This volume uses case studies to capture the recent emphasis on history in archaeological reconstructions of America’s deep past. Previously, archaeologists studying “prehistoric” America focused on long-term evolutionary change, imagining ancient societies like living organisms slowly adapting to environmental challenges. Contributors to this volume demonstrate how today’s researchers are incorporating a new awareness that the precolonial era was also shaped by people responding to historical trends and forces. Essays in this volume delve into sites across what is now the United States Southeast—the St. Johns River Valley, the Gulf Coast, Greater Cahokia, Fort Ancient, the southern Appalachians, and the Savannah River Valley. Prominent scholars of the region highlight the complex interplay of events, human decision-making, movements, and structural elements that combined to shape native societies. The research in this volume represents a profound shift in thinking about precolonial and colonial history and begins to erase the false divide between ancient and contemporary America. Contributors: Susan M. Alt | Robin Beck | Eric E. Bowne | Robert A. Cook | Robbie Ethridge | Jon Bernard Marcoux | Timothy R. Pauketat | Thomas J. Pluckhahn | Asa R. Randall | Christopher B. Rodning | Kenneth E. Sassaman | Lynne P. Sullivan | Victor D. Thompson | Neill J. Wallis | John E. Worth A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

A chronological summary of major stages in Southeastern United States' development, this unique textbook overviews the region's archaeology from 20,000 years ago to World War I. Early chapters review the history and development of archaeology as a discipline. The following chapters, organized in chronological order, highlight the archaeological characteristics of each featured period. The book's final chapters discuss new directions in Southeastern archaeology, including trends in teaching, research, the business of archaeology, and the public's growing interest. This versatile text perfectly suits undergraduates or anyone requiring a hands-on guide for self-exploration of the fascinating region. This is the first-of-its kind book to summarize Southeastern archaeology. It includes both prehistoric and historic archaeology. Its easy-to-read format is filled with valuable research information. Each chapter is chronologically organized and fully referenced. It has broad audience appeal.

This volume provides a comprehensive, broad-based overview, including first-person accounts, of the development and conduct of archaeology in the Southeast over the past three decades. Histories of Southeastern Archaeology originated as a symposium at the 1999 Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) organized in honor of the retirement of Charles H. McNutt following 30 years of teaching anthropology. Written for the most part by members of the first post-depression generation of southeastern archaeologists, this volume offers a window not only into the archaeological past of the United States but also into the hopes and despairs of archaeologists who worked to write that unrecorded history or to test scientific theories concerning culture. The contributors take different approaches, each guided by experience, personality, and location, as well as by the legislation that shaped the practical conduct of archaeology in their area. Despite the state-by-state approach, there are certain common themes, such as the effect (or lack thereof) of changing theory in Americanist archaeology, the explosion of contract archaeology and its relationship to academic archaeology, goals achieved or not achieved, and the common ground of SEAC. This book tells us how we learned what we now know about the Southeast's unwritten past. Of obvious interest to professionals and students of the field, this volume will also be sought after by historians, political scientists, amateurs, and anyone interested in the South. Additional reviews: "A unique publication that presents numerous historical, topical, and personal perspectives on the archaeological heritage of the Southeast."—Southeastern Archaeology

Contributions by Keith A. Baca, Jeffrey P. Brain, Samuel O. Brookes, Ian W. Brown, Philip J. Carr, Jessica Crawford, Patricia Galloway, Alison M. Hadley, Christopher T. Hays, Edward R. Henry, Cliff Jenkins, Jay K. Johnson, Evan Peacock, Janet Rafferty, Maria Schleidt, Mary Evelyn Starr, James B. Stoltman, Andrew M. Triplett, Melissa H. Twaroski, and Richard A. Weinstein This volume includes original scholarship on a wide array of archaeological research across the South. One essay explores the effects of climate on early cultures in Mississippi. Contributors reveal the production and distribution of stone effigy beads, which were centered in southwest Mississippi some 5,000 years ago, and trace contact between different parts of the prehistoric Southeast as seen in the distribution of clay cooking balls. Researchers explore small, enigmatic sites in the hill country of northern Mississippi now marked by scatters of broken pottery and a large, seemingly isolated "platform" mound in Calhoun County. Pieces describe a mound group in Chickasaw County built by early agriculturalists who subsequently abandoned the area and a similar prehistoric abandonment event in Winston and Choctaw Counties. A large pottery collection from the famous Anna Mounds site in Adams County, excavations at a Chickasaw Indian site in Lee County, camps and works of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the pine hill country of southern Mississippi, and the history of logging in the Mississippi Delta all yield abundant, new understandings of the past. Overview papers include a retrospective on archaeology in the National Forests of north Mississippi, a look at a number of mound sites in the lower Mississippi Delta, and a study of how communities of learning in field archaeology are built, with prominent archaeologist Samuel O. Brookes's achievements as a focal point. History buffs, artifact enthusiasts, students, and professionals all will find something of interest in this book, which opens doors on the prehistory and history of Mississippi.

