William A Lovis
Biographic Data
| ID | 77878 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William A Lovis |
| GIVEN NAMES | William A |
| FAMILY NAME | Lovis |
| SIGNATURE | LOVIS W A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9221-7447 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 214 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 39 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Multiproxy analysis of indigenous maize ( Zea mays) use, lower Saginaw River, Great Lakes, USA
Evidence for the presence and pre-European use of maize on the lower Saginaw River drainage, southern Michigan, Great Lakes, USA, is presented and evaluated. An integrated multiproxy approach is employed, including macro-botanical data from feature contexts and micro-botanical data from adhered carbonized residues, δ13C isotope information derived from carbonized food residues, and dental disease data from a local mid-eighteenth-century indigenou…
The Parkhill Phase Middle Paleoindian Hipwater Site, Great Lakes, USA
The Hipwater Locale is a small Parkhill Phase Middle Paleoindian (ca. 12,200–11,600 cal yr BP) assemblage from south central lower Michigan, recovered by the property owners and the lead author. Interdisciplinary analysis reveals that the locale is likely a short term but intensive discard location with an assemblage composed of unfinished and broken fluted and unfluted bifaces with almost no associated debitage. There is evidence for a hearth in…
The Precontact Archaeology of the Michigan State University Campus and the Campus Archaeology Program (CAP)
Here we summarize the current state of knowledge about the precontact archaeology of the Michigan State University (MSU) campus as revealed through work conducted by the MSU Campus Archaeology Program (CAP), the MSU Museum, and the Department of Anthropology. A multipronged approach places this collective work in programmatic, institutional, historical, geographic, and archaeological context. The history of CAP and its impact on campus operations…
Early Maize in Northeastern North America: A Comment on Emerson and Colleagues
Emerson and colleagues (2020) provide new isotopic evidence on directly dated human bone from the Greater Cahokia region. They conclude that maize was not adopted in the region prior to AD 900. Placing this result within the larger context of maize histories in northeastern North America, they suggest that evidence from the lower Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River valley for earlier maize is 'enigmatic' and 'perplexing.' Here, we review that evid…
Reconstructing the precontact Late Woodland archaeology of site 20LU115 and the landscape history of Sleeping Bear Point, Great Lakes, USA
A multifaceted, multidisciplinary research strategy was employed to reconstruct the taphonomy and environmental history of a late Holocene coastal archaeological site (20LU115) at Sleeping Bear Point on the northeast coast of Lake Michigan, USA. Our case study shows how interdisciplinary examination of coastal processes that impact archaeological site preservation and destruction can beneficially integrate human settlement into an evolving landsc…
Earliest Microbotanical Evidence for Maize in the Northern Lake Michigan Basin
There is no recorded maize ( Zea mays spp. mays ) from sites predating circa cal AD 800 in the northern Lake Michigan or Lake Superior basins of the western Great Lakes, despite the presence of maize microbotanicals including phytoliths and starches in Michigan, New York, and Quebec as early as 400 cal BC. To evaluate the potential for an earlier maize presence in the northern Lake Michigan basin, samples of carbonized food residues adhering to 1…
An empirical test of shell tempering as an alkaline agent in the nixtamalization process
Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Part I
This article refers to:Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Part I
Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology , Part I
View correction statement:Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Part I
Fishing for Dog Food: Ethnographic and Ethnohistoric Insights on the Freshwater Reservoir in Northeastern North America
A review of current research reveals multiple lines of evidence suggesting that no single freshwater reservoir offset (FRO) correction can be applied to accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) ages obtained on carbonized food residue from cooking vessels. Systematically evaluating the regional presence, magnitude, and effects of a freshwater reservoir effect (FRE) is a demonstrably difficult analytic problem given the variation of ancient carbon rese…
A Re-Evaluation of the Reliability of AMS Dates on Pottery Food Residues from the Late Prehistoric Central Plains of North America: Comment on Roper (2013)
Ancient carbon reservoirs in freshwater bodies have the potential to introduce ancient carbon into charred cooking residues adhering to pottery wall interiors when aquatic organisms are parts of cooked resource mixes. This ancient carbon results in old apparent ages when these cooking residues are subjected to accelerator mass spectrometry dating, the so-called freshwater reservoir effect (FRE). Roper's (2013) assessment of the FRE on 14 C ages f…
Reevaluating What We Know About the Histories of Maize in Northeastern North America: A Review of Current Evidence
Lake levels, mobility and lithic raw material selection and reduction strategies: A Great Lakes case study
It has recently been proposed that lowered lake levels after 4250 BP broadened opportunities for mobility and interaction patterns among hunter-gatherer populations in the Saginaw drainage and in Michigan more broadly (; ). Here, data are presented on chipped stone reduction strategies as reflected in two site assemblages in Bay City, Michigan (20BY28, 20BY387) that bridge this key point in time. The earliest Late Archaic components of these site…
