St. Louis No. 1 Cemetery, New Orleans, 1995


University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
Department of Sociology and Archaeology

Jim Theler
Professor

437G Carl Wimberly Hall
608-785-6780 (office)
608-785-8486 (fax)
theler.jame@uwlax.edu
 

Jim Theler at the St. Louis No. 1 Cemetery, New Orleans in 1995


Spring 2007 Schedule

Arc 100: Archaeology: Discovering Our Past, 311 Carl Wimberly Hall, MWF 11:00-11:55 a.m.

Arc/Anth 334: Bones for the Archaeologist, 311 Carl Wimberly Hall, T Th 12:40-2:05 p.m.

Arc 499: Senior Thesis, 311 Carl Wimberly Hall, M W 4:55-6:20 p.m.

Office hours: M W 10:15-11:00 a.m. & 4:00-4:50 p.m. and T 2:05-3:00 p.m., and always by appointment

Teaching and Research Interests

I teach courses on Midwestern archaeology, North American Indians, human skeletal anatomy, environmental archaeology, hunters and gatherers, indigenous agricultural societies, field methods in archaeology, and Discovering Our Past in the UW-La Crosse General Education Program. My research interest includes subsistence and settlement patterns of late prehistoric peoples of the upper Midwest, the application of faunal analysis towards the understanding of human subsistence, and the use of snail and freshwater mussel shells recovered at ancient sites as proxies for past environmental conditions.

Recent Publications
 
Theler, J.L. 1997  The Modern Terrestrial Gastropod (Land Snail) Fauna of Western Wisconsin's Hill Prairies. The Nautilus 110(4):111-121.

Abstract

This paper describes the first survey and quantified analysis of the terrestrial gastropod fauna associated with xeric "hill prairie" and related dry habitats in western Wisconsin's Driftless Area.  A region of 35,000 km2 in the Midwestern U.S.A., the Driftless Area was surrounded on three sides, but never covered by late Pleistocene glacial ice.  In all, 44 separate vegetation detritus samples, each with a volume of 0.5 to 2.0 liters, were collected in nine western Wisconsin counties.  These samples contained 10,9000 gastropods, with 29 taxa represented.  The sampled hill prairies were found to have localized, high-density gastropod populations characterized by a small number of abundant taxa.  One species, Gastrocopta procera (Gould, 1840) is currently listed as Threatened in Wisconsin.  This species occurs at disjunct prairie habitats along the dissected valley of the Mississippi River that may represent a relict distribution for this species.

 

Theler, J.L., and R.F. Boszhardt. 2000  The End of the Effigy Mound Culture: The Late Woodland to Oneota Transition in Southwestern Wisconsin.   Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 25(2):289-312.

Abstract
Research in the Bad Axe River drainage of southwestern Wisconsin's Driftless Area has produced new data on settlement and subsistence patterns at the end of the Late Woodland "Effigy Mound culture. "The inferred changes include a move to year-round occupation of small, interior valleys, corresponding to a regional population increase.  Smaller valleys such as the Bad Axe are notable for their effigy-only mound groups that seem to characterize the end of the Effigy Mound culture. It is suggested that, with regional population increases, there were shifts in technology, particularly the adoption of the bow and arrow, an investment in maize horticulture; a transition from bands to tribes; and interaction with the Mississippian culture area to the south.  Many small, interior valleys of southwestern Wisconsin capable of supporting residential groups, were filled and defended.The flexible annual subsistence round of earlier centuries was broken, and within decades, incipient tribes would abandon the Driftless Area and nucleate at agricultural centers at Red Wing and Apple River as the Oneota.

 

Theler, J.L. 2000  Archaic Escargot: A Consideration of Evidence for Snails as a Human Food Source at Modoc Rock Shelter, Illinois. In Mounds, Modoc, and Mesoamerica: Papers in Honor of Melvin L. Fowler, edited by S.R. Ahler, pp. 39-55. Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers, vol. 28. Springfield.

Abstract
Archaeological excavations at the deeply stratified Modoc Rock Shelter during 1956 resulted in the recovery of thousands of shells from larger species of aquatic and terrestrial snails.  To evaluate for the possible use of snails as an Archaic food source, a sample of the shells from the excavation was reanalyzed.  The assessment of shell size, breakage patterns, assemblage composition, and species density indicated that the aquatic snail Campeloma decisum was regularly harvested as a food source, particularly during the Middle Archaic period (8000-5000 B.P.).  A strong case is made that the large woodland snail Anguispira kochi was also a species harvested for food during the same period.


Theler, J.L. 2000  Animal Remains from Native American Archaeological Sites in Western Wisconsin.  Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 88:121-142.


Theler, J.L. and R.F. Boszhardt

2003  Twelve Millennia: Archaeology of the Upper Mississippi River Valley.  University of Iowa Press.

Theler, J. L. and R. F. Boszhardt. 2003 Pre-European Archaeology of the Lower Wisconsin River. In: Cross Currents: The Intersection of Native and European American Cultures in Southwestern Wisconsin. Edited by Geoffrey M. Gyrisco. Proceedings of the Tippesaukee Symposium 2003. Friends of Tippesaukee, Blue River, Wisconsin.

