T R Kidder
Biographic Data
| ID | 29920 |
|---|---|
| NAME | T R Kidder |
| GIVEN NAMES | T R |
| FAMILY NAME | Kidder |
| SIGNATURE | KIDDER T R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Washington University in St. Louis |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6006-8953 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 343 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 51 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
High-resolution dating of legacy collections from the Cedarland and Claiborne sites, southwest Mississippi
Performance, ritual, and revitalization at Poverty Point
Long‐Term Occupation on Shifting Wetlands Around the Haimenkou Site in Yunnan, Southwest China
Environmental reconstruction at the site level is crucial for gaining a nuanced understanding of human‐environment interactions in prehistoric period. The Haimenkou wetland archaeological site, located on the Yunnan Plateau in Southwest China, offers an opportunity to investigate how local environmental conditions have changed since the late Pleistocene and how humans adapted to and modified these landscapes over time. This study employs a multi‐…
Chronological Hygiene and Bayesian Modeling of Poverty Point Sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley, circa 4200 to 3200 cal BP
Developments in radiocarbon dating and analysis provide new opportunities to develop high-resolution chronologies to explore changes through time. We explore the temporality of what has been called the Poverty Point culture of the lower Mississippi Valley circa 4200 to 3200 cal BP, especially the chronology of the type site, Poverty Point. Because of its complicated material culture elaboration without evidence of agriculture, Poverty Point has b…
Convergence at Poverty Point
The Poverty Point site, located in the Lower Mississippi Valley of the south-eastern United States, is commonly considered a centre of innovation that exported new material culture, practices and identity to presumably contemporaneous sites in the region. Recent radiocarbon data, however, show that Jaketown, previously interpreted as a peripheral expression of Poverty Point culture, is earlier than the type-site. Using the revised chronology at J…
Holocene landscape evolution in northern Henan Province and its implications for archaeological surveys
The heartlands of many of the world's civilizations are situated within alluvial plains, where thick alluvial sediments obscure much of the archaeological record. However, the use of alluvial geoarchaeology remains patchy, particularly in the world's largest alluvial basins. We present results from our geoarchaeological survey at Neihuang County, Henan Province, China, as an example for alluvial geoarchaeological research in the North China Plain…
The View from Jaketown
Recent research at Jaketown, a Late Archaic earthwork site in the Lower Mississippi Valley, suggests that the culture-historical framework used to interpret Jaketown and contemporary sites in the region obscures differences in practices across sites. As an alternative, we propose a framework focused on variation in material culture, architecture, and foodways between Jaketown and Poverty Point, the regional type site. Our analysis indicates that …
Holocene fluctuations in vegetation and human population demonstrate social resilience in the prehistory of the Central Plains of China
Archaeologists and palaeoclimatologists have focused on the impact of climate on the prehistoric civilizations around the world; however, social resilience in the face of the climate change remains unclear, especially during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in the Central Plains of China (CPC). In this paper, we present palynological results from the Dahecun Core, Henan Province, China. Our pollen data indicate a warm and wet climate condition from 9…
Multi-method geoarchaeological analyses demonstrates exceptionally rapid construction of Ridge West 3 at Poverty Point
This report presents results of re-excavation and reanalysis of unit 5276N 4790E, located on Ridge West 3 (RW3) at the Poverty Point site. Jon Gibson excavated this unit and others in 1991 and argued that RW3 was constructed rapidly. We test the fast construction hypothesis by applying new methods (micromorphology, magnetic susceptibility, sequential loss-on-ignition) and by obtaining new radiocarbon dates. Before construction, the ground surface…
Poverty Point, Archaeology of
Hung Ling-Yu 洪玲玉 (25 February 1975-26 Abril 2018)
Hung Ling-Yu 洪玲玉 (25 February 1975–26 April 2018) Hung Ling-Yu, Tristram R. Kidder, and Sara Friedman Click for larger view View full resolution Dr. Hung Ling-yu, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, passed away after a long battle with cancer on 26 April 2018. Ling-yu received her B.A. in Anthropology from National Taiwan University and an M.A. in Archaeology from Peking University. She was awarded a Ph.D. from the Departme…
Early urban impact on vegetation dynamics
Humans and climate change in the middle and lower Yellow River of China
Mapping the Adena-Hopewell Landscape in the Middle Ohio Valley, USA
Investigating environmental changes as the driving force of agricultural intensification in the lower reaches of the Yellow River
Cereals, soils and iron at Sanyangzhuang
Poverty Point, Archaeology of
Anthropogenic origins of a late Holocene, basin-wide unconformity in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, the Luoyang Basin, Henan Province, China
