From the Pleistocene to the Holocene: Human Organization and Cultural Transformations in Prehistoric North America

Description

Editors: Bousman, C. Britt and Vierra, Bradley J.

Publisher: Texas A & M University Press

Pub Date: 2012

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No tears, bends or folds.  Without dust jacket, as issued.  Printed boards.  Previous owner’s name and mark on upper corner title page near spine head.  Very light edge and corner wear.

Notes: “The propagation of Holocene Archaic societies from Pleistocene Paleoindian groups is often painted as a simple internal progression from one society to another.  For many area of North America…this characterization is a gross oversimplification.  It is correctly viewed as the first major cultural shift to take place solely in the Americas, and it sets the stage for unique development in cultural complexity that distinguish later native American prehistoric societies from all others.”  (From Chapter 1).   In Method and Theory in American Archaeology (University of Chicago Press, 1958), Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips laid out nine differences between Paleoindian and Archaic societies–1)Shift from large animal hunting to using a variety of animals, as well as trapping and hunting; 2)the increase in the use of plants for food; 3) increase in the use of ground stone and other plant processing tools; 4) greater numbers of chipped stone tools; 5) manufacture of different types of projectile points; 6) less mobility, higher residential stability; 7) use of organic materials in tool manufacture; 8) systematic burial of the dead; and 9) intensive use of stone for cooking in ovens.   Papers range from Alaska to Mexico to the northeastern United States.