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WORK TITLE: Beliefs and Rituals
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://anthro.appstate.edu/people/faculty-and-staff/cheryl-p-claassen
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:University of Arkansas, B.A., 1975; Harvard University, Ph.D. 1982.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Appalachian State University, professor.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Cheryl Claassen is a writer and educator. She is a research professor at Appalachian State University. Claasen holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. She has written and edited books on archaeology and gender.
Exploring Gender through Archaeology and Women in Prehistory
Claassen is the editor of the 1992 volume Exploring Gender through Archaeology: Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference. The book includes essays from contributors on archaeology and gender. Some of the essays focus on women in the profession of archaeology. Others discuss the foci of excavations in terms of gender.
Claassen collaborated with Rosemary A. Joyce to edit Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica. The first of the book’s four sections includes essays from Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa, Julia Hendon, and Patricia Galloway. The topics discussed in this section include excavations that reveal women’s participation in a particular culture. In the second section, contributors look at the social roles women played in prehistoric cultures. The final two sections include explorations of gender construction, women’s social status, and burials. “This collection is a welcome addition to the rapidly growing literature on gender and archaeology,” asserted Elizabeth M. Scott in American Antiquity. Scott added: “Despite several typographical errors, the volume’s production generally is good, and the book is very reasonably priced. This collection should have a wide audience and offers much food for thought to regional specialists and generalists alike who are interested in gender and archaeology.”
Shells and Whistling Women
In Shells, Claassen begins by discussing the study of shells and mollusks throughout archaeological history. She also comments on the biological makeup and taphonomy of shells. Claassen goes on to consider dating methods for shells, some of which are thought to be controversial. She notes that shells are generally difficult to date, as they are often found separate from other material that can be accurately dated. The middle chapters of the book focus on innovations in research on shells. Claasen concludes the book with analysis of shell symbolism with regard to gender and social status.
Shells received mixed reviews. T.P. O’Connor, critic in Antiquity, commented: “Shells is a book to be dipped into by colleagues with sufficient background knowledge of the field to be able to glean from it a discussion of issues surrounding the interpretation of shell data. Claassen’s concern to reinvigorate archaeological shell studies is laudable, as is her evident concern to move the interpretation beyond ‘shells=meat’, and simplistic assumptions that collecting shellfish is women’s work. There is a good book to be written here: perhaps a heavily-redrafted second edition of Shells will be the one.” Writing in American Antiquity, Kim Cox asserted: “Claassen’s contribution to the scientific inquiry into past civilizations in this volume is to make all of the ‘possibilities’ more accessible to the inquirer. This volume will be of great use to those looking at shell assemblages.”
Whistling Women: A Study of the Lives of Older Lesbians, released in 2005, offers information on lesbian women over the age of fifty-five. Interviews conducted with forty-four women provide statistics that Claassen cites in the book. She determines that most older lesbian women are financially secure. Other topics in the volume include family life, retirement, political activism, and communities. Trisha Franzen, reviewer in the NWSA Journal, suggested: “While the literature on lesbians and aging has grown since Elsa Gidlow’s memoirs in the 1970s, we still have to search for most of it in journal articles. However, with Claassen’s work and New Haworth Press’s related book, Lives of Lesbian Elders, 2005 may be a turning point for book-length studies on this topic.”
Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley and Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America
In Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley: Archaic Sacred Sites and Rituals, Claassen suggests that archaeological sites in the southern Ohio Valley upon which shells were found are sacred sites, rather than villages. She notes that the people who used the sites may have eaten large amounts of shellfish from the nearby rivers as a form of ceremony. They created mounds with the empty shells. Claassen also discusses burial and sacrifice ceremonies. Writing in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, L.L. Johnson remarked: “Claassen’s argument is well taken and supported, albeit with some ethnographic evidence from rather far afield.”
Claassen examines archaeological evidence to form ideas about the ritual practices of people living between 8000 and 2000 B.C.E. in Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America: An Interpretive Guide. She explains that there can be various interpretations for elements found in archaeological digs and suggests that archaeologists should be open to explanations involving rituals and religious ceremonies. J.C. Wanser, contributor to Choice, commented: “Claassen forges together much ethnographic evidence and argues persuasively that models of ritual behavior should come from as many directions as possible.” A writer on the Archaeological Conservancy Web site described the volume as an “outstanding guide to the places, rituals, and beliefs.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
American Antiquity, April, 1994, Barbara J. Little, review of Exploring Gender through Archaeology: Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference, p. 374; January, 1998, Elizabeth M. Scott, review of Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, p. 175; October, 1999, Kim Cox, review of Shells, p. 716.
Antiquity, T.P. O’Connor, December, 1999, review of Shells, p. 965.
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, July, 2011, L.L. Johnson, review of Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley: Archaic Sacred Sites and Rituals, p. 2145; April, 2016, J.C. Wanser, review of Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America: An Interpretive Guide, p. 1150.
NWSA Journal, spring, 2006, Trisha Franzen, review of Whistling Women: A Study of the Lives of Older Lesbians, p. 216.
Reference & Research Book News, February, 2011, review of Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley.
ONLINE
Appalachian State University Web site, https://anthro.appstate.edu/ (March 28, 2017), faculty profile.
Archaeological Conservancy Web site, http://www.archaeologicalconservancy.org/ (September 30, 2015), review of Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America.
LC control no.: n 92032433
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Claassen, Cheryl, 1953-
Birth date: 19530724
Found in: Exploring gender through archaeology, 1992: cip t.p.
