James B Stoltman
Biographic Data
| ID | 119674 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James B Stoltman |
| GIVEN NAMES | James B |
| FAMILY NAME | Stoltman |
| SIGNATURE | STOLTMAN J B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 318 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Caddo or Cahokian? Stylistic and compositional analyses of a fine-engraved vessel from northwest Iowa
A ceramic vessel found at a Mill Creek culture (eastern Initial Middle Missouri variant) site in northwest Iowa exhibits features characteristic of both the Southern Caddo Holly Fine Engraved type and the Fine Engraved Carving type of the American Bottom Fine Grog series. Knowing the vessel’s likely manufacturing locale is important in understanding relationships between Middle Missouri tradition people and distant groups to the south. To determi…
New insights into the composition and microstructure of ceramic artifacts associated with the production of Chinese bronzes at Yinxu, the last capital of the Shang dynasty
Poverty Point Objects Reconsidered
In this paper we examine the enigmatic but plentiful hand-molded, baked-clay objects known as Poverty Point Objects (PPOs) from a number of different facets. Although the vast majority of these Terminal Archaic artifacts are found in the Lower Mississippi Valley, they also are found at sites as far north as Clarksville, Indiana, and as far east as the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Although most archaeologists generally assume PPOs were used primaril…
Petrographic Analysis of Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian Ceramics at the Iva Site (47Lc42), Onalaska, Wisconsin
The Iva site contained a rare effigy mound and Middle Mississippian (Ramey horizon) component within the Late Woodland Lewis phase territory of the Upper Mississippi River valley. Salvage excavations in 2002–2003 recovered fragments of numerous Angelo Punctated, Powell Plain, and Ramey Incised vessels, including examples of Angelo and Ramey in direct association. Petrographic analysis was conducted on seven grit-tempered and six shell-tempered ve…
Ceramic Petrography and Hopewell Interaction
Petrography is the minute examination by microscope of rock and mineral samples for the purpose of determining precisely their mineralogical composition. In this groundbreaking work, James B. Stoltman applies quantitative as well as qualitative methods to petrography of Native American ceramics. As explained in Ceramic Petrography and Hopewell Interaction , by adapting petrography to the study of pottery, Stoltman offers a powerful new set of too…
Foundations of the Cades Pond Culture in North-Central Florida
The River Styx site was an important Middle Woodland ceremonial center in north-central Florida that included a horseshoe-shaped earthen embankment, a burial mound containing only cremations, and diverse nonlocal artifacts. The site was recorded more than forty years ago but a report was never written. This article presents a summary of excavation results at River Styx and analysis of the pottery assemblage based on archived notes and collections…
Recent Discoveries and Some Thoughts on Early Urbanization at Anyang
The study of earliest cities and civilizations has been one of the dominant subjects of archaeological research in China. Anyang is a modern city in the northern Henan panhandle where two of the earliest cities developed in early Bronze Age China. These two urban sites are named Yinxu and Huanbei. This chapter discusses some recent discoveries in Anyang, followed by some thoughts concerning the nature of the Shang cities and the material and soci…
The Archaic Tradition in Wisconsin
New Petrographic Evidence Pertaining to Ceramic Production and Importation at the Olmec Site of San Lorenzo
This paper reports the results of petrographic analyses of 41 new pottery thin sections from San Lorenzo. The resulting compositional data provide an important new context for evaluating the disputed status of carved vessels previously identified as imports to the site. By comparing local and Oaxaca highlands pottery, the disputed vessels are shown to be (a) compositionally distinct from San Lorenzo pottery and (b) similar to highland pottery. Sa…
Ceramic Production in Shang Societies of Anyang
This article describes the results of petrographic analyses of ceramic thin sections from the Shang sites of Huanbei and Yinxu in Anyang, Henan, China. The initial goal was to determine the physical composition of locally produced ceramic artifacts. This was accomplished by focusing upon gray wares, the most common ceramic class in Shang contexts at Anyang, and comparing the findings to local, clay-rich sediments in both qualitative and quantitat…
New Evidence in the Upper Mississippi Valley for Premississippian Cultural Interaction with the American Bottom
The recovery of anomalous (red-slipped, shell/grog/sandstone-tempered) pottery from three sites in the Upper Mississippi Valley (UMV) prompted a petrographic analysis of thin sections of 21 vessels from these sites. The goal was to evaluate their possible derivation from the American Bottom, the nearest locality where such pottery commonly occurs. Among the 12 UMV vessels tempered with shell (nine red slipped), ten were determined, based on compa…
Place of Origin of Prehistoric Inhabitants of Aztalan, Jefferson Co., Wisconsin
The archaeological site of Aztalan in southeastern Wisconsin is a large, palisaded complex of mounds and other structures along the banks of the Crawfish River in Jefferson County. The unusual nature of this settlement has been noted for many years and the origin of the inhabitants has been the subject of considerable debate. The similarities between the materials at Aztalan and other Mississippian period sites to the south in Illinois have long …
Ceramics in archaeology
On the Logic of Archaeological Inference
The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups d…
Obsidian in Early Woodland Contexts in the Upper Mississippi Valley
The purpose of this paper is to report the occurrence of obsidian artifacts from Early Woodland contexts in southwestern Wisconsin. During 1995 excavations at the Tillmont site (47CR460), seven obsidian flakes were recovered from a deeply buried paleosol in association with a virtually 'pure' component of the Indian Isle phase, a local variant of the Early Woodland Marion Culture (Stoltman 1990:242-244). Geochemical analyses of four of the flakes…
The Role of Petrography in the Study of Archaeological Ceramics
Ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley
Ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley
The emergence of pottery
The emergence of pottery
Archeology
Archeology
Ceramic Petrography as a Technique for Documenting Cultural Interaction
The petrographic identification of ceramic tempers has long been known to be a fruitful line of inquiry for investigating intersite and interregional cultural interaction. By applying point-counting procedures to the recording of natural as well as humanly added mineral inclusions in ceramic thin sections, considerable power can be added to this traditionally qualitative technique. The effectiveness of this more quantitative approach in discrimin…
A Quantitative Approach to the Petrographic Analysis of Ceramic Thin Sections
This paper introduces a new technique for the quantitative analysis of ceramic thin sections through petrography. The technique is a version of point counting that estimates with considerable precision the amounts of human additives (temper) and natural inclusions (silt and sand) in ceramic pastes. In concert with traditional qualitative identification of mineral inclusions, this technique expands the capacity of petrography to shed meaningful li…
Temporal Models in Prehistory
This paper deals with the topic of defining a sequence of time units for any specified archaeological area, that is, the topic of constructing temporal models in prehistory. Despite the fundamental necessity for temporal models in modern prehistoric archaeology, no generally agreed-upon, coherent set of principles is currently available to assist archaeologists in the task of temporal model formulation. Accordingly, after a brief historical revie…
A Quantitative Approach to the Petrographic Analysis of Ceramic Thin Sections
This paper introduces a new technique for the quantitative analysis of ceramic thin sections through petrography. The technique is a version of point counting that estimates with considerable precision the amounts of human additives (temper) and natural inclusions (silt and sand) in ceramic pastes. In concert with traditional qualitative identification of mineral inclusions, this technique expands the capacity of petrography to shed meaningful li…
Place of Origin of Prehistoric Inhabitants of Aztalan, Jefferson Co., Wisconsin
The archaeological site of Aztalan in southeastern Wisconsin is a large, palisaded complex of mounds and other structures along the banks of the Crawfish River in Jefferson County. The unusual nature of this settlement has been noted for many years and the origin of the inhabitants has been the subject of considerable debate. The similarities between the materials at Aztalan and other Mississippian period sites to the south in Illinois have long …
Ceramic Petrography as a Technique for Documenting Cultural Interaction
