THE NATIVE AMERICANS - Prehistory and Ethnology of the North American Indians [SOLD]

THE NATIVE AMERICANS - Prehistory and Ethnology of the North American Indians

By Robert F. Spencer, Jesse E. Jennings, et al

Published by Harper & Row, New York

Hardback, first edition, 1965, 539 pages.

Condition: very good condition with pencil markings and underlining in some chapters

This book is concerned with the most interesting and diverse human population on earth-the American Indian. At that, the book considers only half of the New World and gives attention solely to the Indians of North America. The book attempts a portrayal of the now virtually extinct life-ways of the native Americans from the Arctic to the southern reaches of Mexico.

The authors have asked an essentially simple question: If one lived in one of the societies of native North America before the arrival of things mechanical, of Christianity, of conquest and paternalism, what would one's life have been like? How would one make one's living, what values would one have, what solutions to the problems of living with other men would one have found?

Contents

Preface

Introduction

l. Perspective

            Archaeological Methods

            History of American Archaeology

            Classification Systems

            In the Beginning

            The Archaic Stage

II. Later Specializations

            Woodland

            Adena-Hopewell

            Mississippian

            Plains

            The Arctic

            Southwest

            Mogollon, Hohokam, Anasazi

            Historic Tribes

III. Language—American Babel

            Classifications, Relationships, and Time Depth

            Language and Culture

            The Nature of Aztec Codices

IV. Arctic and Sub-Arctic in Native America

            The Eskimo

            The Eskimo of Northern Alaska

            Athabascans of the Western Sub-Arctic

V. The Northwest Coast

            Tlingit, Naida, and Tsimshian

            The Central Tribes—Kwakiutl and Nootka

VI. Western North America—Plateau, California, Basin

VII. The Southwest

            The Greater Southwest

            Yumans, Athabascans, Pueblos, Pimans, Northern Mexico

            Zuni

            The Navajo

VIII. The Tribes of the Great Plains

            The Mandan

            The Teton Dakota

            The Kiowa

IX. Tribes of the Northeast

            The Iroquois

            The Penobscot

            The Eastern Sub-Artic

            The Ojibwa

X. The Southeast

            The Natchez

            The Creek

XI. Mesoamerica

            The Classic Maya

            The Aztecs

            The Cultural Influence of Mesoamerica on North America

XII.  American Indian Heritage: Retrospect and Prospect