Alabama and the Borderlands: From Prehistory To Statehood

1 Richard A. Krause - Trends and Trajectories in American Archaeology: Some Questions about the Mississippian Period in Southeastern Prehistory

1 Trends and Trajectories in American Archaeology: Some Questions about the Mississippian Period in Southeastern Prehistory Richard A. Krause From the nonperishable debris of extinct societies, archaeologists have created a picture of pervasive change in the details of material culture.' Viewed in hemisphere-wide perspective and through broad spans of time, the record of change in the New World seems reasonably regular. Big-game hunters and the lifestyle this mode of subsistence engendered preceded a lifestyle that depended on smaller, more scattered game. Increases in the efficiency of hunting and collecting preceded a settled lifestyle and prepared the way for agricultural modes of production. Agriculture, in tum, set the stage for material productions of greater sophistication and complexity and for such social enterprises as state and empire building.2 Yet detailed comparisons of artifact inventories, burial practices, domestic and public architecture, and subsistence and settlement patterns reveal localized trends and trajectories of restricted duration. Here, there may be stability in artifact style; there, remarkable variability. Here, there may be stability in burial practices; there, rapid alterations. A shift from "surrounds" to ambushes may characterize the hunting practices in one region; "drives" may be the dominant and persistent pattern in a nearby region. It is precisely these short-term trends and trajectories, and the contrasts in lifestyle they reveal, that most severely challenge the archaeologist's imagination.3 Richard A. Krause It is commonly assumed, for instance, that trends were created by events and trajectories were maintained by processes.4 Hence from trends and trajectories purposely looked for and compared with others, of like or different kind, archaeologists may infer the events which created them and the processes which maintained them. Making the inference is, of course, operational. And it is true that the adequacy of inferences must ultimately be judged by confrontation with a suitable program of archaeological tests, which is truly exciting work. Unfortunately, this ultimate aim-that is, design of a testing program for previously inferred events and processes-must (for nowl lie beyond the scope of our inquiry. Our immediate interest must perforce be with the trends and trajectories themselves and their portent for issues of broader scope. The former, the trends and trajectories we perceive and the inferences they elicit are detailed in the essays by Griffin and Smith. The latter, the portent of trajectories and trends we perceive, will be the primary concern of this essay. I will join the issue of portent by (II examining the implications of a contemporary scheme of cultural historical classification and (21 explicating some assumptions in archaeological reasoning. First, the implications of cultural historical classification . The most popular scheme of cultural historical classification organizes the prehistory of the Western Hemisphere into a succession of configurational stages: Lithic, Archaic, Formative, Classic , and Post Classic.s The Mississippian manifestation represents the zenith of the Formative stage.6 It is preceded by the less populous and less complex formulation, traditionally called Woodland, and is followed by the less populous, less complex formulation termed Protohistoric. More to the point, however, is that while remains attributed to the Lithic, Archaic, and Formative stages have been found in North America, representatives of the Classic and PostClassic stages are absent north of the Rio Grande.? Put more simply, colonial Euroamericans encountered Amerindian confederacies and small-scale chiefdoms (social forms representative of the Formative stagel during their westward expansion. They did not find the states and empires (social forms representative of Classic and Post-Classic stagesI that confronted the Spanish in Mexico and western South America. Why states and empires flourished in Latin America but not in North America is an intriguing and vexing question. That a satisfactory answer requires reference to the advent of agriculture, technol18 TRENDS AND TRAJECTORIES IN AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY ogy, and population growth cannot be doubted.8 Several papers which follow touch upon this issue; but can the brief experience as cultivators account for the absence of Native American states and empires in North America? To restate the issue: Given sufficient time, would North American Indians have become state and empire builders? An affirmative answer requires belief in an orderly march toward civilization and implies that all Amerindian societies responded to the beat of the same drummer, some more slowly than others. A negative answer calls into question the end toward which all Amerindian societies were moving and implies, as Caldwell put it, that "civilization might indeed be something rather special...