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Sourcing Interaction Networks of the American Southeast: Neutron Activation Analysis of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped Pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Neill J. Wallis ,
Thomas J. Pluckhahn  and
Michael D. Glascock
Neill J. Wallis*
Affiliation:
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
Thomas J. Pluckhahn*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620
Michael D. Glascock*
Affiliation:
Research Reactor Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211
*
(nwallis@flmnh.ufl.edu, corresponding author)
(tpluckhahn@usf.edu)
(glascockM@missouri.edu)
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Abstract

In the lower American Southeast, regional scale social interactions burgeoned alongside the growth of nucleated villages, widespread mound-building projects, and conspicuous mortuary ceremonialism during the Middle and Late Woodland periods (ca. A.D. 100–800). A premier material for understanding the scale and significance of social interactions across the southern landscape comes from Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery, a ubiquitous class of material culture that provides direct evidence of connections between specific sites at a multitude of scales and in myriad contexts. By combining design data and determinations of vessel provenance through Neutron Activation Analysis of a total of 825 sherds and 130 clay samples, this research ascertains types of social interaction and their predominant directions and levels of intensity across multiple ecological, social, and cultural contexts. The results indicate two main patterns: first, that vessels were frequently transported from habitation sites and civic-ceremonial centers to distant burial mounds; and second, that people traveled to ceremonial centers from outlying villages for events that included the exchange of wooden paddles. These patterns reveal a high level of social coordination within integrated networks that were inextricable from the region-wide trends toward population aggregation and heightened monumentality and rituality.

En la zona baja del sudeste Norteamericano, durante los períodos Silvícola Medio y Silvícola Tardío (ca. 100 al 800 d.C.), las interacciones sociales a escala regional florecieron junto con el crecimiento de aldeas nucleadas, extensos proyectos de construcción de montículos, y muestras patentes de actos funerarios ceremoniales. Un material esencial para la comprensión de la magnitud e importancia de las interacciones sociales a lo largo de este territorio proviene de la cerámica estampada con diseños complicados de Swift Creek. Este tipo de cultura material, la cual es omnipresente en el sudeste Norteamericano, proporciona evidencia directa de las conexiones entre sitios específicos en diferentes escalas y en una variedad de contextos. Esta investigación, que combina los datos de los grabados en las cerámicas y los estudios de procedencia, basados en el análisis por activación neutrónica de un total de 825 fragmentos cerámicos y 130 muestras de arcilla, determina tanto los tipos de interacción social con respecto a sus rutas predominantes como la intensidad de estas interacciones en múltiples contextos ecológicos, sociales y culturales. Los resultados indican dos patrones principales: primero, que las vasijas fueron transportadas frecuentemente desde los lugares de habitación y centros cívico-ceremoniales hacia montículos funerarios lejanos; y segundo, que la gente viajaba a los centros ceremoniales desde las aldeas de la periferia para eventos que incluyeron el intercambio de palas de madera [usadas para la impresión o estampado de diseños sobre la arcilla fresca]. Estos patrones revelan un alto nivel de coordinación social dentro de redes integradas y están estrechamente imbricados con las tendencias culturales de la región tales como son la agregación de la población y la elevada monumentalidad y ritualidad.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 717 - 736
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2016 

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