Community organization in a small-scale Mississippian society: Implications for chiefdom formation.
Item
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Title
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Community organization in a small-scale Mississippian society: Implications for chiefdom formation.
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Identifier
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AAI9119613
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identifier
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9119613
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Creator
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Blitz, John Howard.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Warren R. DeBoer
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Date
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1991
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Archaeology | Anthropology, Cultural
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Abstract
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There is general agreement that late prehistoric Mississippian populations in the Southeastern United States were organized as ranked societies or chiefdoms. Yet little is known about how chiefdoms form or the basis of social ranking. Both large and small polities existed but there has been little comparative study to determine how sociopolitical and economic organization varies with the size of Mississippian polities. Understanding the relationship between polity size, degree of social ranking, and resource control is necessary for an interpretation of the developmental cycle of chiefdom formation and fragmentation.;These questions are addressed with excavation data from a small Mississippian polity in the central Tombigbee River valley of Alabama and Mississippi: Lubbub Creek, a local center, and four farmstead sites. The emergence of formal leadership institutions in Mississippian societies may be related to conditions promoting farmstead/local center integration. Protection of dispersed farmsteads and harvests created a situation for which storage and consumption of pooled food at a fortified center was a solution. Site seasonality, scale of fortifications, and faunal evidence reveal farmsteads and local center to be interdependent. Architectural, artifact, and faunal evidence demonstrates that the Lubbub Creek mound was the focus of ritual and feasting, a context for the emergence of sanctified authority.;Tombigbee farmstead/local center artifact classes are compared to determine if differential distribution reflects institutionalized restricted access. Contrary to some models of chiefdom political economy, prestige goods production and consumption evidence is found throughout the settlement system. The effect of regional exchange/alliance networks on the development of small Mississippian polities is explored through comparison of non-local artifact frequencies in Tombigbee and Moundville burials. Would-be elites at Lubbub Creek were apparently unsuccessful in expanding economic control, perhaps due to the inability to compete on an equal basis with larger polities for access to non-local goods.;It is concluded that the sanctified, security maintainance roles of communal food storage/disbursement and war leadership were a sufficient basis for formal chiefly authority in small polities such as Lubbub Creek but insufficient to sustain economically-based social stratification.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
