Following the Mississippian Spread: Climate Change and Migration in the Eastern US (ca. AD 1000-1600) 3030890813, 9783030890810

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Robert A. Cook Aaron R. Comstock Editors

Following the Mississippian Spread Climate Change and Migration in the Eastern US (ca. AD 1000–1600)

Following the Mississippian Spread

Robert A. Cook • Aaron R. Comstock Editors

Following the Mississippian Spread Climate Change and Migration in the Eastern US (ca. AD 1000-1600)

Editors Robert A. Cook Department of Anthropology The Ohio State University Newark, OH, USA

Aaron R. Comstock Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography Indiana University East Richmond, IN, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-89081-0 ISBN 978-3-030-89082-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7

(eBook)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Front cover art created by Jeffrey Dilyard This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword: Deep Histories of Floods and Droughts - Lessons from Ancient Climate Change

In 2018, the town of Aurora, Indiana, situated along the Ohio River west of Cincinnati, Ohio, experienced a catastrophic flood. The water level reached multiple feet above flood stage, flooded fields and businesses, and displaced hundreds of people. Over the past 20 years, towns along the middle portion of the Ohio River have experienced flooding at exceptional rates, experiencing “100-year floods” once every decade or more. We have had the unfortunate experience of witnessing these floods and talking with people whose lives were turned upside down by these tragic events. The case of Aurora is one that is all too familiar throughout the Midwest, Southeast, and deep South where our colleagues who have contributed to this volume live and work. Indeed, many of us have experienced flooding or other natural disasters ourselves, and these experiences frame our research and provide personal connections with the socio-ecological patterns that we write about.

Downtown Aurora, Indiana, after a recent flood https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2020/08/17/113-000-more-homes-riskflooding-indiana-report-says/5571932002/ v

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Foreword: Deep Histories of Floods and Droughts - Lessons from Ancient Climate Change

One of the unique things about archaeology is that the social and natural phenomena we study, and the interplay between them, unfold over long periods of time. This allows us to track behaviors and changes over the span of generations, centuries, and millennia. Pertinent to this volume, the discipline of archaeology also allows us to characterize environmental change over time and examine the ways in which past people responded to such change. Archaeological investigations can also allow us to identify the tempo and mode of significant climatological events like floods and droughts, and frame how our current situation of human-induced climate change and environmental modifications without sufficient consideration of longterm impacts have pushed us into a deviant realm of frequent and extreme climate events.

Corn field in Percival, Iowa, after a recent drought https://cdispatch.com/news/2012-08-24/drought-worsens-in-plains-despite-cooler-temperatures/

This volume was not conceived as a commentary on the dangerous time in which we currently live, although the connections are thematically and geographically relevant. Instead, we saw this as a way to explore the patterns and diversity evident in the spread of Mississippian peoples and ways of life as they relate to late Holocene climate perturbations. Cultural responses to climate change often involve movement, which is one of the key thematic interplays identified by the chapters that follow. The appearance of the Mississippian way of life from early centers in the Mississippi Valley to the Midwest, Southeast, and Deep South has long been a significant question. This volume provides insight into one of the ways in which Mississippian people and culture spread: climate-induced movement. The chapters that follow also illustrate the contingent and varied ways in which such movement played out in local

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contexts, ranging from the establishment of distinct Mississippian enclaves to the emergence of hybridized cultural organizations with local peoples. It is our hope that the long-term patterns identified in this volume provide an overview of how the Native inhabitants of eastern North America adapted to changing climate and act as a window into the long history of human-environment interactions in this region. It is also important to actively bridge the gap between past adaptations to climate change and the struggles that many people regularly deal with today. The regionally specific chapters in this volume identify important themes regarding both short- and long-term social adaptations to climatological events like floods and droughts. We hope that many of these chapters will encourage examination of the long-term data used to contextualize current regional climate trends with a focus on understanding the transition into the modern era in each of these areas. Such consideration will help illustrate the impacts of the Anthropocene at regional scales. The chapters in this volume also highlight the resilience of past societies, and reveal patterns in human adaptations to changing environments that are relevant today. Patterns of movement in response to droughts and other catastrophic effects are evident throughout this volume and echo countless traumatic events we see globally. Whether it is drought-related displacement of people from rural areas into cities in Syria that catalyzed the ongoing crisis there, or the movement of people from Central America into the United States because of climate shocks, the links between climate instability and the movement of people are all too clear. Perhaps as a coping tactic, many people in affluent nations tend to write these off as problems of developing nations, but these problems are a global issue that have down-the-line impacts and are also clearly evident in places like the American Southwest, where droughts and industrial farming are creating water shortages that will impact food availability. It is our hope that by exploring the history of climatic change in eastern North America that it will become clear that these lands and the people who live in them are not impervious to the impacts of changing climate. It can be all too easy to collectively be the proverbial toads in slowly boiling water because of our perspective and the pace at which climatic changes take place. Coupled with the efforts of our colleagues in other areas of the world, this volume provides the long-term perspective necessary to more broadly understand not only the natural rhythms of the global climate system and their impacts on past societies but also to characterize the irreparable harm that humans have inflicted on that system in the modern era. Department of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, Newark, OH, USA Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography, Indiana University East, Richmond, IN, USA

Robert A. Cook Aaron R. Comstock

Acknowledgment

We and all of our colleagues in this volume wish to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities native to the regions in which we live and study. We also recognize that these lands and the institutes at which we work were built on Indigenous homelands that were taken forcibly by European colonists. We are devoted to recognizing the vibrant lives of living Native peoples and working to collectively study the rich and diverse pasts of their ancestors.

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Contents

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Climate Change and Migration Among Early Agriculturalists: From Global to Mississippian Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aaron R. Comstock, Robert A. Cook, John H. Blitz, and Mary L. Simon

Part I

Cahokia and the Middle Mississippian Region

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Corn, Climate, and the Human Population of Greater Cahokia . . . Kristin M. Hedman, Thomas E. Emerson, Matthew A. Fort, John M. Lambert, Alleen M. Betzenhauser, and Timothy R. Pauketat

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Regional Migration and Cahokian Population Change in the Context of Climate Change and Hydrological Events . . . . . . Sissel Schroeder, A. J. White, Lora R. Stevens, and Samuel E. Munoz

Part II

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Into the Upper Mississippian Region

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Drought, Diet, Demography, and Diaspora during the Mississippian Period: A View from the Central Illinois River Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Jeremy J. Wilson and Broxton W. Bird

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Late Pre-contact Ethnogenesis, Resilience, and Movement in the Face of Climate Variation in the Upper Illinois River Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Thomas E. Emerson, Kristin M. Hedman, Matthew A. Fort, and Kjersti E. Emerson

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Pushing and Pulling the Mississippian Moment into the Western Great Lakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Thomas J. Zych and John D. Richards

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Part III

Into the Midsouth, Ohio Valley, and the Southeast

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Moving In and Moving On: Climate Change and Mississippian Migration in the Middle Ohio Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Robert A. Cook and Aaron R. Comstock

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Heading for the Hills: New Evidence for Migrations to the Upper Tennessee Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Lynne P. Sullivan, Kevin E. Smith, Shawn Patch, Sarah Lowry, John Jacob Holland-Lulewicz, and Scott Meeks

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“Vacant Quarters” and Population Movements: Legacy Data and the Investigation of a Large-Scale Emigration Event from the Savannah River Valley to the Georgia Coast . . . . . . . . . . 257 Brandon T. Ritchison and David G. Anderson

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Population Aggregation and Dispersal as a Driver for Settlement Change in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley Between AD 1100 and 1500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Stefan Brannan

Part IV

Into the Lower Mississippian Region

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Climate Change, Population Migration, and Ritual Practice in the Lower Mississippi Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Dorian J. Burnette, David H. Dye, and Arleen A. Hill

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Environment, Climate, and Mississippian Origins in the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Mississippi River Delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 Jayur Madhusudan Mehta and Christopher B. Rodning

Part V 13

Commentary and Further Discussion

Reassessing Migration and Climate Change During the Mississippian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Charles R. Cobb

Chapter 1

Climate Change and Migration Among Early Agriculturalists: From Global to Mississippian Perspectives Aaron R. Comstock, Robert A. Cook, John H. Blitz, and Mary L. Simon

Although the relationship between environment and society is complex and often indirect, it is clear that climate is an important factor in cultural development and change (e.g., Dalfes et al., 1997; DeMenocal, 2001; Weiss & Bradley, 2001). Climate systems fluctuate on multiple overlapping geographic and temporal scales, ranging from global teleconnections to local variations. Such fluctuations shape the environmental conditions within which people live, impacting subsistence and settlement systems. A wide array of strategies is enacted by contemporary populations facing climate change, including intraregional relocation (e.g., Kelley et al., 2015) and migration between regions (McLeman & Smit, 2006). These tactics are not new, however; movement has long been one of the adaptive strategies employed by people facing adverse and unpredictable conditions. Indeed, the long trajectory of human evolution has been shaped by our responses to changing climate (e.g., Carto et al., 2009; Eriksson et al., 2012; Rampino et al., 2000). Perhaps nowhere in human history was movement more formative than the spread of agricultural societies throughout many parts of the globe (Bellwood, 2005), a process that had long-lasting demographic impacts that helped shape the modern world (see Bocquet-Appel et al., 2008). Despite an increased understanding of the biological and cultural nature of this key transition, the role that climate

A. R. Comstock (*) Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography, Indiana University East, Richmond, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. A. Cook Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA J. H. Blitz University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA M. L. Simon University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_1

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change played in the spread of agricultural ways of life is currently unclear in many regions, as the data required to create explicit linkages at the proper resolutions are still being gathered. This volume, Following the Mississippian Spread: Climate Change and Migration in the Eastern US (ca. AD 1000 to 1600), provides a focused regional examination of the adaptations deployed by agricultural societies in the context of climate change. At its core, this volume focuses on the migrations of Mississippian maize agriculturalists in the context of climatic variability. The authors of the following chapters provide regional overviews of how these agriculturalists adapted to issues like unpredictability, drought, and food stress. The power of this volume lies both in our collective ability to provide a multiscalar analysis of farming societies and their varied adaptations to climate change, as well as a focus on enriching our understanding of the historical processes that underlie the spread and contingent diversification of a Mississippian lifestyle. In this introductory chapter, we begin by situating Mississippian societies in a broader context by exploring adaptive patterns exhibited by subsistence agriculturalists throughout the world in response to climate change. The themes we identify reveal key relationships between climate change, landscape reorganization, and the adaptive responses of farmers to these conditions at multiple scales. We then consider the role that maize, the dominant crop in the Mississippian agricultural system, played in this transition, with particular attention paid to examining the timing of its introduction to the region from the Colorado Plateau and the impact this new cultigen had on social organization in light of climate change. Finally, we examine the history of Mississippian research, with particular attention paid to the roles played by climate change and migration.

Scales of the Problem A fundamental transition in human history was the shift to cultivating domesticated crops (e.g., Smith, 1998). Agricultural systems provided a reliable food source that necessitated some degree of sedentism and a general concentration of people in areas conducive to agriculture. This specialized adaptation increased productivity, but introduced tradeoffs and stressors that impacted the long-term viability of agricultural societies. Increased birth rates associated with this transition (Bocquet-Appel et al., 2008) frequently led to population stress, crowding, and segmentation over time (Bandy, 2004). Additionally, subsistence systems that are typically focused on a few key crops are particularly vulnerable to decreased crop yields in the context of changing climate systems, a finding that is becoming increasingly relevant in the contemporary world (e.g., Kurukulasuriya & Rosenthal, 2013). Each of these factors introduced novel stressors that fostered movement among many agricultural communities. Decisions to move were complex and historically contingent processes that took place at multiple scales and for a variety of reasons (Zvelebil, 2000). At the largest scale, the most commonly considered mechanism for understanding the spread of agriculturalists centers on an inexorable demographic push that is often baked into agricultural systems (Ammerman & Cavalli-Sforza,

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1979). Examples of this demographic “wave-of-advance” model are evident in the spread of agricultural lifeways throughout many river valley and upland settings of Europe and more broadly (Barbujani et al., 1994; Chikhi et al., 2002; Fort, 2015; Pinhasi & von Cramon-Taubadel, 2009; Sokal et al., 1991; Wen et al., 2004). The underlying mechanism for this push is the demographic change associated with a more productive agricultural lifestyle. As agriculturalists increased the productivity of their local environments by cultivating domesticated plants and animals, overall fertility increased. This caused many village populations to hit scalar thresholds (sensu Johnson, 1982) that fostered the fissioning of families or lineages to new areas, where they established new settlements (Bandy, 2004). Thus gradually, through a process of demic diffusion, agriculturalists came to populate large regions over many generations. This broad scale consideration frequently frames our understanding of the processes underlying the expansion of Neolithic farming societies (Zvelebil, 2000). Perhaps given the global scale of this transition, and the particular nature of both cultural development and paleoclimate patterns, the role that climate change played in the spread of agricultural societies is not well understood. Considered broadly, a range of findings are evident, from climate as being completely unimportant (e.g., Lemmen & Wirtz, 2014), to climate being an ameliorative or detrimental factor playing into the expansion or reorganization of farming societies (e.g., Sánchez et al., 2016). Favorable conditions tend to speed up the process of demic diffusion through increased productivity, while lower yields attributed to droughts or cooler conditions can stall this process. A key aspect of the response of agriculturalists to climate change at this largest scale is that it plays out over generations, minimizing the need and/or ability of people to respond until certain thresholds are reached (e.g., Bardsley & Hugo, 2010). Considering these processes from this broad scale, however, limits our understanding of on-the-ground tactics deployed by subsistence agriculturalists when faced with climate-related food stress. At smaller scales, research into the impact of climate change on contemporary subsistence agriculturalists reveals adaptations at household, community, and regional scales that are useful when considering past societies (e.g., Kabubo-Mariara & Mulwa, 2019; Meze-hausken, 2000; Nawrotzki et al., 2013). Climate change is considered one of the most pressing issues facing contemporary subsistence farmers (Morton, 2007), and was likely at least as significant in the past, particularly in the absence of modern factors such as geopolitical barriers to movement. A key factor relative to climate change at this scale is food stress related to decreased crop yields (Ad Spijkers, 2010; Chattopadhyay, 2010; Jones & Thornton, 2003; KabuboMariara & Mulwa, 2019; Meze-hausken, 2000). One of the key outcomes of climate change-induced declines in crop yields is population displacement from affected areas (Adimo et al., 2012; Findley, 1994; Henry et al., 2004; Morton, 2007). Few adaptive responses are available to subsistence agriculturalists, one of the most common being to move to greener pastures. Factors inducing migration related to climate change include drought, land degradation, and decreasing agricultural productivity (Obokata et al., 2014). Droughts in particular, which can underlie each of the other factors noted here, are seen as one of the most important factors that

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undercuts agricultural productivity and catalyzes population displacement. Additionally, spatial differences in the impact of climate change within broad regions can foster internal migration of subsistence agriculturalists, and may lead to sociopolitical change (e.g., Downing et al., 1997).

Holocene Climate Oscillations In order to identify general adaptive patterns of agriculturalists in the context of climate change, we must first consider the climatological contexts within which agriculture developed and spread. The Holocene Epoch (ca. 10,050 BC - present), during which the transition to agriculture unfolded in many regions of the world, is noted for warmer and generally more stable climatic conditions than the preceding Pleistocene Epoch (ca., 2,578,050-10,050 BC). However, paleoclimate data suggest that this period is marked by significant climate fluctuations at varying scales (Bender et al., 1999; Johnson et al., 2001; MacFarling Meure et al. 2006; O’brien et al. 1995). Climatic shifts that occurred during this period range from long-term oscillations that unfolded over centuries to short-term perturbations that occurred over the span of a few years (Steffensen et al., 2008). This scalar spectrum of climatic fluctuation has implications for the subsistence adaptations of Holocene societies. Multiple long-term oscillations are evident during the Holocene Epoch, ranging from pronounced El Niño Southern Oscillation events (e.g., Moy et al., 2002) to distinct climate periods experienced throughout the world. Perhaps two of most dramatic climate perturbations of the Holocene epoch are the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) (generally warmer and more moisture) and the Little Ice Age (LIA) (generally cooler and drier). The importance of these deviations lies as much in their magnitude and scale as the array of social impacts they had, particularly since each impacted numerous agricultural societies (see Fagan 2008, 2019). Traditionally these periods have been framed as periods of relatively homogenous conditions (e.g., Lamb, 1965). However, increased resolution of paleoclimate data has highlighted that while this is true in some regions, significant spatial and temporal variation in conditions existed, and dramatic punctuated changes occurred during these periods, introducing significant societal stress (e.g., Benson et al., 2007). The mechanisms that underlie the MCA and LIA climate oscillations are unclear, but appear to be tied to long-term global fluctuations in both NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and ENSO (El NinÑ Southern Oscillation) systems (e.g., Mann et al., 2009; Trouet et al., 2009). Uncertainty regarding the forcings behind these significant climate periods of the last millennium aside, they clearly had significant impacts on societies throughout the Northern (continued)

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Hemisphere and beyond. Conditions during the MCA (ca. AD 950-1250/ 1350) were generally ameliorative, with more pluvial conditions and in many places increased crop yields (e.g., Benson et al., 2009; Fagan 2008). However, this period is also witness to significant temporal and regional variations, resulting in the sudden onset of droughts that led to significant cultural change (e.g., Benson et al., 2009; Benson & Berry, 2009; Kennett et al., 2012). It is the variability inherent to this time period, with the transitions between warm pluvials and droughts that makes the MCA both a period of cultural fluorescence in many regions but also a time that saw significant cultural collapse. The climatic conditions associated with LIA are perhaps more tangible for many specialists and lay readers because this period (ca. AD 1400-1850) straddles what many consider the transition into the modern age (Mann, 2002). Indeed, many aspects of the founding myth of the United States are sent against the backdrop of LIA conditions. For example, Leutze’s famous painting of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River in AD 1776 included small icebergs, and the infamous hard winter of AD 1777–1778 at Valley Forge is a key element of the story of early America struggle. These examples provide historic texture to many of the conditions faced by earlier societies throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. For example, significant droughts associated with the LIA led to population reorganization and regional depopulation in the American Southwest (e.g., Benson & Berry, 2009) and also led to the retreat of Viking populations from Greenland (e.g., Dugmore et al., 2007). Short-term climatic events are referred to as periods of rapid climate change (e.g., Mayewski et al., 1997; Mayewski et al., 2004). These include early and mid-Holocene perturbations like those that occurred at about 6,300 BC (e.g., Cheng et al., 2009) and 2,250 BC (e.g., Bini et al., 2019; Staubwasser et al., 2003). Such events, which can at times unfold over the span of a few years (Steffensen et al., 2008), would have directly impacted the conditions within which people lived and led to significant stress, necessitating hard decisions for nascent agriculturalists. The types of events that typically qualify as periods of rapid climate change include droughts and floods (e.g., Bonsall et al., 2002; Overpeck & Cole, 2006), each of which would have greatly impacted past agriculturalists who frequently farmed in floodplain environments. It should be noted that these characterizations of short-and long-term climate fluctuations are not meant to be dichotomous, but reflect two ends of a spectrum of climate-related events to which people adapted. Indeed, it is important to recognize that nested within some of the longer-term climate oscillations like the Medieval Climate Anomaly were significant short-term perturbations, like the megadroughts that impacted societies in the southwestern U.S. (e.g., Benson et al., 2007). The interconnected nature of these scales is only visible to archaeologists when data of

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the appropriate resolution are available (i.e. dendrochronology and modeled annual precipitation data in the example above), suggesting that we must be wary of overgeneralizing climatological regimes when only data of coarse resolution are available.

Adapting to Change at Multiple Scales As noted above, climate change occurs on a spectrum of scales, ranging from multiple centuries to rapid climate events. The archaeological record of small-scale agricultural societies from around the world confirms that people in the past responded to climate change at multiple scales and deployed a range of adaptations to these conditions. Many of these tactics involved movement in search of areas where traditional subsistence systems were viable. In general, we can understand the role of climate as a factor that can “push” or “pull” populations (Anthony, 1990). While a useful way to conceptualize the interplay between climate and societies, this framing can mask important variation in adaptive responses. Agricultural societies caught in the flux of long-term change exhibit two avenues of response that relate directly to the interplay between environmental conditions and the requirements of the plants and animals that farmers depended on. The first form that this relationship takes is that of gradual increases in the efficacy of agricultural systems as a result of ameliorative conditions, allowing farmers to expand outward from initial heartlands. This pattern can be seen as a climatically augmented version of the classic “wave-of-advance” model described above, and is evident in many areas, including early China (Liu, 2000; Li et al., 2007), India (Gupta et al., 2006) and Europe (Sánchez et al., 2016). While it is likely that increased resolution of data in these areas will reveal more nuanced understandings of the relationships between climate and movement in the future, the pattern that emerges highlights the role of climate in pushing farming societies into new regions. The converse scenario occurs when changes in climate close an ecological window. Conditions that were once productive enough to support local populations of agriculturalists deteriorate, leading to food stress and at times fostering movement. In this case, the viability of agriculture in a region changes, crop productivity decreases, and people leave to find new areas that meet their needs. In many circumstances, the spatial variability in climate patterns creates gradients of climate conditions which are broadly evident, including cases from Africa (Tyson et al., 2002), Asia (An et al., 2005), the Midwest U.S. (Comstock & Cook, 2018), and Northern Europe (Van Geel et al., 1996). In each case deteriorating conditions that reflect the negative end of the gradient catalyzed movement, while ameliorative conditions elsewhere drew people in. In this sense, changes in local climate regimes provided a “push” that fostered the movement of agricultural societies, and the climate gradients were such that areas with more ameliorative climates created a complementary “pull”.

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The second pattern evident in the spread of early agriculturalists is through the expansion of productive agricultural landscapes resulting from climate change. Instead of a push, climate change acts as a pull, facilitating the spread of people into landscapes suitable for agriculture. Although such ecological transitions are often difficult to identify since they occur over many generations (e.g., Zhao et al., 2009), a few examples of this situation are evident in prehistory that help illustrate this pattern. In the case of both Bantu (Oslisly et al., 2013) and Sotho-Tswana (Tyson et al., 2002) expansions in Africa, as well as the Tupi-Guarani expansion in the Amazon (Iriarte et al., 2017), long term oscillations in El Niño systems fostered the expansion of productive landscapes that coincided with the needs of agriculturalists. These farming societies spread into the new landscapes over time, resulting in the movement of people and lifeways throughout large areas. In each case, these agricultural expansions led to the foundational makeup of contemporary populations in their respective regions of the world (e.g., Grollemund et al., 2015). These examples highlight the patterned relationships between long-term climate change, contingent ecological responses, and the adaptive ability of agriculturalists to respond to change over generations. A final consideration is the interplay between immigrants and local populations, a dynamic that we rarely have the data resolution to examine unless interaction is violent in nature (e.g., Milner et al., 1991; Steadman, 2008). However, a historic study from China (Pei et al., 2016) provides an illustrative example that highlights the importance of considering contingent migrations between regions ultimately resulting from changing climate. In these cases, the influx of migrants from climate-stricken regions forced cultural change among local populations, which sometimes included secondary migrations by these local peoples. When considering past examples of migration, it is important to keep in mind that there may be contingent ramifications to an influx of non-local people that we may not be able to identify in many archaeological cases. While long-term changes like those mentioned above track cultural adaptations at broad, multi-generational scales, household and community decision-making unfold in the context of much smaller spatial and temporal scales (e.g., Kabubo-Mariara & Mulwa, 2019; Meze-hausken, 2000; Nawrotzki et al., 2013). As communities who rely on an increasingly specialized subsistence system, agriculturalists are uniquely sensitive to annual and decadal perturbations that impact crop yields. As discussed above, decreased yields can result in food stress and conflict, and frequently lead people to vote with their feet and leave in search of better opportunities. Unlike adaptations to long-term changes that can present as both barriers and windows of opportunity, short-term climate change most frequently presents as droughts and increased variability (and lack of predictability) that have severe impacts. Such changes can unfold over the course of a few years (Steffensen et al., 2008). Adaptations to rapid changes such as droughts and sudden landscape reorganization can be seen widely, from South America (Fehren-Schmitz et al., 2014), the southwest U.S. (Benson et al., 2007), Asia (An et al., 2005), and northern Europe (Van Geel et al., 1996). In each of these cases, the sudden onset of droughts or climate-induced landscape changes forced people to relocate entirely. Subsistence systems were undercut by sudden shocks that led to decreased crop yields and a

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sudden inability of agriculture to support traditional ways of life. In each case, people opted to leave their traditional homelands in search of places where their way of life was more sustainable. While these cases highlight the impact of rapid climate change, they are the exception in the archaeological record. This is because movement of individuals and communities in the past can be difficult to identify empirically. For this reason, our examples could be skewed toward extreme cases of movement or situations in which archaeological data are available at the appropriate resolution to identify movement. To summarize, we have briefly examined the complex interplays between climate change and the adaptive responses of agricultural societies, particularly regarding decisions to migrate. While the impacts of climate on past agriculturalists varied and were likely shaped by historically contingent factors, there are similarities worth noting. Long-term patterns of adaptation highlight cases in which climate change fostered the colonization of new landscapes as the result of spread of productive environments. Also evident are cases in which climate change led to increased stress over time, resulting in the displacement of people into more productive regions. Each of these long-term patterns includes tangible push and pull factors that influenced the decisions of past people when it came to moving. When data of the appropriate resolution are available, it is clear that past people migrated within their lifetimes because of changing climate. This level of adaptation is common historically and in the contemporary world, but is only beginning to be empirically examined in archaeological cases. Our overview suggests that these cases of rapid climate change typically reflect perturbations such as the onset of droughts that undercut the productivity of agricultural systems, forcing past agriculturalists to make difficult decisions about staying or leaving. One factor that governs patterns of agricultural production and population movement is the physiography of the plants upon which those societies rely. In the coevolutionary relationship implicit to agriculture as a subsistence system, the plant’s needs may sometimes outweigh those of the community, meaning that people move to find areas that are better suited for these crops to produce predictable yields. In the case of Mississippian agriculturalists this crop was maize (Zea mays), a plant originally domesticated in the valleys of Central Mexico (Ranere et al., 2009). The fact that this crop was displaced from its original homeland presents unique issues and sensitivities when considering how it fared in times of drought and pluvial conditions. The following section examines our revised understanding of maize histories in the Midwestern United States and reviews some of the factors of maize physiology that may underlie this history.

The Appearance of Maize in the Interior Midwest Among the prominent themes of the following chapters is the importance of maize agriculture to Mississippian societies across the interior Midwest. A second overarching theme is the important role the rise and demise of the Cahokian polity played

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in framing Mississippian histories elsewhere in the Midwest. These two themes are not unrelated, successful maize cultivation in a sense helped to underwrite the rise of Greater Cahokia and crop failure is implicated in its ultimate demise (Benson et al., 2007; Benson et al., 2009; Emerson, 2018; Emerson et al. 2020a, b; Pauketat, 2018). The importance of maize to the subsistence economy of the post AD 900 American Bottom region has been widely recognized for decades (cf. Ford, 1985; Fritz, 1990, 1992, 1995, 2019; Gremillion, 2018; Hart, 2008; Hastorf & Johannessen, 1994; Johannessen, 1984, 1993; Scarry, 1994; Smith, 1992; Smith & Wesley Cowan, 2003; Wagner, 1986, 1994; Wright & Shaffer, 2014). What is new is the recognition that, in this region, adoption of maize cultivation was not a gradual process involving the assimilation of a new crop into an existing cropping system. Rather maize was introduced and cultivation practices spread rapidly in the region over a period of only about 100 years (Emerson et al. 2020a, b). This revised history is based on a series of Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dates coupled with carbon isotope assays that discredit previous Middle and Early Late Woodland maize macrobotanical records from the interior Midwest while further substantiating its late introduction to the interior Midwest (Simon, 2014, 2017; Simon & Kuehn, 2021; Simon et al., 2021). These results are not to say that maize never reached the Midwest before AD 900. A single maize kernel returning calibrated dates of between AD 656 and AD774 (95% confidence level) was recovered from the Edgar Hoener site in western Illinois, and remains from three sites located in southern Ontario also date to the ca. AD 700 to 800 period (Crawford et al., 1997: Table 1; Simon, 2014, Table 3). However, in regards to the interior Midwest, other than the Edgar Hoener item, we have no secure macrobotanical evidence for pre-AD 900 maize (Simon, 2014; Simon & Kuehn, 2021; Simon et al., 2021) and thus, no material that would comprise evidence for repeated introductions and gradual incorporation of maize cultivation into the existing economy at a pre-AD 900 date. Rather, maize cultivation, as distinct from maize presence, was initiated concurrently with the early coalescence of Greater Cahokia (Emerson, 2018; Emerson et al. 2020a, b; Pauketat, 2018). In addition to the Illinois data, the past two decades of research have provided new direct dates on maize from a series of dispersed Plains Woodlands sites located across Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. These records further substantiate the prairie connection route of transmission first posited by Volney Jones (1949), and provide support for maize’s late introduction east of the Mississippi River. With median calibrated dates of AD 803 and AD 861 respectively, the oldest of these are from are from the Avoca site, located in northeastern Kansas and from the Pasty’s Island site in northwestern Oklahoma (Adair & Drass, 2011; Table 12.2) Although not verified through direct dating or isotope assays, small quantities of maize have also been identified at other Plains Woodland sites leading researchers to suggest that cultivation was increasing across the region throughout the ca AD 600 to 900-time period (Adair & Drass, 2011:327). Direct dates obtained from two cobs from the Edens Bluff Rockshelter in far northwestern Arkansas calibrate to a slightly younger date (Fritz, 1986). These dates suggest that maize cultivation in the lower eastern Great Plains pre-dates Mississippian Period use in the Middle Mississippi River valley by 50 to 100 years.

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In northeast Texas and western Louisiana, a series of dates on maize from the Formative Caddo component at the George C. Davis site and a single maize date from the contemporary Washington Square site calibrate to between about AD 900 and 1100, the wide range being a function of large standard deviations (Perttula et al., 2014). Caddo researchers interpret this botanical record to reflect the nearly universal adoption of low-level maize cultivation across the region by AD 900 (Girard et al., 2014:87), and its firm establishment as a staple by AD 1100 (Perttula et al., 2014: Table 1). The AD 900 date is somewhat later than the earliest Great Plains dates outlined above. However, if cultivation was established by that time, initial introduction to the Eastern Great Plains must have been somewhat earlier, fitting the timeline suggesting rapid movement of maize from the Great Plains and Caddo regions of northeastern Texas into the central Mississippi Valley. This is perhaps circumstantially supported by the fact that, in American Bottom region, the Terminal Late Woodland Period (ca AD 900–1025) was one of population movement and coalescence. That immigrating groups should include people from the west, bringing with them seeds of a novel cop, as well as knowledge of the nixtamalization process is not surprising (Pauketat, 2018; Simon & Kuehn, 2021).

