What Do I already know about Prehistoric Cultures

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Welcome to the The American Archaic
University of Minnesota Duluth
Tim Roufs
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Text Mexico(5th ed) Page 9
Mexico (5th ed.). Michael D. Coe and Rex
Koontz. NYThames and Hudson, 2002, p. 9.
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Text Mexico, page 9
www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/mastages
_handout.html
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Mexico, Ch. 3, The Archaic Period
www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/mastages
_handout.html
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The Maya, Ch. 2, The Earliest Maya
www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/mastages
_handout.html
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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Ancient Middle AmericaArchaicTim Roufs

• Archaic
• Period of Incipient Agriculture
• Early Gathering Cultures

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http//weber.ucsd.edu/dkjordan/arch/mexchron.html
Archaic
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Six Important Points for the Archaic Stage
After Willey and Phillips, Method and Theory in
American Archaeology. Chicago University of
Chicago Press, 1970.
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Archaic Stage
1. Archaic
includes numerous historical cultures whose
origins and connections have not been, or cannot
be traced . . .
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Archaic Stage
. . . in Mexico, however, there appear to be
connections with early cultures in the Southwest
U.S.A. and in Texas
12
http//www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/refe
rence_maps/north_america.html
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http//www4.hmc.edu8001/humanities/basin/tribes.g
if
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Archaic Stage
2. Natural Context
there is a continuation of hunting and gathering
cultures into environmental conditions
approximating those of the present
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Archaic Stage
3. There is a dependence on smaller and perhaps
more varied game than in the Lithic stage . . .
and, in many places, an increase in gathering
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Archaic Stage
4. Stone implements and utensils used in the
preparation of wild vegetable foods first appear
in this stage . . .
Many of these were shaped by use rather than
design . . .
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Tehuacán,Puebla
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Archaic Stage
. . . although in many Archaic stage cultures,
techniques of stone-grinding and stone-polishing
were known
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Archaic Stage
5. Domesticated plants are found in some Archaic
contexts . . . including maize
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Tehuacán,Puebla
Richard S. Mac Neish, Scientific American, 1964.
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100
seriation
Richard S. Mac Neish, Scientific American, 1964.
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Archaic Stage
. . . but the presence of these food plants is
not evidence for agriculture in the full sense of
that term
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Archaic Stage
. . . as near as the archaeologist is able to
tell, the Archaic cultures in question had only
slight economic dependence upon early domesticates
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Archaic Stage
. . . where domestic plants seem to occur, for
some reason societies seem to have been composed
of smaller populations than the other Archaic
cultures
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Archaic Stage
6. Finally, it is difficult to set meaningful
date limits to the Archaic stage . . .
7000 1800 / 1600 B.C. ? 5000 1800 / 1600
B.C. ?
28
http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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Archaic Stage
. . . at the earlier end of the range there is
obvious overlap between Archaic cultures and
those whose technical inventory and environmental
context is of a Lithic Stage type
30
http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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Tehuacán,Puebla
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Archaic Stage
. . . thus, some Archaic cultures seem to
antedate 7000 B.C. (which is the very
approximate and arbitraryupper limit for the
Lithic Stage)
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Archaic Stage

• at the Conquest (A.D. 1520) many cultures still
  existed at the Archaic stage
• this does not, however, impute to them
  backwardness

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Archaic Stage
Discussion
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Archaic Stage
after 7000 B.C. several changes mark a shift to a
way of life similar to the Desert Culture in
western North America
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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http//www4.hmc.edu8001/humanities/basin/tribes.g
if
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Archaic Stage
several essential economic and social changes
marked the shift to a Desert Culture way of
life . . .
39
Archaic Stage
the Desert Culture way of life includes the
migratory hunting and gathering cultures which
continue into environmental conditions
approximating those of the present time
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Archaic Stage

• dependence is on smaller and more varied fauna in
  place of the large animals . . .
• there is also an apparent increase in gathering

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Archaic Stage

• sites begin to yield large numbers of stone
  implements and utensils that are probably
  connected with the preparation of wild vegetable
  foods
• but these are usually shaped by use rather than
  by design, and are not therefore in the same
  category of ground and polished stone

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Tehuacán,Puebla
43
Archaic Stage

• these specialized techniques of gathering and
  preparing wild foods suggest a time in which
  early experimentation in plant domestication
  could take place
• especially in areas where collected plants
  consisted mainly of hard-shelled seeded forms

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Archaic Stage
as a result, some of the first indications of
New World agriculture are found in the Archaic
Stage
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Tehuacán,Puebla
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Archaic Stage

• but the mere presence of agriculture
• is not of primary significance from a
• more abstract developmental point of
• view
• even though agriculture is of enormous importance
  prehistorically in terms of the growth of
  particular American patterns of culture

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Archaic Stage

• agriculture became important only when . . .
• it can be seen as dominant in the
• economy and . . .
• it is integrated socially to produce stable
  settlement patterns
• (which become the basis of the Preclassic Stage)

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Archaic Stage

• the high quality of chipped stone tools produced
  by many of the Lithic cultures are not maintained
  by most of the Archaic peoples
• older forms, however, persist -- especially in
  the chopper and scraper categories

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Archaic Stage

• articles of bone, tooth, horn, and ivory were
  present in the Lithic, but they were not abundant
• they do, however, assume a major importance in
  assemblages of the Archaic
• for the first time they vie with stone as
  materials for many implements and ornaments
• points, knives, scrapers, tubes, beads, and
  pendants

