The archaeology of everyday life at early Moundville / Gregory D. Wilson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Gregory D., 1969-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social archaeology.

Mississippian pottery.

Mississippian culture.

Moundville Archaeological Park (Moundville, Ala.).

Mississippian culture--Alabama--Black Warrior River Valley.

Mississippian pottery--Alabama--Black Warrior River Valley.

Social archaeology--Alabama--Black Warrior River Valley.

Black Warrior River Valley (Ala.)--Antiquities.

Black Warrior River Valley (Ala.).

Alabama--Black Warrior River Valley.

Physical Description:

xi, 171 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2008]

Summary:

Complex Mississippian polities were neither developed nor sustained in a vacuum. A broad range of small-scale social groups played a variety of roles in the emergence of regionally organized political hierarchies that governed large-scale ceremonial centers. Recent research has revealed the extent to which interactions among corporately organized clans led to the development, success, and collapse of Moundville. These insights into Moundville's social complexity are based primarily on the study of monumental architecture and mortuary ceremonialism. Less is known about how everyday domestic practices produced and were produced by broader networks of power and inequality in the region.

Wilson reveals that the early Mississippian Moundville community consisted of numerous spatially discrete multi-household groups, similar to ethnohistorically described kin groups from the southeastern United States. Hosting feasts, funerals, and other ceremonial events were important strategies by which elite groups created social debts and legitimized their positions of authority. Non-elite groups, on the other hand, maintained considerable economic and ritual autonomy through diversified production activities, risk sharing, and household ceremonialism. Organizational changes in Moundville's residential occupation highlight the different ways kin groups defined and redefined their corporate status and identities over-the long term.

Contents:

Introduction

Mississippian communities and households

Moundville households in space and time

Architecture and community organization

Ceramics at early Moundville

Discussion and conclusions

Appendix 1: Architectural data

Appendix 2: Counts and frequencies of all sherds by context.

Notes:

"A Dan Josselyn memorial publication"--P. facing t.p.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [153]-168) and index.

ISBN:

9780817315795

0817315799

9780817354442

0817354441

OCLC:

152580703

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description