(Cheryl Claassen) data sheet (Cheryl P. Claassen; b.
7-24-1953)
Her Shells, 1998: CIP t.p. (Cheryl Claassen) data sheet
(Claassen, Cheryl Patricia; b. 07/24/1953)
Native American landscapes, 2016: t.p. (Cheryl Claassen)
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
Dr. Cheryl P. Claassen
Research Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D. 1982 Harvard University
B.A. 1975 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Office Address: 326 Anne Belk Hall
Email: claassencp@appstate.edu
Phone: 828-262-6385
Fax: 828-262-2982
Academia.com http://appstate.academia.edu/CherylPClaassen
Areas of Research/Interest
Archaeology, shell, sociology of archaeology, gender, Archaic, symbolism, caves; Eastern United States, Mexico.
Teaching
Archaeology, North American Archaeology, Mesoamerican Cultures, Senior Seminar, Precolumbian Symbolism, Mexican Art and Culture, North American Indians, Archaeological Theory, Mexican Culture and Archaeology
Dr. Cheryl Claassen, Professor of Anthropology
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Dr. Cheryl Claassen
I was on leave for Spring 2010 and had several tasks to complete. One was to write a paper for publication on a ritual rock shelter in eastern Kentucky, a women’s retreat/seclusion place for menstruation, birthing and initiation. I also have lined up a lot of reading to do on Aztec beliefs, and pilgrimages. Some of you who have had classes with me in the past 4 years may understand where all of this is coming from but others of you may be baffled.
It began with a suspicion that that the shell heaps of the Green River were intimately connected to Mammoth Cave, up stream. Slowly this evolved into a thought of a ritual cycle-cave to shell mounds (why they have to be separated by 30 miles of river I don’t know). Meanwhile I’d been reading about Mesoamerica cave research and was particularly excited by the volumes In the Maw of the Earth Monster and Stone Houses and Earth Lords ….. in these two books I learned about a cave keeper sodality and the collecting and caching of stalactites. In 2000 I wrote a paper reviewing the evidence from 4 Paleoindian and Archaic Eastern US caves and put forth the idea that they were ritual caves for caves rituals, and never were habitation places. The paper was rejected by a journal. In 2005 and 2006 I presented other versions of that paper including 2 more caves. I have just this month learned that the 2005 paper is to be published in a book on prehistoric ritual and symbolic meaning. Sometime in the past 4 years the realization that some of the bodies –specifically those found dessicated as “mummies”--may have been oracles instead of accidental deaths occurred to me. Oracles in caves and deities living in caves were cause for pilgrimages in Mexico. Perhaps here I should say that since 2001 I have been living part time in Guererro, Mexico and making friends with many Nahaut speakers. Their pilgrimages, however, never crossed my mind. I guess I had assumed that all of the pilgrim activity in this part of Mexico had been converted to the pilgrimages to Catholic shrines. At the Society for American Archaeology meeting in Atlanta in April 2009 I heard a wonderful paper by an NC forest service archaeologist Scott Ashcraft, on the sacred places around Ashevill that are part of the story of Judaculla. There was a sacred landscape in my “backyard”. At the beginning of the Fall 2009 semester I accidentally became aquainted with a marvelous book the Map of Cuauhtinchan #2, a document (codex actually) painted in the 1500s which has been bought by a student of mine in 1990 and 1991 when I taught in Puebla Mexico, and co-fieldworker on a survey project in Chihuahua. Pouring over this map for a semester I realized that the modern pilgrimages pass by many of the same places that the ancient pilgrimages did. These paths tied together sacred landscape. This realization led to two thoughts—1) I could tie together sacred places in the Eastern US by looking a key places and the ancient trails. I could add to the ritual places of shell mounds, dirt mounds, and ritual caves list by including all caves with “mummies”. 2) If I go on pilgrimages in Mexico I will be seeing the ancient sacred landscape. I don’t know to what extent these routes are recorded. And there is newly made sacred landscape that hasn’t been recorded either, seen in hundreds of roadside shrines, usually to Guadalupe, marking a place where people can see her in a rock or formation or some other, or where her protection is needed such as at the base of a waterfall. In December 2009 led the first Dept. of Anthropology fundraising trip to Mexico for Virgin of Guadalupe day. On that trip we went to the important shrine at Chalma and found the rock shelter that had once been the destination of Aztec pilgrims but was Christianized. We also visited a giant ceiba tree some 15 miles away which is on the pilgrimage route to Chalma for communities coming from the north. Both are still major points of veneration, both are places where people leave umbilical cords, flowers and copal incense, and both have water. A miraculous stream begins under the ceiba tree and is today collected into 5 uterine shaped pools. With these thoughts swirling around, I came to Mexico in January to spend two months reading colonial codices, articles about pilgrimages to Chalma and the Basilica of Guadalupe, Catholicism for Dummies, and several books on related subjects and hoping to go on the Chalma pilgrimage in February. I also had learned about May 3 rain petitioning from Jeff Boyer and know of a rockshelter where I think this petitioning happens—I wanted to make arrangements to attend that rite in May if possible. I was disappointed to learn that the pilgrimage from my town of Taxco doesn’t go until May (the hottest month of the year) and that it is quite unsafe for me to go alone. I also learned that much of the 24 hours of walking is passed in the dark since no one sleeps. I have been closely reading the 385 page discussion of the Codex Borgia, initially to find information on caves but now to educate myself about how to decipher Aztec codex symbols and to learn what sorts of places are ritually marked in Aztec worldview. I have read the marvelous 1991 book, Aztec Ceremonial Landscape, in which I learned about a series of shrines around Mexico City where children were sacrificed to the rain god Tlaloc at the beginning of May. On a trip to visit a semi-famous Nahuatl bark paper painter Marcial Camilo I asked if his pueblo observed a rain calling rite in May? He spent the next two hours telling me not only about what his village does but what he and his wife do at another sacred place. On another trip to a pueblo (Ixcateopan) which houses the bones of the last Aztec Emperor, I learned of two more May 3rd festivals in east central Guerrero. Link to images from recent research on rain-calling events (http://raincallingatmishuehuey.shutterfly.com/pictures/159)
QUOTED: "Claassen forges together much ethnographic evidence and argues persuasively that models of ritual behavior should come from as many directions as possible."
