Investigating the Ordinary

Everyday Matters in Southeast Archaeology

Sarah E. Price, Philip J. Carr

• Publisher: University of Florida Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781683404439, 9781683400219
• eBook ISBN: 9781683404491
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Shifting the focus to everyday life in the archaeology of the Southeast US

Focusing on the daily concerns, activities, and routine events of people in the past, Investigating the Ordinary argues for a paradigm shift in the way southeastern archaeologists operate and urges them to think of the archaeological record in new ways. Instead of dividing archaeological work by time periods or artifact types, the essays in this volume unite separate areas of research through the theme of the everyday.

The contributors to this volume bring together case studies detailing ordinary people and their lives, spanning the Paleoindian period to the nineteenth century. The essays include an examination of how the white-tailed deer was entangled in the lives of Middle Archaic people not only as a food source but as a social and spiritual creature, as well as a look at the domestic lives of those who made exotic goods for the political and social elites in the Middle Woodland period. Cooking vessels in the Late Archaic period help trace the daily lives of the many people involved in their production, use, and eventual deposition. Mound sites are reconsidered in light of the everyday--assessing not only the meaning of the sites but the mobilization of labor and the deployment of resources that went into creating them.

Taken together, these essays demonstrate that attention to everyday life can help researchers avoid overemphasizing data and jargon and instead discover connections between the people of different eras. This approach will also inspire archaeologists with ways to humanize their research and engage the public with their work and with the deep history of the southeastern United States.

A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series Contributors: Philip J. Carr | Sarah E. Price | D. Shane Miller | Jesse Tune | Christopher B. Rodning | Jayur M. Mehta | Bryan S. Haley | Lance Greene | Kandace D. Hollenbach | Stephen B. Carmody | Ashley A. Dumas | Christopher R. Moore | Richard W. Jeffries | Asa R. Randall

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• 1. Why the Archaeology of Everyday Matters?
• 2. When the Levee Breaks: Small Decisions and Big Floods at the End of the Last Ice Age
• 3. Chaos Theory and the Contact Period in the Southeast
• 4. Community Practice in a Post-Removal Cherokee Town
• 5. The Daily Lives of Early Archaic Foragers in the Mid-South
• 6. An Ethnoarchaeological Interpretation of the Salt Life, A.D. 1200
• 7. Maintaining Relations with Deer: A Day in the Life in the Middle Archaic
• 8. The Itineraries of Late Archaic Shell and Ceramic Cooking Vessels
• 9. Crafting Everyday Matters in the Middle and Late Woodland Periods
• 10. Stone Tool Life Meets Everyday Life
• 11. The Role of Dogs in Everyday Life
• 12. Mound Building as Daily Practice
• 13. Gathering in the Late Woodland: Plazas and Gathering Places as Everyday Space
• 14. Matters and Mattering
• 15. The Everyday Archaeologist Matters
• References Cited
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Ripley P. Bullen Series