Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T00:24:14.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mortuary Behavior and Social Organization at Indian Knoll and Dickson Mounds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Nan. A. Rothschild
Nan. A. Rothschild*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY, New York, N.Y, 10021
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two prehistoric mortuary sites, one from the Archaic and one from the Mississippian period, are compared with regard to the importance of age and sex as status-bearing variables. Statements about social organization in the two societies are examined using mortuary data, specifically, grave-good inclusions with burials. Cluster analyses at Indian Knoll in Kentucky and Dickson Mounds in Illinois show significant differences in cluster formation which can be interpreted in social organizational terms. These interpretations pertain both to the importance of age and sex and to wider principles of organization. Indian Knoll is found to be less egalitarian in organization than expected; Dickson Mounds, less hierarchical than expected.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 658 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1979

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

Bendann, E. 1930 Death customs: an analytical study of burial rites. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.Google Scholar
Bender, B. 1975 Farming in prehistory. St. Martin's Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1971 Mortuary practices: their study and their potential. In Approaches to the social dimensions of mortuarypractices, edited by Brown, J. A.. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 25:6–29.Google Scholar
Binford, S. R. 1968 A structural comparison of disposal of the dead in the Mousterian and the Upper Paleolithic. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 24: 139-154.Google Scholar
Blakely, R. L. 1971 Comparison of the mortuary profiles of Archaic, Middle Woodland and Middle Mississippian skeletalpopulations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 34: 43-54.Google Scholar
Brown, J. A. 1971 Introduction. In Approaches to the social dimensions of mortuary practices, edited by Brown, J. A.. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 25: 1-6.Google Scholar
Brown, J. A., Willis, R. W., Berth, M. A., and Neumann, G. K. 1967 The Gentleman Farm site. Reports of Investigations No. 12. Illinois State Museum, Springfield.Google Scholar
Buikstra, J. E. 1976 Hopewell in the lower Illinois River valley: regional study of human biological variability and prehistoricmortuary activity. Northwestern Archeologicol Program Scientific Papers Vol. 2. Evanston.Google Scholar
Caldwell, J. R. 1958 Trend and tradition in the prehistory of the eastern United States. American Anthropological Association, Memoir 88.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N. A. 1968 Yanomamo, the fierce people. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1951 Man makes himself. New American Library, New York.Google Scholar
Clark, G. A. 1970 A factor analysis of the preliminary burial statistics from the Grasshopper Site, East-Central Arizona. Seminar paper, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. L. 1968 Analytical archaeology. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Dincauze, D. F. 1974 An introduction to archaeology in the Greater Boston area. Archaeology of Eastern North America 2: 39-67.Google Scholar
Dragoo, Don W. 1976 Some aspects of eastern North American prehistory: A review, 1975. American Antiquity 41: 3-27.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile 1964 The division of labor in society. Translated by Simpson, G. (originally published 1893). Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940 The Nuer. The Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Fallers, L. A. 1965 Bantu bureaucracy. Phoenix Books, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Ford, R. I. 1974 Northeastern archeology: past and future directions. In Annual fleview of Anthropology, edited by Siegel, Bernard J., pp. 385–412. Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, Calif.Google Scholar
Fortes, M, and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1955 Introduction. In African political systems, edited by Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E.E. , pp. 1–23. International African Institute, Oxford University Press London.Google Scholar
Fried, M. 1967 The evolution of political society. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Goldstein, L. G. 1976 Spatial structure and social organization: regional manifestations of Mississippian society. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Goody, J. R. 1962 Death, property and the ancestors. Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif.Google Scholar
Gruber, J. W. 1971 Patterning in death in a Late Prehistoric village in Pennsylvania. American Antiquity 36: 64-76.Google Scholar
Ham, A. D. 1971 The prehistory of Dickson Mounds: preliminary report. Dickson Mounds Museum Anthropological Studies No. 1. Illinois State Museum, Springfield.Google Scholar
