Shells Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
...and frequently were deposited in high-status burials and used as votive offerings. In coastal Mesoamerica, one of the chief uses of shell-fish was as food. The harvesting of shellfish from bays, beaches, and rocky shores resulted in the formation of extensive shell middens (refuse heaps) on both shores of the Gulf of California. To a lesser degree, such middens accumulated in sheltered bays and lagoons of the Pacific coast and the Gulf coast of Mexico, particularly during the Archaic and Preclassic periods. Throughout pre-Hispanic times, freshwater...
Sacred sites Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Australian History
...sites are places that hold religious significance for Aborigines because of their connection with the ancestral spirit beings of the Dreamtime . They may cover a large area, such as Uluru ; more commonly, they are confined to a waterhole, a rock painting, a burial site, a shell midden, a carved tree, or a scattering of artefacts. Sacred sites are believed to hold special powers, with a consequent danger to those who transgress them or neglect their responsibilities to them. Sacred sites can also be secret, in which case access is strictly confined to...
Fishing Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
...the region's coastal plains during the early Archaic period, between seven and five thousand years ago. They practiced rudimentary forms of agriculture, hunted wild animals and gathered wild plants, and reaped increasingly bountiful harvests of seafood. They left behind huge shell middens attesting to the abundance of those resources and increasingly engaged in trade—at first with their proximate neighbors, and eventually with peoples living at greater distances in the interior. Although shrimp and mollusks were central in these people's economies, they also...
pre-European history Reference library
Robert McGhee
The Oxford Companion to Canadian History
...river valleys local cultural traditions that had existed in earlier millennia expanded markedly from 5,000 years ago, apparently at a time when sea levels stabilized and populations of Pacific salmon became established. Permanent villages began to be marked by the growth of shell middens, while evidence of trade and warfare suggests an increase in the complexity of social and economic patterns. Although most of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas may be descended from the hunters who crossed the Bering Land Bridge during the Ice Age, several peoples of...
Western Mexico Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
...Michoacán. Another neighboring cave, Cueva de los Portales, excavated in 1992 , has yielded a series of preceramic occupations from between 5000 and 2000 bce , which include some basalt and obsidian artifacts. On the Nayarit coast, to the south of San Blás, a huge shell midden has been dated to 2000 bce , and it belongs to an economy of specialized collectors. A number of specialists are of the opinion that Western Mexico might some day provide data on the appearance of early domesticated maize, given the presence in the region of two wild...
Mesoamerican Chronology Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
...has been identified from a shell mound near Ceboruco on the coast of Nayarit. It contained four flakes, three marked cobbles, and seafood remains that dated to 2760 bce ± 200 years. To the south, near Acapulco, a series of levels at the bottom of a shell midden at Puerto Marqués yielded flakes, a piece of mano suggesting corn grinding, and a burned clay house floor; this was named the Ostiones phase. The house remains, plus shells of both the wet and dry seasons, suggest that the occupations were year-round hamlets. Shells from level 35 gave an...
Scientific Dating Methods in African Archaeology Reference library
Vincent J. Hare and Emma Loftus
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources
...charcoal associated with a midden at the outskirts of the large palace wall, and calibrates to a likely age range 1290–1420 ce (2 σ ) according to the Southern Hemisphere curve, in agreement with five other dates from the pre-walling archaeological deposits (not shown in figure 4A ). The second date, Pta-7243, is from a male skeleton, buried inside the enclosure, and calibrates to a slightly later age range 1390–1480 ad (2 σ ), consistent with the second Khami phase. The third date, Pta-7103, is on charcoal from a midden that accumulated after the...
Ethnographic Analogy in Archaeology: Methodological Insights from Southern Africa Reference library
Mark McGranaghan
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources
..., “Megamiddens and Mega-Refusals over the Years: A Final Reply to Parkington,” South African Archaeological Bulletin 71, no. 203 (2016): 94–97; Antonieta Jerardino , “Large Shell Middens in Lamberts Bay, South Africa: A Case of Hunter–Gatherer Resource Intensification,” Journal of and Archaeological Science 37 (2010): 2291–2302; and Antonieta Jerardino , “Large Shell Middens and Hunter–Gatherer Resource Intensification along the West Coast of South Africa: The Elands Bay Case Study,” Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 7, no. 1 (2012):...
Interactions among Precolonial Foragers, Herders, and Farmers in Southern Africa Reference library
James R. Denbow
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources
...of a clay-plastered reed structure were uncovered. Fragments from a similar burned reed structure were also exposed at Nqoma. Such structures are still commonly seen around the Okavango today. The second test pit, fifty meters away from the first, revealed a bone-filled refuse midden. Although a calibrated 9th-century radiocarbon date aligns temporally with the date suggested by the Divuyu ceramics from Xaro1, the ceramics from Qogana are different. They are charcoal-tempered like most other ceramics from this period in northern Botswana, but most vessels...
The Archaeology of Gender in Sub-Saharan Africa Reference library
Lyn Wadley
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources
...Skeletons three thousand years or older revealed more even carbon isotope ratios for men and women, implying that social change occurred, perhaps altering gender relationships. 86 Large shell middens two to three thousand years old with few domestic features support the interpretation of high marine food consumption by men. 87 The dates of the “mega-middens” overlap to some extent with other significant changes on the landscape. Herding of livestock supplemented hunting and gathering in much of sub-Saharan Africa, and this obviously had implications...
Archaeological Methods and Sources Reference library
Peter Mitchell
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources
...new means of locating sites ahead of ever entering a region. Recent examples include further work on the distribution of stonewalled structures on South Africa’s highveld, mapping of Garamantian and early Islamic settlements in the Libyan Sahara, and detection of Holocene shell middens on the coast of Eritrea. 14 Documenting sites in areas of conflict as part of efforts to mitigate damage from looting and other forms of vandalism, an increasing problem across North Africa, in particular, also draws on remote sensing techniques. 15 Offshore, however,...
Climatology: Methods Reference library
Sharon E. Nicholson
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources
... In southern Africa, few records are dated well enough to examine variations on timescales of use for historians. Exceptions are oxygen and carbon isotopes in speleothems (cave deposits such as stalagmites and stalactites), carbon isotopes in baobab trees, pollen, hyrax and shell middens, diatoms, and marine cores off the coast of Namibia. 15 The latter provide records of Sea Surface Temperatures and upwelling that generally correlate with precipitation. A handful of tree-ring studies have also been carried out in southern Africa, but these generally provide...
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Precolonial Sub-Saharan African Farming and Herding Communities Reference library
Paul Lane and Anna Shoemaker
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources
...and even centuries, with beneficial consequences on local biodiversity at all trophic levels. 100 Figure 7a. Excavations at the Maasai Plains site, Mugie Ranch, Laikipia Plateau, Kenya, in 2005; the low mound in the foreground represents the remains of a dung-ash-and-refuse midden. This “glade” marks the location of a large former pastoralist encampment that may have remained open for upward of 600 years. Photo by Paul Lane, 2005. Figure 7b. Aerial views of a sequence of former pastoralist settlements, Amboseli, south Kenya. Photo by Paul Lane, 2009. P...
