Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains

by Laura L. Scheiber, Bonnie J. Clark

Overview

Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains combines history, anthropology, archaeology, and geography to take a closer look at the relationships between land and people in this unique North American region.

Focusing on long-term change, this book considers ethnographic literature, archaeological evidence, and environmental data spanning thousands of years of human presence to understand human perception and construction of landscape. The contributors offer cohesive and synthetic studies emphasizing hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers.

Using landscape as both reality and metaphor, Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains explores the different and changing ways that people interacted with place in this transitional zone between the Rocky Mountains and the eastern prairies.

The contemporary archaeologists working in this small area have chosen diverse approaches to understand the past and its relationship to the present. Through these ten case studies, this variety is highlighted but leads to a common theme - that the High Plains contains important locales to which people, over generations or millennia, return. Providing both data and theory on a region that has not previously received much attention from archaeologists, especially compared with other regions in North America, this volume is a welcome addition to the literature. Contributors:
o Paul Burnett
o Oskar Burger
o Minette C. Church
o Philip Duke
o Kevin Gilmore
o Eileen Johnson
o Mark D. Mitchell
o Michael R. Peterson
o Lawrence Todd

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870819315
Publisher:	University Press of Colorado
Publication date:	01/31/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bonnie J. Clark is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Denver. Laura L. Scheiber is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University.

Editorial Reviews

"Compared to other areas of North America, the High Plains has received little attention from archaeologists. Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains is a noteworthy contribution that focuses on an important place from many perspectives."
—American Archaeology Magazine


"All anthropologists and Plains scholars should have this book, especially geographers and historians, as well as biological and paleoenvironmental scientists. The volume is a good and easy read providing a fresh perspective on the Plains."
—Marcel Kornfeld, Great Plains Research

From the Publisher