Book Review of Discovering North American Rock Art Edited by Lawrence L. Loendorf, Christopher Chippindale, and David S. Whitley

If readers of Great Plains Research are seeking a window on rock art research in North America, this book provides a few clear panes, a few that are hazy, and a few muddy ones. Like many edited volumes, the weaker contributions and lack of a consistent style limit the book's usefulness. Some authors target a general readership; others clearly are addressing colleagues. The book has two stated themes: the history of rock art research in North America and recent approaches to rock art analysis. Articles by Julie Francis and (jointly) David Whitley and Jean Clottes explore why rock art research has long been marginalized in North America. Unfortunately, both of these otherwise observant essays slip into advocacy of shamanism as a unifying or primary explanation for rock art, an interpretive model by no means universally accepted by today's rock art specialists.

American Lives: A Reader [Preface & Introduction]

Memoirs are as varied as human emotion and experience, and those published in the distinguished American Lives Series run the gamut. Excerpted from this series (called “splendid” by Newsweek) and collected here for the first time, these dispatches from American lives take us from China during the Cultural Revolution to the streets of New York in the sixties to a cabin in the backwoods of Idaho. In prose as diverse as the stories they tell, writers such as Floyd Skloot, Ted Kooser, Peggy Shumaker, and Lee Martin, among many others, open windows to their own ordinary and extraordinary experiences. John Skoyles tells how, for his Uncle Fred, a particular “Hard Luck Suit” imparted misfortune. Brenda Serotte describes a Turkish grandmother who made her living reading palms, interpreting cups, and prescribing poultices for the community. In “Son of Mr. Green Jeans,” Dinty W. Moore views fatherhood through the lens of pop culture. Janet Sternburg’s Phantom Limb muses on the dilemmas of a child caring for a parent. Whether evoking moments of death or disease, in family or marriage, history, politics, religion, or culture, these glimpses into singular American lives come together in a richly textured, colorful patchwork quilt of American life.

Fire History at the Eastern Great Plains Margin, Missouri River Loess Hills

The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative fire history information for a geographically unique region, the Loess Hills of northwest Missouri. We sampled 33 bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa Michx.), chinkapin oak (Q. muehlenbergii Engelm.), and black oak (Q. velutina Lam.) trees from the Brickyard Hill Conservation Area in northwest Missouri. The period of tree-ring record ranged in calendar years from 1671 to 2004 and fire-scar dates (n = 97) ranged from 1672 to 1980. Fire intervals for individual trees ranged from 1 to 87 years. The mean fire interval was 6.6 years for the pre-Euro-American settlement period (1672-1820), and 5.2 years for the entire record (1672-1980). A period of more frequent fire (mean fire interval = 1.6 for 1825 to 1850) coincided with Euro-American settlement of the area. The average percentage of trees scarred at the site was 16.8%, or about 1 in 7 trees sampled per fire. No significant relationship between fire years and drought conditions was found; however, events prior to 1820 may have been associated with wet to dry mode transitions.

IMMIGRATION, THE AMERICAN WEST, AND THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: GERMAN FROM RUSSIA, OMAHA INDIAN, AND VIETNAMESE-URBAN VILLAGERS IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

The North American West is a culturally and geographically diverse region that has long been a beacon for successive waves of human immigration and migration. A case in point, the population of Lincoln, Nebraska -- a capital city on the eastern cusp of the Great Plains -- was augmented during the twentieth century by significant influxes of Germans from Russia, Omaha Indians, and Vietnamese. Arriving in clusters beginning in 1876, 1941, and 1975 respectively, these newcomers were generally set in motion by dismal economic, social, or political situations in their sending nations. Seeking better lives, they entered a mainstream milieu dominated by native-born Americans -- most part of a lateral migration from Iowa, Illinois, and Pennsylvania -- who only established their local community in 1867. While this mainstream welcomed their labor, it often eschewed the behaviors and cultural practices ethnic peoples brought with them. Aware but not overly concerned about these prejudices, all three groups constructed or organized distinct urban villages. The physical forms of these enclaves ranged from homogeneous neighborhoods to tight assemblies of relatives, but each suited a shared preference for living among kinspeople. These urban villages also served as stable anchors for unique peoples who were intent on maintaining aspects of their imported cultural identities. Never willing to assimilate to mainstream norms, urban villagers began adapting to their new milieus. While ethnic identity constructions in Lincoln proved remarkably enduring, they were also amazingly flexible. In fact, each subject group constantly negotiated their identities in response to interactions among particular, cosmopolitan, and transnational forces. Particularism refers largely to the beliefs, behaviors, and organizational patterns urban villagers imported from their old milieus. Cosmopolitan influences emanated from outside the ethnic groups and were dictated largely but not exclusively by the mainstream. Transnationalism is best defined as persistent, intense contact across international boundaries. These influences were important as the particularism of dispersed peoples was often reinforced by contact with sending cultures. Adviser: John. R. Wunder