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Tables 4.1. Qualitative Distribution of Exotic or Locally Crafted Sumptuary Goods 103 4.2. Density of Select Exotic Items in Early Mississippian Domestic Garbage 104 5.1. Summary of 15A-DT Features and Fill Volume bySubphase 113 5.2. EM-2 Building Attributes 115 5.3. EM-3 Building Attributes 1185 .4. Lohmann-l Building Attributes 121 5.5. Lohmann-2 and Lohmann-3 Building Attributes 123 5.6. Moorehead-l and Moorehead-2 Building Attributes 129 6.1. Pottery Jars and Fill Volume 144 6.2. Paired One-Tailed t-tests of Exotic Cherts, Minerals, and Other Tools 149 6.3. Large Bifacial Chert Adze Blades and Ramey Knives 150 6.4. Quartz, Fluorite, and Plagioclase Crystals 156 6.5. Paried One-Tailed t-tests of Galena and Hematite 158 6.6. Z-scores of Weighted Artifact Densities 164 Preface Archaeological and ethnohistorical research in Southeastern North America is providing fresh insights into questions posed by social scientists about power, culture, inequality, ethnogenesis, and stratification. This study is intended to broach some of these same questions by focusing on the premierMississippian polity in the Southeast. The theoretical direction of this study, while paralleling certain contemporary trends in American Anthropology, represents a break with previous archaeological efforts in the Southeast. As a result, I neither seek nor expect to satisfy all Mississippianists. However, I do hope to open new avenues ofinquiry and to promote productive discussion about late-prehistoric North America. These scholarly aspirations cannot be separated from my practical archaeological experiences in parts of the Mississippi Valley where modern urban expansion and agricultural land modification continue to obliterate much of the past. My experiences have defined to a large extent my ownarchaeological philosophy and methodology. The very data sets upon which this volume is based were salvaged prior to the building of a planned highway that was to bisect the Cahokia site. Until 1988 the boxes of sherds, lithic refuse, scattered bones, and charcoal from these excavations sat on shelves at the Illinois State Museum and the University of Illinois. John Kelly suggested to me that these data could provide the kind of diachronic information that I was then seeking relative to questions about Native American political centralization. I think he was correct. My thoughts and ideas about Mississippian chiefdoms, prestate politics , and culture history have benefitted greatly from interaction with Richard Ford, John O'Shea, and Henry Wright at the University of Michigan and with other prominent Eastern Woodlands specialists like David Anderson, Alex Barker, Charles Cobb, Thomas Emerson, Gayle Fritz, James Griffin, John Kelly, V. James Knight, George Milner, Dan Morse, Jon Muller, Bruce Smith, and Paul Welch. The Illinois State Museum provided the lab space necessary for much of the artifact analysis, and for their courteous assistance I thank Terrance Martin and Michael Wiant. Like- xvi Preface wise, I extend my gratitude to the excavators and directors of the Tract 15A and Dunham Tract projects, Warren Wittry (the 1961, 1977, and 1978 seasons), Robert Hall (the 1963,1977,and 1978seasons),WilliamIseminger (the 1985 season), and Charles Bareis (the 1966 Dunham Tract season). The financial support for the research upon which this study is based was provided by the National Science Foundation (BNS-8815698), the Rackham School of Graduate Studies, and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. The emotional support was provided by Stephanie L. Pauketat over the course of many years. My thanks go out to Judith Knight and the rest of the staff at the University of Alabama Press for bringing this volume to its present form. For all others who have helped in this endeavor, I extend my warmest gratitude. The opinions, views, and conclusions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions named above. I alone assume responsibility for the contents of this volume. The Ascent of Chiefs ...

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