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Middle Archaic Bone Pins: Evidence of Mid-Holocene Regional-Scale Social Groups in the Southern Midwest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Richard W. Jefferies
Richard W. Jefferies*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506
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Abstract

Carved and engraved bone pins collected from eight sites along the Middle Mississippi and Lower Ohio Rivers and their tributaries are used to investigate the development of regional-scale social interaction among increasingly more sedentary late Middle Archaic (6000–5000 B.P.) hunter-gatherer groups. The similarity in pin morphology and decoration suggests an increasing level of social integration among groups that were shifting from a residential mobility strategy to a logistically organized one. The development or amplification of intergroup social networks provided access to information and resources that were formerly obtained through more direct forms of intergroup contact. The spatial distribution of selected bone pin styles suggests that these social networks extended over a considerable portion of the southern Midwest. Collectively, these data suggest that regional social networks existed in this part of the Midwest much earlier than previously believed.

Este artícule presenta el análisis de una muestra de alfileres de hueso decorados con grabados en bajo relieve encontrados en ocho sitios excavados en la cuenca media del río Misisipí y la baja del Ohio. El propósito es estudiar el desarrollo de las redes regionales de interactión entre grupos de cazadores y recolectores en transitión a un patrón más sedentario durante el període tardío del Arcaico Medio (6000–5000 a.C). Las similitudes en la morfología y decoraciones de estos alfileres indica una creciente inte-gración social entre los grupos que estaban en proceso de adopción de un patrón de asentamiento seminomádico. La formatión о expansión de redes sociales a nivel inter-grupal facilitó el acceso a informatión y recursos que anteriormente sólo eran obtenidos a través de formas más directas de contacte entre dichos grupos. La distributión espacial de ciertos estilos artísticos usados en estos alfileres sugiere que estas redes sociales se extendieran sobre una considerable área de la región central del suroeste del país. De esta manera, los datos recavados sugieren que estas redes sociales aparecieron en esta parte del país mucho más temprano de lo que se pensaba.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , July 1997 , pp. 464 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1997

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References

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