Mississippian Chiefdoms: How Complex?

Abstract

During the Mississippian period (A.D. 1000-1500) the southeastern United States witnessed a broadscale fluorescence of polities characterized by impressive earthwork construction, rich mortuary offerings, and intensified agriculture. Research on the nature of complexity in these so-called chiefdoms has been an enduring issue in North American archaeology, even as this research has undergone several paradigmatic shifts. This study focuses on the primary dimensions of the archaeological record used to describe and explain variation in Mississippian complexitypolity scale, settlement and landscape, the organization of labor, mortuary ritual and ideology, and tribute and feasting. Changing perspectives toward the organization of complexity and power have become increasingly pronounced in each of these categories. 65 the 1970s onward in part because it was a theoretically compelling view and in part because several of those archaeologists-as well as a subsequent generation of influential archaeologists from Michigan-work in the Mississippian Southeast. Today when archaeologists refer to Mississippian complexity, they usually refer to the political aspects of these chiefdoms. Yet this is a tacit understanding, and, with few exceptions (e.g., Emerson & Pauketat 2002, Saitta 1994, Schroeder 2003), there has been little explicit discussion in Mississippian circles about the precise meaning of complexity. Variation in complexity is commonly described by subcategories of chiefdoms based on the relative degree of inferred political and economic power. To that end, the most commonly applied terms are "simple," "complex," and "paramount" chiefdoms. It would overstate the case, nevertheless, to argue that considerations of Mississippian complexity are merely exercises in pigeonholing. Lurking behind these categories there is a deeper, implicit interest in the exercise of power and authority. "Complexity" serves as a gloss for these types of relations. Hence, discussions about complexity now tend to be phrased in terms of the political economy, and political economy is commonly tied to the issue of power. Using political economy as a point of departure, one can discern two trends in research on Mississippian complexity. First, the notion of political economy has expanded from a materialist basis to one that incorporates considerations of ideology, or what some refer to as political culture (Pauketat 1997, Rees 2002). Second, vertical conceptions of power focused on elites have broadened to consider both horizontal characteristics of the political economy (or heterarchy, following Crumley 1987) and the actions of commoners in terms of agency and resistance. These trends can be attributed to the realization that power is not solely a structural feature of chiefdoms that can be expressed as incremental forms of domination. Power also has an experiential quality; it is something that is acted out, reproduced, contested, and transformed in the daily interactions of actors. It is not easy to parse advocates cleanly into one approach t...

New Perspectives in Mississippian Archaeology

“…Nevertheless, this divide continues to shape research agendas. Although organizational diversity across sites, polities, and regions is widely acknowledged Scarry 1999), interpretive frameworks continue to diverge over the primary basis of power and the form of social, political, and economic organization in these societies (Cobb 2003;Milner 2006;Smith 2007;Welch and Butler 2006), mirroring debates among those who study other early complex societies (e.g., Earle 2004;Iannone 2002;Wells 2006;Yoffee 2005). The theoretical division is a dichotomy that centers on a debate about centralized versus decentralized political organization, differing emphases on hierarchical or heterarchical social formations, and disagreements over the explanatory weight given to economic versus ideological sources of power, or even if these sources of power should be regarded as separate analytical categories.…”

“…The decentralized perspective gained influence with the absence of archaeological evidence for largescale redistribution, full-time craft specialization, pervasive controls over access to material resources, or health distinctions between elites and nonelites, at least in some Mississippian polities both large and small (Blitz 1993;Byers 2006;Cobb 2000Cobb , 2003Milner 2006;Muller 1997;Powell 2007;Saitta 1994). Critical readings of the ethnohistorical sources that influenced the centralized perspective, such as the early Spanish expeditions and French accounts of the Natchez, led to a revisionist argument that these accounts were marred by ethnocentrism, had been applied uncritically, did not depict class societies, and that chiefly power was less autocratic and more constrained by councils and factions than previously depicted (Blitz 1993, pp.…”

“…Attention is directed to the social contexts of production as structured by kinship, nonkin associations, group identity, and efforts to produce and control ritual knowledge. From this perspective, it is unlikely that materialization of the ideological order was the exclusive prerogative of a noble class because corporate social segments, cults, sodalities, and other such entities created checks and balances on elite actions (Blitz and Lorenz 2006;Byers 2006;Cobb 2000Cobb , 2003Saitta 1994;Wilson 2008). Thus the assignment of value and meaning to production and exchange was likely negotiated, contested, and fluid (Alt 2006).…”

Re-Inventing Mississippian Tradition at Etowah, Georgia

“…1). Maize rapidly gained in importance in the diet, social ranking became greatly pronounced (with the usual reference to "chiefdoms"), population levels climbed, the mound and plaza complex assumed prominence on the landscape, and certain forms of symbolism and iconography were widely shared (Cobb, 2003;Smith, 1986;Steponaitis, 1986). But this expansive tableau was dynamic, continuing to develop emergent properties that came and went through time (Anderson, 1999;King, 2003;Kowalewski, 1996).…”

Tribe

“…This was done most explicitly by evolutionist anthropologists such as Sahlins and Service. [11] This thinking has remained surprisingly influential among those working on state formation in cultural anthropology and archaeology (see, e.g., Carneiro 2003;Cobb 2003;Earle 1991). But, rooted as it is in the same colonial history and primitivist theory as the tribe, the term 'chiefdom' is open to many of the same critiques.…”