A Dictionary of Archaeology

the Southwest, consisting of Arizona, most of New Mexico, southern Utah and southern Colorado, has received most archaeological attention and is the area usually meant by the term American Southwest in discussions of prehistory.

Desert precipitation and temperature regimes, differential distribution and seasonal availability of surface water, and extremes of elevation all set severe constraints on prehistoric human adaptation. Three broad adaptations are recognized: (1) hunting and gathering augmented by gardening according to local, mountain conditions, (2) rainfall and runoff agriculture on the Colorado Plateau and

(3) irrigation farming along desert rivers. PALEOINDIAN big-game hunters and gatherers

of the CLOVIS culture (c.9,500–9000 BC) had shifted to small-game hunting and gathering by the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Archaic period (c.9000 BC–AD 1), while big-game bison hunting continued on the Plains beyond the eastern border of the Southwest. The appearance of maize between 1200 and 500 BC led to the development of ANASAZI (AD 1–1540) and SINAGUA (AD 700–1450) villages based on rainfall and runoff agriculture on the Colorado Plateau and to the establishment of long-term HOHOKAM communities (AD 200–1450) dependent on irrigation farming of Sonoran Desert river valleys and basins. The mountain-adapted MOGOLLON (AD 200–1400) pursued a semi-sedentary hunter-gath- erer way of life augmented by gardening. The poorly known ( 800–1450) practised

Map 9 America, 3: Southwestern North Major sites in the region with individual entries in the Dictionary.

AMERICA 45

floodwater farming along the lower Colorado River and hunter-gatherer in the surrounding desert.

Prehistoric cultures become less distinct in the 1400s prior to the close of prehistory with the Spanish expedition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1540. Historic PUEBLO peoples of the northern Southwest are descendants of the Anasazi, and probably also the Mogollon, although the assignment of specific languages to prehistoric regional groups is complicated and uncertain. The relationship between the Hohokam and the river Pima and desert Tohono O’odham (Papago) remains unclear, while most scholars accept that Colorado River Yumans are descendants of the Patayan.

L.S. Cordell: Prehistory of the Southwest (New York, 1984); J.J. Reid and D.E. Doyel, eds: Emil W. Haury’s prehistory of the American Southwest (Tucson, 1986); L.S. Cordell and G.J. Gumerman, eds: Dynamics of Southwest prehistory (Washington, D.C., 1989).

JJR

4 Eastern North America

Many different cultures over the past 12,000 or more years occupied the part of North America that stretches from the high, rugged western mountains eastwards to the Atlantic Ocean. During that long period Native American populations increased, and in most places gradually shifted from mobile hunting-and-gathering to settled agricultural ways of life. While villagers late in prehistory grew crops such as maize, beans, squash, and several native cultigens, they never completely gave up collecting

plants, fishing, and hunting game, especially -tailed deer.

Tributaries of the Mississippi River drain much this region. Several major rivers flow eastwards joining the Mississippi River, the mightiest the Missouri. The largest of the eastern tribuis the Ohio River with headwaters in the

Appalachian mountains. Numerous shorter rivers directly into the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic or Hudson Bay drain the rest of this region, the Great Lakes. This vast region is arid towards the west and colder to the Vegetation patterns vary accordingly. In the of the Mississippi River, typically west of it, eastern forests are replaced by grasslands, -grass and then short-grass prairies as the

becomes drier. Continental climatic conditions some extent ameliorated near the Atlantic and Great Lakes. Modern vegetation patterns

were established several millennia after humans first appeared in this region. Climate changes since that time continued to exert strong influences on

46 AMERICA

the ways people lived. They include a warmer and dryer interval c.6500–3000 BC, the Hypsithermal, and a four-century-long colder period starting about AD 1400, the Little Ice Age.