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http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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Archaic Stage

• articles of bone, tooth, horn, and ivory . . .
• in general were used for objects which had no
  counterpart in stone
• awls, perforators, and needles
• indicative of basketry and skin working

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Archaic Stage

• new tools . . .
• the drill, makes its appearance
• the increased variety of forms is matched by an
  increase in the variety of materials used

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http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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Archaic Stage
articles of bone, tooth, horn, and ivory are
sometimes nown as the osteodontokeratic culture
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Glossary
osteodontokeratic

• osteo "bone"
• donto "tooth"
• keratic "horn"

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Glossary
osteodontokeratic

• osteo "bone"
• donto "tooth"
• keratic "horn"

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A spatulate tool with beveled edges, made from a
bison or deer rib.The Harrell Site, Texas
http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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Flint knapping tools made of antler and bone.
The Harrell Site, Texas
http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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Glossary
osteodontokeratic

• osteo "bone"
• donto "tooth"
• keratic "horn"

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http//www2.sfu.ca/archaeology/museum/ask/a6.htm
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Glossary
osteodontokeratic

• osteo "bone"
• donto "tooth"
• keratic "horn"

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http//www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/ANTHRO/rwpark/ArcticA
rchStuff/TLArts.html
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Archaic Stage

• a large number of tools indicate that fishing was
  important to Archaic peoples
• including fishhooks and harpoons

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Unfinished bone fishhook. The Harrell Site, Texas
http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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Archaic Stage

• shells make their first appearance as a used
  material
• mostly for articles of personal adornment
• especially in beads and pendants

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An array of beads and ornaments made of
different materials, including an Olivella shell
bead. The Harrell Site, Texas
http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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A large mussel shell with heavy edge wear and
polish likely was used as a tool, possibly a
hoe. The Harrell Site, Texas
http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/harrell/artifact
s.html
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Archaic Stage

• burials first appear on this
• level
• flexed burial in round graves
• partial cremation
• and the use of red ocher in burial rites
• have a wide distribution on this levels

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http//www.eaststeubenville.com/people.html
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Archaic Stage

• burials first appear on this level
• this does not mean that the people of the Lithic
  had no formalized modes of disposing of their
  dead . .
• but simply that it is only in the Archaic and
  later stages that we can say what they were

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Archaic Stage

• habitations change from nomadic to semi-nomadic
• people made greater use of caves and rock
  shelters

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Tehuacán
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http//www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/english/zonas_
arqueologicas_y_museos/oriente/detalle.cfm?idsec4
6idsub0idpag1774
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Archaic Stage

• habitations change from nomadic to semi-nomadic
• accumulations of refuse from (probably) brief and
  intermittent occupations suggest a degree of
  stability and continuity that may
• or may not be accurate

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Archaic Stage

• habitations change from nomadic to semi-nomadic
• houses of sufficient durability to leave
  permanent traces in the ground are generally
  lacking
• generally there are no storage pits
• but Cuello has both

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Cuello
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Cuello, Belize
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Archaic Stage

• settlements are characteristically small in
  extent
• but frequently they were used for considerable
  time
• i.e., at least some Archaics are living
  differently than the earlier nomadic hunting
  peoples of the Lithic

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Archaic Stage

• of doubtful status as artifacts but
  characteristic of Archaic sites in the Americas
  are masses of fire-cracked stones
• used in pit roasting and stone boiling

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http//www.texasbeyondhistory.net/pecos/archeology
.html
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Archaic Stage
hunting techniques and tools were adapted to
exploit the smaller fauna that replaced the big
game animals

• thus projectile points were eventually made
  smaller and broader

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Tehuacán,Puebla
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Archaic Stage
people lived in extended family groups who were
engaged in cyclical wandering in search of food

• probably numbered no more than 25 30
• but they were not truly nomadic

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Archaic Stage
they needed few material possessions

• but remains of basketry and milling stones appear

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http//www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind2.html
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Tehuacán,Puebla
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Archaic Sites include

• Nogales phase Tamaulipas
• La Perra phase Tamaulipas
• Diablo phase Tamaulipas
• Ocampo phase Tamaulipas

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Tamaulipas
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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Archaic Sites include

• Tepexpán
• ?

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Tepexpán
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Tepexpán
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Minnesota man (Pelican Rapids, MN)
ca. 10,000 or ??? B.C.
Tepexpán man
http//www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/refe
rence_maps/north_america.html
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Minnesota Man
www.co.otter-tail.mn.us/history/countyhistory_mnwo
man.php
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Archaic Sites include
Tehuacán Valley Coxcatlán Cave
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Tehuacán
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Tehuacán
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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Archaic Sites include
Cuello
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Cuello
http//www.ancientmexico.com/
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Cuello
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Maya Trade Routes
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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Archaic Sites include
Santiaguillo
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Archaic Sites include
Yanhuitlán
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Yanhuitlán
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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Archaic Sites include

• Santa Marta Rock Shelter (Chiapas)
• important for agriculture

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Sta. Marta Rock Shelter
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/m
a_timeline.htmllithic
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What happens next?
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And after that?
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Time line of New World Civilizations.
Understanding Physical Anthropology and
Archaeology, 8th ed., p. 479.
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End of The Archaic Continue on to The Preclassic