Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:02:22.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Temporal Distribution and Duration of Mississippian Polities in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2019

David J. Hally Open the ORCID record for David J. Hally [Opens in a new window]  and
John F. Chamblee
David J. Hally*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, 355 S. Jackson St., Athens, Georgia, 30602, USA
John F. Chamblee
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, 355 S. Jackson St., Athens, Georgia, 30602, USA
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To aid our understanding of prehispanic social change in a subcontinental context, this article presents data and analysis relating to the occupational histories of 351 Mississippian platform mound sites in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Based on the premise that sites with platform mounds served as the administrative and ritual centers for Mississippian polities, our study demonstrates that polities in the study area rose and fell with some regularity, and in many cases, new polities succeeded old ones in the same locations. Our work expands on a previous analysis of 47 northern Georgia area sites. Through a theoretical framework tailored for macroregional processes and a rule-based approach in collecting and standardizing data from previous work, this study serves as an example for incorporating different processes and regions to provide a more coherent and complete picture of the Mississippian macroregion. Our results show that polity cycling was typical in our study area, and we argue that the rise and fall of polities is best described within a theoretical framework emphasizing collapse and resilience. By treating collapse as a normal feature of Mississippian polities, we can better understand the interconnectedness of Mississippian polities across regions.

En un esfuerzo por entender el cambio social prehispánico en la escala de subcontinentes, este papel presenta datos y análisis de 351 sitios montículo de la plataforma misisipiana en Alabama, Georgia, Misisipí y Tennessee. Basado en la premisa que los sitios con montículos de la plataforma sirvieran como los centros administrativos y rituales de estructuras políticas misisipianas, nuestro estudio demuestra que las estructuras políticas en el área de estudio se subieron y se cayeron con alguna uniformidad y, en muchos casos, las nuevas estructuras políticas sucedieron a viejas en las mismas localizaciones. Nuestro trabajo expande en un análisis anterior de 47 sitios en el parte norte de Georgia y presente historias de la secuencia de ocupación para los 351 sitios. Usando un marco teórico hace a medida para procesos macroregionales y un enfoque basada en la regla para coleccionar y estandarizar datos del trabajo anterior, este estudio sirve como un ejemplo para la incorporación de otros procesos y regiones en una imagen más coherente y completa de la macroregión misisipiana. Nuestros resultados muestran que es típico para nuestra área de estudio que las estructuras políticas se repiten en ciclo, y sostenemos que la subida y la caída de las estructuras políticas es describir mejor con el uso de un marco teórico que enfatizar desplome, teoría de resistencia y panarquía. Tratando el desplome como una característica tradicional de las estructuras políticas misisipianas, podemos entender mejor la interconectividad de las estructuras políticas misisipiana a través de regiones.

Keywords

Southeastern U.S.Mississippian polity cyclingresilience theoryadaptive cyclespanarchysureste de EE.UUciclos en unidades políticas mississipianasteoría de resilienciaciclos adaptivospanarquía
Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 420 - 437
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