The petrographic identification of ceramic tempers has long been known to be a fruitful line of inquiry for investigating intersite and interregional cultural interaction. By applying point-counting procedures to the recording of natural as well as humanly added mineral inclusions in ceramic thin sections, considerable power can be added to this traditionally qualitative technique. The effectiveness of this more quantitative approach in discrimin…
On the Logic of Archaeological Inference
The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups d…
Temporal Models in Prehistory
This paper deals with the topic of defining a sequence of time units for any specified archaeological area, that is, the topic of constructing temporal models in prehistory. Despite the fundamental necessity for temporal models in modern prehistoric archaeology, no generally agreed-upon, coherent set of principles is currently available to assist archaeologists in the task of temporal model formulation. Accordingly, after a brief historical revie…
Ceramic Production in Shang Societies of Anyang
This article describes the results of petrographic analyses of ceramic thin sections from the Shang sites of Huanbei and Yinxu in Anyang, Henan, China. The initial goal was to determine the physical composition of locally produced ceramic artifacts. This was accomplished by focusing upon gray wares, the most common ceramic class in Shang contexts at Anyang, and comparing the findings to local, clay-rich sediments in both qualitative and quantitat…
Ceramic Petrography and Hopewell Interaction
Petrography is the minute examination by microscope of rock and mineral samples for the purpose of determining precisely their mineralogical composition. In this groundbreaking work, James B. Stoltman applies quantitative as well as qualitative methods to petrography of Native American ceramics. As explained in Ceramic Petrography and Hopewell Interaction , by adapting petrography to the study of pottery, Stoltman offers a powerful new set of too…
New insights into the composition and microstructure of ceramic artifacts associated with the production of Chinese bronzes at Yinxu, the last capital of the Shang dynasty
Poverty Point Objects Reconsidered
In this paper we examine the enigmatic but plentiful hand-molded, baked-clay objects known as Poverty Point Objects (PPOs) from a number of different facets. Although the vast majority of these Terminal Archaic artifacts are found in the Lower Mississippi Valley, they also are found at sites as far north as Clarksville, Indiana, and as far east as the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Although most archaeologists generally assume PPOs were used primaril…
New Evidence in the Upper Mississippi Valley for Premississippian Cultural Interaction with the American Bottom
The recovery of anomalous (red-slipped, shell/grog/sandstone-tempered) pottery from three sites in the Upper Mississippi Valley (UMV) prompted a petrographic analysis of thin sections of 21 vessels from these sites. The goal was to evaluate their possible derivation from the American Bottom, the nearest locality where such pottery commonly occurs. Among the 12 UMV vessels tempered with shell (nine red slipped), ten were determined, based on compa…
Caddo or Cahokian? Stylistic and compositional analyses of a fine-engraved vessel from northwest Iowa
A ceramic vessel found at a Mill Creek culture (eastern Initial Middle Missouri variant) site in northwest Iowa exhibits features characteristic of both the Southern Caddo Holly Fine Engraved type and the Fine Engraved Carving type of the American Bottom Fine Grog series. Knowing the vessel’s likely manufacturing locale is important in understanding relationships between Middle Missouri tradition people and distant groups to the south. To determi…
Foundations of the Cades Pond Culture in North-Central Florida
The River Styx site was an important Middle Woodland ceremonial center in north-central Florida that included a horseshoe-shaped earthen embankment, a burial mound containing only cremations, and diverse nonlocal artifacts. The site was recorded more than forty years ago but a report was never written. This article presents a summary of excavation results at River Styx and analysis of the pottery assemblage based on archived notes and collections…
New Radiocarbon Dates for Southeastern Fiber-Tempered Pottery
Excavations in the Savannah River swamp in southeastern South Carolina have uncovered a shell midden believed to represent the accumulation of a single occupation by Savannah River Archaic peoples. Two radiocarbon dates from the basal portions of this shell midden suggest an age for the associated Stallings Plain pottery of 2505 B.C. and 2515 B.C. A third radiocarbon date - A.D. 1450 - from the upper levels of the shell midden clearly reflects co…
Ceramics in archaeology
Obsidian in Early Woodland Contexts in the Upper Mississippi Valley