Ham, A. D. 1975 Cahokia and the Mississippian emergence in the Spoon River area of Illinois. Transactions, Illinois State Academy of Sciences 68: 414-434.Google Scholar
Hobhouse, L. T., Wheeler, G., and Ginsberg, M. 1930 The material conditions and sociaj institutions of the simpler peoples. Chapman and Hall, London.Google Scholar
Jennings, J. D. 1974 Prehistory of North America, [second ed.] McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Johnston, F. E and Snow, C. E. 1961 The reassessment of the age and sex of the Indian Knoll skeletal population: demographic andmethodological aspects. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 19: 237-244.Google Scholar
King, T. F. 1976 Political differentiation among hunter-gatherers: an archeoiogical test case. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. 1967 The gift. Translated by Cunnison, I. (originally published in 1925). W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Mead, M. 1949 Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world. William Morrow, New York.Google Scholar
Moore, C. B. 1916 Some aboriginal sites on Green River, Kentucky. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Second Series, v. 26, pt. 3.Google Scholar
Morgan, L. H. 1878 Ancient society. H. Holt and Co., New York.Google Scholar
Peebles, C. S. 1971 Moundville and surrounding sites: some structural considerations of mortuary practices II. In Approachesto the social dimensions of mortuary practices, edited by Brown, J. A.. Memoirs of the Societyfor American Archaeology 25: 68-91.Google Scholar
Peebles, C. S. 1972 Monothetic-divisive analysis of the Moundville burials: an initial report. Newsletter of Computer Archaeology 8: 1-13.Google Scholar
Peebles, C. S., and Kus, S. M. 1977 Some archaeological correlates of ranked societies. American Antiquity 42: 421-48.Google Scholar
Rathje, W. L. 1971 Lowland Classic Maya socio-political organization: degree and form in time and space. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Ritchie, W. A. 1969 The archaeology of New York state. Natural History Press, Garden City, New York.Google Scholar
Rothschild, N. A. 1975 Age and sex, status and role, in prehistoric societies of eastern North America. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, New York University.Google Scholar
Rothschild, N. A., and Lavin, L. 1977 The Kaeser site: a stratified shell midden in the Bronx, New York. Bulletin of the New York State Archeological Association 70: 1-27.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1958 Social stratification in Polynesia. University of Washington Press, Seattle.Google Scholar
Saxe, A. A. 1970 Social dimensions of mortuary practices. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Service, E. R. 1962 Primitive social organization: an evolutionary perspective. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Service, E. R. 1975 Origins of the state and civilization: the process of cultural evolution. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. 1975 The social organization at Branc. Antiquity 49:279–287.Google Scholar
Sneath, P. H. A., and Sokal, R. R. 1973 Numerical taxonomy. W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco.Google Scholar
Swanton, J. R. 1928 Social and religious beliefs and usages of the Chickasaw Indians. 44th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology , pp. 169–274.Google Scholar
Tainter, J. A. 1975 The archeological study of social change: woodland systems in west-central Illinois. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Turnbull, C. 1962 The forest people. Simon & Schuster, New York.Google Scholar
Van, Gennep 1909 Les Rites de Passage. English translation published in 1960. Vizedom and Caffee, London.Google Scholar
Webb, W. S. 1946 Indian Knoll site, Oh 2, Ohio County, Kentucky. University of Kentucky Reports in Archaeology and Anthropology 4(3): 115–365.Google Scholar
Webb, W. S. 1950 The Carlson Annis mound. University of Kentucky Reports in Anthropology 7(4): 267–354.Google Scholar
Weiss, K. M. 1973 Demographic models for anthropology. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 27.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R., and Phillips, P. 1958 Method and theory in American archaeology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Winters, H. D. 1968 Value systems and trade cycles of the Late Archaic in the Midwest. In New perspectives in archaeology, edited by Binford, S. R. and Binford, L. R., pp. 175–221. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Winters, H. D. 1974 Introduction. Indian Knoll (new edition). University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Wobst, H. M. 1977 Stylistic behavior and information exchange. In For the director: research essays in honor of James B. Griffin, edited by Cleland, C. E.. University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Papers 61: 317-42.Google Scholar
Yarrow, H. C. 1891 A further contribution to the study of mortuary customs of the North American Indians. 1st Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology: 89-206.Google Scholar
Yellen, J. E., and Lee, R. B. 1976 The Dobe-du/da/ environment: considerations for a hunting and gathering way of life. In Kalaharihunter-gatherers, edited by Lee, R. B. and De Vore, I., pp. 27–46. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar