Reviews

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland

By Sally M. Walker (Carolrhoda Books, 2009; 144 pgs., illus., $23 cloth; www.lernerbooks.com)

Taking advantage of young people’s interest in all things spooky and mysterious, Walker gives a compelling account of the archaeological excavations of long-hidden graves that gradually revealed the lives of several Jamestown and Colonial Maryland colonists.

With numerous color photographs to illustrate her points, Walker shows how detailed clues can provide reliable information about the lives of the colonists. By understanding the “messages” found on the bones, the reader is introduced to the hardships of life during Colonial times. Tooth infections, badly mended broken bones, tuberculosis of the spine, and a hasty, suspicious burial beneath a house reveal how socio-economic forces, medical knowledge of the day, and civic and religious customs all contributed to the fates of these people.

Readers are also exposed to the practice of field archaeology, with its emphasis on finding clues and solving mysteries. Written in clear, easy to understand terms, this well-produced and visually appealing book is targeted for grades five to eight, but it will appeal to all ages. Schools and libraries will find it particularly useful.

This book complements the “Written in Bone” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, which runs through February of 2011. —Cynthia Martin War Paths, Peace Paths: An Archaeology of Cooperation and Conflict in Native Eastern North America

By David H. Dye (AltaMira Press, 2009; 216 pgs., illus., $70 cloth, $28 paper; www. altamirapress.com)

Archaeologist David Dye of the University of Memphis has produced the first comprehensive study of prehistoric war and peace in Eastern North America. It is long overdue and fills a huge gap in our understanding of ancient societies. Violence, according to Dye, pervades all aspects of social life. So does peace. Both can only be understood in the historical context of millennia.

Archaeologists have discovered evidence of burned villages, traumatic injuries, and fortifications, yet for some inexplicable reason the myth of “peaceful savages,” free of the ills of Western culture including violent conflict, persisted into recent times. Excavation of a scalped Archaic man became national news. Disbelief accompanied the discovery of hundreds of massacred ancient men, women, and children in a South Dakota ditch in the 1970s.

The corollary, of course, is that humans are by nature violent, and that warfare is the natural state. In War Paths, Peace Paths, Dye closely examines both cooperation and conflict, taking us to a deeper understanding of how ancient cultures dealt with war and peace. Dye finds three trends in Eastern North America over the last 13,000 years. The first trend is personal grudges that were typical of family-level hunter-gatherers. Second is kin-based feuding. A killing leads to vengeance, which is usually limited to one or two homicides by kin groups. The third trend is warfare, impersonal aggression between communities accompanied by alliances and diplomacy.

War Paths, Peace Paths skillfully traces all three trends in Native culture as violence and peace evolved over the millennia. Just as warfare became more organized and effective over time, so too did peace making, as illustrated by the sophisticated institutions of the Iroquois tribes.

HMS Fowey Lost and Found

By Russell K. Skowronek and George R. Fischer (University Press of

Florida, 2009; 272 pgs., illus. $45 cloth; www.upf.com)

In 1978, an underwater treasure hunter happened onto a shipwreck in Biscayne National Monument (now a national park) near Miami, Florida. Mistakenly believing he had found a sunken Spanish treasure ship, Gerald Klein began collecting artifacts and soon went to court to claim ownership of the wreck. The United States intervened, arguing the shipwreck was public property protected by the Antiquities Act of 1906, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, and other federal statutes. In 1983, ownership of the wreck was awarded to the people of the United States.

Sunken treasure may be the stuff of legends and movies, but shipwrecks are also invaluable archaeological treasures, and the two are seldom compatible. This intriguing archaeological history tells the story of the ship and its crew, its loss and rediscovery, the scholarly investigations that led to its identification, and the years of litigation and legislative initiatives that resulted in its preservation.

Authors Russell Skowronek and George Fischer were underwater archaeologists working for the National Park Service who played key roles in the shipwreck’s modern saga. In this lively volume they give a fisthand account that reads like an adventure novel, complete with intrigue and murder. The relatively new science of underwater archaeology, which combines sometimes dangerous dives with historical research, is thoroughly explained as part of the bigger story of the wreck.

It’s a great adventure, but more importantly, it tells the history of the efforts to curtail irresponsible treasure hunting and protect historical shipwrecks in the United States and around the world. In the last 30 years, Congress and the public have recognized the importance of preserving and studying sunken vessels for the vast information they contain. In this story science and the public interest triumph over the age-old quest for easy riches. —Mark Michel

Reviews

Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains

Edited by Laura L. Scheiber and Bonnie J. Clark (University Press of Colorado, 2008; 288 pgs., illus., $55 cloth; www.upcolorado.com)

The High Plains of this study is the short grass prairie between the Rocky Mountains and the tall grass prairies to the east. Water and trees are scarce, and the elevation rises gently from about 2,500 to 6,000 feet. Though it was occupied by the earliest Americans, this rather harsh environment never supported high concentrations of people or many permanent settlements. It was instead dominated by bison and prairie dogs. in this book, 11 scholars use history, anthropology, archaeology, and geography, to examine the changing ways people interacted with this place over a period of 13,000 years. Contemporary, historical, and prehistorical studies make this work particularly interesting.

Compared to other areas of North America, the High Plains has received little attention from archaeologists. Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains is a noteworthy contribution that focuses on an important place from many perspectives.