Despite the advances made in archaeology over the past generation, the Northeast remains the most misunderstood of all the archaeological regions of North America. With a complex environmental history shaped by ice sheets from the last glaciation, and highly acidic soils characteristic of the area, the kinds of organic artifacts found in other areas have been destroyed in the Northeast. The result is a sometimes evasive, particularly complicated, and always fragmentary archaeological record. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, the Northeast is a region that inspires the development of innovative research designs and thoughtful and relevant questions. Each author has been a graduate student of Dena Dincauze, who has done much to foster understanding of the prehistory of Northeastern North America.
MARY ANN LEVINE is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.KENNETH E. SASSAMAN is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida, Gainesville.MICHAEL S. NASSANEY is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.
Foreword by Alice B. KehoePrefaceAncient People, Ancient LandscapesExploration, Colonization, and Settling-In: The Bull Brook Phase, Antecedents, and Descendants by Mary Lou CurranA Light but Lasting Footprint: Human Influences on the Holocene Landscape by George P. NicholasPaleoenvironmental Context for the Middle Archaic Occupation of Cape Cod, Massachusetts by Frederick J. DunfordRethinking Typology and Technology"By Any Other Name…": A Reconsideration of Middle Archaic Lithic Technology and Typology in the Northeast by John R. CrossA Southeastern Perspective on Soapstone Vessel Technology in the Northeast by Kenneth E. SassamanCeramic Research in New England: Breaking the Typological Mold by Elizabeth S. ChiltonCritical Perspectives on Entrenched AssumptionsMyth Busting and Prehistoric Land Use in the Green Mountains of Vermont by David M. LacyCritical Theory in the Backwater of New England: Retelling the Third Millennium by Elena FiliosFishing, Farming, and Finding the Village Sites: Centering Late Woodland New England Algonquians by Robert J. HasenstabCommunity and Confederation: A Political Geography of Contact-Period Southern New England by Eric S. JohnsonInterdisciplinary Perspectives on Northeastern PrehistoryHistory of Zooarchaeology in New England by Catherine C. CarlsonNative Copper in the Northeast: An Overview of Potential Sources Available to Indigenous Peoples by Mary Ann LevineRadiocarbon Dating of Shell on the Southern Coast of New England by Elizabeth A. LittleContributions from Cultural Resource ManagementThe Significance of the Turners Falls Locality in Connecticut River Valley Archaeology by Michael S. NassaneyAn Interdisciplinary Study of the John Alden Houses, 1627 and 1653, Duxbury, Massachusetts: Archaeology and Architecture by Mitchell T. MulhollandIndex