Spring 2005
Ancient North America
New College of Florida

Professor Uzi Baram
Classroom: Anthro Lab
Class Meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 2:00 - 3:20 p.m.
Office Hours: Monday 11-12, Tuesday 1-2 & by appointment
Office Telephone Number: 359-4217
EMail: Baram@ncf.edu
Course web page: http://faculty.ncf.edu/baram/ancient_north_america.htm

Catalogue Description
This course surveys the pre-colonial history of North America, using as its primary resource the archaeological record. As a survey, the major debates and the significant sites, primarily from the Eastern part of the continent, will be presented and discussed. Topics include the peopling of the Americas, the origins of agriculture and the rise of social complexity, consideration of the diversity of regional phenomena, and the impact of European contact and conquest. Special attention will be given to the archaeology of Florida.

Course Description
The course examines the history of Native America from the peopling of the Americas up to the European conquest of the continent. The course is both the pre-Columbian history of North America and a survey of archaeological approaches to the investigation of the past of a continent. The intersection of the two components will be critically evaluated over the term.

The geographic breadth of the course is immense, and the cultural, social, and ecological diversity is similarly enormous. Typically, courses on the archaeology of North America or North American prehistory survey the continent, choosing archaeological sites that exemplify certain processes of change or cultures. Usually only the biggest sites are presented and the major material events considered. The result is typically an overview of cultural processes with focal points in the Midwest and Southwest. While this course follows the standard chronological organization, starting at the Paleo-Indian period, moving to the Archaic Period through complex societies, and ending with European Contact, it will examine those transformations from a peripheral component of North America: the cultures, societies, and peoples of Florida. The peripheral view will raise different types of questions and use examples that illustrate the uneven processes of change over the long chronology. The survey of other regions of North America is available through the textbook and other sources. This class will continually return to Florida for examples as it examines selected topics.

Course topics will focus on the major contemporary debates on the North American past. Four issues are currently at the fore in both scholarly and popular discourse. Known best from the popular discourse on Kennewick Man, the question of origins is probably one of the most exciting debates in anthropology today. History, ethics, and epistemology are being re-examined, recovered, and discussed regarding the peopling of the Americas. We will examine the latest data and evaluate the arguments and their implications. The second topic is the emergence of agriculture. The scholarly debate has focused on the Middle Eastern Neolithic, yet the new insights from paleoethnobotany and from feminist archaeology are opening up new understandings of the transition that V. Gordon Childe labeled a revolution in human history. We will consider its significance for both North American history and global heritage. The third topic focuses on the cities "hidden in plain sight" (to use Alice Kehoe's words): the meaning and implications of the complex societies of mid-continental America. The fourth topic is the history of European contact. Since the Columbian Quincentennial, the story of European-Native American interactions has been re-told in terms of domination, genocide, and disease. We will evaluate this history in light of the archaeological finds related to the European impact on North America.

As we examine these topics and study the data produced by archaeology, we will critically evaluate the trajectories of history. The connection between past and present should haunt our discussions. Understanding better the history and peoples of the Americas should be our central goal.

Questions
To aid in working through the topics and the archaeological data in this course, the class is organized around a series of current research topics:

(1) When and how did people get to the Americas? Who were they? And who are we to study
the question?
(2) What explains diversity and change in the North American past? How do we account for the
diversity of gather-hunter societies in North America? What were the conditions under which
people created permanent settlements? What is the connection between settled life and agriculture in North America? How can we conceptualize and name socio-political complexity in North America?
(3) What induced Native Americans to interact with Europeans? What were the effects of European trade, colonialism, and genocide on Native American cultures and societies? What are its legacies today?

The archaeological data to answer these questions will be presented over the term and class discussion will focus on addressing the concerns in a rigorous manner.

Prospectus
The course centers the archaeological record as the primary source for understanding the past of the continent and its peoples. The goal of the course is to bring forward aspects of the pre-Columbian history of Native America. This is an enormous task. To narrow the focus a bit, this course will center Florida on the archaeological map of North America. We will use the textbook and lectures to lay out the broad contours of North American prehistory and discuss the broad themes of North America in the pre-Columbian period; the class members will fill in the themes with examples from the State of Florida providing archaeological evidence for the themes.

Of particular focus this semester will be representations of the Native American past. With the opening of the Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in October 2004, a new era of presentation of Native Americans, past and present, has dawned. The course will include consideration of historical representations as well as contemporary paintings. The presentations will allow us to problematize the notion of ancient in an anthropologically meaningful manner.

Texts
Brian Fagan 2000 (3rd edition) Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. Thames and Hudson, New York.

E. James Dixon 1999 Bones, Boats, and Bison: Archaeology and the First Colonization of
Western North America. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Theodore Morris, with Jerald T. Milanich 2004 Florida's Lost Tribes. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

The Fagan volume is a textbook that constructs a narrative for the archaeological record of
North America. We will use this text as a resource and a foil. Please note that chapters on the
Plains (6 and 7), the West (10 and 11), the Great Basin (12), and the Archaic of the Southwest
(13) have not been assigned. You are encouraged to read those chapters and discuss them with the professor. The other two volumes are research-based arguments about key issues for the North American past; they are challenging but worth the struggle.

There are many articles and essays listed on the outline of topics. All are on electronic reserve at the Cook
Library webpage.

You need to become familiar with the resources at the Cook Library early in the semester (the reference librarians and the professor can be helpful in this endeavor - just ask). There are also significant sources of information on the world wide web - see the course web page for links to the Society of American Archaeology, the National Park Service, and Native American Nations.

Course Requirements
A satisfactory evaluation for this course requires successful completion of all three of the below elements.

