BIOSOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND CHANGE IN EAST TENNESSEE LATE WOODLAND AND MISSISSIPPIAN

RICHARD CRISS HELMKAMP, Purdue University

Abstract

The Late Woodland (ca. A.D. 600 to A.D. 1100) and the Mississippian (ca. A.D. 1100 to A.D. 1600) periods in East Tennessee span a millenium of dramatic cultural and human ecological change. Significant changes in settlement and subsistence systems are well documented, and many indicators of individual status suggest equally significant social and political changes. In spite of the volume of earlier research, little is known of such basic properties of organization as organizational scale, boundary permeability, and the intensity of local and inter-local integration. This study focuses primarily on these properties and how they changed. Also examined is the degree to which heredity determined access to positions of high socio-political status, and how the development of this differentiation coincided with changes in the basic properties of organization mentioned above. The principal methodology employs the genetic affinity of spatially differentiated populations as a measure of socio-political integration. The analyses of Late Woodland organization found the biosocial landscape to be segregated into numerous small-scaled socio-political organizations. These localized "tribal" organizations were found to be partitioned from each other by highly impermeable boundaries at intervals averaging about 12 kilometers. Local residential units appeared to be tightly coupled to each other. Mississippian organization on the other hand was found to be characterized by a much larger scale of organization, about 25 kilometers, and much more permeable local boundaries. No indication of regional centralization was found, but the existence of hereditarily determined central or hierarchical roles (ranking) in local systems was suggested. The findings lend support to the arguement that boundary permeability and organizational scale are inversely related. There is also the indication that the local development of ranking organization is contingent on the presence of low boundary permeability and at this social scale, inversely related to the scale of organization. Marked socio-political status differentiation was suggested to have appeared under these conditions and to have dissipated as local organizations became larger and more open. These findings are interpreted as being in agreement with the view that the genesis of many traits, including ranking organization, originally thought to be entirely of Mississippian origin can be attributed to processes that originated during the Late Woodland period.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

Archaeology

COinS