Download or read book Late Holocene Trends in Prehistoric Waterfowl Exploitation written by Shannon Marie Goshen and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent studies of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites in the Sacramento Valley, California have illustrated substantial anthropogenic impacts to local game populations and distributions during the late Holocene. Resource intensification analyses document a decrease in foraging efficiency and suggest populations of profitable mammals and fish were increasingly depressed through the late Holocene. Yet, limited research on the impacts of harvest pressures on prehistoric bird resources exists for the region. Modeling a similar study of avifauna exploitation in the San Francisco Bay, I test the hypothesis that profitable avian taxa were depressed by prehistoric hunters in the lower Sacramento Valley through a comprehensive analysis of avifauna remains from two sites in the lower Sacramento Valley (CA-SAC-15/H and CA-SAC-29). Results are suggestive of resource depression and show avifauna assemblages dominated by waterfowl in which the most profitable taxa (geese) decline in relative abundance over the time of occupation at both sites. A comprehensive analysis of taxonomic composition and taphonomy, and a review of regional archaeofaunal records, waterfowl life histories, and micro-regional paleoclimate contexts, provide clarification on observed trends in relative abundance and supporting evidence for avian resource depression.
Download or read book The Prehistory of Texas written by Timothy K. Perttula and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first look at the prehistory of Texas by 16 professional archaeologist.
Download or read book Culture Environment and Conservation in the Appalachian South written by Benita J. Howell and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the mountainous area from northern Alabama to West Virginia, this important volume explores the historic and contemporary interrelations between culture and environment in a region that has been plagued by land misuse and damaging stereotypes of its people. Committed to taking account of humankind's place in the environment, this collection is a timely contribution to debates over land use and conservation. Debunking the nature/culture dichotomy, contributors examine how physical space is transformed into culturally constituted "place" by a variety of factors, both tangible (architecture, landmarks, artifacts) and intangible (a sense of place, long-term family habitation of land, tradition, "a way of life worth fighting for"). Archaeologists, cultural geographers, and ethnographers examine how the land was used by its earliest inhabitants and trace the effects of agricultural decline, industrial development, and tourism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Powerful case studies recount past displacement of local populations in the name of progress or conservation and track threatened communities' struggles to maintain their claims to place in the face of extralocal counterclaims that would appropriate space and resources for other purposes, such as mountaintop removal of coal or a power company's plans to export electricity from Appalachia to distant urban centers. Contributors also record successful community planning ventures that have achieved creative solutions to seemingly intransigent conflicts between demands for economic wealth and environmental health.
Download or read book Archaic Societies written by Thomas E. Emerson and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 895 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essential overview of American Indian societies during the Archaic period across central North America.
Download or read book A Companion to Ancient Agriculture written by David Hollander and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length overview of agricultural development in the ancient world A Companion to Ancient Agriculture is an authoritative overview of the history and development of agriculture in the ancient world. Focusing primarily on the Near East and Mediterranean regions, this unique text explores the cultivation of the soil and rearing of animals through centuries of human civilization—from the Neolithic beginnings of agriculture to Late Antiquity. Chapters written by the leading scholars in their fields present a multidisciplinary examination of the agricultural methods and influences that have enabled humans to survive and prosper. Consisting of thirty-one chapters, the Companion presents essays on a range of topics that include economic-political, anthropological, zooarchaeological, ethnobotanical, and archaeobotanical investigation of ancient agriculture. Chronologically-organized chapters offer in-depth discussions of agriculture in Bronze Age Egypt and Mesopotamia, Hellenistic Greece and Imperial Rome, Iran and Central Asia, and other regions. Sections on comparative agricultural history discuss agriculture in the Indian subcontinent and prehistoric China while an insightful concluding section helps readers understand ancient agriculture from a modern perspective. Fills the need for a full-length biophysical and social overview of ancient agriculture Provides clear accounts of the current state of research written by experts in their respective areas Places ancient Mediterranean agriculture in conversation with contemporary practice in Eastern and Southern Asia Includes coverage of analysis of stable isotopes in ancient agricultural cultivation Offers plentiful illustrations, references, case studies, and further reading suggestions A Companion to Ancient Agriculture is a much-needed resource for advanced students, instructors, scholars, and researchers in fields such as agricultural history, ancient economics, and in broader disciplines including classics, archaeology, and ancient history.
