Archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast (Ripley P. Bullen Series) [Hardcover]

Kenneth E. Sassaman (Editor), David G. Anderson (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Ripley P. Bullen Series | Publication Date: October 1996

This volume summarizes our archaeological knowledge of natives who inhabited the American Southeast from 8,000 to 3,000 years ago and examines evidence of many of the native cultural expressions observed by early European explorers, including long-distance exchange, plant domestication, mound building, social ranking, and warfare.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kenneth E. Sassaman is archaeologist with the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, and instructor in the Department of History and Anthropology at Augusta College, Augusta, Georgia. He is the author of Early Pottery in the Southeast: Tradition and Innovation in Cooking Technology. David G. Anderson is archaeologist with the Southeast Archaeological Center, National Park Service, Tallahassee, Florida. He is the author of The Savannah River Chiefdoms: Political Change in the Late Prehistoric Southeast. They are coeditors of The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 387 pages
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Florida (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813014344
• ISBN-13: 978-0813014340
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,472,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David G. Anderson (Ph.D. Michigan 1990, MA Arkansas 1979; BA Case Western Reserve 1972). Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee (2004-present; formerly with the National Park Service, 1988-2003. Awards: Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Dissertation Prize 1991; SAA Presidential Recognition Award 1997; SAA Excellence in Cultural Resource Management Award for Research 1999; First C. B. Moore Award for Excellence in Archaeology, Southeastern Archaeological Conference 1990. I have conducted archaeological fieldwork in the Southeastern, Southwestern, and Midwestern United States, and in the Caribbean. Professional interests include exploring the development of cultural complexity in Eastern North America, maintaining and improving the nation's archaeological program, teaching and writing about archaeology, and developing technical and popular syntheses of archaeological research. This work is documented in some 350 publications and meeting papers and some 40 books and technical monographs. Selected publications include The Savannah River Chiefdoms: Political Change in the Late Prehistoric Southeast (Alabama 1994), The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast (Alabama 1996); Archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast (Florida 1996), the latter two edited with Ken Sassaman; The Woodland Southeast (Alabama 2002) edited with Bob Mainfort; Archaeology, History, and Predictive Modeling (Alabama 2003) with Steve Smith; and Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics: A Global Perspective on Mid-Holocene Transitions (Academic Press 2007) edited with Kirk A. Maasch and Daniel H. Sandweiss. Technical monographs/publications have encompassed large scale survey, excavation, and synthesis projects; site file management; site destruction and looting; historic preservation planning; and the state of the nation's cultural resource management program. A fairly complete resume, picture, and other biographical data is available on the web at http://web.utk.edu/~anthrop/faculty/anderson.html

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Well-Done Update on Middle and Late Archaic North America, January 25, 2008

By 

Willet A. Boyer III "Archaeologist" (Gainesville, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast (Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series) (Paperback)

This book, edited by David Anderson and Ken Sassaman, is a synthetic study by many authors on the current archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast - that is, the middle and late Archaic period in southeastern North America, from roughly 7,000 years before the present until a bit more than 2,500 years ago. The book examines in detail what we currently know of the Native American societies which existed during this period, and significantly updates and expands what we have known about these cultures.

It has been traditional to regard all of the Native American cultures of this time as "hunter-gatherers", with the unfortunate connotation of "primitive" which that term carries. This book takes us beyond merely looking at environment and tool-using technology to show that the peoples of the middle and late Archaic had complex cultures based on a changing environment. One of the best series of essays is by Russo, who shows that the "shell heaps" found in northern Florida and elsewhere were almost certainly deliberately constructed monuments, with ritual and cultural significance for the people who built them. There is also discussion of what is known of the Poverty Point site in Louisiana, an example of extraordinary construction and cultural sophistication centuries before the Mississipian era.

While some of the chapters are somewhat weaker due to lack of more complete data to support certain assertions (the chapter on Poverty Point is an example), the book as a whole is a useful and readable addition to our knowledge of the Archaic southeast. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Native American cultures of the southeastern United States, as well as professional archaeologists.