North America, Archaeology of Asa R Randall, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

The archaeology of North America includes at least 16 000 years of occupation. The archaeological record is the product of communities of diverse cultural practices and worldviews who negotiated social and ecological environments. Although it contains evidence for many social and technical strategies, the archaeology of North America has much to contribute to contemporary and future concerns with climate change and the reconstitution of communities.

North America has an unbroken record of human occupation The Study of Archaeology in North America dating back at least 16 000 years. North American archaeology explores the ecological, political, and social dimensions of The study of North America’s past is structured by the interac- human experience recorded in material traces of past activities. tion and power relationships between academic institutions, Encapsulated in North America’s history of occupation are governmental agencies, legislation, descendant communities, processes of migration and interaction among culturally landowners, and other stakeholders. Archaeology – broadly diverse communities. Many regions witnessed the emergence of defined as the study of cultural variation through material complex societies whose political and economic institutions remains – is a relatively recent social science which was were materialized in objects and constructed landscapes. The formalized only in the late nineteenth century (Trigger, 2006). development of traditional ecological knowledge and land- As an organized academic discipline in North America, scape management practices enabled communities to be resil- archaeology is most frequently considered a subfield of ient to environmental change, but also made some anthropology. In this respect, archaeology is closely affiliated communities vulnerable to climatic or social perturbations. with other branches of anthropology including linguistics, Finally, North American archaeology today is concerned with sociocultural anthropology, and biological anthropology. The cultural heritage and the significance of the past, today, and in integration of these subdisciplines is particularly strong in the ancient times. United States due to institutional and governmental interac- The archaeological record of North America is composed of tions with indigenous communities dating back to the nine- the various objects, structures, and landscapes that humans teenth century. Academic archaeologists who specialize in created or interacted with. The most frequently occurring objects classical civilization, medieval history, or Middle Eastern studies are tools made of stone and the debris generated during their are often housed in other disciplines. The vast majority of manufacture and use. Vessels manufactured from ceramic, as North American archaeologists are not employed by academic well as items made of stone, marine shell, basketry, or textile units. In Canada and the United States, legislation has been were also produced in some regions. Many items of personal enacted to preserve cultural resources. Although varying in adornment are also known. Where conditions allow, the particulars, scale, and applicability, these laws mandate that the archaeological record contains objects manufactured from adverse effects of ground-disturbing activities on lands owned organic media (bone, wood), in addition to the remains of or managed by national, provincial, local municipal, and tribal meals. The distribution of these various materials reflects organizations should be mitigated (Neumann et al., 2010). accommodations of communities to particular social and Legislative tools for preservation fostered the development of ecological environments, as well as trade and interaction a field of archaeology in the 1970s referred to as cultural between groups. Archaeological sites in North America vary from resource management. Where required by law, private firms and the small scale of object scatters up to the large scale of ancient public agencies are contracted to conduct surveys and excava- and modern cities, such as the thousand-year-old site of Cahokia tions to determine the significance of cultural resources prior to near modern-day St. Louis, Missouri. Places of social poignancy development and conduct full-scale data recovery when signif- and reverence are widespread through time and across space. icant cultural resources will be otherwise destroyed. Places of social significance include mortuaries, earthen or shell Although closely aligned with anthropology, what tends to monuments, caves and rock shelters, and petroglyph panels. differentiate archaeology is a methodological emphasis on the Included here as well should be ‘natural places’ that remain variation of human societies across space and through time. mostly unmodified but which were nonetheless significant to The archaeology of North America is traditionally parsed out ancient communities and their descendants (Zedeño et al., into culture areas which correspond to major physiographic 2009). A wide spectrum of societies has been documented in divisions. These include the Arctic and sub-Arctic in Canada the region, whether one categorizes them by subsistence econ- and Alaska; the northeast in New England; the Mid-Atlantic of omies (hunter–gatherers, cultivators, and intensive agricultural- the eastern seaboard; the Southeast associated with the Ohio ists), political economies (bands, tribes, chiefdoms, states, and River Valley, the southern Coastal Plain and Florida; the Mid- empires), or historical processes (communities that are coales- west along the upper and middle Mississippi River valley; the cent,diasporic,resistant,orcolonial). Plains from the state of Texas to the Canadian provinces of

