5 posts tagged “history”

The Archaic period has been a working concept within archaeology, and even other social sciences, for well over half a century. Long thought of as the stage between the initial peopling of the Americas (sometime in the late Pleistocene) and that of large-scale societies (a few hundred to a thousand years ago), the Archaic has long been a period of simplistic understanding and characterization. One of the most influential characterizations of this period was developed by archaeologists Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in their now classic Method and Theory in American Archaeology (Classics Southeast Archaeology). Defined “as the stage of migratory hunting and gathering cultures continuing into environmental conditions approximately those of the present” (Willey and Phillips 1958:107), it is only recently that this characterization has been challenged by new archaeological evidence. In a recent issue of the SAA Archaeological Review, Kenneth E. Sassaman introduces several papers that discuss new archaeological evidence that is shifting our understanding of the period, particularly for the Southeast of North America. Key points of these papers, as articulated by Sassaman include:

1) Although the concept of a pan-continental Archaic period in North America has fallen into disfavor, there still exists a tendancy among American archaeologists to gloss the enormous diversity of things Archaic within the broader tropes of “hunter-gatherer” and “primitive” that have shaped anthropological inquiry since the late nineteenth century.

Read the other Archaic Period archaeological southeastern key points here.

Debates and ideas about when, from where, and by what route Native American Indians peopled the Americas are often “resolved” within generalized models based on an assumption of north to south expansion processes. Likewise, these generalized models of the peopling of the Americas assume either single or multi-wave pulses of Native American Indians entering North America and migrating internally down through North America or along the Pacific Coast. Recently, however, models focused on Iberian chipped stone similarities and African or Austronesian skeletal similarities have introduced additional, “extra-Beringial,” migration scenarios to the peopling of the Americas debate. As a result, one way to address these competing models is to reconstruct the pattern and progression of population growth of the earliest viable and archaeologically visible populations in the Americas to see which models are supported.

Reconstructing the pattern and progression of the earliest viable Native American Indian populations into the Americas can be accomplished, or at least begun, by comparing the geographical distributions and progressions of archaeological sites with the earliest known accurate and precise radiometric dates. By comparing the geographical and chronological distributions of the earliest known archaeological sites, the directions from which the earliest viable Native American Indian populations came into the continents and how they expanded can begin to be understood. In Archaeological Roots of Human Diversity in the New World: A Compilation of Accurate and Precise Radiocarbon Ages from Earliest Sites, researcher Michael K. Faught has published the results of such a study.

Read more on the First Peopling of the Americas: New Archaeological Evidence Sheds Light here.

The Persian Gulf, also known as the Arabian Gulf, is an area of the globe that has a fascinating history, one that is not only culturally intertwined with the environment, but that is also physically tied to it. Unlike many other parts of the world where the resources are abundant, allowing the culture to develop in a manner free of environmental constraints, in the Persian Gulf the cultures that have developed have been directly shaped by the region’s environment. This environmental influence on the cultures and peoples of the Persian Gulf is perhaps reflected in no better way then through the traditional architecture of the region. In a stunningly comprehensive and photographically rich book, Professor Ronald Hawker has brought this long and complex intertwining of culture and environment to light.

Traditional Architecture Of Arabian Gulf: Building a Desert Tides chronicles the florescence of architecture in the Persian Gulf after the expulsion of the Portuguese in the early 1600s. Documenting the building and crafts of this era, Ronald Hawker expertly analyzes the change in Persian Gulf architecture within a larger framework of political, economic, and social information. Relying on primary sources from the period, including well over 100 photographs, this book provides an intelligent and accessible study of this region.

The Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes referred to as the Arabian Gulf by certain Arab countries or simply The Gulf, although neither of the latter two terms are commonly used in the U.S. Ronald Hawker uses the term Arabian Gulf throughout this book, but as he explains, it is not for political reasons but sentimental ones. “Many people refer to the region as the Persian Gulf, but my first introduction to it was through Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. For me, the Gulf, khaleej in either Arabic or Farsi, will always be the Arabian Gulf” (p. xix).

Read more about traditional Persian Gulf architecture and culture here.

There are two contradicting, but broadly held, views and understandings when it comes to the deep history of indigenous Native American Indian peoples in the Great Basin culture region of North America. The predominate one found in archaeology and across much of the social sciences is that today’s indigenous Native American Indians of the Great Basin (the Paiute, Shoshone, Washoe, Ute, Bannock, Kawaiisu, and Chemehuevi) have only resided in the area for a relatively short time; on the order of perhaps 1000 years. The other understanding of Great Basin human history held by the Native Americans and those scientists who look at a slightly different dataset, includes indigenous Native Americans as deeptime participants of the region.

Often argued under the rubric of Lamb’s 1958 Numic hypothesis, these two conflicting views on history have slowly been coming together. As initially argued by Dr. Jones in Respect for the Ancestors: American Indian Cultural Affiliation in the American West, and then Lithic Projectile Points and the Great Basin Region of North America, new archaeological analyses is lending continued support to an emerging understanding. This emerging understanding centers around the idea of cultural transmission: the mechanism by which technological skills, knowledge, and practices are passed from individual to individual and from group to group.

In an attempt to explain the spatial and temporal patterns observed in the archaeological record, such as why a particular artifact is found in one region but not in another region, or why an artifact type differs in shape or size between two sites, the idea of cultural transmission has slowly gained ground. As cultural transmission has been embraced in the Great Basin, the Numic hypothesis has lost what shaky evidence it had to start. In a recent paper entitled The Cultural Transmission of Great Basin Projectile-Point Technology II: An Agent-Based Computer Simulation authors Alex Mesoudi and Michael J. O’Brien lend support to the emerging understanding of Native American deeptime history in the region.

Read more about Native American Indian archaeological history in the Great Basin here.

I’ve always been fascinated by the past. Ancient civilizations, mysterious ruins, grand temples, and archaeological sites – they all provide a window into helping us understand the past. But how much do we really know? When did Native Americans really arrive in the New World and how? Did the Egyptians sail to other parts of the world and teach other civilizations how to build giant pyramids? Were the Portuguese the first to sail around the world and map it? These intriguing questions have always intrigued me, and the question of just how much we know about each one is still debated. The last question has been accepted as fact for quite some time. Or has it?

The new book by author Heather Terrell questions this commonly accepted fact with mystery, intrigue, and adventure. The Map Thiefis a thriller of a book – involving archaeological finds, mysterious maps from ancient voyages, and secret Portuguese societies, and more.

During the Ming dynasty’s reign in China, a vast naval fleet was assembled and commanded by Zheng He. His mission was to sail around the world and map it. According to legend he was successful, but upon returning to China the map was destroyed and Zheng He disappeared. Now, 400 years later an archaeologist has unearthed a mummy clutching onto a mysterious map. Word gets out and suddenly the map disappears. Who is this map thief?

Read more about The Map Thief: A Must Read Historical Fiction here.