How-Do-You-Know about the Economy

1. where and what they hunt, fish, gather, or grow for food; the particular work people do -- who hunts, who tends the garden, who trades, who makes clothing, who makes economic decisions for the family, village, and region, and how these decisions are made;
2. with whom they share the fruits of their labor;
3. how much food, or what valuables a family or social group stores and saves as insurance against hard winters, poor hunting success, failed crops, or a death in the family;
4. how food surpluses and valuables are saved for required religious and social offerings;
5. how material wealth is used to create and maintain political power. Clearly then, understanding human economy is important because it touches so many parts of our lives. And of course, understanding the economy of past peoples is particularly important to archaeologists because so many human economic decisions and behaviors leave a material record that can be recovered and analyzed. Is it because of the pervasiveness of the economic relationships with natural and cultural environments that economic factors, and their related behaviors and processes, are viewed as major forces in culture change.

The following references and online resources provide excellent introductions to archaeological approaches to the analysis of human economies.

• Faunal Analysis & Taphonomy
  Animal bones and shells provide evidence for hunting practices, diet, and the use of animal parts as raw materials for the manufacture of tools and implements. Faunal analysis and taphonomic analyses (the study of how bones are found and the frequency and condition that archaeologists find them) are also particularly important to understanding past environments.

  Binford, L.R. 1980. Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. Academic Press, NY.

  Bonnichsen, R. and M. Sorg (editors) 1989. Taphonomy. University of Maine at Orono, Orono, ME.

  Grayson, D.K. 1984. Quantitative Zooarchaeology: Topics in the Analysis of Archaeological Faunas. Academic Press, NY.

  Klein, R.G. and K. Cruz-Uribe. 1984. The Analysis of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

  Lyman, R.L. 1996. Taphonomy. Plenum Press.

  Purdue, J.R., W.E. Klippel, and B.W. Styles 1991. Beamers, Bobwhites, and Blue-Points: Tributes to the Career of Paul W. Parmalee. Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers, Vol. XXIII. Illinois State Museum, Springfield.

  Speth, J.D. 1983. Bison Kills and Bone Counts: Decision Making by Ancient Hunters. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

• Plant Domestication, Food Production, & Ethnobotany
  Plant remains provide evidence of food-getting, diet, as well as raw material used for tool manufacture. Detailed examination of seeds is important not just for the identification of the species being utilized, but because slight changes in seed size and shape help determine if the plants were wild, domesticated, or perhaps on the verge of domestication.

  Ford, R.I. (editor) 1985. Prehistoric Food Production in North America. Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 75, Ann Arbor.

  Hastorf, C.A. and V.S. Popper (editors). 1988. Current Paleoethnobotany. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

  Smith, B.D. 1992. Rivers of Change: Essays on Early Agriculture in Eastern North America. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

• American Bottom & Cahokia
  The archaeological bases for understanding aspects of the Mississippian socioeconomy of the American Bottom are well summarized in the following studies.

  Emerson, T.E. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa and London.

  Milner, G.R. 1998. The Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology of a Mississippian Society. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

  Yerkes, R.W. 1987. Prehistoric Life on the Mississippi Floodplain: Stone Tool Use, Settlement Organization, and Subsistence Practices at the Labras Lake Site, Illinois. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

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