The Nature of American
Archaeology
Culture History
History of American Archaeology
 Important elements in the pattern of
development of archaeology on this continent
included:
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the location of the founding European settlements
in the east;
regional environmental characteristics;
the visibility, "allure," and accessibility of the
archaeological record in each culture area;
the quicker pace of development toward the east
until the 20th century.
There were six main periods in the history of North
American archaeology:
 Period I: Incidental Discovery and Speculation: 1492
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1840
Period II: Systematic Survey and Testing: 1840-1914
Period III: Syntheses, Taxonomies, and
Chronologies: 1914-1940
Period IV: The Classificatory-Historical Period:
Context and Function 1940-1960
Period V: Processual: 1960-Period VI: Post-Processual: 1990--
Period I: Incidental Discovery and
Speculation: 1492-1840
 American archaeology developed as a result of
dealing with Native American cultures and the ruins,
mounds, and artifacts in the New World.
 Ethnological, historical, and anthropological theory
developed that dealt with the human activities and
experiences of the native people.
 Throughout the history of American archaeology
beliefs about Native American cultures have
changed.
Arm-Chair Archaeology
 During this first period, professional archaeologists
were rare.
 So-called armchair explorers began to deal native
people in South America, Mesoamerica, and North
America. The first question they tried to answer was,
'Who are the Indians?'
 The armchair scholars tried to find out where Native
Americans originated.
Moundbuilder Debate
 After finding many burial mounds and ruins in Ohio, the
mound builder debate became their main concern: Who
built the mounds?
 Some said the Native Americans were savages, and they
were not capable of building mounds.
Theories
 Benjamin Smith Barton argued that Danes built them, moved into
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Mexico and later became the Toltecs.
Governor De WittClinton said Scandinavian Vikings built mounds in
western New York State.
Caleb Atwater suggested that built the mounds before they migrated
into the New World, eventually ending up in Mexico. He also thought
that Native Americans migrated into the New World after the original
mound builders moved out from this region.
James H. McClloh viewed the Native Americans as descendents of
the mound builders. They were the same race and the Native
Americans were capable of building the mounds. However, this idea
was unpopular during this period because of the cultural
evolutionary theory among the European scholars.
This cultural evolutionary theory, along with a lack of professional
archaeologists and difficulty in excavating the mounds made it difficult
for archaeologists to do little more than speculate.
Thomas Jefferson
President from: 3/4/1801 - 3/3/1809
 Notes on the State of Virginia, the only book Jefferson authored,
gives a good account of his interest in Native Americans.
 Monticello’s Entrance Hall was known as the Indian Hall because of
the many artifacts on display.
 Jefferson excavated an Indian burial mound near Charlottesville and
also conducted an in-depth study of Indian languages.
 Was key in determining that modern Native Americans were the
descendents of the Moundbuilders.
Period II: Systematic Survey and
Testing: 1840-1914
 In this period, several institutions, such universities, museums, and
the government, began to support archaeological activities.
 Archaeologists became more professional.
 Most of scholars began to accept the idea that the ancestors of the
Native Americans built the mounds, and different tribal groups had
built different mounds.
 Many professional archaeologists began to excavate at several
regions; the southwest region; the eastern regions, Georgia,
Tennessee, Kentucky, Maine, Cahokia in Illinois, Ohio-Fort Ancient,
Hopewell, the northeast, Quebec, Montreal with Iroquois villages,
and Alaska.
Archaeological methods
 Archaeological methods, such as scientific
surveying, mapping, digging, cross-section
drawing, careful plotting, and recording of
findings were also developed.
 Artifacts such as stone were classified, and
archaeologists began to notice cultural
variety.
 However, although they noticed the
environmental differences associated with
cultural development, they still believed in
uniform cultural stages.
Sponsored Research
 The roots of empirical archaeology began in natural history surveys
sponsored by national institutions, especially the Smithsonian, the
American Museum of Natural History, and Harvard University's
Peabody Museum.
 Ephraim Squire and Edwin Davis (1848, published Ancient
Monuments of the Mississippi Valley),
 Clarence Moore, John Wesley Powell, Frederick Ward Putnam, and
Cyrus Thomas studied sites in the Eastern United States.
 Adolph Bandelier and John Wesley Powell in the Southwest.
Ephraim Squire
C. B. Moore
C. B. Moore
C.B. Moore and his steamship
the Gopher.
http://bama.ua.edu/~alaarch/prehistoricalabama/
First American Archaeologists
C.B. Moore
Cyrus Thomas
Also in Period II
 Professionalization of the discipline began; there was a
need felt to record rapidly vanishing information; and so
there was the organization of local naturalist, historical,
and scientific societies.
 Some advances occurred regarding:
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integration of archaeology,
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Ethnology & linguistics,
physical anthropology
concern for careful description;
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advancements in field methods and reporting techniques;
increased recognition of the great antiquity of the American
Indian;
growing concern for the preservation of sites and artifacts.
Period III: Syntheses, Taxonomies,
and Chronologies: 1914-1940
 From this period, chronology became the main
concern in archaeology.
 The theory of Franz Boas, cultural diffusion,
influenced archaeological studies.