The earliest people, called PALEOINDIANS, were hunters who possessed the distinctive lanceolate, fluted projectiles of the FLUTED POINT TRADITION. Those west of the Mississippi River hunted big game, particularly bison, for at least part of their diet. To the east, which is where the majority of fluted points have been found, they pursued more generalized hunting and gathering. A highly mobile way of life is indicated by short-term occupation sites and numerous projectile points fashioned from stones derived from distant sources. Roughly contemporaneous points have different

geographical distributions, all covering vast areas. By c.8000 BC fluted points were replaced by other

kinds of points, the sizes and shapes of which varied greatly over time and space (it should be noted that dates for archaeological units in Eastern North America vary from one region to another; the ones used here pertain most closely to the mid-western and southeastern parts of the Eastern Woodlands). From c. 8000 BC onwards, regional traditions defined by various kinds of artefacts tended to get smaller as populations increased, people focused on more restricted areas, and ways of life became more sedentary.

Archaic hunting and gathering ways of life varied according to the opportunities and constraints of different environmental settings. Early Archaic

(c.8000–6000 BC) groups moved frequently, and their sites were correspondingly ephemeral with few features such as hearths and shallow pits. By the Middle Archaic (c.6000–3000 BC), some groups were living for much of the year in particularly favourable resource-rich spots. Thick middens heavily laden with cultural debris developed along the banks of some midcontinental rivers and shallow lakes. The onset of the Hypsithermal, marked by an eastward expansion of grasslands through the Midwest, caused some populations to aggregate alongside wetlands. In what is now Kentucky and Tennessee, people often settled where mussels were plentiful. These sites, which gradually developed into great piles of shell, continued to be used into the Late Archaic (c.3000–1000 BC). Shell heaps dating to this time also developed near ocean shorelines, particularly along the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts, through the repeated use of especially favourable places.

Archaic diets varied according to the resources locally available. In the midcontinent in particular, people increasingly came to rely on several native plants that yield great numbers of starchy and oily seeds. These weedy species grow well in disturbed habitats, and they would have thrived in the nutrient enriched soils of human encampments. By the 2nd millennium BC, several of these plants displayed morphological features indicating that they had been domesticated. Changes in life were accompanied by alterations in artefact assemblages. Ground-stone tools such as grooved axes, plummets (net weights), and spearthrower weights (bannerstones) were common by the Middle Archaic. During the Late Archaic, vessels were being carved from steatite that outcrops in the Appalachian mountains. Pottery first appeared by c.2500 BC at sites along the south Atlantic coast.

Some interregional exchange of non-local raw materials and items such as decorated bone pins took place during the Middle Archaic. Such interactions consisted of down-the-line reciprocal exchanges, and they increased in Late Archaic times. The POVERTY POINT mound group in northeastern Louisiana and related sites, dated to c.1000 BC, were unusually well supplied with non-local raw materials that were fashioned into objects used for utilitarian and other purposes.

By c.500 BC, pottery had become common across much of this broad geographical region. Archaeologists often use pottery as the principal defining characteristic of variously dated Early WOODLAND cultures. People at this time were living increasingly sedentary ways of life. In many parts of the Eastern Woodlands they placed greater

AMERICA 47

emphasis on growing plants. Burials in mounds referred to as ADENA (c.500 BC–AD 1) in the middle Ohio River valley indicate that important people in local communities enjoyed greater access to exotic goods, including mica and copper bracelets, than most members of their societies.

Native cultigens were an important component of Middle Woodland diets (c.150 BC–AD 500). These people tended to live in small villages or dispersed communities, although in some places deep middens developed from repeated occupations of particularly attractive spots. People who had achieved high status in their local communities were buried in mounds. They were interred with finely crafted artefacts including pottery and objects made of nonlocal materials such as copper, marine shell, mica, and obsidian. Many of the largest Middle Woodland mounds and the most impressive earthworks consisting of circular and square embankments were built in the middle Ohio River valley, particularly in southern Ohio. The mounds and artefacts, known collectively as HOPEWELL after a site in Ohio, were associated with many, but not all, societies of this period. They were distributed across much of the Eastern Woodlands, as well as up the Missouri River into the eastern Plains.

The subsequent Late Woodland period, beginning c.AD 500, was a time of more limited interregional exchange, greater regionalism in cultural complexes, and population growth. Late in the 1st millennium AD the bow-and-arrow spread throughout this broad geographical region, and intergroup conflicts increased. At this time many, but not all, groups placed more reliance on maize, which soon became a critical staple of diets.

