100 posts · 32,613 views
A blog discussing a variety of subjects related to Chaco Canyon, the prehistoric American Southwest, and their complex connections to the world today.
teofilo
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- February 6, 2012
- 03:28 AM
- 50 views
Who the Cahokians Weren’t
by teofilo in Gambler's House
The name “Cahokia” comes from one of the constituent tribes of the Illinois Confederacy, a group of several semi-autonomous “tribes” or “villages” that occupied much of what is now the state of Illinois and parts of some of the surrounding states in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Staunch allies of the French throughout most of [...]... Read more »
Blasingham, E. (1956) The Depopulation of the Illinois Indians, Part I. Ethnohistory, 3(3), 193. DOI: 10.2307/480408
Blasingham, E. (1956) The Depopulation of the Illinois Indians. Part 2, Concluded. Ethnohistory, 3(4), 361. DOI: 10.2307/480464
Wedel, W. (1945) On the Illinois Confederacy and Middle Mississippi Culture in Illinois. American Antiquity, 10(4), 383. DOI: 10.2307/275581
Wray, D., & Smith, H. (1944) An Hypothesis for the Identification of the Illinois Confederacy with the Middle Mississippi Culture in Illinois. American Antiquity, 10(1), 23. DOI: 10.2307/275179
- January 30, 2012
- 03:16 AM
- 80 views
Where Did the Cahokians Come From?
by teofilo in Gambler's House
Regardless of exactly how many people lived at Cahokia, it’s clear from recent research that the population of the site and its immediately surrounding area grew immensely in a short period of time in the eleventh century AD. As Timothy Pauketat points out in the 2003 article that I was discussing earlier, the scale of [...]... Read more »
Lynott, M., Neff, H., Price, J., Cogswell, J., & Glascock, M. (2000) Inferences about Prehistoric Ceramics and People in Southeast Missouri: Results of Ceramic Compositional Analysis. American Antiquity, 65(1), 103. DOI: 10.2307/2694810
Pauketat, T. (2003) Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity. American Antiquity, 68(1), 39. DOI: 10.2307/3557032
- January 22, 2012
- 04:47 AM
- 92 views
The Density of Cahokia
by teofilo in Gambler's House
The greatest of the Mississippian mound centers, by far, is Cahokia. This vast site contains numerous mounds and is located in the American Bottom area of southwestern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from the modern city of St. Louis, Missouri. This is a highly strategic location, very close to the confluence of the two largest [...]... Read more »
Bareis, C. (1964) Meander Loops and the Cahokia Site. American Antiquity, 30(1), 89. DOI: 10.2307/277637
Hegmon, M. (2003) Setting Theoretical Egos Aside: Issues and Theory in North American Archaeology. American Antiquity, 68(2), 213. DOI: 10.2307/3557078
Lawler, A. (2011) America's Lost City. Science, 334(6063), 1618-1623. DOI: 10.1126/science.334.6063.1618
Pauketat, T. (2003) Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity. American Antiquity, 68(1), 39. DOI: 10.2307/3557032
Peregrine, P. (1991) A Graph-Theoretic Approach to the Evolution of Cahokia. American Antiquity, 56(1), 66. DOI: 10.2307/280973
- January 16, 2012
- 02:49 AM
- 98 views
The Vacant Quarter
by teofilo in Gambler's House
One of the major advantages Southwestern archaeologists have over those studying other areas of prehistoric North America is a very solid chronology, based primarily on tree-rings and extended by diagnostic pottery types that in many cases changed rapidly. As a result of this chronology, in many parts of the Southwest unexcavated sites can be dated [...]... Read more »
Cobb, C., & Butler, B. (2002) The Vacant Quarter Revisited: Late Mississippian Abandonment of the Lower Ohio Valley. American Antiquity, 67(4), 625. DOI: 10.2307/1593795
- January 13, 2012
- 02:42 AM
- 98 views
Does Language Density Correlate with Latitude?
by teofilo in Gambler's House
Tim De Chant at Per Square Mile has an interesting post discussing an article by Ruth Mace and Mark Pagel in which they did a statistical analysis of the distribution of Native languages at European contact in North America and found that the density of languages correlates inversely with latitude (when controlling for land area) [...]... Read more »
Mace, R., & Pagel, M. (1995) A Latitudinal Gradient in the Density of Human Languages in North America. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 261(1360), 117-121. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.1995.0125
- January 9, 2012
- 04:00 AM
- 80 views
Who Were the Padouca?
by teofilo in Gambler's House
In 1827 William Clark, who had attained national fame as co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition more than 20 years earlier and had gone on to a successful career as an Indian Agent and governor of the Missouri Territory, obtained title to 37,000 acres in western Kentucky along the Ohio River that had been [...]... Read more »
Grinnell, G. (1920) Who Were the Padouca?. American Anthropologist, 22(3), 248-260. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1920.22.3.02a00050
Michelson, T. (1921) Who Were the Padouca?. American Anthropologist, 23(1), 101-101. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1921.23.1.02a00120
Secoy, F. (1951) The Identity of the "Paduca"; An Ethnohistorical Analysis. American Anthropologist, 53(4), 525-542. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1951.53.4.02a00060
- January 8, 2012
- 04:08 AM
- 108 views
Why Don’t Navajos Eat Fish?
by teofilo in Gambler's House
In 1898 Washington Matthews, the US Army physician who was one of the earliest and best recorders of ethnographic information on the Navajos, published an article in the Journal of American Folklore entitled “Ichthyophobia.” It’s an interesting piece of scholarship for a number of reasons, not least its florid Victorian prose style. Matthews begins thus: [...]... Read more »
Landar, H. (1960) The Loss of Athapaskan Words for Fish in the Southwest. International Journal of American Linguistics, 26(1), 75. DOI: 10.1086/464559
Matthews, W. (1898) Ichthyophobia. The Journal of American Folklore, 11(41), 105. DOI: 10.2307/533215
- January 7, 2012
- 02:46 AM
- 119 views
Gendered Language among the Pueblos
by teofilo in Gambler's House
This video has attracted some attention in certain corners of the internet. It features a (very talented) male actor doing a pitch-perfect impersonation of a young woman saying various expressions that are strongly stereotyped as “female” in contemporary American English. One thing that struck me about watching the video was how it shows how [...]... Read more »
Kroskrity, P. (1983) On Male and Female Speech in the Pueblo Southwest. International Journal of American Linguistics, 49(1), 88. DOI: 10.1086/465769
Sims, C., & Valiquette, H. (1990) More on Male and Female Speech in (Acoma and Laguna) Keresan. International Journal of American Linguistics, 56(1), 162. DOI: 10.1086/466144
- December 27, 2011
- 02:15 AM
- 161 views
Ram Mesa: A Reasonable Case for Witchcraft Execution without Cannibalism
by teofilo in Gambler's House
One of the most notable examples of an assemblage of highly mutilated human remains from the Southwest being attributed to witchcraft execution rather than cannibalism, in accordance with J. Andrew Darling’s theory discussed in the previous post, is Ram Mesa, southwest of Chaco Canyon near Gallup, NM. This site was excavated by the University of [...]... Read more »
Ogilvie, M., & Hilton, C. (2000) Ritualized violence in the prehistoric American Southwest. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 10(1), 27-48. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1212(200001/02)10:13.0.CO;2-M
- December 25, 2011
- 11:15 PM
- 142 views
Cannibal Christmas Returns: The Witchcraft Theory
by teofilo in Gambler's House
Last year around Christmas I did a series of posts on the evidence for cannibalism in the prehistoric Southwest. I didn’t cover nearly all that there is to say about this important but controversial issue then, so I figured it would be a good idea to discuss it a bit more this year. In this [...]... Read more »
Andrew Darling, J. (1998) Mass Inhumation and the Execution of Witches in the American Southwest. American Anthropologist, 100(3), 732-752. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1998.100.3.732
- December 25, 2011
- 01:49 AM
- 165 views
The “Kiowa Apaches”: Neither Kiowa Nor Apache?
by teofilo in Gambler's House
The term “Apache” is one of the most widely known names for Native American groups, but it’s actually quite problematic. There is, I think, a general perception that it refers to a specific “tribe,” but it doesn’t. What it really is, at least as it’s used today, is a designation for all the Southern Athapaskan [...]... Read more »
Hoijer, H. (1938) The Southern Athapaskan Languages. American Anthropologist, 40(1), 75-87. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1938.40.1.02a00080
Huld, M. (1985) Regressive Apicalization in Na'isha. International Journal of American Linguistics, 51(4), 461. DOI: 10.1086/465932
- December 24, 2011
- 03:49 AM
- 173 views
Athapaskan Influence on Tewa
by teofilo in Gambler's House
There’s been quite a bit of research on relations between the Pueblo and Athapaskan peoples of the American Southwest, most of it falling within the broad domain of ethnography or sociocultural anthropology. That is, there is quite a lot of evidence that some of the Athapaskan-speaking Apache groups, especially the Navajos, have been in close [...]... Read more »
Kroskrity, P. (1985) Areal-Historical Influences on Tewa Possession. International Journal of American Linguistics, 51(4), 486. DOI: 10.1086/465943
- December 19, 2011
- 04:09 AM
- 160 views
The Puzzling Dena’ina
by teofilo in Gambler's House
As I mentioned in the last post, it’s generally thought that the Athapaskan migrations which eventually led to the entrance of the Navajos and Apaches into the Southwest began in Alaska. The northern Athapaskan languages are actually spoken over a very large area of northwestern Canada as well, but the linguistic evidence clearly points to [...]... Read more »
Osgood, C. (1933) Tanaina Culture. American Anthropologist, 35(4), 695-717. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1933.35.4.02a00070
- November 20, 2011
- 10:58 PM
- 210 views
Level of Measurement and Archaeological Dating
by teofilo in Gambler's House