Claassen, Cheryl. Beliefs and rituals in archaic Eastern North America: an interpretive guide
J.C. Wanser
53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1150.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Claassen, Cheryl. Beliefs and rituals in archaic Eastern North America: an interpretive guide. Alabama, 2015. 385p bibl index afp ISBN 9780817318543 cloth, $59.95; ISBN 9780817387952 ebook, $59.95
53-3329
E78
CIP
Anthropologist Claassen (Appalachian State Univ.) offers a compendium of interpretive evidence relating to rituals, symbolism, and other aspects of religion and social life for foraging peoples in the region east of the Mississippi from 8,000-2,000 BCE. Though much of this material and the interpretations have been published elsewhere, this work provides a significant entree to that disparate literature. The work is organized into three parts, with an introductory essay placing the gathered materials in context, an annotated list of 91 archaeological sites and the relevant evidence and customary interpretations, and a concluding encyclopedic arrangement listing beliefs and rites germane to the interpretations. The bibliography is comprehensive and current. Clearly, much of the work in this area is still somewhat speculative, although Claassen forges together much ethnographic evidence and argues persuasively that models of ritual behavior should come from as many directions as possible. The only slight weakness in the presentation is the author's continual use of questions to offer hypotheses. She examines sites and objects that have been routinely interpreted as evidence of everyday activities (e.g., lithic workshops as workplaces, limestone slabs atop bodies to prevent animal predation) and argues convincingly that alternative interpretations suggest these are places of ritual activity. Summing Up: ** Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/ faculty; professionals/practitioners.--J. C. Wanser, Hiram College
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wanser, J.C. "Claassen, Cheryl. Beliefs and rituals in archaic Eastern North America: an interpretive guide." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1150. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661460&it=r&asid=d04bfc4e3303eec9cad9892bc9ba530b. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
QUOTED: "Claassen's argument is well taken and supported, albeit with some ethnographic evidence from rather far afield."
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449661460
Claassen, Cheryl. Feasting with shellfish in the southern Ohio Valley: Archaic sacred sites and rituals
L.L. Johnson
48.11 (July 2011): p2145.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
48-6372
E78
2010-11935 CIP
Claassen, Cheryl. Feasting with shellfish in the southern Ohio Valley: Archaic sacred sites and rituals. Tennessee, 2010. 275p bibl index afp ISBN 9781572337145, $49.00
Claassen (Appalachian State Univ.) reviews reports on 61 shell-bearing and 10 shell-free Archaic sites in the lower Ohio Valley in hypothesizing that none of these sites were villages, but rather all were ritual sites "focused on renewal, continuation, rebalancing, and abundance." She argues that the Archaic people of this region did not become complex hunter-gatherers living in villages and depending for subsistence on primary forest efficiency and shellfish, but rather were mobile hunter-gatherers coming together periodically for ceremonies at which they buried honored dead, sacrifices, and dogs; deposited rare and valuable artifacts; and often ate large numbers of the abundant shellfish from the rivers, using the shells to build mounds that served as markers on the landscape. Claassen's argument is well taken and supported, albeit with some ethnographic evidence from rather far afield, and should add grist to ongoing arguments about what was happening in the Shell Mound Archaic. She also lists the research implications of her study and the questions researchers should ask of both the existent collections and sites that are excavated in the future. Summing Up" Recommended. ** Upper-division undergraduates and above.--L. L. Johnson, Vassar College
Johnson, L.L.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Johnson, L.L. "Claassen, Cheryl. Feasting with shellfish in the southern Ohio Valley: Archaic sacred sites and rituals." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, July 2011, p. 2145. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA260331016&it=r&asid=c7ecf914e11f57faee459afd8dd75739. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A260331016
Feasting with shellfish in the southern Ohio Valley; archaic sacred landscape and rituals
26.1 (Feb. 2011):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
9781572337145
Feasting with shellfish in the southern Ohio Valley; archaic sacred landscape and rituals.
Claassen, Cheryl.
U. of Tennessee Press
2010
275 pages
$49.00
Hardcover
E78
Claassen (anthropology, Appalachian State U.) synthesizes interpretations from excavation to investigate social complexity among the hunting and gathering people who built shell mounds in the southern Ohio Valley from 7,000 to 4,000 years ago. Her topics include thinking about archaic hunter-gatherers, the location of shell-bearing sites, the over exploitation of mollusks, the demise of the Hypsithermal, whether there were villages, archaic rituals at shell-bearing sites, and the theoretical landscape from archaic villages to ritual camps.
