Class notes for Exam #3 ANTY 351

Pueblo Bonito

Pueblo Bonito

Chaco Canyon, AD 1000-1150

Center with potential attached population
Artifacts of pottery, turquoise artifacts, macaw feathers
Roads - functional, ceremonial aspects

Casa Grande

Hohokam trade - shells, macaw feathers, turquoise
Maize
Craft specialization - carved marine shells

Temper

material added to clay in the formation of vessels in order to reduce rapid shrinkage and/or expansion during the firing process. Allows for a more even distribution
Ex. Sand, Fiber, Crushed Rock, crushed shell, crushed pottery (grog)

Pottery Surface Treatment

• Brushing, Burnishing, Cord or Fabric marking, Incising, Stamping

• Notching, Corrugation (wrapping)

Mimbres Bowls

“Killed” with hole through bowl to release spirit

Results of Over-population

• Not enough food - skeletal evidence of health stress

• Increased susceptibility to infectious diseases & parasites

• Violence & Increased Competition

Evidence of Violence

• Fortifications & Defensive architectural features

• Burned buildings & food storage

• Perimortem wounds

  • Parry fractures, head wounds, etc

• Points in human skeletons

• Trophy Collecting

• Human Bone artifacts

• Non-standard or casual burial

SW Evidence of Warfare

• Enclosed Pueblos

• Burned Rooms with Bodies

• Inaccessible areas with Pueblos - Mesa Top Pueblos

• Lines of Sight - Ex. Fireside & Tower House

  • Being able to see allies

• Enclosed Plaza

Community Issues

• Private/public space

• Sanitation

• Access to Resources

• Conflict Resolution

• Cooperative Labor

• Risk-sharing

• Need for centralized decision making

Watson Brake

Louisiana
Dated to 5400 BP
Earliest Mound Complex

Poverty Point

Louisiana
Grand Depth

• Variations in Artifacts

  • Drills

  • Archaeometry: Looking at the edges (of drills)

  • Iconography - Birds

Interaction Skeletal Evidence

• Harris lines - indicate where a skeleton has stopped growing

• Enamel Lines

• Anemia indicators

• High childhood mortality rate

Marginal Foods

• Freshwater clams, grass seeds, other foods with poor returns for the effort to collect or process

Early Domesticates

• Squash, sunflower

• Goosefoot - seed heads & eventually fiber

• Marshelder

• Knotweed

• Maygrass & Little Barley

• Wild Tobacco

Miamisburg, OH

Large Conical Burial Grounds in E. United States

Hopewell Craft Specialization

• Pipes

  • Beaver Effigy Pipe

  • Seip Mound Pipe

• Personal Adornment

  • Jewelry - Deer horns, earrings

    • Copper

    • Stone ear spools - gauges

    • Beaded necklaces

  • Marine Shells

  • Copper Breastplate

• Ceramics

  • Utilitarian Ceramics (Majority)

  • Ceremonial Ceramics

Complexity

• Number & Proliferation of specialized political, economic or other social roles & institutions within a given society

Adena Artifacts

Pottery
Slate Gorget
“Spider” Tablet
Wilmington Tablet
Adena Birdstones - atl-atl weights
Pipes - Tubular, Duck Effigy, Adena

Hopewell Mound Site

Ceremonial Aspects
Features of landscape, hard to spot in forests
Scioto River - settlement in the bottom lands

Hopewell Trade Networks

Mica
Bear Claw & Copies
Canine teeth - carved
Copper Birds
Ceremonial Blades
Arkansas Quartz
Yellowstone Obsidian

Yellowstone Obsidian

• Symbolic significance

• Color, knapping characteristics, etc, serve as mnemonic to remember relationships, past occurrences, heritage, it is imbued with meaning, not just function

Emergent Mississippian

AD 900-1050

Full Mississippian Culture

AD 1050-1350

Post Mississipian

AD 1350

Mississippian Subsistence

• Maize, beans, squash

  • Selected Maize for the environment

• Continuation of earlier domesticated suite of plants

  • Marshelder, goosefoot, sunflower

• Deer, other game

• Freshwater shellfish, fish

• Nuts, berries, other gathered food items

Mississippian Artifacts

Stone Hoes (Halfted)
Fish Effigy Bowl

Monks Mound

Largest Structure until relatively recently
IL
part of Cahokia

Cahokia

Grand ritual Site
Complex Mound system

Mound 72

Central Plaza of Cahokia
Projectile points - 10k, serrated

• Burial mounds

• Guess of high status individual based in grave good quantity

• Burial mica

  • Excotic material

• 20k “Falcon” beads

  • Cape, looks like shell beads

  • Individual is on tops

• 10 individuals buried as well

Mississippian Trade Exotics

• Mica from Carolinas

• Obsidian - Yellowstone

• Great Lakes Copper

• Marine shells

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

Southern Cult
Name given to a broad regional similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of Mississippian period between AD 1000 & AD 1600

Southern Cult Symbolism

• Chunkey

  • Roll stone disk then bet on who wins

  • Artifacts

    • Stones

    • Player statues - ear spool, gauging

• Birdman

  • Weeping eye

• Cross & Circle Pattern

• Spider gorget

• Long nose god