Origins and Genetic Bases for Northern Adaptation Genetic and molecular/biological studies provide strong evidence for derivation of eastern landraces, specifically the well-known Northern Flints, from ancestral southwestern landraces, thus supporting older, archaeologically based models (Cutler & Blake, 1973; Doebley, 1990; Doebley et al., 1986; Ford, 1985; Matsuoka et al., 2002; Smith, 2017; Vigouroux et al., 2008). As outlined above, macrobotanical records, AMS dates and δ13C assays strongly indicate that this introduction into the interior Midwest occurred relatively late in prehistory. The type, or landrace, of maize that was first introduced is still unknown. Assigning archaeological remnants to a specific maize race based on row number or kernel shape is problematic at best, and further, these morphological characters evidence geographic and temporal variability (Fritz, 1992; King, 1987; Wagner, 1986, 1994). This should not be surprising when one considers the source: introduced southwestern maize varieties adapted to higher latitudes. Mississippian maize was probably not the result of one single massive introduction of one, single maize type. Rather, repeated introductions, albeit over a short period of time, provided the genetic variability necessary for crops to survive. Assuming that this scenario is true, it is interesting to explore possible issues that may have impacted the feasibility of maize cultivation in the interior Midwest. This feasibility rests in the fact that maize is a Mesoamerican plant that needed to adapt to northern latitudes before cultivation in the interior Midwest was possible (Adams, 2015; Fritz, 1992). Recent research is providing interesting new information regarding the timing of the physiological adaptations that governed the ability of maize to survive under non-tropical conditions.

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Comparative genetic and morphological studies of teosinte and early Zea mays remains from cave sites in Mesoamerica have demonstrated that by the time maize reached the southwestern United States about 4000 years ago (Merrill et al., 2009), important domestication syndrome traits were already fixed. These included non-shattering rachis, soft glumes that did not entirely enclose the kernel, fewer but larger seed clusters (cobs), unbranched architecture, relocation of seed pod to branch ends, paired spikelets, and higher quality kernel protein (Benz, 2001; Benz & Long, 2000; Doebley et al., 2006; Jaenicke-Després et al., 2003; Jaenicke-Després & Smith, 2006; Janzen & Hufford, 2016; Ramos-Madrigal et al., 2016). Early Mexican landraces also included varieties that were adapted to high altitudes and cool temperatures of the interior mountain highlands. Therefore, those particular environmental parameters alone are an inadequate explanation for why maize could not be grown in more northerly latitudes. Although primary domestication syndrome traits were established at an early date, as late as 1200 years ago, so-called secondary genetic improvements were still evolving (Vallebueno-Estrada et al., 2016). For example, genetic comparisons of cobs from Tularosa Cave in New Mexico dating to circa AD 750 with older material both from that site and from earlier sites in the southwest and Mexico, show that the alleles controlling the protein synthesis pathway, which proffers improved pasting qualities to kernels, were not fixed until about AD 800 to 1000 (da Fonseca et al., 2015:2) Essentially, this marks the development of floury kernels that can be ground into the fine flour used to create modern tortillas and flatbreads. Other secondary genetic improvements in early southwestern varieties included improved adaptation to arid conditions of the low desert and adaptation to higher levels of soil salinity (Benz, 2006; da Fonseca et al., 2015: Figure 2 and Supplementary Table 1; JaenickeDesprés et al., 2003: Figures 1 and 3). These changes facilitated the expansion of maize into new growing areas of the southwest as well as adaptation to drought conditions of the later Holocene (Benson & Berry, 2009; Benz, 2006). However, the most critical adaptation for successful cultivation in northern latitudes was suppression of photoperiodism in controlling flowering time. In tropical landraces, time from planting to flowering is governed by the number of hours of daylight and darkness available after planting. For these varieties flowering time is delayed until conditions are optimal for successful maturation of the plant and production of seeds, so is relatively long. In contrast, northern temperate landraces carry alleles that eliminate photoperiod sensitivity. This adaptation to higher latitudes reduces time between planting and flowering, providing plants with sufficient time to reach maturity over the shorter growing seasons of temperate North America and Europe. This allelic variation distinguishes the Northern Flints from tropical groups, as do isozyme studies (Doebley et al., 1986). Both indicate that Northern Flints are chemically and genetically quite distinct from tropical landraces. As summarized by Fritz (1992: 28–29), the recognition by archaeologists that successful maize cultivation in the higher latitudes of the Midwest required reducing the time from planting to flowering is not new. Progress has been made in identifying the physiological systems responsible for controlling flowering time in maize and

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there is some indication that genetic repression of photoperiodism may have been initiated quite early in the domestication sequence through genes linked to plant architecture (Camus-Kulandaivelu et al., 2006, 2008). The question becomes one of understanding the process involved in the transition to exogenous control and understanding the temporal component of that change. That is, by what time was the shift to day-neutrality fixed in select landraces? Studies of maize cobs from the Turkey Pen site in southeastern Utah and dated to about 1900 years ago provide some clues as to the timing for that adaptation within one small population (Swarts et al., 2017). These studies suggest that the shift to day neutrality was underway by the first centuries AD, but also that plants were only marginally adapted so remained susceptible to small environmental perturbations, including an unusually cold or short growing season (Swarts et al., 2017). The maize recovered from the Turkey Pen site appears to represent an ongoing process that links population movement, climate, the spread of maize landraces into northerly latitudes, and genetic changes in maize. In regard to the latter two factors, there is evidence for limited maize cultivation by hunter-foraging groups living across in the southern Four Corners region of the southwest by about 1000 BC, However, these early efforts were governed by local conditions of adequate rainfall and frost free days, and as conditions changed mobile groups expanded or retreated in response (Thomson et al., 2017). It is not until about 400 BC that we have evidence, based in part on skeletal carbon isotope assays, that maize-reliant Basketmaker II farmers were moving into the area (Coltrain et al., 2007; Matson & Chisholm, 1991). These groups were growing maize further north than earlier groups had been able to, suggesting that selection for alleles that control flowering time was underway and may have even been fixed in some landraces (Coltraine & Janetski, 2019:11). As those researchers further note, in the absence of fine-grained climatic data for the pre AD 500 time period, the role of climate in facilitating the northern expansion of maize agriculture is unknown. However, it is likely that the region experienced extended periods of drought as well as oscillations in growing season length that would have impacted maize yields, and may have resulted in wholesale movements of populations into regions with more reliable water sources and warmer temperatures – that is to lower latitudes along permanent bodies of water. In that case, even as ancient farmers were selecting for early flowering maize varieties that can be successfully grown at high latitudes, they were also moving about in response to climate conditions. How that movement impacted on, or failed to impact on the fixing of alleles controlling flowering time is simply not known. However, in regards to the history of maize in the eastern United States, which is really the point of interest here, it seems unlikely that sustained cultivation was feasible before the first millennium AD or even later.

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Maize and Climate on the Colorado Plateau The correlations among climate, cultural developments, population movements, and maize agriculture in this region are particularly well documented for the Late Holocene (ca AD 850 to AD 1300) and worth reviewing as they correspond to temporal sequences in the east. This period was marked by a series of droughts, the first of which dated to between AD 859 and 900 and the second to between about AD 960 and AD 1045 (Benson, 2011 Figure 22; Benson & Berry, 2009; Cook et al., 2007; Cook et al., 2010 Figure 8b: Woodhouse & Overpeck, 1998). While not sufficient to cause abandonment of the Plateau region, these droughts could well have affected farmers living in the most marginal regions, resulting in population contractions back into less arid zones. Coincident with that population movement in the southwest, this time period was also marked by the rapid appearance of maize in the archaeological record of the Great Plains and later in the Midwest. The following AD 1040 to AD 1129 pluvial period has been linked to major cultural developments both of the Pueblo Anasazi in the San Juan River Basin and points north and of the Mississippian Cahokian Complex in the American Bottom Region (Benson, 2011; Benson et al., 2007, 2009). In the Chaco Canyon area, the subsequent mid twelfth century megadrought manifested in weakened summer monsoon periods, made maize cultivation unpredictable if not nearly impossible, across much of the region. One of the consequences was population contraction, including the abandonment of many of the Anasazi Great Houses in the northern marginal regions, and in-migration further south. Following a short period of relative stability, the following late thirteenth century megadrought resulted in near abandonment of the Colorado Plateau region as maize cultivation became untenable. The well-documented Colorado Plateau sequence is important for understanding maize histories further east for two reasons. First, these studies have impacted on our understanding of agricultural potentialities in the face of climate change, particularly the climate change associated with what is identified as the Medieval Climate Anomaly. PDSI indices measure variance from “normal” on a regional basis. Based on minimal requirements for modern dryland maize farming of traditional southwest landraces, an impacting “drought” on the Colorado Plateau implies a sustained period of yearly rain totals of 30 cm or less and a summer rain total of 15 to 20 cm or less (Benson, 2011). These numbers are quite different in the Midwest, where modern growing season rainfall averages about 45 and 50 cm, and yearly totals can be up to 65 to 90 cm (Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/NCH/NCH-40.html, accessed 1 October 2019). Even if drought conditions are characterized by half as much rain, they still exceed by quite a bit the minimum requirement for dryland farming of the southwest varieties, including those developed at high latitudes of the Colorado Plateau. The question here revolves around better understanding of the types of maize being cultivated in the Prehistoric Midwest. We know that Mississippian maize was morphologically quite variable, in terms of readily observable features such as cob length, shaft width and row number (Cutler & Blake, 1973; Fritz, 1986;

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King, 1987; Wagner, 1986, 1994). We also know that modern varieties subsumed under the rubric of “Northern Flint” include landraces with row numbers ranging from 8 to 12 or higher and even include some Plains varieties with floury kernels (Doebley et al., 1986), likely reflecting a late addition to the germ pool. All factors point to a highly variable and diverse founding population. Water availability is of critical importance to successful maize cultivation, but in the arid southwest, changes in water availability are especially critical. In contrast, studies of modern hybrids and their ability to thrive under conditions of low rainfall in the Midwest may not be the best analogues to use for understanding prehistoric maize varieties derived from the semi-arid regions of the Colorado Plateau. In short, assuming that incipient maize cultivation in the Midwest was of varieties that were adapted to arid conditions of both the Colorado Plateau and the Great Plains, through which it must have been transported, the effect of Midwest-level droughts on a plant that can survive with only 20–30 cm of water in a growing season may have been less important than we think. Certainly, maize cultivation in the east did not halt at circa AD 1300 to 1400, with the beginning of the “Little Ice Age”, or even with the collapse of the Cahokia polity two centuries earlier. However, the relationships between real and perceived effects of drought on agricultural production is complex and investigated in several of the following chapters.

Climate, Maize, and Mississippians For the American Bottom region, the twelfth and thirteenth century AD droughts correspond to important periods in the history of Greater Cahokia. The twelfth century AD drought witnessed the dispersal of the upland farmers of the Richland Complex, who had been important provisioners of food to the floodplain urban centers (Alt, 2002; Pauketat, 2003). Timing suggests that this abandonment was a result of unsuitable farming conditions due to drought (Benson et al., 2009). However, maize farming itself did not decline in the region. There may have been years of poor harvests, but the reasons for abandonment were more complex than simple drought. They may have included loss of faith in religious leaders who mediated interactions with inanimate forces that controlled the weather, as well as the breakdown of social ties critical to maintaining relationships between urbans dwellers and upland farming groups. Regardless, the subsequent Stirling phase (ca AD 1100 to 1200) witnessed a reorganization of provisioning systems. Most important to this study, maize continued to be an important and widely cultivated staple food. The thirteenth century AD drought has also been implicated in the final collapse of the Cahokia polity. Again, crop failure may have become more common, but the ultimate demise of this vast socio-political and religious system was no doubt the result of a complex interplay among factors, of which climate was only one. After about AD 900 in the Mississippian heartland of the central Mississippi River Valley, the correlations among climate, population movement or migrations, and the spread of maize agriculture are difficult to ignore. At one end of the historical

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sequence, we see the rapid and widespread adoption of maize agriculture, ameliorating climate, population aggregation, and the rise of the complex socio-political system at Cahokia (Benson et al., 2009; Emerson et al. 2020a, b). This is followed by a period of expansion during which we see the immigration of people both from surrounding countryside and from further afield into the Cahokian center (Slater et al., 2014), and the movement of “missionaries” carrying Cahokian religion and ritual to places well outside the American Bottom (Chap. 3; Cook and Comstock, Chapter 7). At the other end of the sequence is the decline of Cahokian influence correlating with climatic deterioration characterized by extended periods of drought, perhaps interspersed with unpredictable flooding (Chap. 3; Schroeder et al.). The sequence culminates with population dispersal and the near abandonment of the American Bottom. However, the role of climate in this and other stories of maize is varied and complex. While implicated in the Cahokian demise (Benson et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2017; Chap. 3; Schroeder et al.), clearly the late 12th and 13th droughts do not appear to have severely impacted the ability to grow maize across the interior Midwest. The late Mississippian period does witness dramatic shifts in population, particularly as reflected in the collapse of the Cahokian polity. However, rather than being strictly a function of climatic conditions, this change may have more to do with social and political breakdown as well as increasing warfare. The contexts and nature of maize cultivation may have changed, but maize cultivation itself continued. Coincident with this process was a loss in dependence on native crops species. By about AD 1350 to AD 1400, cultivation of sumpweed, maygrass, erect knotweed, and little barley ceased and records for chenopodium decline. Of the old Eastern Agricultural crop regime, only sunflower and gourd persisted. It is also at this time, circa AD 1250 to AD 1300 that Mesoamerican domesticated beans and pepo squashes were introduced to the existing agricultural system.

Defining Mississippians Before moving into the logic of how we have structured the present volume, it is important to briefly review the history of research among Mississippian scholars regarding the roles migration and climate played. First, however, we need to define what we mean by the term Mississippian. We define Mississippian as a cultural phenomenon that includes all of the precontact societies in the US Midwest and Southeast that initiated a new way of life about a thousand years ago, variously participating in intensified food production, hierarchical decision-making institutions, inherited inequality, and social integration on a scale unprecedented for eastern North America. The key portion of this definition is the “variously participating” qualifier because not all the archaeological cultures and phases deemed Mississippian by archaeologists equally share these cultural characteristics. As archaeologists brought the organizational and material culture diversity of regional Mississippian populations into focus through decades of

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research, they recognized that certain practices and materials were so widely distributed that they could only be explained by either complex historical connections or a common structural adaptation to similar environmental and demographic conditions. The trend in Mississippian archaeology over the last two decades has been a move away from generalizing categorizations. In part, this is due to increased awareness of the mutable nature of Mississippian sociopolitical organizations through time, the organizational variability in contemporaneous populations, detailed knowledge of individual site histories and changes in regional settlement patterns, and a shift in emphasis from the political economy of elites to a greater interest in non-elite agency and decentralized communal practices. However, the need to explain the cultural similarities that link and define Mississippian has remained. The present concern with more nuanced and historically particular explanations, as well as newly available technologies to trace the distributions of people and products, has revealed these similarities and shared materials in ever more detail. The effect of human environmental interactions on the course of cultural development, once considered a primary explanation for Mississippian cultural similarities but more recently of secondary concern, is once again of intense interest when confronting the temporal and spatial specificity of climate change. With renewed attention to the themes of this volume, migration and climate change, we see a theoretical rapprochement in Mississippian studies uniting agency-driven historical connections and the structure-altering forces of the natural environment.

Migrating Mississippians Migration in early twentieth-century American archaeology was tied to the culturearea and age-area concepts. Archaeologists such as William H. Holmes had already begun mapping “provinces” or geographic areas where certain pottery styles were found, hence the label “Mississippi” as the initial conception of the Mississippian cultural tradition. This archaeological mapping roughly coincided with Clark Wissler’s ethnographic mapping of North American culture areas. The culture area concept, conceived as a bounded distribution of associated cultural traits, fit well with the holy trinity of Boasian culture history: invention, diffusion, and migration. In this thinking, ancient cultures originated somewhere through invention, identified as regions where archaeologists found the greatest concentration of similar material traits. The age-area concept viewed cultural traits as expanding outward from areas of origin with the passage of time; the oldest traits were those found over the largest geographical area. In other words, culture area traits found elsewhere had to get there somehow, disseminated out from the place of origin by population movements or cultural borrowing via diffusion. People, their products and ideas, dispersed from cultural hearths. Working with the pre-war short chronology in the eastern US (i.e., before radiocarbon dating), the migration stories of native oral tradition appeared to support the archaeological interpretations (Smith, 1984).

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As archaeologists constructed their culture-period sequences in the 1930s and 1940s, continuity of material traits was interpreted as continuity of a cultural tradition and a break in that continuity was considered prima facie evidence of population replacement. Replacement of Woodland cultures by Mississippian migrants was widely accepted in the post-war syntheses of Depression-era excavations (see contributors to Griffin, 1952). However, with the new awareness of the greater time depth involved, earlier efforts to connect archaeological remains with historically known ethnic groups were dismissed as impractical, as was the idea of a single locale for Mississippian origins (Smith, 1984). By the 1950s, the view that the Mississippian cultural tradition had appeared first in the central Mississippi River Valley through the interaction of several core areas of development, and then spread throughout the Midwest and Southeast by migration, was the most common interpretation of Mississippian origins (Caldwell, 1958:65; Phillips et al., 1951:451; Willey & Phillips, 1958:164–165). This 1950s Mississippian was defined as “Middle Mississippi,” a tradition or artifact complex of distinctive traits, which in turn spawned a number of regional variants through “diffusion-acculturation” with local Woodland indigenes (Griffin, 1967; Willey, 1953:371–372). Consequently, archaeologists of the time codified what they termed culture contact situations, with Mississippian site-unit intrusions, migrations, and trait-unit diffusions popping up everywhere (Wauchope, 1956). Like almost everything else, interpretations of Mississippian origins began to change in the 1960s and 1970s. Migration, as a rapid, historical event did not fit comfortably with the gradualist evolutionary theory of processual archaeology, which emphasized adaptation to a local environment and a culture process driven by eco-demographic stress. Lewis Binford (1965), key popularizer of the New Archaeology, rejected migration and diffusion as an aquatic theory of culture, an inadequate normative interpretation in which culture moved from one place to the next like a flowing stream. In this anti-migration view, “populations grew, but they did not move” (Blitz & Lorenz, 2002:118). Migration and diffusion were dismissed as non-explanations because these events “merely begged the question of where, when, and how the adaptive changes had occurred, which returned the focus once more to the local adaptive sphere” (Blitz & Lorenz, 2002:118). The more doctrinaire early processualists had a deep anti-history bias. Migrations were relegated to unimportant particularistic incidents and if they occurred at all, were not considered part of the general culture process. Mississippian was best understood as a subsistence-settlement system that originated de novo as a local adaptive response to eco-demographic stress, not a hodge-podge of transported traits. The striking similarities of Mississippian societies over a huge geographic expanse were, they insisted, the analogous products of peoples encountering the same problems and finding the same cultural solutions when faced with the same environmental and demographic conditions. Such an argument is not unreasonable because similar analogies inform cross-cultural studies; it is just that many who championed it in Mississippian archaeology dismissed or ignored migration as a relevant factor in culture change (e.g., Smith, 1984; Scarry, 1990; Schroedl et al., 1990).

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Following the analogy argument to its logical conclusion, this isolationist stance would identify all important cultural changes in a regional sequence as having autochthonous origins. Not all Mississippian archaeologists, including many who accepted much of the processualist program, adhered to a narrow conception of culture process as only limited to eco-demographic gradualism. Many agreed that understanding the similarities and differences in Mississippian societies was a complex historical problem that could not be reduced to single explanations, and that this analogy-homology dilemma had to be evaluated by the evidence in specific investigations (Smith, 2007). Nevertheless, the localized concerns of processual archaeology had the effect of suppressing most serious considerations of migration in Mississippian research for more than two decades, despite a few protests to the contrary (e.g., Morse, 1977; Schnell et al., 1981:244; Williams, 1994). More in-depth reviews and critiques of this history may be found in Blitz & Lorenz, 2002; Cook, 2017; Pauketat, 2007; Wilson & Sullivan, 2017. As regional chronologies were refined and the archaeological database grew through the 1990s and early 2000s, dismissal of population movement as unimportant eventually put processual archaeologists in an awkward position. It was apparent that a gradualist neoevolutionary framework of cultural stages could not accommodate the rapid, punctuated nature of culture change in Mississippian societies. The new data meant coming to grips with the variability of Mississippian social, political, and economic practices across diverse populations, which in turn required a shift to more appropriate theory. “Mississippianization,” the phrase coined for the incorporation of external Mississippian practices into indigenous Woodland communities, needed a flexible, dynamic explanatory framework, one that recognized “a more complex history of uneven development, culture contact, and subsequent interaction” (Blitz & Lorenz, 2002:128). It was necessary to define this history in specific regional case studies (Cobb & Garrow, 1996:121–122; Pauketat, 2004:124–141). In many locales, archaeologists failed to find the in situ developmental prototypes for an autochthonous Mississippian material culture as predicted by the local adaptive model of gradual change. Instead, there was evidence of Mississippian settlement without antecedent cultural roots and Mississippian-Late Woodland coexistence and interaction in such varied places as Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin (Blitz & Lorenz, 2002; Cobb & Garrow, 1996; Cook & Fargher, 2007; Delaney-Rivera, 2004; Goldstein & Richards, 1991; Little, 1999). Transformation of regional settlement patterns, subsistence practices, and material culture was often quite abrupt and distinct from that of indigenous locals but could be shown to share strong similarities to other distant, precursor Mississippian populations. In a mid-continent of riverine passageways, there were no geographic obstacles or vast distances that separated these places. There was no substantial environmental or social circumscription to prevent people from voting with their feet to improve their circumstances. Cahokia as the early, precocious incubator and disseminator of Mississippian traditions, required population movement for initial immigration to create the cultural “big bang” as well as later emigration as groups left the mega-center in a diaspora-like spread that inserted elements of the new

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lifeway into distant communities (Pauketat, 1997, 2004). A finer-grained chronology could now map a time-transgressive spread of Mississippian territorial polities or chiefdoms and other cultural signatures out from the central Mississippi River Valley (Anderson, 1999). Once again, archaeologists were producing maps with proposed Mississippian migration routes. Other findings showed that population movements were hard-wired into Mississippian sociopolitical dynamics. Many Mississippian settlement patterns did not fit the expectations of the simple-complex chiefdom cycle model, the dominant processual explanation of Mississippian sociopolitical organization. In this model, a settlement pattern of single-mound centers (simple chiefdoms) grew into a regional polity of small centers dominated by a paramount leader at a multiple-mound center (complex chiefdom), and then cycled back to simple chiefdoms once more as the scale of political integration declined. As research advanced, it became apparent that this model did not account for all, or even most, Mississippian polity forms. Many centers were very short-lived, blinking on for a century or so, then blinking off again like “Christmas tree lights” (Anderson, 2001:165), failing to cycle from simple to complex and back again (Hally, 1996). Centers could be depopulated in one phase and then reoccupied and revitalized in another phase (e.g., King, 2003). Relatively rapid population movement from abandoned centers to the subsequent founding of new centers was part of a recurrent historical process in the formation and reproduction of Mississippian polities (Blitz, 1999). Trace-element measurements were now available to identify non-local people (Cook & Price, 2015; Price et al., 2007) and objects (Emerson et al., 2003). Although driven by new data, these changes in how Mississippian was conceptualized were influenced by the more agent-based conceptions of “historical processualism” (Pauketat, 2001), “processual-plus” (Hegmon, 2003), and the “historical turn” (Fowles & Mills, 2017) in Americanist archaeology. So while the contributors to the landmark volume The Mississippian Emergence (Smith, 2007) had little to say about migration or culture contact scenarios, a recent volume with the same theme, Mississippian Beginnings (Wilson, 2017) situates culture change in the historical ebb and flow of migration, cultural exchanges, “entanglement,” and “networked associations” (Wilson & Sullivan, 2017).

Climate Change and Migrating Mississippians Links between climate change and the emergence and spread of Mississippian were slow to develop. Archaeologists have always been interested in changing climate, but for much of the twentieth century, climate change was considered only in long duration perspective. Archaeologists often treated climate as a static backdrop to their culture periods (Anderson, 2001; Kidder, 2006:196). Caldwell’s (1958) primary forest efficiency explanation of gradual cultural adjustment to the Eastern Woodlands environment is a good example. It fit well with the gradualist neoevolutionary theme of early processual archaeology, and the culture-as-

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adaptation paradigm. Gradualism was reinforced by the lack of fine-grained chronological controls both for archaeological cultures and climatic episodes. This was especially true for the Eastern Woodlands, which did not enjoy the tree-ring dating precision of the Desert Southwest due to the perceived lack of suitable samples, especially in archaeological context. Sediment and palynology studies in the Southeast identified climate change over long time periods (Delcourt & Delcourt, 1987). However, studies that treated climate change as a more dynamic factor in late prehistory appeared more frequently beginning in the 1960s (e.g., Griffin, 1961). The adaptation focus of the 1970s was more concerned with identifying the optimal environmental niche for Mississippian subsistence than climate impacts (Peebles, 1978; Smith, 1979). The Vacant Quarter hypothesis proposed a relatively rapid decline and abandonment of Mississippian polities centered on the MississippiOhio-Tennessee Rivers confluence region in the AD 1400s (Williams, 1990). As a relocation-migration scenario, it was more punctuated than the usual 1970s gradualist themes, but early speculation about possible causes centered on the breakdown of exchange networks or warfare instead of climate change, which is now more directly implicated (Meeks & Anderson, 2013). Climate science made big data breakthroughs by the mid-2000s (e.g., Cook et al., 2007; National Research Council, 2006; Stahle et al., 2007). These data provided the finer temporal and spatial resolutions of climate-change impacts, especially the identification and duration of droughts. Better climate data coincided with the rapid accumulation of Mississippian archaeological data and the historical turn in Mississippian archaeology. The fact that Mississippian originated during the wetter, warmer weather of the Medieval Warm Period (AD 950–1250/1300) and declined or changed in the cooler, dryer interval of the Little Ice Age after AD 1400 took on new significance. An expanding tree-ring data base for the Midwest and Southeast and spatial mapping of drought episodes brought archaeologists and climate scientists together to produce a series of important studies, all with implications for area abandonments and population movement by Mississippians (Anderson et al., 1995; Benson et al., 2007, 2009). Anderson’s (2001) review of climate science and archaeology in eastern North America clearly established the potential insights to be gained by integrating the two datasets. Correlation is not causation, we often repeat, but it is often the driver of archaeological explanations. With the ability to track droughts in time and space, good year – bad year crop yield scenarios could be proposed for Mississippian polity growth and decline (Anderson et al., 1995). In one version outlined by Blitz and Lorenz (2002:132–133), periods of consistent rainfall would produce larger crop yields, sustain greater population aggregation, and create surpluses to fund integrative traditions of mound building, feasting and the crafting of prestige goods. Alliances between neighboring polities, secured by elite marriage and gifting, would reduce the frequency of warfare. When rainfall was adequate, polities grew, and political and social integration expanded in scale. The opposite scenario, extended drought periods leading to harvest and other resource shortfalls, could destabilize polities dependent on surpluses to subsidize political and social integration. The claim here is that population size is limited to the maximum number of people who can be

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supported in successive drought years. To support aggregated populations during extended droughts, leaders would search for a way to supplement shortfalls or face losing supporters through polity fission, or perhaps in some cases more hierarchical forms of being Mississippian were responses to such shortfalls. If drought were widespread, neighboring allies would be unwilling or unable to help. Appeals to the supernatural would require surpluses to fund community ceremonials at a time when the support population’s resources were depleted. Are climate change explanations for culture change a form of neo-environmental determinism? Perhaps, but Ester Boserup’s (1965) response to the Malthusian catastrophe scenario is still relevant here. She argued that unlike other species, humans have the potential to increase the food supply through innovative technology to avert disaster. As anthropologist James Wood (1998:113–114) put it, this is the “Malthus-and-Boserup ratchet” which permits “a Boserupian escape from the Malthusian trap,” at least temporarily. If drought-stricken Mississippians did not have the means or desire to ratchet up their social hierarchy, population movement was another option. Humans are resilient, to use the current optimistic term often used against the specter of collapse. Maybe we can cling to that hope as we face the reality of rapid global warming and the mass migration of desperate millions in our present century. Just don’t expect societies to come out the other end of such challenges without profound changes. The interdisciplinary union of climate scientists and archaeologists provides a much-needed broadening of perspective, both for the past and the present. With the connection of migration and climate change, environment and contingent history find a kind of resolution that was absent in the older debates. But theoretical perspectives will need to be more flexible to accommodate this broadening. There is room for both gradualist and punctuated conceptions. Not everything of interest in Mississippian archaeology can be reduced to the particularistic level of historical interpretation. A more holistic archaeology requires that general comparative and specific historical explanations of culture change be reconciled (e.g., Cook, 2017).

The Present Volume This chapter has highlighted the complexity of the relationships between climate change and the movement of agriculturalists in the past. Briefly, the pattern that emerges suggests that good times often led to the spread of successful farming adaptations (through landscape reorganization and/or demographic pressures), while bad times often led to relocation in search of greener pastures. Of key importance to this pattern is the impact of climate on the environmental conditions underlying crop production. Mississippian societies, who relied primarily on maize as staple crop, faced pressures related to climate change much like other nascent agriculturalists. Unpredictability in crop yields because of changing climate created pressures that increased the likelihood of these early agriculturalists to move to more productive areas. The history of Mississippian studies tracks this relationship in many ways,

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considering that migration was a key element of the spread of a Mississippian maizebased lifestyle. As we are beginning to learn, climate played a fundamental role in this process. With this in mind, we can contextualize the present volume. A notable goal of this volume is to provide focused thematic and regional examination of the spread of agriculture in the context of climate change to allow us to examine these adaptations at multiple scales in one geographic region/culture area (Fig. 1.1). The following chapters often incorporate archaeological, biological, and climatological data that allow us to examine movement, long-term demographic patterns, and climate gradients in a variety of subregions of the Eastern US as maize agriculturalists spread.