The Late Woodland period is said to extend to the time of contact with Europeans in the Great Lakes, Northeast, and mid-Atlantic regions, and localized archaeological complexes are given names such as Monongahela and Iroquois. Regional traditions distributed across the Plains into the Midwest after c.AD 1000 are referred to by other names, such as Plains Village, Middle Missouri, Oneota, and FORT ANCIENT. These tribally organized, sedentary villagers lived along the major rivers of the Plains and in the resource-rich parts of the northern Eastern Woodlands. Villages were often enclosed by defensive palisades after c.AD 1000. Inter-group conflicts intensified several centuries later, sometimes with devastating effects on individual villages, such as a 14th-century massacre at Crow Creek on the Missouri River. Throughout the late prehistoric period, small constellations of villages linked by unstable alliances jockeyed

48 AMERICA

for advantageous positions, which often entailed movement from one place to another. These people relied on mixed subsistence strategies based in large part on maize, although there was considerable regional variability. In the western part of this area bison hunting was an important part of the annual cycle. Wild rice was collected by people in the Great Lakes area. Fish, typically caught with nets, varied in importance depending on their availability.

In the southern Midwest and Southeast, Late Woodland is followed at c.1000 by the MISSISSIPPIAN period. These societies, as well as contemporaneous Caddoan groups west of the Mississippi, included the most populous and organizationally complex sociopolitical systems to exist in this broad region during pre-Columbian times. These agricultural peoples tended to live in chiefdoms consisting of one or more principal settlements surrounded by closely affiliated small communities. The most important settlements were often marked by flat-topped earthen mounds that supported buildings used by high-ranking people. The largest of these sites was CAHOKIA in southwestern Illinois. Individuals of high status inherited their positions, often lived in large houses, and were buried with highly valued artefacts indicative of their prestigious positions. Warfare among these societies was common, and large sites in particular were frequently defended by palisades, which were often reinforced by stout bastions and deep ditches.

Throughout this area, Native American cultures with roots extending back thousands of years changed quickly following the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century AD. Groups were decimated by new diseases and most of them were displaced, generally in a westward direction. Ways of life were transformed through access to horses and various valued trade goods, especially guns, and by the incorporation of Native Americans into the expanding political and economic spheres of Euroamerican powers. Currently popular images of Native Americans are more closely related to conditions in these turbulent years than they are to life in more distant times.

K.B. Farnsworth and T.E. Emerson, eds.: Early Woodland archaeology (Kampsville, 1986); B.D. Smith: ‘The archaeology of the southeastern United States: from Dalton to de Soto, 10,500–500 BP’, Advances in world archaeology, ed. F. Wendorf and A.E. Close (Orlando, 1986), 1–92; ––––:

Rivers of change: essays on early agriculture in eastern North America (Washington, D.C., 1992); D.G. Anderson: The Savannah River chiefdoms: political change in the late prehistoric Southeast (Tuscaloosa, 1994); K.H. Schlesier, ed.:

Plains Indians, AD 500–1500 (Norman, 1994).

GM

5 Mesoamerica and Central America

Mesoamerica is a ‘culture area’, a geographical region in which a number of individual societies, prehistoric and contemporary, share marked cultural similarities despite being differentiated by political, linguistic, religious, and other distinctions (see Kirchoff 1943). The northern boundary of the Mesoamerican culture area stretches east–west across the vast arid lands of northern and northcentral Mexico, while its southern boundary, more difficult to define, runs generally north–south through tropical forests of central Honduras and western Nicaragua. In terms of today’s political boundaries, the culture area includes most of modern Mexico and most or all of the Central American countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, western Honduras, western Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica. The prehistoric cultures of the eastern portions of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, plus all of Panama, are grouped together and are known collectively either as the ‘Intermediate Area’ (i.e. intermediate between the civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andes of South America) or by the region’s modern political designation, Central America.