([c]2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Feasting with shellfish in the southern Ohio Valley; archaic sacred landscape and rituals." Reference & Research Book News, Feb. 2011. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA276433920&it=r&asid=c33a233a8e6b16a013b47fc1e5cefa40. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
QUOTED: "While the literature on lesbians and aging has grown since Elsa Gidlow's memoirs in the 1970s, we still have to search for most of it in journal articles. However, with Claassen's work and New Haworth Press's related book, Lives of Lesbian Elders, 2005 may be a turning point for book-length studies on this topic."
Gale Document Number: GALE|A276433920
Whistling Women: A Study of the Lives of Older Lesbians
Trisha Franzen
18.1 (Spring 2006): p216.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2006 Johns Hopkins University Press
http://www.press.jhu.edu
Whistling Women: A Study of the Lives of Older Lesbians by Cheryl Claassen. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2005, 273 pp., $44.95 hardcover, $19.95 paper.
In the first act of If These Walls Could Talk II, a lesbian character circa 1961, played by Vanessa Redgrave, is stunned when she discovers that she has no claim on the home that she shared with her long-time partner. Her lover died without a will, and the house was in her lover's name alone. While I am happy to watch Vanessa Redgrave do most anything, I have always wondered if this naivete was an accurate portrayal. Until recently it was hard to know since there have been few studies of lesbians of this era and class background. That situation may be changing. Claassen's Whistling Women: A Study of the Lives of Older Lesbians was inspired by lesbians whose lives seemed to contradict what we saw in this video.
Claassen interviewed 44 women over 55, 43 of whom were white. Her subjects were overwhelmingly financially savvy and successful. Several were wealthy enough to own second homes, and many could retire early. Claassen gives both qualitative and quantitative analyses of her findings. Though she chose to present the life stories of these lesbians in "snippets" to preserve a level of anonymity, most of the transcribed interviews have been placed with the Clio Foundation in Gulfport, Florida.
Claassen states that her themes will be economics and politics. The first focus responds to literature that argued that earlier generations of women were ignorant of financial matters. The second interrogates the role of middle-class and wealthy lesbians in the lesbian and gay liberation movement. Along with these explicit themes, Claassen addresses a full range of life issues.
Even though Claassen's sample is limited in its diversity, the greatest strength of this book is its contribution to an understanding of the range of lesbian lives in the twentieth century. Though literate and mostly financially comfortable, these women, it is clear, would not have left their life stories if not for Claassen's study. As a result of Claassen's focus on finances and wealth, we hear more about the wide variety of methods these women used to achieve their economic autonomy, an important topic when older women still face high levels of poverty. Toward the end of her book, Claassen reflects that it might have been useful to compare women who never married with those who had been married since she finds that marriage is a significant influence on wealth accumulation. This finding is worth additional attention.
Though the focus of this book is important, it was difficult and frustrating to read for several reasons. Major themes and the threads of the main arguments often get lost or are left hanging among the numerous topics Claassen attempts to address. Claassen raises questions about families, self-definitions, class differences, communities, political activism, and butch-femme roles, but she doesn't treat any of the issues with great depth or cohesion. In one example, she states her disagreement with a central thesis in Kennedy and Davis's Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, but she doesn't grapple with their analysis about the differing roles of working-class and middle-class lesbians in creating public communities. She never returns to this issue after presenting the political activities of her narrators.
While having enough money to live comfortably as we age is a major concern for all of us, there are other factors that complicate financial planning and aging that are particular to lesbians. Our legal, health care, and governmental systems for the most part still ignore the specifics of lesbians' realities. While Claassen's narrators cite the importance of lesbian-created alternative institutions, we hear little from them on how they have and plan to protect their wealth. It would have been interesting to hear how these women wrote their wills and contracts, interacted with financial advisors, or found health care services that respected their lives.
Claassen's findings, though limited, suggest that Redgrave's character might not have been the norm. Her book places issues of financial autonomy in lesbian and aging studies and, in both its strengths and problems, furthers the discussion of the connections among sexuality, civil rights, and economics. While the literature on lesbians and aging has grown since Elsa Gidlow's memoirs in the 1970s, we still have to search for most of it in journal articles. However, with Claassen's work and New Haworth Press's related book, Lives of Lesbian Elders, 2005 may be a turning point for book-length studies on this topic.
References
Alexander, Jane (dir.). 2000. If These Walls Could Talk II. 2000. Los Angeles: HBO Films.
Clunis, D. Merilee, Karen I. Fredricksen-Goldsen, Pat A. Freeman, and Nancy Nystrom. 2005. Lives of Lesbian Elders: Looking Back, Looking Forward. Binghampton, NY: New Haworth Press.
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. Davis. 1993. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge.
Trisha Franzen is Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Albion College. She is author of Spinsters and Lesbians: Independent Womanhood in the United States. She is currently working on a biography of suffrage leader, Anna Howard Shaw.
Franzen, Trisha
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Franzen, Trisha. "Whistling Women: A Study of the Lives of Older Lesbians." NWSA Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, 2006, p. 216+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA144150167&it=r&asid=81858dfc84096cdcac4dd8125ef498c5. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
QUOTED: "Shells is a book to be dipped into by colleagues with sufficient background knowledge of the field to be able to glean from it a discussion of issues surrounding the interpretation of shell data. Claassen's concern to reinvigorate archaeological shell studies is laudable, as is her evident concern to move the interpretation beyond `shells=meat', and simplistic assumptions that collecting shellfish is womens' work. There is a good book to be written here: perhaps a heavily-redrafted second edition of Shells will be the one."
