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In Search of Coosa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

C. Clifford Boyd Jr.  and
Gerald F. Schroedl
C. Clifford Boyd Jr.
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Radford University, Radford, VA 24142
Gerald F. Schroedl
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0720
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Abstract

The recently published reconstruction of Hernando de Soto's route through the southeastern United States, and of the chiefdom of Coosa (Hudson et al. 1985), is critiqued. The researchers' estimates of time traveled by the expedition, their use of certain vague or unreliable sources, and their interpretation of archaeological data are questioned. These problems weaken their claims that their reconstruction is better than the Soto route originally proposed by Swanton. Of particular concern is their seeming naivete regarding the correlation of archaeological and ethnographic cultures.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , October 1987 , pp. 840 - 844
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1987

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References

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