A chronological summary of major stages in Southeastern United States' development, this unique textbook overviews the region's archaeology from 20,000 years ago to World War I. Early chapters review the history and development of archaeology as a discipline. The following chapters, organized in chronological order, highlight the archaeological characteristics of each featured period. The book's final chapters discuss new directions in Southeastern archaeology, including trends in teaching, research, the business of archaeology, and the public's growing interest. This versatile text perfectly suits undergraduates or anyone requiring a hands-on guide for self-exploration of the fascinating region. This is the first-of-its kind book to summarize Southeastern archaeology. It includes both prehistoric and historic archaeology. Its easy-to-read format is filled with valuable research information. Each chapter is chronologically organized and fully referenced. It has broad audience appeal.

"This book begins the attempt to answer many of the archaeological questions we are finally asking about the long-ignored but crucially important and ever-present social roles of gender among native Americans in the Southeast." -- Nancy Marie White, University of South Florida, coeditor of Grit-Tempered: Early Women Archaeologists in the Southeastern United States In the first book about the archaeology of gender in native societies of southeastern North America, these lively essays reconstruct the different social roles and relationships adopted by women and men before and after the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century. Case studies explore the ways in which gender differences affected people's daily lives by examining material evidence from archaeological sites, including grave goods, human remains, spatial configurations of burials and architecture, and evidence for economic specialization and the division of labor within households. Contents Introduction: Gender and the Archaeology of the Southeast, by Christopher B. Rodning and Jane M. Eastman 1. Challenges for Regendering Southeastern Prehistory, by Cheryl Claassen 2. The Gender Division of Labor in Mississippian Households: Its Role in Shaping Production for Exchange, by Larissa Thomas 3. Life Courses and Gender among Late Prehistoric Siouan Communities, by Jane M. Eastman 4. Mortuary Ritual and Gender Ideology in Protohistoric Southwestern North Carolina, by Christopher B. Rodning 5. Those Men in the Mounds: Gender, Politics, and Mortuary Practices in Late Prehistoric Eastern Tennessee, by Lynne P. Sullivan 6. Piedmont Siouans and Mortuary Archaeology on the Eno River, North Carolina, by Elizabeth I. Monahan Driscoll, R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr., and H. Trawick Ward 7. Auditory Exostoses: A Clue to Gender in Prehistoric and Historic Farming Communities of North Carolina and Virginia, by Patricia M. Lambert 8. Concluding Thoughts, by Janet E. Levy Jane M. Eastman is visiting assistant professor of anthropology at East Carolina University. Christopher B. Rodning is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Native peoples living around the Gulf of Mexico had much in common, from the time of the earliest hunter-fisher-gatherers onward. There have been hypotheses of prehistoric interaction between the southeastern United States and Mesoamerica, but explorations of the processes have been few. This volume chronicles the archaeological continuities and discontinuities along the Gulf Coast from Archaic through Postclassic/Mississippian times and later, including shell mounds/middens and estuarine adaptations, subsistence similarities, the relationship of early settlement and sea level rise, cultural complexity, early monumental construction, long-distance exchange relations, and symbolism and iconography. Many debatable issues are explored. Northeastern Mexico is a region relatively remote from the Mesoamerican heartland, as is coastal Texas from the southeastern United States. The connecting area of the south Texas/Mexican coast may have been too inhospitable for much habitation, thus inhibiting interaction, yet some artifact types and styles, not to mention food crops, crossed these boundaries. The long-distance diffusion of ideas of sociocultural complexity, food production, and monument construction are reexamined in Gulf Coast Archaeology with new data and wide geographic prespectives. This book is an important contribution to the hypothesis of prehistoric culture contact and interaction between native groups in North America and Mesoamerica, which has been an openly debated topic over the last century.

