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The subject of this study has been patterns of subsistence and health over several hundred years in late prehistoric interior Virginia. Beginning with a series of general questions about the ways in which patterns of subsistence and health operate in so-called middle range societies and the ways in which these patterns might change with the emergence of more formalized social and political inequality, the focus has been on the speci¤c case of late prehistoric Native American populations that interred their dead in large accretional burial mounds in the Ridge-and-Valley and Piedmont provinces of interior Virginia. In this concluding chapter, the ¤ndings that were presented in detail in Chapter 4 are summarized and interpreted in light of the hypotheses developed in Chapter 3. Lewis Creek Mound is located in the central Ridge-and-Valley Province. Some researchers consider it so typical of the Virginia accretional burial mounds that they have assigned the name “Lewis Creek Mound Complex” to these late prehistoric sites (Boyd and Boyd 1992; MacCord 1986). Excavation of Lewis Creek Mound in 1964 revealed 26 intact burial features containing the remains of 37 individuals. The excavators also recovered nearly 10,000 loose bones and teeth that had been thrown back into the mound soil by disappointed looters searching for grave goods. Hayes Creek Mound, also located in the Ridge-and-Valley, was excavated at the turn of the twentieth century. More than 400 individual skeletons were excavated, although the collection analyzed for this study was signi¤cantly less than this number. Rapidan Mound is one of only three known burial mounds located in the Virginia Piedmont. The other two are the mound excavated by Thomas Jefferson in the late eighteenth century (long since destroyed, with no surviving skeletal remains) and the highly atypical Leesville Mound at the extreme southern edge of the Virginia accretional burial mound region (Hantman 1998; MacCord 1986). Rapidan Mound was excavated in the late 1980s by the University of Virginia. From Measurements to Meaning Monacan History through Monacan Bones 5 The excavators uncovered two complete collective burial features, labeled Mound Feature 9 and Mound Feature 10. They also excavated several partial collective burial features that were not considered in the current study. Combined, Rapidan Mound Features 9 and 10 contained more than 7,000 bones and teeth, most in very fragmentary condition. Radiocarbon dates of human bone collagen indicate that Lewis Creek Mound was constructed and used in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Hayes Creek Mound in the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries, and Rapidan Mound in the fourteenth and early ¤fteenth centuries. Comparison of these three sites, along with judicious use of the much less complete skeletal data from other mound sites such as John East and Linville, provides new information about subsistence and health patterns, not only as they functioned in these small-scale sedentary village societies but as they changed over time and space in a region that was the locus of some of the most complex and intriguing developments in social and political organization during the late prehistoric, protohistoric, and early colonial eras. Subsistence As discussed in Chapter 3, it is expected that in most middle range societies , plant cultigens will be an important but not primary dietary component . In the Eastern Woodlands the speci¤c plant cultigen of interest is maize. Speci¤c hypotheses were developed for subsistence patterns in Late Woodland interior Virginia. • Maize was an important but not primary dietary component, with a pattern of use of wild plant and animal resources that is not quantitatively or qualitatively different from earlier periods. This hypothesis is supported by the skeletal evidence. Carbon isotope studies indicate that maize comprised as much as 50–75 percent of the diet for the populations in this study, but no more. The data on dental caries and frequency and severity of dental wear also support this conclusion. Following John Smith’s description of “wilde beests and fruits,” the Late Woodland and early contact era people of interior Virginia were considered to be nonagricultural. It took a long time for data to amass to combat this view, in part because many Late Woodland sites were excavated prior to the routine collection of botanical samples from archaeological sites. Virginia’s acidic soils have also contributed to the problem. Even recent excavators have been unable to locate botanical or faunal remains in quantity. There have been botanical clues to the importance of maize consumption, and the current study adds the strong support of...

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