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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF PASTORALIST LANDSCAPES IN THE NORTHWESTERN PLAINS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2017

Brandi Bethke
Brandi Bethke*
Affiliation:
Oklahoma Archeological Survey, University of Oklahoma, 111 Chesapeake Street, Norman, OK 73019, USA (bbethke@ou.edu)
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Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the adoption of the horse created a transition in modes of production from hunting and gathering to nomadic pastoralism by tracing the horse's impact on Blackfoot settlement patterns and landscape use during the Precontact and Postcontact periods on the Northwestern Plains. While changes in hunting techniques, raiding frequencies, and certain social implications such as status and wealth differentiation have been studied from an ethnohistoric perspective, less work has been done to trace the subtle changes to patterns of landscape use that may have directly resulted from the adoption of horse husbandry by the Blackfoot people. This study applies Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology to broadly distributed Precontact- and Contact-period archaeological sites of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Montana to reveal the role of horse husbandry on landscape use in the Northwestern Plains. This research expands on previous ethnohistorical work, while also contributing a new, material dimension to the dynamics of this transition at various spatial scales.

Este artículo examina el impacto de la adopción del caballo en la transición en modo de producción desde cacería y recolección hacia pastoralismo nomádico a través del estudio de cambios en el sistema de asentamiento y uso del paisaje de los Blackfoot en los Grandes Llanos noroccidentales de Estados Unidos. Mientras que los cambios en técnicas de caza, frecuencia de emboscadas y ciertas implicaciones sociales–incluyendo una mayor diferenciación económica y de estatus–han sido estudiados previamente desde una perspectiva etnohistórica, los sutiles cambios en patrones de uso del paisaje que pueden atribuirse a la adopción del caballo son más difíciles de trazar. Este estudio emplea la tecnología de Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) para revelar el rol de la adopción del caballo en el uso del paisaje de sitios arqueológicos en los periodos inmediatamente anterior y posterior al contacto que se encuentran distribuidos a lo largo de los Grandes Llanos noroccidentales, en Alberta, Saskatchewan y Montana. Este estudio aporta una nueva perspectiva a las investigaciones etnohistóricas previas y además proporciona una nueva dimensión material sobre las dinámicas de esta transición a varias escalas espaciales.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 798 - 815
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by the Society for American Archaeology 

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