American Antiquity最新文献

This article introduces a model that harnesses praxis as a powerful tool for critique, knowledge, and action within the realm of public archaeology. The adopted framework focuses on persistence as a middle-range methodology that bridges the material past to activist and collaborative-based projects. Recent research at Mission La Purísima Concepción in Lompoc, California, shows the effectiveness of this model and its real-world application. Visitors to California missions encounter the pervasive “Mission Myth”—a narrative that systematically overlooks and marginalizes Indigenous presence while perpetuating ideas of White hegemony and Eurocentrism. Archaeological excavations in the Native rancheria and collaboration with members of the Chumash community help resist notions of Indigenous erasure. By activating notions of persistence through public archaeology, this study contributes to dismantling entrenched terminal narratives, paving the way for a more accurate representation of the past and fostering a more inclusive archaeological practice.

Among Líĺwat people of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, an oral tradition relays how early ancestors used to ascend Qẃelqẃelústen, or Mount Meager. The account maintains that those climbers could see the ocean, which is not the case today, because the mountain is surrounded by many other high peaks, and the Strait of Georgia is several mountain ridges to the west. However, the mountain is an active and volatile volcano, which last erupted circa 2360 cal BP. It is also the site of the largest landslide in Canadian history, which occurred in 2010. Given that it had been a high, glacier-capped mountain throughout the Holocene, much like other volcanoes along the coastal range, we surmise that a climber may have reasonably been afforded a view of the ocean from its prior heights. We conducted viewshed analyses of the potential mountain height prior to its eruption and determined that one could indeed view the ocean if the mountain were at least 950 m higher than it is today. This aligns with the oral tradition, indicating that it may be over 2,400 years old, and plausibly in the range of 4,000 to 9,000 years old when the mountain may have been at such a height.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that European colonization of the Americas led to the death of nearly all North American dog mitochondrial lineages and replacement with European ones sometime between AD 1492 and the present day. Historical records indicate that colonists imported dogs from Europe to North America, where they became objects of interest and exchange as early as the seventeenth century. However, it is not clear whether the earliest archaeological dogs recovered from colonial contexts were of European, Indigenous, or mixed descent. To clarify the ancestry of dogs from the Jamestown Colony, Virginia, we sequenced ancient mitochondrial DNA from six archaeological dogs from the period 1609–1617. Our analysis shows that the Jamestown dogs have maternal lineages most closely associated with those of ancient Indigenous dogs of North America. Furthermore, these maternal lineages cluster with dogs from Late Woodland, Hopewell, and Virginia Algonquian archaeological sites. Our recovery of Indigenous dog lineages from a European colonial site suggests a complex social history of dogs at the interface of Indigenous and European populations during the early colonial period.

The Wichita and Affiliated Tribes have a long history of occupation in what is now known as Oklahoma. This includes evidence of habitations along Camp Creek and Sugar Creek near Anadarko in Caddo County. Here Wichita peoples camped, built grass houses and arbors, and held social gatherings leading up to and following the passing of the General Allotment Act in 1887. After allotment, communal camp and dance grounds were especially important focal points for community building. These places, such as the ichaskhah camp and dance ground discussed in this article, are critical to understanding the multigenerational connections between ancestral and living Wichita peoples. This history is also important to the community today. However, archaeological research of the Allotment period is exceptionally rare in this region. By using collaborative and Indigenous archaeological methodologies, this work documents the complexities of these places, challenging traditional assumptions of allotment-era cultural loss and assimilation.

From the Archaic period onward, Indigenous populations across the Eastern Woodlands cultivated a suite of crops known to archaeologists as the Eastern Agricultural Complex. However, aside from squash (Cucurbita pepo) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus), little evidence exists for the cultivation of these plants in the northeastern Algonquian homeland. Botanical analysis from the Manna site (36Pi4), located in the Upper Delaware Valley, provides evidence for the cultivation of the full suite of Eastern Agricultural Complex crops. Flotation samples analyzed from Manna provide the first evidence for possible Lenape cultivation of chenopodium (Chenopodium berlandieri), squash, sunflower, and marshelder (Iva annua) from contexts dating to AD 0–1650 (Middle and Late Woodland) at Manna. Lenape cultivation of these crops complicates the traditional view of Indigenous agricultural systems in northeastern North America and raises questions about when and how these species were introduced to the region.

