SOCIOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF MISSISSIPPIAN MOUND VOLUME

John H. Blitz and Patrick Livingood

Variation ;n the scale (~f Mississippian mound building is all imporwllf measure (~rregional sefl/eme1I1 hierarchies. How-ever, factors thought to determine the size (~fpl(/(form mounds are subject to two contradictory interpretations. Mound vol·ume is said to result from either the duration of mound use or the size (~rIhe labor force recruited by leaders for moundcmlstructimL To el-'aluarethese competing propositio1ls, a sample of excavared mounds is examined anrlfour variables arerecorded for each mouild: a mound l'()/ume index, the duration ofmOll1lrl use, rhe number of constructioll stages, and thenumber (~r111()Ul1ds at the site. The relationships amollg these variables are summarized, and the relative merils o.fthe twocompeting imerprelmiolls are assessed. 11is concluded thal1lo1 all (~rthe variation in mound volume call be explained bydumtioll of use. thll1 additi01ll1lfllClors must be considered. and tha1the social comexr o.{moulld construction probably d(f-fered at/arge multiple-mound sites and smaller l1'1ou11dsites.

La variach/lI en 10 escala de la C011strucchJl1de 111omfculos de Inculrura mississippiense es una impor1ante medida de las jer-arqu/as regionales de ase1lfamiemo. Sin embargo, hay dos imerprewclo/les contradiclorias para explicar elwmll1io de losmom/culos. £11 primer lugar, se cOl/sidera que el volume" de los momfculos es el resultado de la duraciol1 de su usa 0 bien dela cantidad de lafuerza de lrabajo reclutada por los dirigentes para la C011struccir11lde 10.'1numt/culos. Para evaluar estas dosproposicio11es . .'Ie analiza una 111ucstrade mom/eulos excavados y para clIda U110de el/os se conside'ran cuatro \!oriables: WI

/ndice del \'OIU/l1e11del mont/clllo, la duracir111de ."Illusa, elmimero de erapas c011structivas y la canlidad de mow/culos ell unsilio dado. Las relaclones entreesras \c'ariables se resumen y se evaluall los meritos relmivos de las ill1erprelaclo11es co1lfra-dicrorias. Se concluye que 110loda variaciol1 ell el volumen de mont[culos lJUede explicnrse por la duracion de .'ILluso. dadoque debell cOl1siderarse otros faclOres y que el contexl0 social de cOl1struccidn de los 1110111/eulospmbablemente d{ferfa ellsirios gra11des call multiples mont/culos eli comparacion em/ sitios mds pequelios con mom/eulos.

Inthe American Southeast, precolumbian hor-ticultural societies known as Mississippian cre-ated regional political telTitories marked by

central places with large earthen mounds. The var-ious political and ceremonial activities at moundcenters werc arenas of power and authority for Mis-sissippian leaders. Archaeologists investigatingMississippian political formations consider thescale of mound building at centers to be an impor-tant indicator of regional settlement hierarchies,long recognized as a signature of complex society(Johnson 1977).A settlement hierarchy oflarge andsmall mound centers is often seen as an indicatorof dominant and subordinate relationships in theregional leadership structure (Anderson 1994). Yetthe identification of regional scttlemcnt hierarchies

is rendered problematic in the Mississippian casebecause there are two contradictory interpretationsof the sociopolitical implications of mound build-ing; some claim that mound size or volume reflectsthe duration of mound use, whereas others arguethat mound volume reflects the ability of leadersto amass a large labor force. In this article we exam-ine the empirical bases for these two competinginterpretations, evaluate the degree to which the twointerpretations are supported by evidence, andassess the implications of our findings for under-standing Mississippian sociopolitical organization.

The archaeological feature of importance is theplatfonn mound. These ancient monuments areflat-topped earthen pyramids created by successiveconstmction episodes over a period of time. Each

John H. Blitz - Department of Anthropology. 19 ten Hoar Hall. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. AL 35487 -02] 0(jbl itz@tenhoor.as.ua.edu)Patrick Livingood - Museum of Anthropology, Museums Building Room 4009. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. MI48109-] 109 (patrickl@umich.edu)

American Antiquity, 69(2). 2004, pp. 291-301Copyright© 2004 by the Society for American Archaeology

291

292 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 69, No.2, 2004]

new mound-construction stage was superimposedover an earlier stage. In this manner, many platformmounds were expanded to massive prop0l1ions, butthere is a wide range in the size and numberofplat-form mounds found at Mississippian centers. Usingthese criteria, Claudine Payne (I 994:Table 3-6) hasconstructed a site-size classification of 268 Mis-sissippian mound centers. She finds that] 44 sitesare in the smallest class, with one to three mounds,and only ]7 centers are in the largest class, withmore than] 6 mounds. The Cahokia site, with 100mounds, is far larger than other centers. Monk'sMound at Cahokia, the largest Mississippianmound, covers 6 ha at the base and stands 30.1 mhigh (Collins and Chalfant ]993:3]9). AlthoughMississippian platform mounds are a 1'0111] of mon-umental architecture, most are relatively low-vol-ume constructions no more than 3 m high (Payne1994: I00).

Platform mounds playa central role in archae-ologica] investigations of Mississippian sociopo-litical organization. HistOlical and archaeo]ogicalresearch SUPPOltsthe following assumptions aboutthe sociopolitical significance of platform mounds:platform mounds served as residences and m0l1u-aries for high-rank individuals and groups (Swan-ton 191]; Waring 1968); sites with platformmounds mark political centers in regional settle-ment systems (Peebles and Kus 1977; Steponaitis] 978); control of platform mound construction anduse legitimated and sanctified important leadershiproles (Anderson] 994; Blitz] 993; Hally] 996; Lin-dauer and Blitz ]997; Steponaitis ]986); and theduration of platform mound construction and usecoincided with the duration of the chiefly polity thatused the mound (Hally ] 996). Theseinterpreta-tions of Mississippian platform mounds are notconsidered particularly controversial.