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 17 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.13017-X 15 16 North America, Archaeology of

Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan; the Rocky Mountains, recognized based on shared material culture, subsistence, and the Southwest from the four corners to the Sonora desert; the political organization. Great Basin; Southern California; and the Northwest coast Chronological boundaries for each period will vary based extending from Oregon into coastal Alaska. The particular on local processes. Ultimately these periods are used by boundaries of these regions will vary depending on the analyst archaeologists to consolidate research questions. Yet these and the criteria used to delineate them. The logic for separating divisions can also be criticized for essentializing diverse life- these regions was first espoused by Bureau of American ways using select criteria, or for promoting a unilineal model of Ethnology archaeologist William H. Holmes in 1914, who social change from simple to complex (Alt, 2010). Further, noted that, at the time of sustained European contact, living a close inspection reveals that whereas agriculture was adopted cultures that were coincident with major ecological and climate by certain communities in North America, hunting and gath- zones (Holmes, 1914). These boundaries continue to be used ering persisted in many regions (notably the higher latitudes, as heuristic and organizing devices. However, they can be the Plains, and the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico coasts), criticized for representing a snapshot of cultural variation that often alongside agricultural communities. Using temporal likely obscures the complex interactions and movements of divisions to categorize societies, it is possible to have ‘Archaic’ communities across these arbitrary boundaries over the past societies coexisting alongside ‘Woodland’ societies, for example 16 000 years. Desert Archaic hunter–gatherers and Freemont farmers in the With respect to time, a fundamental distinction is tradi- Great Basin (1400–600 years ago), or hunter–gatherers and tionally made between historic and prehistoric archaeology. In agriculturalists inhabiting northern Florida (AD 1000). this system, historic archaeology investigates social process Like other social sciences, archaeological explanation in with the aid of written documentary sources. There are no North America has vacillated between historical or particular- known pre-European contact systems of writing documented in izing frameworks on one hand, and generalizing or evolu- North America, and thus many would restrict historic archae- tionary perspectives on the other (Trigger, 2006). The shift ology to the past 500 or so years, spanning early European between either pole was frequently informed by empirical colonialism and later national expansion. With regards to contradictions and broader social concerns. During the eigh- prehistoric archaeology of unlettered cultures, a sequence of teenth and nineteenth centuries, inquiry was antiquarian in chronological periods is recognized in many regions based on principle: explanation took the form of speculation or interest changes in subsistence, settlement organization, social organi- in objects for their own sake. The defining controversy that zation, and technological innovations. The Paleoindian period organized interest in North American archaeology at this time is associated with the earliest inhabitants of North America was the so-called ‘myth of the mound builders.’ When Euro- during the Pleistocene geological epoch (Walker and Driskell, pean colonists and their descendants expanded throughout the 2007). This period witnessed the initial colonization of the Eastern Woodlands they encountered landscapes saturated continent and the establishment of hunter–gatherer economies with earthen and shell mounds that often contained evidence that brought communities into close contact with megafauna. for elaborate mortuary ritual. These works were seen in an Although well represented in the interior, the Paleoindian ethnocentric light as evidence for ‘advanced civilizations’ who coastal record is poorly understood due to subsequent sea-level possessed economic, political, and cultural capabilities rise. The succeeding Archaic period corresponds to the demise exceeding those of indigenous Native Americans and their of most megafauna at the onset of the Holocene geological ancestors (Squier and Davis, 1848). The controversy was settled epoch. The Archaic was characterized by the development of in the late nineteenth century by extensive ethnohistoric increasingly