This book analyzes the artifacts and mammalian faunal remains of three representative sites on the southern northwest coast. A model of the evolution of cultural adaptational strategies is presented and tested. The overriding effects of sample size are considered in detail.

Prehistory of the Oregon Coast: The Effects of Excavation Strategies and Assemblage Size on Archaeological Inquiry

History

Lyman, R. Lee

Americas

Emerald Group Pub Ltd

About the Author\nR. Lee Lyman, Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri-Columbia\nR. Lee Lyman is Emeritus Professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He studies the late Quaternary paleomammology and human prehistory of the Pacific Northwest United States, and the history of North American archaeology and paleozoology. He is the author of Quantitative Paleozoology (2008) and Theodore E. White and the Development of Zooarchaeology in North America (2016), co-author of Paleozoology and Paleoenvironments (2019), and co-editor of Conservation Biology and Applied Zooarchaeology (2012).\nDocumentation, analysis, and explanation of culture change have long been goals of archaeology. Scientific graphs facilitate the visual thinking that allow archaeologists to determine the relationship between variables, and, if well designed, comprehend the processes implied by the relationship. Different graph types suggest different ontologies and theories of change, and particular techniques of parsing temporally continuous morphological variation of artefacts into types influence graph form.\nNorth American archaeologists have grappled with finding a graph that effectively and efficiently displays culture change over time. Line graphs, bar graphs, and numerous one-off graph types were used between 1910 and 1950, after which spindle graphs displaying temporal frequency distributions of specimens within each of multiple artefact types emerged as the most readily deciphered diagram.\nThe variety of graph types used over the twentieth century indicate archaeologists often mixed elements of both Darwinian variational evolutionary change and Midas-touch like transformational change. Today, there is minimal discussion of graph theory or graph grammar in introductory archaeology textbooks or advanced texts, and elements of the two theories of evolution are still mixed. Culture has changed, and archaeology provides unique access to the totality of humankind's cultural past. It is therefore crucial that graph theory, construction, and decipherment are revived in archaeological discussion.

Graphing Culture Change in North American Archaeology: A History of Graph Types

Politics & Social Sciences

Archaeology

Oxford University Press

The Rise and Fall of Culture History

VJver forty years ago Gordon R. Willey (1953b:361) stated that "[t]he objectives of archeology . . . are approached by the study and manipulation of three basic factors: form, space, and time. " A few years later, Albert C. Spaulding (1960b:439) repeated this thought using different words: "[AJrchaeology can be defined minimally as the study of the interrelation ship of form, temporal locus, and spatial locus exhibited by artifacts. In other words, archaeologists are always concerned with these interrelation ships, whatever broader interests they may have, and these interrelation ships are the special business of archaeology. " Many of the means Americanist archaeologists use to examine formal variation in artifacts and the distribution of that variation across space and through time were formulated early in the twentieth century. The analytical tenets, or principles, underlying the various methods and techniques were formalized and axiomatized in later years such that by the 1930s they con stituted the first formal paradigm for Americanist archaeology—a paradigm commonly termed culture history. This paradigm began with a very specific goal—to document the history of the development of prehistoric cultures in the Americas. Although it fell from favor in the 1960s, many of its central tenets were carried over to newer paradigms and thus continue to be fun damental within Americanist archaeology. With Willey's and Spaulding's conceptions as our guide, we elsewhere reprinted (Lyman et al.

O'Brien, Michael J.

Dunnell, Robert C.

Springer

It is difficult for today's students of archaeology to imagine an era when chronometric dating methods were unavailable. However, even a casual perusal of the large body of literature that arose during the first half of the twentieth century reveals a battery of clever methods used to determine the relative ages of archaeological phenomena, often with considerable precision. Stratigraphic excavation is perhaps the best known of the various relative-dating methods used by prehistorians. Although there are several techniques of using artifacts from superposed strata to measure time, these are rarely if ever differentiated. Rather, common practice is to categorize them under the heading `stratigraphic excavation'. This text distinguishes among the several techniques and argues that stratigraphic excavation tends to result in discontinuous measures of time - a point little appreciated by modern archaeologists. Although not as well known as stratigraphic excavation, two other methods of relative dating have figured important in Americanist archaeology: seriation and the use of index fossils. The latter (like stratigraphic excavation) measures time discontinuously, while the former - in various guises - measures time continuously. Perhaps no other method used in archaeology is as misunderstood as seriation, and the authors provide detailed descriptions and examples of each of its three different techniques. Each method and technique of relative dating is placed in historical perspective, with particular focus on developments in North America, an approach that allows a more complete understanding of the methods described, both in terms of analytical technique and disciplinary history. This text will appeal to all archaeologists, from graduate students to seasoned professionals, who want to learn more about the backbone of archaeological dating.

Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils: The Backbone of Archaeological Dating

Anthropology

Applying Evolutionary Archaeology: A Systematic Approach

Anthropology, and by extension archaeology, has had a long-standing interest in evolution in one or several of its various guises. Pick up any lengthy treatise on humankind written in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the chances are good that the word evolution will appear somewhere in the text. If for some reason the word itself is absent, the odds are excellent that at least the concept of change over time will have a central role in the discussion. After one of the preeminent (and often vilified) social scientists of the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer, popularized the term in the 1850s, evolution became more or less a household word, usually being used synonymously with change, albeit change over extended periods of time. Later, through the writings of Edward Burnett Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, and others, the notion of evolution as it applies to stages of social and political development assumed a prominent position in anthropological disc- sions. To those with only a passing knowledge of American anthropology, it often appears that evolutionism in the early twentieth century went into a decline at the hands of Franz Boas and those of similar outlook, often termed particularists. However, it was not evolutionism that was under attack but rather comparativism― an approach that used the ethnographic present as a key to understanding how and why past peoples lived the way they did (Boas 1896).

Anthropology, and by extension archaeology, has had a long-standing interest in evolution in one or several of its various guises. Pick up any lengthy treatise on humankind written in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the chances are good that the word evolution will appear somewhere in the text. If for some reason the word itself is absent, the odds are excellent that at least the concept of change over time will have a central role in the discussion. After one of the preeminent (and often vilified) social scientists of the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer, popularized the term in the 1850s, evolution became more or less a household word, usually being used synonymously with change, albeit change over extended periods of time. Later, through the writings of Edward Burnett Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, and others, the notion of evolution as it applies to stages of social and political development assumed a prominent position in anthropological disc- sions. To those with only a passing knowledge of American anthropology, it often appears that evolutionism in the early twentieth century went into a decline at the hands of Franz Boas and those of similar outlook, often termed particularists. However, it was not evolutionism that was under attack but rather comparativism― an approach that used the ethnographic present as a key to understanding how and why past peoples lived the way they did (Boas 1896).

Social Sciences

In recent years archaeologists and paleontologists have become increasingly interested in how and why vertebrate animal remains become, or do not become, fossils. Vertebrate Taphonomy introduces interested researchers to the wealth of analytical techniques developed by archaeologists and paleontologists to help them understand why prehistoric animal remains do or do not preserve, and why those that preserve appear the way they do. This book is comprehensive in scope, and will serve as an important work of reference for years to come.

Vertebrate Taphonomy (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology)

Ancient Civilizations

Cambridge University Press

In recent years archaeologists and paleontologists have become increasingly interested in how and why vertebrate animal remains become, or do not become, fossils. Vertebrate Taphonomy introduces interested researchers to the wealth of analytical techniques developed by archaeologists and paleontologists to help them understand why prehistoric animal remains do or do not preserve, and why those that preserve appear the way they do. This book is comprehensive in scope, and will serve as an important work of reference for years to come.

Quantitative Paleozoology (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology)

Quantitative Paleozoology describes and illustrates how the remains of long-dead animals recovered from archaeological and paleontological excavations can be studied and analyzed. The methods range from determining how many animals of each species are represented to determining whether one collection consists of more broken and more burned bones than another. All methods are described and illustrated with data from real collections, while numerous graphs illustrate various quantitative properties.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lyman, R. Lee. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lyman, R. Lee

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lyman, R. Lee. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Prehistory of the Oregon Coast: The Effects of Excavation Strategies and Assemblage Size on Archaeological Inquiry

Graphing Culture Change in North American Archaeology: A History of Graph Types

The Rise and Fall of Culture History

The Rise and Fall of Culture History

Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils: The Backbone of Archaeological Dating

Applying Evolutionary Archaeology: A Systematic Approach

Applying Evolutionary Archaeology: A Systematic Approach

Vertebrate Taphonomy (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology)

Vertebrate Taphonomy (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology)

Quantitative Paleozoology (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology)