European Metals in Native Hands: Rethinking Technological Change 1640-1683 Paperback - 2005

From the rear cover

"This is an impressive work, a benchmark study that has important implications for the way archaeologists look at the interaction between Natives and Europeans."--Marvin T. Smith, coauthor of Coosa: The Rise and Fall of a Southeastern Mississippian Chiefdom Kathleen Ehrhardt's research addresses the early technological responses of one particular group, the Late Protohistoric Illinois Indians, to the availability of European-introduced metal objects. To do so, she applied a complementary suite of archaeometric methods to a sample of 806 copper-base metal artifacts excavated from securely dated domestic contexts at the Iliniwek Village Historic Site in Clark County, Missouri. Ehrhardt's scientific findings are integrated with observations from historical, archaeological, and archival research to place metal use by this group in a broad social context. In revealing actual Native practice, from material selection and procurement to ultimate discard, the author challenges acculturation perspectives on, and technocentric explanations for, Native material and cultural change at contact. Kathleen L. Ehrhardt is Research Associate at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, Illinois.