Trends and Traditions in Southeastern Zooarchaeology

4. Shell Trade: Craft Production at a Fourteenth-Century Mississippian Frontier

4 Shell Trade Craft Production at a Fourteenth-Century Mississippian Frontier Maureen S. Meyers Craft production has long been identified as an important component in the formation of inequality within chiefdoms and emergent states (Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Costin 1998; Helms 1992; Hirth 1978). Within the Mississippian Southeast, evidence for the importance of craft production is present at large centers such as Cahokia (Fishel 1997; Trubitt 2003, 2005) and Moundville (Knight 2004). Certain forms of craft production involved animals. Primarily, these included the processing and trade of animal skins, bone tools and decorative items, and shell items (including beads, gorgets, and ear plugs). Both the control of production and the control of trade of these items have been identified as key factors in the emergence and maintenance of power in chiefdoms. Often, trade items were valued because they were nonlocal; their exotic nature increased their value because it spoke to the chief’s ability to access trade routes and extralocal sources of power in the form of connections with other chiefs across long distances (Helms 1992). Frontiers of chiefdoms were areas where extralocal trade goods entered into chiefly realms of power. Such frontiers were inhabited to better control the production and trade of extralocal goods (Parker 2006). Parker (2006) recognizes that frontiers were often placed strategically in specific locations, such as mountainous regions, to take advantage of access to certain goods. Initially, frontiers were settled to increase power at the core;· 80 · Craft Production at a Fourteenth-Century Mississippian Frontier · 81 however, by nature of their proximity to the source of the goods, frontiers often became quite powerful themselves. As such, they are ideal case studies for the emergence and institutionalization of power inequalities through the production and trade of crafts. One Mississippian frontier that based its power on such control was located in southwestern Virginia (Meyers 2011). The Carter Robinson site was a fourteenth-century chiefdom located in Lee County, Virginia. This mound and village site was settled by inhabitants of nearby Norris Basin chiefdoms to control the production and trade of certain goods—notably, shell. This chapter focuses on zooarchaeological evidence of shell bead trade at this site, examining its change over time in quantity and location to demonstrate the role that craft production of certain animal remains played in the emergence and institutionalization of power at a frontier Mississippian chiefdom. Craft Production and Specialization Craft specialization has been viewed as a marker of state-level formation (Helms 1992). In such situations, craft specialists are defined as persons employed in the production of particular crafts on a full-time basis. These persons were dependent on their craft production for their livelihood and thus were often under the control of elites, who then owned those goods, often trading them or using them in sacred rituals. Both of these latter activities increased chiefly power and increased specialist dependence on the chief. This traditional view of craft specialization changed as archaeologists recognized that a range of specialization is present in pre-state societies (Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Costin 1998), although other researchers (e.g., Muller 1984) more strictly define craft specialization. Cobb (2000: 36) suggests that because there is now recognition of the variety of types present in specialization, craft specialization needs to be understood in the broader context of a culture’s political economy. Related to this is the idea that specialization is a form of production, and as such, “it must be examined within the wider arena of social relations that constitute the labor process” (Cobb 2000: 36). Fully understanding the labor process and social relations means also examining exchange and consumption of goods. This in turn means recognizing that multiple types of production occur simultaneously and are often interrelated. Although control of natural resources for exchange is recognized as a major reason for frontier settlement (Parker 2006), the issue of craft 82 · Maureen S. Meyers specialization at frontiers is not addressed in any great detail. Hirth (1978) has recognized that gateway communities can emerge in areas of trade, usually at frontiers, and can gain power by co-opting or controlling trade movement. Schortman and Urban (1992) note that in using frontiers as a means of controlling exchange, core areas often lose control of those same areas as frontiers increase in power through direct control of exchange . Stein (1998) suggests a distance-parity model that describes this loss of control at the core and, unlike world system...