Biocultural Histories in La Florida

Biocultural Histories in La Florida
Author: Christopher Stojanowski
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2005-12-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0817352678

Examines the effects of the Spanish mission system on population structure and genetic variability in indigenous communities in northern Florida and southern Georgia during the 16th and 17th centuries This book examines the effects of the Spanish mission system on population structure and genetic variability in indigenous communities living in northern Florida and southern Georgia during the 16th and 17th centuries. Data on tooth size were collected from 26 archaeological samples representing three time periods: Late Precontact (~1200-1500), Early Mission (~1600-1650), and Late Mission (~1650-1700) and were subjected to a series of statistical tests evaluating genetic variability. Predicted changes in phenotypic population variability are related to models of group interaction, population demo-graphy, and genetic admixture as suggested by ethnohistoric and archaeological data. Results suggest considerable differences in diachronic responses to the mission environment for each cultural province. The Apalachee demonstrate a marked increase in variability while the Guale demonstrate a decline in variability. Demographic models of population collapse are therefore inconsistent with predicted changes based on population geneticsl, and the determinants of population structure seem largely local in nature. This book highlights the specificity with which indigenous communities responded to European contact and the resulting transformations in their social worlds.

The Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Small Scale Economies

The Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Small Scale Economies
Author: Victor D. Thompson
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2019-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813063914

Most research into humans' impact on the environment has focused on large-scale societies; a corollary assumption has been that small scale economies are sustainable and in harmony with nature. The contributors to this volume challenge this notion, revealing how such communities shaped their environment—and not always in a positive way. Offering case studies from around the world—from Brazil to Japan, Denmark to the Rocky Mountains—the chapters empirically demonstrate the substantial transformations of the surrounding landscape made by hunter-gatherer and limited horticultural societies. Summarizing previous research as well as presenting new data, this book shows that the environmental impact and legacy of societies are not always proportional their size. Understanding that our species leaves a footprint wherever it has been leads to both a better understanding of our prehistoric past and to deeper implications for our future relationship to the world around us.

The Biocultural Consequences of Contact in Mexico

The Biocultural Consequences of Contact in Mexico
Author: Heather J. H. Edgar
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2023-04-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1683403649

Examining the long-lasting effects of European colonization on Mexican populations The Biocultural Consequences of Contact in Mexico explores how Mexican populations have been shaped both culturally and biologically by the arrival of Spanish conquistadors and the years following the defeat of the Aztec empire in 1521. Contributors to this volume draw on a diverse set of methods from archaeology, bioarchaeology, genetics, and history to examine the response to European colonization, providing evidence for the resilience of the Mexican people in the face of tumultuous change. Essays focus on Central Mexico, Yucatan, and Oaxaca, providing a cross-regional perspective, and they highlight Mexican scholars’ work and viewpoints. They examine the effects of the castas system—which the colonizers used to organize society according to parentage and the social construction of race—on individuals’ and groups’ access to power, social mobility, health, and mate choice. Contributors illuminate the poorly understood extent that this system—and the national identity of mestizaje that replaced it—caused inequality and the structural violence of stress and health disparities, as well as genetic admixture. Five hundred years after the Spanish first clashed with Aztec forces and began to influence modern Mexico, this volume adds to discussions of colonialism, the reconstruction of biosocial relationships, and the work of decolonization. Students and scholars in anthropology and history will gain insights into how human populations transform and adapt in the wake of major historical events that result in migration, demographic change, and social upheaval. Contributors: Josefina Bautista Martínez | Alfredo Coppa | Andrea Cucina | Heather J. H. Edgar | Blanca Z. González-Sobrino | María Teresa Jaén Esquivel | Haagen D. Klaus | Michaela Lucci | Abigail Meza-Peñaloza | Emily Moes | Corey S. Ragsdale | Katelyn M. Rusk | Robert C. Schwaller | Julie K. Wesp | Cathy Willermet A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen

Bioarchaeology

Bioarchaeology
Author: Debra L. Martin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2013-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1461463785

Bioarchaeology is the analysis of human remains within an interpretative framework that includes contextual information. This comprehensive and much-needed manual provides both a starting point and a reference for archaeologists, bioarchaeologists and others working in this integrative field. The authors cover a range of bioarchaeological methods and theory including: Ethical issues involved in dealing with human remains Theoretical approaches in bioarchaeology Techniques in taphonomy and bone analysis Lab and forensic techniques for skeletal analysis Best practices for excavation techniques Special applications in bioarchaeology With case studies from bioarchaeological research, the authors integrate theoretical and methodological discussion with a wide range of field studies from different geographic areas, time periods, and data types, to demonstrate the full scope of this important field of study.