diverse hunter–gatherer traditions. It was during research and archaeological excavations that linked contem- the Archaic that many social, political, and technological porary indigenous communities with the archaeological institutions that had currency later in time were developed record. This research was sponsored by the United States (Sassaman, 2004). These included the invention of pottery, the federal government and did much to formalize the asymmet- domestication of endemic plants or adoption of tropical rical relationships between descendant communities, govern- cultigens, the construction of mortuary monuments, invest- ment, the archaeological record, and academic institutions ment in land management through the construction of (Thomas, 1894). At this same time, generalizing evolutionary permanent facilities, and the differentiation of communities schemes were developed by the likes of Herbert Spencer and and perhaps individuals based on socioeconomic status. Louis Henry Morgan that explained contemporary human Archaeologists working in some regions of North America variation as a unilineal sequence of development from cultural recognize a Woodland period, characterized by an increased and moral simplicity to complexity. Descriptions of living emphasis on ritual and ceremony, and in many locations a shift communities were often used as analogues of ancient to a mixed subsistence strategy of foraging and cultivation communities, often with racist and ethnocentric overtones (Anderson and Mainfort, 2002). The Late Prehistoric era (Lubbock, 1865). corresponds to the establishment of politically complex soci- Stadial schemes were mostly abandoned following devel- eties organized around either chiefly elites who capitalized on opments in sociocultural anthropology led by Franz Boas at the the labor of others, or around federations of communities Columbia University in the early twentieth century. North (Bayman, 2001; Blitz, 2010; Bamann et al., 1992; Moss, 2011). American archaeologists rejected unilineal evolution and Attendant to political shifts in some regions were agricultural instead investigated the distinct and particular sequences of intensification of tropical cultigens such as maize, beans, change evidenced in the archaeological record. The culture- and squash, and the investment in large public works. Within historical approach emphasized stratigraphic methods for each region of study, further chronological subdivisions are recording archaeological finds. By closely documenting where North America, Archaeology of 17 objects were found within the site, archaeologists could track post-processualism, a community of archaeologists applies changes through time (Kidder, 1924). Patterns of change at insights from evolutionary theory to understand ancient a local spatial scale could then be compared with regional change. In particular, so-called evolutionary archaeologists finds, and organized into space–time taxonomies (Willey and have focused on Darwinian natural selection and its influence Phillips, 1958). Culture-historians operated with a normative on changes in social organization and technology through time view of culture, such that objects and archaeological sites rep- (Dunnell, 1989). In this school of thought, cultural practices resented the ideals or norms of particular groups. Past archae- (memes) are subject to Darwinian natural selection and repli- ological cultures were defined principally by lists of traits (such cation. Another school of thought argues that anatomically lists would include the type of settlement pattern, subsistence, modern humans have evolved to be behaviorally flexible and technological style, and mortuary tradition) which were economically rational (Boone and Smith, 1998). thought to represent social norms. The result was a static and In the past quarter century, archaeology in North America pessimistic view of change. has become increasingly self-reflexive. That means that many The assumptions of culture-historical, or particularist, archaeologists are now aware of the colonial history of the archaeology were challenged by processualism (the ‘new discipline, and how the production of knowledge is not archaeology’) in the middle of the twentieth century. Proc- inherently objective. This recognition is largely due to Native essualism was predicated on a particular view of the archaeo- American and First Nation civil rights movements. These logical record: the distribution of objects and places reflected actions resulted in eventual federal legislation (NAGPRA in the dynamic processes in which humans adapted to their social and United States) that provided a mechanism for protecting ecological environments (Binford, 1962). Processual archaeolo- indigenous graves and repatriating cultural patrimony (Preucel gists adopted a logical-positivist epistemology that foregrounded and Cipola, 2008). Some archaeologists practice public objectivism, scientific method, and a systems theory approach archaeology, which considers the practical consequences and (see Archaeology: Philosophy and Science). Explanation involved ethical realities of incorporating stakeholder communities. using the archaeological record to test hypotheses, often derived There are indigenous archaeologies conducted by First Nations from ethnographic or modern analogs. Archaeologists used the and Native American communities as well (Pyburn, 2011). In distribution and function of archaeological resources and inde- decolonizing archaeological interpretation, opportunities are pendent variables such as population density or ecological made for self-representation of historically marginalized structure to test hypotheses (Watson et al., 1971). Underwriting groups. New kinds of narratives relating communities to the processual thought was a model of social evolution in which past are now possible in a variety of media, and are supported societies became increasingly complex through time (e.g., by inclusive national museums in Canada and the United Service, 1962). Archaeological cultures were often classified into States (Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al., 2011). types (such as bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states) that were reflected in subsistence economy, demography, and political organization. Popular research concerned hunter–gatherer varia- Contemporary Research Themes tion, the circumstances of plant domestication, and the origins of complex society. Lewis Binford, for example, examined the Research into North America’s 16 000 years of history is subsistence, settlement, and social patterns of historic and influenced by academic, social, and pragmatic concerns. That contemporary hunter–gatherers in North America and elsewhere said, contemporary research can be grouped according to (Binford, 1990). He argued that social complexity in ancient times themes that cross-cut particular chronological or spatial may have emerged in situations where high population densities boundaries or theoretical divides. The themes considered here and spatially restricted resources promoted reduced mobility and include: (1) population movements, encounters, and the technological innovations to efficiently capture food. creation of new identities; (2) documenting the circumstances Beginning in the late 1970s, the processual approach was attending the materialization of myth and history in the criticized for ignoring the ideology of power and authority, and landscape; and (3) detailing human–environmental relations for a lack of concern with meaning. The critique was applied with an eye toward informing contemporary and future prac- equally to interpretations of the past and to relations between tice in an age of global climate change. These themes will be archaeologists and indigenous communities whose cultural discussed with reference to particular examples. resources were investigated by archaeologists. Post-processual approaches foregrounded the significance of genders, Encounters and Movement embodiment, cultural traditions, cosmology, and identity in structuring the archaeological record (Brumfiel, 1992). There North American archaeology is defined by the movement of has been a rapprochement with history. Archaeologists are populations, encounters of culturally diverse communities, increasingly concerned with how cultural traditions are created and subsequent social transformations. Among these events, it as a historical process in which different groups (such as classes, would be hard to overstate the impact of European colo- ethnicities, genders) negotiate systems of value. Research also nialism. Indigenous populations were decimated by disease. investigates the ways in which ancient communities created Those persons who remained were faced with reconstituting their own histories through social memory (Pauketat, 2001). communities by either being incorporated into, or resisting, Tradition making can be investigated by examining the a world system that promoted cash economies over traditional history of how people created objects, and the ways in which social relations. Equally significant was the inclusion of objects and landscape use changed in the context of social Africans, who were traumatically removed from their natal interaction at local and regional spatial scales. Independent of communities. Archaeologists working with written and 18 North America, Archaeology of archaeological records have explored the dimensions of power system did not exist in North America prior to European and alienation through which material culture, places, and contact, there was no inherent schism between modern and landscapes were reconstituted among plural communities. pre-modern people. For example, some of the more elaborate Importantly, these studies have exposed how multifaceted and architectural and symbolic florescences in Late Prehistoric varied colonial experiences were depending on the cultural North America – Chaco Canyon in the northern Southwest (AD dispositions and strategic intentions of colonial powers. So too, 1000–1150) and Cahokia in the Mississippi American Bottom gender relations among diasporic communities and indige- in the Midwest (AD 1050–1150) – appear related to migration nous cultures influenced how new societies were created. For and the politics of placemaking. Expansive landscapes example, in Spanish La Florida in the southeastern United composed of civic buildings for ritual performances (often with States, Timucuan, Guale, and other groups were