Gale Document Number: GALE|A144150167
Shells
T.P. O'CONNOR
73.282 (Dec. 1999): p965.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1999 Cambridge University Press
http://www.cambridge.org
CHERYL CLAASSEN. Shells. (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology) xiv+266 pages, 38 figures, 21 tables. 1998. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 0-521-57036-0 hardback 50 [pounds sterling] & $74.95; 0-521-57852-3 paperback 17.95 [pounds sterling] & $27.95.
Two of the latest offerings in the `Manuals' series, these closely related volumes are both written from a markedly New World perspective, yet they could hardly be more different in style or authority. Reitz & Wing review methods and ideas in the archaeological investigation of the relationship between people and other animals. Their text focuses on bones, with brief but useful coverage of molluscs and other invertebrates. The volume is well structured, and begins with an absorbing overview of the development of zooarchaeology, with an American emphasis that is a valuable antidote to Rutimeyer, Jarmo and Eric Higgs. Subsequent chapters outline pertinent biology and ecology, an essential part of the book, though all too evidently pressed for space. And on we go, through deposition and sampling, recording, analysis and interpretation. Throughout the text, the authors write with the clarity that comes with great experience and authority, and it is clear that several volumes have been compressed, sometimes a little too forcibly, into this one.
Shells appears from the Contents page to have a similar structure, but the text lacks the discipline of Zooarchaeology, and too much material is repeated or disjointed. There are numerous technical flaws. The review of mollusc biology is marred by poor use of systematic taxonomy, such as the mixing of family names (Hydrobiidae, Lymnaeidae) with anglicized adjectival forms (littorinid snails, pectinid clams) in table 1, and the use of such monstrosities as `spiral to the right (when umbilicus down)' instead of widely-used technical terms (dextral, sinistral). Some errors reveal a patchy knowledge of the material: the slipper limpet Crepidula fornicata is not `a patellid limpet', but a species in the quite different family Calyptraeidae. Similarly, John Evans' Land snails in archaeology (1972) is cited as a source on the taxonomy of European non-marine molluscs, despite Walden's wholesale taxonomic revision four years after Evans' book was published. In the discussion of bioturbation, the heading `Terrestrial rodents' is followed by text featuring moles, which ANTIQUITY readers will know are not rodents. Oysters are credited with having upper and lower valves, when they are actually left and right, and so on. The list of technical errors runs to nearly three pages of notes: this sample will have to suffice.
There are important points to make about shell deposition, and the discussion of shell taphonomy could have been a valuable review, but Shells emphasizes shell diagenesis, rather than giving the clear overview of the whole taphonomic sequence from death to record that Zooarchaeology provides for bones. Subsequent chapters of Shells discuss the categories of information that have been sought through the analysis of shells. Some good points are made, and a considerable number of case-studies reviewed. Too often, though, there is assertive criticism of earlier work without giving a satisfactory alternative. Case-studies, particularly ethnographic ones, are mentioned passim, and often with only a partial (in both senses) explanation of what light they cast on the archaeological record. The choice of cited literature is interesting in itself. Northwestern Europe is largely represented by the frequent references to the Oronsay middens (though not to Mithen's subsequent survey work on that island), with no mention of Derek Sloan's work. Similarly, early work on land snails as environmental indicators, a topic given only superficial attention, stresses Maud Cunnington's contribution, and fails to mention Alfred Kennard or Michael Kerney, Hamlet with neither Prince nor ghost.
Who will use these two books? As a university teacher, I would have no reservation in recommending Zooarchaeology to undergraduates. The book gives a discursive introduction, with sufficient substance to hold the attention of those with some background knowledge, whilst remaining accessible to general readers. The more inquisitive students will fairly quickly want to move on to more detailed sources. If I have one criticism of Zooarchaeology it is the general lack of detailed case-studies. The authors use a `hypothetical collection' of bones as data with which to demonstrate different analytical procedures. This is an interesting idea, and it links the text usefully, though it would be instructive for students to see more published examples taken apart at some length to show how the published interpretation was linked to the analysis, and that in turn to the original objectives. This European zooarchaeologist found the largely American emphasis to be refreshing, not least because it gives prominence to topics such as garden hunting that are neglected in Europe, and for the examples from highly productive tropical settings, with integration of molluscs, fish and land vertebrates. For that reason, and for the wide-ranging discussion of nutrition, capture methods and the social incorporation of food, Zooarchaeology has something for specialists as well as for neophytes.
As for Shells, I wish I could recommend it as a single, authoritative volume on the archaeological investigation of shell-matrix sites, but would be concerned that the frequent errors, poorly-articulated structure and often curious turns of phrase would deter or confuse all but the most determined. Certainly, one should not turn to Shells for advice on shell conservation and curation: a procedure that begins by dissolving styrofoam cups in 900 ml of toluene could rapidly deplete one's faculties, not to mention one's Faculty. Shells is a book to be dipped into by colleagues with sufficient background knowledge of the field to be able to glean from it a discussion of issues surrounding the interpretation of shell data. Claassen's concern to reinvigorate archaeological shell studies is laudable, as is her evident concern to move the interpretation beyond `shells=meat', and simplistic assumptions that collecting shellfish is womens' work. There is a good book to be written here: perhaps a heavily-redrafted second edition of Shells will be the one.
T.P. O'CONNOR Department of Archaeology, University of York tpoc1@york.ac.uk
Reference
EVANS, J. 1972. Land snails in archaeology. London: Academic Press.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
O'CONNOR, T.P. "Shells." Antiquity, vol. 73, no. 282, 1999, p. 965. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA65537381&it=r&asid=f3d794c8b16409b8bf9b7a7567a73e63. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
QUOTED: "Claassen's contribution to the scientific inquiry into past civilizations in this volume is to make all of the "possibilities" more accessible to the inquirer. This volume will be of great use to those looking at shell assemblages."
