A Geospatial Analysis of the Northeastern Plains Village Complex: An Exploration of a GIS-Based Multidisciplinary Method for the Incorporation of Western and Traditional Ecological Knowledge into the Discovery of Diagnostic Prehistoric Settlement Patterns

Abstract

This thesis research analyzes how Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) can be used to understand extant Northeastern Plains Village (NEPV) settlement strategies in aggregate for the purposes of subjoining a subsequent verification metric to the current archaeological classification system used to describe NEPV associated sites. To accomplish this task, I extracted Traditional Ecological Knowledge from ethnographic sources for comparison to geospatial, geostatistical, and statistical analyses. My results show that the hierarchical clustering exhibited among NEPV sites is congruent with first person narratives of habitation and resource collection activities occurring in the pre-Reservation period (before AD 1880) within the research area. This study emphasizes the importance of the incorporation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge into material typological classification schemes for archaeological sites which are convoluted by a high rates of cultural transmission.