valued by sacred and celestial alignments) were rapidly constructed in colonial powers in terms of the labor they could provide for both regions. In the case of Cahokia there was the elaboration agricultural production. Missions were established throughout of place-specific material symbols, such as Ramey Incised the region to convert persons to Christianity and suppress Pottery and chunkee gaming stones, that were distributed resistance to European authority. The presence of Native throughout Cahokia’s sphere of influence and evoked the American pottery within otherwise Spanish households, power and religious authority of that place (Pauketat and however, indicates that native women were incorporated into Emerson, 2008). At Cahokia and Chaco Canyon there is Euro-American communities (Deagan, 2003). This situation evidence for intercommunity conflict and environmental fluc- suggests that native women were an important influence in the tuations coincident with the emergence of these important process of ethnogenesis (in which new ethnic identities and places. Such regional processes may have instigated the aban- cultural traditions emerged from Indigenous and Euro- donment of some regions and the aggregation of culturally American practices). Similar processes may have occurred disparate communities in others. Historically, however, the among Russian trading outposts such as Fort Ross in northern production of each of these localities by diverse communities California (Lightfoot et al., 1998). In the frontier of southern occurred under the direction (and likely promotion) of the few California, in contrast, the initial relations between Spanish (e.g., Cameron and Duff, 2008). The elevation of central places men and indigenous persons were likely through forced was likely an attempt by emerging elites to attain political and conscription or wage labor. Not until imperial demands on ideological dominance. Elites used contrasting practices of morality were loosened during the eighteenth century would sponsoring inclusionary public ritual on one hand, but gender relations and ethnogenesis be materialized in domestic excluding the majority of people from direct access to specific foodways and architecture (Voss, 2008). ritual knowledge or symbols on the other. The archaeology of Archaeologists working in the Southeast have, since the migrant villages, in particular in the farming villages 1960s, explored the archaeology of enslaved, diasporic surrounding Cahokia, highlights how these communities did communities at Spanish, British, and American plantations not accept Cahokian authority without challenge. New kinds of (Singleton, 1995). Despite the suppression of African identity community organization emerged as migrants incorporated by many plantation owners, some enslaved persons managed traditional and new values into existing lifeways. The collapse to maintain African foodways and traditions, at least in secret, of both Chaco and Cahokia reverberated through their or otherwise exercised resistance to oppression (Leone et al., respective regions as power structures were renegotiated locally. 2005; Ruppel et al., 2003). Detailed historic observations Communities once again engaged in movement away from provide the framework for reconstructing in digital form the former power centers. structure of plantations or other prominent landscapes (such as The example of North America’s first-millennium societies Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello). These spatial models provide highlights the political and symbolic aspects of migration in a basis for reflection, and often reveal the inherent contradic- groups that were politically and economically ranked. tions between landowners, others, and nationalist narratives. However, migrations into and throughout North America Beyond the immediacy of direct contact, archaeologists and occurred at larger spatial and temporal scales, among smaller- ethnohistorians are now beginning to understand the effects of scale communities several times in the ancient past. Indeed, colonialism at increasing spatial scales. Although slavery is one of the defining questions in the study of North American frequently assumed to have been directed at those of African archaeology is: who were the first Americans? Before 1924, it descent, slave-raiding of Native Americans communities was was assumed that Native Americans had entered the continent conducted by Native Americans along a frontier expanding only a few thousand years prior to European contact, the so- outward from the zones of initial contact in the seventeenth called short chronology. All that changed with the discovery and eighteenth centuries (Ethridge, 2006). The archaeological of a stone tool in association with a now-extinct species of implications are only now being tested, but appear to be bison at the Folsom site in New Mexico (Meltzer et al., 2002). manifested in differing community size, material culture In the decades since, a new model emerged based on the assemblages, and patterns of group dispersion. discovery of a characteristic projectile point found across much While the archaeology of migration and displaced of North America south of the ice sheets, and often associated communities traditionally has been the purview of historic with mammoth and mastodon remains. Referred to as ‘Clovis,’ archaeology, more recent research recognizes that disruptive this archaeological culture was widely accepted as the first to processes associated with the movements of persons also inhabit North America. Recent discoveries of coeval, but occurred in the pre-Columbian era (Cobb, 2005). This work distinctly non-Clovis lifeways, such as at the Paisley Caves in represents an important correction by acknowledging that Oregon (Jenkins et al., 2012), or even chronologically earlier although the particular circumstances of the modern world communities, have led to renewed discussion about who the North America, Archaeology of 19

