Games are ubiquitous in human societies. In fact, it is virtually impossible to find a human society where games are not an important part of the culture. Like language and religion, they seem to meet basic human needs. This collection of fifteen case studies by twenty-one archaeologists examines games in prehistoric North America, some of which are still played today. There is huge variety of games people played in North America. Detecting the presence of games in prehistoric societies is difficult, but determining their role in those societies is even more so. That’s why the study of games in prehistoric societies has been neglected even though its importance is enormous.
The editor of this volume, Barbara Voorhies, a professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Barbara, defines “games” as recreational activity that involves play, competition, two or more sides, a method for determining a winner, and agreed upon rules. They fall into three broad categories whose outcomes are determined by physical skill, strategy, or chance, although these categories are not mutually exclusive, and often overlap.
Since prehistoric games are difficult to detect, the archaeologists producing this book use a wide variety of evidence to build their theories of gaming. Foremost among them is the discovery of artifacts that can be interpreted as game paraphernalia, such as dice made from bones or potsherds. Chunkey stones are commonly found in village sites in the Southeastern United States. Occasionally, the archaeological record will give us a picture of people playing games, such as the Mimbres bowl on the cover of this study that shows four people at a game board. A ceramic depiction of the Mesoamerican ballgame was discovered at Nayarit, Mexico. Architectural features uncovered by archaeologist sometimes provide important evidence of games, such as stone game boards or ball courts. All these authors also rely heavily on ethnographic evidence of gaming recorded by the earliest European colonists. Putting all this evidence together gives the authors a pretty reliable picture of many prehistoric games. Games are, and were, very important in human societies. Even though understanding them in prehistoric North America is a daunting task, it is an important one that the authors of this volume are seeking to unravel. —Mark Michel
