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Rural Communities in the Black Warrior Valley, Alabama: The Role of Commoners in the Creation of the Moundville I Landscape

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Mintcy D. Maxham
Mintcy D. Maxham*
Affiliation:
Research Laboratories of Archaeology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3120
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Abstract

Mississippian sites are generally believed to fall into one of three categories: paramount political center, local political center, and farmstead. Elites lived at paramount and local centers while the rest of a polity’s population lived in scattered farmsteads. Archaeologists identify paramount and local centers by the presence of earthen mounds and usually classify all small sites without mounds as farmsteads. In this examination of rural settlement in the Moundville chiefdom, I argue that there was more variation in Mississippian landscapes than the traditional tripartite site classification scheme allows. The vessel assemblage from 1TU66, a small site in the Black Warrior Valley, does not reflect domestic activities, but rather suggests that this site was a place where neighbors gathered to share food as a community.

Resumen

Resumen

Los sitios arqueológicos misisipianos casi siempre son clasificados en tres categorías: centrospolíticosprincipales, centros políticos locales, y granjas. El supuesto es que las élites vivían en los primeros dos, en tanto las granjas eran habitadas por gente común. Los arqueologos identifican los centros politicos principales y centros politicos locales por la presencia de montículos, mientras que califican las granjas con todos todos aquellos lugares que no tienen monticulos. En este estudio de asentamiento rural del cacicazgo de Moundville, sostengo que la variación en elpaisaje misisipiano es mucho mayor de lo la que sugiere esta clasificación tripartita. Las colecciones de cerámica en ITU66, uno de los sitios pequeños en el Valle de Black Warrior, no refleja actividades domésticas, sino más bien sugiere que éste era un lugar donde los vecinos se reunían para hacer vida de comunidad y compartir comida.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , April 2000 , pp. 337 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2000

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