Prehistoric Cultures of North America
AIS/ANTH 130

Photo Gallery Introduction

The photos in your Photo Galleries are meant to augment the textbook. Most archaeological textbooks do not attempt to offer a 'coffee table' catalog of artifact photos and museums only provide a few dramatic examples from their collections. I try to avoid pot hunted artifacts that show up for sale.  Some lithic labs have resin duplicates with photo catalogs. In short it is difficult to get comprehensive examples of artifact types and sequences. Further, Native American cultures produced a great deal of variation and it is easy to over simplify the material culture. However, there is also a tendency to downplay Native American skills and advancement, especially in North America. Some of the prejudice was meant to diminish non-European cultures and justify removal policies. Destruction of sites, pot hunting and black market practices all have contributed to a lack of provenience for artifacts. Artifacts of wood and fiber are not preserved well in acidic soils. Therefore, artifact distributions are highly skewed by preservation issues. This is related to the area of taphonomy, which is primarily the study of decomposition and in some cases fossilization of plants and animals.

Artifacts

Lithics: Stone artifacts generally preserve well because artifacts are often made from rather hard mineral and rocks. Thus they are 'Geofacts' first and then if manipulated by humans  become artifacts. One technique is to chip or strike hard quartz based minerals like flint or volcanic material like obsidian. This action produces predictable conchoidal fractures that remove 'flakes'. This is called 'flint knapping' and is usually done with antler tines or batons. These tools mainly included sharp edged objects like scrapers, knives, drills and projectile points from the flakes or the core.. Atlatl dart points, knives and spear points are often difficult to differentiate. Therefore, if the function is not clear archaeologists might just use the term 'bifacial' rather than point or arrowhead. Relative dating can be done through seriation charts of types of points or bifacials.In general larger points were for spear throwers or atlatls and smaller points are for arrows. The advent of the bow and arrow is not well understood nor are its a origins. Actual bows appear around 6,000 - 8,000 years ago. Projectile points are much earlier but it is not certain whether they were for spear throwers or earlier bows. In North America possible projectile points for arrows for bows may date into the middle periods around 2,000- 3,000 years ago.

Some stone is ground, pecked, and or polished to shape into tools to include hammers, axes/celts, mano/metates, pestles/motars, atlatl weights/bannerstones, shaft straighteners, pipes, clubs, game balls/discoidals, etc. Some of the rock used was very hard and required other hard rock (Moh's hardness scale) to work it, while some rock like soapstone was very soft and could be easily worked.

Bone, antler and shell: Artifacts of these material tend to be soft but tough and are easily ground, polished or drilled. These start out as 'Biofacts' and then are manipulated into artifacts.

Metal: North American culture actually worked metals including gold, silver and copper. Copper was used the most and made into ornaments, tools, weapons, and sheet images. The main source of copper was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Keweenaw Peninsula. Metal is also a 'Geofact' and in some cases must be smelted before being worked into artifacts.

Ceramics: Ceramics or pottery preserves very well and is used for seriation in relative dating. Pot shards  or sherds (pieces of ceramic) can be sourced and dated. The clay is often tempered with fiber, shell, sand and grog (ground up fired clay). Various shaped objects can be made by the paddle and anvil, coiled or thrown methods, as well as sculpted figurines. Once a pot is constructed it often had decoration applied by fiber covered or carve paddles or rollers, incising with a stylus or painted. Sometimes a thin layer of clay (slip) was applied and polished, painted, or both. Usually we would say a pot is black on white when a white slip is applied with a black paint design in geometric or zoomorphic elements. If another color is added the term polychrome is used. Pots may be utilitarian or used for special purposes including in burials. Clay itself is a 'Geofact', but some tempering material may be 'Biofacts' such as shell or fiber.

Wood and Textile: These do not preserve well and usually only show up in very dry conditions or mud/bog conditions where the air/oxygen (anaerobic) is cut off. Once samples were found they were very difficult to preserve. These of course are 'Biofacts'.

Note: When doing the practicum look for like examples in the text or the Photo Gallery. You may not find an exact match but something similar enough. See the practicum instructions to review. It is best to think in terms of a process from a biofact or geofact that is ultimately manipulated by humans to result in an artifact.