Robin A Beck
Biographic Data
| ID | 135337 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robin A Beck |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robin A |
| FAMILY NAME | Beck |
| SIGNATURE | BECK R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 167 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Fear the Native woman: Femininity, food, and power in the sixteenth-century North Carolina Piedmont
Native women in Indigenous-Western colonial entanglements are often portrayed as passive agents with little transformative social power in an otherwise dynamic landscape. However, Native women throughout the European colonial world many times controlled the most important resource required by European colonists: the knowledge and materials necessary to transform raw materials into "food." Their control over this invaluable resource provided Nativ…
Encountering Novelty: Object, Assemblage, and Mixed Material Culture
Few concepts in the anthropology of colonialism stir as much debate as hybridity, a term borrowed from postcolonial theory in literary studies that-initially at least-was used to refer to the actions of marginalized and subaltern groups to subvert prevailing relations of power. While archaeologists have emphasized group ideologies and personal motivations that promote cultural mixing, the absence of analytical frameworks for modeling how such mix…
A Road to Zacatecas: Fort San Juan and the Defenses of Spanish La Florida
From 1565 to 1570, Spain established no fewer than three networks of presidios (fortified military settlements) across portions of its frontier territories in La Florida and New Spain. Juan Pardo's network of six forts, extending from the Atlantic coast over the Appalachian Mountains, was the least successful of these presidio systems, lasting only from late 1566 to early 1568. The failure of Pardo's defensive network has long been attributed to …
Forging Southeastern Identities: Social Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Folklore of the Mississippian to Early Historic South
Spaces of Entanglement: Labor and Construction Practice at Fort San Juan de Joara
Fort San Juan and the Limits of Empire: Colonialism and Household Practice at the Berry Site
This private face of the Spaniard/Indian encounter is revealed through excavated features containing the remains of daily life at Cuenca, while its extraordinarily well-preserved buildings reveal much about relations between Indians and Spaniards and how these relations changed over the course of 18 months.
The Politics of Provisioning: Food and Gender at Fort San Juan De Joara, 1566-1568
Beginning with Kathleen Deagan's description of the St. Augustine Pattern, in which domestic relations between Spanish men and Native American women contributed to a pattern of mestizaje in Spanish colonies, gender has assumed a central role in archaeological perspectives on colonial encounters. This is especially true for those encounters that accompanied colonialism in the Americas during the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Gender r…
The Iron in the Posthole: Witchcraft, Women's Labor, and Spanish Folk Ritual at the Berry Site
Apotropaic devices-folk ritual objects and deposits intended to ward away witchcraft or ensorcellment-were often deliberately concealed near the vulnerable parts of a structure (doors, windows, hearths, and chimneys). Because such devices typically consisted of otherwise mundane materials, they can be difficult to identify in archaeological deposits. It is the unusual context of the deposit that alerts us to the potential of its apotropaic meanin…
What I Believe: Structure and the Problem of Macrosociality
The recent turn in archaeology and other social sciences to the microscale analysis of agency, personhood, and identity has led to a neglect of analysis at the macroscale. With older frameworks such as neoevolution discredited or rejected, there has been relatively little emphasis on patterns of social change at larger geographical and temporal scales. Proceeding from the work of sociologist William Sewell Jr., I suggest that a focus on structure…
Chiefdoms, Collapse, and Coalescence in the Early American South
This book provides a new conceptual framework for understanding how the Indian nations of the early American South emerged from the ruins of a precolonial, Mississippian world. A broad regional synthesis that ranges over much of the Eastern Woodlands, its focus is on the Indians of the Carolina Piedmont - the Catawbas and their neighbors - from 1400 to 1725. Using an 'eventful' approach to social change, Robin Beck argues that the collapse of the…
Political Economy and the Routinization of Religious Movements: A View from the Eastern Woodlands
Max Weber's concept of routinization offers a useful framework for understanding the relationship between political economy and the organization of religious movements. Here, we apply this concept to a comparison of Hopewell and Mississippian, two of the most important religious movements in the precolonial Eastern Woodlands. We focus on two archaeological contexts in particular-Mound 25 at the Hopewell site and Mound C at Etowah-to illustrate ho…
