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Preface and Acknowledgments THIS VOLUME HAD its ongm in a 1993 Society for American Archaeology symposium. That year the annual meeting was held in St. Louis, and given the venue, it seemed appropriate to focus at least one set of papers on current research in the Mississippi Valley. Although that region played a critical role in the development of American archaeology-the work conducted there became something of a paradigm-it was our impression that the region was still known for its earlier contributions, even though current research had begun to move away from that model, both methodologically and substantively. In proposing a seminar on the archaeology of the central Mississippi Valley, it was our intention to bring some of those changes to the notice of a broad audience. The present volume is not, however, a more permanent version of the 1993 symposium. Several papers originally presented were dropped as the volume developed, and all chapters have been modified extensively. Although complete coverage of a region as large as the central Mississippi Valley is impossible, as is summarizing the myriad approaches that have been taken toward understanding the prehistoric record, we solicited a number of new works in an attempt to provide a more representative aspect to the collection as a whole. Regrettably , some potential contributors were unable to participate in either the symposium or the present volume. More than half the chapters focus almost exclusively on that portion of the archaeological record that dates after A.D. 900, traditionally the beginning of what commonly is referred to as the Mississippian period. Perhaps this is to be expected, since, as we note in Chapter 1, it has been this portion of the record, with its mounds and cemeteries, that has long attracted the interest of prehistorians . Certainly more has been written about that part of the central Mississippi Valley record than about all the other parts combined, and there is no reason to expect that trend to change in the immediate future. However, to present somewhat of a more balanced view of the record, we deliberately sought contributions from several archaeologists working with materials from other periods. The chapters that were finally included cover diverse topics-distributions of artifacts across the landscape, internal configurations of large fortified settlements, human-bone chemistry, and ceramic technology, to name a fewand all incorporate the results of new fieldwork and/or analysis. We decidedly xvi I Preface did not want simple recapitulations of older material. In essence, one strength of the volume is the diversity of topics covered and the potential avenues for further research suggested by the various authors. Another strength-at least we see it that way-stems from the manner in which we handled certain production mechanics. Our intent from the start was to produce a volume that did not look like, nor read like, a willy-nilly assemblage of loosely connected papers. The reader will notice, for example, that all maps in the various chapters carry the same kinds of information and that each can be referenced to the base map presented in Chapter 1. Likewise, the manner in which the chapters themselves were edited was based on establishing consistency . We ended up walking a fine line between editing for style and editing for substance, which in many instances required us to ask the authors to rethink some of their positions. We do not necessarily agree with some of the conclusions presented herein, but we firmly believe that all the authors make reasonable arguments and that their contributions are important to understanding the tremendous variation evident in the archaeological record of the central Mississippi River valley. As with the production of any book, a number of people need to be thanked for their contributions to the process. We greatly appreciate the help and encouragement we received from the University of Alabama Press, specifically from Judith Knight. For their input and attention to detail, we thank Kris Wilhelmsen , who generated many of the line drawings and all of the physiographic maps, and Dan Glover, who made corrections to various maps and also generated several of the line drawings. We greatly appreciate the capable editorial help supplied by Jennifer Smith Glover and Dan Glover, each or both of whom read numerous drafts of the chapters, converted chapters from one wordprocessing program to another, looked up missing references, and proofread the final manuscript. We thank Mary D. Dunnell for her editing work and Lee Lyman for his comments on the introductory chapter. E...

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