Private Property, Public Archaeology: Resident Communities As Stakeholders In American Archaeology

In the United States, archaeological sites on private lands have few legal protections, and are thus at risk of damage or destruction. To alleviate these risks, archaeologists must engage thoughtfully with private property owners and develop strategies to promote site stewardship. In this article, I identify the resident community – those people who live on archaeological sites, regardless of their ancestral ties to those sites- as an important stakeholder in archaeology. Based on recent fieldwork experiences on a privately owned site in the southeastern US, I discuss the unique challenges of engaging a resident community in archaeological research, and the potential of such engagement for fostering archaeological stewardship. Specifically, I use theories of place attachment derived from environmental psychology to explore how resident communities may be encouraged to empathize with and protect the archaeological records of past people

Prospecting For New Questions: Integrating Geophysics To Define Anthropological Research Objectives And Inform Excavation Strategies At Monumental Sites

Geophysical data have the potential to significantly contribute to archaeological research projects when effectively integrated with more traditional methods. Although pre-existing archaeological questions about a site may be answered using geophysical methods, beginning an investigation with an extensive geophysical survey can assist in understanding the function and archaeological potential of a site, and may even transform preconceptions about the type and spatial organisation of features that are present. In this way, these prospection tools not only accurately locate and map features to allow recovery of cultural material for identification and dating, we argue that they can go much further, allowing us to prospect for new and appropriate archaeological and anthropological research questions. Such an approach is best realised when geophysical and traditional archaeologists work together to define new objectives and strategies to address them, and by maintaining this collaboration to allow continual feedback between geophysical and archaeological data. A flexible research design is therefore essential in order to allow the methodologies to adapt to the site, the results, and the questions being posed. This methodology is demonstrated through two case studies from mound sites in southeast USA: the transitional Mississippian Washausen site in Illinois; and the Middle Woodland Garden Creek site in North Carolina. In both cases, integrating geophysical methods throughout the archaeological investigations has resulted in multiple phases of generating and addressing new research objectives. Although clearly beneficial at these two mound sites in southeast USA, this interdisciplinary approach has obvious implications well beyond these temporal and geographical areas

Book Review - Center Places And Cherokee Towns: Archaeological Perspectives On Native American Architecture And Landscape In The Southern Appalachians, by Christopher B. Rodning

Book Review of Center Places and Cherokee Towns: Archaeological Perspectives on Native American Architecture and Landscape in the Southern Appalachians, by Christopher B. Rodning. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2015. 280 pp

Book Review - Hopewell Ceremonial Landscapes Of Ohio: More Than Mounds And Geometric Earthworks, by Mark J. Lynott

Book review of Hopewell Ceremonial Landscapes of Ohio: More than Mounds and Geometric Earthworks. By: MARK J. LYNOTT. 2015. Oxbow Books, Oxford, United Kingdom. 288 pp.$34.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1782977544

History, Monumentality, And Interaction In The Appalachian Summit Middle Woodland

The Middle Woodland period in eastern North America witnessed a florescence of monumental architecture and material exchange linked to widespread networks of ritual interaction. Although these networks encompassed large geographic areas and persisted for several centuries, extant archaeological models have tended to characterize Middle Woodland interaction as an historically unitary process. Using new data from the Garden Creek site in North Carolina, I argue that these frameworks obscure important historical shifts in Middle Woodland interaction. Recent collections-based research, geophysical survey, targeted excavation, and 14C dating (including Bayesian modeling) of this site reveal two coeval diachronic changes: a shift from geometric earthwork construction to platform mound construction; and a shift from the production of special artifacts (mica, crystal quartz) to the consumption of exotic artifacts in association with platform mound ceremonialism. These data hint at important changes in interregional relationships between the Appalachian Summit, the Hopewellian Midwest, and the greater Southeast during the Middle Woodland period, and provide a springboard for considering how processes of culture contact contributed to precolumbian cultural change