Gale Document Number: GALE|A65537381
Shells
Kim Cox
64.4 (Oct. 1999): p716.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1999 Society for American Archaeology
http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/Publications/AmericanAntiquity/tabid/124/Default.aspx
CHERYL CLAASSEN. 1998. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, England. xiv + 266 pp., 38 figures, 21 tables, references, 2 indices. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-57036-0; $27.95 (paper), ISBN 0-521-57852-3.
Reviewed by Kim Cox, Coastal Archaeological Studies, Inc., Corpus Christi, TX.
In the conclusion to this volume, Cheryl Claassen advances the position for archaeological malacology being elevated to the status of a "research specialty," (p. 235) if not an outright subdiscipline. In fact, the volume itself is her best argument in this behalf - the champion of normative thinking about shell-bearing sites has produced the first textbook for her cause.
The first three chapters are an introduction to the archaeological history, biology and taphonomy of molluscs and shell deposits. Chapter 1 is a narrative of the human exploitation of molluscan species and the history of scientific investigation into their use. It is, without a doubt, the first fairly comprehensive discussion of that subject matter. The subsequent discussions of the biology of shells and the taphonomy of shell assemblages are lengthy but well-written scientific discourses that should provide useful background material for the research archaeologist.
The end of the third chapter introduces the reader to the "contentious" and "confusing" (p. 93) issues involving the radiocarbon and protein decay dating methods of marine shells. Since shell deposits are frequently found absent other reliably datable material, the ability to accurately date shell is fundamental to almost all subsequent archaeological inquiries. Here, Claassen discusses the myriad of potential calibrations encountered in the dating process while leaving the locale-specific technique up to the individual researcher, who, without further information such as reliably paired charcoal and shell dates, has a confusing array of adjustments from which to choose.
For the analyst working on a cultural resources project, the methodology sections of chapters 4-7 will prove to be far more useful. Claassen delves into most of the modern techniques now being incorporated into shell research. Some of these, such as those being used to perform paleoenvironmental reconstructions, are quite innovative. And it is here that this volume will most likely make its greatest impact, aggregating a standardization of practical methodologies under one cover. The modern shell analyst should at least be aware that researchers now are engaging in such scientific endeavors as the reconstruction of Holocene aquatic habitats and climates.
As Claassen so meticulously demonstrates in these middle chapters, the analysis of shells as ecofacts also has tremendous potential for its contribution to archaeological inquiry as a whole. From the quantification of archaeological shell to the study of shells' season of death and the reconstruction of dietary habits, shells hold almost limitless possibilities to researchers constrained by time and budget, but not imagination. These chapters provide a format and technique for critical analysis that should be the fundamental basis for every archaeological researcher's inquiry into shell assemblages.
With the obligatory deference to the shell as artifact, Claassen discusses, in chapter 8, the production and wide distribution of shell tools and ornaments. One could argue that her digression into shell symbolism here is both cursory and extraneous (for instance, she spends less than a page on Mesoamerican shell symbolism). However, the examples are informative and instructional if this volume is to be viewed principally as a textbook. And she does explain what she believes to be the materiality of these matters in chapter 9.
In the final chapter, Claassen deals with shells and social organization, with a special emphasis on gender. It is this arena that she finds "the least well developed by archaeologists who work with shell" (p. 235). In a final, postmodernist assault on environment-centered archaeology, Claassen argues for, perhaps, a new paradigm that would attract "the very people who might otherwise turn away from shell analysis" (p. 235). This is Claassen's area of specialized interest and, therefore, her position is quite understandable. But one does not need an apologia to pursue any scientific inquiry. If the study of social organization can benefit from the methodologies offered here, then it is an area of legitimate inquiry. But it should never be viewed as an alternative to environmental/ecological approaches. As Claassen herself points out, the study of shell matrix sites "requires individuals who are familiar with all these possibilities" (p. 235). In a processual world, there can be many causation factors, many of which are inextricably interrelated. Claassen's contribution to the scientific inquiry into past civilizations in this volume is to make all of the "possibilities" more accessible to the inquirer. This volume will be of great use to those looking at shell assemblages.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Cox, Kim. "Shells." American Antiquity, vol. 64, no. 4, 1999, p. 716. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA58055075&it=r&asid=3862d77d88333c8fb75bde9f0e14d153. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
QUOTED: "This collection is a welcome addition to the rapidly growing literature on gender and archaeology"
"Despite several typographical errors, the volume's production generally is good, and the book is very reasonably priced. This collection should have a wide audience and offers much food for thought to regional specialists and generalists alike who are interested in gender and archaeology."
Gale Document Number: GALE|A58055075
Women in Prehistory
Elizabeth M. Scott
63.1 (Jan. 1998): p175.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1998 Society for American Archaeology
http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/Publications/AmericanAntiquity/tabid/124/Default.aspx
Reviewed by Elizabeth M. Scott, Zooarch Research, St. Mary, Missouri.
This collection is a welcome addition to the rapidly growing literature on gender and archaeology. Although the contributions range from Saskatchewan to Honduras and from the Early Formative to postcontact periods, they are held together by, as Rosemary Joyce and Cheryl Claassen put it in their introductory essay, "a shared decision to treat seriously questions about women's participation in different societies known archaeologically" (p. 2). The contributors also include discussion of men's roles, although not all to the same degree.
