David G Anderson

The definitive book on what is known about the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene archaeological record in the Southeast The 1996 benchmark volume The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast, edited by David G. Anderson and Kenneth E. Sassaman, was the first study to summarize what was known of the peoples who lived in the Southeast when ice sheets covered the northern part of the continent and mammals such as mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and ground sloths roamed the landscape.The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age provides an updated, definitive synthesis of current archaeological research gleaned from an array of experts in the region. It is organized in three parts: state records, the regional perspective, and reflections and future directions. Chapters survey a diversity of topics including the distribution of the earliest archaeological sites in the region, chipped-stone tool technology, the expanding role of submerged archaeology, hunter-gatherer lifeways, past climate changes and the extinction of megafauna on the transitional landscape, and evidence of demographic changes at the end of the Ice Age. Discussion of the ethical responsibilities regarding the use of private collections and the relationship of archaeologists and the avocational community, insight from outside the Southeast, and considerations for future research round out the volume.

While contact with explorers, missionaries, and traders made a significant impact on natives of the Eastern Woodlands, Indian peoples cannot be solely understood from the historical record. Here, in ""Societies in Eclipse"", archaeologists combine recent research with insights from anthropology, historiography, and oral tradition to examine the cultural landscape preceding and immediately following the arrival of Europeans. The evidence suggests that native societies were in the process of significant cultural transformation prior to contact.

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From the foreword: "With this important volume, the editors serve notice that old characterizations of the cultures of the Archaic period have been buried under the back dirt of new excavations and new interpretations. . . . It places the Archaic cultures squarely at the forefront of archaeological theory."This volume summarizes our archaeological knowledge of natives who inhabited the American Southeast from 8,000 to 3,000 years ago and examines evidence of many of the native cultural expressions observed by early European explorers, including long-distance exchange, plant domestication, mound building, social ranking, and warfare. ContentsSection I. Mid-Holocene Environments1. Geoarchaeology and the Mid-Holocene Landscape History of the Greater Southeast, by Joseph Schuldenrein2. Mid-Holocene Forest History of Florida and the Coastal Plain of Georgia and South Carolina, by William A. Watts, Eric C. Grimm, and T. C. HusseySection II. Technology3. Changing Strategies of Lithic Technological Organization, by Daniel S. Amick and Philip J. Carr4. Technological Innovations in Economic and Social Contexts, by Kenneth E. Sassaman5. Middle and Late Archaic Architecture, by Kenneth E. Sassaman and R. Jerald LedbetterSection III. Subsistence and Health6. The Paleoethnobotanical Record for the Mid-Holocene Southeast, by Kristen J. Gremillion7. Mid-Holocene Faunal Exploitation in the Southeastern United States, by Bonnie W. Styles and Walter E. Klippel8. Biocultural Inquiry into Archaic Period Populations of the Southeast: Trauma and Occupational Stress, by Maria O. SmithSection IV. Regional Settlement Variation9. Approaches to Modeling Regional Settlement in the Archaic Period Southeast, by David G. Anderson10. Southeastern Mid-Holocene Coastal Settlements, by Michael Russo11. Accounting for Submerged Mid-Holocene Archaeological Sites in the Southeast: A Case Study from the Chesapeake Bay Estuary, Virginia, by Dennis B. BlantonSection V. Regional Integration and Organization12. The Emergence of Long-Distance Exchange Networks in the Southeastern United States, by Richard W. Jefferies13. A Consideration of the Social Organization of the Shell Mound Archaic, by Cheryl P. Claassen14. Southeastern Archaic Mounds, by Michael Russo15. Poverty Point and Greater Southeastern Prehistory: The Culture That Did Not Fit, by Jon L. GibsonKenneth E. Sassaman is archaeologist with the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, and instructor in the Department of History and Anthropology at Augusta College, Augusta, Georgia. He is the author of Early Pottery in the Southeast: Tradition and Innovation in Cooking Technology. David G. Anderson is archaeologist with the Southeast Archaeological Center, National Park Service, Tallahassee, Florida. He is the author of The Savannah River Chiefdoms: Political Change in the Late Prehistoric Southeast. They are coeditors of The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast.

This volume explores political changes in chiefdoms, specifically how complex chiefdoms emerge and collapse, and how this process - called cycling - can be examined using archaeological, ethnohistoric, paleoclimatic, paleosubsistence and physical anthropological data. The focus for the research is the prehistoric and initial contact-era Mississippian chiefdoms of the Southeastern United States, specifically the societies occupying the Savannah River basin from circa AD 1000 to 1600. This regional focus and the multidisciplinary nature of the investigation provides a solid introduction to the Southeastern Mississippian archaeological record and the study of cultural evolution in general.