In 1946 the psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens, founder and director of Harvard’s Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, published a short article in Science laying out a classification scheme for scales of measurement. This system, and the four scales it proposed, would go on to become extremely influential in the quantitative sciences, and it is still widely used. I [...]... Read more »
Stevens, S. (1946) On the Theory of Scales of Measurement. Science, 103(2684), 677-680. DOI: 10.1126/science.103.2684.677
- October 28, 2011
- 11:50 PM
- 260 views
The Alaska Highway and Its Past
by teofilo in Gambler's House
On this date in 1942, US Army engineering crews working east from Delta Junction, Alaska and west from Whitehorse, Yukon met up near Beaver Creek, Yukon, completing the Alaska Highway. For the first time, Alaska was accessible from the Lower 48 by road. This was a remarkable achievement, especially since it was done in only [...]... Read more »
Johnson, F. (1946) An Archaeological Survey along the Alaska Highway, 1944. American Antiquity, 11(3), 183. DOI: 10.2307/275560
- September 10, 2011
- 03:27 AM
- 346 views
The Mysterious Mimbres
by teofilo in Gambler's House
Inspired by my recent visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, I’ve been reading about the Mimbres Mogollon culture of southwestern New Mexico. As I noted earlier, the cliff dwellings themselves aren’t actually Mimbres, instead belonging to the Tularosa Mogollon culture more common to the north, and they postdate the “Classic” Mimbres period (ca. AD 1000 [...]... Read more »
Fewkes, J. (1916) Animal Figures on Prehistoric Pottery from Mimbres Valley, New Mexico. American Anthropologist, 18(4), 535-545. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1916.18.4.02a00080
Gilman, P., Canouts, V., & Bishop, R. (1994) The Production and Distribution of Classic Mimbres Black-on-White Pottery. American Antiquity, 59(4), 695. DOI: 10.2307/282343
Hegmon, M. (2002) Recent Issues in the Archaeology of the Mimbres Region of the North American Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Research, 10(4), 307-357. DOI: 10.1023/A:1020525926010
Hegmon, M., Nelson, M., & Ruth, S. (1998) Abandonment and Reorganization in the Mimbres Region of the American Southwest. American Anthropologist, 100(1), 148-162. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1998.100.1.148
Nelson, M., & Hegmon, M. (2001) Abandonment Is Not as It Seems: An Approach to the Relationship between Site and Regional Abandonment. American Antiquity, 66(2), 213. DOI: 10.2307/2694606
- September 8, 2011
- 09:25 PM
- 324 views
More about the Gila Cliff Dwellings
by teofilo in Gambler's House
Despite their impressive preservation, the Gila Cliff Dwellings have gotten surprisingly little attention in the archaeological literature. This is apparently because they were so thoroughly ransacked by pothunters early on that there wasn’t much left intact for archaeologists to study, and possibly also because the early establishment of Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in 1907 [...]... Read more »
Watson, E. (1929) Caves of the Upper Gila River, New Mexico. American Anthropologist, 31(2), 299-306. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1929.31.2.02a00070
- July 4, 2011
- 12:23 AM
- 431 views
The Stars Bursting in Air
by teofilo in Gambler's House
Happy Fourth of July, everyone. The Fourth is actually a pretty important date for the study of Chaco, but in a roundabout (and somewhat controversial) way. It all has to do with a very famous pictograph panel below Peñasco Blanco at the west end of the canyon. While the interpretation of this panel is a [...]... Read more »
Pauketat, T., & Emerson, T. (2008) Star Performances and Cosmic Clutter. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 18(1), 78-85. DOI: 10.1017/S0959774308000085
- June 29, 2011
- 12:33 AM
- 477 views
Chaco before Chaco: The Basketmaker III Period
by teofilo in Gambler's House
The Basketmaker III period (ca. AD 500 to 750) is a very important time for understanding the prehistoric Southwest. Maize agriculture had been introduced earlier, although exactly how early is still a matter of debate, and it was definitely well-established by the immediately preceding Basketmaker II period, but Basketmaker III saw the introduction of beans, [...]... Read more »
Wills, W., & Windes, T. (1989) Evidence for Population Aggregation and Dispersal during the Basketmaker III Period in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. American Antiquity, 54(2), 347. DOI: 10.2307/281711
- June 28, 2011
- 01:55 AM
- 391 views
How Old Is Pueblo Bonito?
by teofilo in Gambler's House
The “Chacoan era” is a period of about 100 years in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries AD during which Chaco Canyon was at the center of some sort of system that covered a large portion of the northern Southwest. The exact nature and exact extent of that system are endlessly debated, but the period [...]... Read more »
Windes, T., & Ford, D. (1996) The Chaco Wood Project: The Chronometric Reappraisal of Pueblo Bonito. American Antiquity, 61(2), 295. DOI: 10.2307/282427
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