Fig. 1.1 General regions covered by each chapter in this volume

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Part I consists of a pair of studies focused on articulating the complex aspects of social change in the American Bottom region, with a particular spotlight on Cahokia. As one of the key early Mississippian polities, Cahokia acts as a starting point through which we can examine processes that intersect with the rise of a complex society, changing climate, and the immigration and emigration of diverse groups of people. Direct analysis of strontium isotopes from skeletal samples allows for a detailed understanding of the movement of individuals into and out of the American Bottom region (Chap. 2; Hedman et al.). Taken in concert with climatological and population data (Chap. 3; Schroeder et al.), a detailed understanding of the intersections between the growth of polities in the American Bottom and changing climate is revealed. In particular, climatic pushes and pulls appear to play key roles in both the rise to prominence of Cahokia and the eventual decline of this polity. Hedman and colleagues stress that social processes are a fundamental aspect of population aggregations and disbursements at Cahokia. Part II tracks the expansion of people and maize agriculture north along the Illinois River and into the upper Mississippi Valley. The front line of Mississippian migration from Cahokia is addressed by Wilson and Bird in the Central Illinois River Valley (Chap. 4; Wilson and Bird). Emerson and colleagues’ (Chap. 5; Emerson et al.) contribution follows from this as it addresses migration, climate change, and the adoption of an agricultural lifestyle in the upper portion of the Illinois River valley. The end of the northerly migration line in this section is addressed by Zych and Richards (Chap. 6; Zych and Richards) who contextualize the unique historical sequences that played out at Aztalan and other key northern Mississippian sites. Part III tracks a somewhat analogous expansion of peoples and ideas into the Ohio Valley, Midsouth, and Southeast. On the northeastern Mississippian periphery, the influx of Mississippian people and ways of life into the Middle Ohio Valley from points south and west is evident during the early Fort Ancient period, which coincides with the onset of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (Chap. 7; Cook and Comstock). A converse pattern is evident with the onset of the Little Ice Age in this region; as conditions became more stressful, population movement out of the region and to the west is likely. In the Upper Tennessee River Valley, Sullivan and colleagues present findings from two important under-reported sites and place them in a broader regional context (Chap. 8; Sullivan et al.). Their findings point to waves of migrants from the Middle Cumberland region and north Georgia, partially resulting from droughts and conflict. Their results also highlight an important note from the present chapter regarding the down-the-line importance of cascading migrations resulting from climate change. Focusing on the Savannah River Valley, but in the larger regional context aimed at synthesizing settlement and demographic data in the southeastern US, Richison and Anderson (Chap. 9; Ritchison and Anderson) provide an important contribution to this section. In the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley, Brannan identifies in-migrations of people from regions to the west, including Moundville, as an abrupt disconnect from earlier traditions that began Mississippian occupation in the region (Chap. 10; Brannan). Subsequent cultural developments in the area are examined in conjunction with moisture availability data, indicating a complex and as of yet unclear interplay

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between climate unpredictability and social aggregation. After approximately AD 1400 BP, settlement patterns shift away from large population centers, much like is evident throughout the greater Southeast during this period. Part IV wraps up the geographic examination of the Mississippian spread by detailing the movement of people and ideas into the Lower Mississippian Region. In the northern Lower Mississippi Valley Burnette and colleagues point to droughts as an underlying factor that contributed to social transitions at scales ranging from incremental to transformational (Chap. 11; Burnette et al.). Multiple drought-driven periods of in-migration are revealed, including from the east and north. Additionally, megadroughts are related to periods of out-migration, in which the region was largely depopulated and people moved to southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas. In the Lower Mississippi Valley and Delta region, Mehta and Rodning explore the role that changing climate played in the expansion of Mississippian life (Chap. 12; Mehta and Rodning). In particular, they note a pattern seen in other chapters where Central Mississippi Valley droughts do not extend into their region, creating a climate gradient and push/pull factors for Mississippian populations. Additionally, they note that climatic factors, like a period of weaker hurricane storms, led to landscape reorganization that fostered the expansion of farmers into productive landscapes. Each of these findings reflects global patterns covered in the present chapter. Part V provides a commentary and further discussion by Cobb on issues and themes discussed by the authors of the volume.

Conclusion This overview highlights that our collection of studies is a nuanced understanding of the development and spread of an agricultural lifestyle against the broader backdrop of social adaptations to changing climate systems worldwide. Collectively examining these contributions through the lens of global patterns identified in the present chapter suggests that climate change played a key role in the spread of maize agriculture into the Eastern Woodlands and that the emergence and spread of Mississippian societies unfolded similarly to farming societies elsewhere in the world. Hence, the chapters in this volume thus have both regional and global significance in furthering our understanding of the spread of farming ways of life.

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Part I

Cahokia and the Middle Mississippian Region

Chapter 2

Corn, Climate, and the Human Population of Greater Cahokia Kristin M. Hedman, Thomas E. Emerson, Matthew A. Fort, John M. Lambert, Alleen M. Betzenhauser, and Timothy R. Pauketat

Archaeologists have long hypothesized a causal relationship between climate, agriculture, and social change in North America’s late pre-Columbian era (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). Interpretations of this relationship have ranged from simple one-to-one correlations between climate and culture change to those that stress the social mediation of large-scale climatic shifts. We propose the latter approach better explains developments at and around the urban complex of Greater Cahokia, which arose rapidly around AD 1050 and began its decline in the early thirteenth century (Fig. 2.1). In this chapter, we review evidence for the link between Mississippian-era population movements, the abrupt introduction and rapid intensification of maize agriculture and associated processing technology, and climate change during the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Additionally, we demonstrate that the productive potential of the American Bottom floodplain has been underestimated. Taken together, the evidence surrounding the farming and processing of maize relative to isotopic insights into human population movement leads us to re-emphasize the importance of that Mesoamerican cultigen and immigration in Cahokia’s rise as a primate population center in the Mississippi River valley.

K. M. Hedman (*) · M. A. Fort · J. M. Lambert · A. M. Betzenhauser T. R. Pauketat University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] T. E. Emerson Upper Mississippi Valley Archaeological Research Foundation, Macomb, IL, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_2

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Fig. 2.1 Map of the Greater Cahokia region

Regional Developmental Trends The pre-contact Indigenous city of Greater Cahokia is located along the Mississippi River in and adjacent to the modern-day metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois. At its peak, the city was comprised of three major civic-ceremonial precincts—Cahokia, St. Louis, and East St. Louis (Fig. 2.2)—each including one or more monumentalized, civic-ceremonial cores and multiple neighborhoods (Betzenhauser & Pauketat, 2019; Brennan et al., 2018; Emerson, 2018a; Pauketat et al., 2013, 2015, 2018). This city, which encompasses some 200 earthen mounds and several large public plazas, sits at the heart of a Greater Cahokia region. That cultural region had an irregular and fluctuating perimeter—probably extending at least 50 km in every direction—and subsumed a wide expanse of Mississippi

2 Corn, Climate, and the Human Population of Greater Cahokia

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Fig. 2.2 Shaded relief map showing the three major precincts of greater Cahokia (St. Louis, East St. Louis, and Cahokia proper), as well as nearby high-density occupation areas

River floodplain known as the American Bottom as well as moderately dissected till plain uplands east, west, north and south of the floodplain. If we focus only on the American Bottom proper, that long stretch of floodplain extending south for nearly 125 km from present-day Alton, Illinois, just below the Mississippi’s confluence with the Illinois River to the mouth of the Kaskaskia River, we can see that its approximately19-km-wide northern end is bordered on the west by the Mississippi River and limestone bluffs, and on the east by more-subtle loesscovered bluffs. These bluffs are cut by a number of deeply incised streams that then meander across the floodplain, intersecting ancient oxbow lakes as they go. The dissected uplands beyond the bluffs both to the east and west were forested, at least during the pre-urban Terminal Late Woodland period. Early European travelers describe the American Bottom floodplain as a watery place, covered by sloughs, swamps, and lakes, broken only by the occasional Pleistocene terraces, colluvial loess slopes, the many natural levees and point bars created by the meandering Mississippi River and its tributaries (see Alt, 2019; Milner, 1998; Pauketat, 2020). The low ground between such bottomland ridges was often inundated by seasonal Mississippi and Missouri River floods. Such floods presumably enhanced the friability and nutrient content of periodically submerged lands. Given this floodplain environment, and with ready access to adjacent uplands, native inhabitants would have had available a rich array of plant and animal

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Table 2.1 American Bottom cultural chronology Cultural affiliation Late Woodland Terminal Late Woodland Mississippian Lohmann

Time period AD 350–900 AD 900–1050

Characteristics Small horticultural settlements Development of nucleated villages Maize agriculture Diverse material culture

AD 1050–1100

Cahokia’s “Big Bang”—Urban precincts established Population peaks at est. 15,000+ people Upland Richland farming complex and dispersed farmstead pattern established Social, religious, & political change Cahokia’s “Golden Age” Defensive palisades Depopulation of Richland Complex Declining regional population Resident population of Cahokia declines to ~3000–4000 Cahokia’s importance as a ceremonial center continues Cahokia is abandoned by the mid-14th c

Stirling

AD 1100–1200 AD 1150–1200

Moorehead

AD 1200–1300

Sand Prairie

AD 1300–1400 CE

After Fortier et al., 2006

resources, such as deer, turkey, racoon, and other forest dwelling animals, and to nuts and tubers, firewood (supplemented by large rafts of riverine driftwood), thatch and poles for house construction, basketry, and fortifications, a flyway with abundant waterfowl, and lakes and rivers abundant with fish and other aquatic resources (Johannessen, 1984; Kelly & Cross, 1984; Milner, 1998:65–79; White et al., 1984). The Greater Cahokia region (if not also various physical and biotic characteristics of the American Bottom proper) was shaped during the dramatic social and political changes of the mid-eleventh century (Table 2.1). In the century and half prior to that (AD 900–1050), a pre-urban Terminal Late Woodland period was characterized by low population densities, a few large nucleated villages, maize agriculture, and a diverse material culture (Betzenhauser, 2019; Brennan et al., 2018; Fortier & McElrath, 2002; Kelly, 2000). That period was brought to an end by the rapid transformation of social, political, and religious life referred to as Cahokia’s “Big Bang” (Pauketat, 1994, 1997). In short order, population nucleated at and around Greater Cahokia, with at least two of three major city precincts being rebuilt and expanded. Untold numbers of older Terminal Late Woodland settlements were abandoned while newcomers entered the region, and dispersed farmsteads and new villages were founded in the Mississippi floodplain and adjacent uplands (Alt, 2002, 2006; Betzenhauser, 2017; Emerson, 1997a, b, 2018b; Pauketat, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004; Pauketat et al., 1998). After AD 1050, a series of outlying lesser precincts, towns, shrine complexes, farming villages, and farmsteads by the thousands crowded the region (Emerson, 1997a, 2018b). Farther into the interior to

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the east were prominent expanses of prairies, the edges of which were tilled by Cahokian farmers (Alt, 2018). Population estimates for the largest precincts, Cahokia and East St. Louis, at this time are as high as 15,000 and 7,400 people, respectively (Brennan et al., 2018; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997), indicating a 5–10-fold population increase by the so-called Lohmann phase (AD 1050–1100). Such population levels were sustained in the region through the early twelfth century AD when Cahokia was at the pinnacle of its power and influence. By the late twelfth century AD, however, there were indications of problems. One farming district in the uplands east of Cahokia emptied of people (Alt, 2018; Pauketat, 2003). A great palisade wall of vertical logs was built around Monks Mound and the Grand Plaza (Iseminger et al., 1990). A bi- or tri-walled compound was constructed around a portion of the East St. Louis precinct (Pauketat, 2005; Pauketat et al., 2013). By AD 1200, even more dramatic changes had occurred. The East St. Louis precinct had been partially burned and radically downsized in terms of housing and human population, converted into a largely vacated ceremonial complex (Brennan et al., 2018). There and across the region, a suite of distinctive religious buildings and, we presume, practices were discontinued (Emerson, 1997a, 2018b; Emerson et al., 2008; Pauketat, 2019; Pauketat et al., 2013, 2015). Possibly, one or more factions, kin groups, priesthoods, or sodalities had vacated the region.

Maize and the Isotopic Landscape During the Terminal Late Woodland and Mississippian eras, Eastern Agricultural Complex crops and maize were important to local diets. Just how important each was to the subsistence base has long been an issue of interest to archaeobotanists (Fritz, 2019; Johannessen, 1984; Lopinot, 1997; Simon & Parker, 2006). This is especially true of maize, which does not appear to have had a significant presence in the region until AD 900 (Emerson et al., 2020a; Simon, 2014, 2017). The challenges to measuring the importance of each crop from carbonized macrobotanical remains include considerations of differential preservation, establishing secure context, accurate identification, and determining the equivalence of counts and weights of carbonized remains to dietary importance. Through stable isotope studies researchers have been able to produce definitive determinations of the importance of maize to pre-contact populations and individuals. Here, we draw on previously generated stable isotope data from bone collagen, and stable isotope and strontium isotope ratios from tooth enamel for approximately 400 individuals representing 15 sites (Emerson et al., 2020a; Hedman et al., 2018; Slater et al., 2014). From these data, we are able to characterize the diet and local or nonlocal origins of an individual at different points in their life. These individuals represent Late Woodland through Sand Prairie-phase Mississippian occupations in the American Bottom, and include individuals from the urban precincts of Cahokia and East St Louis, as well as smaller rural settlements in the surrounding floodplain and uplands.

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Determining the temporal association of burials in this region is commonly problematic as sites are often multicomponent, and burials are rarely accompanied by temporally diagnostic artifacts. To address this, collagen samples from just over 100 individuals (representing 10 sites, including 9 mounds or cemetery locations within Cahokia-proper) had been directly dated (Fig. 2.3). These 100 individuals formed the basis of our understanding of changes in diet and population movement through time and, in this paper, allow us to correlate the biological and isotopic characteristics of Cahokians with the growing set of available climate and environmental data.

Subsistence It is well established that maize agriculture was important to Cahokia; however, the timing and intensity of maize consumption in the region has been a topic of considerable investigation (Bender et al., 1981; Buikstra & Milner, 1991; Emerson et al., 2020a; Fritz, 2019; Hedman et al., 2002; Simon, 2017; see Emerson et al., Chap. 5, this volume). While macrobotanical evidence for early maize has been cited (Riley et al., 1994), Mary Simon’s recent reanalysis of Middle and Late Woodland maize from western Illinois has shown that in nearly all cases, these “early maize” samples proved to either not be maize, or, if maize, to date later than their feature context initially suggested (Simon, 2014, 2017). Simon’s reevaluation of maize histories based on macrobotanical evidence shows that prior to ca. AD 900 maize was not a cultivated crop plant in this part of the Midwest. Stable isotope evidence for maize consumption echoes the pattern of maize utilization in the macrobotanical record. In previous studies, bone collagen ∂13C values indicate a non-maize diet for the few Late Woodland individuals and their canine companions (Fig. 2.4) (Emerson et al., 2020a). However, during the Terminal Late Woodland period, post-AD 900, there exists isotopic evidence for the consumption of maize by some individuals. By AD 1000, maize was clearly of significant dietary importance in this region on a population level, although its importance to individual diets was still highly variable—some people consumed little if any maize, while for others, maize contributed significantly to their diet. A high degree of isotopic variation between individuals continues through the early Mississippian Lohmann phase. This temporal pattern suggests a rapid and dramatic change in the diet of American Bottom inhabitants beginning ca. AD 900 rather than one of gradual maize adoption. Through the subsequent Stirling, Moorehead, and Sand Prairie phases, however, dietary variability between individuals decreased and, in spite of indications of prolonged drought conditions, maize appears to have increased in dietary importance. These temporal patterns are seen both at the urban centers of Cahokia and East St. Louis, and in outlying floodplain and upland settlements.

Fig. 2.3 Calibrated calendrical dates and collagen carbon C4 contributions

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Fig. 2.4 Collagen δ13C (‰) for individuals by median probability dates (dogs included as a proxy). (After Emerson et al., 2020a)

Variability in diet observed both within and across sites during the Terminal Late Woodland and Early Mississippian periods has been attributed by some to differences in status (Ambrose et al., 2003; Bender et al., 1981) or gendered food practices and preferences (Buikstra & Milner, 1991; Hedman et al., 2002). The larger more comprehensive isotopic dataset now available suggests that these differences in diet may also reflect previously unrecognized temporal differences within sites, and differences in place of origin or ethnicity between individuals within an increasingly diverse population (Emerson & Hargrave, 2000; Emerson, 2018b; Emerson & Hedman, 2016; Nash et al., 2018; see also Buikstra & Milner, 1991).

Population Fluxes Archaeologists have long agreed that an essential aspect of Cahokian development involved temporal variations in population density, often characterized as generated by competing centripetal and centrifugal forces (e.g., Milner, 1990; Pauketat, 1998). While social and religious factors drew many people into Cahokia’s sphere, factional disputes, resource shortages, and environmental shifts may have encouraged some people to leave the region (see Emerson, 1991). Until recently these population

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movements were difficult to identify on the ground and could only be glossed in the broadest terms. However, archaeological investigations in the uplands to the east of Cahokia have changed that picture. Susan Alt’s (2002, 2006) analyses of upland Richland Complex farming settlements identified various groups of inhabitants as immigrants who entered the area during the early Lohmann phase. Ceramic evidence links most of these to homelands in southeastern Missouri and southwestern Indiana (see also Pauketat, 2003). Isotopic evidence indicates that the large shifts in maize consumption after ca. AD 900 are correlated with a significant movement of people and an influx of immigrants into the American Bottom. Our identification of immigrants, and the movement of individuals into (or away from) Cahokia, is based on previously generated strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) of tooth enamel that fall above or below the local strontium range estimated for the American Bottom. Strontium isotope ratios derived from small, non-migratory fauna were used to establish a local strontium range for the American Bottom, and a baseline strontium isoscape for the midcontinental US (Hedman et al., 2009; Hedman et al., 2018; Slater et al., 2014; see also Cook & Price, 2015; Price et al., 2007). Although the earlier study did identify areas in the midcontinent with distinctive, or uncommon, strontium ratios that enable the identification of individuals nonlocal to Cahokia, it also demonstrated significant overlap in strontium ratios across a broad geographical region—particularly along major waterways like the Mississippi River valley (Hedman et al., 2018; Slater et al., 2014). This means that, in most cases, strontium alone is neither sufficient to identify all nonlocal individuals at a given site nor to definitively identify a potential place of origin for immigrant Cahokians (Hedman & Hargrave, 2018; Hedman et al., 2018; Slater et al., 2014; Thompson et al., 2015). An estimated 25% of 338 individuals who were previously analyzed from sites in the Greater Cahokia region have at least one tooth with strontium isotope ratios that fall outside of the local strontium range for the American Bottom proper (Fig. 2.5). This may be a conservative estimate of the percentage of immigrants represented, as both isotopic and dental metric evidence suggest some people are from regions indistinguishable from Greater Cahokia using strontium alone (e.g., Mound 72 F229 Lower group burial; Thompson et al., 2015). This supports archaeological evidence (e.g., Alt, 2006, 2010, 2018) that an influx of immigrants from outside of the American Bottom proper contributed significantly to population growth, and also suggests that many of those immigrants could have come from nearby regions (e.g., eastern Missouri, Lower Illinois River Valley, etc.). When one considers the burial location and mortuary treatment of individuals identified as nonlocal, it appears that they were well integrated into Cahokian society (Hedman & Hargrave, 2018; Slater et al., 2014). One sees the greatest variation in strontium isotope ratios during the Terminal Late Woodland and early Mississippian (Lohmann and Stirling) periods. This correlates with archaeological evidence for the influx of people into the Greater Cahokia region and with variation in diet and cultural practices characterizing Cahokia’s early formative years. Many of the people identified as nonlocal during this period came to the region as children or were conceived before or shortly after

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Fig. 2.5 American Bottom strontium (87Sr/86Sr) ratios for early and late developing teeth. Shaded area represents estimated “local” strontium isotope range for the American Bottom (0.70889–0.70973). Dashed lines indicated estimated “local” strontium isotope range for the 30 km radius of Cahokia (0.70874–0.71024). (After Hedman et al., 2018)

their mother migrated—reflecting the rapid population increase through both immigration and births. A small number of individuals may have been born in, or to mothers from, the Greater Cahokia region, but were raised elsewhere, returning to the region as older children or adults—reflecting a multi-directional movement of people during this period. For a small number of immigrants, isotopic evidence suggests their consumption of maize coincides with a move to the Greater Cahokia region. These individuals represent different regions of origin (with Sr both above and below that of the Cahokia), which is consistent with a pattern of variability in maize consumption described for other regions (Wilson & Bird, Chap. 4, this volume). As evident with maize consumption and cultural practices, the latter half of the Mississippian period shows less diversity in place of origin. Although immigrants continue to contribute to the population of the Cahokia and East St. Louis Precincts through the Stirling phase, their numbers during the Moorehead and Sand Prairie phases are smaller and more apt to be comprised of people who were born and raised outside of Greater Cahokia who came to the region as adults. The presence of nonlocal individuals in secondary burial contexts, and burials intrusive to earlier mounds, leaves open the possibility that some of these Late Mississippian individuals were not immigrants, but were brought to Cahokia for burial (i.e., Emerson, 2018b).

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While we cannot definitively identify place of origin for an individual based on strontium isotope ratios alone, it does appear that where people came from may have changed over time. Across all time periods in the American Bottom, most nonlocal individuals have strontium ratios in the 0.709–0.710 range—values that are very common in the midcontinent, and can be found within a 30 km radius of Cahokia (e.g., lower Illinois River valley) (see Hedman et al., 2018). During the Terminal Late Woodland period through the Early Mississippian Lohman phase, a few individuals with strontium ratios in the 0.711–0.712 range are evident—values that we identified in southern Missouri, portions of Arkansas, and the southwest tip of Indiana. During the Lohmann and Stirling phases, individuals with strontium ratios that fall below the local Cahokia range are apparent—values that could characterize much of the Mississippi River valley, but (of the locations we analyzed) are most similar to those for southeast Missouri. Also, during the Lohmann and Stirling phases, a small number of individuals with uniquely high strontium ratios (>0.715) are apparent that are most similar to values known from central Arkansas.

Other Landscape and Climate Considerations Understanding the history of Cahokian populations and diet requires an understanding of their subsistence base and food-processing practices in relation to the climate changes consequent to the Medieval Climate Anomaly (AD 800–1300). In the midcontinent, despite the presence of a number of Indigenous domesticates such as starchy seeds, this means understanding maize agriculture and attendant landscape considerations. With regards to the productivity of Native farmers, we must consider the characteristics of both soils and local hydrology. In the American Bottom proper, the best soils and the least risky fields were those located on ridges, alluvial fans, and bluff base colluvial slopes (see Chmurny, 1973). Generally speaking, land that was safe to inhabit was generally safe to plant. With this in mind, George Milner (1986:229) examined a 15 km sample strip south of Cahokia, estimating that only about 40% of the floodplain was sufficiently elevated for long-term use in the Mississippian era. However, it is now apparent that the southern floodplain analyzed by Milner is not representative of all of the American Bottom. Indeed, based on LiDAR data, we now calculate that 77% (364 km2) of the northern American Bottom floodplain, which covers 471 km2, exceeds 125.0 m amsl and is available for both year-round habitation and farming (Fig. 2.6). The highest density of this elevated land is in the northern end of the American Bottom north of Horseshoe Lake. To the northeast of Horseshoe Lake and Cahokia itself and within a 5 km radius centered on Monks Mound, lies one of the largest contiguous areas of arable land, including 23 km2 of elevated alluvial/ colluvial slope as well as another 33 km2 of ridge and swale terrain, and 6 km2 of bluffs, much of it suitable for farming (also see Dalan et al., 2003:Fig. 23). The adjacent Illinois uplands provide additional unlimited expanses of fertile soils that, depending on adequate rainfall, would provide rich fields for maize (Benson et al., 2009; Pauketat, 1998, 2003) (Fig. 2.7, Dobos et al., 2012).

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Fig. 2.6 Shaded relief map showing portions of the American Bottom study area above 125 m amsl that were likely preferred site locations. Elevation generally increases from south to north across the floodplain, especially north of Horseshoe Lake

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Fig. 2.7 Map of the American Bottoms floodplain and surrounding uplands showing corn productivity values from the National Commodity Crop Productivity Index v3 (NCCPI), which rates the ability of soils to produce agricultural crops without irrigation

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Assuming that the floodplain and uplands had more than adequate suitable hectares for Native farmers to plant, the question comes down to their ability to practice a form of agriculture that was able to produce the crop yields necessary to sustain the hypothesized peak Greater Cahokian city population of 15,000–20,000 and a regional population at least double that (Brennan et al., 2018; Milner, 1998; Pauketat, 2003). The issue of native maize production levels has been a contested one. At best, researchers’ models of Native maize production have relied on ethnohistoric accounts incorporating both Native and European voices, modern agricultural knowledge of plants, estimated population numbers, and hypothesized agricultural practices of past societies. All of these variables are subject to multiple interpretations. Estimates of native maize production, ambitiously covering the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains, have been produced by Sissel Schroeder (1999; see also Schroeder, 2001). Using a broad array of sources, Schroeder (1999:512) downsizes earlier researchers’ crop predictions of maize bushels per acre (bu/acre), concluding that, at best, Native maize yields probably did not exceed 18.9 bu./acre (1185.4 kg/ ha) and likely did not produce yields of more than 10 bu./acre (627.2 kg/ha) of maize for consumption (given loss to weather, pests, rot, as well as the necessity of preserving seed corn for next year). A new approach by Jane Mt. Pleasant (2015), a Cornell University agronomist and soil scientist who studies Native agricultural systems, questions many of the truisms that archaeologists have used to estimate native agricultural productivity. Briefly, she demonstrates that most native agricultural practices promoted long term agricultural fertility and allowed the use of fairly permanent fields, producing high yields of maize, over a long period. A key insight from her research has been the observation that it was the historic use of plows that broke down soils and promoted the loss of nutrients (the key loss being nitrogen), thus leading to a rapid decrease in yields. Conversely, native cropping, with its small footprint of corn hills, slowed this process. Furthermore, this limited cultivated footprint minimized the loss of forests to extensive clearings and fields to sheet erosion. Mt. Pleasant (2011, 2015; Mt. Pleasant & Burt, 2010) argues that some (e.g., Delcourt & Delcourt, 2004; Lopinot & Woods, 1993; Rindos & Johannessen, 1991; Schroeder, 1999; Woods, 2004) have misrepresented native agriculture as part of a cycle of environmental degradation that led to the collapse of the Cahokia polity, which led to her re-examination of maize production in the region. Examining the soils in a 5-mile radius about Cahokia and in the upland area of the Richland Complex in terms of the National Crop Commodity Productivity Index (NCCPI, which rates the ability of soils to produce agricultural crops without irrigation), she found that 115,000 acres of land was moderately to highly productive and 78,000 acres were highly productive (Mt. Pleasant, 2015:405). Considering varying population sizes (10,000–25,000), the percent of diet comprised of maize (50–75%), and the yield of 25–50 bu./acre, Mt. Pleasant (2015:Table 6) showed that even with a Cahokian maximum regional population of 40,000, deriving 50–75% of their calories from maize could be fed by the maize yield from between 6651 and 13,303 acres. Her point is straightforward – at their maximum population, Cahokians could

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have provided themselves with ample maize supplies by planting about 12% of fertile land within a 5-mile radius of their floodplain and upland settlements. With access to a much larger swath of fertile lands in both the floodplain and the uplands, the Cahokians were buffered against any but long-term and catastrophic environmental or climatic shifts. Of course, the Cahokians were not mere passive heirs to a pristine landscape. Their forebears had modified it extensively. It is likely no coincidence that these changes coincide with the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which was in full swing at the beginning of the tenth century. This period, known across eastern North America for its warmer and wetter weather, seems evident in the limited dendroclimatological data from the region and beyond. Neal Lopinot (1994) first recognized the dendroclimatological pattern by examining the tree rings of the singular cypress marker post recovered from the main plaza of the Mitchell site, a Cahokian civic-ceremonial center north of the main city. Specifically, Lopinot (1994:145–147) observed that the tree from which the post had been shaped may have been cut around the year AD 1160, when it was some two centuries old. Given its age, the post provided evidence for periods of good agricultural conditions, dating between the late Terminal Late Woodland period and the Early Stirling phase, followed by declining conditions during the Late Stirling phase. In general, this is the same pattern presented by Benson et al. (2009) using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), which uses historic dendrological data to model localized water availability across the American Midwest and West (Cook et al., 2004). PDSI is a measure of climatic conditions using historic tree rings to project the amount of soil moisture for a thousand or more years. Negative PDSI indices indicate dry conditions, while wet conditions are indicated by positive indices. With respect to the Greater Cahokia region, Benson, Cook and Pauketat (2009) examined the correlations of the PDSI indices with cultural events occurring at Cahokia, observing that the century before the Lohmann phase, in and around the American Bottom, was extremely conducive to the expansion of precipitationdependent maize agriculture, with the mid-eleventh century founding of Cahokia during one of the wettest 50-year periods in a 1000-year span (Fig. 2.8). During that same period, from about AD 900 on, the human population of the floodplain was increasing owing in part to immigration, with a significant spike in the mid-AD 1000s. As noted earlier, AD 900 marked the introduction of maize agriculture to the region, and climatic amelioration during the Medieval Climate Anomaly likely underwrote the expansion and intensification of a particularly successful agricultural system centered on this introduced crop coupled with the existing Eastern Agricultural Complex (e.g., Fritz, 2019). This suspicion takes on added weight once we consider the evidence that, at least in the American Bottom, maize was not the only introduction at AD 900. Multiple lines of evidence now make it increasingly likely that elements of maize processing technology, including nixtamalization—the processing of shelled maize by soaking it in an alkaline solution—entered the American Bottom at the same time as did the maize plant itself (Pauketat, 2018). That evidence includes:

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Fig. 2.8 PDSI for the American Bottom. (After Benson et al., 2009)

• The introduction of a suite of novel pottery shapes (i.e., stumpware and funnels) inferred to have been used in processing of limestone or wood ash for lye water (Fig. 2.9) (Benchley, 2003; Betzenhauser et al., 2018); • The simultaneous introduction of a wide, shallow pottery bowl (a.k.a., pan) used over a fire, possibly for baking cornbread (Kelly, 1980); • The correlation of broken and discarded stumpware containers with concentrations of burned limestone or cherty residues at Cahokia and East St. Louis (Betzenhauser, 2018; Betzenhauser et al., 2018; Pauketat, 2018); • The existence of a white translocated residue on the exterior of most stumpware vessels and funnels, presumed to be derived from the burned and water-soaked limestone or ash (Benchley, 2003).

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Fig. 2.9 Example of a stumpware funnel

Early versions of funnels are present in ceramic assemblages from pre-Mississippian contexts in southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas (Morse & Morse, 2007), but do not appear in the American Bottom until the Lohmann phase at AD 1050 (Betzenhauser, 2018; Brennan et al., 2019). Stumpware first appears ca. AD 900 in the American Bottom, at the same time maize is introduced, and these early stumpware cases are highly variable, suggesting experimentation with form and production at the household level. It is possible Terminal Late Woodland people developed this new technology specifically for making use of the ample limestone outcrops in the region. It seems local Terminal Late Woodland people were aware of the nixtamalization processing of maize, but developed a new form of technology, stumpware, to complete the process. Once nixtamalized, the maize grains are dehulled and edible either as hominy or processed into corn meal that might be made into bread dough. The adoption of nixtamalization may in fact have been a necessary prerequisite for Mississippian diets which were increasingly dominated by maize. Nixtamalization not only softens the pericarp but alters some proteins, amino acids, and other nutrients contained within the kernel so that they can be better digested and absorbed, thereby providing adequate (rather than marginal) nutrition (Bressani & Scrimshaw, 1958; Katz et al., 1974). Individuals deriving a large proportion of their diet from maize without nixtamalizing would likely suffer from malnutrition, including pellagra (a disease resulting from niacin deficiency). Bioarchaeological analysis of multiple late Mississippian individuals from at and near Cahokia have failed to demonstrate significant evidence for malnutrition in these populations (e.g., Emerson & Hedman, 2016; Milner, 1982; Nash et al., 2018).