This article presents a systematic literature review of publications from 2014 to 2021 using “archaeological site” and “climate change” as keywords, in addition to several terms representing forms of stakeholder engagement. Articles were thematically coded to explore trends at the intersection of climate change, archaeology, and local and Traditional stakeholders. Results show that nearly half of the selected publications did not include local and Traditional stakeholder engagement in studies related to climate adaptation planning for archaeological sites. Synthesis of the results with insights gained from other literature on decolonizing archaeology showed that potential reasons for this gap include (1) the academic publishing culture, (2) archaeology as a predominantly Western discipline, and (3) increasingly available tools for climate change adaptation planning for archaeological sites. This article calls on the academic community to consider holistic stewardship using a landscape approach and to use climate change adaptation planning to elevate local and Traditional stakeholder input and values.

In the Salish Sea region, labret adornment with lip plugs signify particular identities, and they are interpreted as emblematic of both membership in horizontal relationships and achieved status for traditional cultures associated with labret wearing on the Northwest Coast (NWC) of North America. Labrets are part of a shared symbolic language in the region, one that we argue facilitated access to beneficial horizontal relationships (e.g., Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Rorabaugh and Shantry 2017). We employ social network analysis (SNA) to examine labrets from 31 dated site components in the Salish Sea region spanning between 3500 and 1500 cal BP. Following this period, the more widely distributed practice of cranial modification as a social marker of status developed in the region. The SNA of labret data shows an elaboration and expansion of antecedent social networks prior to the practice of cranial modification. Understandings of status on the NWC work backward from direct contact with Indigenous societies. Labret wearing begins at the Middle-Late Holocene transition, setting an earlier stage for the horizontal social relationships seen in the ethnohistoric period. These findings are consistent with the practice as signifying restricted group membership based on affinal ties and achieved social status.

In 2013, 36 Ancestors of African descent were identified in an unmarked eighteenth-century burial ground during construction in Charleston, South Carolina. The site, later referred to as the Anson Street African Burial Ground, was buried beneath the growing city and forgotten in the centuries that followed. The ethical treatment of these ancestral remains was of paramount importance to our community. Historically, narratives relating to the lives of African descendant people in Charleston have been inadequately documented and shared. For these reasons, we engaged the local African American community in a multifaceted memorialization process. Together, we sought to sensitively ensure that the Ancestors’ identities and lives were fully explored according to the collective descendant community's wishes. To this end, we involved the community in researching and celebrating the Ancestors’ lives through arts and education programs and analyzed their and community members’ DNA to elucidate their ancestry. Our engagement initiatives increased access for all ages to archaeological, historical, and genetic research and encouraged active participation in the design of a permanent memorial. The Anson Street African Burial Ground Project provides a successful example of community-engaged activist archaeology focused on honoring the Ancestors and their descendants.

At the turn of the twentieth century, American logging companies backed by the US colonial regime initiated extensive extraction in Bikol, Philippines. Industrial infrastructure and the involvement of a newly assembled Bikolano workforce left a profound imprint on the region's landscape. This article discusses a collaborative archaeological project that used archival materials, place-name analysis, ethnographic interviews, discussions with local scholars, satellite mapping, and drone-mounted lidar scans of former industrial sites. Findings shed light on the enduring ramifications of American logging in the early 1900s on settlement patterns, the infrastructure of routes and mobility, the state of industries from Philippine independence in 1946 through the 1980s, and ongoing environmental hazards. These findings emphasize the legacy of American empire, reveal the role of Filipino logging workers in shaping the landscape through settlement decisions, and uncover intricate connections across a pan-Pacific American colonial frontier that was shaped by both extractive and settler colonialism. This article adds to an emerging trend in Americanist archaeology in which archaeology investigates recent historical and even contemporary events.