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Dichotomies or bipolar scales usually provide the conceptual framework for discussions of historic period Native American cultural change in the western Great Lakes. Archaeological and historical studies of Removal period (A.D. 1795-1840) Potawatomi of northern Indiana and southern Michigan provide challenges to common dichotomous frameworks used to define identity, political affiliation, geographic location, or other attributes of individual Potawatomi. Examples of these classifications include dichotomies such as Catholic vs. Non-Catholic, assimilationist vs. traditionalist, or accommodationist vs. non-accommodationist (among others). Case studies of four Potawatomi, two of whom successfully resisted removal (Pokagon and Benack) and two who did not (Menominee and Ashkum), illustrate the need for multiple lines of evidence that facilitate comparisons between diverse communities living in a rapidly changing world. Relations with the colonizer were the most significant element related to successful resistance. Site location provides a visible signal of these wider social ties extending beyond the local community.

Appreciating variation along the edges of traditional archaeological Culture Historical boundaries requires close consideration of social contexts associated with culture contact. We focus on dietary variation as a function of these concerns through a case study of Fort Ancient populations who, on average, consumed lower quantities of maize than their Mississippian neighbors as determined by stable carbon isotope ratios of bone collagen. However, this dichotomy is not as rigid as initially thought, with some Fort Ancient burials producing stable carbon isotope ratios similar to Mississippian cases. Detailed investigation of internal variation of carbon isotopes for human burials at the SunWatch site provides evidence that contact included small-scale Mississippian migrations to Fort Ancient sites. The main conclusion is that variation in diet and archaeological context can be a useful approach for examining prehistoric migration.

The Removal period is the time between the Treaty of Greenville in A.D. 1795 and the final expulsion of most Potawatomi from Michigan and Indiana by 1840. It was a time of rapid social change, when Native Americans developed many different adaptive strategies that are revealed by great cultural diversity in time and space. Archaeological investigations of the Pokagon Village site (20BE13) have provided new insights into the strategies that the wkama Leopold Pokagon and his associates used to avoid the removal of their band. The faunal assemblage from two middens at the site is compared with assemblages from other early nineteenth century Native American sites in the region, showing that the development of economic self-sufficiency through the adoption of European domesticated animals was an important part of the Pokagon Band’s anti-removal strategy.

When the fluoride content of bone is measured with an ion-selective electrode, and when the technique is correctly applied, fluoride dating is a very economical method for developing fine-scale relative chronologies. It has been successfully used to develop relative chronologies for prehistoric human burials and fossilized bones throughout the world, but its much greater potential for the dating of unfossilized faunal materials has been neglected. The fluoride contents of 889 lagomorph and 16 artiodactyl bones from 183 contexts at Los Pozos, an Early Agricultural period site in Arizona, illustrate how fluoride measurements can be used to date features. Fluoride dating offers a temporal resolution capable of distinguishing between features separated by as little as 20 to 40 years.

Several different methods have been used to explore weaning behavior in past populations, including demographic profiles, non‐specific osteological indicators of stress, and bone chemistry studies. Stable nitrogen‐isotope ratios of prehistoric bone proteins provide an especially useful method for reconstructing the weaning patterns of archaeological populations. A demographic measure of fertility (the D30+/D5+ ratio) is compared with age‐related changes in stable nitrogen‐isotope ratios for human burials from one historic cemetery and two prehistoric ones. The stable nitrogen‐isotope ratios show that each population had a characteristic and distinctive combination of weaning time and rate, and that neither the timing nor tempo of weaning was clearly correlated with the demographic measure of fertility. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using stable nitrogen‐isotope ratios to compare weaning patterns and fertility in past populations. This example also shows that the relationship betwee...

Stable N-isotope ratios are used to estimate the age of weaning in the prehistoric ( ad 1300–1450) population that inhabited the Angel site, a Middle Mississippian civic–ceremonial centre in the lower Ohio Valley. The high proportion of infants in the Angel skeletal series appears to reflect high rates of infant mortality associated with weaning within this sedentary society of maize agriculturalists. Age-related variations in stable N-isotope ratios of 23 juveniles are used to measure changes in childhood diet associated with breast-feeding after birth, weaning, and with the onset of adulthood. A pronounced peak in the stable N-isotope ratio prior to age 2 and a rapid decline in early childhood is used to estimate the age of weaning. The isotopic data are compared with estimated mortality rates to evaluate the consistency and precision of isotopic and mortality profiles as measures of weaning age. At Angel, weaning was not directly correlated with peak infant mortality. Non-linear equations that model prehistoric weaning behaviour are described. These equations produce estimates of both the timing and rates of juvenile dietary change that are amenable to statistical comparisons between archaeological sites. The non-linear models provide an approach that is more realistic and more informative than determining a single age of weaning.

Many different theories have been advanced to explain the existence of non-state complex societies (often described as chiefdoms). Explanations of the appearance or decline of chiefdoms have historically emphasized the relations between a society's productive base and its social organization, but more recently, studies of the dynamics of chiefdoms have shifted away from economic or material explanations. This study examines the relationship between social complexity and human stable carbon-isotope ratios as a measure of agricultural intensification for late prehistoric (after A.D. 1000) tribal and chiefdom-level societies of the Ohio Valley of eastern North America. We show that there is a strong association between social complexity and agricultural intensification (reflected in increased maize consumption) in this region during the late prehistoric period.

Stable-isotopic studies of prehistoric diet have usually confined discussions of isotopic variability within populations to sex-related differences in diet and have rarely considered other social or cultural sources of dietary variation. Extant data from eastern North America suggest that isotopic variation (and hence dietary variation) may have been greatest within the relatively complex Middle Mississippian societies of the late prehistoric period. Correlations between isotopic variability and mortuary variability (an indication of social position) were identified in a sample of burials from the Angel site, a Middle Mississippian (A.D. 1200-1450) civic-ceremonial center in southwestern Indiana. These correlations demonstrate how contextually informed isotopic studies can be used to examine the relations between social position and diet. This approach may be especially useful for studies of social interactions between different populations.