Claassen and Joyce divide the essays into four groups. The first, "Women in the Archaeological Record," emphasizes artifacts and structures related to women's activities in past societies. Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa use ethnoarchaeological data to reveal women's extensive participation in hunting activities among the Chipewyan, Cree, and Metis Cree of northwestern Saskatchewan, finding that women's participation varied throughout their lives, according to life-cycle demands. Julia Hendon, looking at the spatial distribution of artifacts related to food and textile production around elite household compounds in the Late Classic-period Copan Valley in Honduras, failed to find a separation between those and artifacts from other productive activities, suggesting that women were not confined to specific areas of the compounds. Patricia Galloway discusses ethnohistoric evidence for menstrual seclusion houses among Indian groups in the southeastern United States, suggesting the archaeological locations, structures, and associated artifacts we might expect to find and offering a reinterpretation of several Mississippian artifact assemblages in light of this evidence.
The second group of papers emphasizes "Prehistoric Women as Social Agents." Claassen reviews research conducted since 1980 that has shown changes in women's and men's labor and gender organization and gendered sites and settlement patterns; she raises questions occasioned by this review as well as ideas for future research. Diane Wilson examines evidence from the cemetery at the Turner site, a Mississippian Powers Phase village site in southeastern Missouri, finding that individuals probably were buried in matrilineal family groups and that goods and food resources were preferentially distributed to women. Alison Rautman uses ceramic, botanical, and faunal data to reveal changes in regional exchange relationships that occurred during the pithouse-to-pueblo transition in central New Mexico and discusses the resulting implications for a corresponding reorganization of gender roles in the local economy. Susan Prezzano discusses how the recurrent themes of male warfare and powerful women in Iroquoian studies have influenced archaeological research by viewing households and villages as static; she then proposes that households be put at the center and viewed as an integral part of sociopolitical change. Mary Beth Williams and Jeffrey Bendremer offer a critique of cultural-ecological models that explain neither the diversity of settlement patterns in southern New England, nor the intensive increase in shellfish utilization there during the Late Woodland and contact periods; they then propose directions for future research using models that incorporate gender.
The last two groups, "The Symbolic Construction of Gender" and "The Material Construction of Gender," include examples of ways in which gender was constructed, symbolized, and manipulated in past societies. Byron Hamann looks at the iconography created by and for an elite lineage in the late Postclassic valley of Oaxaca and finds a prevalence of textile imagery referring to women's production, suggesting that women had an especially prominent role in that family's politics, and that women enjoyed a high status, perhaps even gender equality. Susan Gillespie and Rosemary Joyce look at ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and Classic-period archaeological evidence for ways in which gender ideology facilitated social relations among the ancient Maya, using a model of social organization derived from similarly organized Southeast Asian societies and emphasizing asymmetric gendered relationships. Richard Lesure examines figurines from Early Formative village sites in the Mazatan region of coastal Chiapas, Mexico; he interprets these as symbolic representations of the importance of elders in the community and their control over "giving away" young women in marriage. Lyle Koehler uses ethnohistoric documents and Mississippian figurines, effigies, and rock art to discuss women's and men's roles in the southeastern and midwestern United States between A.D. 1000 and 1750. Sandra Hollimon reviews the ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence for two-spirit (berdache) undertakers among the Chumash and neighboring groups in California, discusses tentative identification of two-spirit undertaker burials, then proposes test implications for the identification of two-spirit burials in the archaeological record.
Despite several typographical errors, the volume's production generally is good, and the book is very reasonably priced. This collection should have a wide audience and offers much food for thought to regional specialists and generalists alike who are interested in gender and archaeology.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Scott, Elizabeth M. "Women in Prehistory." American Antiquity, vol. 63, no. 1, 1998, p. 175+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA20608789&it=r&asid=5dbb71de7d4c1b7ec8bd3ccf6097630b. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A20608789
Exploring Gender Through Archaeology: Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference
Barbara J. Little
59.2 (Apr. 1994): p374.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1994 Society for American Archaeology
http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/Publications/AmericanAntiquity/tabid/124/Default.aspx
Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference. CHERYL CLAASSEN, editor. Monographs in World Archaeology No. 11. Prehistory Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1992. vii + 165 pp., figures, tables, references, appendix. $25.00 (paper).
In case you haven't been paying attention recently, gender is a hot topic in archaeology. These three edited volumes indicate the broad appeal and applicability of gender in the field and banish objections that archaeology cannot address gender due to lack of data. Indeed, one of the messages embedded in the research represented here is that archaeology cannot pretend to achieve any realistic interpretation, analysis, or explanation of the past without considering gender or a whole complex of those pesky "ethnographic" factors that keep getting in our way.
Both the Claassen and the Walde and Willows volumes contain both prehistoric and historical studies. The latter provides quite broad temporal and geographic coverage. The Seifert volume, published as a special issue of Historical Archaeology, is fully devoted to the historical period in the New World. There is relatively little overlap in authors among the three volumes.
I have no particular objection to the bandwagon character of many research topics in archaeology--an initial surge of effort provides lots of ideas and provokes more careful criticism and analysis--but it does lend itself to a certain amount of "me-first" posturing and territoriality that often ends up stifling innovation. A few of the contributors are guilty of this, and it needs to be guarded against.