1. Attendance: Members of the class are required to attend and participate in each and every class meeting. Asking questions is an expected component of class participation. The professor is willing to honor all reasonable request for absences but only if informed prior to the class meeting (via email, telephone message, etc.).

2. Written work: There will be two exams: a midterm and final exam that will consist of essay questions that explore the themes from the course, integrating course materials with some additional research. Each exam will require 5-10 pages. The key evaluation for the exam will focus on analysis of the archaeology and the material record for conceptualizing the Native American past. There will also be some short exercises.

3. Presentation on Florida prehistory: Students will be asked to present on the sites, cultures, and peoples of pre-Columbian Florida during week 13 of the semester. Groups will present examples in terms of the site's place within the larger processes of change in North America and its historical and anthropological significance. The details for the presentations will be explained early in the semester.

Outline of Topics and Readings

I. Introduction: Archaeology at the Edge
Week one: 1/31 & 2/3 The Native Landscape of North America
Readings:
1. Fagan Chapter 1
2. N. Scott Momaday 1991 "The Becoming of the Native: Man in America Before Columbus" American in 1492, edited by A.M. Josephy, Jr. pages 13-19.
3. Howard Zinn 1980 "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress" A People's History of the USA, pages 1-22.
4. Charles C. Mann 2002 "1491" The Atlantic Monthly March:41-53.
5. Cyrus Gordon 1971 "Postscript on Bat Creek" Before Columbus, pages 175-187.

Week two: 2/7 & 2/10 The Explorers and the Explainers of the North American Past
Readings:
1. Fagan Chapters 2 and 3
2. Jerald Milanich 2000 "Prolific Pioneer or Mound Mauler?" Archaeology 53(4):56-58
3. Bruce Trigger 1980 "Archaeology and the Image of the American Indian" American Antiquity 45(4):662-676.
4. Gary White Deer 1998 "Return of the Sacred: Spirituality and the Scientific Imperative"
Reader in Archaeological Theory, edited by D.S.Whitley, pages 331-337.

II. Origins Research
Week three: 2/14 & 2/17 Origins: issues and data
Readings:
1. Dixon Bones, Boats, and Bison Chapters 1-5
2. Fagan Chapter 4

Week four: 2/21 & 2/24 New Scenarios: pioneers, multiple migrations, and the
view from the top of the world
Readings:
1. Dixon Bones, Boats, and Bison Chapters 6-10
2. Fagan Chapters 8 and 9

III. Gather-Hunters to Farmers
Week five: 2/28 & 3/3 Paleo-Indian and Archaic Diversity: the increase of populations
Readings:
1. Fagan Chapters 5, 16, and 17

Week six: 3/7 & 3/10 Gardeners and Farmers: diffusion, gender, and change
Readings:
1. Fagan Chapters 14 and 18
2. Patty Jo Watson and Mary C. Kennedy 1991 "The Development of Horticulture in the Eastern
Woodlands of North America: Women's Role" Engendering Archaeology, edited by
J.Gero and M.Conkey, pages 255-269.

Week seven: 3/14 & 3/17 Adena and Hopewell: burials, mounds, and territory
Readings:
1. Bradley Lepper 1995 "Tracking Ohio's Great Hopewell Road." Archaeology 48(6):52-56.
2. Fagan Chapter 19

Week 8 = Spring Break

IV. Complex Society
Week nine and ten: 3/28, no class on 3/31; class resumes for 4/4 & 4/7 The Rise of Complexity: Is Cahokia a chiefdom or a state?
Readings:
1. Fagan Chapter 20
2. Patricia O'Brien 1989 "Cahokia: The Political Capital of the "Ramey" State?" North American Archaeologist 10(4):275-292.
3. Alice Kehoe 1998 "Cahokia: Hidden in Plain Sight" The Land of Prehistory, pages 150-171.

Week eleven: 4/11 & 4/14, Regional Phenomena: Views from the Northeast and Southwest
Readings:
1. Fagan Chapter 15 and 21
2. Dena F. Dincauze and Robert Hasenstab 1989 "Explaining the Iroquois: Tribalization on a
Prehistoric Periphery" Centre and Periphery, edited by T.C. Champion, pp. 67-87.

Week twelve: 4/18 & 4/21: Regional Phenomenon: the Calusa
Readings:
Conlin Renfrew and Paul Bahn 2004 “The Calusa of Florida: A Complex Hunter-Gather Society” Archaeology, pages 517-522.

V. The View from Florida
Week thirteen: 4/25 & 4/28
Presentations on Florida Pre-Columbian Sites
Reading:
1. Brent Weisman 2003 “Why Florida Archaeology Matters” Southeast Archaeology 22(2):210-226.
2. Jerald Milanich 2004 in Florida’s Lost Tribes

VI. Europeans in America and the Hidden Histories of Native America
Week fourteen: 5/2 & 5/5 The Great Dying: contact and conquest
Readings:
1. Fagan Chapter 22
2. J.Douglas McDonald, et al, 1991 "The Northern Cheyenne Outbreak of 1879: History and
Archaeology as Tools of Resistance" The Archaeology of Inequality, edited by
R.McGuire and R.Paynter, pages 64-78.
3. Morris Florida's Lost Tribes

Week fifteen: 5/9 & 5/12 Remembering and Reconstructing the Past: Common Ground
Readings:
1. Ward Churchill 1999 "The Crucible of American Indian Identity: Native Tradition Versus Colonial Imposition in Post Conquest North America" Contemporary Native American Cultural Issues, edited by D. Champagne, pages 39-67.
2. Billy Cypress 1997 "The Role of Archaeology in the Seminole Tribe of Florida" Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground, edited by N.Swidler, et al, pages 156-160.
3. Theodore Morris’ paintings in Florida's Lost Tribes