On Interpreting Cofitachequi
Scholars have developed two broad approaches to researching the history of the native peoples of the American South from the sixteenth century to the present: culture history and social history. The essential task in culture history is to classify native so-called tribes into cultural and/or linguistic categories, to list defining cultural traits, and to show how these "tribes" have persisted, disappeared, or become acculturated. The essential ta…
Eventful Archaeology: The Place of Space in Structural Transformation
Unexpected ruptures in material culture patterning present interpretive challenges for archaeological narratives of social change. The concept of the event, as proposed by William Sewell Jr., offers a robust theoretical vocabulary for understanding the sudden appearance of novel patterning. Sewell defines historical events as sequences of happenings or occurrences that transform social structures by creating durable ruptures between material reso…
Architecture and Polity in the Formative Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia
A regional approach to public architecture offers a useful medium through which to study changes in the scale of integrative institutions. Changes in political structure are often associated with changes in the scale and complexity of public ritual space. In Bolivia's Lake Titicaca Basin, Middle Formative period (800-250 B.C.) villagers along the Taraco Peninsula built earthen platforms that visually dominated their settlements. Until recently, r…
Consolidation and Hierarchy: Chiefdom Variability in the Mississippian Southeast
Explaining variability among Mississippian period (A.D. 1000-1600) chiefdoms has become a key research aim for archaeologists in the southeastern United States. One type of variability, in which simple and complex chiefdoms are distinguished by the number of levels of regional hierarchy, has dominated chiefdom research in this part of the world. The simple-complex chiefdom model is less applicable to the Mississippian Southeast, however, as there…
Eventful Archaeology: The Place of Space in Structural Transformation
Unexpected ruptures in material culture patterning present interpretive challenges for archaeological narratives of social change. The concept of the event, as proposed by William Sewell Jr., offers a robust theoretical vocabulary for understanding the sudden appearance of novel patterning. Sewell defines historical events as sequences of happenings or occurrences that transform social structures by creating durable ruptures between material reso…
Consolidation and Hierarchy: Chiefdom Variability in the Mississippian Southeast
Explaining variability among Mississippian period (A.D. 1000-1600) chiefdoms has become a key research aim for archaeologists in the southeastern United States. One type of variability, in which simple and complex chiefdoms are distinguished by the number of levels of regional hierarchy, has dominated chiefdom research in this part of the world. The simple-complex chiefdom model is less applicable to the Mississippian Southeast, however, as there…
Architecture and Polity in the Formative Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia
A regional approach to public architecture offers a useful medium through which to study changes in the scale of integrative institutions. Changes in political structure are often associated with changes in the scale and complexity of public ritual space. In Bolivia's Lake Titicaca Basin, Middle Formative period (800-250 B.C.) villagers along the Taraco Peninsula built earthen platforms that visually dominated their settlements. Until recently, r…
Spaces of Entanglement: Labor and Construction Practice at Fort San Juan de Joara
The Iron in the Posthole: Witchcraft, Women's Labor, and Spanish Folk Ritual at the Berry Site
Apotropaic devices-folk ritual objects and deposits intended to ward away witchcraft or ensorcellment-were often deliberately concealed near the vulnerable parts of a structure (doors, windows, hearths, and chimneys). Because such devices typically consisted of otherwise mundane materials, they can be difficult to identify in archaeological deposits. It is the unusual context of the deposit that alerts us to the potential of its apotropaic meanin…
What I Believe: Structure and the Problem of Macrosociality
The recent turn in archaeology and other social sciences to the microscale analysis of agency, personhood, and identity has led to a neglect of analysis at the macroscale. With older frameworks such as neoevolution discredited or rejected, there has been relatively little emphasis on patterns of social change at larger geographical and temporal scales. Proceeding from the work of sociologist William Sewell Jr., I suggest that a focus on structure…
Political Economy and the Routinization of Religious Movements: A View from the Eastern Woodlands