In terms of geology, topography, climate, flora and fauna, the lands of Mesoamerica display a great deal of variability, from snow-covered mountains to arid desert to lush tropical forest to coastal swamps. Dramatic differences in elevation, soils, mean temperatures and rainfall often occur within relatively small areas, creating a complex mosaic of ecological settings, patterns of resource distribution and agricultural potential for the prehistoric societies of Mesoamerica. Mesoamerican environments are most broadly distinguished as highland and lowland. The highlands are formed by the Sierra Madre mountain chain running north–south through Mexico and eastward into southern Guatemala and then south through western Central America. The mountainous region is tectonically active, and OBSIDIAN from its many volcanoes was a valued resource for stone tools. The principal lowland area lies in eastern Mesoamerica, where the limestone shelf of the Yucatán peninsula comprises parts of Mexico, northern Guatemala and Belize. Another important lowland region is the coastal plain along the western and southern Gulf of Mexico.

Prehistoric Mesoamerica falls into two main parts: eastern Mesoamerica, occupied by speakers of Mayan languages (see LOWLAND MAYA) and western Mesoamerica, or Mexico west of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, occupied by diverse cul-

tures (see AZTECS, MIXTECS, TEOTIHUACAN and

ZAPOTECS) speaking a great variety of languages. In each of these areas further subregional distinctions are made, often on the basis of cultural similarities and differences coinciding roughly with physiographic divisions (e.g. Gulf coast cultures, highland and lowland Maya cultures, BASIN OF MEXICO, valley of Oaxaca, trans-isthmian cultures, etc.).

Mesoamerica has a long history of human occupation, with several sites dating back 10,000 or more years. These have yielded remains of late Pleistocene fauna and/or artefacts typical of PALEOINDIAN hunters elsewhere in the New World. The ARCHAIC or Preceramic period, dating roughly 7000–2500 BC in Mesoamerica, is a period of cultural adaptations to changing Holocene environments in the New World. While there has been relatively little archaeological attention to this

AMERICA 49

period in eastern Mesoamerica (cf. MacNeish 1983), in highland Mexico a number of scholars have investigated the beginnings of agriculture and sedentary settlement during these millennia (see TEHUACAN). The principal cultigens of Mesoamerica – corn (Zea mays), several varieties of beans (Phaseolus) and squash (Cucurbits), peppers (Capiscum), tomatoes and avocados, as well as nonfood cultigens such as cotton – were domesticated during this time. Mesoamerican peoples domesticated dogs and turkeys, but they lacked domesticated animals for milk, hides, meat and transportation; they also lacked wheeled transport vehicles, although wheeled toys have been found.

The development, florescence and decline of large, complex societies in Mesoamerica took place during three broad time periods known as the

Radiocarbon

Years

– 1500

– 1400

– 1300

– 1200

– 1100

– 1000

– 900

– 800

– 700

– 600

– 500

– 400

– 300

– 200

– 100

– AD BC

–100

–200

–300

–400

–500

–600

–700

–800

–900

–1000

–1100

–1200

–1300

–1400

–1500

–1600

Major

Mesoamerican

Period

Late

Postclassic

Early

Postclassic

Late

Classic

Early

Classic

Late

Preclassic

or Formative

Middle

Preclassic

or

Formative

Early

Preclassic

or

Formative

Valley of Mexico

50 AMERICA

Preclassic (or Formative), Classic and Postclassic. The dating of each of these intervals varies in eastern vs. western Mesoamerica and each period has numerous subdivisions in which archaeologists have traced events and processes specific to particular sites or regions. Nonetheless, some broad features are shared throughout the culture area.

The Preclassic or Formative period, dating from c.2500 BC to AD 0/200, was characterized by the beginnings of most of the major characteristics of Mesoamerican civilizations. These include: monumental architecture of stone, with temple-pyramids arranged at the cardinal directions around open plazas; hieroglyphic writing systems used to record celestial/calendrical observations and the achievements of rulers; art systems characterized by sculpted stone, slipped and painted pottery, and portable objects of carved jade; and elaborate systems of status symboling for elite individuals and lineages through local and imported goods (such as jade, shells, feathers), evidenced most dramatically in mortuary ritual (see CHALCHUAPA, IZAPA,

LOWLAND MAYA, OLMEC and SAN JOSÉ MOGOTE).

