The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific

ISBN-13: 9780306478536 / Angielski / Miękka / 2003 / 332 str.

Ben Fitzhugh

Opis

In 1987, I had the good fortune to join in the excavation of a phenomenal archae ological site on the western coast of Kodiak Island, in Alaska. The New Karluk site (a. k. a., "Karluk One") was perched on the edge of the small village of Karluk at the mouth of the river of the same name, once one of the most productive salmon rivers in the North Pacific. I had just completed my sophomore year of college, and under the direction of Richard Jordan, I enthusiastically joined sev eral other students in the Kodiak Archaeology Projects New Karluk excavation. I had participated in my father's archaeological research in Eastern Canada since early childhood, but the Karluk dig was unlike any archaeology I had experienced before. For three months, we peeled back layers of grass, wood, and earth floors separated by remnants of ancient sod roofs. Due to the unusual preservation and richness of the site, at every tum we uncovered perishable items such as bent-wood bowls, masks, dolls, puffin-beak rattles, grass baskets, fragments of fiber netting, locks of hair, and food waste. Preservation was so excellent, in fact, that we often exposed grass blades still green after hundreds of years, which once exposed to air would tum brown before our eyes."

Spis treści

1 The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers.- 1.1. Introduction.- 1.1.1. Social Complexity—A Definition.- 1.1.2. Complex Hunter-Gatherers—A Definition.- 1.2. The North Pacific Rim.- 1.2.1. Causality.- 1.3. Theoretical Orientation.- 2 The Kodiak Environment.- 2.1. The Physical Environment.- 2.2 Geology.- 2.3. Ecology.- 2.3.1. Terrestrial Ecozone.- 2.3.2. Littoral Ecozone.- 2.3.3. Marine Ecozone.- 2.3.4. Riverine Ecozone.- 2.4. Temporal Dimensions of Environmental Variability.- 2.4.1. Seasonal Scale Variability.- 2.4.2. Subseasonal Variation.- 2.4.3. Inter-annual Scale Variation.- 2.4.4. Long Scale Variation.- 3 A Historical Framework.- 3.1. Overview.- 3.2. Ocean Bay I and II (7500-3500 BP).- 3.3. Ocean Bay to Kachemak Transition.- 3.4. Early Kachemak/Old Kiavak (3200-2500 BP).- 3.5. Late Kachemak /Three Saints Phase (2500-800 BP).- 3.6. Kachemak-Koniag: Transition, Discontinuity or Replacement?.- 3.7. Koniag (800-200 BP).- 3.8. Alutiiq/Russian-America (AD 1784–1864).- 3.9. Alutiiq/US America (AD 1867-present).- 3.10. Summary.- 4 Complex Hunter-Gatherers on the Kodiak Archipelago.- 4.1. Introduction.- 4.2. Feast and Famine for the Kodiak Alutiiq.- 4.3. Potlatch Feasting.- 4.4. Gender Relations.- 4.5. Leadership.- 4.6. Property Ownership.- 4.7. Trade.- 4.8. Warfare.- 4.9. Slavery.- 4.10. Summary.- 5 Colonization.- 5.1. Background.- 5.2. Maritime Adaptation.- 5.3. Evidence for the Earliest Occupants of Kodiak.- 5.3.1. Estimating the Timing of Colonization.- 5.4. Lifeways of Early Holocene Coastal Peoples.- 6 Modeling Emergent Complexity on the North Pacific.- 6.1. Introduction.- 6.1.1. Modeling.- 6.1.2. Outline of Theoretical Orientation.- 6.2. Modeling Kodiak Social Evolution.- 6.2.1. Act I—A Beginning.- 6.2.2. Act II—Initial Effects of Circumscription.- 6.2.3. Act III—Eluding Malthus: Effects of Technological and Labor Intensification.- 6.2.4. Act IV—Emergence of Social Asymmetry.- 6.3. Conclusion.- 7 The Sitkalidak Archaeological Survey Project.- 7.1. Project Goals.- 7.2. Methods.- 7.2.1. Survey Strategy.- 7.2.2. Site Identification.- 7.2.3. Site Documentation.- 7.2.4. Analytical Units and Precision.- 7.3. Site Chronology.- 7.3.1. Radiocarbon Dating.- 7.3.2. Typological Dating.- 7.4. Material Analysis.- 7.4.1. Artifacts.- 7.4.2. Faunal Materials.- 7.5. Excavations.- 7.5.1. Tanginak Spring Site (KOD 481).- 7.5.2. Bear Island Site (KOD 564).- 7.5.3. Partition Cliff Site (KOD 473).- 7.5.4. Lighthouse Site (KOD 089).- 8 Site Scale Analyses.- 8.1. Introduction.- 8.2. Component Frequencies as a Measure of Changing Settlement Density.- 8.3. Site Size Measures of Population Aggregation.- 8.3.1. Site Area.- 8.3.2. Number of Houses Per Site.- 8.4. Site Function Variability.- 8.4.1. Site Functions from Spatial and Geographical Parameters.- 8.4.2. Artifacts Assemblage Character.- 8.5. Settlement Patterns.- 8.6. Summary.- 9 Social Inequality and Demography.- 9.1. House Attributes as a Measure of Social Variability.- 9.2. Trends in Population Change.- 9.2.1. The House/Site Area Method.- 9.2.2. The Carbon-Date Frequency Method.- 9.3. Summary.- 10 Reconciliation, Extension, and Implications.- 10.1. Interrogating the Model.- 10.1.1. Ocean Bay I: The First Act—Aftermath of Colonization.- 10.1.2. Ocean Bay II: The Second Act—Expansion to Density-Dependence.- 10.1.3. Early Kachemak: The Third Act—Density-Dependence or Near Extinction?.- 10.1.4. Late Kachemak and Koniag: The Fourth Act—Competition and Cooperation in a New World Order.- 10.2. Overtures to Emergent Properties.- 10.3. Summary and Conclusion.- Appendices.- Appendix A.- Appendix B.- Appendix C.- Appendix D.- Endnotes.- References.