Regional variation in health and lifeways among Late Prehistoric Georgia agriculturalists
Abstract
It is widely accepted that most societies which existed in the Southeastern U.S. during the Late Prehistoric (A.D. 1350–1550) were sedentary, stratified, and had subsistence economies based on maize horticulture. However, the nature of these characteristics was not identical among local groups and problems such as the diversity in scale and centralization among these “Mississippian” political forms have not received sufficient attention. Variation of this kind could have produced differences in health and behavior that would be observable in the form of skeletal and dental pathological lesions. Late Prehistoric populations from Georgia expressed varying degrees of social complexity and there are large skeletal samples suitable for comparison that exist from two distinct geographic and environmental areas. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine and interpret the impact of “Mississippianization” on the health of late prehistoric populations from upland and coastal regions of Georgia. Results show that the upland population was more maize reliant and engaged in more mechanically stressful activities. On the other hand, coastal juveniles were less healthy than their upland counterparts. This study indicates that Mississippianization did not impact all populations in the same way.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Larsen, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Physical anthropology|Health|Archaeology
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