The Amerind Foundation

 

 

"Indigenous Archaeology at the Trowel's Edge:  Exploring Methods of Collaboration and Education"

October 13-16, 2005

Stephen W. Silliman, Chair

 

[Amerind-SAA Seminar]

 

Jeffrey Bendremer, Mohegan Tribe Historic Preservation Department

Russell Handsman, Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center

Jordan E. Kerber, Colgate University

Kent G. Lightfoot, University of California, Berkeley

Barbara J. Mills, University of Arizona

George Nicholas, Simon Fraser University

Jack Rossen, Ithaca College

Kathy Sebastian, Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation

Stephen W. Silliman, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Elaine Thomas, Mohegan Tribe Historic Preservation Department

Davina Two Bears, Navajo Nation Archaeology Department

Michael Wilcox, Stanford University

 

Inspired in part by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) and in part by archaeologists' reconsiderations of ethical and professional accountability to descendent groups, a growing number of archaeologists in North America Have jointed colleagues around the world in participating in what has come to be termed "indigenous archaeology," which involves the active collaboration of archaeologists and indigenous communities in the reconstruction and telling of native histories.  At this seminar native and non-native scholars shared their experiences that will hopefully serve as a roadmap for future collaborative research.

 

"War in Cultural Context:  Practice, Agency and the Archaeology of Conflict"

October 16 - 20, 2004

Axel Nielsen and William Walker, Chairs

[Amerind-SAA Seminar]

Participants:

Elizabeth Arkush, University of California, Los Angeles

Charles Cobb, Binghamton University, New York

Takeshi Inomata, University of Arizona

Laura Junker, University of Illinois, Chicago

Kristian Kristiansen, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Eduardo Neves, Universidade de Sáo Paulo, Sáo Paulo, Brasil

Axel Nielsen, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina

Timothy Pauketat, University of Illinois, Urbana

John Topic, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

Theresa Topic, Brescia University College, London, Ontario, Canada

Daniela Triadan, University of Arizona

William Walker, New Mexico State University

Polly Wiessner, University of Utah

 

This seminar explored the study of conflict by analyzing war as a form of practice, i.e., as culturally informed and historically situated social action.  This approach raises a number of theoretical and methodological issues that can be analytically grouped by reference to three general questions commonly addressed in the archaeological literature on war:  (1) how was warfare practiced and understood in the past? (2) what were the causes and motivations for war? (3) what were the consequences of war?

 

Contributions to this seminar addressed various topics on the basis of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data from societies of different scales and time periods around the world.  In addition to these case-centered discussions, participants  exchanged points of view and experiences with regard to broad topics raised by the study of warfare as a practice, namely, its relationships with religion, power, space, and identity.

 

 

"Hohokam Trajectories in World Perspective"

January 27 - February 1, 2004

Paul R. Fish and Suzanne K. Fish, Chairs

 

Participants:

 

David R. Abbott, Tucson, Arizona

James M. Bayman, University of Hawaii

Jeffrey J. Clark, Center for Desert Archaeology

Doug Craig, Marana, Arizona

David E. Doyel, Scottsdale, Arizona

Timothy Earle, Northwestern University

Mark D. Elson, Desert Archaeology, Inc.

Gary M. Feinman, The Field Museum, Chicago

Paul R. Fish, University of Arizona

Suzanne K. Fish, University of Arizona

Susan D. Gillespie, University of Florida

George J. Gumerman, Santa Fe Institute

Steve Kowalewski, University of Georgia

Barbara Mills, University of Arizona

John C. Ravesloot, Gila River Indian Community

Glen E. Rice, Arizona State University

Henry D. Wallace, Center for Desert Archaeology

Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan

 

Sponsored by the Arizona State Museum and moderated by George J. Gumerman, Amerind's second major Hohokam symposium in fifteen years focused on the Sedentary to Classic transition and the economic, social, and ritual dimensions of late prehistoric Hohokam culture.

