The Gift of the Middle Tanana

Dene Pre-Colonial History in the Alaskan Interior

Gerad M. Smith

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2022
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781978751354
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Middle Tanana Valley in Alaska remains one of the most important regions of the continent for archaeological research. In The Gift of the Middle Tanana: Dene Pre-Colonial History in the Alaskan Interior, Gerad Smith explores the history, ethnography, and archaeological record of the Native people in this region during the late Holocene. Smith creates an interpretive framework informed by Alaskan Native traditions, focusing on traditional place names and the deep-play rituals of reciprocity. Smith sets forth the case that the local themes and oral traditions of the potlatch are better understood not as singular ceremonial events but as a mechanism of regional social cohesion that dictated everyday life. The Gift of the Middle Tanana illustrates how the role of reciprocal deep-play shaped a traditional society that has lasted over a thousand years.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One The Middle Tanana People Modern and Historical Identities
• Chapter Two The Ethnographic Reconstruction of the Past The Middle Tanana People and a Theory of Deep Reciprocity
• Chapter Three Complexity and Optimality in the Archaeological Record
• Chapter Four The Traditional Place Names and Language of the Middle Tanana Dene
• Chapter Five Understanding Archaeological Research
• Chapter Six The Holocene Environmental Context of the Middle Tanana
• Chapter Seven The Middle Tanana Dene and the Archaeological Traditions of the Taiga
• Chapter Eight Thinking about Raw Materials
• Chapter Nine Identifying Reciprocity and Meaning in the Material-CulturalRecord
• Afterword
• References
• Index
• About the Author