university of iowa press twelve millennia archaeology of the upper mississippi river valley may 2003

[...]... presents the story of past peoples of the Upper Mississippi River Valley from the first inhabitants through the era of European contact The story is preceded by an introduction to archaeology, providing the reader a context for archaeological interpretation The topography and resources available to Native people of the Upper Mississippi Valley are then described The Mississippi River drains a vast portion of. .. stage in the prehistory of the Upper Mississippi Valley, subsistence remains indicate what economic activities were being pursued during each part of the seasonal round introduction to archaeology | 17 c h a p t e r t w o Environment of the Upper Mississippi River Valley The portion of the Upper Mississippi River that cuts through the unglaciated Driftless Area (fig 2.1) is a unique setting of rich and... dating, and the seriation of artifacts by style are used with regularity in the Upper Mississippi River Valley Stratigraphy involves interpreting the vertical placement of artifacts within individual layers, or strata, in the soil at sites This method is based on the geologic “law of superposition,” which holds that the layer on the bottom of a sequence of layers will be the oldest, while those on the top... colleagues at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse and the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center We would like to thank the College of Liberal Studies at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse for a grant to support graphics for this book Illustrations were prepared with the assistance of Jody Bruce, Jean Dowiasch, Jiro Manabe, Laura Jankowski, Megan Rivers, and Liz Schultz We are grateful for the detailed... inhabited the Upper Mississippi basin were influenced by a sequence of environmental changes Shifts in lifestyles, as reflected by their artifacts, often correspond with shifts in climatic regimes Archaeologists base many of their interpretations about the past on the artifactual remains and the contexts of those remains This reliance on artifacts is especially critical in the Upper Mississippi Valley because... of paperwork, these moments of discovery make archaeology a career to envy This book is dedicated to the hundreds of individuals who have contributed over the past two decades to share their knowledge of and their artifacts from the Upper Mississippi Valley with us We are privileged to be able to compile this information and experience the sensation of discovery We hope that this synthesis gives back... where they came from, how they got here, and what the future may hold People, on the other hand, routinely ask these types of questions A portion of humanity’s past can be learned from history, which is technically the period when written records exist However, more than 99 percent of the human past occurred before written records, or in prehistory The origins of human beings, domestication of plants... photograph of the field Dating the Past Ordering the past by time is an essential job of the archaeologist Without knowing the age of sites and artifacts, it is not possible to understand which artifacts and cultures came before or after others Dating the past is critical for learning about change in human societies through time with any degree of accuracy There are many methods for estimating the age of archaeological... Upper Mississippi Valley shows a continuum of human adaptation over a period of nearly 12,000 years The accompanying chart summarizes this culture sequence, placing these cultures in time and with corresponding climatic regimes The following chapters describe in some detail each of these cultures as represented by artifactual remains and selected sites along the Upper Mississippi River Unless otherwise... During these warm-season gatherings, with all members of extended families and friends assembled, ceremonies that served to bind the macroband together could be held The most important of these would have been burial of the dead In some periods, the bodies or bones of persons who died during the winter were brought to the macroband assembly, where all could be involved in the burial Participation in . twelve millennia a bur oak book Twelve Millennia Archaeology of the Upper Mississippi River Valley James L. Theler and Robert F. Boszhardt University of Iowa Press Iowa City University of Iowa. to Archaeology 1 chapter two Environment of the Upper 19 Mississippi River Valley chapter three Past Climate of the Upper 33 Mississippi River Valley chapter four A Brief History of Upper 39 Mississippi. Indians of North America Mississippi River Valley Antiquities. 2. Mound-builders— Mississippi River Valley. 3. Excavations (Archaeology) Mississippi River Valley. 4. Mississippi River Valley Antiquities. I.