The Classic period, dating to c.AD 0–700 in central Mexico (e.g. MONTE ALBAN; TEOTIHUACAN) and AD 200–900 in the lowland Maya area, is characterized by the full development and expression of these evolving characteristics.

However, features of settlement layout, population density, regional integration, rulership and polity, agricultural organization and productivity and economic interaction varied considerably from area to area.

The Postclassic period in Mesoamerica is often described in terms of a contrast with the Classic, the differences being seen in greater emphasis on (or evidence for) militarism, mercantile activity (especially maritime) and a more ‘secular’ character of rulership. The period is usually divided around AD 1200 into Early and Late subdivisions. The Early Postclassic period in central Mexico is best known from the TOLTEC site of TULA, and in the Maya lowlands by sites such as CHICHÉN ITZÁ. The Late Postclassic period in central Mexico is dominated by the Triple Alliance ‘empire’ of the AZTECS, and their relations with other regional

states (see MIXTECS, TARASCANS, and ZAPOTECS).

In the Maya region a number of relatively small sites are important as capitals of regional kingdoms in the highlands (IXIMCHE, UTATLAN and Zaculeu) or confederacies in the lowlands (e.g. MAYAPAN). Much of what we know about Late Postclassic society and economy comes from indigenous writings, such as tribute or king lists (see CODICES;

HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING), as well as documents

written by the first Spaniards to visit the area.

The contact and Spanish colonial periods in Mesoamerica began with the fall of TENOCHTITLAN, the Aztec capital, to Hernan Cortés in 1521. Subsequent European conquest and conversion of native peoples to Catholicism throughout Mesoamerica and Central America involved not only subjugation and relocation, but also a massive decline in population due to introduced diseases.

P. Kirchoff: ‘Mesoamerica’, Acta Americana 1 (1943) 92–107; R.E. Blanton, S.A. Kowalewski, G. Feinman and J. Appel: Ancient Mesoamerica, a comparison of change in three regions, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1993); R.S. MacNeish: ‘Mesoamerica’, Early man in the New world, ed. R. Shutler, Jr. (Beverly Hills, 1983) 125–35; R.E.W. Adams:

Prehistoric Mesoamerica (Norman; 1991); M. Porter Weaver: The Aztecs, Maya and their predecessors, 3rd edn (New York, 1993).

PRI

6 South America

There are six principal regions in South America: the Central Andes (Peru, Bolivia, Northwest Argentina, northern Chile), the Northern Andes (Ecuador and Colombia), Venezuela, the Amazon (including the Guianas and the upper Paranä/La Plata system), the Planalto (southeastern Brazil, including the Planalto proper, parts of the Chaco, and the coastal strip) and the Southern Cone (southern and eastern Argentina, including the Pampas and Patagonia, southern Chile and Tierra del Fuego). The Central Andes region encompasses three very different environmental zones: coastal desert and oases, montane basins and valleys, forested eastern Andes. There are no macroschemes in common use for the Amazon region; in the western Amazon sites are usually dated/classified according to the scheme in the adjacent Andean country. The same is true for the eastern Caribbean littoral, the Planalto, the Southern Cone and southern Chile. Sites and cultural traditions are dated through chronometric methods, usually radiocarbon dating, or by rough comparison with dated sites of the same tradition. The reliance upon few or poorly associated radiocarbon dates is one of the major problems in South American archaeology.

Human occupation in most areas of south America began in the PALEOINDIAN period; the Archaic (nomadic to semisedentary foraging cultures) is well developed in the Planalto and is beginning to be explored elsewhere. Agricultural communities begin as early as the 4th millennium BC in Brazil, whereas in the southern cone the Paleoindian adaptation gave way to variations on the Fuegian/Patagonian tradition of coastal hunting/

AMERICA 51

foraging and inland hunting. In all areas there are beginning to be local sequences, and some researchers use named periods (often the same as those of the Northern Andes, as ‘evolutionary’ schemes fit local ideologies), but there are few, if any, agreed upon general organizations of time and culture aside from the recognition of a Paleoindian, and perhaps an Archaic, horizon.

