From Quarry to Cornfield: The Political Economy of Mississippian Hoe Production

2. Specialization, Exchange, and Power in Small-Scale Socieities and Chiefdoms

ferent ways across the eastern United States. Indeed, documenting the interrelationships between these variables has been a major challenge for archaeologists working in the larger region as we have come to appreciate the often surprising combinations in which they occur. For example, while received wisdom might dictate that the construction of substantial earthworks would require sizable populations supported by cultigens, the Lower Mississippi Valley displays a strong tradition of mound building for some 4,000 years without any appreciable archaeological evidence for domesticated plants—from Middle Archaic (ca. 3000 b.c.) to Coles Creek (ca. a.d. 900) cultures (Figure 1.2). In contrast, one of the strongest early surges toward a reliance on cultigens can be found in the Illinois River Valley of west-central Illinois, where domesticated plants such as chenopod and little barley became important components of the Middle Woodland or Hopewell (ca. 200 b.c.–a.d. 400) diet. Yet the scale of mound building in the Illinois Valley is relatively modest, particularly when compared with contemporary developments elsewhere, such as southern Ohio where, again, impressive Hopewellian earthworks occur with the near absence of cultigens. From a synchronic perspective, the important trends I have enumerated for the ¤rst millennium a.d. often occur in bewildering combinations across the landscape of eastern North America. From the diachronic perspective, archaeologists generally agree that these traits gradually became widespread with much variation and occasional reversals along the way. In the latter regard, the Late Woodland period (a.d. 400–800) is a particularly intriguing instance of an actual decline Figure 1.2. General periods of the Southeast and lower Midwest. 12 A Day in the Life in mound construction and long-distance exchange across much of the midwestern and southeastern United States, while population levels and a dependence on cultigens continued to rise (Nassaney and Cobb 1991). During the interval a.d. 800 to 1000 in southeastern and midwestern North America, things began to change dramatically. Mesoamerican domesticates, particularly maize, became increasingly important in the diet. Along the Central Mississippi River Valley and its tributaries , shell-tempered ceramics, new forms of storage technology, and wall-trench houses of wattle-and-daub construction became common. By around a.d. 1000, these trends had coalesced into a general widespread pattern that lasted until about a.d. 1500, an interval referred to as the Mississippian period. There is some disagreement over the exact boundaries of the distribution of sites that can be called Mississippian (Smith 1986): the most liberal interpretation would see the western margin around the Oklahoma-Arkansas border; the northern edge in the lower portion of the Midwest states of Illinois and Indiana; and the eastern and southern boundaries represented by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Coast. From about a.d. 1000 onward, earthen mounds and other large-scale constructions appeared in many communities, accompanied by substantial population increases. True towns appear on the landscape, in some cases with populations possibly numbering in the thousands, although small hamlets and farmsteads were much more common. Importantly, mortuary evidence demonstrates the development of pronounced differences in social status and the emergence of what has been interpreted as chiefdoms. The Mississippian period is best known for the truly impressive mound centers located in the rich®oodplains of the drainages ¤ngering throughout the Southeast and Midwest. To North American archaeologists, names such as Moundville and Etowah evoke images of grand platform mounds, large plazas, and rich burial assemblages (Figure 1.1). At the very apex of the scale sits Cahokia, the huge town that ¤gures in the beginning of this chapter, representing an outlier even among the many very large Mississippian centers. The site is located in southwestern Illinois in a portion of the Mississippi River ®oodplain known as the American Bottom. It consists of a lozenge-shaped arrangement of more than one hundred mounds of varying shapes and functions segregated into several sets of plaza groupings spread out over an area of some 14 square kilometers. The largest cluster in the middle of the site was set off by a palisade and is distinguished by Monk’s Mound, which stands 30 meters high and represents the largest single monument in North America north of central Mexico. Recent studies of Cahokia indicate that massive efforts were made by its inhabitants and neighbors A Day in the Life 13 to produce an arti¤cial landscape charged with political and ceremonial signi¤cance...