 

 

"Colonialism and Culture Change at Zuni Pueblo, 1300 - Present"

May 18-23, 2003

Barbara Mills, Chair

 

Participants:

 

Jonathan Damp, Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise

Jeffrey S. Dean, University of Arizona

Jonathan C. Driver, Simon Fraser University

T. J. Ferguson, Tucson, Arizona

Lisa Gavioli, University of Arizona

Todd Howell, Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise

Keith Kintigh, Arizona State University

Barbara Mills, University of Arizona

Todd Pitezel, University of Arizona

Molly Proue, University of Arizona

Jon Scholnick, University of Arizona

Susan Smith, Northern Arizona University

Noah Thomas, University of Arizona

Laurie Webster, Tucson, Arizona

 

Recent archaeological excavations in Zuni Pueblo have resulted in an unprecedented window into the processes of colonialism and culture change at Zuni over a 700 year period.  These extensive excavations in the oldest part of the village, called the Middle Village, were conducted by the Pueblo of Zuni over the past several years.  The recovered material provides an opportunity to evaluate when Zuni Pueblo was founded and to look at culture change over a long period of time that bridges the late prehistoric period, initial European contact, Spanish colonization, and the Mexican and American periods.  Participants addressed several important questions including:  When was Zuni Pueblo founded and what is the evidence for occupational continuity from the late prehistoric period to the present?  What new technologies were adopted, when, and how does this adoption relate to current theories on colonialism, such as resistance and accommodation?  What evidence is there for environmental change as a result of Zuni's entry into the colonial and post-colonial worlds?  How and when did Zuni cuisine change with colonialism?  What were the changes in domestic labor and household practice that accompanied the imposition of colonial institutions?  How was Zuni identify reconfigured through periods of migration in the late prehistoric period, resistance during the Pueblo Revolt, and subsequent consolidation of all Zuni villages at Zuni Pueblo?  How is this reconfiguration expressed in material culture?  How was the process of colonialism different from or similar to other Pueblos in the Southwest?

 

"The Naturalization of the Past: Nation-Building and the Development of Anthropology and Natural History in the Americas"

May 20-26, 2002

Curtis M. Hinsley, Philip L. Kohl, and Irina Podgorny, Chairs

 

Participants:

 

Hugo Benavides, Fordham University

Jesus Briceno, Instituto Nacional de Cultura-La Libertad, Peru

Nelia Dias, ISCTE, Portugal

Curtis Hinsley, Northern Arizona University

Philip Kohl, Wellesley College

Margaret Lopes, Instituto de Geociencias - UNICAMP, Brasil

Carmen Loza,  La Paz, Bolivia

Jonathan Marks, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Glenn Penny, University of Missouri, Kansas City

Irina Podgorny, Museo de La Plata, Argentina

Olga Restrepo, University of York

Mechthild Rutsch, Direccion de Etnologia y Antropologia Social del Instituto

  Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico

 

The goal of this seminar was to provide a general overview of the historical development of archaeology in the Americas and its links to the natural sciences and to the process of nation-building, particularly during the period from c. 1860 to 1920.  A central concern was to show how indigenous peoples and their pasts, as reconstructed through archaeological remains, were typically incorporated into the national agendas of development states by becoming "naturalized" or by being treated as part of the natural landscapes within state borders.  While the conference focus was principally historical, participants were also asked to consider how this process of incorporation has changed during the last century, or how different countries have modified or extended their self-defined identities and their consideration of indigenous peoples during the twentieth century and why they have done so.  The seminar brought together ethnologists, archaeologists, and historians of science to compare and contrast these processes of incorporation and naturalization within different American states.

 

 

Seminar participants, May 2002

"Enduring Borderlands Traditions: Trincheras Sites in Time, Space, and Society"

January 9-10, 2002

Suzanne K. Fish, Paul R. Fish, and Elisa Villalpando, Chairs

 

Participants:

 

Christian E. Downum, Northern Arizona University

Paul R. Fish, University of Arizona

Suzanne K. Fish, University of Arizona

Robert J. Hard, University of Texas, San Antonio

Stephen A. Kowalewski, University of Georgia

Randall H. McGuire, State University of New York, Binghamton

Ben A. Nelson, Arizona State University

John R. Roney, Bureau of Land Management

Elisa Villalpando, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Centro Sonora

Henry D. Wallace, Desert Archaeology, Inc.

David R. Wilcox, Museum of Northern Arizona

 

Bringing together scholars from the United States and Mexico, this seminar focused on one of the more interesting archaeological expressions on the borderlands---the large terraced hill slopes called "trincheras" that date all the way back to the first century B.C.  Participants met to discuss their research, with paper topics including Cerros de Trincheras of Western Chihuahua: Site Function and Early Agriculture, Tomamoc Hill in the Context of Early Ceramic Occupations of the Tucson Basin, New Insights on Arizona's Hilltop Villages, Settlement Patterns and Landscapes of Trincheras Heartlands, The Evolution of Hilltop Settlement Systems in West-Central Arizona, with Comparisons to the South, Cerro de Trincheras: Excavations at the Center of the Trincheras Tradition, Hilltop Ceremonial Centers in Zacatecas, Mexico, and A Mesoamerican Perspective on Hilltop Sites.

 

"Embedded Symmetries: Natural and Cultural"

April 13-17, 2000

Dorothy K. Washburn, Chair

 

Participants:

 

Brenda Bowser, Washington State University

Roderick Ewins, Center for the Arts, University of Tasmania

Ed Franquemont, Andean Institute, Berkeley

Allan Hanson, University of Kansas

Diane Humphrey, King's College, London, Ontario, Canada

Michael Kubovy, University of Virginia

Anne Paul, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris

Peter Roe, University of Delaware

Dorothy Washburn, Maryland Institute, College of Art

Thomas Wynn, University of Colorado

This seminar explored the ways in which the property of symmetry is recognized and used by human cultures.  Participants based their understanding of the human uses of symmetry by first establishing what is known about symmetry recognition by the human perceptual system and the adaptive roles it may have played in the evolution of the several human sensory systems.  The variety of cultural responses to symmetries in the natural world, as well as the ways human cultures use the concept of symmetry to structure their lives was then examined.  Participants  especially noted the means by which symmetry is fundamental to symbol making---the uniquely human communicative vehicle that visually, and incidentally beautifully, remarks on cultural order.

"The Anthropology of Technology"

October 10-16, 1998

Michael B. Schiffer, Chair

 

Participants:

 

Meredith Aranson, Institute for Research on Learning/Palo Alto Research Center

Peter Bleed, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Marcia-Anne Dobres, University of California, Berkeley

Richard A. Gould, Brown University

Timothy Ingold, University of Manchester

Charles M. Keller, The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

W. David Kingery, University of Arizona

Bryan Pfaffenberger, University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Michael B. Schiffer, University of Arizona

James K. Skibo, Illinois State University, Normal

Lucy Suchman, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center

William Walker, New Mexico State University

Richard Wilk, Indiana University

The anthropological study of technology has deep roots in both archaeology and cultural anthropology, going back to the founding of the discipline.  However, the theoretical study of technology was backgrounded to other topics during much of the 20th century.  Fortunately, in the past decade or two, a limited number of scholars in both subdisciplines have led a sustained revival of theoretical and empirical research on technology, particularly on its cultural, social, and behavioral contexts.  Regrettably, the diverse and creative anthropologists leading this revival have had no forum in which they could discuss emerging theories and methods and learn from each others= insights and mistakes.  What is more, these developments have suffered from decided insularity because there has been no self-conscious emergence of an anthropological community that studies technology.  This conference remedied that situation by facilitating interaction across various theoretical and subdisciplinary cleavages.  This conference served as a fillip to the explicit development of a distinctive Aanthropology of technology,@ made up of differing but potentially compatible perspectives that have been evolving during the past two decades.  The participants chosen have helped to create the new perspectives, and so are well qualified to represent them in open and hard-hitting discussions.

In addition to the revival of technology studies going on in anthropology, one can see across the academyCand in sundry practical contextsCa burgeoning interest in the social, cultural, and behavioral contexts of technology.  These studies, however, are oblivious to the progress made in anthropological research on technology.  Thus, by bringing together in one volume diverse yet interrelated anthropological perspectives on technology, we can call attention to the unique contributions that anthropologists can make to issues being addressed now in countless disciplines, from folklore to engineering.

The immediate goal of the conference, then, made explicit various theoretical perspectives on technology being built by archaeologists and cultural anthropologists, which were illustrated with case studies, that helped to coalesce an anthropology of technology.  Published in one volume, the papers serve as an invaluable resource to students of anthropology, practicing anthropologists (regardless of subdiscipline), and others interested in the theoretical study of technology in context.