We evaluate the relative importance of climate change, fluvial dynamics, and anthropogenic environmental modification in forming the Holocene sedimentary record of the Luoyang Basin, a tributary drainage basin of the Yellow River, located in western Henan Province, China. Our 2011 fieldwork south of the Erlitou site in the Luoyang Basin indicates that an unconformity dating to ca. AD 1100 is roughly coincident with a major southward shift in the …
Anthrosols and ancient agriculture at Sanyangzhuang, Henan Province, China
Relative sea level rise, site distributions, and Neolithic settlement in the early to middle Holocene, Jiangsu Province, China
This study details the chronology and the human consequences of early- to mid-Holocene sea level rise and the related marine transgression and regression along the east coast of China. We use archaeological and environmental data to show that there was a significant marine transgressive event that began before 9000 cal. BP. This event reached its maximum extent inland and had the greatest impact on the Jiangsu region between 9000 and 8000 cal. BP…
Early evidence of irrigation technology in the North China Plain
The development of irrigation is a politically important technology that enabled agricultural societies to intensify agricultural production. In the North China Plain, the historical record suggests a long tradition of irrigation, but archaeologists have found scant evidence of these technologies outside of urban areas. In 2012, 2015, and 2016, our excavations at the Anshang site, Neihuang County, Henan Province, China, revealed several archaeolo…
Bridging theoretical gaps in geoarchaeology
Look to the earth
Foothills and intermountain basins
Subsistence and Social Change in the Lower Mississippi Valley
Tristram R. Kidder, Gayle J. Fritz, Subsistence and Social Change in the Lower Mississippi Valley: The Reno Brake and Osceola Sites, Louisiana, Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 281-297
The DaVincis of dirt
Building Mound A at Poverty Point, Louisiana
Hunter‐gatherer societies are often characterized by limited complexity and social equality. Therefore, the construction of monumental architecture by hunter‐gatherers is seen as the manifestation of social and political inequality. The massive size and rapid construction of Mound A at Poverty Point ( ca . 3261 cal. yr B.P.) in northeast Louisiana challenges these notions. Geoarchaeological investigations of stratigraphy at the macro‐ and micro‐l…
Look to the earth
Plazas as Architecture
Research at the Raffman site (16MA20), a multi-mound center in the Lower Mississippi Valley of northeast Louisiana, demonstrates that the plaza was purposefully built and extended on its northern end. Construction entailed significant earth-moving and labor effort in addition to the erection of mounds flanking the plaza. At Raffman plaza, building is dated ca. A.D. 700-1000. Like the mounds at the site, the arrangement, shape, and dimensions of t…
Archaeology of the Anthropocene in the Yellow River region, China, 8000–2000 cal. BP
Although archaeological analysis emphasizes the importance of climatic events as a driver of historical processes, we use a variety of environmental and archaeological data to show that human modification of the environment was a significant factor in shaping the early history of the Yellow River region of North China. Humans began to modify site-specific and local-level environments in the Early Holocene (~11,500–7000 BP). By the Mid-Holocene (~…
Mapping the Adena-Hopewell Landscape in the Middle Ohio Valley, USA
Bridging theoretical gaps in geoarchaeology
The Alluvial Geoarchaeology of the Sanyangzhuang Site on the Yellow River Floodplain, Henan Province, China
The Sanyangzhuang site, Henan Province, China, has a 12‐m‐deep stratigraphic sequence with remains from the Tang (A.D. 618–907), late Western Han (ca. 140 B.C.–A.D. 23), Warring States (475–221 B.C.), Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (ca. 5000–1500 B.C.), Middle Holocene, and Early Holocene times. All of the paleosols are deeply buried. We investigate four issues relevant to the archaeology of the lower Yellow River Valley. First, we confirm th…
Climate Change and the Archaic to Woodland Transition (3000–2500 Cal B.P.) in the Mississippi River Basin
Archaeologists frequently assume the cultural transition from Archaic to Woodland (ca. 3000–2500 cal B.P.) in the Mississippi River basin is a gradual process. In the lower Mississippi Valley, however, there is an abrupt gap in the archaeological sequence at this time and pronounced differences between Late Archaic and Early Woodland archaeological remains. Elsewhere in the basin, this transition is marked by an occupation hiatus or decline and i…
Early evidence of irrigation technology in the North China Plain
The development of irrigation is a politically important technology that enabled agricultural societies to intensify agricultural production. In the North China Plain, the historical record suggests a long tradition of irrigation, but archaeologists have found scant evidence of these technologies outside of urban areas. In 2012, 2015, and 2016, our excavations at the Anshang site, Neihuang County, Henan Province, China, revealed several archaeolo…
Multi-method geoarchaeological analyses demonstrates exceptionally rapid construction of Ridge West 3 at Poverty Point
