Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective - Hardcover

9781607324935: Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1607324938 ISBN 13: 9781607324935

Verlag: University Press of Colorado, 2016

In Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective, contributors illustrate the virtues of various ecological, experimental, statistical, typological, technological, and cognitive/social approaches for understanding the origins, formation histories, and inferential potential of a wide range of archaeological phenomena. As archaeologists worldwide create theoretically inspired and methodologically robust narratives of the cultural past, their research pivots on the principle that determining the origins and histories of archaeological phenomena is essential in understanding their relevance for a variety of anthropological problems.

The chapters explore how the analysis of artifact, assemblage, and site distributions at different spatial and temporal scales provides new insights into how mobility strategies affect lithic assemblage composition, what causes unstable interaction patterns in complex societies, and which factors promote a sense of “place” in landscapes of abandoned structures. In addition, several chapters illustrate how new theoretical approaches and innovative methods promote reinterpretations of the regional significance of historically important archaeological sites such as Myrtos-Pyrgos (Crete, Greece), Aztalan (Wisconsin, USA), Tabun Cave (Israel), and Casas Grandes (Chihuahua, Mexico).

The studies presented in Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective challenge orthodoxy, raise research-worthy controversies, and develop strong inferences about the diverse evolutionary pathways of humankind using theoretical perspectives that consider both new information and preexisting archaeological data.

Contributors: C. Michael Barton, Brian F. Byrd, Gerald Cadogan, Philip G. Chase, Harold L. Dibble, Matthew J. Douglass, Patricia C. Fanning, Lynne Goldstein, Simon J. Holdaway, Kathryn A. Kamp, Sam Lin, Emilia Oddo, Zeljko Rezek, Julien Riel-Salvatore, Gary O. Rollefson, Jeffrey Rosenthal, Barbara J. Roth, Sissel Schroeder, Justin I. Shiner, John C. Whittaker, David R. Wilcox

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�ber die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alan P. Sullivan III is professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cincinnati. His research focuses on the development of independent archaeological theory and has been supported by the USDA Forest Service, USDI National Park Service, the Waitt/National Geographic Society, and the C. P. Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati.

Deborah Irene Olszewski is lecturer and adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is author, editor, or coeditor of eight books and her fieldwork has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Leakey Foundation, and the National Geographic Society.

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Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective

By Alan P. Sullivan III, Deborah I. Olszewski

University Press of Colorado

Acknowledgments,
CHAPTER ONE Working with Archaeological Variability in the Twenty-First Century — Thinking about Materiality, Epistemology, and Ontology ALAN P. SULLIVAN III AND DEBORAH I. OLSZEWSKI,
SECTION I. Advances in Interpreting Regional Archaeological Records,
CHAPTER TWO A Lithic Perspective on Ecological Dynamics in the Upper Pleistocene of Western Eurasia C. MICHAEL BARTON AND JULIEN RIEL-SALVATORE,
CHAPTER THREE The Significance of "Persistent Places" in Shaping Regional Settlement History: The Case of the Mimbres Mogollon BARBARA J. ROTH,
CHAPTER FOUR Reductive Technology and the Epipaleolithic of the Middle East and North Africa DEBORAH I. OLSZEWSKI,
CHAPTER FIVE Context and Complexity on the Arid Margins of Australia: Assessing Human Reponses to an Unpredictable Environment SIMON J. HOLDAWAY, JUSTIN I. SHINER, PATRICIA C. FANNING, AND MATTHEW J. DOUGLASS,
CHAPTER SIX Theoretical Implications of Artifact-Scatter Lithic Assemblage Variability for Mobility-Based Models of Technological Organization ALAN P. SULLIVAN III,
SECTION II. Venerable Sites Revisited,
CHAPTER SEVEN Timelessness and the Legacy of Archaeological Cartography SISSEL SCHROEDER AND LYNNE GOLDSTEIN,
CHAPTER EIGHT Sherd Cross-Joins, Ceramic Use-Wear, and Depositional History: Rethinking the Sociopolitical Aftermath of a Collapsed Bronze Age Cistern at Myrtos-Pyrgos, Crete EMILIA ODDO AND GERALD CADOGAN,
CHAPTER NINE Estimating the Population Size of Casas Grandes: Empirical Issues and Theoretical Consequences DAVID R. WILCOX,
CHAPTER TEN Biface Production at Tabun: Manufacture, Maintenance, and Morphological Variability GARY O. ROLLEFSON,
SECTION III. Cross-Cultural, Conceptual, and Experimental Perspectives,
CHAPTER ELEVEN Celebrating the Dead and Recrafting Social Identity: Placing Prehistoric Mortuary Practices in Broader Social Context BRIAN F. BYRD AND JEFFREY ROSENTHAL,
CHAPTER TWELVE Flint from the Ancestors: Ritualized Use of Stone Tools in the Prehistoric Southwest JOHN C. WHITTAKER AND KATHRYN A. KAMP,
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Form, Function, and Mental Templates in Paleolithic Archaeology PHILIP G. CHASE,
CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Role of Controlled Experiments in Understanding Variation in Flake Production ZELJKO REZEK, SAM LIN, AND HAROLD L. DIBBLE,
List of Contributors,
Index,

