Arkansas Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Dan and Phyllis Morse - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557285713 ISBN 13: 9781557285713

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press, 1999

Synopsis

Arkansas has long been recognized as a state with a rich archaeological heritage that is unsurpassed in North America. The Toltec Mounds were made famous by the Smithsonian's research at the turn of the century. The Sloan site, dated to 8500 B.C., is the oldest documented burial ground in the New World. The alluvial plain of the central Mississippi River valley supported perhaps the greatest prehistoric urban population. And the Parkin site has yielded important information about the de Soto incursion into the continent. This festschrift recognizes the contributions made in researching this varied heritage by Dan and Phyllis Morse from the inception of the Arkansas Archeological Survey in 1967 to their retirement in 1997. The essays were prepared by thirteen of their colleagues, recognized experts in archaeology and related fields, and represent state-of-the-art knowledge about Arkansas's archaeology. The topics range broadly: from prehistoric environments and regional syntheses to specialized studies of specific culture periods and historical archaeology. Paul and Hazel Delcourt and Roger Saucier provide a chapter that will serve as a standard reference for many years on Holocene environments; Chris Gillam's contribution demonstrates the utility of Geographic Information Systems in broad-scale pattern analysis; Robert Mainfort uses large collections of ceramics to show that traditional methods for grouping Late Mississippian sites are insufficient; Michael Hoffman introduces a new line of evidence from old newspaper accounts; and Frank Schambach, in reinterpreting the spectacular Spiro site in eastern Oklahoma, gives us a powerful, classic example of archaeological and ethnohistoric interpretation. This volume will, of course, be of great interest to professional archaeologists and anthropologists, but the essays are also accessible to students, amateur archaeologists, historians, and enthusiastic general readers. As the new millennium dawns, this book celebrates the legacy of two very distinguished careers in archaeology and heralds the proliferation of innovative new approaches and techniques for the continuing study of Arkansas's prehistoric peoples.

About this title

Synopsis:

A festschrift recognizing the contributions made in researching Arkansas's varied archaeological heritage by Dan and Phyllis Morse from the inception of the Arkansas Archaeological Survey in 1967 to their retirement in 1997. Representing some of the latest scholarship in the field, the ten contributions discuss an array of archaeological sites, reg

About the Author:

Robert C. Mainfort is administrator of the Sponsored Research Program of the Arkansas Archeological Survey and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas. He has recently published Ancient Earthen Enclosures of the Eastern Woodlands (University Press of Florida, 1998).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1557285713
• ISBN 13: 9781557285713
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Mainfort Robert C., Jeter Marvin D.