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The broader significance of reliance on processed maize within the Terminal Late Woodland landscape is that the nixtamalization process demands fuel to produce the wood ash or to burn the limestone and, if the latter, then it also requires access to limestone. With regard to limestone acquisition, there are potentially even greater implications for the development of the social landscape. In the northern American Bottom proper, such limestone only outcrops at the northern, southern, and western perimeters. It was probably most accessible to Terminal Late Woodland villagers by water from the high limestone bluffs that underlied the later St. Louis precinct on the western side of the Mississippi River. Farmers across most of the floodplain and even much of the upland interior would need to develop social relationships with the people in settlements proximal to particular bluff exposures. Wood ash was easily available from ordinary cooking fires in Terminal Late Woodland settlements. The wood for such fires likely came from driftwood rafts along the Mississippi and Missouri river shorelines as well as from forest clearance, among other sources. We suspect that wood resources in the later Cahokian landscape were carefully managed to maximize resource potential by protecting mastproducing trees, fruiting trees, and berry patches, by restricting burning in areas of regenerating young second-growth trees (in effect 5–10 year old saplings) that were essential elements in domestic buildings, and by maintaining prairie areas and canebrakes that would be sources of thatch for houses and raw materials for basketry, matting, and so forth (see Kay & Simmons, 2002). The upshot of these landscape management customs and fuel and limestone acquisition practices would have been the creation, by the eleventh century AD, of an increasingly managed specialized agricultural landscape with its own special challenges for farmers. And there is some indirect evidence, in the form of increased numbers of secondary plant species and larger wood-cutting tools, that impacts on the forests were more intimately involved in this landscape transformation. This is not surprising, since there is direct evidence from the later precincts of Greater Cahokia and from key sites outside the urban zone that land-leveling and landformsculpting projects had been or soon would lay the foundations of a new Mississippian landscape across the region and beyond (Alt et al., 2010; Brennan, 2018; Brennan et al., 2018; Dalan et al., 2003; Emerson, 2018b; Pauketat et al., 2017a, b). Of course, when considering the interaction of the Native inhabitants of Cahokia and their local environment, we need to be careful to neither minimize nor maximize their impacts. The early AD 900 farmers in the American Bottom inherited a landscape that had likely seen thousands of years of human manipulation via such activities as seasonal burning and mast tree management (e.g., Munson, 1986; Neumann, 2002; Styles & McMillian, 2009). We assume that, given an intimate knowledge of the landscape, Cahokians practiced these and other comparable management practices. While Cahokians clearly made use of the natural resources around them, we should consider that many of their actions are more appropriately considered in terms of managing activities to create what environmental researchers such as Blackburn and Anderson (1993) have characterized as a native “domesticated” landscape – one in which Native people are active managers and transformers of the environment to encourage aspects of the natural world that benefit them.

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The Human Landscape Ultimately the key to understanding the historical trajectory of the Cahokian polity lies in understanding its human component. Earlier archaeological discussions have generally followed one of two paths: the Cahokian population is represented as a generalized, undifferentiated group of indigenous people who react uniformly to external forces, or, they are modeled as precontact social, political, and religious variants of nineteenth-century ethnographically described tribal groups, with the Dhegihan ethnicities of the eastern Plains being a favorite analogue (Emerson, 2018b: 521–524). Continuing research at Cahokia indicates that such approaches fail to capture the dynamic and fluid nature of Cahokia’s inhabitants. Both the archaeological and isotopic evidence discussed above emphasize that the population was diverse, likely multiethnic, and probably multilingual – in other words, a classic urban population (e.g., Yoffee, 2015). Recognizing Cahokia as urban enables us to better envision the potential for variable responses to external changes such as shifting subsistence or climatic patterns. Knowing that Cahokia’s people included a mix of locals and foreigners allows us to consider those effects (Emerson, 2018b:496–504). It is foundational to understand that immigrants most often come as aggregates that reflect previous existing patterns of ethnicity, co-village residence, or economic unity and less frequently as disparate individuals. The Richland Complex research has been essential in highlighting the nature of Cahokian immigration, i.e., it is founded in the coalescence of corporate-based groups (Alt, 2018). The recognition of Cahokia’s population growth as based in the coalescence of preexisting groups is critical, since it changes the interpretive basis of the regional polity’s internal organization and historical trajectory (Alt, 2006; Emerson, 2018b; Emerson et al., 2020a). The clustering of groups changes the dynamic of Cahokian history, and allows us to re-center on human interactions as the most critical variable in interpreting that history. Evidence for the importance of immigrants is further bolstered by extant isotopic research (Hedman et al., 2018; Slater et al., 2014; Thompson et al., 2015). Early urbanization events around the world are recognized as being composed of multiple groups who may differ in terms of ethnic, cultural, kin, religious, and linguistic attributes (Yoffee, 2015; Yoffee & Terrenato, 2015:1–2). These groups continue, to some degree, to maintain those bonds even in the face of any unifying efforts or effects of centralized governance. While recognizing such groups in the archaeological record remains challenging, at Cahokia examples of this diversity have been identified in mortuary practices (Emerson & Hargrave, 2000), dietary variation (Hedman, 2006; Hedman et al., 2002), ceramic and other material culture (Alt, 2006, 2010, 2018), and in the identification of potential places of origin for immigrants (Hedman et al., 2018: 502–504; Slater et al., 2014). It is this pattern of social clustering within the greater whole that led to the suggestion that Cahokia might better be conceived of as a conglomeration of house societies (Emerson, 2018b: 502–504). Such corporate groups facilitate the incorporation of diverse others across social, kin, and previous residential boundaries to create socio-political-economic units, perhaps bound by ties to nearby leadership at local mound clusters.

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Observing and documenting population fluxes in time and space also allows us to examine the co-occurrence of the introduction of maize agriculture and processing methods (Emerson et al., 2020b; Pauketat, 2018; Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume) with population agglomeration and climate variations. While Cahokia certainly experienced immigration during the Terminal Late Woodland period, large-scale immigration and population nucleation coincides with the adoption of substantive maize production. While Alt (2018), Alt & Pauketat, 2017), Pauketat et al. (2013), and Skousen (2016) have advocated for religion as the driver that attracted people to Cahokia and its associated “shrine complexes”, it is also clear that maize production and favorable climatic conditions enabled immigrants to establish themselves in the region (Pauketat, 2019). Because maize cultivation requires a degree of sedentism, its incorporation into the subsistence regime both depended on and enabled population nucleation and growth in the region (Emerson et al., 2020b). After the construction of Greater Cahokia, maize surpluses became instrumental in precipitating, enabling, accelerating, and supporting population growth and social change. However, by the Late Stirling phase (AD 1150–1200) and the first half of the Moorehead phase (AD 1200–1250), droughts increased in intensity and persisted for some 150 years (Benson et al., 2009). This dry period corresponds to a time of decreasing regional population size, abandonment of upland farming settlements, the construction of defensive palisades, and altered modes of mound building at Cahokia. Benson et al. (2009) have previously asked the question: Did the prolonged dry periods, as reflected in the PDSI values, bring about social, political, or religious changes in the region, ending in regional collapse and the emigration of Cahokians to other, less drought-stricken or more favorable, locations (e.g., Bird et al., 2017; Comstock & Cook, 2018)? We have known for some time that portions of the uplands were depopulated in the twelfth-century, presumably the response of rainfall-dependent farmers to drought. We have also known about the proposed deleterious impact of people and agriculture on the regional environment, evident in lake core sediments that reveal a pattern of increased localized erosion from agricultural fields (Muñoz et al., 2015; Pompeani et al., 2018; Schroeder et al., Chap. 3, this volume; White et al., 2019; although see Emerson & Hedman, 2016). Yet people continued to thrive (albeit in smaller numbers) within the ceremonial precincts of Greater Cahokia and in floodplain locations during periods of sporadic drought. This fact suggests that maize yields were more than sufficient to support the smaller, less nucleated late Mississippian population, at least for a time. Indeed, human-biological evidence related to health supports this scenario. While existing datasets do show an increase in dental pathologies (caries) with the adoption and increased importance of maize, they do not show a corresponding increase in deficiency diseases (e.g., anemia) (Emerson & Hedman, 2016; Milner, 1982). This may reflect in part the nixtamalization process that accompanied the arrival of maize to the region (Betzenhauser et al., 2018; Meyers, 2006; see also Matson, 2016), and the continued productivity of the diverse ecological zones in proximity to Cahokia. In an earlier review of Cahokia’s historical trajectory, Emerson and Hedman (2016) concluded that none of the currently fashionable challenges to social

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longevity—environmental overexploitation, degradation, or catastrophes, nutritional deficiencies, climate change, or epidemic diseases—could be identified as key causal variables in observed social or political transformations. Instead, they point to the inherent fragility of the essential factional formation of Greater Cahokia. The challenge to the Cahokian political structure, they say, was its need to move beyond its essential “corporate, kin-based ancestry to unify across multiethnic, potential class, and kin lines ... to break down vertical corporate bonds and replace them with horizontal classes” (Emerson & Hedman, 2016:155–156). Emerson and Hedman (2016; also, Emerson 2018b) suggest Cahokian leadership was unsuccessful in bridging this transition and the reemergence and strengthening of factional divisions likely encouraged the fragmentation of the polity. However, we also wonder, given the culturally composite and fluid nature of Cahokia, just how traumatic the process of departing actually was for either those remaining or those leaving, since such comings and goings appear as characteristic of the polity from its inception. Consequently, the available bioarchaeological and archaeological data might lead one to conclude that the effects of urbanization, such as increased population density and societal stresses, rather than environmental variations alone, were the primary determining factors driving Cahokian history.

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Chapter 3

Regional Migration and Cahokian Population Change in the Context of Climate Change and Hydrological Events Sissel Schroeder, A. J. White, Lora R. Stevens, and Samuel E. Munoz

Research on ancient population movements has received a considerable boost from strontium isotope studies of human bone and advances in biological distance studies, which are revealing evidence of considerable mobility over short and long distances (e.g., Andrushko et al., 2009; Bentley, 2006; Boric & Price, 2013; Buikstra et al., 1990; Buzon & Simonetti, 2013; Cook & Price 2015; Cook & Schurr, 2009; Eerkens et al., 2014; Hedman et al., 2009; Hedman et al., 2018; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume; Knudson & Stojanowski, 2008; Knudson & Torres-Rouff, 2015; Konigsberg, 2006; Price et al., 2002; Price et al., 2007; Scott & Turner, 1997; Slater et al., 2014; Stojanowski & Knudson, 2014; Thompson et al., 2015; Turner et al., 2009). In regions with well documented archaeological records that span centuries, we have the potential to trace changes in the patterns of movement and explore the impact of migrants on communities along corridors of migration (and the impact of community members on the migrants), which can help elucidate broader sociopolitical changes. Before these recent advances in bone chemistry, archaeologists were limited to using distinctive non-local raw materials, finished artifacts, architectural styles, and distinctive symbols to infer interaction and external relationships that connected people across great distances, and these studies continue to complement and augment the insights gained through strontium isotope and biodistance analyses (e.g., Boles, 2020; Brown & Kelly, 2000; Brown et al., 1990;

S. Schroeder (*) University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. J. White University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA L. R. Stevens California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA S. E. Munoz Northeastern University, Boston, MS, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_3

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Caldwell, 1958; Emerson & Hughes, 2000; Emerson & Lewis, 1991; Emerson et al., 2003; Kelly, 1980, 1991a, b; King, 2020; Lulewicz & Coker, 2018; Stoltman, 1986, 1991). Migration is implicated in the instability or volatility of Mississippian mound centers and their urban environs and rural hinterlands, some of which cycled through periods of occupation and abandonment or fission and fusion while others were abandoned as their occupants moved elsewhere (e.g., Anderson, 1994, 1996; Barrier, 2017; Blitz, 1999; Cobb, Chap. 13, this volume; Milner & Schroeder, 1999). While unique concatenations of circumstances and factors are likely involved in each case, scholars have attributed political instability to the influences of internal factionalization, chiefly competition, external warfare, social unrest, genealogical tensions or disenfranchisement, political collapse or reorganization, a significant change in political or religious leadership, economic decline, human induced environmental degradation, resource overexploitation, multidecadal drought, changes in seasonal precipitation, and other forms of climate change (e.g., Anderson, 2001; Anderson et al., 1995; Baerreis & Bryson, 1965; Baerreis et al., 1976; Beck, 2003; Benson et al., 2007; Benson et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2017; Cobb & Butler, 2002; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Cook et al., 2007; Emerson, 1991, 2018; Emerson & Hedman, 2016; Emerson & Pauketat, 2002; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume; Hally, 1996; Kelly, 2009; Krus & Cobb, 2018; Lopinot & Woods, 1993; Milner, 1990, 1998; Munoz et al., 2015; Pauketat et al., 2013; Rees, 1997; Scarry, 1996; Stahle et al., 1985; Trubitt, 2000, 2003; Williams & Shapiro, 1996; Woods, 2004; Worne, 2017). Cahokia, located within a broad expanse of the central Mississippi River valley called the American Bottom, was arguably the most spectacular of the Mississippian-era (ca. AD 1000–1600) Native American societies in eastern North America (Fig. 3.1). The rich archaeological evidence from Cahokia, the availability of strontium isotope analyses from the area, and the broad geographic distribution of distinctive Cahokian cultural materials, particularly ceramics, make this region an ideal place in which to explore patterns of migration, population movement, demographic and sociopolitical changes, and external relationships. Furthermore, there are good paleoclimate proxies for the Cahokia area and the midcontinent (e.g., Benson et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2017; Meeks & Anderson, 2013; Munoz et al., 2015; White et al., 2019) that allow us to take a synthetic look at climate change, catastrophic climatic events, and the constraints and opportunities posed by climatic conditions in relation to the timing and directionality of migration, movement of cultural materials, population history, and sociopolitical conditions. For example, strontium isotope analyses for the Cahokia area have demonstrated that that the rapid growth of this city around AD 1050 can be attributed in part to the immigration of people, including children and adolescents, to the American Bottom, with some likely coming from rural sites within the region and others coming from more distant places (Alt, 2002; Barrier & Horsley, 2014; Emerson, 1997; Girard et al., 2014; Hedman et al., 2009, Hedman et al., 2018; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume; Milner, 1990, 1998; Slater et al., 2014; Thompson et al., 2015; Welch, 2006), while the regional distribution of temporally and materially distinctive artifacts highlights the spatial reach of Cahokia’s influence, particularly during its

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Fig. 3.1 Cahokia region and Horseshoe Lake watershed, shown as the black dashed line. Dark gray colors indicate higher topography, principally the river bluffs, and the light gray indicates the Mississippi River floodplain. Coring sites are indicated by white stars. The Cahokia complex is approximated by the large circle around black rectangles showing the position of some of the mounds at the site. Black dots show the locations of other sites with mounds within the Horseshoe Lake watershed that were occupied contemporaneously with Cahokia [AD 1000–1400]. Base map elevation data are derived from the National Elevation Dataset. (Modified from White et al., 2019: Fig. 1)

twelfth century AD florescence (e.g., Emerson & Lewis, 1991; Kelly, 1991a, b; Stoltman, 1991), as well as the southerly trans-Mississippi direction of the Cahokia diaspora in the 13th and 14th centuries AD (e.g., papers in McNutt & Parish, 2020). Documenting the relationship between migration, extraregional relationships, demography, and political changes with climatic conditions is certainly interesting, but here we are concerned with related push/pull questions like: What might compel someone to journey sometimes great distances over the course of their lifetime or remain in one place, and how might these change over time? Why did migrants leave, settle, or coalesce at a particular location and why were some locations shortlived while others appeared to endure for a generation or more even when faced with changing climatic conditions? Why did external relationships develop in some directions but not others, and why do they seem to wax and wane with time? These kinds of questions emphasize agency and practice, which have over the past couple of decades been the focus of explanations for the “Big Bang” of Cahokia and for the sociopolitical changes and population decline seen at the site beginning in the mid-twelfth century AD, while downplaying or wholly discounting the environment

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(e.g., Emerson et al., 2020; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume; Pauketat, 2001). Given the theme of this volume, in this paper we consider these agent-based and historically-contingent variables in tandem with ecological, environmental, and climatic conditions, particularly evidence for floods and drought, to provide an integrated understanding of the population history of Cahokia and the changing nature of its external relationships that acknowledges not only the synergy among different individuals but also the dynamic sociocultural and ecological frameworks in which they live (Schroeder, 2004). Drawing on this integrated perspective leads us to consider the complex and dynamic push and pull factors that might influence decisions to move or migrate, and to recognize how these decisions may be differentially weighted by genealogical, religious, social, political, economic, ecological, historical, environmental, climatological, and other connections and circumstances that range from forced relocation against one’s will to efforts to conquer other polities to moves undertaken in the hope of finding or returning to a better life for oneself and one’s family (Alba & Foner, 2015; Alt, 2006a, b, 2008, 2018; Anthony, 1990; Baltus & Baires, 2020; Baltus & Wilson, 2019; Batiuk, 2013; Burmeister, 2000; Cabana & Clark, 2011; Cameron, 1995, 2008, 2013; Clark, 2001; Cobb, 2005; Cobb & Butler, 2006; Comstock & Cook, Chap. 1, this volume; Crawford & Smith, 1996; Curtis, 2014; Emerson et al., 2020; Giovas & Fitzpatrick, 2014; Greenblatt, 2010; Hakenbeck, 2008; Herr & Clark, 1997; Hill et al., 2004; Rouse, 1958; Sanjek, 2003; Sharp et al., 2020; Smith, 2014; Snow, 1995; van Dommelen, 2014; Voss, 2018). We look at the timing of the appearance of distinctive Cahokian materials in contexts dating primarily between AD 975 and 1350 at hinterland sites within and beyond the American Bottom region in relation to climatological, demographic, sociopolitical, religious, and economic aspects of the history of Greater Cahokia to explore some of the diverse elements that may have contributed to the migration of people out of, and into, the American Bottom and how these may have varied through time. We draw on the published literature to identify sites that had direct or indirect connections with Cahokia evident in material culture, particularly ceramics, and we rely on demographic, paleoenvironmental, and hydroclimatic proxies derived from two high-resolution sediment cores (HORM12 and 15HSL) extracted from the bottom of Horseshoe Lake, an oxbow lake that contains the urban core of Cahokia within its watershed (Fig. 3.1; Munoz, 2015; White, 2017). We directly compare local population change inferred from the record of fecal stanol concentrations in both cores with changes in hydroclimate inferred from oxygen stable-isotopes in the sediment layers in 15HSL and evidence for Mississippi River flooding inferred from grain size and radiogenic isotopes in HORM12 (Munoz et al., 2015, 2019; White et al., 2018, 2019). A robust age model based on nine AMS 14C dates on terrestrial plant macrofossils from HORM12 (Munoz et al., 2015:S3), which can be applied to 15HSL on the basis of distinctive stratigraphic layers, like the flood deposits, allows us to directly compare changes in relative population size with the paleoenvironment on the basis of stratigraphy, allowing us to evaluate the roles of flooding, drought, and environmental degradation in Cahokia’s demographic decline, sociopolitical reorganization, and the timing and direction of

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external relations in the hinterlands of the American Bottom region. Briefly, our evidence shows that population size within the Horseshoe Lake watershed began to decrease shortly after it peaked early in the eleventh century AD, as people shifted the locations of their settlements within, and even beyond, the region on the brink of the AD 1050 “Big Bang” at Cahokia (sensu Pauketat, 1994; see Dalan et al., 2003: Fig. 20 for map showing temporal changes in occupation areas within the site of Cahokia). Population decline in the watershed accelerated in the mid- to late-twelfth century AD following a massive flood and the onset of decreased summer rainfall and prolonged drought (Benson et al., 2009; Munoz et al., 2015; White et al., 2019). We suggest that the eleventhth to mid- to late-twelfth century AD migrations out of and into the Cahokia area may have been facilitated by a stable and conducive climate (see also Benson et al., 2009) and were mediated primarily by political, economic, social, genealogical, religious, and historically contingent concerns, while migrations out of the region after the mid- to late-twelfth century AD were induced by environmental events and circumstances in concert with changing social, political, economic, ecological, religious, genealogical, and historically contingent conditions at Cahokia.

Fecal Stanols and Population History of the Horseshoe Lake Watershed Our evidence for population changes in the Horseshoe Lake watershed is derived from an analysis of fecal stanols in HORM12 and 15HSL (White, 2017; White et al., 2018). The most prominent human fecal stanol is coprostanol, which results from the microbial degradation of cholesterol in the guts of humans as well as several domesticated mammals, like pigs, that were not present in the American Bottom prior to sustained Anglo-American settlement in the nineteenth century AD. Thus, the fecal stanols measured in the Horseshoe Lake sediment cores can be directly linked to changes in the relative size of the human population residing in its watershed. Once introduced into the environment as a component of feces, the molecules are typically buried in situ or transported and deposited in a basin like a lake where they may persist in sediment for hundreds to thousands of years (Bull et al., 1998; Bull et al., 2002; Leeming et al., 1996; Prost et al., 2017). Over time, coprostanol degrades into its derivative form, epicoprostanol (Bull et al., 2002). Thus, the abundance of coprostanol and epicoprostanol in different sediment layers can be used as a proxy for measuring relative population change over time within a watershed. We report our data as a ratio of coprostanol, which derives from feces, to 5αcholestanol, which is formed from the degradation of cholesterol by soil microbes and provides a locally specific measure of stanol input and preservation (coprostanol/coprostanol +5α-cholestanol; Bull et al., 2002; Grimalt et al., 1990). High values of the ratio indicate a large presence of humans in the region and low

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Fig. 3.2 Horseshoe Lake stanol data plotted as coprostanol/5α-cholestanol ratio. Error bars represent temporal uncertainty reported as 2-sigma (95%) confidence generated by the Clam 2.2 model (see Munoz et al., 2014, White et al., 2018: Fig. 3.5)

values indicate a small human presence. A plot of this ratio for sequential sediment layers in HORM12 and 15HSL indicates a rapid increase in population during the tenth century AD to a maximum at the beginning of the eleventh century AD and then a decrease to a minimum early in the fifteenth century AD (Fig. 3.2; White et al., 2018). The subsequent increase in ratio values to the present likely reflects a protohistoric and early historic occupation of the watershed that is poorly represented in the archaeological record but culminates with documentary evidence for the presence of members of the Illinois Confederation in the area in the early eighteenth century AD (Brown, 1979; Fowler, 1997; Good, 1972; Mazrim & Esarey, 2007; Morgan, 2010:66; Walthall & Benchley, 1987; White et al., 2020, 2021). Greater Cahokia is the most likely candidate for controlling Horseshoe Lake’s fecal stanol signature because: • archaeological surveys immediately around Horseshoe Lake show fewer Mississippian Lohmann phase sites, c. AD 1050–1100, compared with sites from the preceding century and a half, and elsewhere within the watershed, the numbers of Lohmann phase sites and sites from the preceding phase are similar (Betzenhauser, 2011; Pauketat et al., 1998); • site sizes changed through time with Cahokia and the adjacent East St. Louis Mound site quickly becoming the largest archaeological sites in the watershed (Emerson et al., 2018); and

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• the stanol trends in both cores closely track the population estimates of previous longitudinal demographic reconstructions derived from archaeological evidence from the Cahokia site (Milner, 1998; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997). The fecal stanol record shows that the population peak within the watershed spanned perhaps a century before a steep decline in the stanol ratios indicates rapid depopulation. As argued by others, the rapid increase in population was fueled by in-migration of people from distant and not so distant places, while out-migration certainly contributed to the significant and steady decrease in population after about AD 1200 (Alt, 2006a and 2006b, 2018; Barrier & Horsley, 2014; Betzenhauser, 2011, 2017; Slater et al., 2014; Thompson et al., 2015).

Sediment Grain Size and Flood History of the Horseshoe Lake Watershed Evidence for flood events affecting the Cahokia area was identified in HORM12 through an analysis of sediment grain size (Munoz, 2015; Munoz et al., 2015). The layers that we identify as having been deposited by floods are characterized by small particle size, have a uniform texture, low organic content, and low concentrations of microfossils (Munoz, 2015:79–80; Munoz et al., 2015:6320–6321). For flood borne sediments to make it into Horseshoe Lake, the lake would need to be hydrologically connected with the Mississippi River. Before the twentieth century, this happened only during floods exceeding the 10-meter stage at St. Louis; at this level, floodwaters would have inundated the majority of the floodplain around Cahokia (Munoz, 2015:79; Munoz et al., 2015:S1). The particle size record from Horseshoe Lake indicates that such high magnitude floods are concentrated in two intervals, one between the fourth and seventh centuries AD and a second from the mid-twelfth century through the mid-nineteenth century (Munoz et al., 2015). There is no evidence for high magnitude floods between the seventh century and mid-twelfth century, which corresponds with extensive land clearing and agricultural expansion pre-dating the rise of Cahokia (Munoz et al., 2014); archaeological evidence for the expansion of Woodland and Mississippian settlements into the American Bottom floodplain (Hajic, 1993; McElrath & Fortier, 2000; Milner, 1998; Schroeder, 2004; White et al., 1984); an increase in the total number of settlements in the floodplain as people migrated into the area (Betzenhauser, 2011, 2017; McElrath & Fortier, 2000; Milner, 1998); resettlement and population consolidation or abandonment of some sites (Barrier & Horsley, 2014; Betzenhauser, 2011, 2017; Collins, 1990, 1997; Dalan et al., 2003; Fowler, 1978; Milner, 1986, 1998; Pauketat, 1998a, b; Pauketat et al., 1998); and the urbanization of Cahokia in the mid-eleventh century (e.g., Emerson et al., 2020; Fowler, 1978; Kelly & Brown, 2020; Milner, 1998; Pauketat, 1994, 1998a, 2009). One of the largest events in the record, Flood Event V, has a modeled median calibrated age of ca. AD 1160 (AD 1080–1250 at the 95% confidence interval;

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Munoz et al., 2019:272). Munoz and colleagues measured radiogenic isotopes of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and neodymium (144Nd/143Nd) in samples of sediments from the Ohio, Upper Mississippi, and Missouri rivers and found the sediments from the three river systems are chemically distinctive; they also measured these isotopes in the sediment layer associated with Flood Event V and found that its chemical composition is consistent with sediments originating in the Missouri River basin (Munoz et al., 2019:273). Given the distinctive geological origins of this sediment layer, the only mechanism that could have introduced these chemically distinctive sediments into Horseshoe Lake is a flood of high magnitude (>10 m) that originated in the Missouri River, flowed into the Mississippi River, and inundated much of the American Bottom. In a separate study, Pompeani et al. (2019) reported on analyses of a different suite of chemical elements (Pb, Cu, K, Al, δ13C, and δ15N) in another sediment core taken from the bottom of Horseshoe Lake and noted that their finegrained sediment layer (which we associate with Flood Event V) was chemically distinctive compared to other sediment layers in the core. Although they interpreted their data in a much different manner, their findings are consistent with a non-local origin for Flood Event V. Prior to Flood Event V, the fecal stanol values in the two cores indicate a high population in the watershed, while after the flood the fecal stanol ratio is lower than at any preceding time in the record (Fig. 3.3; White et al., 2019). The stratigraphic position of the decline in fecal stanols relative to the flood supports the inference that this massive hydrological event, unprecedented in the lives of the people living in the American Bottom, is implicated as one of many co-occurring factors involved in the late-twelfth century AD depopulation and sociopolitical reorganization of Cahokia.

Fig. 3.3 Fecal stanol data (HORM12 and 15HSL) plotted against HORM12 Flood Event V. (Modified from White et al., 2018, 2019)

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Oxygen Stable Isotopes and Drought History of the Horseshoe Lake Watershed More than a decade ago, Benson and colleagues used tree-ring data from two sites in the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) record to suggest that prolonged regional drought due to reduced summer precipitation in the mid-twelfth century AD may have been the catalyst for population decline in the Cahokia region (Benson et al., 2009; Cook et al., 2007, 2010). Other scholars in the Midcontinent and Southeast who have used the PDSI record and the Living Blended Drought Atlas (LBDA), which expanded the PDSI record and recalibrated it, for their regions have also identified drought conditions in the mid-twelfth century, suggesting that drought at this time may have been quite widespread (Bird et al., 2017; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Cook & Comstock, Emerson et al., Mehta & Rodning, Chaps. 7, 5, 12, all this volume; Nolan & Cook, 2010; Zych & Richards, Chap. 6, this volume). We chose an alternative approach to look at the possible role of drought in the local Cahokia area, δ18Oc values measured on 44 sediment samples from 15HSL, which reflect changes in the δ18O value of the water in Horseshoe Lake, and serve as a proxy for hydroclimate (White et al., 2019). In the Midcontinent, seasonal variations in the isotopic composition of precipitation result in more negative δ18O in winter snows and more positive values in summer rainfall (Dansgaard, 1964; Harvey & Welker, 2000; Rozanski et al., 1993; Sjostrom & Welker, 2009; Tian et al., 2018; Welker, 2000). Thus, changes in the relative contributions of summer versus winter precipitation can affect the δ18Oc values (Bird et al., 2017; Stevens et al., 2001), a proposition that aligns with the model proposed by Bird et al., 2017 (see also Wilson and Bird, Chap. 4, this volume). The δ18O values in 15HSL are moderately high during the eleventh century AD and decline rapidly through the twelfth century, with a positive excursion at the base of Flood Event V, which likely signals the influx of the isotopically distinctive floodwaters originating from the Missouri River (Fig. 3.4). With the exception of this brief deviation, δ18O values remain low into Fig. 3.4 δ18Oc values measured on 44 sediment samples from 15HSL, which reflect changes in the δ18O value of the water in Horseshoe Lake and serve as a proxy for hydroclimate. (Data from White et al., 2019)

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the thirteenth century AD. The low δ18O values during the period of population decline as inferred from the fecal stanol record can be interpreted in multiple ways, but we suggest that they result from an increase in the relative contribution of winter precipitation and loss of spring/summer rains (White et al., 2019), a proposition that is consistent with Benson et al.’s (2009) inference of multi-decadal droughts in the Cahokia area in the early-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century AD.

Population Change, Flood, and Drought: Implications for Cahokia and Its Hinterland Settlements Hinterland sites with evidence for temporally distinctive Cahokian ceramics and people provide an opportunity to explore the timing of migration into and out of Cahokia in relationship to the demographic, paleoenvironmental, and hydroclimatic developments summarized above. Each hinterland site had its own unique formation history, but some generalized patterns are evident. We look at sites that are widely interpreted as having been settled by migrants from Cahokia because they have yielded multiple examples of visually distinctive forms of material culture that likely originated in the Cahokia area, particularly ceramics, and sites that have yielded an isolated object of Cahokian origin or material evidence of Cahokian emulation, mostly in the form of locally produced copies of Powell Plain and Ramey Incised pottery, as indicative of the sphere of Cahokian connections.

External Connections Before the “Big Bang” During the Terminal Late Woodland Merrell and Edelhardt phases at Cahokia (AD 975–1050; dates from Fortier et al., 2006), we consider the climate to have been stable because of the absence of high magnitude floods and relatively high δ18O values. Non-local artifacts at Cahokia and related sites in the American Bottom region, lower Missouri River, and nearby Silver Creek and Richland drainages, like Varney Red-Filmed from southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas; Coles Creek Incised and Larto Red-Filmed from the Lower Mississippi Valley; Yankeetown from the Wabash-Ohio confluence region; Holly Fine engraved, French Fork Incised, and other ceramics from the Red River Valley in western Arkansas and Louisiana and eastern Oklahoma and Texas; Kersey Incised from southeastern Missouri; and Dillinger pottery and Mill Creek hoes from southern Illinois, provide evidence of external connections to the south, southeast, and Plains while Cahokian materials at sites in the central Kaskaskia drainage of south-central Illinois, southern Illinois, northeastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, western Tennessee, northwestern Mississippi, and southwestern Indiana indicate bi-(perhaps even multi-) directionality of some of these connections (Table 3.1; Fig. 3.5).

