Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland
Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland
Moundville, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is one of the largest pre-Columbian mound sites in North America. Comprising twenty-nine earthen mounds that were once platforms for chiefly residences and public buildings, Moundville was a major political and religious center for the people living in its region and for the wider Mississippian world. A much-needed synthesis of the rapidly expanding archaeological work that has taken place in the region over the past two decades, this volume presents the results of multifaceted research and new excavations. Using models deeply rooted in local ethnohistory, it ties Moundville and its people more closely than before to the ethnography of native southerners and emphasizes the role of social memory, iconography, and ritual practices both at the mound center and in the rural hinterland, providing an up-to-date and refreshingly nuanced interpretation of Mississippian culture. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
Fascinating. . . . Highly recommended.’—Choice ‘A very important contribution to the understanding of a great Native American center that brings fresh insights to a field of research that has troubled scholars for many decades.’—American Archaeology ‘We need to theorize the mounds, mound-builders, and moundvilles of North America more effectively. Better historical contextualizations, as seen in . . . Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland are the beginning.’—Antiquity ‘For Southeastern archaeologists the Rethinking Moundville volume will be a necessary addition to their bookshelves. . . . Long overdue.’—Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology ‘A major publication in Southeastern archaeology. It not only summarizes two decades of work by multiple researchers, but also marshals that large body of work into a coherent argument that leads convincingly to a new interpretation of one of the region’s most thoroughly studied sites.’—Mississippi Archaeology
A substantive addition to our knowledge about one of the premier archaeological sites in eastern North America.'—George Milner, author of The Cahokia Chiefdom 'Brings fresh thinking into a well-trod path of scholarship and goes well beyond the confines of the specialties of subsistence, settlement, and technology to shed light on the social function of the Moundville site. An enjoyable read for those who relish the interplay between social and political concepts and archaeological data.'—James A. Brown, author of The Spiro Ceremonial Center: The Archaeology of Arkansas Valley Caddoan Culture in Eastern Oklahoma
Vincas P. Steponaitis, William E. Leuchtenburg Distinguished Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology and secretary of the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is coeditor of Archaeology of the Moundville Chiefdom. C. Margaret Scarry, professor of anthropology and director of the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the editor of Foraging and Farming in the Eastern Woodlands.
Contents 1. New Directions in Moundville Research I Vincas P. Steponaitis and C. Margaret Scarry 2. Social Archaeology of Monumental Spaces at Moundville 23 Vernon James Knight Jr. 3. Long-Term Trends in the Making and Materialization of Social Groups at Moundville 44 Gregory D. Wilson 4. Mound X and Selective Forgetting at Early Moundville 54 John H. Blitz 5. Was There a Moundville Medicine Society? 74 George E. Lankford 6. The Distribution of Hemphill-Style Artifacts at Moundville 99 Erin E. Phillips 7. Moundville Palettes- Prestige Goods or Inalienable Possessions? 121 Vincas P. Steponaitis 8. Rural Settlement in the Black Warrior Valley 134 Scott W. Hammerstedt, Mintey D. Maxham, and Jennifer L. Myer 9. Late Prehistoric Social Practice in the Rural Black Warrior River Valley 162 John F. Scarry, H. Edwin Jackson, and Mintey D. Maxham 10. Domestic and Ritual Meals in the Moundville Chiefdom 187 H. Edwin Jackson, C. Margaret Scarry, and Susan Scott 11. Crafting Moundville Palettes 234 Jera R. Davis 12. Moundville as a Ceremonial Ground 255 C. Margaret Scarry and Vincas P. Steponaitis List of Contributors 301 Index 305
