Hardaway Revisited: Early Archaic Settlement in the Southeast

8. Rethinking Early Archaic Settlement

8 Rethinking Early Archaic Settlement In this chapter, I reexamine current thinking regarding Early Archaic settlement. I begin by critically assessing certain assumptions underlying the band-macroband model. The results of this discussion, when combined with the preceding analyses, permit Hardaway to be placed in a regional context. Finally, the implications of this work make possible the construction of an alternative model of Early Archaic settlement. THE BAND-MACROBAND MODEL REVISITED The band-macroband model of Early Archaic settlement is characterized by a drainage-based band adaptation featuring seasonal residential shifts between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain. As the name implies, two levels of settlement organization are represented in the model. At a local level, individual bands are postulated to have occupied eight major river basins along the South Atlantic Slope, from the Ocmulgee River in Georgia to the Neuse River in North Carolina (¤gure 8.1). These drainages are believed to have had band populations between 50 and 150 people. Furthermore, these bands were integrated at a regional level by periodic side trips to other drainages. These intermittent meetings, referred to as “macroband aggregations,” formed the second level of settlement organization (Anderson and Hanson 1988). Base camps were proposed for the winter, since it was “a time of low plant availability and high deer aggregation, when resources were most patchy and unpredictable” (Anderson and Hanson 1988:266). Winter base camps were the most intensively occupied sites (e.g., two to three months) during the settlement round and were provisioned by small task groups sent out on special forays. Band adaptation is thus characterized as re®ecting a collector settlement adaptation during the winter. In the Savannah Figure 8.1. The band-macroband settlement model (reproduced by permission of the Society of American Archaeology , from American Antiquity 53[2], 1988) River basin, winter base camps are believed to have been located in the middle and upper Coastal Plain, near the Allendale chert outcrops. During the spring, with greater plant and animal availability, bands moved toward the coast. Movement by the entire group is posited, although Anderson and Hanson (1988:270) acknowledge that groups may also have dispersed into smaller family units. In any case, settlements moved more frequently, and less emphasis was placed on provisioning by logistical task groups. Moreover, these forager camps are postulated to have been occupied for a much shorter time period than winter base camps. As weather warmed, groups moved back into the upper Coastal Plain and eventually into the Piedmont by summer. Relatively short-term settlements continued to characterize the Piedmont during the summer and early fall, with a return to winter base camps by late fall (Anderson and Hanson 1988:270). Although groups moved extensively along drainages, bands are thought to have moved across drainages only rarely. When cross-drainage movement did occur, it was undertaken as part of multiband aggregation events. Such events are believed to have promoted regular contact among several bands from nearby drainages in order to exchange information and maintain mating networks (Anderson and Hanson 1988:271). Attractive as this model may be, it does not hold up under close scrutiny . In particular, two aspects of the model can be questioned: the proposed mixed forager-collector settlement strategy and the drainage-based settlement range. I address each of these issues below. Technological Organization and Settlement Adaptation In the absence of any subsistence data, the only evidence Anderson and Hanson presented to support a mixed forager-collector settlement strategy is an interassemblage comparison in the form of a “curated-to-expedient tool index” calculated for each of the seven Savannah River sites. This comparison indicated that most of the sites had a low index (i.e., were dominated by expedient tools), which is asserted to provide “a measure of site use and group mobility strategy” (Anderson and Hanson 1988:278). This index was used previously on the Haw River sites, where the degree of tool curation in an assemblage was purported to provide a measure of settlement adaptation (Claggett and Cable 1982:671–688). Simply put, a high frequency of curated tools is correlated with collector settlement systems , while predominantly expedient assemblages are associated with forager settlement systems. This link between curation level and subsistence -settlement organization is based on arguments by Binford (1977, 1979, 1980), who describes both tool curation and collector settlement organization as “ef¤cient” behavioral strategies: “It should be clear that a logistic strategy in which foods are moved to consumers should be correRethinking Early Archaic...