Local And ‘‘Global’’ Perspectives On The Middle Woodland Southeast

During the Middle Woodland period, from 200 BC to AD 600, south-eastern societies erected monuments, interacted widely, and produced some of the most striking material culture of the pre-Columbian era, but these developments are often overshadowed by the contemporaneous florescence of Hopewell culture in Ohio. I argue that the demonstrable material links between the Middle Woodland Southeast and Midwest demand that we cease to analyze these regional archaeological records in isolation and adopt multiscalar perspectives on the social fields that emerged from and impacted local Middle Woodland societies. In synthesizing recent research on Middle Woodland settlement, monumentality, interaction, and social organization, I make explicit comparisons between the Middle Woodland Southeast and Ohio Hopewell, revealing both commonalities and contrasts. New methodological approaches in the Southeast, including geophysical survey techniques, Bayesian chronological modeling, and high-resolution provenance analyses, promise to further elucidate site-specific histories and inter-site connectivity. By implementing theoretical frameworks that simultaneously consider these local and global dimensions of Middle Woodland sociality, we may establish the southeastern Middle Woodland period as an archaeological context capable of elucidating the deep history of the Eastern Woodlands as well as long-standing issues surrounding middle-range societies

Ritualised Craft Production At The Hopewell Periphery: New Evidence From The Appalachian Summit

Ritual items made of thin mica sheet are among the most spectacular of the special objects from the Hopewell sites of the Ohio Valley. Hitherto it has generally been believed that the mica was imported in raw material form from sources in the Appalachian Summit and cut into shape in the Hopewell core. Recent excavations at Garden Creek, a ritual enclosure on the margin of the source area, throws doubt on this model through extensive evidence for mica-working at this site. The Garden Creek community may have been drawn into the Hopewell sphere through its proximity to the mica sources, and the people of Garden Creek may have carried cut mica and crystal quartz as offerings to the major Hopewell centres in the course of pilgrimage

The Future Of American Archaeology: Engage The Voting Public Or Kiss Your Research Goodbye!

Over the past several years, we have seen many attacks on publicly funded and mandated archaeology in the United States. These attacks occur at the state level, where governors and state legislatures try to defund or outright eliminate state archaeological programs and institutions. We have also seen several attacks at the federal level. Some members of Congress showcase archaeology as a waste of public tax dollars, and others propose legislation to move federally funded or permitted projects forward without consideration of impacts on archaeological resources. These attacks continue to occur, and we expect them to increase in the future. In the past, a vigilant network of historic preservation and archaeological organizations was able to thwart such attacks. The public, however, largely remains an untapped ally. As a discipline, we have not built a strong public support network. We have not demonstrated the value of archaeology to the public, beyond a scattering of educational and informational programs. In this article, we - a group of archaeologists whose work has focused on public engagement - provide a number of specific recommendations on how to build a strong public constituency for the preservation of our nation's archaeological heritage

Tumblr's Mental Health Community: The Patters of Microblogging on Trends of Depression

Social media has quickly become a dominant part of many people’s lives. In recent years, Tumblr, a popular blogging site, has gained millions of followers from diverse backgrounds, including followers, who self-identify as having mental health issues. This study examines the patterns between more negative and more positive Tumblr blogs and the likelihood that these Tumblr blogs will reblog either more negative or more positive images. The results of this study indicate that the more negative a Tumblr blog is, the more likely that the blog will reblog more negative images, and the inverse is also true. The background of this research follows the theoretical framework of Emile Durkheim and his theory of Anomie. The self-identified Tumblr mental-health community may be seeking similar inclusion in an online community such as past sub-culture groups like the “hippies” of the sixties and the “punks” of the seventies by reblogging more negative images to maintain inclusivity in the self-identified Tumblr mental-health community

The Context And Consequences Of Sexual Harassment In Southeastern Archaeology

In 2014, the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) conducted a sexual harassment survey of its membership. The survey's goal was to investigate whether sexual harassment had occurred among its members, and if so, to document the rate and demographics of harassment. Our findings include a high (66%) level of harassment, primarily among women, with an additional 13% of respondents reporting sexual assault. This article provides an overview of the survey and responses. Additionally, we analyze survey data aimed at capturing change over time in harassment and assault, correlation between field and non-field tasks and harassment and assault, and correlation between gender of supervisor and harassment and assault. We also discuss the effects of harassment and assault on careers. We conclude with suggestions for decreasing the rate of harassment and assault and urge professional archaeological organizations to document sexual harassment and assault to mitigate the effects on their members and on the discipline as a whole