Download or read book Human Impacts on Ancient Marine Ecosystems written by Torben C. Rick and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-04-29 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An excellent volume with mature, sophisticated, comprehensive research by leaders in the fields of archaeology, zooarchaeology, and paleoarchaeology that will be useful to scientists of many interests.”—David Steadman, author of Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds “This volume will make a significant contribution to our understanding of ancient human impacts on marine ecosystems, which will be of interest to all researchers who are concerned about the environment. The editors and contributors are commended for their efforts on this significant research topic.”—Steven R. James, coeditor of The Archaeology of Global Change: The Impact of Humans on Their Environment
Download or read book From the Pleistocene to the Holocene written by C. Britt Bousman and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of the Pleistocene era brought dramatic environmental changes to small bands of humans living in North America: changes that affected subsistence, mobility, demography, technology, and social relations. The transition they made from Paleoindian (Pleistocene) to Archaic (Early Holocene) societies represents the first major cultural shift that took place solely in the Americas. This event—which manifested in ways and at times much more varied than often supposed—set the stage for the unique developments of behavioral complexity that distinguish later Native American prehistoric societies. Using localized studies and broad regional syntheses, the contributors to this volume demonstrate the diversity of adaptations to the dynamic and changing environmental and cultural landscapes that occurred between the Pleistocene and early portion of the Holocene. The authors' research areas range from Northern Mexico to Alaska and across the continent to the American Northeast, synthesizing the copious available evidence from well-known and recent excavations.With its methodologically and geographically diverse approach, From the Pleistocene to the Holocene: Human Organization and Cultural Transformations in Prehistoric North America provides an overview of the present state of knowledge regarding this crucial transformative period in Native North America. It offers a large-scale synthesis of human adaptation, reflects the range of ideas and concepts in current archaeological theoretical approaches, and acts as a springboard for future explanations and models of prehistoric change.
Download or read book Living on the edge interdisciplinary perspectives on coastal and marine ecosystems in human prehistory written by Manuel Will and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-06-07 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Eagle Lake Field Office written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 1052 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Epipaleolithic Subsistence Strategies in the Levant written by Guy Bar-Oz and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-08-04 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study concerns hunter-gatherer cultural and ecological succession during the Levantine Epipaleolithic. Detailed zooarchaeological and taphonomic studies provide a finer understanding of this cultural succession. Uniform patterns of food procurement and processing show cultural continuity in subsistence strategies within the period.
Download or read book Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Trend Tradition and Turmoil written by David Hurst Thomas and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late Archaic of the American Southeast is typically described as a time of population growth, innovative developments in subsistence strategies, and increased social complexity. Although it is difficult to generalize, many early Woodland communities are characterized as relatively small scale, fairly mobile foragers organized into unranked or minimally ranked lineages and clans. Early Woodland groups also seem to be more socially isolated than their late Archaic predecessors, with a decline in regional exchange networks. The papers in this volume were presented at a conference entitled "What Happened in the Late Archaic?" which was co-sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and the St. Catherines Island Foundation and held on St. Catherines Island (Georgia), May 9-11, 2008. The Third Caldwell Conference invited the participants to engage the appropriate archaeological data from the American Southeast, specifically addressing the nature of change during the late Archaic-early Woodland transition. This volume consists of a dozen substantive papers, followed by three discussant contributions.
Download or read book Catalysts to Complexity written by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. This book was released on 2002 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and an untold number of small, autonomous Native communities. These societies all survived by foraging, and ethnohistoric records show a wide range of adaptations emphasizing a host of different marine and terrestrial foods. Many groups exhibited signs of cultural complexity including sedentism, high population density, permanent social inequality, and sophisticated maritime technologies. The ethnographic era was preceded by an archaeological past that extends back to the terminal Pleistocene. Essays in this volume explore the last three and one half millennia of this long history, focusing on the archaeological signatures of emergent cultural complexity. Organized geographically, they provide an intricate mosaic of archaeological, historic, and ethnographic findings that illuminate cultural changes over time. To explain these Late Holocene cultural developments, the authors address issues ranging from culture history, paleoenvironments, settlement, subsistence, exchange, ritual, power, and division of labor, and employ both ecological and post-modern perspectives. Complex cultural expressions, most highly developed in the Santa Barbara Channel and the North Coast, are viewed alternatively as fairly recent and abrupt responses to environmental flux or the end-product of gradual progressions that began earlier in the Holocene.
Download or read book The Archeology and Bioarcheology of the Gulf Coastal Plain written by Dee Ann Story and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reading Bones written by Jan Storå and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book California Archaeology written by Michael J. Moratto and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 798 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California Archaeology provides a compilation of knowledge for archeologists who are not California specialists. This book explains important cultural events and patterns discovered archeologically. Organized into 11 chapters, this book begins with an overview of California's historic and ancient environments as well as the evidence of Pleistocene human activity. This text then examines the glacial and other environmental conditions that would have influenced the origins, adaptations, and spread of the earliest North Americans. Other chapters consider how California's past is relevant to a wider understanding of human behavior. This book discusses as well the perceptions of Central Coast and San Francisco Bay region prehistory that have changed rapidly as a result of intensive fieldwork performed to comply with environmental law. The final chapter deals with the data of historical linguistics, which indicate something of the cultural relationships and events that might have occurred in the past. This book is a valuable resource for archeologists.
Download or read book Geoecology of the Marias River Canyon Montana USA written by James G. Schmitt and published by Geological Society of America. This book was released on 2017-03-16 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Marias River canyon in north-central Montana served during late Holocene time as a locus of human activity in an ecologically and geologically dynamic landscape. This volume presents the results of interdisciplinary research, synergistically combining geologic, ecologic, and archaeologic approaches focused on examining the ways that Late Precontact peoples depended upon the animal (bison) and plant resources of a changing landscape subject to erosion and sediment transport as dominant surficial processes. Connections between erosion and deposition, plant community distribution, large mammal niches, and native peoples' place in the Marias River canyon geoecosystem, as well as the role of tributary-junction alluvial fans as repositories of archaeological materials and vertebrate faunal remains are emphasized.