The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture

The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture
Author: Jeb J. Card
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 495
Release: 2013-10-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0809333163

In recent years, archaeologists have used the terms hybrid and hybridity with increasing frequency to describe and interpret forms of material culture. Hybridity is a way of viewing culture and human action that addresses the issue of power differentials between peoples and cultures. This approach suggests that cultures are not discrete pure entities but rather are continuously transforming and recombining. The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture discusses this concept and its relationship to archaeological classification and the emergence of new ethnic group identities. This collection of essays provides readers with theoretical and concrete tools for investigating objects and architecture with discernible multiple influences. The twenty-one essays are organized into four parts: ceramic change in colonial Latin America and the Caribbean; ethnicity and material culture in pre-Hispanic and colonial Latin America; culture contact and transformation in technological style; and materiality and identity. The media examined include ceramics, stone and glass implements, textiles, bone, architecture, and mortuary and bioarchaeological artifacts from North, South, and Central America, Hawai‘i, the Caribbean, Europe, and Mesopotamia. Case studies include Bronze Age Britain, Iron Age and Roman Europe, Uruk-era Turkey, African diasporic communities in the Caribbean, pre-Spanish and Pueblo revolt era Southwest, Spanish colonial impacts in the American Southeast, Central America, and the Andes, ethnographic Amazonia, historic-era New England and the Plains, the Classic Maya, nineteenth-century Hawai‘i, and Upper Paleolithic Europe. The volume is carefully detailed with more than forty maps and figures and over twenty tables. The work presented in The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture comes from researchers whose questions and investigations recognized the role of multiple influences on the people and material they study. Case studies include experiments in bone working in middle Missouri; images and social relationships in prehistoric and Roman Europe; technological and material hybridity in colonial Peruvian textiles; ceramic change in colonial Latin America and the Caribbean; and flaked glass tools from the leprosarium at Kalawao, Moloka‘i. The essays provide examples and approaches that may serve as a guide for other researchers dealing with similar issues.

Long 'on' the Tooth

Long 'on' the Tooth
Author: Christopher W. Schmidt
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2020-11-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0128243074

Long 'on' the Tooth: Dental Evidence of Diet addresses human dental macroscopic and microscopic wear, as well as dental disease, as indicators of diet. The book focuses primarily on 350 pre-contact humans from North America dating from approximately 5,500 to 600 years ago. These populations had subsistence strategies ranging from terrestrial foraging to intensive maize agriculture. The study makes intra- and intergroup comparisons to elucidate dietary nuances that are largely beyond the reach of other means of dietary reconstruction. Finally, the book discusses the importance of using multiple dietary indicators in unison in order to provide paleodietary insights. - Includes state-of-the-art dental microwear texture data - Focuses on populations largely overlooked in archaeological and dental anthropology volumes - Offers the first dental anthropology book to integrate dental pathology and dental microwear texture analysis

Indigenous Landscapes and Spanish Missions

Indigenous Landscapes and Spanish Missions
Author: Lee Panich
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2014-04-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816530513

Indigenous Landscapes and Spanish Missions offers a holistic view on the consequences of mission enterprises and how native peoples actively incorporated Spanish colonialism into their own landscapes. An innovative reorientation spanning the northern limits of Spanish colonialism, this volume brings together a variety of archaeologists focused on placing indigenous agency in the foreground of mission interpretation.

Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles

Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles
Author: David H. Dye
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2021-07-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793650608

In Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles, archaeologists analyze evidence of the religious beliefs and ritual practices of Mississippian people through the lens of indigenous ontologies and material culture. Employing archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric evidence, the contributors explore the recent emphasis on iconography as an important component for interpreting eastern North America’s ancient past. The research in this volume emphasizes the animistic nature of animals and objects, erasing the false divide between people and other-than-human beings. Drawing on an array of empirical approaches, the contributors demonstrate the importance of understanding beliefs and ritual and the significance of investigating how people in the past practiced religion and ritual by crafting, circulating, using, and ultimately decommissioning material items and spaces, including ceramic effigies, rock art, sacred bundles, shell gorgets, stone figurines, and symbolic weaponry.

The Global History of Paleopathology

The Global History of Paleopathology
Author: Jane E. Buikstra
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 817
Release: 2012-06-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195389808

The first comprehensive global history of the discipline of paleopathology

Bioarchaeology

Bioarchaeology
Author: Clark Spencer Larsen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 657
Release: 2015-03-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1316239586

Now including numerous full colour figures, this updated and revised edition of Larsen's classic text provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of bioarchaeology. Reflecting the enormous advances made in the field over the past twenty years, the author examines how this discipline has matured and evolved in fundamental ways. Jargon free and richly illustrated, the text is accompanied by copious case studies and references to underscore the central role that human remains play in the interpretation of life events and conditions of past and modern cultures. From the origins and spread of infectious disease to the consequences of decisions made by humans with regard to the kinds of foods produced, and their nutritional, health and behavioral outcomes. With local, regional, and global perspectives, this up-to-date text provides a solid foundation for all those working in the field.