Anderson, David G. 1994 The Savannah River Chiefdoms. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Anderson, David G. 1996 Chiefly Cycling and Large-Scale Abandonments as Viewed from the Savannah River Basin. In Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, edited by Scarry, John F., pp. 150–191. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Anderson, David G. 1999 Examining Chiefdoms in the Southeast: An Application of Multiscalar Analysis. In Great Towns and Regional Polities in the Prehistoric Southwest and Southeast, edited by Neitzel, Jill E., pp. 215–242. Amerind Foundation New World Studies Series Vol. 3. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Anderson, David G. 2018 Using CRM Data for “Big Picture” Research. In New Perspectives in Cultural Resource Management, edited by McManamon, Francis P., pp. 197–212. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Baden, William W. 2005 Modeling Prehistoric Maize Agriculture as a Dissipative Process. In Nonlinear Models for Archaeology and Anthropology: Continuing the Revolution, edited by Beekman, Cristopher S. and Baden, William W., pp. 95–122. Ashgate Publishing, Burlington, Vermont.Google Scholar
Beck, Robin 2003 Consolidation and Hierarchy: Chiefdom Variability in the Mississippian Southeast. American Antiquity 68:641–661.Google Scholar
Beck, Robin 2013 Chiefdoms, Collapse, and Coalescence in the Early American South. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E., Feinman, Gary M., Kowalewski, Steve A., and Peregrine, Peter N. 1996 A Dual-Processual Theory for the Evolution of Mesoamerican Civilization. Current Anthropology 37:1–14.Google Scholar
Blitz, John H. 1999 Mississippian Chiefdoms and the Fission-Fusion Process. American Antiquity 64:577–592.Google Scholar
Blitz, John H. 2010 New Perspectives in Mississippian Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 18:1–39.Google Scholar
Blitz, John H., and Livingood, Patrick 2004 Sociopolitical Implications of Mississippian Mound Volume. American Antiquity 69:291–301.Google Scholar
Brain, Jeffery P., and Phillips, Phillip 1996 Shell Gorgets: Styles of the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Southeast. Peabody Museum Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Brown, James A. 2004 Exchange and Interaction until 1500. In Southeast, edited by Fogelson, Raymond D., pp. 677–685. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 14, William C. Sturtevant, general editor, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Chamblee, John F. 1997 The Fishing Creek Survey. Early Georgia 25(1):55–80.Google Scholar
Chamblee, John F. 2006 Landscape Patches, Macroregional Exchanges and Pre-Columbian Political Economy in Southwestern Georgia. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Cobb, Charles R. 2003 Mississippian Chiefdoms: How Complex? Annual Review of Anthropology 32:63–84.Google Scholar
Cooper, Anwen, and Green, Chris 2016 Embracing the Complexities of ‘Big Data’ in Archaeology: The Case of the English Landscape and Identities Project. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 23:271–304.Google Scholar
Costanza, Robert, Graumlich, Lisa J., and Steffen, William L. (editors) 2007 Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George L. 1988 Onward and Upward with Collapse. In The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, edited by Yoffee, Norman and Cowgill, George L., pp. 244–276. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
DePratter, Chester B. 1991 Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Chiefdoms in the Southeastern United States. Garland Publishing, New York.Google Scholar
Elliott, Daniel T. 1982 Finch's Survey. Early Georgia 9:14–24.Google Scholar
Ethridge, Robbie, and Hudson, Charles (editors) 2002 The Transformation of the Southeastern Indian, 1540–1760. University Press of Mississippi, Oxford.Google Scholar
Faulseit, Ronald K. 2016 Collapse, Resilience, and Transformation in Complex Societies: Modeling Trends and Understanding Diversity. In Beyond Collapse: Archaeological Perspectives on Resilience, Revitalization, and Transformation in Complex Societies, edited by Faulseit, Ronald K., pp. 3–26. Occasional Paper No. 42. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Feinman, Gary M. 1999 The Changing Structure of Macroregional Mesoamerica: The Classic-Postclassic Transition in the Valley of Oaxaca. In World-Systems Theory in Practice: Leadership, Production, and Exchange, edited by Kardulias, P. Nick, pp. 53–62. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Leland G. 1971 South Appalachian Mississippian. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Fish, Suzanne K., and Fish, Paul R. 1993 An Assessment of Abandonment Processes in the Hohokam Classic Period of the Tucson Basin. In Abandonment of Settlements and Regions: Ethnoarchaeological and Archaeological Approaches, edited by Cameron, Catherine M. and Tomka, Steve A., pp. 99–109. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Roland 1997 The Limits of Settlement Growth. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Friedman, Jonathan 2007 Toward a Comparative Study of Hegemonic Decline in Global Systems: The Complexity of Crisis and the Paradoxes of Differentiated Experiences. In Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth, edited by Costanza, Robert C., Graumlich, Lisa G., and Steffen, William L., pp. 95–113. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Gunderson, Lance H., and Holling, C. S. (editors) 2002 Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Island Press, Washington.