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8 An Architectural Grammar of Late Mississippian Houses in Northwest Georgia Ramie A. Gougeon Domestic structures are mirrors that reflect in numerous ways the households that create them.The house as a physical structure is a shelter comprised of a variety of materials, encompassing a prescribed amount of space, and divided according to societal norms and probably to some degree by individual choice.The house also provides a rich source of information about culture, potentially revealing a variety of patterns of human behavior. In many ways, the domus contains elements of all of the dimensions of the household: the material, the behavioral , and the social (Wilk and Rathje 1982:618). As a material object, the house has to meet particular needs, the most important being to provide suitable shelter for a particular environment. In terms of behavioral needs, the structure must enclose enough space to perform a set of activities, while the social components of a household may reveal the status of individuals within a household, the status of the household as a whole, and ideas about gender roles. According to Alexander (1979; Alexander et al. 1977), physical structures meet certain norms suggesting the presence of a “pattern language” accepted by a culture.More recently,this concept of shared perceptions exhibited through construction techniques has been referred to as“architectural grammar”(Lewis et al. 1998:2). In this chapter, I examine a sample of domestic structures from Late Mississippian sites as a means of surveying the common house form utilized in northwest Georgia in search of a particular architectural grammar. Establishing Architectural Grammar Architectural grammar is present in all built environments,from the seemingly simple hut of a gatherer-hunter to the grandest estate of George Vanderbilt. Architectural grammar, as defined by Lewis et al. (1998:2–3), is the rules used to combine particular architectural elements in the creation of the built envi- Late Mississippian Houses in Northwest Georgia 137 ronment. Each piece of the grammar, consisting of archetypes created by the builder, must relate to other architectural patterns (e.g., the layout of towns, the placement of gardens, etc.) in particular ways (Alexander 1979), as well as to sociocultural patterns. In architectural grammars, the patterns are the elements from which a builder may choose from when designing a structure, town plan, or landscape. Due to the similarities in methodology, architectural grammar is commonly explained by comparisons to spoken or written languages . For example, English grammar consists of rules for combining words into an infinite variety of coherent arrangements. Syntax provides the meanings behind the combinations of phrases and sentences. As with any spoken language, an architectural grammar also allows for the creation of an infinite combination of patterns, but in meaningful ways. This prevents, as Alexander (1979:186) explains, finding kitchens on freeway interchanges. Just as spoken or written languages are ordered, all architectural grammars are ordered by certain qualities that are held in common, regardless of particular cultural context. These include but are not limited to design intent, function , and context (Lewis et al. 1998:3–4). However, these traits are hardly independent ,and can overlap greatly with one another as well as with other cultural elements such as religion, subsistence strategies, social structure, and such. Design intent is associated with the anticipated duration of use of a structure , with the argument being that the longer the structure is planned to be used, the more architecturally complex the structure will be, and the greater the investment of labor (Lewis et al. 1998:3). Functionality comes into play in the design and construction of the built environment. As Rapoport (1990:11) notes, activity shapes form: if the form is not conducive to the performance of a particular activity, that activity may be more difficult or impossible to accomplish .The context or setting of the built environment also must be considered when defining an architectural grammar. Exploring context involves questioning aspects of locations such as where a house is located in the town, or where a town is situated along the river. Finding the boundary of the context may involve identifying where the grammar no longer applies. For example, we may question whether the specific architectural grammar for situating villages in relation to the principal town in a chiefdom in northwest Georgia applies to temporally and culturally similar chiefdoms across southwest Virginia (see Hally 1996; Meyers 2002). Recent Architectural Grammar Studies in the Mississippian Southeast Some effort has been expended in recent years to define an architectural grammar for...

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