Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:28:08.193Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sociopolitical Implications of Mississippian Mound Volume

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John H. Blitz  and
Patrick Livingood
John H. Blitz
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, 19 ten Hoor Hall, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0210 (jblitz@tenhoor.as.ua.edu)
Patrick Livingood
Affiliation:
Museum of Anthropology, Museums Building Room 4009, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1109 (patrickl@umich.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Variation in the scale of Mississippian mound building is an important measure of regional settlement hierarchies. However, factors thought to determine the size of platform mounds are subject to two contradictory interpretations. Mound volume is said to result from either the duration of mound use or the size of the labor force recruited by leaders for mound construction. To evaluate these competing propositions, a sample of excavated mounds is examined and four variables are recorded for each mound: a mound volume index, the duration of mound use, the number of construction stages, and the number of mounds at the site. The relationships among these variables are summarized, and the relative merits of the two competing interpretations are assessed. It is concluded that not all of the variation in mound volume can be explained by duration of use, that additional factors must be considered, and that the social context of mound construction probably differed at large multiple-mound sites and smaller mound sites.

Resumen

Resumen

La variación en la escala de la construcción de montículos de la cultura mississippiense es una importante medida de las jer-arquías regionales de asentamiento. Sin embargo, hay dos interpretaciones contradictorias para explicar el tamaño de los montículos. En primer lugar, se considera que el volumen de los montículos es el resultado de la duración de su uso o bien de la cantidad de la fuerza de trabajo reclutada por los dirigentes para la construcción de los montículos. Para evaluar estas dos proposiciones, se analiza una muestra de montículos excavados y para cada uno de ellos se consideran cuatro variables: un índice del volumen del montículo, la duración de su uso, el numúro de etapas constructivas y la cantidad de montículos en un sitio dado. Las relaciones entre estas variables se resumen y se evalúan los meritos relativos de las interpretaciones contradictorias. Se concluye que no toda variación en el volumen de montículos puede explicarse por la duración de su uso, dado que deben considerarse otros factores y que el contexto social de construcción de los montículos probablemente difería en sitios grandes con múltiples montículos en comparación con sitios más pequeños con montículos.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , April 2004 , pp. 291 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Anderson, David G. 1994 The Savannah River Chiefdoms. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Black, Glen A. 1967 The Angel Site. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.Google Scholar
Blitz, John H. 1993 Ancient Chiefdoms of the Tombigbee. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Blitz, John H. 1999 Mississippian Chiefdoms and the Fission-Fusion Process. American Antiquity 64:577–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohannon, Charles F. 1972 Pharr Mounds and Bear Creek Site. National Park Service, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Brain, Jeffery P. 1989 Winterville: Late Prehistoric Culture Contact in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Archaeological Series Report, No. 23. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Joseph R., and McCann, Catherine 1941 Irene Mound Site, Chatham County, Georgia. University of Georgia Press, Athens.Google Scholar
Carneiro, Robert L. 1967 On the Relationship between Size of Population and Complexity of Social Organization. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 23:234–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, Joffre L. 1995 Town Creek Indian Mound, a Native American Legacy. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Collins, James M., and Chalfant, Michael L. 1993 A Second-Terrace Perspective on Monk's Mound. American Antiquity 58:319–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cotter, John L. 1951 Stratigraphic and Area Tests at the Emerald and Anna Mound Sites. American Antiquity 17:18–32.Google Scholar
DeJarnette, David L., and Wimberly, Steve B. 1941 The Bessemer Site. Museum Paper 17. Geological Survey of Alabama, University.Google Scholar
Fowler, Melvin L. 1997 The Cahokia Atlas: A Historical Atlas of Cahokia Archaeology. Rev. ed. Studies in Archaeology No. 2. University of Illinois Press, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Gage, Matthew D. 2000 Ground-Penetrating Radar and Core Sampling at the Moundville Site. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Garland, Elizabeth B. 1992 The Obion Site: An Early Mississippian Center in Western Tennessee. Report of Investigations No. 7. Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State.Google Scholar
Haas, Jonathan 1982 The Evolution of the Prehistoric State. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 1994 An Overview of Lamar Culture. In Ocmulgee Archaeology 1936-1986, edited by Hally, David J., pp. 144–174. University of Georgia Press, Athens.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 1996 Platform-Mound Construction and the Instability of Mississippian Chiefdoms. In Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, edited by Scarry, John F., pp. 92–127. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Hilgeman, Sherri Lynn 2000 Pottery and Chronology at Angel. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Huscher, Harold A. 1971 Two Mississippian Mound Sites in Quitman County, Georgia. Southeastern Archaeological Conference Newsletter 10(2):35–36.Google Scholar
Jeter, Marvin D., and Ishmael Williams, G. Jr. 1989 Late Prehistoric Cultures, A.D. 1000-1500. In Archaeology and Bioarchaeology of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Trans-Mississippi South in Arkansas and Louisiana, by Jeter, Marvin D., Rose, Jerome C., Ishmael Williams, G. Jr. and Harmon, Anna M., pp. 171–220. Research Series No. 37. Arkansas Archaeological Survey, Fayetteville.Google Scholar
Johnson, Gregory A. 1977 Aspects of Regional Analysis in Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 6:479–506.Google Scholar
Jones, B. Calvin 1982 Southern Cult Manifestations at the Lake Jackson Site, Leon County, Florida: Salvage Excavations of Mound 3. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 7:3–44.Google Scholar
Kelly, Arthur R., and DeBaillou, Clemens 1960 Excavation of the Presumptive Site of Estatoe. Southern Indian Studies 12:3–30.Google Scholar
King, Adam 1996 Tracing Organizational Change in Mississippian Chiefdoms of the Etowah River Valley, Georgia. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Knight, Vernon James Jr., 1986 The Institutional Organization of Mississippian Religion. American Antiquity 51:675–687.Google Scholar
Knight, Vernon James Jr., 1995 Chronology and Use of Public Architecture at the Moundville Site: Excavations in Mounds R, F, G, and E. Second interim report, National Science Foundation Award 9220568. Report submitted to the National Science Foundation by the Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Lewis, R. # 1990 The Late Prehistory of the Ohio-Mississippi Rivers Confluence Region, Kentucky and Missouri. In Towns and Temples along the Mississippi, edited by Dye, David H. and Cox, Cheryl A., pp. 38–58. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Lewis, Thomas M. N., and Kneburg, Madeline 1946 Hiwassee Island: An Archaeological Account of Tennessee Indian Peoples. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Google Scholar
Lindauer, Owen, and John H., Blitz 1997 Higher Ground: The Archaeology of North American Platform Mounds. Journal of Archaeological Research 5:169–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Livingood, Patrick 1999 Investigations of Mississippian Mounds on the Middle Pearl River, Mississippi. Paper presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Pensacola.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Karl G. 1992 Big Men in the Big Black River Valley: Small Scale Late Prehistoric Community Organization in Central Mississippi. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Karl G. 1996 Small-Scale Mississippian Community Organization in the Big Black River Valley of Mississippi. Southeastern Archaeology 15:145–171.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Karl G., and Blitz, John H. 2002 The Mississippi Period in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley: A Statistical Approach for Establishing a Regional Chronology. Paper presented at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Denver.Google Scholar
Milner, George R. 1998 The Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology of a Mississippian Society. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Milner, George R., and Schroeder, Sissel 1999 Mississippian Political Systems. In Great Towns and Regional Polities, edited by Neitzel, Jill E., pp. 95–107. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Muller, Jon 1997 Mississippian Political Economy. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Neitzel, Stuart, and Jesse D., Jennings 1995 The Hixon Site. In The Prehistory of the Chickamauga Basin, Vol. 2, edited by Sullivan, Lynne P., pp. 372–418. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Neuman, Robert W. 1961 Domesticated Corn from a Fort Walton Mound Site in Houston County, Alabama. Florida Anthropologist 14:75–80.Google Scholar
Payne, Claudine 1994 Mississippian Capitals: An Archaeological Investigation of Precolumbian Political Structure. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Peebles, Christopher S., and Kus, Susan M. 1977 Some Archaeological Correlates of Ranked Societies. American Antiquity 42:421–448 . CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polhemus, Richard R. (editor) 1987 The Toqua Site: A Late Mississippian Dallas Phase Town. Reports of Investigations No. 41 Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Quimby, George I. Jr., 1951 The Medora Site, West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. Anthropological Series Vol 24, No. 2. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.Google Scholar
Quimby, George I. Jr., 1957 The Bayou Goula Site, Iberville Parish, Louisiana. Fieldiana Anthropology Vol. 47, No. 2. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.Google Scholar
Rafferty, Janet 1995 Owl Creek Mounds: Test Excavations at a Vacant Mississippian Mound Center. Reports of Investigations No. 7. Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State.Google Scholar
Scarry, John F., and Payne, Claudine 1986 Mississippian Polities in the Fort Walton Area: A Model Generated from the Renfrew-Level XTENT Algorithm. Southeastern Archaeology 5:79–90.Google Scholar
Schnell, Frank T., Knight, Vernon James Jr. and Schnell, Gail S. 1981 Cemochechobee: Archaeology of a Mississippian Ceremonial Center on the Chattahoochee River. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville. Google Scholar
Sears, William H. 1958 The Wilbanks Site (9CK5), Georgia. Bulletin No. 169. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Smith, Marvin T. 1994 Archaeological Investigations at the Dyar Site, 9GE5. Laboratory of Archaeology Series Report No. 32. University of Georgia, Athens.Google Scholar
Steponaitis, Vincas P. 1978 Locational Theory and Complex Chiefdoms: A Mississippian Example. In Mississippian Settlement Patterns, edited by Smith, Bruce D., pp. 417–453. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Steponaitis, Vincas P. 1986 Prehistoric Archaeology in the Southeastern United States, 1970-1985. Annual Review of Anthropology 15:363–404.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Lynne P. 1997 The Use and Abuse of Mound 31. Paper presented at “Platforms of Power: Mound Form and Function at Cahokia,” 26-27 June, Collinsville, Illinois.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Lynne P. 2000 Archaeomagnetism Provides Dates for the Toqua Site. Research Notes No. 18. McClung Museum, Frank H., University of Tennessee, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Lynne P. 2001 Dates for Shell Gorgets and the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in the Chickamauga Basin of Southeastern Tennessee. Research Notes No. 19. McClung Museum, Frank H., University of Tennessee, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Lynne P. 2003 Archaeological Time Constructs and the Construction of the Hiwassee Island Mound. Paper presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Swanton, John R. 1911 Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bulletin No. 43. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Waring, Antonio J. Jr., 1968 The Southern Cult and Muskhogean Ceremonial. In The Waring Papers, edited by Williams, Stephen, pp. 30–69. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 58. Harvard University Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wauchope, Robert W. 1966 Archaeological Survey of Northern Georgia with a Test of Some Cultural Hypotheses. Memoirs No. 21. Society for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
Webb, William S., and DeJarnette, David L. 1942 An Archaeological Survey of Pickwick Basin in the Adjacent Portions of the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Bulletin No. 129, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Welch, Paul D. 1991 Moundville's Economy. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Welch, Paul D. 1994 The Occupational History of the Bessemer Site. Southeastern Archaeology 13:1–26.Google Scholar
Welch, Paul D. 1998 Outlying Sites within the Moundville Chiefdom. In Archaeology of the Moundville Chiefdom, edited by Knight, Vernon James Jr. and Steponaitis, Vincas P., pp. 133–166. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Williams, Mark 1992 Archaeological Excavations at Scull Shoals Mounds (9GE4) 1983 and 1985. Publication 1. LAMAR Institute, Watkinsville, Georgia. Google Scholar
Williams, Mark, and Shapiro, Gary 1990 Archaeological Excavations at the Little River Site (9Mg46), 1984 and 1987. Publication 2. LAMAR Institute, Watkinsville, Georgia. Google Scholar
Williams, Mark, and Shapiro, Gary 1996 Mississippian Political Dynamics in the Oconee Valley, Georgia. In Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, edited by Scarry, John F., pp. 128–149. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar