Reevaluating What We Know About the Histories of Maize in Northeastern North America: A Review of Current Evidence

Hart, John P.; Lovis, William A.

doi:10.1007/s10814-012-9062-9

Cited by 64 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 91 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Wyckoff (1981) noted that most of the individuals interred at Sand Point had dental caries or abscesses, which suggests the presence of carbohydrates, possibly from maize as well as other resources, in the diet. Wild rice and maize may also complement one another nutritionally in a manner similar to that of maize and beans (Hart and Lovis 2013) and the two plants were found in concurrent use north of Lake Superior (Boyd et al 2014), in central New York (Hart et al 2007), and in the Saginaw drainage in lower Michigan (Raviele 2010).…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Woodland Pottery Function, Cooking, and Diet in the Upper Great Lakes of North America

Kooiman

2016

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A multidimensional approach to functional analysis was employed to examine pottery use, cooking, and subsistence in pre-European North American contexts. A variety of analytic techniques were applied to ceramic assemblages from two sites on the south shore of Lake Superior: the Middle Woodland Naomikong Point site and the Late Woodland Sand Point site. The analyses of both technical attributes and use-alteration traces suggest that a majority of pottery vessels from these sites were used for cooking throughout the Woodland period. Lipid residue analysis corroborates traditional subsistence information but specifies which foods were cooked in pottery vessels. Vessel size varies according to context rather than by time or by function, with larger vessels associated with ritual areas and smaller vessels originating from domestic spheres, a trend potentially related to feasting behavior. Interior carbonization patterns change in frequency between the Middle and Late Woodland periods, suggesting a shift in cooking and possibly subsistence practices.keywords ceramics, pottery function, cooking practices, great lakes A recent trend in ceramic analysis has been the increased use of proxy observations to understand archaeological vessel functions (Braun 1983;Blitz 1993;Kobayashi 1994;Skibo and Blinman 1999;Arthur 2002Arthur , 2003Skibo et al. 2009). This approach stands in contrast to the more traditional analyses that have largely focused on the social and spatiotemporal implications of stylistic attributes (i.e., Wheat et al. 1958;McPherron 1967;Janzen 1968;Sabloff and Smith 1969;Brose 1970;Dorothy 1978Dorothy , 1980. Functional analyses can be used to infer culinary practices and the role of pottery in everyday life, both in relation to subsistence and nonculinary functions, as well as its use in special contexts, thereby expanding the midcontinental journal of archaeology, Vol. 41 No. 3, Fall, 2016, 207- breadth of information that can be gleaned from ceramic assemblages. Building on this premise, a multidimensional analytic approach was developed and used to investigate the diet and cooking practices of inhabitants of and the function of pottery vessels from two Woodland sites on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Physical characteristics, the presence and locations of use-alteration traces, depositional contexts, lipid residue analysis, and ethnographic sources were all examined or employed to reconstruct ancient pottery use in the Upper Great Lakes region (Kooiman 2012).This study explores the functions of Upper Great Lakes pottery through assemblages from two coastal sites on the south shore of Lake Superior: the Naomikong Point (20CH2) site and the Sand Point (20BG14) site. Both are multicomponent sites, but analysis focused on pottery from the Laurel Middle Woodland component of Naomikong Point (Janzen 1968) and the Late Woodland component of Sand Point (Dorothy 1978(Dorothy , 1980). Skibo's (2013) model of pottery function analysis entails the evaluation of both technical properties and use-alteration traces to infer...

show abstract

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Woodland Pottery Function, Cooking, and Diet in the Upper Great Lakes of North America

Kooiman

2016

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To begin with, (uncharred) organic matter preserves poorly in the acidic soils of the coniferous boreal zone. On a more general level, it may be noted that pollen, phytoliths, starch residues and macrofossils can give mutually very different pictures of early crop cultivation, and macrofossils do not usually provide the earliest evidence of cultivation (Hart and Lovis ). Since the very possibility of cultivation in eastern Fennoscandia as early as the sixth–fourth millennium BC has not been considered seriously until recently, evidence for it has not been looked for either, and the research in this field is therefore in its infancy.…”

Section: Altering Land: Forest Clearance and Early Cultivation In Thementioning

confidence: 99%

A northern Neolithic? Clay work, cultivation and cultural transformations in the boreal zone of north‐eastern Europe, c.5300–3000 bc

Herva

Mökkönen

Nordqvist

2017

Oxford J Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary The adoption of pottery in eastern Fennoscandia in the later sixth millennium BC has traditionally been understood in straightforward technological and practical terms, and as a development that did not mark other significant changes in local culture or ways of life. Recent research in the region, combined with new ideas about Neolithization in Eurasia more generally, nonetheless suggests that the adoption of pottery was associated with more fundamental cultural and environmental transformations than has previously been thought. This article brings together diverse old and new data from north‐eastern Europe and discusses the character and dynamics of cultural and human‐induced environmental change following the adoption of pottery. The aim is to provide a scenario of long‐term cultural changes and, in particular, to consider the significance and broader implications of the very practices of clay use and cultivation, as well as their links to wider cultural and environmental phenomena.

show abstract

“…There are a number of articles from 2013 that reevaluate this model. For example, John Hart and William Lovis () suggest that in native North America maize cultivation was not a catalyst for settled life. They present evidence from the northeast that maize was grown by “mobile farmers” and that it was cultivated in this region prior to settled village life.…”

Section: Economy and Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Archaeology in 2013: The Search for Truth(s)

Harrison‐Buck

2014

American Anthropologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2013, we see a clear continuation of certain themes noted in previous reviews, including economy, mobility, human-environment interactions, social complexity, identity, and power. There is a greater emphasis on comparative approaches but also a general move away from reductionist, macrosystemic models in anthropological archaeology, with studies emphasizing diversity, multiple pathways or trajectories, and variability in local responses.The fallout of the so-called "postmodernist turn" continues to prompt lively debate, with methodological rigor being emphasized as well as the critical cross-examination of our Western modes of inquiry, with some scholars considering the possibility of multiple truths in their theoretical interpretations of the past. [anthropological archaeology, science, modernist-postmodernist divide, methodological and theoretical diversity, trends, year in review]RESUMEN En el 2013, vemos una clara continuación de ciertos temas destacados en previas revisiones, incluyendo economía, movilidad, interacciones humano-ambientales, complejidad social, identidad, y poder. Hay un mayorénfasis en aproximaciones comparativas, pero también un distanciamiento general de modelos reduccionistas, macrosistémicos en arqueología antropológica, con estudios enfatizando diversidad, múltiples caminos y trayectorias, y variabilidad en respuestas locales. Las consecuencias negativas del así llamado "giro postmodernista" continúan provocando un animado debate, enfatizando el rigor metodológico, así como la interrogación crítica de nuestros modos occidentales de investigación, con algunos investigadores considerando la posibilidad de múltiples verdades en sus interpretaciones teóricas del pasado. [arqueología antropológica, ciencia, división modernista-postmodernista, diversidad metodológica y teórica, tendencias, año en revisión]

show abstract

Reevaluating What We Know About the Histories of Maize in Northeastern North America: A Review of Current Evidence

Cited by 64 publications

References 91 publications

Woodland Pottery Function, Cooking, and Diet in the Upper Great Lakes of North America

Woodland Pottery Function, Cooking, and Diet in the Upper Great Lakes of North America

A northern Neolithic? Clay work, cultivation and cultural transformations in the boreal zone of north‐eastern Europe, c.5300–3000 bc

Anthropological Archaeology in 2013: The Search for Truth(s)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About