History in the Making

Donald H. Holly, Jr. is an associate professor of anthropology at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL. Holly focuses his research on Hunters-Gatherers, Subarctic North America, and Landscape; he also co-edited Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology as Historical Process (2011).

Anthropologist Holly, a leading scholar on the history of ethnographic and archaeological research in the eastern subarctic, presents the changing interpretations of cultural development and adaptation in the subarctic within the context of a changing environment. Early investigators viewed the region as a marginal boreal forest environment with a sparse hunting and gathering population. As research progressed, knowledge that population fluctuations were due to variable weather patterns that impacted resource distributions replaced this interpretation. This is an up-to-date synthesis of 10,000 years of the archaeological record of Amerindian and Paleoeskimo coastal and interior adaptations and population interactions in Newfoundland, Labrador, and eastern Quebec. Far-flung social and trading networks arose throughout the eastern subarctic and beyond by 4000 BCE, continuing intermittently to 1500 CE. Holly explores European contact with the Vikings, later Basque whalers, and fishing fleets, and establishment of permanent settlements, which had a profound impact on Beothuk, Innu, Inuit, and Mi'kmaq societies. Well illustrated with maps, graphics, and photos, this superb history of 100-plus years of research demonstrates that, far from early perceptions of a backward region of marginal hunters and gatherers, this was a region of complex, dynamic interactions between different ethnic groups and the changing landscape they inhabited. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty.

• Table of ContentsList of FiguresAcknowledgements1 The Lookout Tree2 Driftwood3 Tuckamore4 Wildfire5 The Giving Tree6 The Forest for the TreesBibliographyIndexAbout the Author