Activity Patterns and Division of Labor at a Southeastern Tennessee Late Mississippian Site: Toqua

Abstract

PagesEntheseal changes (EC), formally musculoskeletal stress markers, are the recordation of osteophytic change at an enthesis (any muscular origin or insertion). Study of EC is valuable in decoding past life activities, social dynamics, and health through the quantification of reactive osseous changes at entheses. The current study assesses EC to ascertain activity patterns at the Late Mississippian Dallas Phase (~1300-1550 AD) site of Toqua, aboriginally located in the lower Little Tennessee River Valley of East Tennessee. Toqua was a multiple mound, palisaded settlement of maize-intensive agriculturalists. The subsistence strategy may have required intense and possibly specialized labor of the upper arms and shoulders. This study compares entheseal scores of 96 individuals at the origins of biceps brachii, triceps brachii, deltoideus, and pectoralis major on the humerus, radius, and ulna of males (n=48) and females (n=46). These adults are separated into three age-at-death groups: Young Adult (15-30 years of age [yoa]), Middle Adult (31-44 yoa), and Old Adult (45-55+ yoa). The data suggests changes and transitions in social roles or labor patterns as people senesce and tentatively supports a heterarchical social organization. Burial patterns both here and at other Dallas Phase sites and ethnohistoric evidence support this notion. Power relationship within the Dallas phase and at this site may have been more horizontally than vertically complex. This sample does not reflect sustained, life-long labor, but rather reflects the heterarchical or fluid social roles and power relationships reflected in the SE Appalachian mortuary patterns and programs.

Applying the Index of Care to the Mississippian period: A case study of treponematosis, physical impairment, and probable health‐related caregiving from the Holliston Mills site, TN

“…Biomechanical data from skeletons from Toqua (ca. 1300–1550 ad ) suggest that both males and females, increasingly from young (15–30 years) to old ages (45–55+ years) engaged in activities involving intensive, repetitive use of the arms, especially the shoulder girdle (i.e., deltoid muscle) (Lloyd, ). Toqua is a Dallas site with evidence of fluid social roles and horizontal power relationships highly similar to Holliston Mills.…”

“…Toqua is a Dallas site with evidence of fluid social roles and horizontal power relationships highly similar to Holliston Mills. Ethnohistoric evidence from the Cherokee, which are the most relevant ethnographic analogues for Dallas societies (see Lloyd, ; Sullivan & Harle, ), suggests that women engaged in generalized foraging, domestic (e.g., pottery production), and agricultural labor throughout the year, with participation in field labor stretching from young to old ages. Men engaged mainly in specialized, seasonal agricultural and hunting and fishing labour (see Lloyd, ).…”

“…Ethnohistoric evidence from the Cherokee, which are the most relevant ethnographic analogues for Dallas societies (see Lloyd, ; Sullivan & Harle, ), suggests that women engaged in generalized foraging, domestic (e.g., pottery production), and agricultural labor throughout the year, with participation in field labor stretching from young to old ages. Men engaged mainly in specialized, seasonal agricultural and hunting and fishing labour (see Lloyd, ). Burial 86's impairment would likely have impeded participation in many of these, except for highly sedentary physical activities, such as tilling—done while seated—and pottery production.…”

“…But the overall frequency of artifacts associated with high status at the site—and the availability of resources that this suggests—and Franklin and colleagues' characterization of Holliston Mills as a synthetic, relatively egalitarian society may suggest that Burial 86's care (even over the long term) was not overly taxing. However, even in a large town, Burial 86's relative inability to engage in subsistence activities and physical labor that were consistent and intensive for other adult community members, especially in adulthood (see Lloyd, ) may have incurred a drain on some community resources. Furthermore, there is no reason for Burial 86 or their community to think that they would eventually be “cured.” Neither the fracture, especially once healed, nor the treponematosis could have been resolved with available medical technologies (see Mooney & Olbrechts, ; Noé, ).…”

“…Dallas phase burials occurred within villages (e.g., pits near domestic structures). They were semiflexed and accompanied by diverse mortuary artefacts (Schroedl, ); sex and age‐related patterns within these, along with ethnohistoric evidence, suggest gendered power differences within public versus private domains (Lloyd, ).…”