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 1993 The Territorial Size of Mississippian Chiefdoms. In Archaeology of Eastern North America: Papers in Honor of Stephen Williams, edited by Stoltman, James B., pp. 143–168. Archaeological Report No. 25. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 1994 An Overview of Lamar Culture. In Ocmulgee Archaeology, 1936–1986, edited by Hally, David J., pp. 144–174. University of Georgia Press, Athens.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 1996 Platform Mound Construction and the Instability of Mississippian Chiefdoms. In Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, edited by Scarry, John F., pp. 92–127. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 1999 The Settlement Pattern of Mississippian Chiefdoms in Northern Georgia. In Settlement Pattern Studies in the Americas: Fifty Years Since Viru, edited by Billman, Brian and Feinman, Gary M., pp. 96–115. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 2006 The Nature of Mississippian Regional Systems. In Light on the Path: The Anthropology and History of the Southeastern Indians, edited by Pluckhahn, Thomas J. and Ethridge, Robbie, pp. 26–42. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 2007 Mississippian Shell Gorgets in Regional Perspective. In Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Chronology, Content, Context, edited by King, Adam, pp. 185–231. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 2008 King: The Social Archaeology of a Late Mississippian Town in Northwestern Georgia. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Hally, David J., Smith, Marvin T., and Langford, James B. Jr. 1990 The Archaeological Reality of de Soto's Coosa. In Columbian Consequences, Volume 2: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East, edited by Thomas, David H., pp. 121–138. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hammerstedt, Scott W., Maxham, Mintcy D., and Myer, Jennifer L. 2016 Rural Settlement in the Black Warrior Valley. In Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland, edited by Steponaitis, Vincas P. and Scarry, C. Margaret, pp. 134–161. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Hill, J. Brett, Clark, Jeffrey 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.Google Scholar
Holling, C. S., and Gunderson, Lance H. 2002 Resilience and Adaptive Cycles. In Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, edited by Gunderson, Lance H. and Holling, C. S., pp. 25–62. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Holling, C. S., Gunderson, Lance H., and Peterson, Garry D. 2002 Sustainability and Panarchies. In Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, edited by Gunderson, Lance H. and Holling, C. S., pp. 63–102. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Holling, C. S., Carpenter, Stephen R., Brock, William A., and Gunderson, Lance H. 2002 Discoveries for Sustainable Futures. In Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, edited by Gunderson, Lance H. and Holling, C. S., pp. 395–417. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hudson, Charles 1994 The Social Contexts of the Chiefdom of Ichisi. In Ocmulgee Archaeology, 1936–1986, edited by Hally, David J., pp. 175–180. University of Georgia Press, Athens.Google Scholar
Johnson, Gregory A. 1982 Organizational Structure and Scalar Stress. In Theory and Explanation in Archaeology, edited by Renfrew, Colin, Rowlands, Michael J., and Segraves, Barbara Abbott, pp. 389–421. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kintigh, Keith W., Altschul, Jeffrey H., Beaudry, Mary C., Drennan, Robert D., Kinzig, Ann P., Kohler, Timothy A., Fredrick Limp, W., Maschner, Herbert D. G., Michener, William K., Pauketat, Timothy R., Peregrine, Peter, Sabloff, Jeremy A., Wilkinson, Tony J., Wright, Henry T., and Zeder, Melinda A. 2014 Grand Challenges for Archaeology. American Antiquity 79:5–24.Google Scholar
Knight, Vernon J. Jr. 1989 Symbolism of Mississippian Mounds. In Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, edited by Waselkov, Gregory A., Wood, Peter. H., and Hatley, Tom, pp. 254–278. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Knight, Vernon J. Jr. 2010 Mound Excavations at Moundville: Architecture, Elites, and Social Order. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Knight, Vernon J. Jr., Brown, James A., and Lankford, George E. 2001 On the Subject Matter of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Art. Southeastern Archaeology 20:129–141.Google Scholar
Kowalewski, Stephen A. 2004 The New Past: From Region to Macroregion. Journal of Social Evolution and History 3(1):89–105.Google Scholar
Kowalewski, Stephen A. 2006 Coalescent Societies. In Light on the Path: The Anthropology and History of the Southeastern Indians, edited by Pluckhahn, Thomas J. and Ethridge, Robbie, pp. 94–122. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Krus, Anthony M., and Cobb, Charles R. 2018 The Mississippian Fin de Siècle in the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee. American Antiquity 83:302–318.Google Scholar
Lewis, R. Barry, and Stout, Charles (editors) 1998 Mississippian Towns and Sacred Spaces: Searching for an Architectural Grammar. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Lindauer, Owen, and Blitz, John H. 1997 Higher Ground: The Archaeology of North American Platform Mounds. Journal of Archaeological Research 5:169–207.Google Scholar