 Previous typology and developed into
stratigraphic and seriational procedures that
dealt with pottery type, artifact sequences and
distribution.
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N.C. Nelson excavated in the southwest region and
studied the Rio Grande Pueblos. He classified pottery
depending upon the coloration, and noted the
occurrences and absences of pottery type. However,
he didn't note frequency and percentage.
Seriation
 Seriation was key in dealing with cultural change through
time.
 Instead of using evolutionary seriation with simple to
complex cultural development, similarity seriation was
used in this period and other tools were classified by the
similarity.
 James A. Ford studied Hopewellian, Woodland, and
Mississippian pottery.
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He found cultural variation in the way the pottery made, such as
the use of paste, temper, decoration, and features through time.
 H.S. Gladwin studied in southern Arizona
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noted that the pottery style was a key indicator of cultural change
and the potshards were clues to spatial-temporal cultural
variation.
 Ford and G.R. Willey worked on the mounds of
preceramic and nonfarming cultures in the upper middleeastern region.
Dendrochronology
 In this period dating techniques were also
beginning to be used.
 Alfred Kidder classified Pueblo groups in
terms of the cultural diffusion among them
and A.E. Douglass, the astronomer calculated
age of the cultural periods through
dendrochronology.
 Chronological study in this period showed
historical relationships among cultures that
possessed similar pottery styles or designs.
IV. The Classificatory-Historical Period:
Context and Function 1940-1960
 In this period, archaeologists began to deal
with Native cultures in terms of three
concepts:
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artifacts as behavior, pattern,
the environment, and
the context and function of each of these
concepts in the culture.
 Other disciplines, such as geology, botany
and biology, chemistry, and mathematics
began to be more involved in the
archaeological field during this period.
The Classificatory-Historical Period:
 Artifacts were to be understood as the material
relics of social and cultural behavior.
 However, some scholars disagreed with this
concept.
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Paul Martin stated that a culture couldn't be
considered as physical objects, nor generalized
by the similar styles or types of the objects.
Irving Rouse also argued that a culture couldn't
be inherent in the artifacts. Culture is a
relationship between the object and the people
who made used it.
Walter W. Taylor noted that historiography was
necessary in archaeological research, and used
artifacts to reconstruct the cultural context.
C-14 Dating
 Radiocarbon Dating, Libby (1949)
 Carbon 14- one peaceful by-product of
accelerated wartime research into atomic
physics and radioactivity in the 1940s.
 The rate of decay of 14C, which has a half-life
of 5730 (±40) years, is long enough to allow
samples of carbon as old as 45,000 years.
 Samples containing 300 milligrams to 4 grams
final carbon
 AMS- Accelerator Mass Spectrometry,
measures on the atomic level so can go to
70,000 years.
Period IV: Importance of Environment
 In this period, archaeologists began to realize the
environmental aspects that affected cultural
development.
 Research of R.Wedel’s Great Plains, Emil W.
Haury’s Ventana Cave, Arizona, and E.W.Gifford’s
California shellmounds showed the relationships
between the native cultures and the environment.
 Julian H.Steward developed environmentalevolutionary theory, known as cultural ecology or
multilinear evolution. The natural world determines
the cultural development and technological
adaptations.
Period V: Processual Archaeology:
1960 – 1990s
 There were two major trajectories: Processual
archaeology and Cultural Resource
Management (CRM)
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Processual archaeology (the New Archaeology)
was developed by Lewis Binford and others in the
1960s; with the motto "archaeology as
anthropology";
The new focus was on the transformation of
archaeological data into cultural data, the
organization of past cultural systems and their
transformations through time, and the external
stimuli that triggered these changes.
 They had a behavioral or “processual” approach.
Cultural Resource Management
 Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
dominates North American archaeology at
present, the result of national laws, such as
the National Historic Preservation Act of
1966;
 Its goal is to manage and conserve America's
archaeological heritage.
 http://www.shovelbums.org/
Lower Verde Archaeological
Project
 Lower Verde Archaeological Project (LVAP) was
conducted as part of the Safety of Dams Program
associated with the Central Arizona Project
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Archaeological investigations at 26 presumed small habitation,
agricultural, and resource-procurement sites in the Horseshoe
Reservoir and Bartlett Lake areas in the lower Verde River valley.
Previous research inventoried cultural resources in areas to be
inundated when proposed dams along the Verde River were built.
A project conducted by Statistical Research, Inc. (SRI) would be
the first large-scale excavation effort in the region.
It allowed the researchers to study “relationships among the
cultures of the lower Verde valley, other regions of central
Arizona, and the Phoenix Basin; distinguishing Yavapai and
Apache peoples in the archaeological record; and investigating
agricultural methods, productivity, and carrying capacity”.
http://www.sricrm.com/projects/lvap.html
Lower Verde Arch Project: Excavations
at Scorpion Village
http://www.sricrm.com/projects/lvap.html
The Tennessee Valley Authority
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The TVA has been
improving the quality of life
in the Tennessee Valley
through its threefold
mission of providing
affordable and reliable
power, promoting
sustainable economic
development, and acting
as a steward of the
Valley's natural resources.
http://www.tva.gov/
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
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Normandy Lake
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Bear Creek Watershed
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Archaeological Investigations in the Little Bear Creek Reservoir, by C. B. Oakley and E. M. Futato
(1975).
