R. Lee Lyman

"Quantitative Paleozoology describes and illustrates how the remains of long-dead animals recovered from archaeological and paleontological excavations can be studied and analyzed. The methods range from determining how many animals of each species are represented to determining whether one collection consists of more broken and more burned bones than another. All methods are described and illustrated with data from real collections, while numerous graphs illustrate various quantitative properties."--Jacket.

"Combining historical research with a lucid explication of archaeological methodology and reasoning, Measuring Time with Artifacts examines the origins and changing use of fundamental chronometric techniques and procedures and analyzes the different ways American archaeologists have studied changes in artifacts, sites, and peoples over time. In highlighting the underpinning ontology and epistemology of artifact-based chronometers - cultural transmission and how to measure it archaeologically - this volume covers issues such as why archaeologists used the cultural evolutionism of L.H. Morgan, E.B. Tylor, L.A. White, and others instead of biological evolutionism; why artifact classification played a critical role in the adoption of stratigraphic excavation; how the direct historical approach accomplished three analytical tasks at once; why cultural traits were important analytical units; why paleontological and archaeological methods sometimes mirror one another; how artifact classification influences chronometric method; and how graphs illustrate change in artifacts over time." "An understanding of the history of artifact-based chronometers enables us to understand how we know what we think we know about the past, ensures against modern misapplication of the methods, and sheds light on the reasoning behind archaeologists' actions during the first half of the twentieth century."--Jacket.

"This important collection reveals the key role played by the National Research Council seminars, reports, and pamphlets in setting an agenda for the development of American archaeology in the 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, the fascination that Americans had for the continent's prehistoric past led to a widespread and general destruction of archaeological evidence. In a drive toward the commercialization of antiquities, amateur collectors and "pot hunters" pillaged premier and lesser-known sites before the archaeological record could be properly investigated and documented.". "Setting the Agenda contains the complete reports of these three conferences, a short publication on the methods and techniques for conducting archaeological surveys, and a guide for amateur archaeologists. An extensive introduction by the editors sets these important historical documents in context and provides insight into the intentions of the NRC committee members as they guided the development of American archaeology."--BOOK JACKET.

"When James Ford began archaeological fieldwork in 1927, scholars divided time simply into prehistory and history. Although certainly influenced by his colleagues, Ford devoted his life to establishing a chronology for prehistory based on ceramic types, and today he deserves credit for bringing chronological order to the vast archaeological record of the Mississippi Valley."--BOOK JACKET. "This book collects Ford's seminal writings showing the importance of pottery styles in dating sites, population movements, and cultures. These works defined the development of ceramic chronology that culminated in the major volume Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940-1947, which Ford wrote with Philip Phillips and James B. Griffin."--BOOK JACKET.