibliography are structured in five sections: Origins; Precolumbian Dynamics; Postcolumbian Dynamics; Material Culture Studies; and Contemporary Iroquois Perspectives, Repatriation, and Collaborative Archaeology. Along with seminal essays by major figures in regional archaeology, the book includes responses by Haudenosaunee writers to the political context of contemporary archaeological work. This collection will prove indispensable to scholars in all areas of Iroquois studies, students and teachers of Iroquoian archaeology, and professional and avocational archaeologists in the United States and Canada.




Calvert Site


Book Description

Located in the Thames River valley of southwestern Ontario, the Calvert site encompasses a variety of structures including houses, palisade walls, pits, hearths, and artifacts. This inquiry reveals an orderly evolution in its occupation history and sheds new light on the earliest period of ancient Iroquoian history.




Archaeology of Bruce Trigger


Book Description

Bruce Trigger has merged the history of archaeology with new perspectives on how to understand the past. He is a critical analyst and architect of social evolutionary theory, an Egyptologist, and an authority on aboriginal cultures in north-eastern North America. His contextualization of archaeology within broader society has encouraged appreciation of the power of archaeological knowledge and he has been an effective voice for non-oppositional forms of argument in archaeological theory. In The Archaeology of Bruce Trigger, leading scholars discuss their own approaches to the interpretation of archaeological data in relation to Trigger's fundamental intellectual contributions Contributors include Michael Bisson (McGill), Stephen Chrisomalis (Toronto), Jerimy J. Cunningham (Calgary), Brian Fagan (Lindbrior Corporation), Clare Fawcett (St. Francis Xavier), Junko Habu (California at Berkeley), Ian Hodder (Stanford), Jane Kelley (Calgary), Martha Latta (Toronto), Robert MacDonald (Archaeological Services Inc.), Randall McGuire (Binghamton), Lynn Meskell (Columbia), Toby Morantz (McGill), Robert Pearce (London Museum of Archaeology), David Smith (Toronto), Peter Timmins (Timmins Martelle Heritage Consultants), Silvia Tomásková (North Carolina), Bruce G. Trigger (McGill), Alexander von Gernet (Toronto), Gary Warrick (Wilfrid Laurier), Ronald F. Williamson (Archaeological Services Inc.), Alison Wylie (Washington), and Eldon Yellowhorn (Simon Frasier)




Current Northeast Paleoethnobotany II


Book Description

"In northeastern North America our understandings of prehistoric human-plant relationships, the subject of paleoethnobotany, continue to change as more samples are taken, examined, and compared to extant records. The results of these analyses are no longer relegated to the appendices of archaeological site reports, but constitute important contributions to our understandings of Native American lifeways in the Northeast, on their own and in combination with other lines of evidence. This volume presents current work in this vital field of inquiry. Its chapters reflect how paloethnobotany in the Northeast is changing to include the analysis not only of macrobotanical, but also microbotanical, remains and new theoretical developments in our understandings of prehistoric human-plant relationships. Collectively, the chapters in this book provide a sense of the breadth of paleoethnobotanical research being carried out in the Northeast and serve as a benchmark by which progress in the field can be measured in the decades to come."--Publisher's description.




Current Paleoethnobotany


Book Description

A full discussion of the major stages and problems of paleoethnobotanical research, from designing and testing equipment to quantification and interpretation. Combining case studies and theoretical discussions, the volume explores a wide range of issues relevant to collecting, analyzing, and interpreting plant remains to provide accurate information about past human societies. Contributors offer data on specific regions as well as more general background information on the basic techniques of paleoethnobotany for the nonspecialist. Cloth ed. ($24.95) not seen. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Histories of Maize in Mesoamerica


Book Description

This volume reprints 20 chapters from the editors’ comprehensive Histories of Maize (2006) that are relevant to Mesoamerican specialists and students. New findings and interpretations from the past three years have been included. Histories of Maize is the most comprehensive reference source on the botanical, genetic, archaeological, and anthropological aspects of ancient maize published. Included in this abridged volume are new introductory and concluding chapters and updated material on isotopic research. State of the art research on maize chronology, molecular biology, and stable carbon isotope research on ancient human diets have provided additional lines of evidence on the changing role of maize through time and space and its spread throughout the Americas. The multidisciplinary evidence from the social and biological sciences presented in this volume have generated a much more complex picture of the economic, political, and religious significance of maize.




The Mantle Site


Book Description

This is the first detailed analysis of a completely excavated northern Iroquoian community, a sixteenth-century ancestral Wendat village on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The site resulted from the coalescence of multiple small villages into one well-planned and well-integrated community. Jennifer Birch and Ronald F. Williamson frame the development of this community in the context of a historical sequence of site relocations. The social processes that led to its formation, the political and economic lives of its inhabitants, and their relationships to other populations in northeastern North America are explored using multiple scales of analysis. This book is key for those interested in the history and archaeology of eastern North America, the social, political, and economic organization of Iroquoian societies, the archaeology of communities, and processes of settlement aggregation.