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From the high plains of Canada to caves in the southeastern United States, images etched into and painted on stone by ancient Native Americans have aroused in observers the desire to understand their origins and meanings. Rock paintings and engravings can be found in nearly every state and province, and each region has its own distinctive story of discovery and evolving investigation of the rock art record. Rock art in the twenty-first century enjoys a large and growing popularity fueled by scholarly research and public interest alike. This book explores the history of rock art research in North America and is the only volume in the past twenty-five years to provide coverage of the subject on a continental scale. Written by contributors active in rock art research, it examines sites that provide a cross-section of regions and topics and complements existing books on rock art by offering new information, insights, and approaches to research. The first part of the volume explores different regional approaches to the study of rock art, including a set of varied responses to a single site as well as an overview of broader regional research investigations. It tells how Writing-on-Stone in southern Alberta, Canada, reflects changing thought about rock art from the 1870s to today; it describes the role of avocational archaeologists in the Mississippi Valley, where rock art styles differ on each side of the river; it explores discoveries in southwestern mountains and southeastern caves; and it integrates the investigation of cupules along Georgia’s Yellow River into a full study of a site and its context. The book also compares the differences between rock art research in the United States and France: from the outset, rock art was of only marginal interest to most U.S. archaeologists, while French prehistorians considered cave art an integral part of archaeological research. The book’s second part is concerned with working with the images today and includes coverage of gender interests, government sponsorship, the role of amateurs in research, and chronometric studies. Much has changed in our understanding of rock art since Cotton Mather first wrote in 1714 of a strange inscription on a Massachusetts boulder, and the cutting-edge contributions in this volume tell us much about both the ancient place of these enduring images and their modern meanings. Discovering North American Rock Art distills today’s most authoritative knowledge of the field and is an essential volume for both specialists and hobbyists.
"This volume is a major synthesis of the archaeology of the Appalachian region and includes much material that was previously unpublished or underpublished. The information and interpretations presented will be very useful for archaeologists working in eastern North American who are interested in this diverse region."--C. Clifford Boyd, Jr., Radford University "Archaeology of the Appalachian Highlands reveals that every part of Appalachia yields archaeological evidence significant to understanding the broad prehistoric sweep of the American Indians. In this most welcome volume, editors Lynn Sullivan and Susan Prezzano have assembled the most current interpretations of archaeological theory, technology, and cultural history as these occour in the highlands of eastern North America. . . . This volume to shatteer myths about Appalachian and its past."--David S. Brose, Director, Schiele Museum of Natural History
Since its inception in 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority has played a dual role as federal agency and steward of the Tennessee River Valley. While known to most people today as an energy provider, the agency is also charged with managing and protecting the nation's fifth-largest river system, the Tennessee River, and vast tracts of land and resources encompassing Tennessee and portions of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia. Included in TVA's mandate is the preservation of the archaeological record of the valley's prehistoric peoples-a record that would have been forever lost beneath floodwaters had TVA not demonstrated a commitment to minimize its impact on the valley and sought to protect its archaeological resources. In TVA Archaeology, fourteen contributors who have worked with TVA in its conservation effort discuss prehistoric excavations conducted at Tellico, Normandy, Jonathan's Creek, and many other sites. They explore TVA's role in the excavations and how the agency facilitated prehistoric investigations along proposed dam sites. They also delve into the history of TVA as it grew from a New Deal program to a federal corporation and reveal how, during the agency's formative years, the TVA board responded to prodding from archaeologists David DeJarnette and William Webb and molded TVA into the steward of a region it is today. TVA remains a mainstay of progress and conservation within an important region of the United States, and its safeguarding of the valley's prehistory cements its legacy as more than just an energy supplier. Students and researchers interested in prehistoric archaeology, the Tennessee Valley, and the history of TVA will find this volume an invaluable contribution to the study of the region. Erin E. Pritchard is an archaeologist with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Her work includes multiple archaeological site investigations, most notably Dust Cave in northern Alabama, and she has authored and coauthored numerous site reports for TVA.
In the long history of documenting the material culture of the archaeological record, meaning and actions of makers and users of these items is often overlooked. The authors in this book focus on rituals exploring the natural and made landscape stages, the ritual directors, including their progression from shaman to priesthood, and meaning of the rites. They also provide comments on the end or failure of rites and cults from Paleoindian into post-DeSoto years. Chapters examine the archaeological records of Cahokia, the lower Ohio Valley, Aztalan Wisconsin, Vermont, Florida, and Georgia, and others scan the Eastern US, investigating tobacco/datura, color symbolism, deer symbolism, mound stratigraphy, flintknapping, stone caching, cults and their organization, and red ochre. These authors collectively query the beliefs that can be gleaned from mortuary practices and their variation, from mound construction, from imagery, from the choice of landscape setting. While some rituals were short-lived, others can be shown to span millennia as the ritual specialists modified their interpretations and introduced innovations.
Caves have been used in various ways across human society but despite the persistence within popular culture of the iconic caveman, deep caves were never used primarily as habitation sites for early humans. Rather, in both ancient and contemporary contexts, caves have served primarily as ritual spaces. In Sacred Darkness, contributors use archaeological evidence as well as ethnographic studies of modern ritual practices to envision the cave as place of spiritual and ideological power and a potent venue for ritual practice. Covering the ritual use of caves in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Mesoamerica, and the US Southwest and Eastern woodlands, this book brings together case studies by prominent scholars whose research spans from the Paleolithic period to the present day. These contributions demonstrate that cave sites are as fruitful as surface contexts in promoting the understanding of both ancient and modern religious beliefs and practices. This state-of-the-art survey of ritual cave use will be one of the most valuable resources for understanding the role of caves in studies of religion, sacred landscape, or cosmology and a must-read for any archaeologist interested in caves.
Includes section "Reviews."
A millennia ago, Native Americans entered the dark recesses of a cave in eastern Missouri and painted an astonishing array of human, animal, and supernatural creatures on its walls. Known as Picture Cave, it was a hallowed site for sacred rituals and rites of passage, for explaining the multi-layered cosmos, for vision quests, for communing with spirits in the "other world," and for burying the dead. The number, variety, and complexity of images make Picture Cave one of the most significant prehistoric sites in North America, similar in importance to Cahokia and Chaco Canyon. Indeed, scholars will be able to use it to reconstruct much of the Native American symbolism of the early Western Mississippian world. The Picture Cave Interdisciplinary Project brought together specialists in American Indian art and iconography, two artists, Osage Indian elders, a museum curator, a folklorist, and an internationally renowned cave archaeologist to produce the first complete documentation of the pictographs on the cave walls and the first interpretations of their meanings and significance. This extensively illustrated volume presents the Project's findings, including an introduction to Picture Cave and prehistoric cave art and technical analyses of pigments, radiocarbon dating, spatial order, and archaeological remains. Interpretations of the cave's imagery, from individual motifs to complex panels; the responses of contemporary artists; and interviews with Osage elders (descendants of the people who made the art), describing what Picture Cave means to them today, are also included. A visual glossary of all the images in Picture Cave as well as panoramic views complete this pathfinding volume.