Max Weber's concept of routinization offers a useful framework for understanding the relationship between political economy and the organization of religious movements. Here, we apply this concept to a comparison of Hopewell and Mississippian, two of the most important religious movements in the precolonial Eastern Woodlands. We focus on two archaeological contexts in particular-Mound 25 at the Hopewell site and Mound C at Etowah-to illustrate ho…
The Politics of Provisioning: Food and Gender at Fort San Juan De Joara, 1566-1568
Beginning with Kathleen Deagan's description of the St. Augustine Pattern, in which domestic relations between Spanish men and Native American women contributed to a pattern of mestizaje in Spanish colonies, gender has assumed a central role in archaeological perspectives on colonial encounters. This is especially true for those encounters that accompanied colonialism in the Americas during the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Gender r…
Encountering Novelty: Object, Assemblage, and Mixed Material Culture
Few concepts in the anthropology of colonialism stir as much debate as hybridity, a term borrowed from postcolonial theory in literary studies that-initially at least-was used to refer to the actions of marginalized and subaltern groups to subvert prevailing relations of power. While archaeologists have emphasized group ideologies and personal motivations that promote cultural mixing, the absence of analytical frameworks for modeling how such mix…
A Road to Zacatecas: Fort San Juan and the Defenses of Spanish La Florida
From 1565 to 1570, Spain established no fewer than three networks of presidios (fortified military settlements) across portions of its frontier territories in La Florida and New Spain. Juan Pardo's network of six forts, extending from the Atlantic coast over the Appalachian Mountains, was the least successful of these presidio systems, lasting only from late 1566 to early 1568. The failure of Pardo's defensive network has long been attributed to …
Fear the Native woman: Femininity, food, and power in the sixteenth-century North Carolina Piedmont
Native women in Indigenous-Western colonial entanglements are often portrayed as passive agents with little transformative social power in an otherwise dynamic landscape. However, Native women throughout the European colonial world many times controlled the most important resource required by European colonists: the knowledge and materials necessary to transform raw materials into "food." Their control over this invaluable resource provided Nativ…
On Interpreting Cofitachequi
Scholars have developed two broad approaches to researching the history of the native peoples of the American South from the sixteenth century to the present: culture history and social history. The essential task in culture history is to classify native so-called tribes into cultural and/or linguistic categories, to list defining cultural traits, and to show how these "tribes" have persisted, disappeared, or become acculturated. The essential ta…
Consolidation and Hierarchy: Chiefdom Variability in the Mississippian Southeast
Explaining variability among Mississippian period (A.D. 1000-1600) chiefdoms has become a key research aim for archaeologists in the southeastern United States. One type of variability, in which simple and complex chiefdoms are distinguished by the number of levels of regional hierarchy, has dominated chiefdom research in this part of the world. The simple-complex chiefdom model is less applicable to the Mississippian Southeast, however, as there…
Architecture and Polity in the Formative Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia
A regional approach to public architecture offers a useful medium through which to study changes in the scale of integrative institutions. Changes in political structure are often associated with changes in the scale and complexity of public ritual space. In Bolivia's Lake Titicaca Basin, Middle Formative period (800-250 B.C.) villagers along the Taraco Peninsula built earthen platforms that visually dominated their settlements. Until recently, r…
Eventful Archaeology: The Place of Space in Structural Transformation
Unexpected ruptures in material culture patterning present interpretive challenges for archaeological narratives of social change. The concept of the event, as proposed by William Sewell Jr., offers a robust theoretical vocabulary for understanding the sudden appearance of novel patterning. Sewell defines historical events as sequences of happenings or occurrences that transform social structures by creating durable ruptures between material reso…
On Interpreting Cofitachequi
Scholars have developed two broad approaches to researching the history of the native peoples of the American South from the sixteenth century to the present: culture history and social history. The essential task in culture history is to classify native so-called tribes into cultural and/or linguistic categories, to list defining cultural traits, and to show how these "tribes" have persisted, disappeared, or become acculturated. The essential ta…
Political Economy and the Routinization of Religious Movements: A View from the Eastern Woodlands