This report presents results of re-excavation and reanalysis of unit 5276N 4790E, located on Ridge West 3 (RW3) at the Poverty Point site. Jon Gibson excavated this unit and others in 1991 and argued that RW3 was constructed rapidly. We test the fast construction hypothesis by applying new methods (micromorphology, magnetic susceptibility, sequential loss-on-ignition) and by obtaining new radiocarbon dates. Before construction, the ground surface…
Anthropocene archaeology of the Yellow River, China, 5000–2000 BP
In this paper, we use geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental data from three localities in the Yellow River Valley, China – Taosi, Sanyangzhuang, and the Yiluo Valley – to argue that human activity in the mid- to late-Holocene contributed to large-scale changes in the behavior of the Yellow River and that these changes were of sufficient magnitude to bend the arc of China’s history. Massive anthropogenic landscape transformation from the later …
Mapping Poverty Point
Even though the general configuration of the Poverty Point site has been known for over forty years, the entire site was mapped for the first time in 1999-2000. In this paper we examine how Poverty Point has been portrayed in the archaeological literature. Tracings of stereoscopic aerial photographs were used to construct previous maps of the site. Features that could not be traced because of tree cover were interpolated. Succeeding representatio…
Subsistence and Social Change in the Lower Mississippi Valley
There are few systematic analyses of late prehistoric subsistence practices in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Nonetheless, traditional scenarios attribute the advent of large-scale social and political complexity during the Coles Creek (ca. A.C. 700–1200) and early Mississippi (ca. A.C. 1200–1500) periods to maize agriculture and a consequent food surplus. Subsistence studies, however, do not substantiate claims for intensive maize cultivation pri…
Timing and Consequences of the Introduction of Maize Agriculture in the Lower Mississippi Valley
Archaeologists in the Lower Mississippi Valley have generally assumed that corn, beans, and squash provided the subsistence stability and the surpluses necessary for the development of complex, stratified polities which existed during the Coles Creek period. Recent research indicates that maize was probably not an important part of the diet until after this time. Therefore, the introduction of maize-based agriculture had little impact on the form…
The cradle of heaven-human induction idealism
Han China (206 bc–ad 220) witnessed significant population growth, pronounced technological development, intensified agricultural practices and the construction of large-scale hydraulic engineering projects in the Yellow River. These processes coincided with increased frequency and intensity of major floods along the Yellow River. The interactions between flooding and social-technical developments fundamentally reshaped the politics of the Han an…
Anthrosols and ancient agriculture at Sanyangzhuang, Henan Province, China
Tetrahedron baked-clay objects from an early woodland context at the Jaketown site, Mississippi
Excavations undertaken in 1951 at the Jaketown site revealed a dense deposit of fragmented and intact pyramid-shaped baked-clay objects (BCOs) at the base of Mound A. This deposit was associated with the site’s Early Woodland component. Recent fieldwork at Jaketown also encountered the same tetrahedron deposit and identified an additional and distinct pit feature filled with the objects. In this article, we present the results of analyses that ex…
Early Woodland Settlement and Mound Building in the Upper Tensas Basin, Northeast Louisiana
Traditionally overlooked because it lacks hallmarks of material and cultural complexity, Early Woodland in the Southeast is an interval of significant transformation in material culture, settlement, and social organization. Investigations at four sites in northeast Louisiana provide insights into changes taking place at this time. These sites are situated on a crevasse splay created by flooding at the end of the Archaic. This flooding is associat…
Holocene landscape evolution in northern Henan Province and its implications for archaeological surveys
The heartlands of many of the world's civilizations are situated within alluvial plains, where thick alluvial sediments obscure much of the archaeological record. However, the use of alluvial geoarchaeology remains patchy, particularly in the world's largest alluvial basins. We present results from our geoarchaeological survey at Neihuang County, Henan Province, China, as an example for alluvial geoarchaeological research in the North China Plain…
Sanyangzhuang
The authors present the discovery of a Han period farming site sealed beneath 5m of flood deposits, where courtyard houses have been excavated belonging to the Western Han Dynasty and Wang Mang period (c. 140 BC-AD 23). Preservation is exceptional, both at the village of Sanyangzhuang itself and, by dint of satellite reconnaissance, over a vast landscape contemporarily covered by the flood. Deep profiles show that here land surfaces of the Neolit…
Subsistence and Social Change in the Lower Mississippi Valley
Tristram R. Kidder, Gayle J. Fritz, Subsistence and Social Change in the Lower Mississippi Valley: The Reno Brake and Osceola Sites, Louisiana, Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 281-297