The purpose of this paper is to report the occurrence of obsidian artifacts from Early Woodland contexts in southwestern Wisconsin. During 1995 excavations at the Tillmont site (47CR460), seven obsidian flakes were recovered from a deeply buried paleosol in association with a virtually 'pure' component of the Indian Isle phase, a local variant of the Early Woodland Marion Culture (Stoltman 1990:242-244). Geochemical analyses of four of the flakes…
Petrographic Analysis of Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian Ceramics at the Iva Site (47Lc42), Onalaska, Wisconsin
The Iva site contained a rare effigy mound and Middle Mississippian (Ramey horizon) component within the Late Woodland Lewis phase territory of the Upper Mississippi River valley. Salvage excavations in 2002–2003 recovered fragments of numerous Angelo Punctated, Powell Plain, and Ramey Incised vessels, including examples of Angelo and Ramey in direct association. Petrographic analysis was conducted on seven grit-tempered and six shell-tempered ve…
New Petrographic Evidence Pertaining to Ceramic Production and Importation at the Olmec Site of San Lorenzo
This paper reports the results of petrographic analyses of 41 new pottery thin sections from San Lorenzo. The resulting compositional data provide an important new context for evaluating the disputed status of carved vessels previously identified as imports to the site. By comparing local and Oaxaca highlands pottery, the disputed vessels are shown to be (a) compositionally distinct from San Lorenzo pottery and (b) similar to highland pottery. Sa…
New Radiocarbon Dates for Southeastern Fiber-Tempered Pottery
Excavations in the Savannah River swamp in southeastern South Carolina have uncovered a shell midden believed to represent the accumulation of a single occupation by Savannah River Archaic peoples. Two radiocarbon dates from the basal portions of this shell midden suggest an age for the associated Stallings Plain pottery of 2505 B.C. and 2515 B.C. A third radiocarbon date - A.D. 1450 - from the upper levels of the shell midden clearly reflects co…
The Summer Island Site
Temporal Models in Prehistory
This paper deals with the topic of defining a sequence of time units for any specified archaeological area, that is, the topic of constructing temporal models in prehistory. Despite the fundamental necessity for temporal models in modern prehistoric archaeology, no generally agreed-upon, coherent set of principles is currently available to assist archaeologists in the task of temporal model formulation. Accordingly, after a brief historical revie…
A Quantitative Approach to the Petrographic Analysis of Ceramic Thin Sections
This paper introduces a new technique for the quantitative analysis of ceramic thin sections through petrography. The technique is a version of point counting that estimates with considerable precision the amounts of human additives (temper) and natural inclusions (silt and sand) in ceramic pastes. In concert with traditional qualitative identification of mineral inclusions, this technique expands the capacity of petrography to shed meaningful li…
Ceramic Petrography as a Technique for Documenting Cultural Interaction
The petrographic identification of ceramic tempers has long been known to be a fruitful line of inquiry for investigating intersite and interregional cultural interaction. By applying point-counting procedures to the recording of natural as well as humanly added mineral inclusions in ceramic thin sections, considerable power can be added to this traditionally qualitative technique. The effectiveness of this more quantitative approach in discrimin…
Archeology
Archeology
The emergence of pottery
The emergence of pottery
Ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley
Ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley
The Role of Petrography in the Study of Archaeological Ceramics
Obsidian in Early Woodland Contexts in the Upper Mississippi Valley
The purpose of this paper is to report the occurrence of obsidian artifacts from Early Woodland contexts in southwestern Wisconsin. During 1995 excavations at the Tillmont site (47CR460), seven obsidian flakes were recovered from a deeply buried paleosol in association with a virtually 'pure' component of the Indian Isle phase, a local variant of the Early Woodland Marion Culture (Stoltman 1990:242-244). Geochemical analyses of four of the flakes…
Ceramics in archaeology
On the Logic of Archaeological Inference
The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups d…
Place of Origin of Prehistoric Inhabitants of Aztalan, Jefferson Co., Wisconsin