Max Weber's concept of routinization offers a useful framework for understanding the relationship between political economy and the organization of religious movements. Here, we apply this concept to a comparison of Hopewell and Mississippian, two of the most important religious movements in the precolonial Eastern Woodlands. We focus on two archaeological contexts in particular-Mound 25 at the Hopewell site and Mound C at Etowah-to illustrate ho…
Chiefdoms, Collapse, and Coalescence in the Early American South
This book provides a new conceptual framework for understanding how the Indian nations of the early American South emerged from the ruins of a precolonial, Mississippian world. A broad regional synthesis that ranges over much of the Eastern Woodlands, its focus is on the Indians of the Carolina Piedmont - the Catawbas and their neighbors - from 1400 to 1725. Using an 'eventful' approach to social change, Robin Beck argues that the collapse of the…
What I Believe: Structure and the Problem of Macrosociality
The recent turn in archaeology and other social sciences to the microscale analysis of agency, personhood, and identity has led to a neglect of analysis at the macroscale. With older frameworks such as neoevolution discredited or rejected, there has been relatively little emphasis on patterns of social change at larger geographical and temporal scales. Proceeding from the work of sociologist William Sewell Jr., I suggest that a focus on structure…
Fort San Juan and the Limits of Empire: Colonialism and Household Practice at the Berry Site
This private face of the Spaniard/Indian encounter is revealed through excavated features containing the remains of daily life at Cuenca, while its extraordinarily well-preserved buildings reveal much about relations between Indians and Spaniards and how these relations changed over the course of 18 months.
The Politics of Provisioning: Food and Gender at Fort San Juan De Joara, 1566-1568
Beginning with Kathleen Deagan's description of the St. Augustine Pattern, in which domestic relations between Spanish men and Native American women contributed to a pattern of mestizaje in Spanish colonies, gender has assumed a central role in archaeological perspectives on colonial encounters. This is especially true for those encounters that accompanied colonialism in the Americas during the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Gender r…
The Iron in the Posthole: Witchcraft, Women's Labor, and Spanish Folk Ritual at the Berry Site
Apotropaic devices-folk ritual objects and deposits intended to ward away witchcraft or ensorcellment-were often deliberately concealed near the vulnerable parts of a structure (doors, windows, hearths, and chimneys). Because such devices typically consisted of otherwise mundane materials, they can be difficult to identify in archaeological deposits. It is the unusual context of the deposit that alerts us to the potential of its apotropaic meanin…
Forging Southeastern Identities: Social Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Folklore of the Mississippian to Early Historic South
Spaces of Entanglement: Labor and Construction Practice at Fort San Juan de Joara
A Road to Zacatecas: Fort San Juan and the Defenses of Spanish La Florida
From 1565 to 1570, Spain established no fewer than three networks of presidios (fortified military settlements) across portions of its frontier territories in La Florida and New Spain. Juan Pardo's network of six forts, extending from the Atlantic coast over the Appalachian Mountains, was the least successful of these presidio systems, lasting only from late 1566 to early 1568. The failure of Pardo's defensive network has long been attributed to …
Encountering Novelty: Object, Assemblage, and Mixed Material Culture
Few concepts in the anthropology of colonialism stir as much debate as hybridity, a term borrowed from postcolonial theory in literary studies that-initially at least-was used to refer to the actions of marginalized and subaltern groups to subvert prevailing relations of power. While archaeologists have emphasized group ideologies and personal motivations that promote cultural mixing, the absence of analytical frameworks for modeling how such mix…
Fear the Native woman: Femininity, food, and power in the sixteenth-century North Carolina Piedmont
Native women in Indigenous-Western colonial entanglements are often portrayed as passive agents with little transformative social power in an otherwise dynamic landscape. However, Native women throughout the European colonial world many times controlled the most important resource required by European colonists: the knowledge and materials necessary to transform raw materials into "food." Their control over this invaluable resource provided Nativ…
Archaeology (12 works) · History (12 works) · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies (10 works) · Geography (9 works) · History (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (8 works) · Archaeology and Natural History (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Social science (6 works)