Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T20:14:45.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Economic and Social Interactions in the Piedmont Village Tradition-Mississippian Boundarylands of Southeastern North America, AD 1200–1600

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2019

Eric E. Jones Open the ORCID record for Eric E. Jones [Opens in a new window] ,
Maya B. Krause ,
Caroline R. Watson  and
Grayson N. O'Saile
Eric E. Jones*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Wake Forest University, P.O. Box 7807, Winston-Salem, NC27109, USA
Maya B. Krause
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, VU Station B #356050, Nashville, TN37235, USA
Caroline R. Watson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, College of William & Mary, PO Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA23187, USA
Grayson N. O'Saile
Affiliation:
School of Law, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC27109, USA
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This research seeks to understand the economic and social interaction patterns among dispersed Piedmont Village Tradition communities in the North American Southeast, AD 1200–1600. Piedmont Village Tradition communities lived adjacent to Mississippian societies and have been categorized as a peripheral society because of this spatial relationship. We examine economic behaviors by constructing fall-off curves of local versus nonlocal lithic material proportions at settlement sites and examining the reduction behaviors and tool types at sites. The results support a possible gateway model for the acquisition and distribution of nonlocal materials that linked spatially proximate communities. To examine social interaction patterns, we conducted a Brainerd-Robinson analysis of ceramic attributes from six sites and combined our results with work by Rogers (1993). The results show sites with stylistic similarities are not the same sites that share lithic resources. We conclude that these spatially non-overlapping artifact patterns result from a heterarchical social organization with a high degree of independence between economic and social interactions. Finally, we contextualize our results within the current knowledge of Mississippian and Piedmont Village Tradition societies in the region to broaden the discussion of gateways in reciprocity-based economies, societies traditionally thought of as peripheral to complex societies, and coalescence.

Este proyecto quiere entender los modelos interactivos sociales y económicos entre las comunidades de Piedmont Village Tradition en el Sureste de América del Norte, 1200–1600 dC. Los grupos de Piedmont Village Tradition vivían adyacente a las sociedades Mississippi, así que tradicionalmente han sido caracterizadas como sociedades periféricas. Caracterizamos los modos de funcionamiento económico a través de (1) construyendo las curvas “fall off” que comparan las proporciones del material lítico local y no local en los sitios Piedmont Village Tradition y (2) examinando en una muestra de sitios los niveles de reducción lítica y los tipos de herramientas líticas. Intentamos entender cómo fueron usado los materiales locales y no locales, y preguntamos qué nos revelan sobre los métodos de adquisición y distribución que empleaban las comunidades de Piedmont Village Tradition. Los resultados sugieren un modelo posible, que llamamos el “gateway”, que explica la configuración de la adquisición y distribución del material no local que vinculó las comunidades espacialmente cerca. Para examinar los modelos sociales e interactivos, empleamos el análisis Brainerd-Robinson. Este análisis nos permitió analizar los atributos cerámicos de seis sitios, y luego combinamos aquellos resultados con los de Rogers (1993). Los resultados revelan que los sitios con atributos cerámicos similares no siempre son los más próximos espacialmente ni son los sitios que comparten recursos líticos. Concluimos que las configuraciones espaciales entre material lítico y cerámico son distintos y resultan de una organización social heterárquico que mantiene independencia entre las interacciones sociales y económicas. Terminamos el análisis contextualizando nuestros resultados con lo que ya sabemos de las sociedades Mississippi y Piedmont Village Tradition en esta zona. Esta contextualización nos permite empezar una discusión de la presencia de los “gateways” en economías que se basen en reciprocidad, y también puede cambiar la manera en que estudiamos las sociedades periféricas y la coalescencia.