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Table 3.1 Hinterland sites/regions with Merrell/Edelhardt connections to greater Cahokia State Arkansas/ Missouri

Region Northeast Arkansas/ Southeast Missouri

Arkansas/Louisiana/Oklahoma/Texas Illinois

Red River Valley

Illinois

Southern Illinois

Indiana

Southwest Indiana

Mississippi

Lower Mississippi River Valley Big River Western Tennessee Upper Mississippi River Valley Upper Mississippi River Valley

Missouri Tennessee Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Silver Creek and Richland Creek

Site Zebree and others

References Emerson and Jackson (1984:73–77), Emerson and Jackson (1987), Kelly (1980:157–159, 332–333, 365–370) Kelly (1987), Kellty (1991a:69), Kelly (1991b:76, 80), Kelly et al. (1979:32), Milner (1984:77, 1990), Morse (1975), Morse and Morse (1983:239), Morse and Morse (1990:58), O’Brien (1972:31, 64–66), Pauketat (1990:52, 58, 2003) Kelly (1980, 1991b:80), O’Brien (1972:31)

Emerald, Knoebel, Hal Smith

Alt (2002, 2006a:74, 81, and 86, 2018), Bareis (1976), Koldehoff et al. (1993), Pauketat et al. (2017b), Skousen (2016), Skousen and Huber (2018), Woods and Holley (1991:55, 57) Cole et al. (1951), Emerson and Jackson (1984:73–77, 1987), Kelly (1980:157–159, 332–333, 365–367), Kelly (1987), Kelly et al. (1979), Milner (1984:77, 1990:24) Alt (2006a:84, 86–87), Milner (1990:24), Woods and Holley (1991:55) Kelly (1980, 1991b:80), Koldehoff (1982), Milner (1990)

Bonaker

Collins and Henning (1996) Kelly (1980, 1991b:80), Milner (1990)

Trempealeau: Ebersold and Uhl Complex Fisher Mounds Site Complex

Boszhardt et al. (2018)

Benden (2004), Pauketat et al. (2015), Stoltman et al. (2008)

The extent to which the finds of non-local materials to the south of Cahokia are the result of trade, exchange, or the movement of people is not clear, but in combination with strontium isotope evidence for non-local people buried in the Cahokia area, it seems likely that at least some non-local artifacts indicate the movement of people to the American Bottom region, contributing to the population increase that is evident in our fecal stanol record and the archaeological record (Milner, 1998; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997; White et al., 2018). Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen indicates that δ13C values were quite variable among individuals

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Fig. 3.5 Terminal Late Woodland (Merrell and Edelhardt Phase) hinterland sites and external relationships (lines ¼ distance and direction of external relationships, dashed lines ¼ weaker evidence for external relationships)

during the Terminal Late Woodland (Buikstra & Milner, 1991; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). While dietary variability can be related to status distinctions and gender (e.g., Ambrose et al., 2003), some scholars have suggested that these differences may indicate ethnic diversity or disparate places of origin among individuals living in the American Bottom (Emerson & Hargrave, 2000; Emerson & Hedman, 2016; Hedman et al., Chap.2, this volume; Nash et al., 2018), a proposition that aligns with other evidence for the migration of people to the Cahokia area (e.g., Slater et al., 2014). To the north of the greater American Bottom region, the only places where Edelhardt phase materials have been reported are the Fisher Mounds Site Complex and the Trempealeau locality in the Upper Mississippi valley in Wisconsin (Benden, 2004; Boszhardt et al., 2018; Green & Rodell, 1994; Squier, 1905:30; Pauketat et al., 2015, 2017a, b; Stoltman et al., 2008). The near absence of any local material culture at these sites clearly indicates that they were settled by small groups of migrants from

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the Cahokia area. While we will probably never know the motivation that brought Cahokians so far north along the Mississippi River, Pauketat and colleagues have made a compelling argument that the settlement at Trempealeau was a religious shrine that is implicated in the transformations associated with the “Big Bang” c. AD 1050 at Cahokia (Boszhardt et al., 2018; Pauketat et al., 2015).

External Connections During the Lohmann Phase Evidence for climatic stability persists through the Lohmann phase (AD 1050–1100; dates from Fortier et al., 2006). Non-local artifacts and strontium isotope evidence indicate that people continued moving to Cahokia from distant and not so distant places as the site became urban, and there was movement, resettlement, and coalescence of people within the American Bottom (e.g., Alt, 2006a, b, 2018; Barrier & Horsley, 2014; Betzenhauser, 2011, 2017; Kelly & Brown, 2020; Slater et al., 2014; Thompson et al., 2015). The variability seen in δ13C values during the Terminal Late Woodland persists into the Lohmann phase (Buikstra & Milner, 1991; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). External relations contract to the south and pivot mostly to the north- northeast at this time (Table 3.2; Fig. 3.6; but see Alt, 2006a and Pauketat, 2002 for southern style pottery in Lohmann phase contexts at the Halliday site). Lohmann phase shrine complexes were established by Cahokian migrants at Trempealeau in the Upper Mississippi River valley and Emerald in the uplands east of Cahokia (Alt, 2020; Alt & Pauketat, 2017, 2018; Pauketat & Alt, 2016; Pauketat et al., 2015, 2017a, b; Skousen, 2016). Lohmann phase ceramics are found at several sites in the Central Illinois River valley, possibly the Collins Complex in eastern Illinois and the Shire site in central Illinois, and, by the end of the Lohmann phase, at the Aztalan and Bethesda Lutheran sites in southern Wisconsin (Table 3.2).

External Connections During the Stirling Phase During the Stirling phase (AD 1100–1200; dates from Fortier et al., 2006), strontium isotope evidence indicates that people were continuing to move to Cahokia from distant and not so distant places (Slater et al., 2014), while δ13C values of human bone collagen indicate that diets were becoming less variable among residents of the American Bottom (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume), perhaps indicating a reduced flow of new migrants into the region. People also continued to migrate into the northern hinterlands at this time, and archaeological evidence from nearby and distant places mostly to the north of Cahokia indicates considerable and widespread emulation of Cahokian material culture, especially in the form of local imitations of Ramey Incised pottery, a horizon marker for the Stirling phase (Fortier et al., 2006; Milner, 1990, 1998; Pauketat, 1990, 1998a), while small amounts of Ramey Incised are present at some sites (mostly mound centers) to the south (Table 3.3; Fig. 3.7). The Stirling phase was a time of considerable landscape

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Table 3.2 Hinterland sites/regions with Lohmann phase connections to greater Cahokia Phase Lohmann

State Illinois

Region Richland Complex

Site Chester Valerius, Cletus, Hal Smith, Halliday, Herberer, Kapelski, LehmanSommers, Miller Farm, Old Man, Old Man #3, Pfeffer, Shotgun, Shotgun Ridge, St. Clair County Farm and Nature Park, Whiteside, Zucha, Grossman Christ, Emerald, Faust, Knoebel, William Pfeffer #2 and #3

Lohmann

Illinois

Silver Creek

Lohmann

Illinois

Central Illinois River Valley

Rench, Mossville, Clear Lake Fandel. C. Conrad, Eveland

Lohmann

Illinois

Shire

Lohmann, late?

Illinois

Central Illinois Wabash Valley

Lohmann, late

Indiana

Smith-Phelps

Lohmann

Missouri

Lohmann

Wisconsin

Wabash Valley Big River Valley Upper Mississippi River Valley

Collins

Bonaker, Dorsey, and others Trempealeau-Uhl Complex: Knepper, Pelkey, Trempealeau

Reference Alt, (2006a:77, 81, 83, 85, 97), Alt (2002), Betzenhauser (2002), Koldehoff (1989), Koldehoff et al. (1993), Pauketat (2002, 2003), Pauketat et al. (2005), Pauketat et al. (2017b), Wilson and Koldehoff (1998) Alt (2006a:86), Baltus (2014:61), Bareis (1976), Holley (1993, 2006), Koldehoff et al. (1993), Kruchten (2012), Pauketat (2003), Pauketat and Alt (2016), Skousen (2016), Stephens (1993), Woods and Holley (1991:55–56) Conrad (1991), Harn (1991), Kelly (1991a:69), McConaughy (1991, 1993:92–94, Table 5.2), McConaughy et al. (1985), Wilson et al. (2017) Claflin (1991) Douglas (1976), Kelly (1991a:70), Wells (2008) Wells (2008:150, 182) Adams (1949), Collins and Henning (1996) Boszhardt et al. (2018), Green (1997), Green and Rodell (1994), Pauketat et al. (2015), Squier (1905) (continued)

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Table 3.2 (continued) Phase Lohmann, late

State Wisconsin

Region South-Central Wisconsin

Site Aztalan

Lohmann, late

Wisconsin

South-Central Wisconsin

Bethesda Lutheran

Reference Barrett (1933), Birmingham and Goldstein (2005), Goldstein (1991), Goldstein and Freeman (1997), Goldstein and Richards (1991), Green (1997), Price et al. (2007), Richards (1992, 2003, 2007, 2020), Zych 2013, 2015) Green (1997), Hendrickson (1996)

Fig. 3.6 Lohmann phase hinterland sites and external relationships (lines ¼ distance and direction of external relationships, dashed lines ¼ weaker evidence for external relationships)

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Table 3.3 Hinterland sites/regions with Stirling phase connections to greater Cahokia (numbers correspond to site locations on Fig. 3.7) Phase Stirling

State Arkansas

Region Northeast Arkansas

Site 96: Banks Mound No. 3 (3CT16), 97: Knappenberger (3MS53), 98: Perry Dixon (3MS600)

Stirling

Illinois

Apple River Valley

30: John Chapman, 31: Lundy, 32: Mills

Stirling

Illinois

Mercer County

32: 11MC69, 33: 11MC121, 34: 11MC127

Stirling

Illinois

Lower Illinois River Valley

45: Audrey, 50: Bell Farm, 48: Eileen Cunningham, 46: Moss, 49: Schild, 47: Rapp and others

Stirling

Illinois

Central Illinois River Valley

39: Charles W. Cooper, 37: Dickson Mounds, 44: Frederick, 42: Garren, 38: Kingston Lake, 41: Lamb, 40: Lawrenz Gun Club, 43: Tree Row

Stirling

Illinois

Richland Complex

59: Bonnie, 60: Christy Schwaegel, 61: Dugan Airfield, 62: Grossman, 63: Halliday, 64: Hal

Reference Buchner (1998), Buchner et al. (2003), Buchner and Alberston (2020), Kelly (1991a:70), McNutt (1996), Milner (1990), Morse and Morse (1983:239), Perino (1967:80) Benn (1997), Benn et al. (1988), Bennett (1945), Emerson (1991), Emerson et al. (2007), Friberg (2018a, b), Hall (1991:13), Kelly (1991a:64–65, 69), Millhouse (2012), Millhouse et al. (2017), Wilson et al. (2017) Benn et al. (1988), Finney (1993:52), Millhouse (2012) Braun et al. (1982), Conner (1985), DelaneyRivera (2000, 2004), Fishel (2018:50–51), Friberg (2018a, b), Goldstein (1980), Hall (1991:13), Kelly (1991a:69), Perino (1971) Bardolph (2014), Bardolph and Wilson (2015), Conrad (1972), Conrad (1991:125, 126, 132), Conrad (1993), Friberg (2018a, b), Hall (1991:13), Harn (1971, 1975, 1978, 1980, 1991), Kelly (1991a:69), Meinkoth (1993), Perkins (1965), Simpson (1952), Wilson (2015), Wilson and VanDerwarker (2015), Wilson et al. (Chap. 4, this volume) Alt (2002, 2006a), Baltus (2014:Table 7.1), Koldehoff (1989), Kruchten (2012), (continued)

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Table 3.3 (continued) Phase

State

Region

Site

Reference

Smith, 65: Pfeffer, 66: Whiteside

Pauketat (2003), Skousen (2017), Woods and Holley (1991:57) Alt (2006a:86), Baltus (2014:61, 293, Table 7.1), Holley (2006), Pauketat (2003), Skousen (2016)

Stirling

Illinois

Silver Creek

51: Emerald, 52: Faust, 53: J. Sprague, 54: Knoebel, 55: Lembke #2, 56: Lembke #3, 57: Vesta Lembke, 58: William Lembke Jr. #2 68: Hatchery West, 69: Kerwin, 67: Marty Coolidge, 70: Orrell, 71: Bridges

Stirling

Illinois

Kaskaskia River Valley

Stirling

Illinois

Stirling

Illinois

Stirling

Illinois

Central Illinois Mississippi Valley, southern Illinois Lower Ohio River Valley

Stirling

Indiana

Lower Ohio River Valley

74: Angel

Stirling

Indiana

Wabash Valley

76: Catlin Site, 75: Shew Mound (Vermilion County)

Stirling

Indiana

Middle Ohio River Valley

78: Guard, 77: Prather

Stirling

Iowa

Northwest Iowa

26: Broken Kettle West, 28: Brewster, 29: Chanya-ta, 27: Kimball

35: Downs, 36: Shire 72: Mansker

73: Kincaid

Baltus (2014:Table 7.1), Binford (1964), Binford et al. (1970), Hargrave et al. (1983), Kelly (1991a:69–70), Kuttruff (1969), Moffat (1991), Salzer (1963) Claflin (1991), Higgins (1993) Piesinger (1972), Kelly (1991a:70) Brennan and Pursell (2020), Butler (1991), Cole et al. (1951:150–151, Plate 27), Kelly (1991a:70), Pursell (2016) Black (1967), Hilgeman (2000), Kellar (1967), McGill (2013), Kelly (1991a:70), Peterson (2010), Watts Malouchos (2020) Winters (1967), Hall (1991:13), Kelly (1991a:69), Wells (2008:180) Comstock (2017), Cook and Comstock (Chap. 7, this volume), Cook and Genheimer (2015), Munson and McCullough (2004:50, 52) Anderson (1981:112–118, Fig. 17j, l–n), Anderson (1987), Hall (1991:13), Henning (1967, 1969), Ives (1962), (continued)

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Table 3.3 (continued) Phase

State

Region

Site

Stirling

Iowa

Eastern Iowa

25: Gast Farm, 23: Hartley Fort, 24: Mouse Hollow Rockshelter

Stirling

Kentucky

81: Wickliffe

Stirling

Kentucky

Ohio- Mississippi Confluence Green River

Stirling

Louisiana

Stirling

Louisiana

Stirling

Michigan

Stirling

Michigan

Stirling

Minnesota

Stirling

82: Andalex, 83: Annis Mound

Northwestern Louisiana Red River Northeastern Louisiana

110: Gahagan

Northern Lower Peninsula Western Upper Peninsula Upper Mississippi River Valley

2: Juntunen

Minnesota

Southern Minnesota

22: Cambria, 20: Price, 21: Lewis

Stirling

Mississippi

Lower Mississippi Valley

102: Carson-Montgomery, 103: Duck Lake, 104: Griffin, 105: Haynes Bluff, 106: Lake George, 107: Winterville, 108: Shell Bluff

Stirling

Missouri

109: Lake Providence

1: Sand Point

18: Bryan, 19: Silvernale (Cannon Junction)

88: Bauman, 89: Kreilich

Reference Kelly (1991a:69), Tiffany (1982, 1983, 1991a, b) Green (1997), Kelly (1991a:69), Logan (1976), McKusick (1973), Tiffany (1991a, b) Kelly (1991a:69), Wesler (2001:62, 65, 85, 92, 130) Hammerstedt (2005a, b), Kelly (1991a:70), Niquette (1991) Emerson and Girard (2004), Girard (2020) Wells and Weinstein (2006), Weinstein and Wells (2020) McPherron (1967:116–118, Plate 23a-c), Kelly (1991a:69) Dorothy (1980), Kelly (1991a:67) Fleming (2009), Gibbon (1974, 1979, 1991), Gibbon and Dobbs (1991), Griffin (1960), Kelly (1991a:69) Gibbon (1991), Henning and Schirmer (2020), Johnson (1991), Kelly (1991a:69), Knudson (1967), Mollerud (2016), O'Brien (1969), Tiffany (2003), Wilford (1945) Brain (1991), Johnson and Connaway (2020), Kelly (1991a:70), Mehta (2015:353), Mehta and Connaway (2020), Mehta and Rodning (Chap. 12, this volume), Phillips (1970:256–260, Fig. 73h), Williams and Brain (1983:200–203) Buchanan (2015:110–111), Kelly (continued)

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Table 3.3 (continued) Phase

State

Region Central Mississippi Valley Kansas City

Site

Reference (1991a:69–70), Keslin (1964)

Stirling

Missouri

92: Coons, 93: Gresham Site, 90: Shepherd Mound, 94: Steed-Kisker, 91: Vandiver Mounds

Stirling

Missouri

Big River Valley

84: Boatyard, 85: Long Mounds and Village

Stirling

Missouri

Lower Mississippi Valley

86: Crosno, 87: Double Bridges

Stirling

Ohio

Middle Ohio Valley

79: State Line, 80: Turpin

Stirling

Oklahoma

95: Spiro

Stirling

Tennessee

Eastern Oklahoma Lower Tennessee Valley

Stirling

Tennessee

Western Tennessee

100: Effigy Rabbit Site

Stirling

Tennessee

101: Williamson County

Stirling

Wisconsin

Middle Cumberland Region South-Central Wisconsin

99: Shiloh

15: Aztalan, 16: Carcajou Point, 17: HamiltonBrooks

Chapman (1980:156–161), Hall (1991:13), Henning (1967), Henning and Schirmer (2020), Kelly (1991a:69), O'Brien (1969, 1978a, b, 1981), Shippee (1972), Wedel (1943:141, plate 39c) Adams (1941), Kelly (1991a:70), Milner (1990, 1998) Buchner and Albertson (2020), Kelly (1991a:69), McNutt (1996:232), Williams (1954:105) Comstock (2017), Comstock and Cook (2018), Cook (2008), Cook and Comstock (Chap. 7, this volume), Drooker (1997), Griffin (1943), Kelly (1991a:70), Vickery et al. (2000) Brown (1971), Dye (2020), Kelly (1991a:70) Anderson et al. (2020), Kelly (1991a:70), Welch (2005:48, 2006) Buchner and Albertson (2020), Mainfort (1996: 85, Fig. 3.2) Sharp et al. (2020)

Barrett (1933:322–335, Plates 79, 80), Birmingham and Goldstein (2005), Bleed (1970), Freeman (1986), Goldstein and Richards (1991), Goldstein (1991), Green (1997), Hall (1962, 1967), Kelly (1991a:67, 69), Peske (1973), (continued)

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Table 3.3 (continued) Phase

State

Region

Site

Stirling

Wisconsin

Northern Wisconsin Upper Mississippi River Valley

3: Burnett County, Robinsons 6: Fred Edwards, 5: Iva, 4: Mero/Diamond Bluff

Stirling

Wisconsin

Stirling

Wisconsin

Southwestern Wisconsin Eastern Wisconsin

7: Mayland Cave

Stirling

Wisconsin

Stirling

Wisconsin

Northeastern Wisconsin

9: Pumpkin Seed, 10: Schultz, 12: Manitowoc County, 11: Marquette County 8: Watasa Lake Swamp, Menominee Reservation

Stirling

Wisconsin

Southeastern Wisconsin

13: Milwaukee County, 14: Ozaukee County

Reference Pfaffenroth (2018), Price et al. (2007), Richards (1992, 2020) Hall (1962), Kelly (1991a:69), Salzer (1974) Boszhardt (2004), Boszhardt and Stoltman (2016), Finney (1993, 2013), Finney and Stoltman (1991), Gibbon (1974, 1991), Gibbon and Dobbs (1991), Green (1997), Henning and Schirmer (2020), Kelly (1991a:69), Lawshe (1947), Maxwell (1950), Rodell (1991) Storck (1972), Kelly (1991a:69) Green (1997), Hall (1962), Kelly (1991a:69)

Barrett and Skinner (1932:479), Green (1997), Hall (1962:117–118), Kelly (1991a:69) Green (1997), Hall (1962)

engineering in the northern American Bottom, with new mound groups developing across Cahokia and at East St. Louis, St. Louis, Pulcher, and, by the end of the Stirling phase, at Mitchell, accomplishments that may have involved new migrants to the region (Emerson et al., 2018; Fortier, 2007; Kelly, 1993, 1994, 2009; Marshall, 1992; Pauketat, 2009:104; Porter, 1974). Our fecal stanol data and other lines of archaeological evidence show that the size of the population within the Horseshoe Lake watershed and at Cahokia was decreasing as people shifted the locations of their settlements outside of the watershed (Milner, 1986, 1998; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997; White et al., 2018). It is likely that by the end of the Stirling Phase, Flood Event V occurred ca. AD 1160 (AD 1080–1250 at the 95% confidence interval; Munoz et al., 2015) and spring/summer rainfall decreased (Benson et al., 2009; White et al., 2019), ushering in an interval of climatic instability. Certainly, population movement into and out of Cahokia was going on before Flood Event V, but we suggest that migration out of Cahokia accelerated after Flood Event V. The fecal stanol values

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Fig. 3.7 Stirling phase hinterland sites (numbers keyed to sites listed in Table 3.3)

in our two cores indicate a high population prior to flood fvent V, while after the flood the fecal stanol ratio is lower than at any preceding time in the record (Fig. 3.3). Furthermore, the catastrophic destruction of the East St. Louis site by fire happened in the latter half of the twelfth century, and the site soon became a largely vacant ceremonial center (Emerson et al., 2018, 2020; Fortier, 2007; Pauketat et al., 2013); mound construction decreased and many mounds at Cahokia were “capped” with a final layer of soil at the end of the twelfth century (Dalan et al., 2003), palisade construction around the central precinct at Cahokia may have begun in the late twelfth century (Iseminger, 2010; Iseminger et al., 1990; Krus, 2016); construction of circular, L- and T- shaped structures ended on the cusp of the thirteenth century, as did the production of Ramey Incised pottery (Baltus, 2014; Baltus & Baires, 2020; Pauketat et al., 2013); the Lunsford-Pulcher mound complex about 23 km south of Cahokia appears to have been largely abandoned by the end of the Stirling phase (Freimuth, 1974); the rural occupation of the floodplain around Cahokia decreased significantly (Skousen, 2016:76); the Richland Complex in the uplands east of Cahokia was abandoned by the end of the Stirling phase (Benson et al., 2009,

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Pauketat, 1998a); and the establishment of a palisaded village at the Lawrenz Gun Club site in the Central Illinois River Valley in the mid- to late-twelfth century (Wilson et al., Chap. 4, this volume) offer provocative examples of other possible demographic, social, ideological, and political consequences of Flood Event V. The oxygen stable isotope data indicate the onset of droughts related to decreased summer rainfall, which became a chronic challenge for people living in the region through the thirteenth century AD (White et al., 2019). The pollen record in HORM12 indicates regional vegetation changes after Flood Event V that indicate the contraction of agriculture (Munoz et al., 2014). In short, there are multiple lines of evidence that indicate that lives of people residing in the American Bottom changed in profound ways following Flood Event V.

Moorehead and Sand Prairie Phase Internal Changes and External Relationships The onset of the Moorehead phase (AD 1200–1275) marks a turning point in the history of Cahokia, what James Brown has called the “Moorehead Moment” (see Kelly, 2009). In addition to the palynological evidence of agricultural contraction after AD 1200, there is archaeological evidence for a decline in moundbuilding, construction of a sequence of palisades around the central precinct at Cahokia, a shifting prestige goods economy, catastrophic abandonment of some sites, a significant decrease in the total area of Cahokia that was occupied, and the emergence of the Mitchell site as the largest community in the American Bottom, all of which point to the political reorganization of Cahokia (Baltus & Baires, 2020; Dalan et al., 2003; Iseminger et al., 1990; Kelly, 2009; Milner, 1998; Munoz et al., 2014; Pauketat, 1994; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997; Pauketat et al., 2013; Porter, 1974; Trubitt, 2000, 2003). The fecal stanol and archaeological evidence indicate an accelerated migration out of Cahokia and the American Bottom, while the strontium isotope data indicate that people continued to move into the Cahokia area (Milner, 1986, 1998; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997; Slater et al., 2014; White et al., 2018), but not in numbers sufficient to offset the net loss from out-migration. δ13C values of human bone collagen indicate that diets continued to become less variable among residents of the American Bottom (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). The oxygen isotope data and tree ring records for the region indicate that droughts related to decreased summer rainfall were a chronic challenge during this century (Benson et al., 2009; White et al., 2019). Many of the northern hinterland sites, like Aztalan, Trempealeau, Fred Edwards, and others were abandoned during the late twelfth century into the early thirteenth century, signaling a contraction of the external influence of Cahokia to the far north (Finney, 1993, 2013; Finney & Stoltman, 1991; Pauketat et al., 2015; Zych & Richards, Chap. 6, this volume). Sites with Moorehead phase materials are found in the Lower Illinois River valley, Central Illinois River valley, Apple River valley, central Illinois, and southern Illinois (Table 3.4; Fig. 3.8). After AD 1200, many of Cahokia’s external relations pivot

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Table 3.4 Hinterland sites/regions with Moorehead/sand prairie connections to greater Cahokia (numbers correspond to site locations on Fig. 3.8) Phase Moorehead

State Illinois

Region Silver Creek

Moorehead

Illinois

Silver Creek

Moorehead/ Sand Prairie

Illinois

Silver Creek

7: Kuhn Station, 4: Lembke #2

Sand Prairie

Illinois

Silver Creek

1: Emerald, 5: Faust, 6: Copper?

Moorehead

Illinois

Moorehead

Illinois

7: Bridges, 8: Marty Coolidge 9: Larson, 10: Orendorf

Moorehead/ Sand Prairie Sand Prairie

Illinois

Kaskaskia Valley Central Illinois River Valley Central Illinois River Valley Central Illinois River Valley Apple River Valley

Illinois

Moorehead/ Sand Prairie

Illinois

Moorehead/ Sand Prairie Moorehead/ Sand Prairie Sand Prairie Moorehead/ Sand Prairie Sand prairie

Illinois

Mercer County

Illinois

Lower Illinois River Valley Central Illinois Richland Creek

Moorehead/ Sand Prairie

Illinois Illinois

Illinois

Richland Creek

Illinois

Kaskaskia Valley

Site 1: Emerald, 2: J. Sprague, 3: Lembke #2, 4: William Lembke Jr. #2 5: Faust, 6: Copper

Reference Baltus (2014:61, Table 7.1), Holley (2006), Skousen (2016) Baltus (2014), Holley (2006), Skousen (2016) Baltus (2014:Table 7.1), Holley (2006), Koldehoff et al. (1993), Woods and Holley (1991:56) Holley (2006), Koldehoff et al. (1993), Woods and Holley (1991:55) Baltus (2014:Table 7.1) Conrad (1991), Harn (1991)

11: Star Bridge

Flood and Wilson (2019)

12: Crable

Conrad (1991:150)

13: Mills, 14: Savanna Proving Ground

15: 11MC69, 16: 11MC121, 17: 11MC127 18: Starr Village, 19: Hill Creek Homestead

Benn et al. (1988), Bennett (1945), Emerson (1991), Finney (1993:52), Millhouse et al. (2017), Wilson et al. (2017) Benn et al. (1988), Finney (1993:52), Millhouse (2012) Conner (1985), Farnsworth et al. (1991)

20: Doyle

Wells et al. (1993)

21: Dugan Airfield

Woods and Holley (1991:58)

22: Englerth, 23: Hammel, 24: Hook and Ladder, 25: Jimmy Reese, 26: Lippert 27: Doctor’s Island, 28: Jasper Newman, 29: 11MT89

Koldehoff (1989), Woods and Holley (1991:57)

Baltus (2014:Table 7.1), Moffat (1991) (continued)

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Table 3.4 (continued) Phase Sand Prairie

State Illinois

Moorehead

Indiana

Moorehead/ Sand Prairie Moorehead

Kentucky

Moorehead/ Sand Prairie Moorehead

Missouri

Missouri

Tennessee

Region Mississippi River Valley - Sny Bottom Wabash Valley Ohio-Mississippi Confluence Big River Valley

Central Mississippi Valley Middle Cumberland Region

Site 30: Booker, 31: McFarland

Reference Fishel (2008)

32: Vermilion and 34: Vigo Counties 34: Wickliffe

Wells (2008)

35: Long Mounds and Village, 36: Saunchegraw 37: Bauman

38: Mound Bottom

Kelly (1991a:69), Wesler (2001:62, 65, 85, 92, 130) Adams (1949), Cooley et al. (1979), Koldehoff and Wilson (2010), Milner (1990) Buchanan (2015:111)

Moore et al. (2016), Sharp et al. (2020)

back to the south, with evidence of Cahokian materials as far south as northwestern Mississippi (Brain, 1991; Kelly, 1991a, b; Pauketat, 1998a; Phillips, 1970; Williams & Brain, 1983). Although beyond the focus and scope of this paper, it is worth noting that a number of Cahokia-style figurines and figurine-pipes made of Missouri flint clay, which were produced at Cahokia during the Stirling Phase, have been found across the Southeast and trans-Mississippian South (e.g., Baltus & Baires, 2020; Boles, 2020; Brown, 1996; Emerson & Girard, 2004; Girard, 2020; Girard et al., 2014). When recovered from datable contexts, these figurines are typically in post-AD 1200 contexts in locations where the objects, perhaps as part of bundles, may have been carried by people or lineages who left Cahokia in the wake of flood, drought, sociopolitical reorganization, and social unrest (Boles, 2020; Emerson & Hughes, 2000; Emerson et al., 2003; but see Emerson & Girard, 2004 for an exception to this pattern). People may have been migrating into the region during the Sand Prairie phase (AD 1275–1350) (Slater et al., 2014), but δ13C values of human bone collagen indicate limited variability among the diets of inhabitants of the American Bottom (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume), suggesting that if migrants were coming to Cahokia, they shared the dietary preferences of people already living there. Some mounds at Cahokia saw continued use, but overall, this century was characterized by social and political transformations, internal restructuring, steady depopulation, and eventual abandonment of Cahokia and the American Bottom by AD 1350 (Fowler, 1974, 1975; Milner, 1998; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997) as a decades-long period of drought and deteriorating climatic conditions inflicted the Midcontinent (Benson et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2017).

