My Delusions

I appreciate the opportunity given me by the editors of this forum, David Anderson and Robbie Ethridge, to comment on this set of essays on Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions (hereafter simply Delusions). I also appreciate the hard work of David and Robbie, along with that of the commentators, several of whom I have known and held in high regard since my graduate school days. There is much that they say with which to agree. As for the rest, allow me to react and redirect in what follows.

But first, I should begin with some background. Tom Emerson convinced me to write this book, which was to be the first in a new series that he and I were to edit for AltaMira Press. As it turned out, Delusions was a fun book to write, in part because I did it at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in part because it gave me the chance to review the grand sweep of pre-Columbian history in eastern North America, and in part because it allowed me to consider, in a nontheoretical way, broad relationships between people, places, and history—a topic that might otherwise be considered highly theoretical. It also allowed me to vent and to fret over this question: what do archaeologists need to do now in order to fulfill our moral and ethical responsibilities to a North American public who, through tax dollars, sustain our research into the history and cultural heritage of the continent?

When I initially proposed this book to Mitch Allen, then at AltaMira (now at Left Coast Press), his reaction was that, if I did it right, Delusions would serve as a new synthesis of Mississippian-period archaeology that, at the same time, would upset the archaeological establishment. I was interested in doing both and, judging from the commentators’ varied reactions, I might have succeeded. Of course, this means that I have not made everyone happy. Robin Beck seems particularly unhappy. He, Jay Johnson, and others seem to have expected a theoretical exegesis, which Delusions explicitly is not.¹

But then, I did not write this book for the commentators or for other established professionals. Delusions was written to reach an audience not already set in its ways or locked into academic schools of thought. And, from my point of view, a couple of the commentators are, clearly, wedded to some rigid viewpoints. Thankfully, aging and opinionated archaeologists, myself included, are always followed by a younger generation. Delusions was written for them and for all open-minded students of human history, archaeologists and nonarchaeologists alike. Ethnohistorian Greg O’Brien seems to be one of them, and I am pleased that he sees in the book possibilities for reimagining the Native South. Like him, dissolving the prehistory-history divide has been a concern of mine for some time.²

Alas, Delusions is not, I acknowledge, a perfect book. For instance, there is a little slippage on my part when it comes to accepting the standard “evolutionist” scenarios that yet predominate the interpretations of some regions (e.g., elsewhere, Ned Jenkins reminded me that my Moundville summary is less critical than it might be of the orthodox evolutionist interpretation). The same criticism might be leveled, as indeed it is by Lynne Sullivan and Robin Beck, at my use of Cahokia as an example of a Mississippian polity that violates the standard chiefdom construct. Of course, I said as much in the book (Delusions, 163).

In addition, some might gripe that I merely point to a “backdoor” approach to understanding; I do not walk the reader through it, as Jay Johnson would have preferred. His is a reasonable criticism, and one that I anticipated. But since Delusions is not a theory book, the reader must look elsewhere. My apologies. Charles Cobb points to some of the places to look in his thought-provoking commentary. I would also suggest to the interested reader most any recent issue of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal or the Journal of Social Archaeology. As for my own work, I would suggest reading a selection of things from the 2000s.^3...