Perishable Industry Research Articles

Perishable Technology and the Successful Peopling of South America

ABSTRACT Recent research demonstrates that perishable industries – specifically including the manufacture of textiles, basketry, cordage, and netting – were a well-established, integral component of the Upper Paleolithic milieu in many parts of the Old World. Moreover, extant data suggest that not only were these synergistic technologies part and parcel of the armamentarium of the first migrants to the New World, but, also, that these technologies played critical, and hitherto, largely unappreciated roles in the ecological success of late Pleistocene populations, notably including the first South Americans. This paper examines the evidence for, and varied roles of, early plant fiber technology in highland and lowland South America and also examines the adaptive qualities, potential impacts on social organization, and alteration of food procurement strategies implicit in this fundamentally crucial series of interrelated industries.

Perishable Fiber Artifacts and Paleoindians: New Implications

Recent research demonstrates that perishable industries—notably including the manufacture of textiles, basketry, cordage, netting, and sandals—were a well-established, integral component of the Upper Paleolithic technological milieu in many parts of the Old World. Moreover, extant data suggest that these technologies played a vital and, hitherto, utterly unappreciated role in the ecological success of late Pleistocene populations, including the first Americans. This article explores the varied roles of early fiber technology in the New World and specifically examines the adaptive qualities, impact on social organization, and alteration to food procurement strategies implicit in this innovative and intensive series of interrelated industries. It is suggested that the manufacture of perishable fiber-derived artifacts was far more important in the successful colonization of this hemisphere than any of the more durable artifact classes, particularly stone.

Perishable Industries from Nan Ranch Ruin, New Mexico: A Unique Window into Mimbreño Fiber Technology

Although the ceramic repertoire of the Mimbres has been extensively studied, illustrated, and published for over a century, Mimbreño perishables technology is poorly known. Detailed analysis of the small but highly informative plant-fiber artifact assemblage from NAN Ranch, New Mexico, permits the first characterization of Mimbres perishables production and use while affording the opportunity to establish the general outlines and salient events of the evolution of Mogollon perishables production. This developmental sequence is rooted in a local Archaic base of venerable antiquity but is strongly influenced by the introduction of “new” techniques and forms from northern Mexico at a time coextensive with the spread of agriculture into this portion of the greater American Southwest.

Commercial B2B Web Site Attributes Within the Perishable Sector

ABSTRACT This study examines the factors determining the quality of a business-to-business web site using data from the perishable industry. Data from two time periods are used to identify the persistent trends in web features that support customer interaction. A binomial probit model is used to assess the contribution that various features have on the probability of a web site being included in the Forbes listing of prominent web sites. The results indicate that features such as customer support, promotion, proprietary software availability, and the duration of web site operation play an important role in determining the probability of a website being listed in the Forbes list.

Perishable Industries from the Windover Bog: An Unexpected Window into the Florida Archaic

Multi-disciplinary excavations at the Windover Bog site (8BR246) in 1986 and 1987 yielded a remarkably well-preserved but very fragile corpus of fiber-based and wood artifacts in direct association with a series of Early Middle Archaic burials. This suite of mid-sixth millennium B.C. materials includes not only the oldest textiles from the American Southeast but also sophisticated basketry, cordage, and wood items previously undocumented (and unanticipated!) at this time horizon in this part of Florida. The textile assemblage includes close-simple and close-diagonal twining, both with S-Twist wefts (paired and trebled); open twining with paired, Z-Twist wefts; and balanced plain weave. Significantly, many of these items are in the form of non-heddle loom-woven cloth. Represented forms include circular or globular bags, hoods, blankets, clothing, and what may be intentionally produced burial shrouds. Also observed are twisted and braided cordage, composite fiber, and fiber and wood construction. The wood assemblage includes a wide array of forms from minimally modified burial “stakes” to complex, extensively worked, “dumbbell“-style mullers. The Windover fiber and wood assemblage is summarized and compared to others in North and South America and the myriad roles of perishable industries are discussed in terms of the lives and deaths of their makers.

Perishable Industries from Dirty Shame Rockshelter, Malheur County, Oregon. R. L. Andrews, J. M. Adovasio, and R. C. Carlisle, with a foreword by C. Melvin Aikens and an introduction by C. Melvin Aikens, David L. Cole, and Robert Stuckenrath. R. C. Carlisle, editor. Ethnology Monographs No. 9. University of Pittsburgh and University of Oregon Anthropological Papers, Eugene, 1986. xxvii +

Perishable Industries from Dirty Shame Rockshelter, Malheur County, Oregon. R. L. Andrews, J. M. Adovasio, and R. C. Carlisle, with a foreword by C. Melvin Aikens and an introduction by C. Melvin Aikens, David L. Cole, and Robert Stuckenrath. R. C. Carlisle, editor. Ethnology Monographs No. 9. University of Pittsburgh and University of Oregon Anthropological Papers, Eugene, 1986. xxvii + 233 pp., figures, tables, references, appendix. $15.00 (paper). - Volume 55 Issue 4

Perishable Industries from Rockshelter, Malheur County, Oregon, R.L. Andrews, J.M. Adovasio and R.C. Carlisle, 1987, Ethnology Monograph 9 (University of Pittsburgh, Department of Anthropology) and University of Oregon Anthropology Papers 34. $15.00 (paperbound)

Perishable Industries from Rockshelter, Malheur County, Oregon, R.L. Andrews, J.M. Adovasio and R.C. Carlisle, 1987, Ethnology Monograph 9 (University of Pittsburgh, Department of Anthropology) and University of Oregon Anthropology Papers 34. $15.00 (paperbound)

Notes on Hinds Cave, Val Verde County, Texas

In Andrews and Adovasio's (1986) reply to Glenna Williams-Dean's (1986) review of Perishable Industries from Hinds Cave, Val Verde County, Texas, they make a number of misleading statements regarding the excavation strategies and provenience of the collection. The purpose of this article is to correct these inaccuracies and to provide a view of the Hinds Cave Project from the perspective of the principal investigators.