- Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States
- North American archaeology, Caribbean Archaeology, Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Ethnohistory, Iconography and Iconology, Social Archaeology, and 10 moreSocial Complexity (Archaeology), Archaeology of Religion, pre-Columbian religion, iconography, and archaeology, Chiefdoms (Archaeology), Development of complex societies, Spanish Colonial Archaeology, French Colonial Archaeology, Archaeology of Social Organization, Material culture of religion, and Style In Archaeologyedit
- Vernon James Knight is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and former Curator of Southeastern Archaeology at the Unive... moreVernon James Knight is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and former Curator of Southeastern Archaeology at the University of Alabama. He is an archaeologist, having published on fieldwork and museum studies in the eastern United States and the Caribbean. His research interests include prehistoric social archaeology and the archaeology of early European-Indian contact. Recent books include The Search for Mabila (editor, 2009, University of Alabama Press), Mound Excavations at Moundville: Architecture, Elites, and Social Order (2010, University of Alabama Press), and Iconographic Method in New World Prehistory (2013, Cambridge University Press).edit
Importante volumen sobre la producción de falsificaciones y copias de artefactos indígenas en el Caribe, y su impacto en la investigación arqueológica, y en la visión de las culturas indígenas. El capítulo 7 trata el caso cubano... more
Importante volumen sobre la producción de falsificaciones y copias de artefactos indígenas en el Caribe, y su impacto en la investigación arqueológica, y en la visión de las culturas indígenas. El capítulo 7 trata el caso cubano analizando, además del tema de las falsificaciones, aspectos de las prácticas del coleccionismo de objetos arqueológicos y un importante proceso de creación de réplicas –único en Las Antillas-, así como su uso investigativo, museográfico y divulgativo. Rinde homenaje a pioneros en esta labor como Caridad Rodríguez Cullel, René Herrera Fritot, Ivan Gundrum, y José Rogelio Martínez Fernández.
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Despite intensive study by John R. Swanton, in the early twentieth century, of social organization in the towns of the early Creek Confederacy, we are left with certain puzzling features. The article outlines two of them. First, despite... more
Despite intensive study by John R. Swanton, in the early twentieth century, of social organization in the towns of the early Creek Confederacy, we are left with certain puzzling features. The article outlines two of them. First, despite the remarkable attention paid to clans and clanship, the nature of local, corporate kin groups was never clearly resolved. Second, despite evidence of a strong separation between the matrilineal organization, on the one hand, and the town council on the other, Swanton gives numerous examples where the two seem impossibly commingled. The article offers thoughts toward resolving both puzzles.
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In northern Georgia, regional diversity has rendered a comprehensive Woodland ceramic chronology unrealistic. Large, ill-conceived study areas, lack of recognition of mixing in excavated assemblages, dependence on typologies invented for... more
In northern Georgia, regional diversity has rendered a comprehensive Woodland ceramic chronology unrealistic. Large, ill-conceived study areas, lack of recognition of mixing in excavated assemblages, dependence on typologies invented for much coarser work, and continued respect to presumed period “diagnostics” are common issues. We argue that better tools are needed, and advocate for mode-based classification and the formal seriation of assemblages as a foundation for chronology building. When the focus is a smaller portion of northwest Georgia, the relative frequency of certain ceramic modes are reliable for ordering site components. A picture of strong ceramic continuity emerges within a series of arbitrarily defined pottery periods, within which change is the norm. An approach that merges radiometric dates with mode-based chronologies will allow us to track cultural implications and to critically reassess the named culture periods inherited from the literature.
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We recognize a new style of Mississippian-period art in the North American Southeast, calling it Holly Bluff. It is a two-dimensional style of representational art that appears solely on containers: marine shell cups and ceramic vessels.... more
We recognize a new style of Mississippian-period art in the North American Southeast, calling it Holly Bluff. It is a two-dimensional style of representational art that appears solely on containers: marine shell cups and ceramic vessels. Iconographically, the style focuses on the depiction of zoomorphic supernatural powers of the Beneath World. Seriating the known corpus of images allows us to characterize three successive style phases, Holly Bluff I, II, and III. Using limited data, we source the style to the northern portion of the lower Mississippi Valley.
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Unpublished working draft. Not for citation.