Explorations in American Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Wesley R. Hurt.

Explorations in American Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Wesley R. Hurt. MARK G. PLEW (ed.). xiv+326 pages, 65 figures, 17 tables. 1998.Lanham (MD): University Press of America; 0-7618-1184-2 hardback $56. The new assessment of earthern enclosures in the eastern region ofthe Mid West (ed. MAINFORT & SULLIVAN) covers several importantsites, including Poverty Point, Marksville, the Pinson Mounds, FortAncient and Newark, and it draws attention to others less famous.Distributed from the Great Lakes Great Lakes,group of five freshwater lakes, central North America, creating a natural border between the United States and Canada and forming the largest body of freshwater in the world, with a combined surface area of c.95,000 sq mi (246,050 sq km). to Louisiana, and ranging in date from1500 BC to AD 1500, it is not to be expected that all the enclosureswere built in the same ways or used for the same purposes, nor, then,that they meant the same for the people using them. Between them, thecontributors consider all of these aspects of the monuments. The editorsmake stimulating reference to modern research on causewayed enclosuresand megalithic meg��a��lith?n.A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles, notably in western Europe during the second millennium b.c. monuments in western Europe Western EuropeThe countries of western Europe, especially those that are allied with the United States and Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (established 1949 and usually known as NATO). - always an interestingsource of comparison for North American North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to . New topographicanalyses and interpretations are presented as well as fresh studies ofdescriptions of some of the sites before they were modified by morerecent development, and there are reports on new excavations. A numberof common assumptions about the earthworks are exploded by carefulanalysis of particular sites. For instance, the discovery that theRipley Site was not a fortified fortified (fôrt´fīd),adj containing additives more potent than the principal ingredient. village of one phase weakens theargument that similar earthworks elsewhere around the Great Lakesnecessarily indicate warfare. B.T. Lepper has studied early descriptionsof a banked road leading from the Newark Octagon in the direction of thetopographically similar earthworks at Chillicothe, 90 km away:elaborating an earlier argument of his, he compares the ancient roadsaround Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, and the ceremonial ways linking ClassicMaya towns. The Pueblo IV period (c. AD 1250-1550) followed the demise of mostof the famous Anasazi towns and villages of the Four Corners region,including Chaco Canyon, and witnessed the establishment of newcommunities in the central Rio Grande Valley (Eastern Pueblos) and theheadwaters of the Little Colorado and Salt Rivers (Western Pueblos). Somany of the new villages survive to this day, by now studied extensivelyby ethnographers and much enjoyed by tourists. SPIELMANN and colleaguesset out to review the state of the art in research on their period withan eye to issues for research in future. In effect, they call for afresh focus on migration, showing how the detailed study of settlementpattern, site planning and architecture can reveal the consequences ofpopulation movement, including problems of security and local politicalorganization. This focus tends to encourage a welcome regionalperspective from which to assess the Southwest as a whole. One of thedistinctive themes of the volume is a methodologically innovativeconcentration on the implications of and for ritual in economic andpolitical development - appropriate enough considering Pueblo ceremoniallife in more recent times. At the same time, there are new data on olderthemes, including hunting and potting. It is a mark of the empiricalquality of these papers that P.L. Crown is moved to point out, in hercommentary, that the authors tend to beg questions about thechronological integrity of Pueblo IV: the break with the previous periodis clear; but should Pueblo IV itself not be subdivided? If so, sheremarks, it is going to be difficult to provide sufficient absolutedates - archaeologists in this region are accustomed to high standardsof dating. W.R. Hurt's Festschrift fest��schrift?n. pl. fest��schrif��ten or fest��schriftsA volume of learned articles or essays by colleagues and admirers, serving as a tribute or memorial especially to a scholar. (ed. PLEW) brings up to date severalof the themes that he helped to broach broach(broch) a fine barbed instrument for dressing a tooth canal or extracting the pulp. broachn.A dental instrument for removing the pulp of a tooth or exploring its canal. in so many parts of the Americas,and draws out further implications of his broad view of Native history.T.F. Lynch assesses the relation between the Palaeoindian and Archaicphases in South America, and R. Gruhn & A.L. Bryan review thechronology, distribution and ecology of the 'edge-trimmed tooltradition', while C.J. Nieuwenhuis reports on microwear analysiswhich reveals the diverse uses to which early stone implements fromColombia were put - a warning against 'eyeball' assessment.T.C.B. Franco, P.I. Schmitz and M.C. Tenorio discuss the settlement,exploitation and abandonment of coastal sites in Brazil. A.C. Roosevelttakes another opportunity to expose earlier theories which obscured thelikelihood of early occupations in tropical lowland South America. A.M.Tratebas urges that Archaic culture in the North American Plains was notmerely derivative but a coherent tradition in its own right; and T.F.Myers argues, likewise, that communities west of the River Missouriresponded consistently to the same ecological opportunities from the12th century right into the 19th. In regard to some of the tragic eventsthat finally wrecked that tradition, L.J. Zimmerman develops his view ofthe scope for incorporating Native interpretation in archaeology. R.L.Hall elaborates his fruitful theme of comparison between ritual andcosmology in North America and Mesoamerica. This treasure chest of abook opens, suitably, with a foreword from another great master of theAmerican past, R.S. MacNeish. Dr OLIVER shares the aim of SPIELMANN and her colleagues as well asHERSCHEND (1998. Protohistory pro��to��his��to��ry?n.The study of a culture just before the time of its earliest recorded history.pro and prehistory in northwest Europe,below), to take account not only of ecological and functional processesand constraints in the development of society but also deliberatemanipulation of symbols and rites. Reviewing the evidence assembled todate, he has analysed the sequence of planning, building (including aball court) and petroglyphs at Caguana, probably the biggest and mostcomplicated precolumbian ceremonial centre in the West Indies (c. AD1100-1500). Taking account of earlier development on Puerto Rico - and,in common with most recent assessments of Caribbean ball courts, givingshort shrift to diffusionism - OLIVER shows that the focus of the cultwas changed from ancestors to the chieftains. Forewords by R.T. Zuidemaand L.A. Curet curet/cu��ret/ (ku-ret��)1. a spoon-shaped instrument for cleansing a diseased surface.2. to use a curet.CuretA surgical instrument with a circular cutting loop at one end. will help to bring this study to the attention that itdeserves; but it would have been easy and helpful to the same end, toadd an abstract and summary in English. The papers on maps (ed. LEWIS) are good cases in point ofZimmerman's argument (ed. PLEW). Many Native cultures enjoyedplanning the built environment (cf. some of the papers ed. MAINFORT& SULLIVAN and many a ceremonial centre in the Tropics) but,arguably, the kind of two-dimensional representations of the ground souseful to Early Modern European conquerors was alien to the Americans.There are precolumbian specimens, in various media, which appear to havebeen designed like maps but they are exceptional. The splendidlyproduced Cartographic car��tog��ra��phy?n.The art or technique of making maps or charts.[French cartographie : carte, map (from Old French, from Latin charta, carta, paper made from papyrus encounters investigates Native geographicalreporting and cartographic translation in North America. Lewis himselfconsiders the general history of the process and the prospects for doingresearch better informed about Native concepts and conventions. Heremarks that archaeologists have made little use of Native maps. Theother contributions are authoritative studies of particular regions.Much the greatest number of Native maps in the Colonial period is fromMexico but they are only covered in one of the 12 chapters.