Archaeology essay

ANTHROP 2201 Introduction to Archaeology Research Essay #1

Topic: How I Survived Winter in Prehistoric Ohio

Please use research resources, including internet (websites) and conventional (books, articles) to formulate an answer to the above topic. By conventional resources, I mean published sources rather than you relying only on the digital world of websites. It is all right to use the internet to access published sources with browsers like WorldCat, Anthropology Plus research database, online journals, ebooks. You must cite your sources (MLA, APA, or AAA are acceptable), and please be diligent in reading the syllabus OSU guidelines on plagiarism and academic conduct. You should use at least three published resources. Both in-text citations and a works cited page are required.

Your essay should be about 5 paragraphs long (1-1 ½ pages, 500 – 700 words), with an introductory paragraph (starts with a topic sentence that sets out an opinion, takes a stand, or offers a thesis) and a summary paragraph.

Your introductory paragraph must also state the time range that you are looking at. Prehistoric Ohio begins about 15,000 years ago and ends around the mid-1600s, so a lot changes within this time period. Paleoindians will not survive winter in the same way as agricultural groups, for example.

The topic asks you to consider what you would need to do or acquire to survive the winter with only the tools and options available to you in prehistory.

Your essay must include a discussion of the following points. 1. You should be thinking about technology—what would your options be if you had no fossil

fuels, nor the materials and products that are produced with fossil fuels? 2. You should also be thinking about economy—production, exchange, and consumption of

materials 3. You should also be thinking about basic human biology, such as maintaining body temperature,

nutrition, and social groups large enough to ensure human reproduction.

While this essay can obviously benefit from some research on PaleoIndian and Native American culture history in Ohio, I am also asking you to think creatively about how you would solve this problem. While you might draw upon the experiences of forebears in Ohio, you are culturally different also from them, and so this essay requires your thoughtful, interpretive, researched understanding of the challenges and solutions to how YOU survive winter in Ohio.

Useful Journals (all of these are available through the OSU library databases)

American Antiquity American Indian Quarterly American Journal of Archaeology Archaeologies Archaeology Environmental Archeology: the Journal of Human Palaeoecology Ethnohistory Journal of Archaeological Research Journal of Archaeological Science Journal of Social Archaeology Native Americas Native Peoples North American Archaeologist

Useful Search Keywords:

PaleoIndians Native Americans Hopewell culture Fort Ancient culture Explorers in Ohio yewitness accounts Edible plants of Ohio

Useful Websites:

Virtual First Ohioans http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=25

Archaeology: A Publication of the Archaeological Institute of America http://www.archaeology.org/issues

Fort Ancient http://www.fortancient.org/archaeology/ohio-pre-history