There are two sets of issues raised in these publications. One is the multifaceted issue of gender in archaeological research. The other, discussed here first, is gender equity in the profession of archaeology. These are not unconnected issues, and it is telling that the great majority of contributors to the volumes are women. Two papers in the Boone collection and a section of eight papers in the Chacmool collection address the status of women in archaeology. I should caution the reader that he/she might feel not only somewhat discouraged but also physically ill after digesting these findings. The issues identified include (1) publications by and citations of women authors; (2) degrees awarded to women and positions held by women in the academy; and (3) funding, research opportunities, and career tracks for women. In presenting the case that women are not getting a fair shake in publishing, citation, and leadership positions within professional societies, Victor and Beaudry (Claassen) virtually ignore some rather important statistical issues such as men's and women's different rates of earning degrees compared to their participation and changes in the last 25 years. Stark (Walde and Willows) provides some balance and more thorough statistics but still fully demonstrates inequity. Many of these articles explode the resilient myth that if an individual is just "good enough" then there really are no (gender, ethnic, canonical) barriers. For example, Bender (Walde and Willows) examines the careers of a few women and points out the institutional support needed for them "to overcome structural constraints placed on professional advancement" (p. 215). Kehoe (Claassen) is concerned with a broader issue of exclusion and writes forcefully about the need for revisionist archaeology that fights the structural constraints of a professional canon of acceptable beliefs. This issue is feminist, though not necessarily gender related.
The distinction between gender and feminism in archaeology is important in assessing the contribution of these volumes and the trend of which they are a part. If a gendered archaeology were not feminist, what might it be? How many kinds of feminist archaeology might exist? Is one kind simply aimed at gender equity in hiring and promotion? An archaeology of gender implies an approach of identifying and excavating the remains of women's activities, while a feminist archaeology aims at changing whole interpretive frameworks. Feminism includes various politics directed at changing gender-based power relations, A feminist archaeology contributes to this end by reexamining historical constructions and by assessing material conditions of gender relations. Considering gender does not and will not necessarily support a feminist approach. Therefore, Conkey (Walde and Willows) advocates a "feminist transformation of archaeology" (p. 27).
There are a number of related issues. How does a feminist archaeology challenge the dominant canon? How does it protect gender from being co-opted into traditional androcentric interpretations? How does it answer the attack that a feminist approach is politically motivated and therefore incapable of dispassionate, objective, scientific analysis? Archaeologists should consider how particular techniques of data recovery and classification, let alone theoretical orientation, promote certain gender (and other) assumptions. We must attempt to see how gender issues are tied to those of class, ethnicity, faction, power, and other factors.
A feminist transformation of archaeology will not consider gender simply to be another focus of interest, like the landscape, but a fundamental question that challenges the field. Even without any identifiable feminist agenda, many of the authors are forced to question traditional archaeological models, not only the "invisibility" of women. Many authors in these volumes emphasize the need to critically examine categories. Gender-inspired studies also make it clear that many "discoveries" and interpretations come from present ideas rather than from archaeological and historical data.
A few authors, perhaps inadvertently, imply that women are optional in the sense that most of the archaeological record pertains to men, thus we need to find those things that indisputably belong to women. However, several others point out that given the domestic foci of much excavation, we are typically much closer to the analysis of women's activities than to men's. Given this, we may ask why men are invisible in the archaeological record. Are they unambiguously represented, for example, only by lone projectile-point finds? How can we alter our methods to see their activities too? Feminist archaeology is not about finding women's things or men's things in the ground but about exploring complicated gender relationships and gender ideology to understand how categories, material culture, and archaeology itself are constructed and used.
Several of the studies, especially the cautionary tales of ethnography and ethnohistory, reveal that gender roles are different in practice than in ideology. Flexibility is a key to human life. Archaeologists will want to guard against imposing current expectations and theories of hierarchy where hierarchy may not belong. Instead we need to look for the complementarity of roles and labor that seems to characterize many societies.
There are many archaeologists who will say that they prefer to ignore "political" aspects of archaeology such as gender and "just do good archaeology." I believe that we must be wary of such avoidance and recognize that it is impossible to do archaeology well--to do good science"--without examining the issues raised by gender, including the far-reaching implications of our techniques, methods, and categories.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Little, Barbara J. "Exploring Gender Through Archaeology: Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference." American Antiquity, vol. 59, no. 2, 1994, p. 374+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA15443891&it=r&asid=945043d2c6d560faa4437dea8a4e4009. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A15443891
QUOTED: "outstanding guide to the places, rituals, and beliefs."
Book Review- Beliefs & Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America
Sep 30, 2015
2020
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Book Jacket of Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America
Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America: An Interpretive Guide
By Cheryl Claassen
(University of Alabama Press, 2015; 408 pgs., illus., $60 cloth; www.uapress.ua.edu)
Appalachian State University archaeologist Cheryl Claassen has produced this outstanding guide to the places, rituals, and beliefs of the Archaic period in the Eastern United States and Canada. The Archaic period in North America is the second period of human occupation, spanning from about 8000 to 2000 B.C. It is characterized by the subsistence lifestyle of hunting and gathering of seeds, nuts, shellfish, fish, and other animals. It ends with the development of agriculture. Regional variations are abundant.
Part one is a guide to Archaic spiritual beliefs and practices, especially burial practices. They were the first Americans to construct mounds of shell or earth for the ritual practice of human burials, many of which contain ceremonial grave goods. Part two describes 91 Archaic sites in the Eastern United States and Canada, including a brief description of what artifacts and characteristics they contain. Part three is an annotated compilation of Archaic rites and beliefs including items that were sacred to them.
Claassen pulls together an enormous amount of archaeological information to give the reader a basic understanding of this important part of the Archaic world.