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Fig. 3.8 Moorehead/Sand Prairie hinterland sites and external relationships (lines ¼ distance and direction of external relationships); numbers keyed to sites listed in Table 3.4)

Migration in the Context of Climate, Ecology, Agency, and History In this paper, we have examined the local demographic, paleoenvironmental, and hydroclimatic proxies for the Horseshoe Lake watershed in conjunction with local and regional evidence for changes in warm season precipitation, and local and regional archaeological evidence for migration, resettlement, population fissions and coalescences, and inferred changes in social and political organization at Cahokia. The combination of these multiple lines of evidence leads us to infer that environmental conditions and events were significant factors synergistically associated with the history of the site but to varying degrees and in different ways through time. Cahokia and the American Bottom were extensively settled during the eighth into eleventh centuries AD when decreased moisture availability over the Missouri and

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Upper Mississippi River basins can be associated with an absence of large magnitude floods in the region and the seasonal pattern of local rainfall was conducive to agricultural expansion in the American Bottom. Ecological diversity, productivity, and stability of the floodplain likely played roles in attracting people to settle on the banks of Horseshoe Lake and across the American Bottom, and are associated with the most persistent and prominent places (Milner, 1998; Schroeder, 1997). However, it is critically important to balance the ecological approach with perspectives that address agency, history, and practice (Schroeder, 2004). For example, the rapid increase in population leading into the eleventh century AD was the result of migration of large numbers of people from both near and far who were drawn to Cahokia, perhaps by charismatic and powerful leaders, novel and spatially extensive power relationships, a transformative religious movement, genealogical entanglements, hope for a new way of life, risk abatement, or other “pull” factors (see Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume; also Alt, 2020; Baltus & Wilson, 2019; Emerson et al., 2008; Milner, 1998; Pauketat & Alt, 2016; Wilson & Sullivan, 2017). By the mid-eleventh century AD, Cahokia’s external relationships expanded from being directed to the south to being oriented in multiple directions. This shift in external connections likely relates to changes in interpersonal, genealogical, sociopolitical, and economic relationships and conditions, the travel routes of traders and missionaries, ideology and worldview mapped onto the landscape, and historically contingent situations unfolding during a climatically stable time. In the mid twelfth century AD, δ18Oc values, sediment particle size for the Horseshoe Lake cores, and regional tree-ring data all show major climatic changes. A major flood, unprecedented in the lives of the people living at Cahokia, coincided with reduced warm season precipitation that ushered in a prolonged period of climatic conditions that were unstable and unfavorable for agriculture. Perhaps one environmental change would not have been consequential, but a combination of two or more changes would have posed significant dilemmas for a centralized, agrarian urban system, like Greater Cahokia, especially if they led to challenges to the authority of leaders, coincided with a period of genealogical uncertainty following the death of a leader, or co-occurred with other kinds of social, political, economic, and religious disorder. By the end of the twelfth century AD, the inhabitants of Cahokia began construction of a series of palisades that have been interpreted as indicators of societal stress, and several other lines of evidence indicate that there was a reorganization of Cahokia’s sociopolitical structure, including shrinking size, abandonment, and even destruction of outlying population centers; decline in construction of earthen monuments; shifts in the prestige goods economy; and a contraction of agriculture (e.g., Iseminger et al., 1990; Kelly, 2009; Milner, 1998; Munoz et al., 2014; Pauketat et al., 2013; Trubitt, 2000, 2003). The fecal stanol evidence points to a significant population decline after Flood Event V that is also associated with lower oxygen stable isotope values. The Mississippian presence in the northern hinterlands wanes by the end of the twelfth century AD, and Cahokia’s external relations shrink and to some extent pivot back to the south. From the thirteenthth to fourteenthth centuries AD there is a hiatus in high magnitude floods, and local hydroclimate may have stabilized by AD 1300, but the Cahokian

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sociopolitical system did not recover and the population continued to decline until it reached a nadir at the start of the fifteenth century AD when high magnitude floods returned. Climate and the environment create both opportunities and constraints and people may respond to these in unique ways, one of which might be migration, but decisions to move are complex, variable, and may be differentially weighted by genealogical, religious, social, political, economic, historical, as well as ecological, environmental, climatological, and other circumstances. To begin to understand these situations in the past requires consideration of agent-based and historically-contingent variables and ecological, environmental, and climatic conditions. We suggest that the eleventh to mid-twelfth century AD migrations out of and into the Cahokia area may have been facilitated (“pulled”) by a stable and conducive climate, especially when it comes to connections to the north, and were mediated primarily by charismatic leadership, genealogical relationships, and social, political, economic, religious, and historically contingent concerns, while migrations out of the region after Flood Event V and the onset of sustained drought in the late twelfth century AD were induced (“pushed”) by a complex interplay of these environmental events and regional climate change with changing genealogical, social, political, religious, economic, ecological, and historically contingent considerations (“pull” factors) that played out in a material fashion across the Midcontinent, trans-Mississippi South, and Southeast. Certain distinctively Cahokian symbols (the Braden style) rendered in flint clay, marine shell, and copper, were transported away with some of the migrants, eventually being deposited in mounds across the trans-Mississippi South (e.g., Baltus & Baires, 2020; Boles, 2020; Brown, 2004, 2007; Brown & Kelly, 2000; King, 2020). Another possible legacy of the external relationships between Cahokia and distant communities may be found in symbols and oral traditions without a direct material connection to Cahokia (i.e., manufactured at Greater Cahokia), but that persist into the nineteenthth-twenty-firstst centuries AD, such as the Red Horn Cycle among Siouan speaking peoples, particularly the Ioway and Hocąk (Ho-Chunk) (e.g., Hall, 1997), hinting at the many different directions and directionality of connections between distant places and Cahokia and the resilience, endurance, and syncretism of certain practices and traditions.

References Adams, R. M. (1941). Archaeological investigations in Jefferson County, Missouri, 1939–1940. Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis 30(5). Adams, R. M. (1949). Archaeological investigations in Jefferson County, Missouri. The Missouri Archaeologist, 11, 1–72. Alba, R., & Foner, N. (2015). Strangers no more: Immigration and the challenges of integration in North America and Western Europe. Princeton University Press. Alt, S. M. (2002). Identities, traditions and diversity in Cahokia’s uplands. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 27, 217–236.

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Part II

Into the Upper Mississippian Region

Chapter 4

Drought, Diet, Demography, and Diaspora during the Mississippian Period: A View from the Central Illinois River Valley Jeremy J. Wilson and Broxton W. Bird

Since the mid-twentieth century AD, archaeologists working in the interior of the midcontinental and Southeastern US have speculated about the role of climate change on the distribution and organization of precontact Native American populations (e.g., Williams, 1983; Anderson et al., 1995; Milner et al., 2001; Benson et al., 2009; Nolan & Cook, 2010; Meeks & Anderson, 2013). Griffin (1960, 1961), as well as Baerries and Bryson (1965), were among the first to suggest linkages for the region that encompasses large swaths of the Mississippi, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri River valleys and their tributaries. Despite the relative imprecision associated with radiocarbon dating at the time, among other data quality issues, Griffin (1961) identified two major periods of climatic stability and warmth in the upper Mississippi River valley and Great Lakes region between 300 BC and AD 300 and then again between AD 700 and 1200. These intervals of time largely correspond to what archaeologists at the time viewed as the “pinnacles” of cultural development: the Middle Woodland (i.e., Havana/Hopewell) and Mississippi (aka Old Village complex) periods. With regards to the latter period and the focus of this volume, Griffin’s (1961: 710–11) observations are relatively terse, noting that warmth and sufficient rainfall for maize agriculture gave way to climatic deterioration after AD 1300, undermining the agricultural economy of Mississippians and related groups who subsequently turned to hunting and foraging in lieu of farming. This largely hypothesized regional-based climate change has been more consistently deployed as a causal mechanism in scenarios associated with the onset of the Little Ice Age, declining agricultural productivity, escalating violence/warfare, and the J. J. Wilson (*) Department of Anthropology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected] B. W. Bird Department of Earth Science, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_4

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development of the Vacant Quarter. Prior to the present volume, few researchers, including ourselves, have focused on how optimal climatic conditions associated with the Medieval Climate Anomaly facilitated agricultural intensification, population growth, and the spread of all things Mississippian (e.g., wall trench architecture, platform mound construction, shell-tempered pottery, maize agriculture). More important to the focus of the present chapter and our ongoing research in the region, Baerries and Bryson’s (1965) initial analyses and interpretations of climatic episodes were the first to disentangle climatological terms, including mild vs. severe, cold vs. warm, wet vs. dry, and others, while also acknowledging the synoptic scale of many climatological and meteorological patterns. To the best of our knowledge, they were also the first to discuss climate-culture linkages in a substantive way, including a climatic optimum between AD 900 and 1250 and, of course, the wellknown Little Ice Age (LIA) that they attribute to AD 1600 to 1900. Importantly, Baerries and Bryson acknowledged that if it is wet and warm in one region, it inevitably was drier and cooler in others based on atmospheric systems. As similarly argued by Comstock et al. (Chap. 1, this volume), the key point is that climate change, including warm-season precipitation variability, cannot be viewed as uniformly affecting societies when the analytical unit is, for example, the entirety of midcontinental North America. As we discuss later, the paleoclimatological tools, instruments, samples, and sampling locales all have inherent strengths and weaknesses. To this end, we presented our original paleoclimatological work (Bird et al., 2017) not as a last word on the demise of Mississippian and related groups in the region, but rather to spur additional research, ultimately recognizing the historical contingencies and resilience of the people and societies that occupied the midcontinent during the several centuries immediately before European contact. In this chapter, we examine the emergence, trajectory, and eventual decline of Mississippian polities in the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) of west-central Illinois in the context of our parallel work examining climate change over the last two millennia in mid-continental North America (Fig. 4.1). As a hinterland to Cahokia and the American Bottom more generally, the CIRV witnessed the development of early eleventh century AD Mississippian centers, late twelfth and thirteenth century AD consolidation into fortified towns and villages, and regional abandonment as part of the Vacant Quarter by the early fifteenth century AD (Conrad, 1991; Esarey & Conrad, 1998; Wilson et al., 2020). Here we synthesize prior research and examine the variance in paleoethnobotanical, bioarchaeological, and settlement datasets from a series of Late Woodland and Mississippian sites in the CIRV, comparing them to our high-resolution, multi-proxy lake sediment record that tracks mid-continental hydroclimate patterns (Bird et al., 2017). As discussed in this volume’s opening salvo, regional-level analyses of subsistence, settlement patterns, and demographic processes in the context of climate change prove to be exceedingly challenging for researchers to achieve when attempting to link them to available

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Fig. 4.1 Map of eastern North America identifying Martin Lake (Johnson Township, IN) and the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV)

climatological data, including the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). In our current effort, we move away from an archaeological site as our unit of analysis. However, we are also not at a scale, which we would refer to as meta-regional, where broad extrapolations and narratives are applicable with more acceptable intellectual leaps of faith. In short, we want to stay grounded in the data and synchronicities we achieve when examining individual sites, but run into questions of causal inference, historicity, and meaning for and about these past societies. Meanwhile, from an analytical standpoint, both archaeology and paleoclimatology are historical sciences ripe with post-hoc rationalization and constrained by analytical approaches that never truly have the desired effect. To echo Jimmy Griffin (1961: 710) and his early statement on the possible role of climate change, “before one can interpret cultural changes as resulting from climatic variation it is highly desirable to have one’s prehistoric house in reasonable order.” The following is our attempt to do so for the CIRV.

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Paleoclimate Reconstruction from Martin Lake Since 2013, our team has been developing hydroclimate records for midcontinental North America via the coring of glacially derived kettle lakes for sediment. Not all lakes are equal with respect to these research goals. While sediments from floodplain lakes in major river valleys of the midcontinent provide ample information on human land use, pollution, and past flooding (e.g., Munoz et al., 2014, 2015; Schroeder et al., Chap. 3, this volume; Pompeani et al., 2019; Bird et al., 2019a, b), these contexts are too shallow, open, and dynamic, for example, to target for authigenic sedimentary minerals, including carbonates. Located in northeast Indiana (Fig. 4.1), Martin Lake is thermally stratified and ~17 m in depth. The monomictic nature of Martin and other kettle lakes in the general region typically result in repeating mm-scale sedimentary layers of organic matter and authigenic calcite lamina. The anoxic conditions in the lake’s lower water column also precludes major disturbances from biological organisms of these coupled layers. From Martin Lake, we have previously published a high-resolution (i.e., sub-decadal) multi-proxy record of hydroclimatic conditions in the mid-continent spanning the past ~2000 years with readings for every ~5 years (Bird et al., 2017). The isotopic composition of regional precipitation (δ18Oprecip) is reflected in the oxygen isotopic composition of calcite (δ18Ocal) in Martin Lake, which is precipitated in equilibrium with lake waters (
7.6‰ δ18Olw) that are representative of the annual average δ18O of regional meteoric waters (
7.4‰). The isotopic composition of precipitation in turn is related to the source from where the moisture is derived, which is controlled by seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation. In short, precipitation with high δ18O values typically derived from the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and delivered during the warm season (April through October). Precipitation with low δ18O values is generally derived from the Pacific Ocean and Arctic and delivered to the region during the cold-season (November through March). Following demonstration that the modern waters within Martin Lake capture the isotopic composition of regional rainfall and that this signal is preserved in sedimentary calcite, our laboratory analyses have targeted the calcite (δ13C and δ18O) and lithics to assess the lake’s thermal stratification, dominant source of precipitation, and watershed erosion. Local rainfall and warm-season duration are respectively captured by indicators of watershed erosion (lithics) and lake thermalstratification (δ13Ccal). Collectively, these data provide a unique view of mid-continental hydroclimate variability, revealing new information about spatial expressions and the magnitude of climate change, as well as the way in which these changes impacted Native American populations in the region during the Late Woodland and Mississippian periods (Fig. 4.2). In reviewing our past reconstruction below, we focus on characterizing the 500-year period prior to the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) from AD 450 to 950, the MCA from AD 950 to 1250, and the Little Ice Age (LIA) thereafter. Given our emphasis on the LIA in Bird et al. (2017), here we focus more intensively on the pre-MCA and MCA hydroclimate conditions.

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Fig. 4.2 Martin Lake grain size distribution (top), authigenic calcite oxygen and carbon isotopes (bottom) plotted against skeletal carbon isotopes and the percent of fortified sites (middle) for mid-continental North America. (Data sources: Milner et al., 2013; Bird et al., 2017)

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Between AD 450 and 850, high δ18Ocal values indicate that annual precipitation was dominated (i.e., >50%) by warm-season rainfall from the Gulf of Mexico that was delivered to the mid-continent by clockwise atmospheric circulation that resembled a negative phase of Pacific North American (PNA) pattern. As seen in Fig. 4.2, the δ13C values from this same timeframe significantly co-vary with the oxygen isotope values and suggest prolonged warm seasons comparable to those experienced during the MCA. Meanwhile, the percentage of lithics exceeded 20% for the entirety of the period with percentages in excess of 30 and 40% after AD 700. In the absence of significant land clearance, these findings corroborate the isotopic values and indicate that warm seasons included high-intensity rainfall events that mobilized sediment in the lake’s watershed. After AD 850, our sediment record from Martin Lake provides evidence for a mean-state shift to a positive PNA pattern (i.e., atmospheric circulation was dominated by a ridge and trough structure that advected air masses from the Pacific and Arctic into the mid-continent) characterized by drought that may have lasted until AD 950. Calcite δ13C values significantly depart from the prior 400 years and suggest reduced thermal stratification in Martin Lake likely related to cooler summers. As depicted in Fig. 4.2, the low δ18Ocal values indicate cold-season precipitation was the dominant water source for Martin Lake between AD 850 and 950. Meanwhile, lithics in the sediments also decreased to below 20%, an indication that high-energy summer storms were less frequent around Martin Lake. To the best of our knowledge, archaeologists working in mid-continental North America have not discussed this pre-MCA drought episode, which has also been recorded in measures of depth to the water table in Hole Bog in Minnesota and Minden Bog in Michigan. While not completely synchronous, it is tantalizing to note that Emerson et al. (2020) recent analysis of isotope values from humans and canines demonstrate that little to no maize was consumed prior to AD 1000 among the population that would give rise to Cahokia and Mississippian culture in the American Bottom. In Martin Lake, indicators of the MCA commenced around AD 950. High δ18Ocal indicates southerly warm-season rainfall accounted for approximately 70% of annual precipitation until circa AD 1190. Increased thermal stratification indicative of warmer growing seasons is simultaneously reflected in the δ13Ccal values. Similarly, at the local level, increased lithics during this timeframe suggest that high-energy summer storms were a common occurrence in the mid-continent during the MCA, supplying ample gulf-derived rainfall to Mississippian communities engaging in maize agriculture. Collectively, these proxies depicted in Fig. 4.2 from Martin Lake suggest that the period between AD 950 and 1190 can be described by a negative PNA pattern at a synoptic scale with warm and wet conditions during most growing seasons. While no floodplain records exists for the CIRV, our Martin Lakes findings for the MCA compare favorably with Pompeani et al. (2019) analysis of sediment cores from Horseshoe Lake, including elevated sorbed metals and higher δ13Corg and δ15Norg values during the latter half of the Stirling phase when population estimates peak in the American Bottom. Short-term perturbations in the MCA-period record from Martin Lake around AD 1150 may also reflect the severe drought discussed by

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Benson et al. (2009), which they have postulated as leading to the abandonment of the Richland Complex in the uplands above Cahokia. Between AD 1190 and 1250, the δ18Ocal values from Martin Lake indicate a mean state shift to positive PNA conditions with atmospheric conditions leading to precipitation patterns oscillating between southerly, warm-season and northerly, cold-season sources. Thermal stratification in Martin Lake decreases precipitously after AD 1190, failing to return to MCA levels during the entirety of the LIA (AD 1250–1830). Meanwhile, the percentage of lithics in Martin Lake’s sediment decreased below 20%, indicating a significant decrease in local watershed erosion. As we have discussed previously (Bird et al., 2017) and highlight in Fig. 4.2, this period is also characterized by the increasing construction of fortifications around larger settlements across the midcontinent (Milner et al., 2013; Krus, 2016), including in the CIRV (Krus et al., 2019). Ultimately, while individual households and smaller communities undoubtedly developed strategies to overcome drought and achieve resilience, it is the question of crop surplus (or the lack of it) that is seminal to understanding the evolving socio-political landscape and increasing evidence for interpersonal conflict and warfare after AD 1200. To quote Meeks and Anderson (2013: 63), “Mississippian chiefdoms were in part dependent on agricultural surplus not only to offset subsistence shortfalls but, most important, to underwrite the political structure through the production of goods, trade, communal projects, and ritual.” As we discuss later for the CIRV, political consolidation and population aggregation was one strategy among many from AD 1200 onward. However, this reorganization came with unintended consequences related to population dynamics and constraints on subsistence strategies for these communities. The data from Martin Lake suggest more uniformly deteriorating climatic conditions with the onset of the LIA after AD 1250. The δ18Ocal values indicate that precipitation from northerly moisture sources was enhanced by 51% during the LIA. Most notable among these isotopic values for precipitation is a period between AD 1400 and 1470, when a strongly positive PNA pattern resulted in 77% of precipitation sourced to northerly, cold-season trajectories. In our prior research, we characterized this period as corresponding with the longest and most severe drought in the 2,100 year sediment record from Martin Lake. This interpretation of the δ18Ocal values is supported by corresponding decreases in the δ13Ccal values seen in Fig. 4.2, indicating an additional reduction in Martin Lake’s thermal stratification during the LIA. Likewise, at the level of the watershed, the low percentage of lithics (i.e., 0–10%) suggest that warm-season, high-intensity rainstorms were nearly non-existent from about AD 1350 to 1450 and comparatively low for the remainder of the LIA prior to modern land clearance. As we have argued previously, it is hard to ignore the timing of this mega-drought detected in the sediment from Martin Lake as it coincides with the development of the Vacant Quarter, when large swaths of the mid-continent were abandoned by Mississippians living in larger communities along the Mississippi, Illinois, and Ohio Rivers (Williams, 1990; see also Cobb & Butler, 2002; Milner & Chaplin, 2010).

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The Illinois River Valley The Illinois River stretches for nearly 440 km from northeast Illinois to its confluence with the Mississippi River in the northern American Bottom (Fig. 4.3). Based on the series of glaciations during the Pleistocene, the physical geography of the river, valley floor, and surrounding uplands varies considerably between the upper, central, and lower segments (Curry et al., 2014). The CIRV commences when the Illinois River abruptly turns to the south near Hennepin, IL, subsequently occupying an Illinoian Stage channel of the Mississippi River (Cupples & Van Arsdale, 2014). From this point downstream to Meredosia, IL, the river is broad and characterized by

Fig. 4.3 Late Woodland and Mississippian sites in the central Illinois River valley (CIRV)

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Table 4.1 Late Woodland and Mississippian culture-history model for the central Illinois River valley with loosely associated cultural phases for the American Bottom Phase(s)

Centuries

Weaver Myer-Dickson & Bauer Branch Bauer Branch

5th to 7th C. 7th to 9th C.

Maples Mills

Mossville Eveland Orendorf Larson Crable

8th to 11th C. 9th to 11th C. 11th C. 12th C. 13th C. 13th C. 14th & 15th C.

Northern Southern CIRV CIRV Late Woodland AD 400–600 AD 600–800 AD 700–1050 AD 800–1050 Mississippian AD 1050–1100 AD 1100–1200 AD 1200–1250 AD 1250–1300 AD 1300–1450

American bottom phases Rosewood & Mund Patrick Dohack, Range, & Edelhardt

Lohmann Stirling Moorehead Sand Prairie

an exceedingly slow current that facilitated past and present transport. Meanwhile, the valley floor is generally wider than in the upper and lower portions with the Prairie Peninsula stretching across central Illinois and characterizing the western and eastern uplands prior to the last two centuries of Euro-American agriculture. Archaeological investigations of the CIRV and, more specifically, late pre-Columbian sites dating to the Late Woodland (AD 400–1050) and Mississippian (AD 1050–1450) periods extend back to the mid-nineteenth century when John Snyder (1877, 1883) and others explored burial mounds and village deposits (Farnsworth, 2004). However, it was not until the systematic work by Jay L.B. Taylor and the University of Illinois in the late 1920s and the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1932 (Cole & Deuel, 1937) that fundamental stratigraphic, chronological, and cultural relationships were established. From the 1950s onward, several excavations and analyses furthered our collective understanding of these CIRV populations, including work at Eveland (Caldwell, 1967; Harn, 1991), Dickson Mounds (Harn, 1980), Larson (Harn, 1994), Weaver/Garren (Wray & MacNeish, 1961), Crable (Morse, 1978; Strezewski, 2003), Orendorf (Esarey & Conrad, 1981; Conrad et al., 2020), and Rench (McConaughy, 1993), among others (Conrad, 1991). Collectively, the aforementioned work facilitated the development of a timespace systematics and chronology for the CIRV during the late Woodland and Mississippian periods displayed in Table 4.1. The chronological and spatial boundaries for the phases associated with late Woodland groups in the CIRV admittedly requires additional attention in the years to come. However, the consensus is that Weaver phase-related groups producing grit-tempered ceramics occupy the CIRV until circa AD 600 (Green & Nolan, 2000). From this point in time forward, two distinct ceramic traditions emerge- Myer-Dickson/Bauer Branch phase(s) groups in

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the southern two-thirds and, after about AD 700/800, Maples Mills phase groups roughly occupying the northern two-thirds of the CIRV (Esarey, 2000). The degree to which these two groups interacted is unclear. However, by AD 1050, the social and political landscape of the CIRV was changing due in part to developments in the American Bottom, including the rise of Cahokia. Recent excavations at Lawrenz Gun Club and Fandel have identified Late Woodland ceramics in early Misssissippian contexts, as well as the construction of platform mounds at both sites (Wilson et al., 2020). This has led to the definition of a new phase, known as Mossville, to encapsulate the roughly half century (i.e., AD 1050–1100) corresponding with the Lohmann phase in the American Bottom (Esarey, 2000; Bardolph, 2014). Archaeologists partition the next three centuries of Mississippian occupation in the CIRV into relatively equal units of time as shown in Table 4.1, including the Eveland (AD 1100–1200), Orendorf/Larson (AD 1200–1300), and Crable (AD 1300–1450) phases. Intriguingly, the CIRV’s Mississippian inhabitants found themselves squarely between the downstream socio-political and religious developments associated with Cahokia and those further upstream (i.e., upper Illinois River valley [UIRV]), which are generally known as Upper Mississippian, and more specifically in this case as the Langford Tradition (Emerson 1999; see also Emerson et al., Chap. 5, this volume). In the following section, a synthesis of Late Woodland and Mississippian settlement and subsistence patterns is provided as contextualization for our recent research on sites and assemblages from the region, as well as our concurrent paleoclimate investigations that characterize the MCA and LIA in mid-continental North America. Our exploration examines extant evidence from a series of research projects on human skeletal samples, botanical remains, and the spatial and temporal patterning of Mississippian settlements with the goal of understanding how these co-vary in meaningful and understandable ways with our paleoclimatological record for the midcontinent.

Late Woodland and Mississippian Societies in the CIRV Late Woodland societies develop in west-central Illinois between about AD 250 and 400, an estimate largely derived from the cessation of prominent Hopewell ceremonialism, interregional exchange, and mortuary practices (Asch, 1990; King et al., 2011; King, 2016). Like elsewhere in the midcontinent, archaeologists contend that there is a fundamental shift in lifeways away from socio-political practices emphasizing “symbolic communities” (sensu Buikstra et al., 1998) towards a focus on the crafting of localized traditions and residential communities reflected in ceramic variation. In addition, there was an emphasis on flexible subsistence strategies and technological innovations that translated into higher fertility rates and population growth (Buikstra et al., 1986; Wilson, 2010). Green and Nolan (2000) highlight that Late Woodland groups in the CIRV can be characterized by more efficient subsistence strategies, including an emphasis on low-level food production, and changes ranging from thinner cooking vessels to the introduction of the bow and arrow by

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about AD 600. For the next several hundred years, distinct cultural groups would emerge with interaction typically occurring as the result of overlapping hunting and foraging zones alongside the burying of deceased in regional mortuary centers (Green, 1993; Green & Nolan, 2000). Larger Late Woodland sites (> 0.5 ha) were located adjacent to channels of the Illinois River and its tributaries, overlooked floodplain lakes, and resided atop terraces and alluvial fans. Dividing the Late Woodland into two parts (i.e. pre- and post-AD 600), there is evidence to suggest that community size and organization shifted over time. Early Late Woodland communities on average were smaller with a circular/doughnut-shaped layout during the Weaver phase (AD 400–600) and the first part of the subsequent Myer-Dickson/Bauer Branch phase (AD 600–800). As seen in Fig. 4.3, sites that characterize this early Late Woodland configuration include Rench and Weaver within the Illinois Valley. Meanwhile, there was also an initial push to occupy the western uplands of the CIRV as reflected at Marlin Miller (Fishel, 2015), Carter Creek (Esarey et al., 1984; Holt, 2005), and the Upper Sugar Creek locality (Green, 1987). After AD 600, Bauer Branch communities are densely concentrated along the lower La Moine River- a tributary of the Illinois River. Green and Nolan (2000: 362) describe these communities as dispersed and organized around small residential sites (i.e., homesteads) involving one or two households. However, by AD 800 (if not slightly earlier), larger settlements associated with cord-impressed Maples Mills ceramics began to straddle the Illinois River and floodplain lakes, including Clear Lake, Liverpool Landing, and Liverpool Lake, among others (Esarey, 2000). What remains unclear about settlement systems during the later Late Woodland is the degree to which Maples Mills and Bauer Branch groups moved on a seasonal basis. Dense middens and keyhole-shaped domestic structures allude to the capacity for year-round inhabitation at numerous sites, though as highlighted by Esarey (2000), archaeologists have not recently investigated any post-AD 800 Woodland sites in the CIRV. Green’s (1987) analysis of plant remains from eight western upland sites predominantly dating to the first half of the Late Woodland period demonstrated a high degree of variability with respect to foraging for fruits and nuts with starchy and oily seeds remaining somewhat uncommon. More recently, Calentine’s (2015) analysis for the Marlin Miller #2 site has highlighted the relative importance of mast resources, especially hickory. Starchy plants, including maygrass, goosefoot, little barley, and erect knotweed, indicate cultivation, though their ubiquity in features was not particularly high despite the conducive climatic conditions (i.e., negative PNA) reflected in Martin Lake’s sediment cores. Paleoethnobotanical analyses from the Liverpool Lake site provide the only substantial insight into foraging and farming during the Maples Mills phase of the terminal late Woodland period in the CIRV. Schroeder (2000) reports that starchy seeds, including chenopods and erect knotweed, were frequently encountered in excavated features, though were not ubiquitous. Meanwhile, nutshells were relatively infrequently encountered and dominated by black walnut and, to a lesser extent, thick-shelled hickory. Maize was recovered from a majority of Maples Mills-associated features excavated at Liverpool Lake. Radiocarbon dates on these features containing maize suggests that

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Table 4.2 15p5 death proportions for the Late Woodland and Mississippian skeletal samples from the central Illinois River valley Site 0–4 years 5–19 yrs. Late Woodland (pre-AD 1050) Morton & Dickson Mounds 89 48 Mossville & Eveland phase Mississippian (AD 1050–1200) Dickson Mounds 77 37 Orendorf phase Mississippian (AD 1200–1250) Orendorf & Dickson Mounds 112 58 Larson phase Mississippian (AD 1250–1300) Morton & Dickson Mounds 171 95

>5 years

N

15p5

171

260

0.2807

108

185

0.3426

215

327

0.2698

385

556

0.2468

agriculture was being practiced in the CIRV by the eighth or ninth century AD. However, caution should be exercised as recent studies by Simon (2014, 2017), as well as Emerson et al. (2020), have indicated that maize was not cultivated in the neighboring American Bottom until between about AD 900–1000, coinciding with population growth and nucleation prior to Cahokia’s “Big Bang” at AD 1050 (Pauketat, 1994, 1997). Lastly, in a comparison of late Woodland and Mississippian subsistence patterns, VanDerwarker et al. (2013) provide key insights on the relative importance of fruits and nuts, as well as starchy and oily seeds. While fruit densities fail to yield a distinct diachronic pattern, nut shell and starchy and oily seed densities increase considerably between earlier (i.e., AD 600–700) and later (AD 800–1050) Late Woodland and early Mississippian features, suggesting an intensification of food production systems sometime after AD 800 that would culminate in the adoption of maize agriculture (see below). Burials dating to the late Woodland period in the CIRV are relatively few in number, providing few definitive answers about population dynamics, biological relatedness, lifeways, and interpersonal trauma. Wilson (2010) examined late Woodland human skeletal remains from Rench, Morton/Norris Farms #36, and Dickson Mounds to evaluate demographic and epidemiological variability. As seen in Table 4.2, the proportion of juveniles in these death assemblages would suggest that terminal Late Woodland (post-AD 950) and early Mississippian groups interring their dead at Dickson Mounds were characterized by high fertility and population growth rates- a feature that is ubiquitous among many early agricultural societies. Following Buikstra et al. (1986) analytical approach, Wilson (2010: 267) also detected a significant difference in the D30+/D5+ proportion between early and late interments at Dickson Mounds. A lower proportion of middle and older adults in the terminal late Woodland and early Mississippian samples from Dickson Mounds indicates that the birth and growth rates were significantly higher during the 11th and 12th centuries AD as compared with the thirteenth century AD. More recently, Wilson (2014) found that reproductive-age female survivorship during the late Woodland was significantly better than the age-specific mortality rates seen among subsequent Mississippians. These demographic analyses further support VanDerwarker et al. (2013) observations that intensified food production during

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the terminal late Woodland and onset of the MCA translated into sustained population growth. Steadman’s (1998) analysis of craniometric variability during the late Woodland and Mississippian periods in the CIRV provides several important insights regarding biological relatedness and population movement. The burials from Late Woodland contexts at Gooden, Morton, and Dickson Mounds exhibit a close relationship with early Mississippians also interred at Dickson Mounds, a result that strongly suggests continuity in phenotypic variability and little evidence for gene flow from the American Bottom or elsewhere. Meanwhile, Steadman’s (2001) interregional analysis of Late Woodland and Mississippian populations from the lower and central Illinois River valleys demonstrated that gene flow was higher between these two regions prior to the eleventh century AD and then followed a clear isolation-bydistance pattern after about AD 1100. Taken together, these findings point to a scenario wherein the movement of people and residential patterns were less constrained by socio-political units during the Late Woodland and early Mississippian periods, but became more restricted as the Mississippian period continued with the emergence of regional polities. The role of interpersonal violence and conflict during the Late Woodland in the CIRV is unclear, as bioarchaeologists have not examined the skeletal samples from Rench, Weaver and other sites specifically for trauma. Foley (2016) found that general trauma was high (53.3%) among Woodland adults from the Morton mound group, but highlights that a small proportion (4.5%) of the total assemblage has evidence for conflict-related skeletal trauma, including embedded projectile points and both ante- and perimortem craniofacial fractures. Spencer’s (2014: 242) analysis of Schild in the lower Illinois River valley found that 15.7% of Late Woodland (13/83) and 3.9% of Mississippian (6/152) individuals had perimortem injuries ranging from multiple celt wounds to scalping and projectile wounds. Meanwhile, Spencer’s (2014: 60) meta-analysis of violence and non-violent injuries from across west-central Illinois generally corroborates these findings with injuries varying between 2 and 5% in the lower Illinois River valley and adjacent Mississippi Valley during the Late Woodland. Collectively, these findings are difficult to evaluate for a uniform spatial or temporal pattern, though it is clear that Late Woodland groups engaged in some level of hostilities. By AD 1050, sociopolitical and cultural changes among Woodland groups in the CIRV were occurring as Cahokia came into existence in the American Bottom. Notable CIRV sites with well-documented Mossville phase components include Rench, Lawrenz Gun Club, and Fandel (Fig. 4.3). In each case, ceramics characteristic of Lohmann phase assemblages (from the American Bottom) suggest direct contact with or the movement of emissaries into the region. Geographically, these sites reside in opposite stretches of the CIRV with Lawrenz near the confluence of the Sangamon and Illinois Rivers, while Fandel and Rench are over 100 km to the north. Bauer Branch pottery sherds have been recovered from a small 2.5  4.5 m wall trench structure at Lawrenz dating to the late eleventh century AD, while Maples Mills and Mossville pottery sherds have been recovered at Rench and Fandel. These findings suggest some form of negotiated identity and meaning for

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both native Late Woodland populations as they engaged with the making of a local Mississippian culture (Wilson et al., 2020). Importantly, in the case of Fandel and Lawrenz, their residents also commenced with platform mound construction during the Mossville phase, conceivably reflecting the significance of these sites as early civic and ceremonial centers and the forging of new identities. With these three sites and a handful of others reported to have Mossville phase traits (e.g., Powell Plain vessels, small wall-trench structures), it is difficult to truly assess settlement patterns during this 50 year period. However, it would appear that early Mississippian settlements and influences were squarely focused in two distant parts of the valley with local Late Woodland groups continuing to occupy the vast majority of the CIRV. This being said, it is equally apparent that communities during both the Mossville phase and, minimally, the first half of the Eveland phase (AD 1100–1150) in the CIRV remained relatively small and unconsolidated, paling in comparison to the large-scale aggregation seen in the floodplain and uplands of the American Bottom during the same timeframe. At present, subsistence patterns during the Eveland phase (AD 1100–1150) are poorly understood with paleoethnobotanical research ongoing for the recent excavations at Fandel and Lawrenz. However, King’s (1993) analysis of the botanical remains from Rench suggests a relatively low abundance of maize, continued foraging for nuts, and low densities of both starchy and oily seeds circa AD 1050. This low abundance of maize from the two early Mississippian structures excavated at Rench stands in contrast with the stable isotope values obtained by Buikstra et al. (1994) for terminal Late Woodland and early Mississippian burials from Dickson Mounds, whose δ13C values of
14.4 and
12.2 part per mil indicate substantial maize consumption (see Fig. 4.2). It is conceivable that maize cultivation and consumption were variable and community specific during this timeframe. VanDerwarker et al. (2013) synthesis of botanical data from later Late Woodland and early Mississippian sites seems to reflect this pattern, where both maize density and abundance in features is low, but ultimately variable between about AD 750 and 1100. With the appearance of Mississippian culture in the CIRV, migration is an unavoidable question among archaeologists regardless of their tendencies to view the process of Mississippianization as being driven by diffusion or migration. Steadman’s (2001: 68-69) biodistance analyses of 19 early Mississippian crania from Dickson Mounds indicate that these individuals are closely related to preceding Late Woodland individuals from the nearby Morton and Gooden sites with the residual variance within expected ranges. While the sample size is small, these model-bound analyses support an in situ societal transformation with no evidence for substantial gene flow when comparing the expected and observed variances. More recently, Zejdlik (2015) found similar results for population continuity over time when comparing dental morphology and metrics for individuals interred in the Late Woodland and Mississippian components at Morton. With climatic conditions characterized by warmth and abundant warm-season precipitation during early Mississippian times, Hatch’s (2015) analysis of the terminal Late Woodland and early Mississippian burials from Dickson Mounds is

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Fig. 4.4 A map of Lawrenz Gun Club (11Cs4) detailing the Mossville & early Eveland phase (AD 1050–1150) community in the north (right) and the post-AD 1150 fortified village characterized by a central plaza, platform mounds, and a palisade with bastions

particularly revealing. Among 160 individuals examined for ante- and perimortem trauma, Hatch (2015: 149) found no evidence for skeletal trauma. Importantly, this analysis included the well-known headless burials (n ¼ 4) from Mound B, which are poorly preserved, yet yielded no evidence for trauma (Cobb & Harn, 2002). While somewhat similar to Feature 106 in Mound 72 at Cahokia (Fowler et al., 1999), the inclusion of terminal Late Woodland and early Mississippian vessels in lieu of the four crania may allude to some form of ancestor veneration, not sacrifice. Regardless of this interpretation, the only evidence for trauma in the CIRV between about AD 1050 and 1150 comes from Kingston Lake, where a juvenile originating from a barklined grave was observed to have cut marks consistent with scalping across their frontal (Simpson, 1937; Poehls, 1944). Taken alongside the absence of fortified communities (Krus et al., 2019), this limited evidence leads us to characterize the early Mississippian period as relatively devoid of evidence for conflict. By the mid-to-late twelfth century AD, local polities emerged in the CIRV in both previously inhabited places and new locales with radiocarbon dates from Lawrenz, Orendorf, and Kingston Lake collectively confirming that the Eveland phase represents a period of reorganization. For example, Lawrenz would appear to undergo a transformation between about AD 1150 and AD 1200 that involved the movement of community members into an aggregated village of several hundred individuals and comparable in size and layout to Aztalan in southern Wisconsin (Fig. 4.4). This new

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community at Lawrenz replaced a pre-existing Mossville phase settlement immediately to the north and abutting the Sangamon River channel (Friberg et al., 2021). The community included a sizable central plaza enclosed by a minimum of four platform mounds. Our research indicates that the construction of a robust palisade, with two sequential iterations of circular and rectangular bastions, occurred between AD 1150 and AD 1230 at Lawrenz, persisting as a defensive feature for the community for some 40–85 years (Krus et al., 2019). It is intriguing to note that the construction of the palisade at Lawrenz roughly coincides with a drought detected in the sediment cores from Martin Lake and the PDSI values presented by Benson et al. (2009). The geographic distribution and internal organization of other, larger Mississippian communities during the late Eveland phase is unclear. This includes Orendorf (discussed below), where several iterations of a large village existed during the twelfth century. Paleoethnobotanical research at Lamb and C.W. Cooper has demonstrated that maize intensification occurred during the twelfth century in the CIRV (VanDerwarker et al., 2013; Bardolph, 2014). Concurrent with this increased reliance on maize, VanDerwarker et al. (2013) detail that starchy seeds and nuts become increasingly rare in the diet. At Lamb, Bardolph (2014) convincingly argues for a subtle blending of terminal Late Woodland (Bauer Branch) and early Mississippian foodways among the inhabitants. More specifically, jars dominate the Lamb ceramic assemblage during a time when serving wares (i.e., bowls and plates) were increasingly important among Stirling phase communities in the American Bottom. While pottery and dietary preferences changed, the preparation and communal cooking did not change based on this evidence from the Lamb site. In parallel fashion, the stable isotope values from individuals dating to the twelfth century AD at Dickson Mounds and Orendorf confirm that as much as 70% of the protein consumed by Mississippians during the Eveland phase was derived from maize (Buikstra et al., 1994; Strange, 2006; Tubbs, 2012). The values from Orendorf, ranging between
6 and
9 δ13C parts per mil, are some of highest in the midcontinent (Bird et al., 2017), a surprising finding considering the plant diversity documented at the coeval, yet smaller C.W. Cooper settlement located 13 km downriver (VanDerwarker et al., 2013). The bioarchaeological evidence for demographic patterns, violence, and population structure during the twelfth century AD is unclear, as it has proven difficult to disambiguate Mossville and Eveland phase mortuary contexts at Dickson Mounds and elsewhere. As a result, Wilson (2010, 2014) and others (e.g., Steadman, 2001; Hatch, 2015) have consistently collated skeletal samples into a single “early Mississippian” cohort for comparison to Late Woodland and subsequent Mississippian groups. Even so, it is important to highlight that late eleventh and twelfth century AD population dynamics, including fertility and mortality rates, more closely resemble those observed for the Late Woodland. With only a handful of larger sites like Lawrenz developing by the late twelfth century AD, the risk of death among reproductive-age females remained relatively low (Wilson, 2014). As shown in Table 4.2, the proportion of five to 19 year olds (i.e., 15p5) among those interred at

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Dickson Mounds between AD 1050 and 1200 is high (0.3426) and comparable to values derived from Late Woodland skeletal samples (Bocquet-Appel & Naji, 2006). These paleodemographic models indicate that early Mississippian populations in the CIRV can be characterized by high fertility and comparatively low mortality, especially among females (Wilson, 2010, 2014). The thirteenth century AD proved to be a pivotal timeframe in the trajectory of Mississippian communities in the CIRV (Conrad, 1991; Harn, 1994). Socio-political boundaries begin to emerge, with Conrad (1991) suggesting that two polities developed in the northern and southern stretches of the valley. With the walls recently constructed around Lawrenz, a cascading effect likely involving political consolidation would occur upstream at several sites, including Orendorf and Larson. If not identical in its timing to Lawrenz, we know that a stockade was constructed upstream at Orendorf circa AD 1200, protecting Settlement D’s 400 to 500 inhabitants from real and perceived threats. Meanwhile, sometime between AD 1225 and 1250, warriors from another community would incinerate Settlement D, presumably marking the end of the site’s occupation (Wilson, 2012). Sometime around AD 1250, the community members at Larson would also construct a stockade. The causal factors for the onset of strife and small-scale warfare in the CIRV are unclear. However, it is difficult to ignore the Martin Lake hydroclimate data signaling the end of the MCA during the early-to-mid thirteenth century AD. Furthermore, it is also clear that larger, macroregional social processes were unfolding during this timeframe, including the progressive decline of population levels in the American Bottom, which suggest increased instability and a lack of political centralization at Cahokia (Baltus & Wilson, 2019). With nucleation into fortified settlement up and down the CIRV, VanDerwarker and Wilson (2016) have detected several striking subsistence patterns when comparing pre- and post-AD 1200 botanical and faunal remains. In their comparison of Lamb and C.W. Cooper to data from Orendorf and Myer-Dickson, they document a significant reduction in plant foraging, including nuts, fruits, and other wild seeds and greens after AD 1200. They attribute this shift to decisions made by individuals to restrict the spatial extent of their foraging given the violence known to have occurred around the thirteenth and fourteenth century AD Mississippian communities in the CIRV. Intriguingly, VanDerwarker and Wilson (2016) also detected a remarkably similar pattern regarding the pursuit of fish and mammals, with the former declining and the latter increasing at the thirteenth century AD settlements of Orendorf and Myer-Dickson. In sum, dietary breadth diminishes considerably, while maize continues to be a staple for Mississippians. This latter observation regarding maize consumption is also reflected in the stable isotope values for thirteenth century AD Mississippians from the CIRV with carbon values ranging from
13 to
6 δ13C parts per mil for adults. In addition to the defensive features surrounding communities during the thirteenth century AD in the CIRV, there is ample bioarchaeological evidence for increased violence in the form of ante- and perimortem skeletal trauma. At Orendorf, Steadman (2008) has reported one of the highest rates (i.e., 9%) of warfare-related trauma among Mississippian populations from the midcontinent, including evidence

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for scalping, decapitation, projectile trauma, and blunt force trauma. Hatch’s (2012) bioarchaeological analysis of Burial 12, a refuse pit found along the stockade line at Larson, identified the remains of a minimum of 10 individuals with perimortem spiral fractures, burning, and cut marks consistent with scalping on several individuals and the commingled fragments. At Dickson Mounds and Morton, the evidence for warfare is not as substantial, suggesting variable experiences in the CIRV during the thirteenth century AD in terms of violence and strife. Hatch (2015: 149) has documented one case of projectile trauma on a young adult male from the Orendorf phase (AD 1200–1250) component at Dickson Mounds and six instances of anteand perimortem trauma during the Larson phase (AD 1250–1300). Meanwhile, Foley (2016: 203-204) found that 4.5% of the individuals interred at Morton during the Larson phase had evidence for trauma, namely craniofacial fractures and potential projectile trauma. Collectively, these studies suggest that the social costs of warfare were considerable during the thirteenth century in the CIRV. Population dynamics also underwent a significant transformation during the thirteenth century based on paleodemographic analyses of fertility and mortality patterns. The movement into fortified villages would have enhanced disease communicability, influencing the risk of death for those that sought protection in communities like Orendorf and Larson. Intriguingly, fertility rates inferred through proportion of five to 19 year olds at Orendorf and Dickson Mounds in Table 4.2 suggest slightly lower birth rates when compared to preceding Late Woodland and early Mississippian periods (Wilson, 2010: 264). In addition, the age-specific risk of death among Mississippian women during the Orendorf phase is elevated relative to prior times (Wilson, 2014). This pattern of decreasing fertility and increasing mortality would continue during the second half of the thirteenth century AD at Larson phase communities resulting in a scenario where fortified villages became population sinks. This evidence strongly suggests that any growth in community size that was achieved by thirteenth century AD communities was a product of immigration and the aggregation of kin affiliated with these geographically circumscribed polities, not biological reproduction. The aforementioned biodistance research by Steadman (1998, 2001) is interesting to consider in light of the deteriorating population dynamics and evidence for increasing strife during the thirteenth century AD. Within the CIRV, Orendorf and Larson phase Mississippians are most closely related to earlier Late Woodland and early Mississippian Eveland phase individuals from Dickson Mounds, indicating population continuity. However, Orendorf and Larson phase individuals also display elevated levels of variance at both the regional and interregional levels (Steadman, 2001). Craniometric measures of heterozygosity were higher among the Orendorf and Larson phase skeletal samples in comparison with both Late Woodland and earlier Mississippian samples (Steadman, 1998: Table 4). In addition, the distance measures and multi-dimensional scaling showed considerable similarity among Late Woodland and early Mississippian crania that is followed by a two-fold increase in distance between early Mississippian and later thirteenth century AD individuals. While not conclusive, there appears to be a subtle signature of gene flow in the CIRV, conceivably from the American Bottom or elsewhere. Alternatively, it also

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raises the possibility that aggregation into fortified settlements in the CIRV during the thirteenth century AD drew in non-local individuals slightly altering the phenotypic variability of the population. Hatch’s (2015) odontometric study suggests the presence of non-locals in later Mississippian contexts in the CIRV, including Dickson Mounds, Larson, Emmons, and Crable. By the fourteenth century AD, a murkier and yet-to-be resolved sociopolitical and demographic process ensued in the CIRV and across west-central Illinois. At the macro-regional level, we know that the prior organizational structure and population densities that characterized the American Bottom during the Lohmann and Stirling phases were no longer in existence during the Moorehead and Sand Prairie phases (Baltus & Wilson, 2019). Meanwhile, within the CIRV, larger communities at Larson and Lawrenz were abandoned shortly before or around AD 1300 (Krus et al., 2019). The impetus for these abandonments is unclear. However, at Lawrenz, a number of the excavated structures dating to late thirteenth century AD were incinerated with complete domestic assemblages found beneath the incinerated architectural debris. While accidental fires were undoubtedly a common occurrence, Lawrenz’s incinerated structures are eerily reminiscent of the large-scale conflagration that occurred roughly 50 years earlier at Orendorf’s Settlement D (Wilson, 2012; Conrad et al., 2020), suggesting warfare may have contributed to its demise. During the Crable phase, a host of Mississippian villages occupied the western bluffs, terraces, and bluff bases of the CIRV (Friberg et al., 2021). Excluding Hildemeyer in the far northern reaches of the CIRV (Upton, 2019), a majority of these communities reside in the southern half of the valley, from Crable in the north to Walsh in the south. Considering the size and distribution of Mississippian villages during the thirteenth century AD, there are either many villages that were either all inhabited briefly, meaning a generation or two (at maximum), or it is possible that the CIRV experienced a population influx. Future research at these sites will be necessary to infer their longevity and composition, alongside providing essential paleoethnobotanical and other subsistence data that have helped us to characterize the period between AD 1050 and 1300. Hazard modeling of the mortality patterns for 14th and early fifteenth century AD Mississippians in the CIRV strongly suggests that the age-specific risk of death continued to increase and the cumulative survivorship decreased in the century leading up to abandonment (Wilson, 2014). This increased risk of death was concentrated among late adolescent and young adult females living in and around these dense, oftentimes fortified villages, especially Crable. Contextualized slightly differently, if immigration is in fact responsible for the numerous villages that peppered the CIRV landscape during the fourteenth century, this community growth was fleeting as the high pathogen load experienced in these environments led to deteriorating conditions. The distribution of Mississippian communities after about AD 1300 is intriguing in light of the immigration of Oneota groups to the area around the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois Rivers in Fulton County (Esarey & Conrad, 1998). This Oneota immigration is best known from bioarchaeological research on the Norris Farms #36 skeletal sample from Morton, which yielded substantial evidence for interpersonal

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violence and small-scale warfare during the early fourteenth century AD (Milner et al., 1991). Biodistance research has revealed that the phenotypic variability of this Oneota group is distinct and different from preceding Late Woodland and Mississippian populations in the CIRV (Steadman, 1998), though their specific point of origin is unknown. Equally important to highlight is the fact that both Mississippian and Oneota groups abandoned the CIRV by no later than AD 1450, rendering this region one of the northernmost parts of the larger Vacant Quarter during a profound period of drought reflected in our Martin Lake sediment cores.

Discussion While significant gaps and questions remain to be answered about Late Woodland and Mississippian societies in the CIRV (e.g., Mossville phase subsistence patterns), a number of specific statements and general observations can be made about the relationship between late precontact populations and climate change during the MCA and LIA. Beginning with the first half of the Late Woodland period, populations in the CIRV are engaging in intensive foraging and low-level food production of starchy seeds during a conducive climatic period characterized by ample warm-season precipitation. Furthermore, the negative PNA pattern reflected in the Martin Lake data indicates that the period between AD 700 and 850 was optimal and would have facilitated resource exploitation by late Woodland groups growing crops, hunting, and pursuing wild foods in a variety of upland and riverine contexts. Intriguingly, these very same data suggest a profound change in climatological conditions in the midcontinent between AD 850 and 950. The impact, if any, on Late Woodland groups in the CIRV is unclear. VanDerwaker and colleagues (2013) have observed slight decreases in fruit densities and an absence of maize from features roughly dating between AD 800 and 1050. However, additional research on later Late Woodland settlements and extant assemblages is sorely needed. As highlighted by Esarey (2000), virtually no research has been undertaken on postAD 800 Woodland settlements in the CIRV, leaving much to be inferred from legacy and surface collections of ceramics and other material culture. Our Martin Lake data suggest that the MCA and a return to negative PNA conditions with ample warm-season precipitation occurred by AD 950 in the midcontinent and persisted for the next 250 years (ca. AD 1190). This proves to be a crucial time in the CIRV and elsewhere. The presence of maize in terminal Late Woodland deposits would suggest some degree of cultivation. However, maize consumption appears to remain relatively low in the CIRV until the late 11th or early 12th centuries AD based on the collated isotopic values from human skeletal remains and paleoethnobotanical data. It is conceivable that full-blown maize agriculture in the CIRV was not a direct response to the climatic conditions of the MCA, but rather a component of the socio-political and religious transformation that occurred after the rise of Cahokia around AD 1050. Regardless of maize or not, terminal Late Woodland communities appear to have flourished along the Illinois

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River during the MCA, enabling population growth in a demographic system characterized by high fertility and lower mortality. Optimal climatic conditions would continue to characterize most of the early Mississippian period in the CIRV, including both the Mossville and Eveland phases. Early Mississippian outposts at Lawrenz and Fandel that include monumental architecture and new forms of material culture derived from the American Bottom would appear to have been welcomed by several local Woodland groups (Wilson et al., 2020). While the biological evidence indicates regional population continuity, research by Bardolph (2014) and others (e.g., Krus et al., 2019) highlights the significant influence of social and political developments in the American Bottom on the CIRV, including maize agriculture, shell-tempered pottery, wall-trench construction, and platform mounds as focal points of early Mississippian sites. The demographic models would suggest continued growth in the way of biological reproduction during this timeframe, while the isotopic data from a handful of Dickson Mounds burials indicate maize consumption by AD 1100, corroborating the analyses performed by VanDerwarker et al. (2013) at Lamb and C.W. Cooper. Towards the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th centuries AD, a stronger association between the archaeological and paleoclimatological datasets is evident. Our work at Martin Lake suggests that a mean state shift from negative to positive PNA conditions occurs, resulting in a progressive decline in warm-season precipitation over the next century. This coincides with the Orendorf and Larson phases in the CIRV, when communities begin to construct robust defensive features, including a palisade at Lawrenz and stockades at Orendorf and Larson (Krus et al., 2019). In parallel, the skeletal evidence for violence and warfare increases (e.g., Steadman, 2008). Similarly, dietary breadth diminishes considerably, suggesting people constrained their movement on the broader CIRV landscape (VanDerwarker & Wilson, 2016). Lastly, the demographic patterns change during this time with evidence for reduced fertility rates and, more importantly, elevated age-specific mortality (Wilson, 2010, 2014). Whether induced by climatological change or not, we suggest that a negative synergistic relationship developed where agricultural shortfalls undermined the socio-political functioning of Mississippian polities in the CIRV and elsewhere. Climatological conditions do not appear to have improved in the midcontinent after the thirteenth century AD. Similarly, the evidence for strife at the macroregional level, including fortifications and skeletal trauma, are considerable (Milner et al., 2013). Over the next 150 years, populations in the CIRV appear to fission and coalesce in a series of settlements, though the timing and longevity of each is unknown. Additional archaeological investigations will be necessary to understand the daily lives of groups during the Crable phase and LIA. It is clear that mortality continued to decrease (Wilson, 2014), but almost nothing is known about subsistence and the internal organization of these later communities (e.g., Crable, Walsh, and Vandeventer). Lastly, it is hard to ignore the megadrought from AD 1400 to 1470 recorded at Martin Lake and its coincidence with the Vacant Quarter. While people in the CIRV may have ultimately “voted with their feet” and achieved resilience elsewhere, the low levels of warm-season precipitation and duration of

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the growing season during the LIA would have fundamentally undermined the sustainability of large agricultural villages in the midcontinent during the fifteenth century AD.

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Williams, S. (1983). Some ruminations on the current strategy of archaeology in the southeast. Southeastern Archaeological Conference Bulletin, 21, 72–81. Williams, S. (1990). The vacant quarter and other late events in the lower valley. In D. H. Dye & C. A. Cox (Eds.), Towns and temples along the Mississippi (pp. 170–180). University of Alabama Press. Wilson, J. J. (2010). Modeling life through death in late prehistoric west-central Illinois: An assessment of paleodemographic and paleoepidemiological variability. PhD dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton. Wilson, G. D. (2012). Living with war: The impact of chronic violence in the Mississippian-period central Illinois river valley. In T. R. Pauketat (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of North American archaeology (pp. 523–533). Oxford University Press. Wilson, J. J. (2014). Paradox and promise: Research on the role of recent advances in paleodemography and paleoepidemiology to the study of “health” in Precolumbian societies. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 155(2), 268–280. Wilson, G. D., Bardolph, D. N., Esarey, D., & Wilson, J. J. (2020). Transregional social fields of the early Mississippian midcontinent. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 27(1), 90–110. Wray, D. E., & MacNeish, R. S. (1961). The Hopewellian and weaver occupations of the weaver site, Fulton County, Illinois. (Scientific Papers vol. 7, no. 2). Illinois State Museum. Zejdlik, K.J. (2015). An investigation of Late Woodland and Mississippian biological relationships using odontometric and dental non-metric trait analyses. PhD dissertation, Indiana UniversityBloominton.

Chapter 5

Late Pre-contact Ethnogenesis, Resilience, and Movement in the Face of Climate Variation in the Upper Illinois River Valley Thomas E. Emerson, Kristin M. Hedman, Matthew A. Fort, and Kjersti E. Emerson

Discussions of the Upper Mississippian people have been inexorably linked to climate and environment in the Ohio River valley, the Upper Illinois River valley (UIRV), and the Mississippi River valley since James B. Griffin’s (1960a, 1960b, 1961, 1966) classic research on Fort Ancient and the postulated northern movements of midcontinental Siouan groups. Griffin famously viewed Upper Mississippian and Oneota populations as later, less complex forms of Cahokia Mississippian. He attributed their origins to Cahokian groups who moved into northern areas during a warm period which became progressively less suitable for agriculture during subsequent climatic deterioration ca. AD 1200. Early research into midcontinental climate change by Baerreis and Bryson (1965; also, Gibbon, 1972; Stoltman & Baerreis, 1983) specifically examined Griffin’s correlation of Mississippian expansion and climate and found it credible. University of Wisconsin researchers Reid Bryson, David Baerreis, and their students (e.g., Baerreis & Bryson, 1965; Baerreis et al., 1976; Bryson & Julian, 1963; Bryson & Murray, 1977; Webb & Bryson, 1972; Wendland & Bryson, 1974) analyzed late pre-contact cultures, environments, and climatic patterns as keys to understanding cultural change and/or continuity. Their research concentrated on the effects of what was then called the “little climatic optimum” between AD 900 and 1250 – in effect, the period in the northern midcontinent in which Oneota, Upper Mississippian, and Cahokian societies flourished.

T. E. Emerson (*) Upper Mississippi Valley Archaeological Research Foundation, Macomb, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. M. Hedman · M. A. Fort · K. E. Emerson University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Champaign, IL, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_5

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Bryson and Baerreis’ research1 at the University of Wisconsin Center for Climatic Research (UWCCR) targeted archaeological cultures that were spatially poised on the edge of biomes, hypothesizing that the effect of climatic shifts would be felt first in these ecotonal areas and such shifts might be reflected by adaptational changes within those societies. In general, these groups were in the northern midcontinent and the eastern and southern Plains. Their research plan was wide-ranging and included extensive radiocarbon dating by the University of Wisconsin Radiocarbon Lab (by Margaret Bender) of both climatic and cultural events, changes in pre-contact subsistence practices, and cultural shifts that might be attributable to changing local environmental parameters (such as in settlement systems). It was presumed that there was much to be gained by approaching the issue of identifying climatic changes using both cultural and environmental variables. Baerreis et al. (1976: 51–53) employed various climatic proxies (e.g., refined mathematical transfer models for pollen and tree-ring climatic interpretation, clinal variation in species, lake varves, and quantitative analysis of archaeobotanical and archaeozoological pattern changes) in a re- examination of Griffin’s (1960b) Mississippian expansion model using paired cultural-climatic data. They concluded that his projected correlation of cultural and climatic change was factually legitimate – whether there was a causal relationship remained to be determined. Griffin’s interpretation of climatically-induced substandard agricultural production among the northern Upper Mississippian and Oneota groups has been questioned (Brown, 1982; Hall, 1980; Hart, 1990). Robert Hall (1980: 447), in fact, cites historic accounts indicating historic native residents of northern Illinois were producing thousands of bushels of corn annually, far beyond their subsistence needs. Additionally, an initial study of Upper Mississippian Langford phase dietary isotopes (Emerson et al., 2005) revealed that maize consumption levels were like those of full-time farming communities at Cahokia. Consequently, we conclude that northern environmental conditions were adequate for maize agriculture and were not a factor in producing Upper Mississippian cultural development in the UIRV (but see Jeske’s [1989] discussion of differing agricultural techniques between Huber/ Fisher and Langford farmers). Nonetheless, our previous dietary isotope research had documented the decreased consumption of maize by late Fisher and Huber phase populations. Whether this relates to deteriorating climatic conditions, population dispersals, increasing violence, cultural preferences, or a combination of these factors will be explored in the remainder of this chapter.

1

Reid Bryson, a world-renowned climatologist, was the founder (in 1948) and director of the UW Center for Climatic Research that focused on investigating past climates and the first director of the UW Environmental Studies Institute in 1970. He shared an interest in the interactions of humans and climate with David Baerreis, a UW professor of anthropology. In the 1960s and 1970s they jointly, along with cultural geographer William Denevan, trained climatologists, cultural geographers, and archaeologists in historical climatology and environmental studies, the lead author of this chapter being among them. For a brief history of early midwestern climate studies, see Baerreis et al., 1976.

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Northeastern Illinois Landscape and Environment One cannot comprehend the role of the Illinois River in the cultural history of the midcontinent without a consideration of its environmental setting (see Fig. 5.1; USACOE, 2007). At the river’s northern end, where it abuts Lake Michigan, lies a fan-shaped region between the Des Plaines River on the north and the Kankakee River to the south containing a diverse set of landforms, with rich plant and animal resources, including the Chicago Lake Plain, beach ridges, and moraines. To the southwest of this region lies the broad featureless glacial till outwash plains through which the Illinois River flows south to the Mississippi River (Fig. 5.2). The dominant feature of the Lake Michigan shoreline is the 24 km wide, 72 km long Chicago Lake Plain formed by the clayey sandy deposits of glacial Lake Chicago (Willman, 1971). Studies of pre-European settlement vegetation recorded a wide array of plant communities with over one-half of the area in prairie, wet prairies and marsh, and the remainder in forest and savanna (Hanson, 1981). The Lake Plain contains three significant waterways (Des Plaines, Chicago, and Calumet Rivers) as well as a series of successive raised parallel beach ridges that represent

Fig. 5.1 Upper Illinois River Valley (UIRV) region

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Fig. 5.2 Physiographic divisions of northeastern Illinois (based on data from the Illinois State Geological Survey)

various stages of the receding glacial lake. For indigenous groups and early Europeans, the key features of these waterways were high water events when the overflow of the Des Plaines River created marshy wetlands known as Mud Lake (Fig. 5.3) that joined with the Chicago River to flow into Lake Michigan – thus connecting the Great Lakes directly with the Illinois River. This so-called Chicago Portage was a major avenue for both pre-contact and historic period travelers traversing the Great Lakes waterway into the heartland of the continent (Markman, 1991: 3–6). To the southwest, the Lake Plain is bordered by low morainal rises (Schwegman, 1973: 11–13) composed of wet marshy terrain, often containing glacial lakes and bogs with generally poor drainage. Vegetation included over 60% prairie in combination with forests and savanna. The northern edges of the morainal zone and the adjacent Lake Plain were preferred by late pre-contact native groups and many of their largest villages are found on areas of higher elevations (Loebel, 2021).

