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November Program - Milwaukee Chapter

November 2017 Program

Location: Sabin Hall 3413 N. Downer Ave, Milwaukee
Room G90 - UW-Milwaukee Campus

Speaker: Richard Edwards, PhD., RPA Carroll College, College of Lake County

Title: Risky Landscapes: Koshkonong Oneota Subsistence, Settlement, and Politics

Abstract: The Late Prehistoric of the Great Lakes region was a time of significant cultural and environmental shifts. The relatively sudden arrival of Middle and Upper Mississippian material culture in the archaeological record is associated with cooling temperatures, fluctuating rainfall, aggregated populations, and a significant reliance on agricultural foods. These changes brought new challenges, particularly associated with food security. The research presented here explores the ways that these risks were mitigated in the Koshkonong Locality of southeastern Wisconsin, and how these strategies affected daily life and both inter and intragroup politics. A combination of paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeological isotopes (canine surrogacy approach), and landscape analyses were used to interpret Koshkonong risk management systems.

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