Overview

In the fourteenth century, a culture arose in and around the Edwards Plateau of Central Texas that represents the last prehistoric peoples before the cultural upheaval introduced by European explorers. This culture has been labeled the Toyah phase, characterized by a distinctive tool kit and a bone-tempered pottery tradition. ?Spanish documents, some translated decades ago, offer glimpses of these mobile people. Archaeological excavations, some quite recent, offer other views of this culture, whose homeland covered much of Central and South Texas. For the first time in a single volume, this book brings together a number of perspectives and interpretations of these hunter-gatherers and how they interacted with each other, the pueblos in southeastern New Mexico, the mobile groups in northern Mexico, and newcomers from the northern plains such as the Apache and Comanche.? Assembling eight studies and interpretive essays to look at social boundaries from the perspective of migration, hunter-farmer interactions, subsistence, and other issues significant to anthropologists and archaeologists, The Toyah Phase of Central Texas: Late Prehistoric Economic and Social Processes demonstrates that these prehistoric societies were never isolated from the world around them. Rather, these societies were keenly aware of changes happening on the plains to their north, among the Caddoan groups east of them, in the Puebloan groups in what is now New Mexico, and among their neighbors to the south in Mexico.

Full Product Details

9781603446907

Table of Contents

Reviews

I am unaware of any other volume that approaches the important issue of social identity and processes among mobile hunter-gatherers drawing on both archaeological and ethnohistorical data. This will be a very useful book. There is, to my knowledge, no other book on the same topic; and it will be an important contribution. --Darrell Creel, associate professor of anthropology and director, Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas

The Toyah phenomenon is one of the most discrete and interesting archaeological entities in Texas archaeology because it bridges the time before and after the Spanich and French enter the state in the 16th and 17th centuries. The authors of this book present up-to-date perspectives of the Toyah phenomenon and the people's relationships to neighboring cultural entities. This book is a compilation of excellent papers that provides new information on the Toyah Phase. The Toyah Phase is a widespread and fascinating archaeological manifestation in Texas that bridges the prehistorical and historical past. The book is highly recommended to archaeologists, historians, and lay readers interested in the archaeology and anthropology of Native American hunter-gatherer cultures at the time of European contact. --Harry J. Shafer, professor emeritus<br><br>

I am unaware of any other volume that approaches the important issue of social identity and processes among mobile hunter-gatherers drawing on both archaeological and ethnohistorical data. This will be a very useful book. There is, to my knowledge, no other book on the same topic; and it will be an important contribution. --Darrell Creel, associate professor of anthropology and director, Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas<br><br>

Author Information

NANCY A. KENMOTSU, of Yakima, Washington, is a project manager at Geo-Marine, Inc., and formerly directed the historical and archaeological program at the Texas Department of Transportation. DOUGLAS K. BOYD, a registered professional archaeologist, is vice president of Prewitt and Associates, Inc., a company providing cultural resource management services. Boyd resides in Austin.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available