Basic issues and topics discussed:  (1) human agency in the evolution of technology; (2) how one might mesh behavioral (scientific) and postmodern perspectives; (3) the relationships between chaine-operatiore and behavioral-chain models; (4) the complementarity of prehistoric, historic, and modern cases of technological change; (5) the kinds of models/theories most appropriate for explaining invention, commercialization, and adoption of new technologies; (6) the role of materials characterization in technological studies; (7) the models/theories are most useful in applied contexts; (8) what applied anthropologists studying technological change and technology Atransfer@ can contribute to the development of anthropological theory.

"The Archaeology of a Land Between: Regional Dynamics in the Prehistory and History of Southeastern Arizona"

October 12-17, 1997

Henry D. Wallace, Chair

 

Participants:

 

Jeffrey H. Altschul, Desert Archaeology, Inc.

William H. Doelle, Statistical Research, Inc.

William E. Doolittle, University of Texas, Austin

John E. Douglas, University of Montana

Jerry B. Howard, Mesa Southwest Museum

Jonathan B. Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.

W. Bruce Masse, U.S. Department of the Air Force

Allan J. McIntyre, The Amerind Foundation, Inc.

James A. Neely, University of Texas, Austin

Margaret C. Nelson, Arizona State University

Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona State Museum

Henry D. Wallace, Desert Archaeology, Inc.

Anne I. Woosley, The Amerind Foundation, Inc.

 

The region in question is surrounded by traditionally defined major culture areas and subareas of the Southwest, that is, the Tucson Basin Hohokam, the Mogollon and Mimbres, as well as Casas Grandes.  Though culture area labels have been applied to it or portions thereof, none have persistently adhered and there is a question regarding their utility.  Traditional mindsets concerning cultural identity, Amixing@ or Ablending@ of cultures, and interaction between regions, require reconsideration in light of the region as a whole and its relation to surrounding areas.  Moreover, can traditional culture or culture-area definitions be of utility in the region?  How does this Aland between@ influence our perceptions of the culture areas surrounding it?  With these concerns and questions in mind, participants were asked to suspend the casual use of culture-area terms in favor of spatial referents unless the terms can be carefully defined and constrained to avoid the baggage they carry.

"Prehistoric Salado Culture of the American Southwest"

May 14-19, 1995

Jeffrey S. Dean, Chair

 

Participants:

 

E. Charles Adams, Arizona State Museum

Jeffrey S. Dean, University of Arizona

William H. Doelle, Center for Desert Archaeology, Inc.

David E. Doyel, Estrella Cultural Research

Mark D. Elson, Center for Desert Archaeology, Inc.

Stephen H. Lekson, Lakewood, Colorado

Thomas R. Lincoln, USDI, Bureau of Reclamation

Owen Lindauer, Arizona State University

Ben A. Nelson, State University of New York, Buffalo

John C. Ravesloot, Gila River Indian Community

Charles L. Redman, Arizona State University

Glen E. Rice, Arizona State University

Arleyn W. Simon, Arizona State University

Carla R. Van West, Statistical Research, Inc.

Stephanie M. Whittlesey, Statistical Research, Inc.

J. Scott Wood, Tonto National Forest

Anne I. Woosley, The Amerind Foundation, Inc.

 

Sponsored by the Bureau of Reclamation, this seminar brought together senior participants involved in the Roosevelt Archaeology Project, Bureau of Reclamation and Forest Service archaeologists, and experts on the Tonto Basin area of southern Arizona.  Bureau of Reclamation sponsored archaeological studies had previously been conducted in the area prior to raising the Roosevelt Dam water level.  As a conclusion to the project, seminar participants convened to synthesize and analyze the large amount of data gathered and to engage in discussions relating to the prehistoric Salado culture within the broader context of Southwest archaeology in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.

 

 

"Great Towns and Regional Polities:  Cultural Evolution in the United States Southwest and Southeast"

March 5-12, 1994

Jill E. Neitzel, Chair

 

Participants:

 

David Anderson, National Park Service

Charles Cobb, State University of New York, Binghamton

Linda S. Cordell, University of Colorado Museum

Robert D. Drennan, University of Pittsburgh

Suzanne K. Fish, Arizona State Museum

George Holley, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

Stephen H. Lekson, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center

Randall H. McGuire, State University of New York, Binghamton

George Milner, Pennsylvania State University

Jon Muller, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Jill E. Neitzel, University of Delaware

John F. Scarry, University of Kentucky

David R. Wilcox, Museum of Northern Arizona

Anne I. Woosley, The Amerind Foundation, Inc.

Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan

This seminar was organized around the complex issues relating to prehistoric sociopolitical developments in the U. S. Southwest and Southeast.  Participants, all active researchers, met to debate and examine systematically the evolution of sociopolitical organization in their respective regions, to address questions of comparability between each, and to draw general conclusions about similarities and differences between events and processes in the Southwest and Southeast.

Questions of cultural evolution demand both the broad stroke approach as well as specificity.  Often archaeologists are too insular in their attempts to interpret culture change, looking only to a particular river valley or the single large site.  In contrast, here we convened scholars from two macro-regions for which the emergence of complex polities has been suggested after c. A.D. 900.  The processes leading to such political development (if indeed they did occur) can only be investigated through the interaction of individuals who collectively have intimate knowledge of the Southwest and Southeast. External discussants, representing Mesoamerica and West Asia, where political complexity is unquestionably known to have evolved, provided critical commentary for broad themes under review including:  (1) How great were southwestern and southeastern towns?; (2) How complex were their associated polities?; (3) How were the polities organized?; (4) What was the nature of linkages binding polities into macro-regional systems?; (5) What linkages did the macro-regions have with Mesoamerica?; (6) How well do current evolutionary models explain southwestern and southeastern sociopolitical developments?

 

"Culture and Contact: Charles C. DiPeso's Gran Chichimeca"

October 3-7, 1988

Anne I. Woosley and John C. Ravesloot, Chairs

 

Participants:

 

Linda S. Cordell, California Academy of Sciences

Beatriz Braniff Cornejo, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia

Jeffrey S. Dean, University of Arizona

William E. Doolittle, University of Texas, Austin

David E. Doyel, Pueblo Grande Museum

George J. Gumerman, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

J. Charles Kelley, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Charles H. Lange, Northern Illinois University

Randall H. McGuire, State University of New York, Binghamton

Bart Olinger, Los Alamos National Laboratory

John C. Ravesloot, Arizona State Museum

Carroll L. Riley, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Phil C. Weigand, Museum of Northern Arizona

Anne I. Woosley, The Amerind Foundation, Inc.

 

Charles C. Di Peso, refusing to be limited by modern social or political boundaries, believed in the reality of Greater Southwestern prehistory.  Ignoring traditional concepts of culture area that end the geographic distribution of prehistoric southwestern cultures abruptly at the international border, Di Peso viewed northern Mexico and the Southwest United States as one sphere of interaction strongly influenced by civilizations further south.

 

The possible impact of Mesoamerican societies on the prehistoric cultures of the Southwest has long been debated.  There is little question that contact between the two existed, and that to interpret Southwest prehistory we must better understand northern Mexico and the relationship between the two.  Yet for all the literature theorizing about this possible connection and its economic, political, or even ideological consequences, relatively little field research has been conducted in northern Mexico.

This conference brought together United States and Mexican scholars of diverse backgrounds but having similar interests, in part, shaped by Di Peso=s view of the Gran Chichimeca.  It served as a bridge to greater cooperation between Mexican and United States archaeological communities to promote future work in a neglected region.

 

"Changing Views on Hohokam Archaeology"

February 14-19, 1988                                                                                                       

George J. Gumerman, Chair

 

Participants:

 

Patricia L. Crown, Southern Methodist University

Jeffrey S. Dean,University of Arizona

William H. Doelle, Institute for American Research

David E. Doyel, Pueblo Grande Museum

Gary Feinman, University of Wisconsin

Paul S. Fish, Arizona State Museum

Robert Gasser, Tempe, Arizona

George J. Gumerman, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Thomas R. Lincoln, Bureau of Reclamation

Randall H. McGuire, State University of New York, Binghamton

Jill E. Neitzel, Connecticut College

 

Participants in this seminar, the first in the Amerind New World Studies Series, addressed problems in Hohokam archaeology, proceeding along several avenues that assessed questions of chronology, social organization, material culture, subsistence, and exchange.  These discussions generated a broad perspective of the Hohokam, and by distilling the most recently available information, provided a much stronger understanding of Hohokam prehistory.