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Two basic interpretations of shell rings vie for archaeological acceptance. One posits that rings are the daily subsistence refuse incidentally tossed behind or underfoot of households (Trinkley 1997; Waring and Larson 1968:273; cf. White, this volume). The other suggests that shell rings are among the earliest examples of large-scale public architecture in North America, intentionally built for ritual and ceremony (Cable 1997; Waring 1968a:243). The incidental refuse theory asserts that the symmetrical, circular shape of the shell rings, as well as their happenstance construction, re®ects an egalitarian ethic (Trinkley 1985). Habitation evenly placed around circles symbolizes and supports the idea that each household is socially equal to its neighbor. Conversely, the public architecture theory states that large-scale construction involves expenditures of energy beyond the access of individuals or families in egalitarian societies. It requires an increased scale of political organization typical of ranked societies. Individuals or groups serve in leadership roles to motivate and manage the large numbers of people needed to build the monuments. The efforts are rewarded in greater social cohesion for the group and a reinforced, higher social status for the leaders (Abrams 1989). The level of organization in societies that build such large-scale public works is widely varied and is certainly not limited to states or chiefdoms (Abrams 1989; Russo 1991). As earlier, large-scale architecture (mounds, earthworks, shell rings) is discovered (Russo 1994b; Saunders 1994, this volume; Saunders et al. 1994), archaeologists have argued that monumental architecture by itself is not suf¤cient evidence of social inequality to warrant reclassi¤cation of the traditional view of Archaic people as egalitarian (Gibson, this volume; Saunders, this volume). Corroboration of inequality should be sought in other markers of social ranking, such as those that serve as evidence of social complexity in Woodland and Mississippian societies. The lack of horticulture/agriculture, the paucity/absence of 3 Measuring Shell Rings for Social Inequality Michael Russo exotic or esteemed items, and little or no evidence of storage facilities, structures, craft specialization, feasting, burial goods, and burials in mounds lead to the conclusion early mound/shell ring builders did not participate in hierarchically ranked societies (Russo 1991, 1994b; Saunders, this volume). For shell rings in particular, what appear to be strictly quotidian artifacts (e.g., ceramics, shell tools), living ®oors (as seen in crushed bands of shells), and large pits ¤lled only with shell refuse (interpreted as shell¤sh/¤sh steaming pits and hot ¤re/meat roasting pits) have all been viewed as evidence that shell rings were places of daily living, not places of ceremony (Russo 1991, 1994b; Trinkley 1980:313, 338–339; cf. White, this volume). Of course, this hyperskeptical view assumes, a priori, that Archaic builders of large-scale architecture would have to have been socially complex in the same ways evidenced by Woodland and Mississippian builders of large-scale architecture . It further assumes that shell rings could not have been used both as a place of daily living and as a place of ceremony. It is a normative stance (sensu Kuhn 1970) that dismisses the architecture as aberration in order to preserve the operative paradigm of Archaic as egalitarian. In such an approach the presumption is made that if the Archaic builders were indeed socially ranked, then subsequent Southeastern cultural traits that normal archaeologists accept as de¤ning social complexity may be found in some exact or recognizably ancestral form in the Archaic. It does not allow for the waxing/waning of a variety of forms of complex social organization that may have resulted in the discontinuity of at least some organizational and material traits between the Archaic and Woodland/Mississippian cultures. So little investigation has been undertaken on either shell rings or Archaic mounds that any number of the traditional markers of rank may simply have not yet been found. But suf¤cient work has been completed to suggest that Archaic monumental architecture does differ from Woodland/Mississippian in the absence/paucity of burials, artifacts, and residences suggestive of differential ranking among the community members. This material depauperation is seen as evidence of an egalitarian ethic, in which status differentiation was kept level, and, as such, archaeologists have been compelled to explain away the ostensibly nonegalitarian , large-scale architecture. Archaic monumental architecture is thus seen as being propelled by periodic, voluntary, corporate behavior (Gibson, this volume), as the result of palimpsests of numerous small-scale daily activities (Trinkley 1980), as facilitated by short-term managers whose power and prestige were...

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