The View from Jaketown
Recent research at Jaketown, a Late Archaic earthwork site in the Lower Mississippi Valley, suggests that the culture-historical framework used to interpret Jaketown and contemporary sites in the region obscures differences in practices across sites. As an alternative, we propose a framework focused on variation in material culture, architecture, and foodways between Jaketown and Poverty Point, the regional type site. Our analysis indicates that …
Investigating environmental changes as the driving force of agricultural intensification in the lower reaches of the Yellow River
Relative sea level rise, site distributions, and Neolithic settlement in the early to middle Holocene, Jiangsu Province, China
This study details the chronology and the human consequences of early- to mid-Holocene sea level rise and the related marine transgression and regression along the east coast of China. We use archaeological and environmental data to show that there was a significant marine transgressive event that began before 9000 cal. BP. This event reached its maximum extent inland and had the greatest impact on the Jiangsu region between 9000 and 8000 cal. BP…
The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana
Archeology
Archaeological and geological evidence for protohistoric water management in Northeast Louisiana
Native North American Indians built and maintained water control and irrigation facilities, especially in the southwestern United States. However, the use of human‐made structures to manage water for agriculture and personal use is rarely documented in the Southeast. Excavations at the protohistoric period Jordan site in Louisiana demonstrate the use of earthworks, ponds, and ditches to channel and direct surface water for drainage and irrigation…
Timing and Consequences of the Introduction of Maize Agriculture in the Lower Mississippi Valley
Archaeologists in the Lower Mississippi Valley have generally assumed that corn, beans, and squash provided the subsistence stability and the surpluses necessary for the development of complex, stratified polities which existed during the Coles Creek period. Recent research indicates that maize was probably not an important part of the diet until after this time. Therefore, the introduction of maize-based agriculture had little impact on the form…
Coles Creek Period Social Organization and Evolution in Northeast Louisiana
Coles Creek culture is known for the numerous multi-mound sites scattered across the Lower Mississippi Valley. Traditionally these people are thought to be corn agriculturalists with a chiefdom level sociopolitical organization. Evidence from recent excavations has challenged prevailing concepts about Coles Creek subsistence and social organization. Maize agriculture was not as important as it was once thought. Furthermore, the development of com…
Subsistence and Social Change in the Lower Mississippi Valley
There are few systematic analyses of late prehistoric subsistence practices in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Nonetheless, traditional scenarios attribute the advent of large-scale social and political complexity during the Coles Creek (ca. A.C. 700–1200) and early Mississippi (ca. A.C. 1200–1500) periods to maize agriculture and a consequent food surplus. Subsistence studies, however, do not substantiate claims for intensive maize cultivation pri…
Paths of Our Children
Archeological Data Recovery of the Camino Site (16JE223), A Spanish Colonial Period Site Near New Orleans, Louisiana
The Camino site (16JE223) was a multi-component site located within the limits of a planned interior drainage canal to be constructed as part of the V-Levee Floodwall and Highway 45 Levee Closures, a feature of the Westwego to Harvey Canal, Louisiana Hurricane Protection Project, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Components revealed at the Camino site included a prehistoric shell midden; a late-eighteenth-century occupation, and an early-nineteenth-ce…
Sugar Reflotation
Flotation systems cannot always achieve 100% separation of carbonized plant remains from archaeological samples. When soils are especially clay-rich or moist the effectiveness of flotation decreases. As a result, paleoethnobotanical specimens are frequently mixed with heavy fraction remains and require a second stage of processing to isolate them from other artifacts. Although chemical flotation techniques provide one means of separating carboniz…
Sugar Reflotation and Curation
Although Baker and Shaffer discuss potential disadvantages with the sugar reflotation method, we have not observed these problems in practice
News and Short Contributions
JFA announces a new award for outstanding artwork and photographs published in the Journal. The award will be called the JFA Award for Graphic Excellence. The winner will receive a certificate identifying the artwork, the artist's name, and the title and author of the article in which it appeared. The winner will be selected by JFA art director David Ford, assisted by the editors, and all decisions will be final. Our main interest is in line draw…
Mapping Poverty Point
Even though the general configuration of the Poverty Point site has been known for over forty years, the entire site was mapped for the first time in 1999-2000. In this paper we examine how Poverty Point has been portrayed in the archaeological literature. Tracings of stereoscopic aerial photographs were used to construct previous maps of the site. Features that could not be traced because of tree cover were interpolated. Succeeding representatio…
Plazas as Architecture
Research at the Raffman site (16MA20), a multi-mound center in the Lower Mississippi Valley of northeast Louisiana, demonstrates that the plaza was purposefully built and extended on its northern end. Construction entailed significant earth-moving and labor effort in addition to the erection of mounds flanking the plaza. At Raffman plaza, building is dated ca. A.D. 700-1000. Like the mounds at the site, the arrangement, shape, and dimensions of t…
Alluvial geoarchaeology of a Middle Archaic Mound complex in the lower Mississippi Valley, U.S.A
The Nolan site (16MA201), 14 C dated 5200–4800 cal yr B.P. and located in the Tensas Basin of northeastern Louisiana, is the only recorded Middle Archaic mound site in the alluvial valley of the Mississippi River. Alluvial deposition has buried the Nolan site under 3–4 m of Holocene sediment, prohibiting traditional excavation of the site. Because data are unattainable by other means, soil coring and subsequent stratigraphic and sedimentological …
Climate Change and the Archaic to Woodland Transition (3000–2500 Cal B.P.) in the Mississippi River Basin
Archaeologists frequently assume the cultural transition from Archaic to Woodland (ca. 3000–2500 cal B.P.) in the Mississippi River basin is a gradual process. In the lower Mississippi Valley, however, there is an abrupt gap in the archaeological sequence at this time and pronounced differences between Late Archaic and Early Woodland archaeological remains. Elsewhere in the basin, this transition is marked by an occupation hiatus or decline and i…
Woodland Period Archaeology of the Lower Mississippi Valley
Mississippi Period Mound Groups and Communities in the Lower Mississippi Valley
Early Woodland Settlement and Mound Building in the Upper Tensas Basin, Northeast Louisiana
Traditionally overlooked because it lacks hallmarks of material and cultural complexity, Early Woodland in the Southeast is an interval of significant transformation in material culture, settlement, and social organization. Investigations at four sites in northeast Louisiana provide insights into changes taking place at this time. These sites are situated on a crevasse splay created by flooding at the end of the Archaic. This flooding is associat…
The DaVincis of dirt
The Alluvial Geoarchaeology of the Sanyangzhuang Site on the Yellow River Floodplain, Henan Province, China
The Sanyangzhuang site, Henan Province, China, has a 12‐m‐deep stratigraphic sequence with remains from the Tang (A.D. 618–907), late Western Han (ca. 140 B.C.–A.D. 23), Warring States (475–221 B.C.), Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (ca. 5000–1500 B.C.), Middle Holocene, and Early Holocene times. All of the paleosols are deeply buried. We investigate four issues relevant to the archaeology of the lower Yellow River Valley. First, we confirm th…
Building Mound A at Poverty Point, Louisiana
Hunter‐gatherer societies are often characterized by limited complexity and social equality. Therefore, the construction of monumental architecture by hunter‐gatherers is seen as the manifestation of social and political inequality. The massive size and rapid construction of Mound A at Poverty Point ( ca . 3261 cal. yr B.P.) in northeast Louisiana challenges these notions. Geoarchaeological investigations of stratigraphy at the macro‐ and micro‐l…
Sanyangzhuang
The authors present the discovery of a Han period farming site sealed beneath 5m of flood deposits, where courtyard houses have been excavated belonging to the Western Han Dynasty and Wang Mang period (c. 140 BC-AD 23). Preservation is exceptional, both at the village of Sanyangzhuang itself and, by dint of satellite reconnaissance, over a vast landscape contemporarily covered by the flood. Deep profiles show that here land surfaces of the Neolit…
Archaeology of the Anthropocene in the Yellow River region, China, 8000–2000 cal. BP
Although archaeological analysis emphasizes the importance of climatic events as a driver of historical processes, we use a variety of environmental and archaeological data to show that human modification of the environment was a significant factor in shaping the early history of the Yellow River region of North China. Humans began to modify site-specific and local-level environments in the Early Holocene (~11,500–7000 BP). By the Mid-Holocene (~…
Anthropocene archaeology of the Yellow River, China, 5000–2000 BP
In this paper, we use geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental data from three localities in the Yellow River Valley, China – Taosi, Sanyangzhuang, and the Yiluo Valley – to argue that human activity in the mid- to late-Holocene contributed to large-scale changes in the behavior of the Yellow River and that these changes were of sufficient magnitude to bend the arc of China’s history. Massive anthropogenic landscape transformation from the later …
Foothills and intermountain basins
Archaeology (46 works) · Geography (42 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (41 works) · Geology (19 works) · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research (19 works) · History (19 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (17 works) · China (15 works) · Ecology (14 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (14 works)