Examining The Salado Phenomenon
By Tamara Jager Stewart
For decades archaeologists have sought to understand what they refer to as the Salado Phenomenon, which occurred between roughly A.D. 1275 and 1450 in what is now south-central Arizona and southwestern...
Rethinking Hunter-Gatherers
By Julian Smith
The Poverty Point World Heritage Site covers almost three square miles of Mississippi River floodplain in northeastern Louisiana. The area was occupied by a hunter-gatherer culture as early as 1670 B.C. During...
New Insights Into Mississippian Iconography | American Archaeology
By Gayle Keck |
The twenty-first century is awash in symbols, from religious images to branding; from road signs to emojis. Now, imagine that we had no written language to add context or meaning to...
Remembering The Battle Of Blair Mountain | American Archaeology
By James Stout |
On the morning of August 30th, 1921, John Wilburn set off up Blair Mountain, in West Virginia, with two of his sons and a group of seventy or so miners. Earlier...
The Search For Sarabay | American Archaeology
By Stephenie Livingston |
The sparsely populated barrier island of Big Talbot looks much like it did when Europeans first met the local Mocama-speaking Timucua people nearly 450 years ago. Keith Ashley, a University of...
A New Take On Maryland’s Oldest City | American Archaeology
By David Malakoff |
The nearly 400-year-old silver coin was, Stephanie Stevens recalled, “the most memorable artifact I’ve ever found.” Last fall, the young archaeologist was scooping dirt at a dig in St. Mary’s City, Maryland’s...
The Purpose Of Archaeology | American Archaeology
By Elizabeth Lunday |
Archaeologists study the past, but they live in the present—and 2021 is a particularly tumultuous present. Americans have endured political conflict, violence, protests, and a global pandemic. Multiple social justice movements...
Changing Times | American Archaeology
By Julian Smith |
When European explorers and missionaries began arriving in the Great Lakes region in the sixteenth century, they found groups including the Huron (also known as the Wendat) and Iroquois (also known...
Google Maps for Travelers | American Archaeology
By David Malakoff |
For more than a century, archaeologists have debated why ancient Native Americans built the stout stone towers that sit high above the floor of Nine Mile Canyon, a serpentine gulch in...
A Tour Of The Effigy Mounds Of The Upper Midwest | American Archaeology
By Sara Millhouse |
Native Americans built earthen mounds across much of the Eastern half of the United States, but effigy mounds are largely found in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. On this tour, you’ll...