At the confluence of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Mississippi Rivers lies the "American Bottom," a broad floodplain that prehistoric peoples inhabited for millennia. Precisely how did they live? What were their ties to the natural world around them? In this study, based upon some six years of intensive archeological and geological research at Labras Lake in St. Clair County, Illinois, Richard W. Yerkes interprets a wealth of important new data in a stimulating and original fashion. With a fine-tuned control of the data, Yerkes challenges prevailing theories based on simple classifications of stone tools according to shape or on simple models of diffuse and focal economies. He views environment as a dynamic factor in economic and cultural life, rather than as merely a backdrop to it. Using incident light microscopy, he examines wear patterns on stone tools to determine what activities were performed during each period the site was inhabited—the Late Archaic, the Late Woodland, and the Mississippian. As he documents environmental change at Labras Lake, he analyzes plant and animal remains in context to explore diet and seasonal patterns of subsistence and settlement. The result is a more accurate and detailed picture than ever before what prehistoric life on the Mississippi floodplain was like. Yerkes shows how to assess the duration and size of occupations and how to determine where and when true permanent settlements arose. What others call "sedentary encampments" he reveals as sequences of small residental occupations for a narrow range of activities during shorter, seasonal periods. His contribution to the study of the development of sedentism is potentially far-reaching and will interest many North American anthropologists and archeologists.
The transition from the Neolithic period to the Copper Age in the northern Balkans and the Carpathian Basin was marked by significant changes in material culture, settlement layout and organization, and mortuary practices that indicate fundamental social transformations in the middle of the fifth millennium BC. Prior research into the Late Neolithic of the region focused almost exclusively on fortified 'tell' settlements. The Early Copper Age, by contrast, was known primarily from cemeteries such as the type site of Tiszapolgar-Basatanya. This edited book describes the multi-disciplinary research conducted by the Koros Regional Archaeological Project in southeastern Hungary from 2000-2007. Centered around two Early Copper Age Tiszapolgar culture villages in the Koros Region of the Great Hungarian Plain, Veszto-Bikeri and Korosladany-Bikeri, our research incorporated excavation, surface collection, geophysical survey and soil chemistry to investigate settlement layout and organization. Our results yielded the first extensive, systematically collected datasets from Early Copper Age settlements on the Great Hungarian Plain. The two adjacent villages at Bikeri, located only 70 m apart, were similar in size, and both were protected with fortifications. Relative and absolute dates demonstrate that they were occupied sequentially during the Early Copper Age, from ca. 4600-4200 cal B.C. The excavated assemblages from the sites are strikingly similar, suggesting that both were occupied by the same community. This process of settlement relocation after only a few generations breaks from the longer-lasting settlement pattern that are typical of the Late Neolithic, but other aspects of the villages continue traditions that were established during the preceding period, including the construction of enclosure systems and longhouses.
At the confluence of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Mississippi Rivers lies the "American Bottom," a broad floodplain that prehistoric peoples inhabited for millennia. Precisely how did they live? What were their ties to the natural world around them? In this study, based upon some six years of intensive archeological and geological research at Labras Lake in St. Clair County, Illinois, Richard W. Yerkes interprets a wealth of important new data in a stimulating and original fashion. With a fine-tuned control of the data, Yerkes challenges prevailing theories based on simple classifications of stone tools according to shape or on simple models of diffuse and focal economies. He views environment as a dynamic factor in economic and cultural life, rather than as merely a backdrop to it. Using incident light microscopy, he examines wear patterns on stone tools to determine what activities were performed during each period the site was inhabited—the Late Archaic, the Late Woodland, and the Mississippian. As he documents environmental change at Labras Lake, he analyzes plant and animal remains in context to explore diet and seasonal patterns of subsistence and settlement. The result is a more accurate and detailed picture than ever before what prehistoric life on the Mississippi floodplain was like. Yerkes shows how to assess the duration and size of occupations and how to determine where and when true permanent settlements arose. What others call "sedentary encampments" he reveals as sequences of small residental occupations for a narrow range of activities during shorter, seasonal periods. His contribution to the study of the development of sedentism is potentially far-reaching and will interest many North American anthropologists and archeologists.
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