PreColumbian Archaeology of North America

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Pre-Columbian Archaeology of North America

• Week 2
• History of Archaeology in North America
• Pre-Twentieth Century

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Critical concepts

• Archaeology as political
• Nationalist vs. colonialist archaeologies
• Nationalist archaeology
• Germany (Gustaf Kossinna), Mexico, China, Israel
• Colonial archaeologies
• Africa (Great Zimbabwe), the United States,
  Australia
• Key works
• Nationalism and Archaeology On the
  Constructions of Nations and the Reconstructions
  of the Remote past by Philip L. Kohl in Annual
  Review of Anthropology, Vol. 27. (1998), pp.
  223-246.
• Alternative Archaeologies Nationalist,
  Colonialist, Imperialist by Bruce G. Trigger in
  Man, New Series, Vol. 19, No. 3. (Sep., 1984),
  pp. 355-370.
• Paradigm problems for Europeans in the 16th
  century
• Biblical knowledge and absence of references to
  Indians (Noah and the Great Flood)
• Incompatibility of European preconceptions with
  reality
• Monumental architecture
• Perceived savagery and technological
  backwardness (wheel, etc.)

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Great Zimbabwe (Africa)
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Great Zimbabwe (Africa)
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Teotihuacan Pyramids of the Sun and Moonc. 100
A.D.
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Spanish Impacts

• Destruction of much of the written culture of
  Central American Indians
• Aztec and Maya Codices
• Hernando De Soto
• Entrada across the southeast
• 1539-42
• Towns with mounds still occupied
• José de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las
  Indias (1589)
• First to hypothesize about the origins of Indians
• proposed land crossing without knowledge of
  Bering Straits (only discovered in 1788)

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The Beginnings in the United States

• Thomas Jefferson
• Author of Declaration of Independence (1776),
  third president of the United States (1801-1809),
  founder of University of Virginia
• Notes on the State of Virginia (1787)
• Query XI A description of the Indians
  established in that State
• Challenged views
• First systematic excavation in North America
• Considered to be the father of American
  archaeology

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The Nineteenth Century

• Hundreds of earthen mounds found throughout
  eastern North America
• Temple Mounds
• Flat-top mounds with structures on summit
• Zoomorphic mounds
• Mounds in the shape of animals, most commonly
  reptiles (snakes) and birds
• Geometric Mounds
• Rectilinear and circular/oval forms, usually
  quite low. Function unclear

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Cahokia (Illinois)

• c. 1000 A.D.
• Complex of 10 large population centers and
  numerous farming villages
• Several hundred mounds, 45 major mounds
• Monks Mound largest

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Cahokia - Reconstruction
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Monks Mound304x220x30m base covers 6.4
havolume 63,000 cubic meters
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Great Serpent Mound (Ohio)

• 405 meters long, avg. 1 meter high

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Newark Mounds (Ohio)

• Overall length 4 km, area 10.3 sq. km
• Largest circle diameter 358 m, max. 4 m
  divergence

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Explanations for moundbuilders

• Caleb Atwater (early 1800s)
• Non-Indian, pre-Flood
• Dr. James H. McColloh Researches in North
  America (1817-1829)
• Indians could have built mounds
• Dr. Samuel George Morton Crania Americana (1839)
• Earlier, more civilized Indians (Toltecans) were
  responsible. Contemporary Indians (Barbarous)
  could not have built the mounds

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The Classificatory-Descriptive Period (1840-1914)

• Ephraim Squire and Edwin Hamilton Davis
• 1848
• Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley
• First publication of the Smithsonian Institution
• Moundbuilders of a different race
• Indians lacked sophistication to build mounds
• Samuel Haven
• 1856
• Librarian of American Antiquarian Society
• Evidence inconsistent with lost race

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New Institutions and Theories

• Smithsonian Institution
• 1846
• Peabody Museum
• Harvard University
• 1868-75
• Charles Lyell
• Principles of Geology (1840)
• Charles Darwin
• On the Origin of Species (1859)

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Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology

• Lead by John Wesley Powell
• First American to travel Colorado River,
  discoverer of Grand Canyon
• Cyrus Thomas
• 1894
• Dismantles lost moundbuilder race theory
• William Henry Holmes
• Strong background in geology
• First ceramic typologies (for eastern North
  America)

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Beginnings of Important Regional Research

• Adolf Bandelier
• 1892
• Develops chronology of Rio Grand region (Pueblo
  Cultures)
• Max Uhle
• Works with ethnologist Alfred Kroeber (University
  of California)
• 1907
• Investigates cultural change in San Francisco Bay
  Area (Emeryville shellmound - midden)

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Bandelier National MonumentTyuonyi Pueblo
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Emeryville Shellmoundsalvage operations in 1924
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The Czech Connection

• Ale Hrdlicka
• Dominant figure in physical anthropology in North
  America in first half of 20th century
• 1903 joins what is now the American Museum of
  Natural History (New York)
• Rejected early (Pleistocene) arrival of Indians
  in North America
• Earliest arrival c. 4000 BP
• Eventually 10,000 BP might be demonstrated
• Introduced demand for rigorous research methods
  impacted all branches of anthropological and
  archaeological research in North America

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Week 2 Sites (East)

• De Soto
• Monticello
• Cahokia
• Serpent
• Newark

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Week 2 Sites (West)

• Grand Canyon
• Bandelier
• Emeryville