Modeling Freshwater Reservoir Offsets on Radiocarbon-Dated Charred Cooking Residues
Obtaining radiocarbon assays on objects of chronological interest is always preferable to obtaining assays on spatially associated charcoal. The development of Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) dating has expanded the number of objects that can be directly assayed because it requires only a few milligrams of material. Pottery can be directly assayed when charred cooking residues adhering to the interior walls are present. The accuracy of AMS ag…
Differential Temporal and Spatial Preservation of Archaeological Sites in a Great Lakes Coastal Zone
Analysis of regional site taphonomy that incorporates depositional and postdepositional histories has become increasingly important in understanding the nature of preserved site populations and the strategies necessary for their discovery. We applied a systematic archival and field strategy directed at understanding such taphonomic processes in the coastal sand dunes of the northern and eastern Lake Michigan basin, and coupled these with a tactic…
The Potential of Bulk δ13C on Encrusted Cooking Residues as Independent Evidence for Regional Maize Histories
The histories of maize utilization in eastern North America have been substantially revised recently, primarily because of the analysis of charred cooking residues encrusted on pottery. A multifaceted research strategy of bulk δ13C assays coupled with accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon data and microbotanical evidence can yield coherent regional maize use histories. Bulk δ13 C assay interpretation complications include (1) variations among…
Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands
Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands explores the question of how information, broadly conceived, is acquired, stored, circulated, and utilized in small-scale hunter-gatherer societies, or bands. Given the nature of this question, the volume brings together a group of scholars from multiple disciplines, including archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, and evolutionary ecology. Each of these specialties deals with the question of info…
Hardwood ash nixtamalization may lead to false negatives for the presence of maize by depleting bulk δ13C in carbonized residues
Specialization of ceramic production: A sherd assemblage based analytic perspective
Lithic raw material sourcing and the assessment of Mesolithic landscape organization and mobility strategies in northern England
Analysis of the early evolution of cultural landscapes, particularly the regional organization of space by mobile hunter-gatherers, is often hampered by a lack of overt landscape marking and modification and/or a lack of sufficient biological material with which to assess regional affinity. This situation places a premium on the accurate sourcing of durable materials, such as stone for tool manufacture (commonly employed as proxy measures of spac…
Non-linear relationship between bulk δ13C and percent maize in carbonized cooking residues and the potential of false-negatives in detecting maize
A pilot study of “black chert” sourcing and implications for assessing hunter-gatherer mobility strategies in Northern England
The Freshwater Reservoir and Radiocarbon Dates on Cooking Residues: Old Apparent Ages or a Single Outlier? Comments on Fischer and Heinemeier (2003)
Fischer and Heinemeier (2003) present a hypothesis that the freshwater reservoir effect produces old apparent ages for radiocarbon dates run on charred cooking residues in regions where fossil carbon is present in groundwater. The hypothesis is based in part on their analysis of dates on charred cooking residues from 3 inland archaeological sites in Denmark in relation to contextual dates from those sites on other materials. A critical assessment…
A Multi-regional Analysis of AMS and Radiometric Dates from Carbonized Food Residues
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is increasingly employed to date encrusted carbonized food residues on prehistoric pottery sherds, particularly in regions where other datable material is absent or scarce, or where such materials lack good association with objects of chronological interest. The accuracy of AMS dating of residues has recently been questioned in Europe and North America, with skepticism directly or indirectly attributed to the p…
Earliest Cucurbita from the Great Lakes, Northern USA
Directly dated Cucurbita from archaeological sites near Lake Huron expand the range and human usage of adventive, cultivated wild gourds or squash into the Great Lakes region, USA, by 4000 14 C yr BP. The data also show that domesticated C. pepo squash was cultivated there by 3000 14 C yr BP. Although milder Hypsithermal climate may have been a contributing factor, squash and gourds expanded northward during the mid-Holocene mainly by human agenc…
Paleodietary implications from stable carbon isotope analysis of experimental cooking residues
Long-Distance Logistic Mobility as an Organizing Principle among Northern Hunter-Gatherers: A Great Lakes Middle Holocene Settlement System
Concepts of residential and logistic mobility are applied to survey assemblages from multiple decades of research along the interior drainages of central lower Michigan. Drawing on the ethnographic record of boreal hunter-gatherers and archaeological interpretations of long-distance logistic mobility from the Mesolithic of northern England and continental Europe, it is argued that the importance of logistic mobility is underrepresented in summari…
