Mississippian Period Status Differentiation through Textile Analysis: A Caddoan Example

Kuttruff, Jenna Tedrick

doi:10.1017/s0002731600056134

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Likewise, in addition to promoting shell-bead manufacture, elites at Cahokia may have sponsored specialized production of groundstone gaming disks (chunkey stones), megalithic axeheads, fireclay figurines, and copper ornaments (DeBoer 1993;Pauketat 1994Pauketat , 1997. Mississippian chiefs also had preferred access to nondurable materials rarely recovered by archaeologists, such as high-quality textiles (Phillips & Brown 1978, Drooker 1992, Kuttruff 1993, although inferences about production in such cases must be gleaned from the quality of the final product. Nevertheless, production patterns at certain mound sites indicate elites evinced a keen interest in overseeing the manufacture of valued objects.…”

Section: The Organization Of Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

Mississippian Chiefdoms: How Complex?

Cobb

2003

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

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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...

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Section: The Organization Of Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

Mississippian Chiefdoms: How Complex?

Cobb

2003

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

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“…In addition to turquoise, the presence at the Spiro Mounds Site, also along the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, of textiles woven from Southwestern cotton (Kuttruff 1993), Olivella shell beads from the Gulf of California (Kozuch 2002) and sherds of Southwestern pottery (Sievert & Rogers 2011) provide more support for the argument that central Arkansas River Valley communities were involved at some level in trade relations, or, perhaps more likely, in giftexchange networks connecting them to Southwestern counterparts. Information about Mesoamerican spiritual personages might have travelled along either channel.…”

Section: Mesoamerican Exotica?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmological Landscapes and Exotic Gods: American Indian Rock Art in Arkansas

Sabo¹,

Hilliard

Walker

2015

CAJ

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Indian rock art is distributed across a portion of the east-flowing Arkansas RiverValley in a distinctive spatial pattern in which motifs and compositions referencing spirit world subject matter predominate along the north side of the river, in contrast to imagery depicting the observable world on the south. This pattern accords with cosmological components of the belief systems of Dhegiha Siouan-speaking tribes, as expressed in the spatial elements of other cultural phenomena, including village layouts and ritual choreographies, among such groups as the Osage and Quapaw, who occupied the region during later historic times. One sandstone prominence also located south of the river attracted the attention of Precolumbian artists, who decorated its exposed surfaces with an intriguing depiction of a mask, partly obscured by lichen, exhibiting the telltale eyes and other characteristics of the Mesoamerican rain god Tlaloc. Examination of this image, along with a second possible Mesoamerican-or Southwestern-inspired image located north of the river, serves to enlarge our understanding of the wider distributional pattern, especially on the topic of how local communities incorporated exotic ideas into the fabric of their cosmological landscapes.

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“…Repeating this process could allow the creation of polychrome designs. Resist dyeing requires special materials, knowledge, and skill, and the only other archaeologically known examples of the use of resist dyeing in North America come from Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma and date from nearly 1,000 years later (Kuttruff 1993). Baldia (2005) believes that the development of this complex technique at Seip indicates the presence of artisans specializing in the production of textile crafts.…”

Section: Seip (33ro40)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in Ohio Hopewell Political Economies

Coon

2009

Am. antiq.

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I examine mortuary, artifactual, symbolic, and proxemic data from Hopewell sites in southwestern and south-central Ohio to suggest that people associated with south-central Ohio sites such as Hopewell and Seip implemented more exclusionary political strategies, while people at southwestern sites such as Turner and Fort Ancient maintained a more corporate orientation through much of the Middle Woodland period. The recognition of this dimension of variation among Ohio Hopewell peoples has important implications for the study of the evolution of middle-range societies.

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Mississippian Period Status Differentiation through Textile Analysis: A Caddoan Example

Cited by 5 publications

References 14 publications

Mississippian Chiefdoms: How Complex?

Mississippian Chiefdoms: How Complex?

Cosmological Landscapes and Exotic Gods: American Indian Rock Art in Arkansas

Variation in Ohio Hopewell Political Economies

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