Theler, J. L. 2003 Paleoenvironmental Interpretation from Burnham Site Gastropods: 1989 Results. Pp. 169-189. In: The Burnham Site in Northwestern Oklahoma: Glimpses Beyond Clovis? Memoir 9, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and the Oklahoma Anthropological Society

Theler, J. L., D. G. Wyckoff, and B. J. Carter. 2004 The Southern Plains Gastropod Survey: The Distribution of Land Snail populations in an American Grassland Environment. American Malacological Bulletin 18 (1/2):1-20.

Abstract
The Southern Plains Gastropod Survey represents a quantified baseline survey of terrestrial gastropod assemblages recovered from upland settings along an east to west corridor across the northern portion of the Southern Plains. The 700 km long corridor extends from the Flint Hills of north-central Oklahoma to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern New Mexico and crosses three physiographic provinces and four biotic districts. During 1995 and 1996, 13 different locations were sampled for land snails along the corridor, and 117 vegetation detritus samples were collected. These samples produced 35,356 shells assignable to 26 taxa of terrestrial gastropods. The results of this study revealed an east to west shift in the distribution pf land snail taxa, with the greatest diversity and density occurring in protected settings that served as catchments for vegetation detritus and moisture. This survey added 55 new county records and 3 new state records of species occurrences.

Theler, J. L.: junior author with others. 2005 Environmental Significance of 13 C/12 C and 18 O/16 O Ratios of Modern Land-snails Shells from the Southern Great Plains of North America. Quaternary Research 63:15-30.

Theler, J. L.: junior author with others. 2005 Paleoenvironment of the Folsom Archaeological Site, New Mexico, USA, Approximately 10, 500 14C yr B. P. as Inferred from the Stable Isotope Composition of Fossil Land Snail Shells. Quaternary Research 63: 31-44.

Baker, J. D. and J.L. Theler. 2005 Animal Remains from the Midway Site (21BL37), Beltrami County, Minnesota. Minnesota Archaeologist Vol. 64: 105-143.

Abstract
Excavations at the Midway Site, located in the city of Bemidji, Minnesota produced an extensive vertebrate faunal assemblage, with over 23,000 remains representing a minimum of 116 individual animals from 55 different taxa. Despite the lack of a detailed analysis of the cultural remains, the faunal data provide important information on Woodland subsistence strategies in northern Minnesota. Although fish are numerically most abundant, large mammals, including moose, white-tailed deer, elk, black bear, and caribou, likely provided the bulk of the animal protein in the local diet. Evidence indicates a multi-season use of the site, with a fall-winter deer harvest, use of moose (probably along with wild rice) during the winter, and spring harvest of riparian animals, spawning fish, and turtles. The representation of large mammal skeletal elements suggests an off-site processing of the animal carcasses, with the retention of only specific elements. Overall, the species represented at the Midway Site indicate that the Bemidji area, with its lakes, marshes, and deciduous forest margin located at the southern edge of Beltrami County, may have furnished an optimal ecotonal niche to be exploited by prehistoric peoples.

Theler, J. L.: junior author with others

2006 Land Snails: Taxa, Distribution, and Habitats: Contribution to Chapter 6:174-189. In: FOLSOM: New Archaeological Investigations of a Classic Paleoindian Bison Kill, by David J. Meltzer. University of California Press

Theler, J. L. and R. F. Boszhardt. 2006 Collapse of Crucial Resources and Culture Change: A Model for the Woodland to Oneota Transformation in the Upper Midwest. American Antiquity Vol. 71(3)

Abstract
The Driftless Area of the Upper Midwestern United States offers a case study for the transition from hunter-gatherer (Late Woodland Effigy Mound) to agricultural (Oneota) societies between ca. A.D. 950 and 1150, a period that coincided with northward expansion of Middle Mississippian cultures from the American Bottom. Previous studies have not adequately explained the regional disappearance of Effigy Mound cultures, the appearance of Oneota cultures, or the cultural changes that occurred during this period. Our analysis considers ecological (deer and firewood) and cultural (population packing, community organization, hunting technology, and warfare) factors to develop a testable model applicable to broader regions. We propose that increasing Late Woodland populations reached the region’s “packing threshold,” disrupting a flexible seasonal round based on residential mobility and triggering shortages of two essential resources, white-tailed deer and firewood, which in turn led Late Woodland groups to abandon vast portions of the Driftless Area. The intrusion of Middle Mississippian peoples from the south created additional disruption and conflict. Remnant Woodland and Mississippian peoples amalgamated briefly in the region’s first villages, which were palisaded. After A.D. 1150, Oneota cultures emerged, reoccupying specific localities in clustered settlements.