Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T07:57:48.873Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF PASTORALIST LANDSCAPES IN THE NORTHWESTERN PLAINS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2017

Brandi Bethke
Brandi Bethke*
Affiliation:
Oklahoma Archeological Survey, University of Oklahoma, 111 Chesapeake Street, Norman, OK 73019, USA ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the adoption of the horse created a transition in modes of production from hunting and gathering to nomadic pastoralism by tracing the horse's impact on Blackfoot settlement patterns and landscape use during the Precontact and Postcontact periods on the Northwestern Plains. While changes in hunting techniques, raiding frequencies, and certain social implications such as status and wealth differentiation have been studied from an ethnohistoric perspective, less work has been done to trace the subtle changes to patterns of landscape use that may have directly resulted from the adoption of horse husbandry by the Blackfoot people. This study applies Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology to broadly distributed Precontact- and Contact-period archaeological sites of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Montana to reveal the role of horse husbandry on landscape use in the Northwestern Plains. This research expands on previous ethnohistorical work, while also contributing a new, material dimension to the dynamics of this transition at various spatial scales.

Este artículo examina el impacto de la adopción del caballo en la transición en modo de producción desde cacería y recolección hacia pastoralismo nomádico a través del estudio de cambios en el sistema de asentamiento y uso del paisaje de los Blackfoot en los Grandes Llanos noroccidentales de Estados Unidos. Mientras que los cambios en técnicas de caza, frecuencia de emboscadas y ciertas implicaciones sociales–incluyendo una mayor diferenciación económica y de estatus–han sido estudiados previamente desde una perspectiva etnohistórica, los sutiles cambios en patrones de uso del paisaje que pueden atribuirse a la adopción del caballo son más difíciles de trazar. Este estudio emplea la tecnología de Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) para revelar el rol de la adopción del caballo en el uso del paisaje de sitios arqueológicos en los periodos inmediatamente anterior y posterior al contacto que se encuentran distribuidos a lo largo de los Grandes Llanos noroccidentales, en Alberta, Saskatchewan y Montana. Este estudio aporta una nueva perspectiva a las investigaciones etnohistóricas previas y además proporciona una nueva dimensión material sobre las dinámicas de esta transición a varias escalas espaciales.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 798 - 815
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by the Society for American Archaeology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Aldenderfer, Mark 2002 Explaining Changes in Settlement Dynamics across Transformations of Modes of Production: From Hunting to Herding in the South-Central Andes. In Beyond Foraging and Collecting: Evolutionary Change in Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems, edited by Fitzhugh, Ben and Habu, Junko, pp. 387–412. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.Google Scholar
Amundsen-Meyer, Lindsay M. 2014 Nested Landscapes: Ecological and Spiritual Use of Plains Landscape During the Late Prehistoric Period, Archaeology. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.Google Scholar
Anschuetz, Kurt F., Wilshusen, Richard H., and Scheick, Cherie L. 2001 An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions. Journal of Archaeological Research 9:157–211.Google Scholar
Bamforth, Douglas B. 1988 Ecology and Human Organization on the Great Plains. Plenum Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsh, Russel L., and Marlor, Chantelle 2003 Driving Bison and Blackfoot Science. Human Ecology 31:571–593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1982 The Archaeology of Place. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:5–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binnema, Theodore 2001 Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.Google Scholar
Bowser, B. J., and Zedeño, Marìa Nieves (editors) 2009 The Archaeology of Meaningful Places. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Brink, Jack 2008 Imagining Head-Smashed in: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains. AU Press, Edmonton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, William J. 1973 The Archaeology and Prehistory of Southern Alberta as Reflected by Ceramics. Mercury Series Paper No. 14. Archaeological Survey of Canada, National Museum of Man, Ottawa.Google Scholar
