American Antiquities: Revisiting the Origins of American Archaeology

Review of: "American Antiquities: Revisiting the Origins of American Archaeology", by Terry A. Barnhart and of A"ncestral Mounds: Vitality and Volatility of Native America", by Jay Miller

George a. lidberg jr. and depression-era archaeology in tennessee

The 1930s were a time of ferment for American archaeology that expanded through its inclusion in New Deal-era federal relief programs. The passage of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Act in 1933 and establishment of a salvage archaeology program in response to proposed impoundments made the TVA a major locus of archaeological activity in the eastern United States. One of those participants was George A. Lidberg Jr., a somewhat typical Works Progress Administration (WPA) supervisor, who like many TVA archaeologists was trained in the Midwest. Lidberg\u27s career was effectively ended by World War II. This paper presents biographical information on Lidberg and reviews the sites at which he worked. Such biographies are important in that they provide insights into the unprecedented challenges that faced the men and women responsible for implementing massive-scale federal work relief salvage programs in the Southeast

A Partial Charred Wooden Bowl From Aztalan (47JE1), Wisconsin

Fragments of a charred wooden bowl were recovered from Aztalan during excavations by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (SHSW) in 1964. Recent advances in analytical methods facilitated a multidimensional study of these fragments. Radiocarbon-dated to cal AD 994–1154 and found in association with Late Woodland, Mississippian, and hybrid forms of ceramics, the bowl augments our understanding of perishable technologies in these cultural contexts. 3-D models of the fragments allow for a virtual reconstruction of a portion of the bowl, which was carved from a solid piece of ash. Strontium isotope analysis of the wood indicates that the bowl was manufactured from wood locally available to the people at Aztalan

New deal archaeology in Tennessee: Intellectual, methodological, and theoretical contributions

New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee tells the engrossing story of Southeastern archaeology in the 1930s. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act of May 1933 initiated an ambitious program of flood control and power generation by way of a chain of hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee River. The construction of these dams flooded hundreds of thousands of square miles of river bottoms, campsites, villages, and towns that had been homes to Native Americans for centuries. This triggered an urgent need to undertake extensive archaeological fieldwork throughout the region. Those studies continue to influence contemporary archaeology. The state of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley were especially well suited research targets thanks to their mild climate and long field seasons. A third benefit in the 1930s was the abundance of labor supplied by Tennesseans unemployed during the Great Depression. Within months of the passage of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, teams of archaeologists fanned out across the state and region under the farsighted direction of Smithsonian Institution curators Neil M. Judd, Frank H. H. Roberts, and Frank M. Setzler. The early months of 1934 would become the busiest period of archaeological fieldwork in US history. The twelve insightful essays in New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee document and explore this unique peak in archaeological study. Chapters highlight then-new techniques such as mound “peeling” and stratigraphic excavation adapted from the University of Chicago; the four specific New Deal sites of Watts Bar Reservoir, Mound Bottom, Pack, and Chickamauga Basin; bioarchaeology in the New Deal; and the enduring impact of the New Deal on contemporary fieldwork. The challenges of the 1930s in recruiting skilled labor, training unskilled ancillary labor, developing and improvising new field methods, and many aspects of archaeological policies, procedures, and best-practices laid much of the foundation of contemporary archaeological practice. New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee offers an invaluable record of that pivotal time for professional, student, and amateur archaeologists