Such is not the case with another frequently dis-cussed characteristic of Mississippian platformmounds: the sociopolitical implications of moundsize or volume. Perspectives on this topic havechanged over time. Archaeologists in the ]970stended to consider the labor demands of moundbuilding as excessive, and the impressive volumeof the mounds was seen as a direct reflection ofequally impressive organizational capabilities(Haas ] 982; Steponaitis ] 978). More recently,archaeologists such as Muller (I997) and Milner(1998) have calculated labor estimates suggesting

that mound building would not have placed a seri-ous burden of time and energy on Mississippianpopulations or even have required complex lead-ership structures.

Although it has .long been evident that there isa wide range of variation in the volume of .indi-vidual mounds and in the scale of mound con-struction at Mississippian sites, archaeologistshave been slow to quantify these differences in asystematic way (Payne] 994). Nevertheless, thescale of mound building at Mississippian sites hasbecome an imp0l1ant measure of regional settle-ment hierarchies. Specific settlement patterns, suchas the number of mounds at a center and the dis-tances between centers, are attributed to specificforms of sociopolitical organization (Anderson1994; Blitz] 999; Steponaitis ] 986). Althoughmound-center size hierarchies are common]y con-sidered to be an archaeological con'elate of rankedsociety (Peebles and Kus ]977), variation in Mis-sissippian mound volume is the subject of twowidely held interpretations that appear contradic-tory. Some investigators consider the duration ofmound use to be the primary factor determiningmound volume, and others claim that mound vol-ume is primarily the result of the number of peo-ple in the labor force that constructed the mound.Because each interpretation has very differentimplications for understanding mound-center sizehierarchies, it is important that the relationshipbetween duration of mound use and mound vo]-ume is investigated and the apparent contradic-tions are resolved. Let us examine the basis of eachinterpretation.

Mound Volume:Duration of Use or Chiefly Power?

In the duration-of-use interpretation, it is assumedthat mound volume increased as long as the moundwas in use because the occupation of a platformmound entailed periodic construction episodes orstages. These periodic construction episodes arerevealed archaeologically in the multistage stratacharactelistic of Mississippian platfOlID mounds.As the duration of mound use increased, moundvolume also increased as more construction stageswere added. According to this line of reasoning, thelargest mounds are those that were used over thelongest periods of time and were repeatedly

REPORTS 293

expanded by the addition of new stages (Hally1994: I57).

The competing interpretation of mound volumemay be tenned the chiefly power interpretation. Bychiefly power we refer to a leader's ability to com-pel compliance to a central authOlity. The abilityto wield power and accomplish social and politi-cal goals in competitive situations is expected tovary among chiefs, tied as it is to degrees of rank,charisma, prestige, and other factors. Proponentsof the chiefly power interpretation consider moundvolume to be the direct product of thc quantity oflabor invested in constl1lction. In a model of pol it-ical economy widely attributed to Mississippiansocieties, the ability to amass and direct labor formound construction is under the control of chieflyelites or leaders as a form of corvce labor (Haas1982), tribute cxu'action (Steponaitis 1978), orcommunal intensification rites (Knight 1986).

Viewed this way, the volume of mound con-struction is an indirect measure of the scale ofchiefly power, in thc form oflabar allocation, avail-able to leaders at a mound center. Variation inmound volumc should reflect variation in the sizeof the labor force mobilized by a chief. Thisassumption provides a rationale for arrangingregional mound centers into site-size hierarchiesthought to represent dominant and subordinatepolitical relationships. Because relative demo-graphic strength is so important for corporate groupor community success in the competitive interac-tion of kin-based societies such as the Mississip-pians (Carneiro 1967; Milner and Schroeder I 999),the scale of mound construction at sites implies acOITesponding scale of chiefly power.

Two recent studies of regional Mississippiansettlement systems serve to illustrate the two con-trasting interpretations. In their analysis of the dis-u'ibution of Mississippian platfonn-mound centersin the Lower Chattahoochee-Apalachicola Riverregion of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, JohnScarry and Claudine Payne (1986:82) state that"settlement duration" cannot account for the vari-ation in mound volume at regional sites. Theyacknowledge that duration of mound use is a poten-tial factor in the variation of mound volume at sites,but it is considered to be of secondary impOltanee.Although Scarry and Payne admit that they lack anadequate chronology of mound-center occupations,they go on to reconstruct a site-size hierarchy based

on the volume of mounds at sites. This site-sizehierarchy, in turn, is their basis for infelTing a hier-archy of political relationships between the lead-ers of regional mound centers.

In contrast, Mark Williams and Gary Shapiroreject the chiefly power explanation of mound vol-ume in their study of Mississippian mound-centersettlement pattell1s in the Oconee River region ofGeorgia. Instead, they consider duration of mounduse to be the primary factor that produced theobserved vmiation in mound volume at regionalcenters. They state, "Mound volume is a poor indi-cator of the power held by the chief of a pmticularvillage. This is because it is directly related to thelongevity of a mound's use and renewal. ... Thusmound volume, and possibly cenu'ality of moundsite, are inadequate means of identifying subordi-nate sites" (1996: I47- I48).

