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Mississippian Chiefdoms and the Fission-Fusion Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John H. Blitz
John H. Blitz*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Queens College, The City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, NY 11367
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Abstract

In the American Southeast, the simple-complex chiefdom cycle is the predominant model of sociopolítical development applied to the Precolumbian ranked societies known as Mississippian. In this paper, mound-center settlement patterns in the South Appalachian area are reviewed. Most of these distributions fail to conform to the hierarchy of centers predicted by the simple-complex chiefdom model. Contrary to the model, an absence of primary-secondary center hierarchies implies that extension of regional administrative control was not the primary determinant of mound-center distributions. A review of ethnohistorical sources suggests that another sociopolitical mechanism, the fission-fusion process, created the majority of mound-center settlement patterns through the aggregation or dispersal of basic political units. The fission-fusion process was the product of efforts by factional leaders to resolve the conflicting values of autonomy and security. Unlike the simple-complex chiefdom dichotomy, the fission-fusion model encompasses a greater diversity of Mississippian political forms and provides an alternative explanation for changes in mound center size, complexity, and location.

Résumé

Résumé

El modelo predominate para el desarrollo sociopolítico aplicado en el sureste Norteamericano a las sociedades jerárquicas precolombinas misisipianas es el cacicazgo simple-complejo. En este trabajo he analizado los patrones de asentamiento de centros con montículos al sur de los Apalaches. La mayoría de estas distribuciones no se alinean con una jerarquía de centros, como lo predeciría el modelo de cacicazgo simple-complejo. La ausencia de centros jerarquizados primario-secundarios implicaría que la extensión del control administrativo regional no era el principal determinante de estos centros con montículos. Un análisis de fuentes etnohistóricas sugiere que otro mecanismo sociopolítico, elproceso de fusión-rompimiento, creó la mayoría de estos patrones de asentamiento de centros con montículos a través de la acumulación o dispersion de pequehas unidades politícas. El proceso de fusión-rompimiento fue el producto del esfuerzo de líderes de facciones para resolver los conflictos resultantes de los intereses sociales conflictivos de autonomía y seguridad. A diferencia de la dicotomía de cacicazgos simple-complejo, el modelo de fusión-rompimiento incorpora una mayor diversidad deformas políticas misisipianas y presenta una alternativa para explicar los cambios en el tamaño, complejidad v ubicación de los centros con montículos.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 577 - 592
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1999

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