CHAPTER 1

Working with Archaeological Variability in the Twenty-First Century

Thinking about Materiality, Epistemology, and Ontology

ALAN P. SULLIVAN III AND DEBORAH I. OLSZEWSKI

One inclusive view of archaeology is that the field is concerned with providing theoretically informed narratives of the cultural past that arise from unbiased engagements with the archaeological record. To achieve this lofty objective, archaeologists routinely examine their assumptions about the interpretation of archaeological variability (e.g., Schroeder 2013), as well as ideas regarding the creation, organization, and analysis of problem-specific data (e.g., Jackson 2014). This widespread, and accelerating, practice of critical reflection promotes disciplinary renewal, which in turn enables the development of robust methods and contributes to insights about how to conduct archaeological studies of human behavior and evolution in ways that are not constrained by disciplinary privilege (Lyman 2007) or political partiality (Leone and Potter 1992).

But these are relatively recent developments (Fagan 2005) and contrast sharply with simplistic late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century conceptualizations of the emergence and interpretation of archaeological variability (Longacre 2010; Meltzer 1985). Looking back, this period of "innocence" (Clarke 1973), easily appreciated with a casual examination of Man the Tool Maker (Oakley 1949), Ancient Man in North America (Wormington 1957), World Prehistory: An Outline (Clark 1961), or The Old Stone Age (Bordes 1968), evokes a time when accounts of human prehistory were largely uncontroversial and comfortably familiar. Everyone is aware, of course, that this state of affairs was upended more than half a century ago when Lewis R. Binford (1962) observed that archaeologists conduct their investigations with an incomplete understanding of the archaeological record — its properties, sources of variability, and inferential potential. Since then, archaeologists have labored, and continue to struggle, in hope of understanding the factors that influence the formation and content diversity of the archaeological record (e.g., Barton and Riel-Salvatore 2014; Bar-Yosef et al. 2005; Jelinek 2013; Lucas 2012; March et al. 2014; Schiffer 1987; Shott 1998; Sullivan 2008; van der Veen 2007; Weiner 2010). Now largely unbound from its former conceptual constraints (Trigger 1991), archaeology today is populated by handfuls of theoretical approaches and interpretive paradigms, all intended to enlighten investigations of the world's extraordinarily diverse archaeological records (e.g., Bintliff and Pearce 2011; Hodder 2012; Preucel 2006; Rathje et al. 2013; Schiffer 2012; Wallace 2011).

In fact, hardly a week goes by without the archaeological community receiving word that a stunning new discovery has shattered what were considered settled matters in human prehistory and evolution, or that new methods now challenge archaeologists to rethink how best to study the remains of the cultural past. For instance, consider this sample of recent dispatches from the field:

• Chronostratigraphic and artifactual evidence from Kenya has pushed the origins of the archaeological record to 3.3 mya (Harmand et al. 2015).

• Geoarchaeological and paleohydrological data show a strong connection between the timing and magnitude of Mississippi River flood events and the rhythm of cultural dynamics at Cahokia (ad 600–1350), west-central Illinois, which is one the largest pre-Columbian settlements in North America (Munoz et al. 2015).

• Micromorphological analysis of sediments combined with the distributional analysis of burned flints from Tabun Cave, Israel, indicate that mid-Pleistocene hominins learned to control fire and use it habitually far earlier than previously thought (Shimelmitz et al. 2014).

• Correlation of distinctive growth patterns of wood recovered from seven Chaco Canyon Great Houses (northern New Mexico) with those of harvesting locales in distant (> 75 km) mountain ranges, revealed a previously unsuspected source, as well as a shift in the ranges that supplied construction timber for Chaco's massive ancestral Puebloan structures (ca. ad 850–1140; Guiterman et al. 2016).

These tightly controlled studies, among numerous others (see Harrison-Buck 2014), attest to the necessity of determining how the phenomena that archaeologists seek to understand arose and came to express the properties that are implicated in addressing different problems (Karkanas et al. 2015:1–2). They illustrate, as well, the significance of a key attribute of twenty-first-century archaeological inquiry — the cultural past is "constantly being recreated" (Shanks 2007:591). The consequentiality of this idea is not that archaeologists are compulsive revisionists but that the consideration of new evidence, which arises commonly from new...

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