Chapman, Henry 2006 Landscape Archaeology and GIS. Tempus, Stroud, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Clark, Terence 2013 An Introduction to Integrative Distance Analysis (IDA). In Computational Approaches to Archaeological Spaces, edited by Bevan, Andrew and Lake, Mark. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Cooper, Judith Rose 2008 Bison Hunting and Late Prehistoric Human Subsistence Economies in the Great Plains. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Hugh A. 1994 The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories: Three Hundred Years of Blackfoot History. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Hugh A. 2003 The Vengeful Wife and Other Blackfoot Stories. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Duke, Philip 1991 Points in Time: Structure and Event in a Late Northern Plains Hunting Society. University Press of Colorado, Niwot, Colorado.Google Scholar
Dyson-Hudson, Rada, and Dyson-Hudson, Neville 1980 Nomadic Pastoralism. Annual Review of Anthropology 9:15–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewers, John C. 1955 The Horse in Blackfeet Indian Culture: With Comparative Material from other Western Tribes. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 159. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Ewers, John C. 1958 The Blackfoot: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Fisher, John W., and Roll, Tom E. 1998 Ecological Relationships Between Bison and Native Americans During Late Prehistory and the Early Historic Period. In International Symposium on Bison Ecology and Management in North America, edited by Irby, Lynn R. and Knight, James E., pp. 283– 302. Montana State University, Bozeman.Google Scholar
Frachetti, Michael 2008a Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Frachetti, Michael 2008b Variability and Dynamic Landscapes of Mobile Pastoralism in Ethnography and Prehistory. In The Archaeology of Mobility: Nomads in the Old and in the New World, edited by Barnard, Hans and Wendrich, Willeke, pp. 366–396. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Frison, George C. 2004 Survival by Hunting: Prehistoric Human Predators and Animal Prey. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Grinnell, George B. 1962 Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Hämäläinen, Pekka 2003 The Rise and Fall of Plains Indian Horse Cultures. Journal of American History 90:833–862.Google Scholar
Hämäläinen, Pekka 2008 Comanche Empire. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marcus J., Lobo, José, Rupley, Eric, Youn, Hyejin, and West, Geoffrey B. 2014 The Ecology and Energetics of Hunter-Gatherer Residential Mobility. Santa Fe Institute Working Papers 2014:1–20.Google Scholar
Hanna, Margaret Jane 2007 The Hartley Site (FaNp-19) and the Use of Sandhill Environments in the Late Precontact Period, Archaeology. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Saskatchewan.Google Scholar
Hungry, Wolf, Adolf 2006 The Blackfoot Papers Volume One: Pikunni History and Culture. Good Medicine Cultural Foundation, Browning, Montana.Google Scholar
Jochim, Michael A. 1998 A Hunter-gatherer Landscape, Southwest Germany in the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Plenum Press, New York and London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khazanov, Anatoly M. 1994 Nomads and the Outside World. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.Google Scholar
Kornfeld, Marcel, Frison, George, and Lou Larson, Mary 2010 Prehistoric Hunter-gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Kvamme, Kenneth L. 1992 A Predictive Site Location Model on the High Plains: An Example with an Independent Test. Plains Anthropologist 37:19–40.Google Scholar
Kvamme, Kenneth L. 1995 A View from Across the Water: The North American Experience in Archaeological GIS. In Archaeology and Geographic Information Systems: A European Perspectives, edited by Lock, Gary and Stancic, Zoran, pp. 1–14. Taylor and Francis Ltd., London.Google Scholar
Landals, Alison 2004 Horse Heaven: Change in Late Precontact to Contact Period Landscape Use in Southern Alberta. In Archaeology on the Edge: New Perspectives from the Northern Plains, edited by Kelley, Jane and Kooyman, Brian. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Lobb, Wayne Murray 2009 In the Shadow of Chief Mountain and the Porcupine Hills: An Analysis of Prehistoric Land Use on the Piikani Reserve #147, Alberta. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Lycett, Stephen J., and Keyser, James D. 2017 Assessing the Chronology of Post-Contact Rock Art on the Northern Plains via Multivariate Statistical Comparison with Blackfoot Biographic Art. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 45:69–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Kaitlyn Ann 2012 Negotiating the Middle Ground in a World-System: The Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and Ktunaxa (Kootenai) in the Northern Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. Master's thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Oetelaar, Gerald A. 2014 Better Homes and Pastures: Human Agency and the Construction of Place in Communal Bison Hunting on the Northern Plains. Plains Anthropologist 59:9–37.Google Scholar
