Abstract:The dwellings of prehistoric Native North Americans are amongst the hardest archaeological structures to find and characterise – they leave only a shallow ring of stones. But the authors show that, when recorded to modern levels of precision, these tipi-stances contain a wealth of information. The stone rings are mapped in detail by hand, and located by GPS, their hearths are located by fluxgate survey and sampled for radiocarbon dating, and the results displayed in layered maps on GIS. Different social groups… Show more
“…For instance, in southern Montana we have documented a nearly continuous stone circle landscape interspersed with drive lines and cairns and rock architecture for several kilometers following Bighorn Canyon. Our best interpretations come from combinations of multiple-scale analyses and perspectives from Crow community members, not from viewing these sites separately (Scheiber and Finley 2010).…”
Section: Of Anomalies and Alternativesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Then, we combine archaeological and indigenous scales of knowledge in a reformulation of the temporality and spatiality of late prehistoric communal bison hunting. And, following Scheiber and Finley (2010), we illustrate how stone surface architecture, when combined with other data, can provide solid evidence of social investment on terrestrial big-game hunting and its social and political implications.…”
Studies of hunter-gatherer sociopolitical organization consistently exclude terrestrial big-game hunters-pedestrian bison hunters, in particular-from discussions of emerging complexity. To an important extent, this exclusion stems both from the ethology of bison and its consequences for mobile hunters and from the character of their archaeological record, which lacks conventional indicators of organizational complexity such as high-status burials and long-term storage facilities. However, this record exhibits stone architecture of monumental proportions. We argue that evidence of emerging sociopolitical complexity is embodied in the hunters' ability to (1) invest extensively on landscape engineering to amass communal bison wealth for consumption, storage, and exchange, and (2) produce and reproduce ritual wealth among individuals and restricted sectors of the group. Through a multiscalar research design that integrates thousands of surface stone features with data recovered from kill site excavation, ethnohistorical records, and Blackfoot traditions, we demonstrate that Late Prehistoric bison hunters of the northwestern Plains endeavored to create conditions for permanence in their hunting territory by strategically emplacing and maintaining hunting facilities. These, in turn, would be used by ensuing generations of culturally related groups for whom the communal hunt was a formal and ritually managed act. The Pikunis were rich; meat was their staff of life, and they had plenty of it. (James Willard Schultz, Blackfeet and Buffalo [1962:30]) Pedestrian bison hunters of the North American Plains have been conventionally categorized as highly mobile, egalitarian bands whose lives and annual schedules were tethered to the behavior and environment of their resource (e.g., Binford 2001:226; Oliver 1962; Wheat 1972). On the surface, it may seem a fitting portrayal of ancient terrestrial big-game hunters but does not explain the full range of variability in their trajectories and organization. Narrowly focused on behavior and technology, this categorization excludes the existence of
“…For instance, in southern Montana we have documented a nearly continuous stone circle landscape interspersed with drive lines and cairns and rock architecture for several kilometers following Bighorn Canyon. Our best interpretations come from combinations of multiple-scale analyses and perspectives from Crow community members, not from viewing these sites separately (Scheiber and Finley 2010).…”
Section: Of Anomalies and Alternativesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Then, we combine archaeological and indigenous scales of knowledge in a reformulation of the temporality and spatiality of late prehistoric communal bison hunting. And, following Scheiber and Finley (2010), we illustrate how stone surface architecture, when combined with other data, can provide solid evidence of social investment on terrestrial big-game hunting and its social and political implications.…”
Studies of hunter-gatherer sociopolitical organization consistently exclude terrestrial big-game hunters-pedestrian bison hunters, in particular-from discussions of emerging complexity. To an important extent, this exclusion stems both from the ethology of bison and its consequences for mobile hunters and from the character of their archaeological record, which lacks conventional indicators of organizational complexity such as high-status burials and long-term storage facilities. However, this record exhibits stone architecture of monumental proportions. We argue that evidence of emerging sociopolitical complexity is embodied in the hunters' ability to (1) invest extensively on landscape engineering to amass communal bison wealth for consumption, storage, and exchange, and (2) produce and reproduce ritual wealth among individuals and restricted sectors of the group. Through a multiscalar research design that integrates thousands of surface stone features with data recovered from kill site excavation, ethnohistorical records, and Blackfoot traditions, we demonstrate that Late Prehistoric bison hunters of the northwestern Plains endeavored to create conditions for permanence in their hunting territory by strategically emplacing and maintaining hunting facilities. These, in turn, would be used by ensuing generations of culturally related groups for whom the communal hunt was a formal and ritually managed act. The Pikunis were rich; meat was their staff of life, and they had plenty of it. (James Willard Schultz, Blackfeet and Buffalo [1962:30]) Pedestrian bison hunters of the North American Plains have been conventionally categorized as highly mobile, egalitarian bands whose lives and annual schedules were tethered to the behavior and environment of their resource (e.g., Binford 2001:226; Oliver 1962; Wheat 1972). On the surface, it may seem a fitting portrayal of ancient terrestrial big-game hunters but does not explain the full range of variability in their trajectories and organization. Narrowly focused on behavior and technology, this categorization excludes the existence of
“…Regardless of the nature of the cultural overlap, we see clear evidence for interaction between Native consumers and the Euro-American market economy as represented by the innovative use of household materials at the tipi site. This site contests the notion of the rapid and complete replacement of Indigenous material culture with Euro-American objects, which remains a dominant theme in the history of the American West (Scheiber & Finley 2010b; Newton 2018). Figure 8.Gift of the Waters Pageant, Thermopolis, Wyoming, 1925 (Indian-Pageant Photofile, University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center).…”
Section: Red Canyon Tipi Ringsmentioning
confidence: 52%
“…During the early to mid 1800s, highly mobile equestrian bands of Plains Shoshone actively engaged in trade with American trappers, traders, miners and, eventually, settlers (Shimkin 1986). During this time, Native people of the Plains and Rocky Mountains made strategic decisions to introduce Euro-Americanmanufactured items into their material repertoire, as witnessed by the diversity of objects at residential campsites and hunting camps (Scheiber & Finley 2010a;Scheiber 2015;Martin 2016;Newton 2018).…”
Section: Red Canyon Social Geographymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Tipi rings represent the footprints of the former homes of mobile Indigenous residents. They are common archaeological features on the Plains, spanning the human occupational history of the region (Scheiber 1993; Scheiber & Finley 2010b). Following the decimation of bison herds during the mid to late nineteenth century, Plains Indians substituted canvas for hide tipi covers.…”
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