Archaeological Investigations in the Cedar Creek and Upper Bear Creek Reservoirs, by E. M. Futato.
An Above-Pool Survey of Cultural Resources Within the Little Bear Creek Reservoir Area, Franklin County,
Ala., by Charles H. McNutt and Guy G. Weaver (1985).
Historical Archaeological Investigations in Cedar Creek Reservoir, Franklin County, Ala., by Beverly E.
Bastian.
Bellefonte Nuclear Plant
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Third Report of the Normandy Archaeological Project, edited by M.C.R. McCollough and C. H. Faulkner
(1976).
Sixth Report of the Normandy Archaeological Project, edited by M.C.R. McCollough and C. H. Faulkner
(1978).
Seventh Report of the Normandy Archaeological Project, edited by C. H. Faulkner and M.C.R.
McCollough
(1982).
Eighth Report of the Normandy Archaeological Project, by C. H. Faulkner and M.C.R.
McCollough
(1982).
A Survey of Traditional Architecture and Related Material Folk Culture Patterns in the Normandy Reservoir,
by N. F. Riedl, D. B. Ball, and A. P. Cavender (1976).
The Bellefonte Site lJA300, by E. M. Futato (1977).
Watts Bar
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Excavations at 40RH6, Watts Bar Area, by F. A. Calabrese (1976).
Excavations of the Leuty and McDonald Site Mounds in the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Area, by G. F. Schroedl
(1978).
Archaeological Research at 40RE107, 40 RE108, and 40RE124, by G. F. Schroedl (1990 ).
http://www.tva.gov/
Ethnographic, Environmental &
Experimental analogy
 Ethnographic analogy is becoming more
important to archaeological research, such as
trying to understand larger patterns of human
behavior and activities from archaeological
findings.
Ethnoarchaeology
 Agta Foragers
http://www.picturesofrecord.com/Agta%20Foragers016.htm
Environmental Archaeology
 Environmental archaeology is the study of past
human interactions with the natural world-a world that
encompasses plants, animals, and landscape.
 Environmental archaeology researchers attempt to
reconstruct not only the ancient environments
associated with archaeological sites, but also the use
of those environments by people, the impact people
had on the world around them, and the way ancient
peoples perceived their surroundings and the plants
and animals on which they relied.
 Environmental archaeology is traditionally divided
into three subfields, including zooarchaeology (the
study of animal remains), archaeobotany (the study
of plant remains) and geoarchaeology (the study of
the abiotic landscape).
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/envarch/whatisenvarch.htm
Zooarchaeology
Fish Skeleton
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/envarch/im
ages_EAI.htm
Clam-Incremental Growth
Structures
Pineland archeaological site,
Charlotte Harbor, FL
Paleoethnobotany
http://web.arizona.edu/~scarp/analyses/paleobot/
Geoarchaeology
Rodent
Burrow
Soil Profile, Fl
Microscopic sand grains
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/envarch/images_EAK.htm
Experimental Archaeology
 Experimental archaeology can be divided into
several categories
 Replication of recovered artifacts or known
activities
 Testing methodologies/hypotheses.
 Contextual studies/change in sites over time.
 Ethnoarchaeology/studying modern culture to
investigate arch phenomena.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/archaeology/experimental_archaeology.html
Replication of Artifacts
 Stone Tools
 Bone Tools
 Pottery, metals, etc.
Stone Tools
A ground stone axe was
replicated and then used
for chopping down trees
Francois Bordes
http://www.hf.uio.no/iakh/forskning/sarc/iakh/lithic/EXPARCH/chop.html#anchor304394
Butchering Studies
 Using reconstructed stone
tools.
 Observing durability of
tools, cut marks, time,
choices.
http://www.pastperfect.info/archaeology/experimental.html
Period VI: Post-processualism
 From the middle of the modern period, archaeologists
began to be concerned more about human behavior and
the study of Native American cultures.
 Archaeology is not merely a science of material culture,
but concerns of human beings and their cultural
behavior in the past.
 This trend is called Postprocessualism.
 Hodder:
 Culture is interactive
 Culture change must include women, ethnic
minorities, illiterate
 Archaeologists bring cultural biases to work, act as
mediators of the past.
 Can one study “the archaeology of the mind” with
material remains?
Processual vs. Post-Processual
 A dilemma between Processualism and
Postprocessualism still remains in today’s
American archaeology.
 However, a combination of the scientific
approach, ethnological research, and the
concept of cultural anthropology helps today’s
American archaeologists to find the route of
migration from Asia, and the subsistence,
technology, and behavior of Paleo-Indian.
Other trends:
 Massive growth in the numbers of professional
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archaeologists;
Increased use of statistics and computers;
Introduction of large-scale probability-based surveys;
Refinement of excavation procedures (e.g., use of
flotation, bulldozers)
De-emphasis on mound excavations; and
Growing interest in the archaeology of the historical
period, both Indian and Euro-American. Class Status,
Mortuary, Environment