Ceramic vessel technology was first developed or adopted in three separate areas of the American Southeast between 4500 and 3000 years ago. Temporal lags in the adoption of pottery in these areas are evident, while pottery was not widely used in the intervening areas of the Southeast for nearly 2000 years. I examine variables related to the production and exchange of alternative cooking technologies to interpret the variegated spatial and temporal patterns of early pottery use. I take as a case study the development and adoption of fiber-tempered pottery in the Savannah River Valley region. The antiquity of pottery in the region is unparalleled, but the rate of local acceptance was extremely slow. Prior to and during the time early pottery was available, an indirect-heat cooking technology involving soapstone was utilized in the central portion of the valley. I present evidence to support the argument that the social relations surrounding the production and distribution of soapstone had an inhibiting effect on the rates and pathways of pottery adoption in the region. Empirical support for this argument is drawn from technofunctional analyses of pottery and its nonceramic cooking alternatives, and from distributional analyses of soapstone and pottery. Evidence for the mechanical performance and use-wear of pottery is employed to identify functional attributes of pot design and use on over 1200 vessels from 30 assemblages. I compare these data with distributional patterns of soapstone to show that: (1) pots were rapidly developed for use over fire in areas outside the sphere of soapstone exchange, (2) pottery was not readily adopted by individuals directly involved in the production and exchange of soapstone, and (3) when finally adopted by individuals using soapstone, pots were used simply as containers for indirect-heat cooking. Results of the case study are applied to the greater Southeast, where I argue that the Poverty Point commerce in soapstone vessels was a primary deterrent to the widespread adoption of pottery. I offer an alternative model for the westward spread of pottery which emphasizes the role of social integration on the periphery of Poverty Point exchange.

This thesis has two aims. The first is to examine the history of archaeology in southern· Africa and to trace the development of calls for the repatriation and return of skeletal material to indigenous groups. The second examines indigenous group claims for the repatriation and return of skeletal material from archaeological institutions in, and outside, South Africa. Two case studies form the basis for this inquiry. The first focuses on the claim of the Griqua National Conference (GNC) for the repatriation from France of the remains of Saartjie Baartman, a woman of Khoikhoi descent. The second case study examines the claim of Adam Kok V and his family for the return of the remains of their ancestor Cornelius Kok II from the University of the Witwatersrand Anatomy Department. This thesis also documents the first repatriation ceremony to take place in South Africa. A case study of Native American Indian history during the colonial period and development of the social sciences at that time provides a comparative perspective. Overall questions posed within the context of the discussion are: what is the position of archaeologists in these situations; what is their relationship with South Africa's indigenous nations and what does the future hold for the discipline in this regard? Several research methods were adopted. Formal interviews, consisting of structured questions, recording and note taking, formed part of the research methodology. Informal interviews were unstructured and consisted of note taking only. I refer to these as primary sources for case studies. Secondary sources comprise information obtained from interviews conducted by others. The interviews consist of material researched and collected in the last two years. Interview material included in the thesis consists of information provided by archaeologists and indigenous group leaders from the Griqua National Conference and the Khoisan Representative Council. Attendances at occasions such as the repatriation ceremony of Cornelius Kok II in September 1996, and the first annual Khoisan Conference in July 1997, were documented through note taking and photographing. The case studies form the structure around which the discussion is based, but I also discuss several related 2 issues, the most important of which is race. Members of indigenous groups such as the GNC, who are claiming Griqua descent, was classified 'Coloured' under apartheid laws. It is from this stratum of the community that calls for indigenous re-identification and empowerment have come. As a result, the histories of Saartjie Baartman and Cornelius Kok II have political consequences. 3 Claimants' groups are understood as being regionalist in structure, wanting access to economic and political resources, yet wishing to remain within a unitary state. In reclaiming their (lost' histories, ·indigenous groups have claimed (icons' of Khoikhoi and San history and have challenged the discipline that institutionalised their ancestors' bodies as subjects' of study - archaeology.

This thesis discusses the lithic technological change in Grassridge Rockshelter, a multi-component site located in the interior region of the Eastern Cape of South Africa that presents a rich high-resolution stratigraphy that interchanges with periods of hiatuses between the Late Pleistocene (LP) dated to about ~43ka, Terminal Pleistocene (TP) dated to ~13ka and Mid-Holocene (MH) occupations dated to ~7ka. The similarities and differences between the LP and TP as well as the TP and MH lithic assemblages are analysed to better understand the behaviours of toolmakers. The analyses use raw material type choices and numerous lithic tool typologies as proxies to track lithic variability. Also considered in this study are tool traits that include platform treatment, external platform angle, platform thickness, early/late debitage exploitation, length over width ratio, profile, and width over thickness ratio. The frequencies of each tool trait are arranged into Tostevin's (2012) methodology system of knapping behaviours to consider various explanations – environmental, economic, and sociocultural- for these variations.

The antiquity of human presence in the Americas has been a topic of intense debate in archaeology since the inception of the discipline as a scientific study. A century of multidisciplinary investigations have failed to achieve consensus on indentifying the earliest humans to inhabit the Western Hemisphere, their origins, routes, and the antiquity of their initial dispersals. Hundreds of Late Pleistocene human occupations have been documented in both North and South America. This is not the case for Middle America where only a handful of early sites have provided diagnostic artifacts in datable context. In the absence of a clear understanding of what happened in this intermediate region, the early archaeological records of North and South America will be difficult to reconcile. This is problematic because the geographic location and the relatively narrow expanse makes Middle America a natural funnel of early human movement. This dissertation contributes to advancing understanding of early human occupation in Middle America in three ways: (1) it provides a synthesis of the known archaeological sites of Terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene age; (2) it evaluates lithic analysis of the most pervasive Middle American lithic technologies, Clovis-like and Fell-like points, as to assess their relationship to North and South America; and (3) it focuses on a single case of possible Late Pleistocene human interactions with extinct Central American megafauna through the examination of the paleontological site of Chivacabé (Ttzi’kab’b’e) located in the western highlands of Guatemala. The data collected for this dissertation reveals that (1) the majority of Late Pleistocene artifacts from Middle America are surface finds, and only a handful of sites have been archaeologically excavated and/or have produced radiometric dates; (2) North American Clovis-like and South American Fell-like projectile points represent the majority of the Paleoamerican record in this area; and (3) clear evidence of human and extinct Late Pleistocene megafauna interaction is still a matter of debate and merits future research. / 2025-07-31T00:00:00Z

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.