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The Importance of Textiles in the Archaeology of the Eastern United States33

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Horace Miner
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Extract

Evidences of prehistoric textiles are sporadically encountered in the course of archaeological investigations in the Mississippi drainage area. Because of their paucity, they have been given little or no place in the consideration of the archaeological problems of this region. Distinctions in weaving techniques have already proven of value in indicating the cultural connections of ethnic groups. Enough scattered textile materials have been accumulated to merit a study of their distinctive value in the complexes of traits of which they are a part. With this the major objective of the study, the development of terminology becomes a basic necessity, making the function of this work twofold.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , January 1936 , pp. 181 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1936

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Footnotes

34

Graduate student in anthropology, University of Chicago.

33

Presented before the Annual Meeting of the Central Section, American Anthropological Association, Madison, 1935.

References

35 In securing the evidence of prehistoric textiles utilized in this study, the author was greatly aided by the kindness of the Museum of Anthropology, the Ceramic Repository, and the Ethnobotanical Laboratory, all of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Ohio State Museum, the Kentucky Museum of Archaeology, the Pictorial Survey of the University of Chicago, and the Milwaukee Public Museum were also of great assistance.

36 Prehistoric Textile Fabrics of the United States Derived from Impressions on. Pottery, Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Vol 3, pp. 397–425, 1884.

37 Mason, Otis T., Indian Basketry, New York, 1904.Google Scholar

38 Amsden, Charles A., Navaho Weaving, Santa Ana, Cal., 1934.

39 Weltfish, Gene, Prehistoric North American Basketry Techniques and Modern Distributions, American Anthropologist, N.S., Vol. 32.

40 Mason, op. cit.

41 Ibid.

42 Webb, W. S., The So-Called ‘Ash Caves’, Reports in Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 1929.

43 Davidson, D. S., Knotless Netting in America and Oceania, American Anthropologist, N.S., Vol. 37, No. 1.

44 Amsden, Charles A., Gila Pueblo Conference Report on Technology and Nomenclature of Weaving, 1931.

45 Op. cit.

46 Op. cit.

47 Identification may be secured from the Ethnobotanical Laboratory, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

48 Deuel, Thorne, Basic Cultures of the Mississippi Valley, American Anthropologist, N.S , Vol. 37, No. 3. Relationships are based purely on correspondence of traits of culture exhibited in archaeological remains. The classificatory groups are designated as “;basic culture,” “phase,” “aspect,” and “focus,” in order of increasing specificity of relationship.

49 Mound and cave sites from the Norris Basin, Tennessee, and shell mounds from Alabama, herein mentioned, were excavated under the T.V A. Authority. Professor W. S. Webb, archaeologist in charge, was kind enough to make his yet unpublished report available.

50 No single trait, of course, can “determine” the cultural affiliations of a site. Some are more diagnostic than others, however.

51 The Loom and its Prototypes, American Anthropologist, N. S., Vol. 34.

52 Adair, James, History of the American Indians, London, 1775.

53 Foster, J. W., Pre-historic Races of the United States of America, Chicago, 1887.