The archaeological site of Aztalan in southeastern Wisconsin is a large, palisaded complex of mounds and other structures along the banks of the Crawfish River in Jefferson County. The unusual nature of this settlement has been noted for many years and the origin of the inhabitants has been the subject of considerable debate. The similarities between the materials at Aztalan and other Mississippian period sites to the south in Illinois have long …
New Evidence in the Upper Mississippi Valley for Premississippian Cultural Interaction with the American Bottom
The recovery of anomalous (red-slipped, shell/grog/sandstone-tempered) pottery from three sites in the Upper Mississippi Valley (UMV) prompted a petrographic analysis of thin sections of 21 vessels from these sites. The goal was to evaluate their possible derivation from the American Bottom, the nearest locality where such pottery commonly occurs. Among the 12 UMV vessels tempered with shell (nine red slipped), ten were determined, based on compa…
Ceramic Production in Shang Societies of Anyang
This article describes the results of petrographic analyses of ceramic thin sections from the Shang sites of Huanbei and Yinxu in Anyang, Henan, China. The initial goal was to determine the physical composition of locally produced ceramic artifacts. This was accomplished by focusing upon gray wares, the most common ceramic class in Shang contexts at Anyang, and comparing the findings to local, clay-rich sediments in both qualitative and quantitat…
New Petrographic Evidence Pertaining to Ceramic Production and Importation at the Olmec Site of San Lorenzo
This paper reports the results of petrographic analyses of 41 new pottery thin sections from San Lorenzo. The resulting compositional data provide an important new context for evaluating the disputed status of carved vessels previously identified as imports to the site. By comparing local and Oaxaca highlands pottery, the disputed vessels are shown to be (a) compositionally distinct from San Lorenzo pottery and (b) similar to highland pottery. Sa…
The Archaic Tradition in Wisconsin
Recent Discoveries and Some Thoughts on Early Urbanization at Anyang
The study of earliest cities and civilizations has been one of the dominant subjects of archaeological research in China. Anyang is a modern city in the northern Henan panhandle where two of the earliest cities developed in early Bronze Age China. These two urban sites are named Yinxu and Huanbei. This chapter discusses some recent discoveries in Anyang, followed by some thoughts concerning the nature of the Shang cities and the material and soci…
Foundations of the Cades Pond Culture in North-Central Florida
The River Styx site was an important Middle Woodland ceremonial center in north-central Florida that included a horseshoe-shaped earthen embankment, a burial mound containing only cremations, and diverse nonlocal artifacts. The site was recorded more than forty years ago but a report was never written. This article presents a summary of excavation results at River Styx and analysis of the pottery assemblage based on archived notes and collections…
Ceramic Petrography and Hopewell Interaction
Petrography is the minute examination by microscope of rock and mineral samples for the purpose of determining precisely their mineralogical composition. In this groundbreaking work, James B. Stoltman applies quantitative as well as qualitative methods to petrography of Native American ceramics. As explained in Ceramic Petrography and Hopewell Interaction , by adapting petrography to the study of pottery, Stoltman offers a powerful new set of too…
Poverty Point Objects Reconsidered
In this paper we examine the enigmatic but plentiful hand-molded, baked-clay objects known as Poverty Point Objects (PPOs) from a number of different facets. Although the vast majority of these Terminal Archaic artifacts are found in the Lower Mississippi Valley, they also are found at sites as far north as Clarksville, Indiana, and as far east as the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Although most archaeologists generally assume PPOs were used primaril…
Petrographic Analysis of Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian Ceramics at the Iva Site (47Lc42), Onalaska, Wisconsin
The Iva site contained a rare effigy mound and Middle Mississippian (Ramey horizon) component within the Late Woodland Lewis phase territory of the Upper Mississippi River valley. Salvage excavations in 2002–2003 recovered fragments of numerous Angelo Punctated, Powell Plain, and Ramey Incised vessels, including examples of Angelo and Ramey in direct association. Petrographic analysis was conducted on seven grit-tempered and six shell-tempered ve…
Archaeology (27 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (21 works) · Geography (17 works) · Geology (13 works) · History (12 works) · Geology (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Petrography (10 works) · History (9 works) · Pottery (9 works)