Keywords

lithic analysisceramic analysissoutheastern North AmericainteractionLate Woodlandcore-peripheryanálisis líticoanálisis ceramicsureste de Norteaméricainteracciónperíodo del Bosque Tardíoárea principal-periferia
Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 72 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology

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

Ammerman, A. J., Matessi, C., and Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. 1978 Some New Approaches to the Study of the Obsidian Trade in the Mediterranean and Adjacent Areas. In The Spatial Organization of Culture, edited by Hodder, Ian, pp. 179–190. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Andrefsky, William Jr. 1986 A Consideration of Blade and Flake Curvature. Lithic Technology 15:48–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnette, Karen 1978 Woodland Subsistence-Settlement Patterns in the Great Bend Area, Yadkin River Valley, North Carolina. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Beck, Charlotte, Taylor, Amanda K., Jones, George T., Fadem, Cynthia M., Cook, Caitlyn R., and Millward, Sara A. 2002 Rocks Are Heavy: Transport Costs and Paleoarchaic Quarry Behavior in the Great Basin. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21:481–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, Ina 2011 Exploring the Chaîne Opératoire of Ceramics through X-radiography. In Archaeological Ceramics: A Review of Current Research, edited by Scarcella, Simona, pp. 1–7. BAR Publishing, Oxford, England.Google Scholar
Birch, Jennifer 2010 Coalescence and Conflict in Iroquoian Ontario. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 25(1):29–48.Google Scholar
Birch, Jennifer, and Williamson, Ronald F. 2013 The Mantle Site: An Archaeological History of an Ancestral Wendat Community. AltaMira, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Birch, Jennifer, and Williamson, Ronald F. 2018 Initial Northern Iroquoian Coalescence. In The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America, edited by Thompson, Victor D. and Birch, Jennifer, pp. 89–105. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blitz, John H. 1993 Big Pots for Big Shots: Feasting and Storage in a Mississippian Community. American Antiquity 58:80–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brainerd, George W. 1951 The Place of Chronological Ordering in Archaeological Analysis. American Antiquity 16:301–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, James A., Kerber, Richard A., and Winters, Howard D. 1990 Trade and the Evolution of Exchange Relations at the Beginning of The Mississippian Period. In The Mississippian Emergence, edited by Smith, Bruce D., pp. 251–280. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Burghardt, Andrew F. 1971 A Hypothesis About Gateway Cities. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 61:269–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobb, Charles R., and Nassaney, Michael S. 1995 Interaction and Integration in the Late Woodland Southeast. In Native American Interactions: Multiscalar Analyses and Interpretations in the Eastern Woodlands, edited by Nassaney, Michael S. and Sassaman, Kenneth E., pp. 205–226. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Cobb, Charles R., and Garrow, Patrick H. 1996 Woodstock Culture and the Question of Mississippian Emergence. American Antiquity 61:21–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, Joffre Lanning 1964 The Formative Cultures of the Carolina Piedmont. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 54(5):1–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comstock, Aaron R., and Cook, Robert A. 2018 Climate Change and Migration Along a Mississippian Periphery: A Fort Ancient Example. American Antiquity 83:91–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowgill, George L. 1990 Why Pearson's r is Not a Good Similarity Coefficient for Comparing Collections. American Antiquity 55:512–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniel, I. Randolph, and Butler, J. Robert 1996 An Archaeological Survey and Petrographic Description of Rhyolite Sources in the Uwharrie Mountains, North Carolina. Southern Indian Studies 45:1–37.Google Scholar
Davis, R. P. Stephen, and Ward, H. Trawick 1991 The Evolution of Siouan Communities in Piedmont North Carolina. Southeastern Archaeology 10:40–53.Google Scholar
De La Fuente, Guillermo A. 2011 Urns, Bowls, and Ollas: Pottery-Making Practices and Technical Identity in the Southern Andes during the Late Period (ca. A.D. 900–A.D. 1450) Catamarca, Northwestern Argentine Region, Argentina. Latin American Antiquity 22:224–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeBoer, Warren R., Kintigh, Keith W., and Rostoker, Arthur G. 1996 Ceramic Seriation and Site Reoccupation in Lowland South America. Latin American Antiquity 7:263–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickens, Roy S. Jr., Ward, H. Trawick, and Stephen Davis, R. P. Jr. 1987 The Siouan Project: Seasons I and II. Research Laboratories of Anthropology Monograph Series No. 1. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Drooker, Penelope B. 2002 The Ohio Valley, 1550–1750: Patterns of Sociopolitical Coalescence and Dispersal. In The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540–1760, edited by Ethridge, Robbie and Hudson, Charles, pp. 118–124. University Press of Mississippi, Oxford.Google Scholar
Eastman, Jane 2001 Life Courses and Gender among Late Prehistoric Siouan Communities. In Archaeological Studies of Gender in the Southeastern United States, edited by Eastman, Jane and Rodning, Christopher B., pp. 57–76. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Gosselain, Olivier P. 2000 Materializing Identities: An African Perspective. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 7:187–217CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenland, Sander, Senn, Stephen J., Rothman, Kenneth J., Carlin, John B., Poole, Charles, Goodman, Steven N., and Altman, Douglas G. 2016 Statistical Tests, P Values, Confidence Intervals, and Power: A Guide to Misinterpretations. European Journal of Epidemiology 31:337–350.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halsey, Lewis G. 2019 The Reign of the P-Value Is Over: What Alternative Analyses Could We Employ to Fill the Power Vacuum? Biology Letters 15:1–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hill, J. Brett, Clark, Jeffery J., Doelle, William H., and Lyons, Patrick D. 2004 Prehistoric Demography in the Southwest: Migration, Coalescence, and Hohokam Population Decline. American Antiquity 69:689–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, James N., and Evans, Robert K. 1972 A Model for Classification and Typology. In Models in Archaeology, edited by Clarke, David L., pp. 231–273. Methuen & Co., London.Google Scholar
Hirth, Kenneth G. 1978 Interregional Trade and the Formation of Prehistoric Gateway Communities. American Antiquity 43:35–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffries, Richard W. 2018 Population Aggregation and the Emergence of Circular Villages. In The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America, edited by Thompson, Victor D. and Birch, Jennifer, pp. 140–159. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Eric E. 2017 The Ecology of Shifting Settlement Strategies in the Upper Yadkin River Valley, AD 600–1600. In Settlement Ecology of the Ancient Americas, edited by Kellett, Lucas C. and Jones, Eric E., pp. 29–56. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Jones, Eric E. 2018 When Villages Do Not Form: A Case Study from the Piedmont Village Tradition-Mississippian Borderlands AD 1200–1600. In The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America, edited by Thompson, Victor D. and Birch, Jennifer, pp. 73–88. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Eric E., and Ellis, Peter 2016 Multiscalar Settlement Ecology Study of Piedmont Village Tradition Communities in North Carolina, AD 1000–1600. Southeastern Archaeology 35:85–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Eric E., Gattis, Madison, Wardner, Andrew, Morrison, Thomas C., and Frantz, Sara 2012 Exploring Prehistoric Tribal Settlement Ecology in the Southeast: A Case Study from the North Carolina Piedmont. North American Archaeologist 33:159–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, John E. 1991 Cahokia and Its Role as a Gateway Center in Interregional Exchange. In Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest, edited by Emerson, Thomas E. and Lewis, R. Barry, pp. 61–82. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.Google Scholar
King, Adam, and Meyers, Maureen 2002 Exploring the Edges of the Mississippian World. Southeastern Archaeology 21:113–116.Google Scholar
Lambert, Patricia M. 2000 Life on the Periphery: Health in Farming Communities of Interior North Carolina and Virginia. In Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture: A View from the Southeast, edited by Lambert, Patricia M., pp. 168–194, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Meyers, Maureen S. 2002 The Mississippian Frontier in Southwestern Virginia. Southeastern Archaeology 21:178–191.Google Scholar
Meyers, Maureen S. 2015 The Role of the Southern Appalachian Mississippian Frontier in the Creation and Maintenance of Chiefly Power. In Archaeological Perspectives on the Southern Appalachians, edited by Gougeon, Ramie A. and Meyers, Maureen, pp. 219–244. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Meyers, Maureen S. 2017 Social Integration at a Frontier and the Creation of Mississippian Social Identity in Southwestern Virginia. Southeastern Archaeology 36:144–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minar, C. Jill 2001 Motor Skills and the Learning Process: The Conservation of Cordage Final Twist Direction in Communities of Practice. Journal of Anthropological Research 57:381–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, Jon 1997 Mississippian Political Economy. Plenum, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newkirk, Judith A. 1978 The Parker Site: A Woodland Site in Davidson County, North Carolina. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Parker, Bradley J. 2006 Toward and Understanding of Borderland Processes. American Antiquity 71:77–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 1987 Mississippian Domestic Economy and Formation Processes: A Response to Prentice. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 12:77–88.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 1989 Monitoring Mississippian Homestead Occupation Span and Economy Using Ceramic Refuse. American Antiquity 54:288–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 1997 Cahokian Political Economy. In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Pauketat, Timothy R. and Emerson, Thomas E., pp. 30–51. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Peeples, Matthew A. 2011 R Script for Calculating the Brainerd-Robinson Coefficient of Similarity and Assessing Sampling Error. Electronic document, http://www.mattpeeples.net/BR.html, accessed June 8, 2019.Google Scholar
Peregrine, Peter N. 1992 Mississippian Evolution: A World-Systems Perspective. Prehistory Press, Madison, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Plog, Stephen 1976 Measurement of Prehistoric Interaction between Communities. In The Early Mesoamerican Village, edited by Flannery, Kent V., pp. 255–272. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Prentice, Guy 1985 Economic Differentiation among Mississippian Farmsteads. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 10:77–122.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Colin 1977 Alternative Models for Exchange and Spatial Distribution. In Exchange Systems in Prehistory, edited by Earle, Timothy K. and Ericson, Jonathon E., pp. 71–90. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Prudence M. 1987 Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Robinson, William S. 1951 A Method for Chronologically Ordering Archaeological Deposits. American Antiquity 16:293–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodning, Christopher B. 2002 Reconstructing the Coalescence of Cherokee Communities in Southern Appalachia. In The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540–1760, edited by Ethridge, Robbie and Hudson, Charles, pp. 155–175. University Press of Mississippi, Oxford.Google Scholar
Rogers, Rhea 1993 A Re-Examination of the Concept of the Tribe: A Case Study from the Upper Yadkin Valley, North Carolina. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Rogers, Rhea 1995 Tribes as Heterarchy: A Case Study from the Prehistoric Southeastern United States. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 6:7–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roux, Valentine 2016 Ceramic Manufacture: The Chaîne Opératoire Approach. In The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis, edited by Hunt, Alice, pp. 1–17. Oxford, London.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E., and Rudolphi, Wictoria 2001 Communities of Practice in the Early Pottery Traditions of the American Southeast. Journal of Anthropological Research 57:407–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpkins, Daniel L. 1985 First Phase Investigations of Late Aboriginal Settlement Systems in the Eno, Haw, and Dan River Drainages, North Carolina. Report No. 3. Research Laboratories of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Ward, H. Trawick, and Davis, R. P. Stephen Jr. 1993 Indian Communities on the North Carolina Piedmont, A.D. 1000 to 1700. Monograph Series No. 2. Research Laboratories of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Ward, H. Trawick, and Davis, R. P. Stephen Jr. 1999 Time Before History: The Archaeology of North Carolina. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Welch, Paul D. 1991 Moundville's Economy. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Whittker, John C., Caulkins, Douglas, and Kamp, Kathryn A. 1998 Evaluating Consistency in Typology and Classification. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 5:129–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodall, J. Ned 1984 The Donnaha Site: 1973, 1975 Excavations. North Carolina Archaeological Council Publication No. 22. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Raleigh.Google Scholar
Woodall, J. Ned 1990 Archaeological Investigations in the Yadkin River Valley, 1984–87. North Carolina Archaeological Council Publication No. 25. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Raleigh.Google Scholar
Woodall, J. Ned 1999 Mississippian Expansion on the Eastern Frontier: One Strategy in the North Carolina Piedmont. Archaeology of Eastern North America 27:55–70.Google Scholar
Woodall, J. Ned 2009 The T. Jones Site: Ecology and Agency in the Upper Yadkin Valley of North Carolina. North Carolina Archaeology 58:1–58.Google Scholar