In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The ¤rst Europeans to encounter Native American elites of the Southeast portrayed them as authoritative rulers exercising power over large populations and vast territories. They resided in large houses spatially segregated from the domiciles of non-elites (and frequently placed atop earthen mounds), controlled the production and exchange of high-status goods, managed the storage and provisioning of comestibles, exacted tribute from local populations and vassal provinces, commanded large military forces, supervised the construction of monumental public architecture , and presided over socioreligious ceremonies. The most powerful of these sovereigns is thought to have governed a polity extending almost 200 miles along major river systems in the present states of Alabama, Georgia, and T ennessee (DePratter et al. 1983; Hally et al. 1990; C. Hudson et al. 1985, 1987, 1989). Although a number of historical documents were produced during initial contacts between Europeans and southeastern Native Americans during the sixteenth century, in many areas almost two hundred years would pass before indigenous people again were reported in detail by Europeans. Relying in part on discrepancies between sixteenth- and eighteenth-century documentary accounts, archaeologists and ethnohistorians view the Protohistoric period as a time of profound cultural change in indigenous societies. In stark contrast to earlier descriptions, later documents depict indigenous societies as politically acephalous and disintegrated, with little in the way of political, social, or economic organization (see quotes in Corkran 1967:12–13; Mereness 1916:176; Swanton 1928:279–280). This collapse is thought to have been as abrupt as it was encompassing. Within mere decades of the¤rst contacts, the complex, hierarchical polities present during initial encounters with Europeans are believed to have vanished. For many scholars this reduction in sociopolitical complexity is representative of the complete collapse of pre-contact Native American societies (Borah 1964; Dobyns 1983, 1991; Dunnell 1991; Ramenofsky 1987, 1990; M. T. Smith 1987, 1994b). This chapter examines archaeological data from central Alabama for evidence of the purported protohistoric collapse. Centering on the diachronic analysis of 7 / Prestige Goods, Symbolic Capital, and Social Power in the Protohistoric Southeast Cameron B. Wesson Protohistoric and Historic period Creek households, this investigation suggests that the sociopolitics of protohistoric southeastern societies were dynamic, with individuals and small-scale social groups actively resisting the hegemonic positions of their social superiors. Rather than a precipitous protohistoric collapse, the picture that emerges is one where increasing social competition acted to continually erode the centralization of sociopolitical power throughout the Protohistoric and Historic periods. Sociopolitics and the Protohistoric Collapse Studies of social power in the southeast have traditionally presented a view of unquestionable elite authority, resting on a solid bedrock of communal support maintained through an elite-centered dominant ideology. The dominant ideology thesis presents us with two very different types of social and political actors—an elite responsible for developing social policy, and a non-elite responsible for carrying it out. Sociopolitical elites are depicted as shrewd and calculating, possessing almost omniscient qualities, while non-elites are passive, anemic, and apparently lacking in the ability to fully comprehend the nature of social and political relations. In this view, culture change is brought about through the actions of high-ranking members of society acting through the manipulation of social, political, and religious institutions . This elite-centered view of social agency has also spilled over into the analysis of protohistoric cultural change, only instead of an omniscient, near-omnipotent indigenous elite being responsible for social change it is the European who has seized the reigns of control. Research addressing the nature of protohistoric culture change in the southeast has often emphasized European-introduced diseases and trade goods as the principal factors in region-wide declines in sociopolitical complexity (Axtell 1981; Blakely and Detweiler-Blakely 1989; Cotterill 1954; Crane 1981 [1928]; Dobyns 1983, 1991; Fairbanks 1952, 1958; C. Martin 1978; Mason 1963; Morris 1993; Ramenofsky 1987, 1990; Roberts 1989; M. T. Smith 1987; White 1983). Marvin Smith (1987:145), expressing a view shared by many scholars, contends that the deterioration of social complexity “corresponds almost exactly with the evidence for depopulation.” He posits that with vastly reduced populations Native American societies were no longer capable of generating food surpluses, public works, large military forces, or other quintessential material characteristics of sociopolitical complexity (particularly those of complex chiefdoms). This notion of declining effectiveness is seen to stem from a disintegration of internal sociopolitical organization, which leads M. T. Smith (1987:145), for example, to conclude that not only were institutions supporting social differentiation collapsing, but Native Americans...

Share