Archaeology and the “Savage Slot”: Displacement and Emplacement in the Premodern World

Abstract

Many attempts to understand the cultural impact of the forces of modernism, capitalism, and globalization have come to highlight contemporary cultural diversity at the expense of reifying a homogenized past of traditional, static societies. The “savage slot” still provides a convenient myth for characterizing small‐scale communities before the advent of modernism—communities that experienced dramatic change only as they were pulled into the world system. Archaeological evidence from the southeastern United States challenges this stereotype, as Native American groups routinely migrated and continually redefined notions of “place” and “locality”—processes often treated as distinctly (post)modern. Such case studies emphasize the importance of working toward a deep historical anthropology that will continue to undermine stereotypes about the Other in the past as well as the present.

Storage and relative surplus at the Mississippian site of Moundville

“…It is these more complex situations that may account for much of the dynamic social, political, ideological, and economic competition that was in part implicated in the reasonably shortlived existences of many Mississippian polities (Anderson, 1994(Anderson, , 1999Blitz, 1999;Cobb, 2005;Jenkins and Krause, 2009, p. 215). In such social environments, corporate groups with a stake in the game are likely to resist the establishment of permanent hierarchies that would limit their involvement in the sociopolitical arena (Spielmann, 2002(Spielmann, , 2007.…”

“…Although socially-instituted political economies produced substantial surpluses in the Mississippian world, we are also aware that Mississippian polities were shaped by historically-driven processes leading to fissioning, migrations, aggregations, cycling, and whole site and region-wide abandonments, carried out by competitive social groups organized by various forms of kinship and internal chiefly or status-based reckoning (Anderson, 1994;Beck, 2003Beck, , 2006Blitz, 1999;Blitz and Lorenz, 2006;Cobb, 2005;Cobb and Butler, 2002;Cobb and King, 2005;Kelly, 2007;King, 2003;Pauketat, 2003;Williams, 1990).…”

“…After decades of work, archaeologists have shown that seldom do single factors alone account for the changes we see in the archaeological past. As mono-causal explanations of social change have largely fallen from favor, so too have depictions that past societies were composed of a few homogeneous, internally undifferentiated, and complementary social groupings (Brumfiel, 1992(Brumfiel, , 1994Cobb, 2005;Crumley, 1995;Lightfoot et al, 1998;Pauketat and Meskell, 2010;Sassaman, 2010). At various scales, groups operated to create overlapping spheres of identity, belonging, motivation, competition, cooperation, and distinction.…”

“…Several researchers have contributed to our understanding of many of the social processes involved in the coalescence, operation, and dissolution of complex Mississippian polities (e.g., Anderson, 1994Anderson, , 1999Beck et al, 2007;Blitz, 1999;Cobb, 2005;Hally, 1996;Knight and Steponaitis, 1998;Milner, 1998;Muller, 1997;Peebles and Kus, 1977;Pauketat, 2004Pauketat, , 2007Saitta, 1994). From a general perspective, similar processes are thought to have influenced the histories of other early complex agricultural societies.…”

Technological Change and the Archaeology of Emergent Colonialism in the Kingdom of Hawai‘i

“…, Carter 1990;Garland 1996;Kirch and Sahlins 1992;Mills 2007;Six 2005;Sweeney 1992) most research in Hawai'i has focused on the pre-contact period. Fortunately, burgeoning interest in the effects of European and American colonialism throughout the world, including Hawai'i, have heightened the relevance of archaeology to historical anthropology (e.g., Cobb 2005;Deagan 1988Deagan , 1998Kirch and Sahlins 1992;Orser 1996). Fig.…”