Native American populations both accommodated and resisted the encroachment of European powers in southeastern North America from the arrival of Spaniards in the sixteenth century to the first decades of the American republic. Tracing changes to the region's natural, cultural, social, and political environments, Charles Cobb provides an unprecedented survey of the landscape histories of Indigenous groups across this critically important area and time period. Cobb explores how Native Americans responded to the hardships of epidemic diseases, chronic warfare, and enslavement. Some groups developed new modes of migration and travel to escape conflict while others built new alliances to create safety in numbers. Cultural maps were redrawn as Native communities evolved into the groups known today as the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Catawba, and Seminole peoples. Cobb connects the formation of these coalitions to events in the wider Atlantic World, including the rise of plantation slavery, the growth of the deerskin trade, the birth of the consumer revolution, and the emergence of capitalism. Using archaeological data, historical documents, and ethnohistorical accounts, Cobb argues that Native inhabitants of the Southeast successfully navigated the challenges of this era, reevaluating long-standing assumptions that their cultures collapsed under the impact of colonialism. A volume in the series the American Experience in Archaeological Perspective, edited by Michael S. Nassaney

Prehistoric Florida societies, particularly those of the peninsula, have been largely ignored or given only minor consideration in overviews of the Mississippian southeast (A.D. 1000-1600). This groundbreaking volume lifts the veil of uniformity frequently draped over these regions in the literature, providing the first comprehensive examination of Mississippi-period archaeology in the state. Featuring contributions from some of the most prominent researchers in the field, this collection describes and synthesizes the latest data from excavations throughout Florida. In doing so, it reveals a diverse and vibrant collection of cleared-field maize farmers, part-time gardeners, hunter-gatherers, and coastal and riverine fisher/shellfish collectors who formed a distinctive part of the Mississipian southeast.

"We now realize that to understand the origin of the state, we must first understand the development of the chiefdom. And nowhere in the world is the study of chiefdoms being pursued as vigorously as in the Southeast. Combining tantalizing bits of ethnohistory with painstaking archaeology, the scholars of this region are adding greatly to our understanding of the chiefdom as a political form. The present volume, which is the work of outstanding specialists in the region, is a striking example of the rich fruit being yielded by this research."--Robert L. Carneiro, Curator of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History "A major step forward in the history of work on Mississippian culture. . . . This book is a must for those interested in the period--and highly recommended for archaeologists who are not southeasterners."--James A. Brown, Northwestern University "will do blurb after seeing page proofs"--Robert Carneiro, American Museum of Natural History The great societies that flourished during the late Precolumbian period--called Mississippian chiefdoms--disappeared shortly after European contact, leaving a legacy across the southeastern United States. This book presents up-to-date information about their political structures, offering new perspectives on "cycling"--the growth, collapse, and reappearance of chiefdoms. Using archaeological discoveries and historical documents, the book documents the dynamic and varied nature of chiefdoms and explains why they evolved the way they did. It illustrates the value of studies of the Mississippian societies for addressing general anthropological questions. Contents Part I. Introduction 1. Looking for and at Mississippian Political Change, by John F. Scarry 2. The Nature of Mississippian Societies, by John F. Scarry Part II. Structure and Change in Mississippian Societies 3. Development and Dissolution of a Mississippian Society in the American Bottom, Illinois, by George R. Milner 4. Markers of Social Integration: The Development of Centralized Authority in the Spiro Region, by J. Daniel Rogers 5. Control over Goods and the Political Stability of the Moundville Chiefdom, by Paul D. Welch 6. Platform-Mound Construction and the Instability of Mississippian Chiefdoms, by David J. Hally 7. Mississippian Political Dynamics in the Oconee Valley, Georgia, by Mark Williams and Gary Shapiro 8. Chiefly Cycling and Large-Scale Abandonments as Viewed from the Savannah River Basin, by David G. Anderson 9. Stability and Change in the Apalachee Chiefdom, by John F. Scarry Part III. Chiefly Politics and the Mississippian Societies 10. Fluctuations Between Simple and Complex Chiefdoms: Cycling in the Late Prehistoric Southeast, by David G. Anderson John F. Scarry is research associate and research assistant professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the coauthor of San Pedro y San Pablo de Patale: A Seventeenth-Century Spanish Mission in Leon County, Florida, and has written numerous book chapters and articles for publications such as The Florida Anthropologist, Southeastern Archaeology, and Southeastern Archaeological Conference Bulletin.