Marcus, Joyce 1998 The Peaks and Valleys of Ancient States: An Extension of the Dynamic Model. In Archaic States, edited by Feinman, Gary M. and Marcus, Joyce, pp. 59–94. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
McAnany, Patricia, and Yoffee, Norman (editors) 2010 Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Milner, George R. 1998 The Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology of a Mississippian Society. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Muller, Jon 1978 The Kincaid System: Mississippian Settlement in the Environs of a Large Site. In Mississippian Settlement Patterns, edited by Smith, Bruce D., pp. 269–92. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Muller, Jon 1997 Mississippian Political Economy. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R., and Alt, Susan M. 2003 Mounds, Memory, and Contested Mississippian History. In Archaeologies of Memory, edited by Van Dyke, Ruth M. and Alcock, Susan E., pp. 151–179. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.Google Scholar
Payne, Claudine 1994 Mississippian Capitals: An Archaeological Investigation into Precolumbian Political Structure. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Pool, Christopher A., and Loughlin, Michael L. 2016 Tres Zapotes: The Evolution of a Resilient Polity in the Olmec Heartland of Mexico. In Beyond Collapse: Archaeological Perspectives on Resilience, Revitalization, and Transformation in Complex Societies, edited by Faulseit, Ronald K., pp. 287–309. Occasional Paper No. 42. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Redfield, Robert 1956 Peasant Society and Culture. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Redman, Charles L. 2005 Resilience Theory in Archaeology. American Anthropologist 107:70–77.Google Scholar
Scarry, John F. 1996 The Nature of Mississippian Societies. In Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, edited by Scarry, John F., pp. 12–24. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Scheffer, Marten 2009 Critical Transitions in Nature and Society. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Schroeder, Sissel 1997 Place, Productivity, and Politics: The Evolution of Cultural Complexity in the Cahokia Area. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, State College.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Glenn M. 2006 From Collapse to Regeneration. In After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies, edited by Schwartz, Glenn M. and Nichols, John J., pp. 3–17. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Glenn M., and Nichols, John J. 2006 After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Smith, Marvin T., and Garrow, Patrick H. 1973 Preliminary Functional Analysis of a Contact Period Domestic Structure in North Georgia. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Memphis, Tennessee.Google Scholar
Smith, Marvin T., and Kowalewski, Stephen A. 1980 Tentative Identification of a Prehistoric “Province” in Piedmont Georgia. Early Georgia 8:1–13.Google Scholar
Snow, Frankie 1990 Pine Barrens Lamar. In Lamar Archaeology: Mississippian Chiefdoms in the Deep South, edited by Williams, Mark and Shapiro, Gary, pp. 82–93. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Keith, King, Adam, and Smith, Karen Y. 2015 Space and Time: The Culture Historical Setting for the Hollywood Phase of the Middle Savannah River Valley. In Archaeological Perspectives on the Southern Appalachians, edited by Gougeon, Ramie A. and Meyers, Maureen S., pp. 171–198. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Keith, Worth, John E., and Snow, Frankie 1990 A Savannah Period Mound in the Upper-Interior Coastal Plain of Georgia. Early Georgia 18: 41–64.Google Scholar
Steponaitis, Vincas P., Swanson, Samuel E., Wheeler, George, and Drooker, Penelope B. 2011 The Provenience and Use of Etowah Palettes. American Antiquity 76:81–106.Google Scholar
Tainter, Joseph A. 1988 The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Tainter, Joseph A. 2016 Why Collapse Is So Difficult to Understand. In Beyond Collapse: Archaeological Perspectives on Resilience, Revitalization, and Transformation in Complex Societies, edited by Faulseit, Ronald K., pp. 27–39. Occasional Paper No. 42. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Varien, Mark 1999 Sedentism and Mobility in a Social Landscape: Mesa Verde and Beyond. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Wilcox, David R., Gregory, David A., and Hill, J. Brett 2007 Zuni in the Puebloan World: Mogollon-Zuni Connections. In Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology, edited by Gregory, David A. and Wilcox, David R., pp. 165–209. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Williams, Mark 1996 Archaeological Investigations at the Sawyer Site (9SL1). LAMAR Institute Publication 32. LAMAR Institute, Athens, Georgia.Google Scholar
Williams, Stephen 1967 On the Location of the Historic Taensa Villages. In The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology Papers 1965–1966, Vol. 1, edited by South, Stanley, pp. 2–13. Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Columbia.Google Scholar
Yoffee, Norman 1988 Orienting Collapse. In The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, edited by Yoffee, Norman and Cowgill, George L., pp. 1–19. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Hally and Chamblee supplementary material

Hally and Chamblee supplementary material

Download Hally and Chamblee supplementary material(File)
File 141.9 KB