The Freshwater Reservoir and Radiocarbon Dates on Cooking Residues: Old Apparent Ages or a Single Outlier? Comments on Fischer and Heinemeier (2003)
Fischer and Heinemeier (2003) present a hypothesis that the freshwater reservoir effect produces old apparent ages for radiocarbon dates run on charred cooking residues in regions where fossil carbon is present in groundwater. The hypothesis is based in part on their analysis of dates on charred cooking residues from 3 inland archaeological sites in Denmark in relation to contextual dates from those sites on other materials. A critical assessment…
Quarter Sections and Forests: An Example of Probability Sampling in the Northeastern Woodlands
Problems involved in the application of probability sampling strategies to woodland environments are discussed and illustrated by example. The results of the sample and the field tactics employed in its implementation are appraised. Some directions for the development of specialized field tactics in woodland environments, including the reduction of transect intervals, the use of test-pitting, and the generation of explicit means for survey strate…
Curatorial Considerations for Systematic Research Collections: AMS Dating a Curated Ceramic Assemblage
The needs of new analytic techniques that may be depleting or destructive, or which have requirements that may be at odds with other approaches, place new and different demands on curated archaeological research collections. Curatorial approaches and attitudes need to accomodate such changes in research environment and be aware of both the potentials of curated collections as well possible conflicts. A pilot study employing AMS dating of adhering…
Non-linear relationship between bulk δ13C and percent maize in carbonized cooking residues and the potential of false-negatives in detecting maize
A Multi-regional Analysis of AMS and Radiometric Dates from Carbonized Food Residues
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is increasingly employed to date encrusted carbonized food residues on prehistoric pottery sherds, particularly in regions where other datable material is absent or scarce, or where such materials lack good association with objects of chronological interest. The accuracy of AMS dating of residues has recently been questioned in Europe and North America, with skepticism directly or indirectly attributed to the p…
Hardwood ash nixtamalization may lead to false negatives for the presence of maize by depleting bulk δ13C in carbonized residues
Modeling Freshwater Reservoir Offsets on Radiocarbon-Dated Charred Cooking Residues
Obtaining radiocarbon assays on objects of chronological interest is always preferable to obtaining assays on spatially associated charcoal. The development of Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) dating has expanded the number of objects that can be directly assayed because it requires only a few milligrams of material. Pottery can be directly assayed when charred cooking residues adhering to the interior walls are present. The accuracy of AMS ag…
The Potential of Bulk δ13C on Encrusted Cooking Residues as Independent Evidence for Regional Maize Histories
The histories of maize utilization in eastern North America have been substantially revised recently, primarily because of the analysis of charred cooking residues encrusted on pottery. A multifaceted research strategy of bulk δ13C assays coupled with accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon data and microbotanical evidence can yield coherent regional maize use histories. Bulk δ13 C assay interpretation complications include (1) variations among…
A pilot study of “black chert” sourcing and implications for assessing hunter-gatherer mobility strategies in Northern England
Wetlands and Emergent Horticultural Economies in the Upper Great Lakes: A New Perspective from the Schultz Site
The Schultz site (20SA2) is a benchmark site for understanding the Woodland adaptations of the Upper Great Lakes, although its older excavation data is not comparable with recent Eastern Woodlands research, which consistently uses fine-grained recovery techniques. The 1991 Schultz-site research collected supplementary and upgraded subsistence and environmental data to address questions about regional transformations from hunting and gathering to …
Earliest Microbotanical Evidence for Maize in the Northern Lake Michigan Basin
There is no recorded maize ( Zea mays spp. mays ) from sites predating circa cal AD 800 in the northern Lake Michigan or Lake Superior basins of the western Great Lakes, despite the presence of maize microbotanicals including phytoliths and starches in Michigan, New York, and Quebec as early as 400 cal BC. To evaluate the potential for an earlier maize presence in the northern Lake Michigan basin, samples of carbonized food residues adhering to 1…
A Re-Evaluation of the Reliability of AMS Dates on Pottery Food Residues from the Late Prehistoric Central Plains of North America: Comment on Roper (2013)
Ancient carbon reservoirs in freshwater bodies have the potential to introduce ancient carbon into charred cooking residues adhering to pottery wall interiors when aquatic organisms are parts of cooked resource mixes. This ancient carbon results in old apparent ages when these cooking residues are subjected to accelerator mass spectrometry dating, the so-called freshwater reservoir effect (FRE). Roper's (2013) assessment of the FRE on 14 C ages f…
Early Maize in Northeastern North America: A Comment on Emerson and Colleagues
Emerson and colleagues (2020) provide new isotopic evidence on directly dated human bone from the Greater Cahokia region. They conclude that maize was not adopted in the region prior to AD 900. Placing this result within the larger context of maize histories in northeastern North America, they suggest that evidence from the lower Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River valley for earlier maize is 'enigmatic' and 'perplexing.' Here, we review that evid…
An empirical test of shell tempering as an alkaline agent in the nixtamalization process
Lithic raw material sourcing and the assessment of Mesolithic landscape organization and mobility strategies in northern England
Analysis of the early evolution of cultural landscapes, particularly the regional organization of space by mobile hunter-gatherers, is often hampered by a lack of overt landscape marking and modification and/or a lack of sufficient biological material with which to assess regional affinity. This situation places a premium on the accurate sourcing of durable materials, such as stone for tool manufacture (commonly employed as proxy measures of spac…
Fishing for Dog Food: Ethnographic and Ethnohistoric Insights on the Freshwater Reservoir in Northeastern North America
A review of current research reveals multiple lines of evidence suggesting that no single freshwater reservoir offset (FRO) correction can be applied to accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) ages obtained on carbonized food residue from cooking vessels. Systematically evaluating the regional presence, magnitude, and effects of a freshwater reservoir effect (FRE) is a demonstrably difficult analytic problem given the variation of ancient carbon rese…
Before Removal: An Archaeological Perspective on the Southern Lake Michigan Basin
More than 12,000 years of cultural adaptation and change in the southwestern Great Lakes preceded the period of Removal that is the focus of this volume. Strategies for economic risk management, patterns of group interaction, and dynamics of group identity in play during the Removal period were developed over the long expanse of prehistory and early history. In this paper we provide an overview of these cultural developments, and offer a deep-tim…
Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Part I
This article refers to:Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Part I
Differential Temporal and Spatial Preservation of Archaeological Sites in a Great Lakes Coastal Zone
Analysis of regional site taphonomy that incorporates depositional and postdepositional histories has become increasingly important in understanding the nature of preserved site populations and the strategies necessary for their discovery. We applied a systematic archival and field strategy directed at understanding such taphonomic processes in the coastal sand dunes of the northern and eastern Lake Michigan basin, and coupled these with a tactic…
Forensic archaeology as mortuary anthropology
Archaeology: The Moccasin Bluff Site and the Woodland Cultures of Southwestern Michigan . Robert L. Bettarel and Hale G. SMITH
Quarter Sections and Forests: An Example of Probability Sampling in the Northeastern Woodlands
Problems involved in the application of probability sampling strategies to woodland environments are discussed and illustrated by example. The results of the sample and the field tactics employed in its implementation are appraised. Some directions for the development of specialized field tactics in woodland environments, including the reduction of transect intervals, the use of test-pitting, and the generation of explicit means for survey strate…
Archaeology: The Late Prehistory of the Lake Erie Drainage Basin: A 1972 Symposium Revised. David S. Brose
Popular Culture, Material Things and the Problem of Context: The Perspective of an Opinionated Archeologist
Curatorial Considerations for Systematic Research Collections: AMS Dating a Curated Ceramic Assemblage
The needs of new analytic techniques that may be depleting or destructive, or which have requirements that may be at odds with other approaches, place new and different demands on curated archaeological research collections. Curatorial approaches and attitudes need to accomodate such changes in research environment and be aware of both the potentials of curated collections as well possible conflicts. A pilot study employing AMS dating of adhering…
Forensic archaeology as mortuary anthropology
Moreau Sanford Maxwell (1918-1998)
Moreau Maxwell's first Arctic archaeological research took place during a five-month period in 1958, when, as a member of a Defense Research Board group participating in Canada's International Geophysical Year, he conducted an archaeological survey of the Lake Hazen vicinity on Ellesmere Island at 83 N. He reported on this work in 1960. During his tenure at Michigan State University, Max spent better than 15 field seasons in the Arctic, almost al…
Wetlands and Emergent Horticultural Economies in the Upper Great Lakes: A New Perspective from the Schultz Site
The Schultz site (20SA2) is a benchmark site for understanding the Woodland adaptations of the Upper Great Lakes, although its older excavation data is not comparable with recent Eastern Woodlands research, which consistently uses fine-grained recovery techniques. The 1991 Schultz-site research collected supplementary and upgraded subsistence and environmental data to address questions about regional transformations from hunting and gathering to …
The Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 2003–2005: A Retrospective
Archaeologists have long recognized that the Hopewell period was marked by the movement of exotic raw materials and artifacts across the eastern United States. The use of archaeometric techniques to trace the sources of these materials is well established. However, little work has been done on sourcing the pipestone used in Hopewell pipes. In this research we use Portable Infrared Mineral Analyzer (PIMA) technology to identify the presence of Min…
Long-Distance Logistic Mobility as an Organizing Principle among Northern Hunter-Gatherers: A Great Lakes Middle Holocene Settlement System
Concepts of residential and logistic mobility are applied to survey assemblages from multiple decades of research along the interior drainages of central lower Michigan. Drawing on the ethnographic record of boreal hunter-gatherers and archaeological interpretations of long-distance logistic mobility from the Mesolithic of northern England and continental Europe, it is argued that the importance of logistic mobility is underrepresented in summari…
Earliest Cucurbita from the Great Lakes, Northern USA
Directly dated Cucurbita from archaeological sites near Lake Huron expand the range and human usage of adventive, cultivated wild gourds or squash into the Great Lakes region, USA, by 4000 14 C yr BP. The data also show that domesticated C. pepo squash was cultivated there by 3000 14 C yr BP. Although milder Hypsithermal climate may have been a contributing factor, squash and gourds expanded northward during the mid-Holocene mainly by human agenc…
Regional settlement systems in Mesolithic northern England: Scalar issues in mobility and territoriality
Introduction to Mesolithic mobility, exchange, and interaction: A special issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Social and spatial dimensions of Mesolithic mobility
Paleodietary implications from stable carbon isotope analysis of experimental cooking residues
Before Removal: An Archaeological Perspective on the Southern Lake Michigan Basin
More than 12,000 years of cultural adaptation and change in the southwestern Great Lakes preceded the period of Removal that is the focus of this volume. Strategies for economic risk management, patterns of group interaction, and dynamics of group identity in play during the Removal period were developed over the long expanse of prehistory and early history. In this paper we provide an overview of these cultural developments, and offer a deep-tim…
A pilot study of “black chert” sourcing and implications for assessing hunter-gatherer mobility strategies in Northern England
The Freshwater Reservoir and Radiocarbon Dates on Cooking Residues: Old Apparent Ages or a Single Outlier? Comments on Fischer and Heinemeier (2003)
Fischer and Heinemeier (2003) present a hypothesis that the freshwater reservoir effect produces old apparent ages for radiocarbon dates run on charred cooking residues in regions where fossil carbon is present in groundwater. The hypothesis is based in part on their analysis of dates on charred cooking residues from 3 inland archaeological sites in Denmark in relation to contextual dates from those sites on other materials. A critical assessment…
A Multi-regional Analysis of AMS and Radiometric Dates from Carbonized Food Residues
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is increasingly employed to date encrusted carbonized food residues on prehistoric pottery sherds, particularly in regions where other datable material is absent or scarce, or where such materials lack good association with objects of chronological interest. The accuracy of AMS dating of residues has recently been questioned in Europe and North America, with skepticism directly or indirectly attributed to the p…
Non-linear relationship between bulk δ13C and percent maize in carbonized cooking residues and the potential of false-negatives in detecting maize
Specialization of ceramic production: A sherd assemblage based analytic perspective
Lithic raw material sourcing and the assessment of Mesolithic landscape organization and mobility strategies in northern England
Analysis of the early evolution of cultural landscapes, particularly the regional organization of space by mobile hunter-gatherers, is often hampered by a lack of overt landscape marking and modification and/or a lack of sufficient biological material with which to assess regional affinity. This situation places a premium on the accurate sourcing of durable materials, such as stone for tool manufacture (commonly employed as proxy measures of spac…
Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands
Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands explores the question of how information, broadly conceived, is acquired, stored, circulated, and utilized in small-scale hunter-gatherer societies, or bands. Given the nature of this question, the volume brings together a group of scholars from multiple disciplines, including archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, and evolutionary ecology. Each of these specialties deals with the question of info…
Hardwood ash nixtamalization may lead to false negatives for the presence of maize by depleting bulk δ13C in carbonized residues
Differential Temporal and Spatial Preservation of Archaeological Sites in a Great Lakes Coastal Zone
Analysis of regional site taphonomy that incorporates depositional and postdepositional histories has become increasingly important in understanding the nature of preserved site populations and the strategies necessary for their discovery. We applied a systematic archival and field strategy directed at understanding such taphonomic processes in the coastal sand dunes of the northern and eastern Lake Michigan basin, and coupled these with a tactic…
Archaeology (38 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (34 works) · Geography (33 works) · Biology (15 works) · Geology (15 works) · History (14 works) · Ecology (13 works) · Isotope Analysis in Ecology (12 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (12 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (11 works)