Is mound volume the result of the duration ofmound use or the measure of a chief's ability toamass a large labor force for mound construction?The question is of cenu'al impOltance because thevolume of mound construction at sites is used toidentify Mississippian settlement hierm'chies andinfer political relationships between the leadershipstructures at large and small mound centers. If theduration-of-use interpretation is correct, however,then an important archaeological correlate ofranked society, the regional settlement hierm'chy,may be called into question. The two interpretationshave been advanced mainly by assertion. There hasbeen no systematic effort to evaluate the two the-ories by examining relationships among the basicproperties of mounds.

Data and Methods

A sample of 35 excavated Mississippian platfonnmounds was examined in an effort to evaluate thetwo interpretations of mound volume (Table I).Four basic variables were recorded for each mound:a mound volume index, the number of majormound-construction stages, the duration of mounduse in years, and the number of mounds at the sitewhere the sample mound is found. Following amethod used by Payne (1994: 107- I 10), a moundvolume index was caleulated for each case as basallength x basal width x height/1000. An index ofmound volume facilitates rough comparison of thesizes of mounds and mitigates such factors as slope

294 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 69, No.2, 2004]

,..,8N~,S?;;"'"~E

or. E~ 0

"E ";;E 0

0.". U ~'" .". '" 0 i';~ ~ 00 '" '" !::: <3

C-oo ~ ~ '" ~ 0 ~ ,..,

""~ '" '" t- o 0

;0 ..!< 0 2 ~ N ~ or, or. N N ..!< 0" 0 '" '" ~ ~

N~ ~ u 00 " " 'Q. 0 .2 ,S? 0

" or, V V " 2", ..... '" '" " 0

~ '(; ;; £ "0 :;: "" '§-~ £:l ~-g ~ :f" '" '" or, ,~ ~ 0E .". "0 ~ " " " '" 0 &: ~ 0~ 0 a 0 0 "0 "" -~ 55 0 '::; '5 ~ '" 0~ '" " "" ""

~ '" 0 t- o 00 ~ "'N '" ....." '" " " " " "0 "0 '" 8z '" = '" "0 '" ;: ~O\ -0 ~t- '" '" E 0 0 0 ~ 2or .•. - " -0 " ~ " " N '" '" 0 .•. "N " '" '" ~~ N N " ~00 00 ~ ~- 0\ .:::0 .0 ~ ~ '" 0 0 ," ~ 2 0 '" 0

" '" '" ~ " "0 E 0 ";; ~ 0 0 ~" " E " ";; ~:::.E .§ C- ,~ '",. ~

00 N 00 ~ " "" U N N ~ 0 ~ " ~ '" 0 o " "'"'" '" Oij 0 ~ Oij " OijO '" ~,_ 0

.E~ J:j .~ "" ...J '"o _

'" ~ '" '" " ;,; 0

~~;,; Vi ::: C': '" N o " t-"0 .. >2 '" "-~ as ~ ~ '" '" :I: = or. or. '" t- " ~ ~ ~000 0..

'" 00 .", ~ C- " N '"" Og:;N\O~ ~ .;; ;: t- O' t- ,::~~ '" '" N_ o '" ~~ 0; 0; -0 "0 "0 '" - '" '" '" '" '" = "0 '"" ;: B ,..,'" 0 0 '" " - '" - '" "0 0 00 0 "0 "0 ~'" '" 00\000-, c:: "'- or." " v '" ~~~~~ ~ " " ~'" ~

i'; ~- '" ;: "0 '" ",- 0 0 ~ ~'" " 0 0 ~" '" E 0 0 0 2 " "0 " 0Ie "" " "" E N N .§ "" - " " 1: 1: " Oij 0 ~" 0 ~ 0:;0 " ~ .;: ~ 0:; " -'"

0 .0" " ~ t! ~~ g gn~ ~ it. - ~ ~ 0 " 0

'" J:j " .~~~

~~

~ Ie 'E "0 ~ " B i'; ~ ~ ';: "" or; " .0 ;:: """ 0 " c3~~:2< 0; 0 0 ~ ~ ~ 0 .£ " ];i " " 0 0 ~ 0 '0:; ~ " " "0'" ...J 0 0; :I: ...J ...J '" :I: « 0; ~ '" '" ...J ::J 00 iC

""u z (J ...J 0..

rr.rr.N----Qo

or.N.•.

6~~0060000000000000060IF';Nr-lr,lF';~lF';lF';lF';lF';lr,OlF';lF';lF';lF';lF';OOOOO~~lF';~lr,N~~~NNlF';~N~\O~~~MMlF';---- ------------~~~~g8g8~ggg8~88gg8

M~-MNN--NN-NN-N- NN-- ....• ---------6o

NNlr,lF';lF';O\-rr,\O---f-_NN

oor.,..,0000r<"', rr,

~~"0c: --rr,rr,-O\-r--N-15 •...•:;:

> N '" "1 00 N '" '" "1 "! 0 '" 00 ..., ": 0 ": 00 0 "'! 00 "! t- or. '" t- o 0 00 N '" t-:;: vi N '" '" 00 ,.., vi or. 00 N ,..: 0 '" or. N N '" N ,..: ,..: N vi N N N .,f

'" N or. N .•.

-'""(J ~"'u" -> "" "0..00

(J

REPORTS 295

and irregular contours. The number of majormound-construction stages tallied for each moundin Tablc ] is the total as recorded by the excava-tors. Small discontinuous fill episodes, when iden-tified as such by the excavators, were not countedas major construction stages, but we made no eff0l1to evaluate the accuracy of the excavators' obser-vations. Duration of mound use was calculated asthe total number of years in the phase interval spansfor all components associated with mound use. Thenumber of mounds variable in Table I presents thecount of mounds at the site where each samplemound occurs. As will become apparent below, itis important to identify if the sample mound occursat a single-mound site or a multiple-mound site.Because the chiefly power interpretation assumesthat the size of the labor force had an influence onmound size, the number of mounds variable servesas a proxy measure of population size at a site.

The sample of excavated mounds in Table 1 isdrawn from an unknown or hypothetical popula-tion of Mississippian platform mounds. In select-ing the sample, our primary concern was to identifyfactors that might limit the accurate measurementof the four variables. For this reason, we excludedmany mounds from the sample for lack of data:incomplete excavation, pre-excavation damage thatprevented accurate volume or construction-stagemeasurement, or chronological ambiguities. In sev-eral cases (1 PI8S, 9BR3, 9CKS, 9QUl, and22CSS02 in Table 1), we included a damagedmound in the sample because mound dimensionswere recorded prior to significant alterations andthe hOlizontal and vertical excavations appeared tobe extensive enough to detect all major construc-tion stages and all components associated withmound use. We excluded Caddo platform moundsin the trans-Mississippi Southeast from the moundsample because of possible divergent cultural tra-ditions, our lack of familiarity with regional archae-ology, and unresolved chronological issues inregional sequences. The result of these selection cri-teria is a sample of mounds from several regionalMississippian variants or archaeological cultures inAlabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana,Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Ten-nessee (Figure 1).

A possible source of error in these data is thepotential variation in the accuracy ofthe estimatedtime spans used to measure the duration of mound

300 600

Kilometers

Figure 1. Location of sites in the southeastern UnitedStates used in this study. '

use. The difficulties encountered in attempts to cor-relate absolute chronologies based on radiocarbonand relative chronologies based on ceramic seri-ation are well known. In the American Southeast,prehistoric archaeological phase intervals of lessthan 100 years are uncommon. Two-hundred-yearphases are, common, however, perhaps partlybecause of the standard error ranges of radiocar-bon assays. Indeed, at least one archaeologist hasadvocated the use of standardized, arbitrary 200-year phases for constructing late-prehistoricchronological frameworks in the Eastern Wood-lands (Lewis 1990:40-43). It is beyond the scopeof this study to undertake a critical evaluation ofthe phase time spans in the samples. Consequently,the duration of mound use is the maximum num-ber of years in the estimated phase time spans pro-vided in current references (Table 1).

Analysis and Results

Histograms of the mound sample variables revealsome informative patterns (Figures 2--4). Moundvolume indexes range from 1.0 to 51.4, althoughonly five mounds have a mound volume index over15.0: Moundville R, Dyar, Cahokia 31, Angel F,and Obion 6 (Figure 2). Given that the vast major-ity of recorded Mississippian platform moundshave volume indexes below 10.0 (Payne 1994:fig-ures 3-14, 3c 16), it is not entirely unexpected that

--

296 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol.69, No.2, 2004]

.•

conforms to a normal distribution (Figure 4). Thereare no apparent breaks in the distribution that wouldjustify the creation of site hierarchies based onduration alone. The duration of use range is]00-450 years, with a mean of 183 years and amedian of ]50 years. Also, there appears to be arough periodicity in mound construction: the aver-age occupation span per construction layer is 25-50years. Of course, construction stages may havebeen added to mounds at shorter intervals than ourchronological methods can measure. These datasuggest, however, that mound consu'uction mayhave been an infrequent, even once-in-a-lifetimeevent at many sites, lending SUPPOlt to claims thatmound consu'uction did not place a significant bur-den of labor on most Mississippians.

A clearer view of these relationships emergeswith a biplot of duration and mound volume index(Figure 5). The most significant feature is that thefive large mounds are visually distinct. If weexclude these five apparent outlier mounds fromconsideration, then one can see that there is a slighttrend toward increasing mound size as durationincreases. Three of the largest mounds also comefrom large sites with nine or more mounds. If weexclude all of the mounds from the largest sites,then we get the best-fit line observed in Figure 5.The equation for this line can be expressed as fol-lows: mound volume index = .88 + (.03 x duration).This equation provides an average relationshipbetween mound volume and duration for the sam-ple of mounds at sites with less than nine mounds.This equation may be useful to future researcherssearching for a way to control for duration and statewhether other mounds are larger or smaller thanaverage compared with our sample. We have notbothered to reproduce the best -fit lines for the wholesample or for the large sites because the y-inter-cepts for these lines are greater than eight and areclearly skewed by incomplete data.

Figure 6, a biplot of duration and number ofstages, shows an even clearer pattem. There is aslight (but visually apparent) trend toward increas-ing numbers of stages as the duration of mound useincreases. Such a pattern makes logical sense. Earlyhistoric accounts suggest that mound constructionwas periodic and that it accompanied significantevents, such as world-renewal ceremonies or thedeath of a chief (Swanton 1911; Waring 1968). Ifmounds were in use for a longer period of time,

100 200 300 400 500Duration (years)

10 20 30 40 50 60Mound Volume (MVI)

4 8 12 16 20Number of Construction Stages

'" 30C.E'"en.E

"'"C:Jo::;:'0:u.0E:JZ

Figure 4. Histogram of mound duration.

'" 16C.E'"en.E"'"C:Jo::;:'0:u.0E:JZ

'" 15C.E'"en.E

"'"C:Jo::;:'0:u.0E:JZ

Figure 3. Histogram of mound construction stages.

Figure 2. Histogram of mound volume index (MVI).

the largest mounds are apparent outliers in the sam-ple. A decay pattern is also evident in the distribu-tion of the number-of-stages variable; only aminority of mounds has more than ten construc-tion stages (Figure 3). The chronological variable,duration of mound use, visually and statistically

. REPORTS 297

Figure 6. Biplot of duration and number of mound con-struction stages.

.33(.05)

Duration

Duration

MVI

Siages

.52(.001)

.46(,005)

Note: The values in parentheses are the probability of get-ting an equal or stronger correlation from a randomly gen-erated sample.

Table 2. Rank-Order Correlations (r,l of Mound Variables.

12- 18 years, than the other mounds, where 25-50years is typical. The sample size is too small 10explore this fmther, but this might be an interest-ing source for timher research.

Spemman's rank-order cOlTelation (1'.,) can sup-plement the visual plots and provide a mathemat-ical measure of the rela(ionships among variables.Spearman's r, is useful because it makes noassumptions about the distribution of the data, yetthe results can be interpreted the same way as othercon'elation coefficients. As the plots would suggest,there is a middling con'elation between mound vol-ume index and number of stages (.52) and numberof stages and duration (.46), but there is less cor-relation between mound volume and duration (.33;Table 2). One way that the cOlTelations can be readis to say that the square of the con'elation coeffi-cient is the proportion of the total variability ofvariable x that can be accounted for by variable y.In other words, the number of stages can explain27 percent ofthe variability in mound volume, andduration ;can explain 21 percent of the variabilityin the number of stages but only about I I percentof the variation in mound volume. It would appearthat there are additional factors outside of the vari-ables examined thus far that have a greater statis-tical effect on mound volume than duration alone.

The five largest mounds appear to be outliers inthis sample and might be skewing certain calcula-tions. Moreover, three of the five largest moundsare at multiple-mound sites. This observation alertsus to the possibility that the social conditions ofmound construction for these largest mounds at thelargest sites, such as the size of the mound laborforce or mound-construction effort, might be dif-ferent than the circumstances of mound construc-tion for smaller mounds at smaller sites. We canexamine this possibility with the number-of-mounds variable. This variable is statistically inde-pendent of mound volume index, so we may use it

500

•

•

•*

*

*•••.....- -.

I-!""---.- -; .I I I I

100 200 300 400Duration (years)

* Large Site (9+ mounds)• Small site (1-8 mounds)

20 I I I I

Ul •Q) 15- -CJl •ctl

i'i5 •-0 10-~ • -Q).c

* •E .*:J • • •••z5 • • -•••• •• • •• • • •0 I I I I

0 100 200 300 400 500Duration (years)

* Large Site (9+ mounds)• Small site (1-8 mounds)

60

:>650xQ)"0 40EQ)

E 30:J0>"0 20c:J0:2 10

00

Figure 5. Biplot of duration and mound volume.The dot-ted line represents the best-fit line for sites with eight orfewer mounds.

then more of these events, and therefore more stagesof construction, should have occurred. It may besignificant that six of the mounds (Cahokia 3 I,Cemochechobee B, Dyar, Lake Jackson 3,Moundville R, and Toqua A) appear to fall alongthe same accelerated slope. These sites have a muchlower average duration per construction layer,

--

298 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 69, No.2, 2004]

Table 3. Rank-Order Correlations (r) of Mound Variablesin Site-Size Categories.

MV] and Duration.57 .64 -.31(.02) (.01) (.61)

MVl and Stages.57 .28 .90(.02) (.34) (.04)

Duration and Stages.58 .41 .10(.02) (.15) (.87)

Note: The values in parentheses are the probability of get-ling an equal or stronger corrclation from a randomly gen-erated sample.USitcs with two 10 eight mounds.bSites with nine or more mounds.

5 10 15 20 25 30Number of Mounds at Site

Single-MoundCenter

MinorCenterU

MajorCenterh

,L.

Figure 7. Histogram of the number of mounds at sites,excluding Cahokia.

to stratify our sample before calculating con'ela-tions for the primary variables. Figure 7 is a his-togram of the number of mounds, excludingCahokia.

Tojudge from Payne's (1994) study of variationin the number of mounds found at Mississippianmound sites, we can consider sites with nine ormore mounds to be in the largest category. For oursample, this largest category includes the Cahokia,Moundville, Angel, Pevey, and Winterville sites.We divided the mound sample into three groups:single-mound sites, minor centers (sites withtwo--eight mounds), and major centers (sites withnine or more mounds). The outlier distribution ofthe largest mounds, the distribution in Figure 7, andthe similar site-size patterning in Payne's study pro-vide the empirical support for this procedure.

Correlations between mounds in each sitegrouping and the primary mound variables are pre-sented in Table 3. These results reinforce the ideathat mound building at major centers was distinctlydifferenl from mound building at single-moundsites or minor centers. In fact, there is a negativecorrelation (-.3]) between mound volume indexand duration at major centers (probably an accidentof sample size, n = 5). Interestingly, the single-mound sites and the minor centers have similarcoefficient values. These observations suggest thatthe same kinds of "rules" about mound construc-tion were in effect at most sites and that these ruleswere only different at the major centers. Mostimportant, duration has a much stronger correla-

tion with mound volume if mounds from the majorcenters are excluded. Duration explains about] ]percent of the variation in mound volume when allmounds are considered together, but it accounts for41 percent of the variation if the mounds frommajor centers are excluded.

Although it has a good correlation, durationalone does not explain all of the variation in moundvolume. We may be dealing here with a more elu-sive set of causal factors that stem from variabilityin the effOit invested in mound construction. Thechiefly power interpretation of mound consu'uctionassumes that powelful or chalismatic chiefs elicitedmore construction effort than less persuasive chiefs,but there are few clues in the archaeological recordthat pelmit us to measure chiefly influence overconstruction effort. Because the relationshipsamong the primary mound vwiables for the IW'gestmounds at the largest sites w'e different from thoseat smaller sites, it would be informative to know ifmound-consUuction efforts also vary between largeand small sites. One might conclude, intuitively,that such is the case because of the absolute differ-ences in the volume of mound construction atmound sites with more or larger mounds.

One reason to expect differences in the socialrules of mound construction is the assumption thatthe largest sites were occupied by multiple corpo-rate groups. At Mississippian multiple-mound cen-ters, it is common for one platform mound to bemuch larger than the other mounds (Payne]994:97). If the smaller mounds were corporate-group sUuctures erected by different social seg-ments, then these largest mounds may represent thepooled labor efforts of all constituent groups,

"

REPORTS 299

"either as integrative communal projects to coun-terbalance the differentiation inherent in competi-tive corporate groups or, alternatively, as a form oftribute that directly acknowledged a ranked socialhierarchy" (Lindauer and Blitz 1997: I 94). Becausemounds at smaller sites exhibit a higher correlationbetween duration and volume, perhaps mound con-struction was maintained on a more regular or pre-dictable basis at small sites in comparison withmound construction at the largest sites. In contrast,different social rules of construction at the largestsites may have altered the relationship betweenduration and volume. In other words, the timing ofmound-constl1lction episodes at the largest sitesmay have been dictated more by unpredictable orvolatile sociopolitical events directed by powerfulchiefs and less by regular or predictable social rulessuch as periodic renewal ceremonies.

Conclusions

At the beginning of this article we presented twocompeting interpretations of Mississippian plat-form-mound volume. Simply put, some researchersclaim that big mounds are big because they havebeen used for a long time, whereas others argue thatbig mounds are big because a powerful chiefamassed a large consuuction force. The issue is ofanthropological significance because the scale ofmound construction is used to identify regional set-tlement hierarchies, which are then used to inferaspects of Mississippian sociopolitical organiza-tion. Our tests have shown that somewhere between10 and 40 percent of the variation in mound vol-ume can be explained by duration alone. The restof the variation is unexplained by the variables wehave. This unexplained remainder in the variationof mound volume could be the product of a host ofother factors such as random variation, differencesin tools used to dig and move soil, and age/sex dif-ferences in the composition of the labor force(assuming that young men could pile up more dirt .than others over the same amount of time). It couldalso be explained by valiation in chiefly power.

Statistically, the largest sites do not confonTI tothe same patterns as the smaller sites, so perhapsthere were different social rules for mound con-struction at the largest sites that changed the rela-tionship between volume and duration. We do notknow what these different rules were, although it

is reasonable to suggest that the answer has some-thing to do with the manner in which labor wasmobilized at major centers. Unfortunately, we onlyhave a small and unrepresentative sample of mounddata from major centers, so fUlther analysis mustbe done on a case-by-case basis.

Proponents of both interpretations can find com-fort in these conclusions. The "durationist" canpoint out that as much as 4 I percent of mound vol-ume is controlled by duration and that much oftherest of the vmiation could probably be explainedby other rather pedestrian factors if we could onlymeasure them. A "powerist" can say that the bigsites are the key and that the relationship betweenduration and mound volume breaks down at thesesites, leaving plenty of statistical room to argue forthe influence of chiefs. Either way, our examina-tion of this issue forces attention on often-over-looked assumptions.

We hope that now, when archaeologists iden-tify settlement hierarchies based on the volume ofMississippian platform mounds, they will consUucttheir ideas more carefully. Although we have takenthis inquiry as far as the data will allow, we cansuggest two ways this might be accomplished whenan expanded sample of mounds becomes available.First, to further understand the variation in moundvolume, a measure of mound-construction effortapplicable to individual mounds is required. Nei-ther the mound volume index nor the duration ofuse can measure how much effort was invested ineach construction episode. For that purpose, a mea-sure of mound stage volume might reveal variationin the construction effOlt invested in each buildingepisode dUling the history of an individual moundand for a sample of mounds. Second, investigatorscould begin to take a more sophisticated statisticalapproach to the discussion of mound volume anddemonstrate that even when duration is factoredinto the mound-building equation, a particularmound is, in fact, larger than expected.

Acknowledgments. Blitz presented an earlier version of thisanicle at the 2001 Southeastern Archaeological Conference.Our thanks go to David G. Anderson, David J. Hally, Lisa 1.LeCount, Karl G. Lorenz, Paul D. Welch, Mark Williams, andseveral anonymous reviewers for reading earlier drafts of thisarticle, the content of which was greatly improved by theircomments. Several individuals shared their knowledge of spe-cific mounds. We are grateful for this generosity and acknowl-edge their contributions in the references. Lesley Rankin-Hilltranslated the abstract into Spanish. The kind assistance of the

300 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 69, No.2, 2004]

aforementioned individuals does not imply agreement withthe contents of this article. Any errors are our own.

References Cited

Anderson, David G.1994 The Savllnnah River Clliefdoms. University of

Alabama Press. Tuscaloosa.Black, G]en A.

1967 The Angel Sile. Indiana Historical Society, Jndi-anapolis.

Blitz, John H.)993 Allcie11f Chiefdoms of the T011lbigbee. University of

Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.1999 Mississippian Chiefdoms and the Fission-Fusion

Process. American Antiquity 64:577-592.Bohannon, Charles F.

1972 Pharr Mounds and Bear Creek Sire. National Park Ser-vice. Washington, D.C.

Brain, Jeffery P.1989 Winten1ille: Late Prehistoric CulTure ContacT ill the

Lower Mississippi Valley. Archaeological Series Report,No. 23. Mississippi Department of Archives and Hislory,Jackson.

Caldwell, Joseph R., and Catherine McCann1941 irene Mound Sirc, Chatham COU1l1y, Georgia. Uni-

versity of Georgia Press, Athens.Carneiro, Robert L.

1967 On the Relationship between Size of Population andComplexity of Social Organization. Southwestern JournalofAllIhmpnlogy 23:234-243.

Cae. Joffre L.1995 Town Creek Indian Mound, a NativeAmerican LegaC)~

University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Collins, James M .. and Michael L. Chalfant

1993 A Second-Terrace Perspective on Monk's Mound.American AllIiquily 58:3] 9-332.

Cotler, John L.195] Stratigraphic and Area Tests at the Emera]d and Anna

Mound Sites. Americau Antiquity 17:18-32.Dejarnette, David L., and Steve B. Wimberly

1941 The Bessemer Sile. Museum Paper 17. GeologicalSurvey of A]abama, University.

Fowler, Melvin L.1997 The Cahokia AI/as: A Historical AI/as ~rCahokia

Archaeology. Rev. cd. Studies in Archaeology No.2. Uni-versity of Illinois Press, Urbana-Champaign.

Gage, Matthew D.2000 Ground-Penetrating Radar and Core Sampling at the

Moundville Site. Unpublished Master's thesis, Depart-ment of Anthropology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

Garland, EI izabeth B.1992 The Obion Site: An Early Mississippian Celller in

Westem Tennessee. Report of Investigations No.7. CobbInstitute of Archaeology, Mississippi State University, Mis-sissippi State.

Haas, Jonathan1982 The Evolution <?ftl1ePrehistoric State. Columbia Uni-

versity Press, New York.Hally, David J.

1994 An Overview of Lamar Culture. In Ocmulgee Archae-ology 1936-1986. edited by David J. Hally, pp. 144-]74.University of Georgia Press, Athens.

1996 Platfonn-Mound Construction and the Jnstability ofMississippian Chiefdoms. In Political Structure andChange in the Prehistoric Southeastem United States,

edited by John F. Scarry, pp. 92-127. University Press ofFlorida. Gainesville.

Hilgeman, Sherri Lynn2000 Pottery and Chronologv at Angel. University of

Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Huscher, Harold A.

1971 Two Mississippian Mound Sites in Quitman County,Georgia. Southeastern Archaeological ConferenceNell's/eller 10(2):35-36.

Jeter, Marvin D., and G. ]shmael Williams Jr.]989 Late Prehistoric Cultures, A.D. 1000-] 500.lnArchae-

ology Gild Bioarclweology of the Lower Mississippi Valwley and Trans-Mississippi South in Arkansas andLouisiana, by Marvin D. Jeter, Jerome C. Rose, G. Ish-mael Williams Jr., and Anna M. Hannon, pp. 17]-220.Research Series No. 37. Arkansas Archaeological Survey,Fayetteville.

Johnson. Gregory A.1977 Aspects of Regional Analysis in Archaeology. Annual

Revieu' of Anthropology 6:479-506.Jones, B. Calvin

] 982 Southern Cult Manifestations at the Lake JacksonSite, Leon County, Florida: Salvage Excavations of Mound3. MidCOlllillcmal Journal q(ArcllOeology 7:3-44.

Kelly, Arthur R., and Clemens DeBaillou1960 Excavation of the Presumptive Site of Est aloe. South-

ern Indian Studies 12:3-30.King, Adam

1996 Tracing Organizational Change in MississippianChiefdoms of the Etowah River Valley. Georgia. Unpub-lished Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University.University Park.

Knight. Vernon James. Jr.1986 The lnstitutional Organization of Mississippian Reli-

gion. American Antiquity 5] :675-687.1995 Chronology and Use of Public Architecture at the

Moundville Site: Excavations in Mounds R, F, G, and E.Second interim report, National Science Foundation Award9220568. Report submitted to the National Science Foun-dation by the Department of Anthropology, University ofAlabama, Tuscaloosa.

Lewis, R. Barry] 990 The Late Prehistory of the Ohio-Mississippi Rivers

Confluence Region, Kentucky and Missouri. In Tmvll.'i andTemples along Ihe Mississippi, edited by David H. Dye andCheryl A. Cox, pp. 38-58. University of Alabama Press,Tuscaloosa.

Lewis, Thomas M. N., and Madeline Kneburg1946 Hiwassee Island: An Archaeological Account ofTen-

nessee indian Peoples. University of Tennessee Press,Knoxville.

Lindauer; Owen, and John H. Blitz] 997 Higher Ground: The Archaeology of North American

Platform Mounds. Joumal of Archaeological Research5:169-207.

Livingood. Patrick]999 Investigations of Mississippian Mounds on the Mid-

dle Pearl River, Mississippi. Paper presented at the 56thAnnual Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Con-ference, Pensacola.

Lorenz, Karl G.]992 Big Men in the Big Black River Valley: Small Scale

Late Prehistoric Community Organization in Central Mis-sissippi. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department ofAnthropology, University of JIlinois, Urbana.

1996 Small-Scale Mississippian Community Organizationin the Big Black River Valley of Mississippi. Soutlzeast-

REPORTS 301

em Archlleology 15:145-171.Lorenz, Karl G., and John H. Blitz

2002 The Mississippi Period in the Lower ChattahoocheeValley:A Statistical Approach for Establishing aRegionalChronology. Paper presented at the 67th Annua] Meetingof the Society for American Archaeology, Denver.

Milner, George R.1998 The Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology ola Mis-

sissippian Society. Smithsonian Institution Press, Wash-ington, D.C.

Milner, George R., and Sissel Schroeder1999 Mississippian Political Systems. InGreat Towns alld

Regiollal I'olities, edited by Jill E. Neitzel, pp. 95-107. Uni-versity of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Muller, Jon1997 Mississippian Political Economy. Plenum Press, New

York.Neitzel, Stuart, and Jesse D. Jennings

1995 The Hixon Site. In The Prehistory(~rthe ChiclwmaugaBasill, Vol. 2, edited by Lynne P. Sullivan, pp. 372-4]8.University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Neuman, Roben W.] 961 Domesticated Com from a Fort Walton Mound Site

in Houston County, Alabama. Florida Anthropologist14:75-80.

Payne, Claudine1994 Mississippian Capitals: An Archaeologica] Investiga-

tion of Precolumbian Political Structure. UnpublishedPh.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville. Uni-versity Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

Peebles. Christopher S., and Susan M. Kus1977 Some Archaeo]ogical Correlates of Ranked Societies.

American Awiquity 42:421-448.Polhemus, Richard R. (editor)

1987 The Toqua Site: A Late Mississippian Dallas PhaseTown. Reports of Investigations No. 41. Depm1ment ofAnthropology. University of Tennessee. Knoxville.

Quimby, George I., Jr.1951 The Medora Site, West Baton Rouge Parish. Louisiana.

Anthropological Series Vol 24,'No. 2. Field Museum ofNatural History, Chicago.

1957 The Bayou Goula Site, Iben'iIle Parish, Louisiana.Fieldiana Anthropology Vol. 47, No.2. Field Museum ofNatural History, Chicago.

Rafferty, Janet1995 Owl Creek Mounds: Test"EtcQvations at a Vacant Mis-

sissippian Mound Center. Reports oflnvestigations No.7.Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Mississippi State Univer-sity, Mississippi State.

Scarry, John F., and Claudine Payne1986 Mississippian Polities in the Fort Walton Area: A

Model Generated from the Renfrew-Leve] XTENT Algo-rithm. Southeastem Archaeology 5:79-90.

Schnell, Frank T., Vernon James Knight Jr., and Gail S. Schnell1981 Cemochechobee: Archaeologyofa Mississippian Cer-

emonial Center on the Chattahoochee River. UniversityPresses of Florida, Gainesville.

Sears, William H.]958 The Wilbanks Site (9CK5), Georgia. Bulletin No. ]69.

Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian lnstitution,Washington, D.C.

Smith, Marvin T.]994 Archaeological Investigations at the Dyar Site, 9GE5.

Laboratory of Archaeology Series Report No. 32. Uni-versity of Georgia, Athens.

Steponaitis, Vincas P.]978 Locational Theory and Complex Chiefdoms: A Mis-

sissippian Example. InMississippian Settlement Parrems.edited by Bruce D. Smith, pp. 417-453. Academic Press,New York.

] 986 Prehistoric Archaeology in the Southeastern UnitedStates, 1970-1985. Annual Review (~rAmhropology] 5:363-404.

Sullivan, Lynne P.] 997 The Use and Abuse of Mound 31. Paper presented at

"Platforms of Power: Mound Form and Function atCahokia," 26-27 June, Collinsville, Illinois.

2000 Arclweomagnetis111 Pm\,ides Dates/or the ToquaSite.Research Notes No. '18. FrankH. McClung Museum, Uni-versity ofTenne~see, Knoxville.

2001 Dates for Shell Gorgets and the Southeastem Cere-monial Complex in the Chickamauga Basin o/Southeast-em Tennessee. Research Notes No. 19. FrankH.McClungMuseum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

2003 Archaeological Time Constructsand the Constructionof the Hiwassee Island Mound. Paper presented at the 68thAnnual Meeting of the Society forAmerican Archaeology,Milwaukee.

Swanton, John R.1911 India1l Tribes (~rthe Lower Mississippi Valley a1ld

Adjacent Coasr of the Guff (~f Mexico. Bulletin No. 43.Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution,Washington, D.C.

Waring, Antonio J., Jr.1968 The Southern Cult and Muskhogean Ceremonial. In

Tile Waring I'lIl'ers, edited by Stephen Williams, pp. 3()...{j9.Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Eth-nology Vol. 58. Harvard University, Cambridge.

Wauchope, Robert W.1966 Arclllleological Sun'ey of Northem Georgia witll a

Test o.fSome Cultural Hypotheses. Memoirs No. 21. Soci-ety for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City.

Webb, William S., and David L. DeJarnette]942 An Archaeological Sun1ey of Pickwick Basin in the

Adjacent Portiolls of the States of Alabama. Mississippi,and Tennessee. Bulletin No. 129, Bureau of AmericanEth-nology, Smithsonian Institution,Washington, D.C.

Welch, Paul D.] 991 Moundville's Economy. University of Alabama Press.

Tuscaloosa.1994 The Occupational History of the Bessemer Site. South-

eastern Archaeology] 3:'1-26.1998 Outlying Sites within the Moundville Chiefdom. ]n

Archaeology of the Maulldville Chiefdom, edited by Ver-non James Knight Jr. and Vincas P. Steponaitis, pp.] 33- ]66. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

Williams, Mark1992 Archaeological Excavations at Scull Shoals Mounds

(9GE4) 1983 alld 1985. Publication]. LAMAR Institute,Watkinsville, Georgia.

Williams, Mark, and Gary Shapiro1990 Arclweological Excavations at the little River Site

(9Mg46), 1984 alld 1987. Publication 2. LAMAR Insti-tute, Watkinsville, Georgia.

1996 Mississippian Po]itical Dynamics in the Oconee Val-ley, Georgia. InPolitical Structure and Change in the Pre-historic Southeastern United States, edited by John F.Scarry, pp. 128-]49. University Press of Florida,Gainesville.

Received February 21,2002; revised Sel'tember 29,2003;accepted October 2, 2003.

ii~

..

.,.