War paths, peace paths : an archaeology of cooperation and conflict in native eastern North America

Book

War paths, peace paths : an archaeology of cooperation and conflict in native eastern North America / David H. Dye.

Summary:

Archaeologists, ethnohistorians, osteologists, and cultural anthropologists have only recently begun to address seriously the issue of Native American war and peace in the eastern United States. New methods for identifying prehistoric cooperation and conflict in the archaeological record are now helping to advance our knowledge of their existence and importance. Focusing on four major issues in prehistoric warfare studies-settlement patterns, skeletal trauma, weaponry, and iconography-David H. Dye presents a new interpretation of ancient war and peace east of the Mississippi. He considers evidence for raiding and more organized forms of warfare, accounts of native warfare witnessed by sixteenth-century Europeans, and the various causes of warfare, such asrevenge, competition for resources, and ideology. War Paths, Peace Paths offers an innovative analysis of cooperation and conflict in the prehistoric eastern United States.

Record details

ISBN: 0759107459
ISBN: 0759107459 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 9780759107465 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 0759107467 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 9780759113121 (electronic)
ISBN: 0759113122 (electronic)
Physical Description: xx, 217 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
Publisher: Lanham : AltaMira Press, c2009.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-206) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Cooperation and conflict in Native Eastern North America -- Archaeology and the study of violence and cooperation. Sidebar: the origin of war: is war making integral to our ancestry? -- Family-level foragers and the resolution of homicides. Sidebar: Paleoindian foragers and Pleistocene extinction -- Complex hunter-gatherers and the origin of feuding. Sidebar: the poverty point site and complex hunter-gatherers -- The rise of agriculture and the elaboration of feuding. Sidebar: Shamans: warriors and diplomats -- Cooperation and conflict in late Woodland societies. Sidebar: Hilltop enclosures: ritual or defense? -- Cooperation and conflict in the Northeast. Sidebar: Iroquois Ambassadors -- Cooperation and conflict in the Upper Midwest. Sidebar: Martrilocal warriors -- Cooperation and conflict in the Lower Midwest and Southeast. Sidebar: Heroic warriors -- The paths of war and peace in Eastern North America.