first Americans were, and how they got to North America shell. Since the resolution of the moundbuilder debate, the (Meltzer, 2009). This discussion will no doubt continue. construction of monuments has been coupled with other Regardless, non-Clovis or earlier traditions open up the real cultural traits such as agriculture or pottery production. It was possibility of multiple migrations, by numerous pathways once thought that North American communities lacked the along the coasts and interiors. These multiple migrations imply labor, politics, and worldview to construct such places until the that there were many moments of culture contact at the dawn Woodland period. Archaic mounds are problematic in that of human occupation of the region. Archaeologists, often they are chronologically early, and in many cases composed of working with the aid of historical linguists, have identified at apparently mundane materials. However, a consideration of least two other pre-Columbian migrations into North America the history of these places suggests that many were purpose- out of the western Subarctic and Arctic. These include the fully constructed as integrative ritual facilities that may have Athapascan migration, which resulted in the emplacement of promoted the inclusion of diverse persons from disparate ancestral Apache and Navajo groups in the Southwest during regions (Sassaman, 2010). For example, the Archaic freshwater the fourteenth century AD, and the Thule migrations across the shell mounds of the St. Johns River in Florida were constructed Subarctic, which resulted in the displacement of earlier Paleo- for a variety of purposes. Some were residential in nature, but eskimo communities (Friesen, 2004; Seymour, 2012). The others including the 6300-year-old Harris Creek site, were historical processes attendant to these migrations are poorly dedicated mortuary mounds that were constructed for understood. In the case of the Subarctic, migrations appear to communal or individual burial, and others were ceremonial have involved competition and negotiation with between mounds constructed during ritualized aggregations. When migrants and indigenous communities (Holly, 2005). viewed in historical terms, the movement between and modi- fication of shell sites generated a complex social landscape supported by riverine resource exploitation, but justified by Materializing Social Complexities Through Ritual ritual practice. Similar processes of ritual incorporation and One area in which the archaeology of North America is broadly situational leadership, but at a much larger scale, were likely relevant to global social scientific research is in documenting behind the construction of North America’s second largest and problematizing diversity and apparent complexity of recent mound center, Poverty Point in Louisiana (Ortmann and and ancient hunter–gatherer communities. Before the 1970s, it Kidder, 2013). In this case, elaborate earthworks were rapidly was thought that pre-Columbian hunter–gatherers were, by constructed. The largest, the 22-m high Mound A, may have default, characterized by low population densities, high resi- been constructed in as few as 3 months by 12 000 or more dential mobility, and limited differences in social status or rank. individuals drawn from regional communities, perhaps from Because environmental processes were considered determinant throughout the Midwest and Southeast. of social variation, considerably little attention was paid to the ways in which ritual, religion, and social negotiations structured Human–Environment Relations hunter–gatherer lifeways. This model contrasted with historic evidence in several portions of North America for large, semi- North American archaeology is characterized by a deep-seated sedentary hunter–gatherer populations that engaged in wide- interest in the relations between the environment and human spread landscape modification and participated in elaborate social and historical variation. This focus has a long history in exchange and ritual. Most notable are the communities of the prehistoric archaeological thought in general (dating back to at Northwest Coast of the United States and Canada, the Ohlone least the eighteenth century), but has been particularly prom- of the San Francisco Bay, the Chumash of southern California, inent in North American theory and practice. Earlier and the Calusa of southwest Florida (Arnold, 2001; Lightfoot approaches have been criticized for emphasizing the role of the and Parrish, 2009; Moss, 2011; Widmer, 