Central Andes (Peru, Bolivia, Northwest

Argentina, Northern Chile)

Note:

There are no macro-schemes in common use for the Amazon region; in the western Amazon, sites are usually dated/classified according to the scheme in the adjacent Andean country. The same is true for the eastern Caribbean littoral (the scheme given above for Venezuela is debated), the Planalto, the Southern Cone and southern Chile. Sites and cultural traditions are dated through chronometric methods, usually radiocarbon, or by rough comparison with dated sites of the same tradition. The reliance upon few or poorly associated radiocarbon dates is one of the major problems in South American archaeology.

Table 2 America, 6: South Chronologies of the principal regions of South America.

6.1. Prehistory. South American archaeology has not been noted for innovation in the areas of method or theory. Sadly, many projects are so underfunded that a radiocarbon date is cause for rejoicing. In terms of theory, diffusion (often intercontinental), variations on themes of cultural ecology (such as maritime theories of the development of complex societies), or various evolutionary schemes have been the commonest frameworks on which the scanty data are displayed. In recent years the major advances have been in building a more reliable, and larger, data base, in ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY (such as

CUEVA IGLESIA and MAPUCHE), in EXPERIMENTAL

ARCHAEOLOGY (such as the study of INCA stone masonry) and in projects which integrate archaeo-

AMERICA 53

logical investigation into the local community (e.g.

AGUA BLANCA).

A general vision of the prehistory of the continent is possible, although there are major gaps in knowledge, as well as considerable debates concerning the meaning of the archaeological data. Despite recurrent claims of very ancient sites in the Americas (e.g. PEDRA FURADA), the best evidence suggests an initial Paleoindian occupation of South America no earlier than c.12,000 BC. The evidence from the currently earliest known site, MONTE VERDE, indicates that there must be earlier sites north of Chile and, with the PAIJÀN sites (Peru), it suggests that there was a mixed economy among these earliest immigrants.

Years

– 1600

– 1500

– 1400

– 1300

– 1200

– 1100

– 1000

– 900

– 800

– 700

– 600

– 500

– 400

– 300

– 200

– 100

– AD BC

–100

–200

–300

–400

–500

–600

–700

–800

–900

–1000

–2000

–3000

–4000

–5000

–6000

–7000

–8000

Peru

Hunting/foraging cultures continued in the Southern Cone from the terminal Pleistocene until the modern era at sites such as FELL’S CAVE. The move towards an archaic/incipience agricultural pattern began earliest in the equatorial regions; LAS VEGAS (Ecuador) shows the utilization of the paramount cultigen of the Americas, Zea mays, as early as 5500 BC. By 3000 BC, nearby VALDIVIA had well-established agriculture and the same site includes evidence that ceramics had entered the Andean world (ceramics are earlier on the Caribbean littoral at PUERTO HORMIGIA, MONSÚ and SAN JACINTO, although in non-agricultural contexts).

Precocious in terms of ceramics and sedentary

life, the northern Andean cultures were extremely late to develop state formations. What may be chiefdoms appear in Ecuador with CHORRERA, and long-distance trade procuring luxury goods for the emerging elite is seen at Pirincay, on a major access route to the Amazon. Later coastal Ecuadorian cultures, especially BAHIA/JAMA COAQUE and La Tolita, are more noteworthy for the quality of their representational ceramics and the sophistication of their metallurgy than for any complex political developments. Virtually nothing is known of the contemporary tropical lowland sites, such as HUAPULA (previously known as Sangay) save that they have impressive earthworks and were involved in exchange with the highlands. In addi-

Years

– 1600

– 1500

– 1400

– 1300

– 1200

– 1100

– 1000

– 900

– 800

– 700

– 600

– 500

– 400

– 300

– 200

– 100

– AD BC

–100

–200

–300

–400

–500

–600

–700

–800

–900

–1000

–2000

–3000

–4000

–5000

–6000

–7000

–8000

Ecuador

Brazil and the Amazon drainage