Late Woodland settlement ecology of the Appalachian Summit

Quinn, Colin P.; Walker, Emily; Wright, Alice P.

doi:10.1080/0734578x.2022.2029803

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Scholars have long debated whether the Monacans mined copper from local deposits in the Blue Ridge Mountains or acquired it through trade. Our study of native copper artifacts from five Late Woodland sites in Virginia determined that the majority of the copper came from remote locations (e.g., Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey;Gunter-Bassett et al 2019)-although, as we noted in the original study (Gunter-Bassett et al 2019), it is possible that some of the copper circulating through Monacan-Powhatan networks came from sources closer to home, perhaps from deposits in western Virginia or North Carolina (e.g., Quinn et al 2022). Whatever the source(s) of native copper, documentary records make clear that Algonquian elites (e.g., Chief Powhatan [Wahunsenacawh] and his weroances [chiefs]) valued it in part for its rarity, and they tightly restricted its distribution (Gallivan 2016;Mallios 1998;Potter 1989).…”

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confidence: 76%

Examining the Seventeenth-Century Copper Trade: An Analysis of Smelted Copper from Sites in Virginia and North Carolina

Stevenson,

Gunter-Bassett,

Dussubieux

2024

Am. Antiq.

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When the colonists who made up the Virginia Company of London established James Fort on the banks of the James River in 1607, they brought with them sheets of scrap copper. Based in large part on the experience of the earlier Roanoke Colony, the English knew that copper was a highly prized material among Native peoples of the Chesapeake, and they brought it with them as a trade item. Artifacts made from European smelted copper (impure copper and copper alloy) have been found at contact period sites (ca. AD 1607–1680) throughout Virginia, and James Fort has long been hypothesized to be the primary distribution point for that material. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the elemental composition of a sample of smelted copper artifacts from James Fort (1607–ca. 1625), as well as samples of copper artifacts from five Native sites in central Virginia. We also analyzed a sample of copper artifacts from another well-known European fort site—Fort San Juan (1567–1568) in North Carolina. The results suggest that although a portion of the smelted copper that circulated through Native networks in Virginia came from James Fort, the rest of it possibly came from English, French, or Dutch distribution points to the northeast.

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confidence: 76%

Examining the Seventeenth-Century Copper Trade: An Analysis of Smelted Copper from Sites in Virginia and North Carolina

Stevenson,

Gunter-Bassett,

Dussubieux

2024

Am. Antiq.

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“…Settlement ecology seeks to explain the choices people made regarding where to live as they are mediated through historically and geographically contingent factors (Stone, 1996;Jones, 2010). Within a settlement ecology approach, settlement patterns are considered the product of people's interaction with dynamic natural and cultural landscapes (Stone, 1996;Jones, 2010Jones, , 2017Jones and Ellis, 2016;Kellett and Jones, 2017;Quinn et al, 2022). Settlement ecological approaches center human-environment interaction and avoid the pitfalls of the older "ecosystem approach" (see Brumfiel, 1992) by highlighting human agency and creating an interpretive structure where groups of actors can create transformative change.…”

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confidence: 99%

Settlement ecology of Bronze Age Transylvania

Quinn

2024

Front. Hum. Dyn.

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The Bronze Age was a time of technological, socioeconomic, and political transformation in Europe. Since Bronze Age socioeconomic institutions were rooted in the landscape, they can be investigated using a settlement ecology approach to how people positioned themselves relative to the environment and each other. Transylvania is home to a rare combination of mineral resources, trade infrastructures, and productive agropastoral land, all of which were critical to Bronze Age societies. This study combines size-and rank-size analyses to suggest that there were several shifts in how people positioned themselves across settlements in Transylvania during the Bronze Age. This research contributes to a broader understanding of the factors that inform where people choose to settle down and the consequences those decisions have on the development of social, economic, and political institutions.

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Late Woodland settlement ecology of the Appalachian Summit

Cited by 2 publications

References 44 publications

Examining the Seventeenth-Century Copper Trade: An Analysis of Smelted Copper from Sites in Virginia and North Carolina

Examining the Seventeenth-Century Copper Trade: An Analysis of Smelted Copper from Sites in Virginia and North Carolina

Settlement ecology of Bronze Age Transylvania

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