1988). Although environment in structuring the long-term histories and deci- variable in customs and politics, one shared feature was sions of ancient North Americans. At best, such environmental subsistence economies grounded in naturally occurring abun- approaches assume that the environment significantly influ- dant aquatic and terrestrial resources. enced long-term trends in population density and social In the decades since these so-called complex hunter–gath- organization. At worst, they reflect a deep-seated pessimism erers were recognized historically, a number of apparently regarding the capabilities of small-scale societies to innovate similar examples have been documented in antiquity. The solutions to environmental concerns. Theory aside, the majority lived in the Midwest and Midsouth where riverine or emphasis on environmental histories is uniquely suited to coastal resources were intensively exploited during the Archaic address timely questions regarding human actions in the period. One materialization of these subsistence economies world, cultural dispositions, and climate change (anthropo- are mounds of earth or shell, in addition to wide-ranging genic or not) (Dawdy, 2009). North American archaeologists exchange networks of raw materials and finished objects. The have developed innovative methods for recovering and inter- extent to which these traditions represent complex societies in preting evidence of past resource exploitation and landscape an economic sense has been a source of significant debate modification. These methods include paleoethnobotany and (Gibson and Carr, 2004). Traditional models for social zooarchaeology (the study of past uses of plants and animals, complexity, grounded in institutionalized status distinctions respectively), geoarchaeology (the application of geological based on material wealth, have failed to explain archaeological techniques to define the initial state of an archaeological site patterning. The analysis of grave inclusions fails to discern and the effects of time on that deposit), and a host of special- status distinctions beyond gender or age. A further point of ized techniques for recovering paleoclimatic data that have debate regards the social significance of mounds of earth and been adopted from environmental sciences. 20 North America, Archaeology of

Environmental archaeology has helped reveal the scale at negotiating social and ecological environments. Of equal which pre-Columbian communities were involved in importance is the history of investigations of these cultural managing and transforming physical landscapes. In most of resources, which have framed the significance of social prac- North America, localized fire was used to encourage mosaic tices identified in the past as much as the representations for environments that fostered niches for edge-browsing game and various stakeholders. Although it is the ‘past,’ the archaeology fowl. In California, hunter–gatherer communities created fire- of North America has much to contribute to contemporary managed landscapes of high diversity that provided subsis- and future concerns with climate change and the reconstitu- tence, medicine, and raw material, and supported the high tion of communities. population densities noted by the Spanish (Lightfoot and Parrish, 2009). North America also provides multiple models See also: Archaeology, Politics of; Arctic Archaeology and of plant domestication and social transformation. Tropical Prehistory; Chiefdoms, Archaeology of; Environmental cultigens such as maize were initially domesticated in Meso- Archaeology; Ethnic Identity and Ethnicity in Archaeology; Food america (see Food Production, Origins of and Mesoamerica, Production, Origins of; Geoarchaeology; Historical Archaeology of). The pace and mode of adoption was variable Archaeology; Horticultural Societies; Hunter-Gatherer across North America. As documented at the Las Capas site in Societies, Archaeology of; Hunting and Gathering Societies: the Tucson basin of Arizona (3200 years ago), early agriculture Anthropology; Mesoamerica, Archaeology of; Migrations, was enabled by social transformations and technological Colonizations, and Diasporas in Archaeology; innovations such as water control via canal construction Paleoethnobotany; Zooarchaeology. (Mabry and Davis, 2008). By way of contrast, maize arrived relatively late in New England (after AD 1000), but when adopted appears to have been incorporated into managed landscapes (Chilton, 2008). In the Midwest and Southeast Bibliography maize was present by perhaps 2000 years ago, but was not important until the rise of complex polities thousand years Alt, S., 2010. Considering complexity: confounding categories with practices. In: Alt, S. later. Part of the resistance to maize was likely the land use (Ed.), Ancient Complexities: New Perspectives in Precolumbian North America. – practices associated with plants domesticated in North Amer- University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 1 7. Anderson, D.G., Mainfort, R.C., 2002. An introduction to Woodland Archaeology in the ica. The so-called eastern agricultural complex included several Southeast. In: Anderson, D.G., Mainfort, R.C. 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