Oetelaar, Gerald A. 2016 Places on the Blackfoot Homeland: Markers of Cosmology, Social Relationships and History. In Marking the Land: Hunter-Gatherer Creation of Meaning in their Environment, edited by Lovis, William and Whallon, Robert, pp. 45–66. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Oetelaar, Gerald A., and Oetelaar, D. Joy 2006 People, Places, and Paths: The Cypress Hills and the Niitsitapi Landscape of Southern Alberta. Plains Anthropologist 51:375–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oetelaar, Gerald A., and Oetelaar, D. Joy 2011 The Structured World of the Niitsitapi: The Landscape as Historical Archive among Hunter-Gatherers of the Northern Plains. In Structured Worlds: The Archaeology of Hunter-Gatherer Thought and Action, edited by Cannon, Aubrey, pp. 69–94. Equinox Publishing, Sheffield, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Osborn, Alan J. 1983 Ecological Aspects of Equestrian Adaptations in Aboriginal North America. American Anthropologist 85:563–591.Google Scholar
Peck, Trevor 2004 Bison Ethology and Native Settlement Patterns during the Old Women's Phase on the Northwestern Plains. BAR International Series 1278. Archaeopress, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peck, Trevor 2011 Light from Ancient Campfires: Archaeological Evidence for Native Lifeways on the Northern Plains. Athabasca University Press, Edmonton, Canada.Google Scholar
Peck, Trevor, and Hudecek-Cuffe, Caroline R. 2003 Archaeology on the Alberta plains: The Last Two Thousand Years. In Archaeology in Alberta: A View from the New Millennium, edited by Brink, Jack W. and Dormaar, John F.. Archaeological Society of Alberta, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Peck, Trevor, and Ives, John W. 2001 Late Side-Notched Projectile Points in the Northern Plains. Plains Anthropologist 46:163–193.Google Scholar
Raczka, Paul 2011 Ponokamita Saam—Horse Medicine of the Blackfoot People. In Horses and Bridles of the American Indians, edited by Martin, Ned, Cowdrey, Mike, and Martin, Jody, pp. 2–17. Hawk Hill Press, Niscasio, California.Google Scholar
Roll, Tom E., and Fisher, John W. 2010 Inferred Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Relative Bison Densities. Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, Helena.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Claude E. 1934 Field Work among Blackfeet Indians, Montana. Correspondence and Field Notes. On file at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Scheiber, Laura L., and Clark, Bonnie J. 2008 Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Schultz, James Willard 1907 My Life as an Indian. Fawcett Publications, Greenwich, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Schultz, James Willard 1962 Blackfeet and Buffalo. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Tovias, Blanca 2011 Colonialism on the Prairies: Blackfoot Settlement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920. Sussex Academic Press, Brighton and Eastbourne, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Uhlenbeck, C.C. 1912 A New Series of Blackfoot Texts from the Southern Peigans Blackfoot Reservation, Teton County, Montana. J. Muller, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Vickers, J. Roderick 1991 Seasonal Round Problems on the Alberta Plains. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 15:55–72.Google Scholar
Vickers, J. Roderick, and Peck, Trevor R. 2009 Identifying the Prehistoric Blackfoot: Approaches to Nitsitapii (Blackfoot) Culture History. In Painting the Past with a Broad Brush: Papers in Honor of James Valliere Wright, edited by Keenlyside, David L. and Pilon, Jean-Luc, pp. 473–497. Mercury Series Archaeology Paper 170. Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec.Google Scholar
Wilson, Gilbert Livingstone 1924 The Horse and the Dog in Hidatsa Culture. AMS Press, New York.Google Scholar
Zedeño, Marìa Nieves, and Bowser, Brenda J. 2009 The Archaeology of Meaningful Places. In The Archaeology of Meaningful Places, edited by Bowser, Brenda J. and Nieves Zedeño, Marìa, pp. 1–14. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Zedeño, Marìa Nieves, and Anderson, Derek 2010 Agency and Politics in Hunter-Gatherer Territory Formation. Revista de Arqueologia 23:10–28.Google Scholar
Zedeño, Marìa Nieves, Jelinek, Lauren, and Toupal, Rebecca 2006 Badger-Two Medicine Traditional Cultural District, Montana. Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Zedeño, Marìa Nieves, Ballenger, Jesse A. M., and Murray, John R. 2014 Landscape Engineering and Organizational Complexity among Late Prehistoric Bison Hunters of the Northwestern Plains. Current Anthropology 55:23–58.Google Scholar