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Fig. 5.3 Geography of the Chicago Portage locality

Beyond the moraines to the southwest, lie a vast level area of glacial outwash plains comprising the classic tall-grass prairie that gave Illinois its nickname, the Prairie State (Schwegman, 1973: 14–16). This vast glacial plain comprises a level to gently rolling landscape that is poorly drained creating marshes and wet prairie settings. Forested areas were confined to water sources, especially along the streams and rivers. Historically it was home to bison herds and vast flocks of migrating and resident birds. Formally, the Illinois River begins with the union of two major tributaries just south of Joliet – the Des Plaines River traveling 225 km southward from Wisconsin and the Kankakee River wandering westward from Indiana along its nearly 400 km channel through the 13,750 km2 Great Kankakee Swamp. The Upper Illinois River

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valley (UIRV)2 is imperceptible as the river flows over the flat glacial plains and for most of its length it is seldom more than 60 or 70 m wide. To the south, the valley narrows to a 2.5 km wide corridor and is often enclosed by rocky bluffs, such as found at Starved Rock. To the west the valley again broadens as it reaches the Great Bend. Only then does a true floodplain appear, with broad alluvial deposits marked by numerous lakes and backwater sloughs. The Upper Illinois river channel is marked by a steep gradient, falling over 15 m in the ~110 km between its origin and the Starved Rock rapids. With rapids at Starved Rock and Marseilles and the steep gradient, the upper Illinois River challenged navigation. Additionally, during periods of low rainfall, portions of the river in the UIRV virtually disappeared, while the spring melt often covered the narrow floodplain. Consequently, the upper valley environments were less rich in terms of the backwater lakes and marshes that made the central and lower portions of the Illinois valley so attractive to indigenous village populations. The Illinois River valley below the Great Bend expands as it enters the extensive channel of the Ancient Mississippi River (Figs. 5.1 and 5.2). Thus, the central and lower Illinois valley presents a very different set of habitats from the relatively narrow upper Illinois River with it a swifter current and sets of rapids. From the Great Bend south the river falls only 7.5 m creating a dense array of lakes, backwaters, sloughs, and marshes, interspersed with forests and prairies, as it slowly meanders across the 5–9.5 km wide valley floor on its 370 km journey to the junction with the Mississippi River. In this stretch of the river the floodplain environment was dominated by the fall to spring floods that served to establish dense fish and semiaquatic mammal populations and provided a rich supply of food for the vast flocks of migrating birds. It was in this environment that during the tenth to twelfth century large Terminal Late Woodland villages (Esarey, 2000) and subsequent Cahokiainspired Mississippian societies developed (Conrad, 1991; Conrad et al., 2019; see Wilson & Bird, Chap. 4, this volume). Upper Mississippian native agricultural village life appeared in northeastern Illinois in the twelfth century. Some researchers credit this lifestyle shift to the transformation of the local Terminal Late Woodland populations, while others see it as marking the movement of migrants into the area (Brown & Sasso, 2001; Emerson & Brown, 1992). These groups primarily inhabited the Upper Illinois, Kankakee, and Des Plaines River valleys; areas along minor tributaries (such as the Fox River) as well as the northwesterly Chicago Lake Plain and adjacent beach ridges and morainal remnants that provided a wide diversity of resources in their waterways (e.g., the Chicago and Calumet Rivers), marshlands, swamps, forest, and prairie landscapes.

2

Archaeologists generally divide the Illinois River valley into the lower, middle, and upper reaches with our area of interest, the UIRV, beginning at Lake Peoria and continuing roughly 70 km north to the Great Bend where it turns sharply and continues about 225 km straight east, via the Des Plaines River and smaller waterways and portages to Lake Michigan (Fig. 5.1). Geographers and geologists on the other hand identify the section between the Great Bend and river’s origin point as the Upper Illinois (based on USACE 2007:2.5–2.59; Sauer, 1916) – we will follow that definition in our discussion.

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There appears to be a cultural buffer zone between the Mississippian inhabitants of the Central Illinois River valley and those Upper Mississippian inhabitants of the Upper Illinois River valley. The area north of Lake Peoria to just south of the Starved Rock rapids is sparsely populated during late prehistory (Emerson, 1999a: 38). While there have been no large-scale archaeological surveys in this area, numerous smaller survey efforts have not revealed any significant Upper Mississippian or Central Illinois River valley Mississippian villages. This buffer zone was not impenetrable however, and Central Illinois River valley Mississippian diagnostic artifacts have been found at the Fisher Mounds and Village site in the Upper Valley (Langford, 1927, 1930) and Upper Mississippian artifacts have been recovered from the Hildemeyer site at Peoria (Conrad et al., 2019).

UIRV Cultural Context of the Late Precontact Period An early researcher, John Douglas (1976), characterized our area of interest as the Woodfordian Northeast, covering the huge glacial outwash plains that lie north and east of the Woodfordian terminal moraines. Environmental conditions outside of the major river valleys are typified by scattered, patchy resources that led Douglas (1976: 82) to postulate that native use of the broad till plains was highly mobile and seasonally-dependent. On the other hand, native occupations of the area’s major river valleys tended to be of longer duration and of higher density than in the adjacent uplands. Still, in general, the density of UIRV sites is lower and more restricted than that found to the south in the Central and Lower Illinois River valley. This reflects local environmental conditions. The upper river’s steeper gradient generally lacks the broad floodplains and numerous backwater lakes of the river south of the Great Bend. We can visualize the native use and occupation of the Woodfordian Northeast, both in terms of the backwater lakes of the river valleys and the groves and marshland of the uplands, as tied to a dispersed series of resource hot spots. What we know of the archaeological evidence supports this model of resource usage.

The Woodland Archaeological Record Our knowledge of the post-AD 800 societies of the Woodfordian Northeast has increased in recent times but remains limited. This is especially true for the societies dating to the Late Woodland period, for which our information is often only represented by legacy collections from sites examined in the first half of the twentieth century (e.g., Moffat, 1985; Markman, 1991: 23–38). With the onset of the Terminal Late Woodland period, the cultural situation in the UIRV can be seen as part of broader changes that are occurring across the northern midcontinent. In the ninth century AD, McElrath et al. (2000: 18–21) identify a

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series of Woodland cultural transformations marked by the introduction of maize, the use of the bow and arrow, limited symbolic depictions on pipes and ceramics, the widespread sharing of ceramic forms, and, in some locations, the first villages and communal burial mounds. The effects of these changes, however, were uneven and diverse with a considerable amount of variation among contemporary Terminal Late Woodland societies. In the northeastern Illinois region, these people are represented by a nearly continuous belt of three distinctive (yet similar and related) ceramic assemblages: the Albee phase in western Indiana (Winters, 1967), the Des Plaines phase in the UIRV (Emerson & Titelbaum, 2000; Emerson et al., 2019), and the Maple Mills phase south of the Great Bend (Esarey, 2000). All these societies are thought to be present in the period between about AD 800 and 1200. The multicomponent Fisher Mounds and Village site (11Wi5) was, before it was tragically destroyed by gravel mining, located on the southern bluff-top of the Des Plaines River near where it joins the Illinois River, and reportedly included approximately a dozen mounds and cemeteries and about 50 unplowed house basins (Langford, 1927, 1930). In 1940, University of Chicago graduate student Gretchen Cutter led a WPA crew in salvaging one of these Late Woodland mounds, Wio5, (Emerson & Emerson, 2008) being destroyed by gravel quarrying. Earlier analysis of the Fisher site legacy collections provided unique and important information on the Late Woodland to Upper Mississippian transitional period and refined our understanding of the Des Plaines phase material assemblage, chronology, and subsistence practices (Emerson et al., 2019). Previously generated stable isotope datasets demonstrated a mixed C3/C4 diet, indicating some maize consumption (Table 5.1).3 A subset of 14 individuals directly dated between the ninth to very early eleventh centuries (i.e., securely Terminal Late Woodland), Emerson et al. (2019: 23) “noted that C4 consumption was moderate (collagen δ13C ranged from –14.2‰ to –17.5‰ [
15.8‰]; carbonate δ13C from –4.3‰ to –10.8‰ [
8.3‰]) as we might expect at this early period when maize may have just been introduced into regional societies”. Archaeobotanical evidence has shown that maize joined a series of pre-existing native cultivars including chenopodium, maygrass, erect knotweed, and little barley to bolster the diets of the Des Plaines phase groups (Simon, 2000). While information from this time-period is still limited we have gathered enough evidence to outline the basic lifestyles of UIRV Late Woodland populations (Emerson, 1999a: 13–19; Emerson et al., 2019; Emerson & Titelbaum, 2000). Des Plaines

3

Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen and bone or enamel apatite (or carbonate) for dietary reconstruction is a well-established technique for studies of maize consumption (a C4 plant). Human populations consuming a C3-based plant and animal diet have collagen δ13C values between
21 and
18‰, and apatite δ13C values in the
17‰ to
14‰ range. In contrast, those with a diet including C4 plants, in this case maize, will have collagen δ13C values between
13 and
8‰ and apatite δ13C values ranging between
9 and
1‰. Individuals with a mixed diet of C3 and C4 resources will have intermediate collagen and apatite δ13C values. This research was performed in the last half of the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s as part of an effort to establish the chronological context and cultural affiliation of these people in anticipation of their repatriation.


8.3
5.5
8.3
7.4 na na


5.3

δ C Collagen (‰)


15.1


12.1


15.7
14.6


9.7


12.0


11.7

Chronology

800–1125

1050–1325

1225–1500 1450–1625?

1200–1250

1300–1375

1200–1300

9.3

10.3

10.1

9.9 10.9

9.6

9.0

δ15N Collagen (‰)

59%

57%

71%

35% 41%

56%

38%

%C4 Collagena

72%

na

na

53% 59%

70%

53%

%C4 Carbonatea

55

41

45

17 6

46

36

Indviduals

Hedman et al. (2002)

Tubbs (2013)

Tubbs (2013)

Emerson et al. (2005), Strezewski et al. (2012) Hargrave et al. (2017) Hargrave et al. (2017)

Emerson et al. (2019)

References

Formula based on Ambrose et al. (2003) Refs: (a) Emerson et al. (2019), (b) Emerson et al. (2005), (c) Strezewski et al. (2012), (d) Hargrave et al. (2017), (e) Tubbs (2013), (f) Hedman et al. (2002) a Percent C4 was calucated as follows: %C4 ¼ (
26.5-δb-Δ)/16.5 x 100, where
26.5 is the mean pure C3 end-member, δb is the d13C value of bone collagen or apatite, Δ is the diet-apatite or diet-collagen spacing (9.4‰ and 5.1‰ respectively), and 16.5 is the difference in δ13C between the C3 and C4 end-members

Cultural Affiliation UIRV Des Plaines TLW Langford UM Fisher UM Huber UM CIRV Orendorf Phase Bold Counselor Am Btm Moorehead phase

13

δ13C Carbonate (‰)

Table 5.1 Isotopic evidence for maize consumption in the American Bottom and Illinois River Valley

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peoples’ habitations appear to have consisted of family-sized groups thinly dispersed across the landscape. No village-sized settlements have been identified in the UIRV, although large villages have been recorded among the contemporaneous Maple Mills (Esarey, 2000) and Albee phases (Redmond & McCullough, 2000). Despite this dispersed and apparently fluid settlement system, research on Wio5 demonstrated that Des Plaines people employed a centralized communal mortuary facility where perhaps as many as 200 of their comrades and kin were interred over a one to two century period. The mortuary practices did not illustrate any discernible status or rank markers among the interred individuals (Emerson et al., 2019). The bodies of children, women, and men were buried in flexed or semi-flexed positions, generally without any objects that were preserved. Only about 20% of the adult females and males were accompanied by caches of utilitarian artifacts; very few exotic or obvious status objects (e.g., copper or shell) were present. Furthermore, the burial practices, as far as can be determined from the WPA investigations, did not include defleshed, disarticulated, or bundled remains, indicating that the bodies were interred shortly after death. This suggests that the pattern of mobility did not include any great distance or long seasonal absences from the Fisher site mortuary mounds – this is borne out by the Sr isotopic signatures suggesting the population was local. Such groups have been characterized as transegalitarian (Hayden, 1995) with their shifting patterns of residential as well as social organization. These groups are generally economically self- sufficient relying on social bonds to tie them to their neighbors. These bonds were likely reinforced by participation in larger multiband gatherings over the course of the year for rituals, social activities, gift exchanges, and the search for marriage partners (Emerson, 1999a: 19). We believe that the communal burial practices and mortuary rituals observed at the Fisher site likely served as one of the major integrative factors in the lives of the Des Plaines phase people.

Upper Mississippian Societies After ca. AD 1000–1100 several new cultural manifestations appear in the UIRV that are characterized by sedentary villages and maize agriculture (Brown & Sasso, 2001; Emerson & Brown, 1992). The questions of the importance of maize in these groups’ subsistence base, their reaction to climate variation, and resulting cultural transformations are explored in this chapter. Archaeological phases in Illinois recognized as part of the Upper Mississippian Tradition are known as Langford (ca. AD 1000–1400s), Fisher (ca. AD 1200–1500), and Huber (ca. AD 1400–1600s). The dates of these phases are subject to debate and those provided above should be understood as best approximations – one of the key issues to be explored here is the refinement of these chronological parameters. Langford appears to be the earliest of these phases but, at some point, Langford and Fisher groups are apparently contemporaneous in the region. This contemporaneity has led one scholar to posit that the Langford and Fisher assemblages represent

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different moieties of a single cultural group (Berres, 2001, but see Jeske, 2003). The Huber phase is more firmly established as later in time, post-dating both Langford and Fisher and continuing into the contact period (Esarey & Emerson, 2021). Virtually all scholars working in the region agree that during the twelfth-century AD those populations earlier recognized as Terminal Late Woodland transitioned into full-time agriculturalists living in moderately large villages within the UIRV. Their earliest material signature is recognized as the Langford phase. Langford sites (the following descriptions draw on Emerson, 1999a, 1999b; Emerson & Brown, 1992; Jeske, 1989, 1990, 2000, 2003) are primarily concentrated in ecological zones with access to upland prairies and forested bottomlands of river valleys such as the Fox, DuPage, and Des Plaines and near marshlands, as well as in the Middle Rock River and the UIRV itself. As is the case for all three of the Upper Mississippian phases discussed, Langford was first defined as a ceramic culture of grit-tempered, globular, round-shouldered jars often decorated with nested chevrons or arches on their shoulders. Other diagnostics include triangular points, humpbacked bifaces, and a general flake technology. Langford household structures are rare but are presumed to be of rectangular, single-post construction. Subsistence practices include maize agriculture, large and small game hunting, and extensive use of riverine resources. We can hypothesize from survey data and limited testing that Langford settlement systems included large villages (2–5 ha), often with a communal mortuary mound, surrounded by numerous extractive sites. Jeske (1990, 2003) posits the spring- summer-fall use of the villages with a winter dispersal to small family camps. While three village sites, Reeves (Craig & Galloy, 1996), Washington Irving (Jeske, 2000), and Keeshin Farm (Berres, 2001; Emerson, 1999b), have been investigated, much of what we know comes from legacy collections and analyses of mortuary sites like Material Service Quarry (Emerson et al., 2010), Gentlemen Farms (Brown et al., 1967), Oakwood (Strezewski et al., 2012), Fisher Mounds and Village (Langford, 1927), and Robinson Reserve (Lurie, 1992). The predominant mortuary practices involve multiyear communal mound burials, but examples of small mounds with a limited number of burials and isolated non-mound interments have been identified. Analyses of mortuary practices have yielded little evidence for status, sex, or age differences in the burial populations. Previous isotopic analyses of three Langford mortuary populations revealed that these populations consumed maize at levels that were roughly comparable with those of Cahokia Mississippian populations in the American Bottom and the Central Illinois River valley (Table 5.1). Reported isotope data from the Gentlemen Farm and Material Service Quarry sites yielded mean δ13C values for bone collagen (
12.0  1.1‰) and apatite (
5.2  1.0‰) that suggest a strong maize component in the diet (Emerson et al., 2005: 96). Similary, data for the Langford component of the Oakwood Mounds show a mean δ13C collagen value of
12.6  1.2‰ and mean δ13C apatite value of
6.5  0.7‰ (Strezewski et al., 2012: 30).

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Shortly after the appearance of Langford villages in the UIRV, a new Upper Mississippian group identified as the Fisher phase is recognized (Brown & Sasso, 2001; Emerson & Brown, 1992: 86–87; Faulkner, 1972; Jeske, 2003) concentrated in the lower Lake Michigan region of Illinois and Indiana, especially on the Lake Plain. Major Fisher components have been excavated from the Fisher Mound and Village site (Langford, 1927) on the Des Plaines River and at the Hoxie Farm site within the Chicago Lake Plain (Jackson, 2017; Jackson & Emerson, 2017). The Fisher phase bears a similar, yet distinctive, material assemblage characterized by shell tempered, cordmarked, globular jars with everted rims. These jars are often highly decorated with curvilinear, and, later, rectilinear, shoulder designs with appendages and decorative styles that suggest ties to Fort Ancient wares to the east (Emerson & Emerson, 2014b; 2017). The subsistence patterns evidenced by the recovered botanical and faunal remains, as well as the lithic assemblages, resemble those of their Langford neighbors (Jackson & Emerson, 2017). Extensive material and mortuary evidence were recovered by George Langford’s (1927, 1930) salvage excavations of the mixed Langford-Fisher components at the Fisher Mounds and Village site. Regrettably, the complexity of deposits and the recovery techniques employed do not allow the separation of the bulk of materials into their respective components but the sheer quantity of Fisher diagnostic ceramics does allow us to determine that a major Fisher phase occupation was present. Excavations at the Hoxie Farm site greatly enhanced our understanding of this group. Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) investigations led by Douglas Jackson (Jackson, 2017: Jackson & Emerson, 2014) at Hoxie Farm in the early 2000s revealed a unique fortified Fisher phase village as well as habitation and mortuary zones surrounding the palisaded area. This extensive fortification reinforces our perceptions of this time-period as one marked by an increased intensity of intergroup hostility (e.g., Emerson, 1999a, 2007b; Milner et al., 1991; Steadman, 2008; Strezewski, 2006; VanDerwarker & Wilson, 2016). The palisaded and ditched village area covered 4.4 ha and likely included (many) more than 100 structures with an estimated population of as many as 1000 residents dating to a decade of occupation during the first 75 years of the fourteenth century AD. The surrounding occupation zone outside the palisades included nearly 1100 pits, midden deposits, some formal burials, and widely-scattered human remains. Unfortunately, like many other Upper Mississippian sites, the occupation zone is multicomponent and contains Fisher and later Huber phase habitations, making the identification and separation of the two components difficult. The bioarchaeological analysts (Hargrave et al., 2017) hypothesized that the intact burials were most reasonably associated with the Fisher component. They report (Hargrave et al., 2017: 379–380) that collagen δ13C values for seventeen individuals ranged between
17.7 and
13.6‰, with an average of
15.7  1.3‰. The bone apatite δ13C values vary from
9.8 to
6.1‰, with an average of
8.3  1.1‰. These findings suggest a mixed C3 and C4 diet and, in fact closely resemble the averages for the early Terminal Late Woodland Des Plaines phase population. The researchers note that some individuals from possibly later in the sequence consumed less maize, which, as we shall see, may be a regional trend (e.g., Bird et al., 2017; Cook & Price, 2015).

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The Huber phase was recognized as primarily a ceramic assemblage of large, smooth- surfaced, globular jars with everted rims and rectilinear shoulder designs, often with continuous panels of vertical to diagonal lines and occasional punctates (Brown & Sasso, 2001; Emerson & Brown, 1992: 87–89; Faulkner, 1972). Conventionally, Huber phase populations have been interpreted as descendants from earlier Fisher societies (Faulkner, 1972) but as more information has become available on both the Fisher and Huber phases, this explanation seems unlikely. Emerson and Emerson (Emerson & Emerson, 2014a, 2017; Emerson & Emerson 2014b), in a detailed review of ceramics from the two phases dispute this evolutionary relationship and suggest that Huber represents a late (AD 1400s) intrusion of Oneota populations from the west or from southeastern Wisconsin into the Chicago region where they focus on occupying and exploiting the Chicago Lake Plain (also see Emerson et al., 2021; Esarey, 2021; Esarey & Emerson, 2021). It is interesting to note that Oneota populations seemingly disappear from southeastern Wisconsin roughly contemporaneously with the Huber appearance in the Chicago area (see discussion Emerson et al., 2021). It is during this phase that we see evidence for the introduction of a new form of village housing – the multifamily, communal longhouses that were still in use among many native groups at contact. Subsistence practices and material culture follow the wide-spread Upper Mississippian pattern with the possibility that bison exploitation takes on increased importance. It has been suggested that the Huber settlement-subsistence system followed that recorded for the historic native people – large agricultural villages that are seasonally abandoned to participate in communal bison hunts (Michalik, 1982; but for a differing perspective see Kuehn, 2021). Sizeable Huber phase components are known from the Oak Forest (Brown, 1990), Hoxie Farm (Jackson, 2017), Huber (Bennett & Engberg, 1990), and Palos (Esarey & Emerson, 2021) sites. Most archaeologists see the phase continuing into the first few decades of the 1600s although there is some disagreement as to how late it continues (Emerson & Emerson, 2021; Esarey, 2021). Mortuary patterns are poorly understood and our understanding is based primarily on information from early legacy excavations. The collagen δ13C values for six individuals ranged between
16.4 and
13.7‰, with an average of
14.6‰. The bone apatite δ13C values vary from
8.0 to
6.7‰, with an average of
7.4‰. These values are very similar to those of the Des Plaines and Fisher phase populations confirming that in late pre-contact and protohistoric times the dependence on maize in northern Illinois appears to be decreasing from higher levels during the earlier Langford phase (Table 5.1).

Managing Time In any study attempting to understand the correlation of various factors affecting cultural change it is essential to correlate the timescales. In the UIRV chronological control has been a challenge – not that archaeologists do not have general parameters established but the devil is in the fine details that are critical in the late precontact and protohistoric period.

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However, some advances have been made as a result of a series of bioarchaeological projects documenting existing legacy collections. The extensive dating (per Bronk Ramsey, 2017) of bone collagen derived from individual burials from the Des Plaines, Langford, Fisher, and Huber phases have established a solid basis for refining the conventional timetable for these cultural phenomena (Fig. 5.4). A Bayesian analysis of the various known Terminal Late Woodland Des Plaines campsite dates (nine) and those from 14 key burials within Wio5 suggest the Late Woodland people are active in the area between the beginning of the ninth into the late twelfth centuries (Emerson et al., 2019: 9–10). The Des Plaines phase habitation dates begin circa AD 813 to 1022 and terminate at circa AD 975 to 1195 while the related mortuary activities begin circa AD 870 to 964 and terminate at AD 985 to 1030. If we treat the 28 dates from Des Plaines habitations and the mortuary as a composite (despite the wide spatial disparity) the Bayesian model shows initial beginnings between AD 817 to 886 (95.4%) and a termination between AD 1037 and 1114 (95.4%). This model provided indices of Amodel ¼ 103.8 and Aoverall of 103.3. We feel comfortable placing the Des Plaines phase in the roughly three centuries between AD 800 and 1125 but with the caveat that the sequence is likely shorter than that. There is an archaeological consensus that there is a direct connection between people who practiced a Des Plaines way of life and those who emerged as Langford villagers in the UIRV. This connection makes the chronological setting for the Langford phase of particular interest. It is a problem that at least two authors have addressed (Emerson, 1999a; Jeske, 2000, 2003) by evaluating the existing radiocarbon dates. After examining nearly 50 C14 dates that ranged from the late AD 900 s to nearly AD 1600 said to be associated with the Langford phase, Emerson (1999a: 23, Fig. 2) observed that fully 79% of the dates fell between AD 1100 and 1300 (also Bird, 1997). Robert Jeske (2003: 167) independently examined these dates, noting a similar clustering, and concluded that 75% of them clustered between AD 1200 and 1350. A visual examination of Jeske’s Fig. 2 (2003) of Langford dates appears to suggest a reasonable phase duration ranging from roughly AD 1050–1100 to 1350–1400. The early and late Langford dates are often associated with sites possessing temporal uncertainty. To deal with this issue, we analyzed a series of 21 radiocarbon dates associated with single component Langford contexts from three large mortuaries and one single- component village site. The burial sites are Material Service Quarry (Emerson et al., 2010), Gentlemen Farm (Brown et al., 1967), Oakwood Mound (Strezewski et al., 2012), and the Reeves village site (Craig & Galloy, 1996). The subset confirms the broad picture emerging from chronological studies of Langford. It shows the beginning of the Langford phase as ranging from about AD 1052–1177 (95.4%) and ending about AD 1256 to 1327 (95.4%) thus confirming a suggested Langford peak duration as AD 1050 to 1325. This model yielded indices of Amodel ¼ 90.0 and Aoverall of 85.8. The chronological extent of the Fisher phase is problematic, both because of the scarcity of Fisher dates and their often-ambiguous context (e.g., Jackson & Emerson, 2014). This situation made the discovery and excavation of the short-term Fisher

5 Late Pre-contact Ethnogenesis, Resilience, and Movement in the Face. . . Fig. 5.4 Upper Illinois River valley cultural chronology and climatic conditions based on the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)

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component fortified village at the Hoxie Farm site extremely important in refining both Fisher phase cultural context and chronological position (Jackson & Emerson, 2014). The excavators’ interpretation posits that this village of up to 1000 residents may have been occupied for only a short period, perhaps less than a decade. However, ten radiocarbon dates modelled from the village yielded a beginning date between AD 1230 and 1390 (95.4%) and ended AD 1307 and 1493. The model’s indices were Amodel ¼ 88.5 and Aoverall ¼ 85.5. This sequence is considerably longer than the postulated village occupation but in general does fit with the excavators’ opinion that the fortified village belongs to the later part of the Fisher phase (Emerson & Emerson, 2014b; Jackson & Emerson, 2014). It is not unreasonable to place the Fisher occupation in the UIRV as running from about AD 1225 to AD 1500 – lasting perhaps up to a century later than most archaeologists previously thought. Huber phase chronology and context have been reviewed in depth by researchers analyzing the Palos site evidence (i.e., Esarey & Emerson, 2021). As part of that analysis, Emerson and Emerson (2021) assembled the existing radiocarbon dates from key Huber components. A Bayesian model placed the initiation of the Huber phase at AD 1446 to 1626 (95.4%) and its cessation at AD 1505 to 1666 (95.4%). The Amodel index was 118.1, with an Aoverall of 119.1. Analysis of the European items present at certain sites suggest to Mazrim and Esarey (2007, 2021; Esarey, 2021) that the Huber occupation of the Chicago region is terminated abruptly within the first few decades of the 1600s, and an examination of the individual modeled radiocarbon dates seems to support such a scenario. Here we suggest a Huber occupation of the Chicago region between CE 1450 and CE 1630.

Cultural and Chronological Relations Radiocarbon determinations and Bayesian modeling as well as archaeological evidence indicate that the UIRV was a place of long-term stability during the Des Plaines to Langford continuum (from AD 800 to 1325). However, the appearance of intrusive groups such as the Fisher phase populations at about AD 1225 did occur. The ceramic evidence (Emerson, 2017; Emerson & Emerson, 2014b) suggests that the Fisher people had social ties to groups influenced by Fort Ancient societies and, perhaps, Caborn-Welborn groups along the lower Wabash. Archaeological evidence from sites such as Fisher Mound and Village (Langford, 1927, 1930, and past analysis by K. Emerson and T. Emerson) indicate a complex series of Langford and Fisher phase occupations that may indicate intersecting use of the locale by these two groups – an intersection that may have been at least occasionally violent (Strezewski, 2006). It is clear from the heavily fortified Fisher phase Hoxie Farm village in the AD 1300s that individuals on the Chicago Lake Plain were involved in or fearful enough of conflict to cluster in a densely-packed, ditched and palisaded village. Given the ephemeral nature of the structures in the fortified village it is obvious that it was not designed as a long-term solution but rather a reaction to a perceived immediate, probably short-term, threat. Whether this threat was from their Langford or Fisher neighbors or from unknown groups outside the Lake Plain is unknown.

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What we do know is that by the mid- to late AD 1400s Fisher populations had abandoned their known villages in northern Illinois and disappeared from archaeological visibility in the UIRV. This fifteenth century AD Fisher phase dispersal temporally coincides, to some extent, with the earliest documented appearance of Huber component sites in the Chicago Lake Plain. While traditionally many archaeologists have linked Fisher and Huber phases, with Huber being interpreted as the descendent community of the earlier Fisher phase population, the evidence for a cultural transition within the local Fisher population is lacking. Emerson and Emerson (2017; also Emerson & Emerson, 2014a) have noted the significant dissimilarity of late Fisher phase wares and the earliest Huber ceramics. They, like others, have observed that Huber ceramic styles have clear ties to westerly Oneota societies in Wisconsin and the Mississippi River valley, while lacking those eastern stylistic attributes so evident throughout the preceding Fisher phase. Fisher-Huber lifestyles are also distinctive. The large Fisher village with its small nuclear family dwellings differ from the generally dispersed, moderately-sized Huber settlements with their distinctive multi-family longhouses. This bespeaks significant differences in family and kin relationships and possibly in political structure. The possible exploitation of bison, and all that might entail, by Huber people may indicate a new subsistence pattern and seasonal round – one that might be like that employed by the subsequent Algonkian groups who entered Illinois in the sixteenth century. It might be that the entry into the UIRV of groups from the east, such as the Illinois, encouraged (pushed) Lake Plain Huber groups’ westward movement, combined with the potential pull of increased bison exploitation, lead to the Huber peoples’ abandonment of the Chicago region in the seventeenth century (Emerson et al., 2021).

Modeling Past Upper Illinois River Valley Climates Historical climatology has made dramatic strides with the implementation of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) linked to tree ring drought studies (Cook et al., 2004, 2010) and the recent analysis and climatic interpretations of regional lake cores (Bird et al., 2017). The use of the PDSI to document past temperature and precipitation is especially pertinent in evaluating the effect of climate shifts on maize agriculturalists since it is designed to provide a measure of available soil moisture. The PDSI can provide year-by-year reconstructions of climate and temperature – a resolution that cannot be matched by the current midcontinental cultural record. Cook et al. (2010: 56) and Broxton Bird and colleagues (Bird et al., 2017), using PDSI and lake core data, have established climatic patterns during the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the Mississippi valley. On a midcontinental scale, the available PDSI and lake core data demonstrate the syncretism of paleoclimate shifts within the broad chronological parameters of the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age. However, it is possible to examine the evidence for precipitation in the UIRV at a more restricted scale through the information gathered as part of the PDSI (Cook et al., 2010). Designed specifically

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with agricultural productivity in mind, the PDSI negative indices indicate dry conditions while positive indices mark wet conditions. To the south of the UIRV, Benson and colleagues (Benson et al., 2009; also see Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume) have examined the correlations of the PDSI indices with cultural events occurring at Cahokia. The PDSI data indicated that the Lohmann phase founding of Cahokia occurred in a 50-year span that was one of the wettest in the midcontinent in a 1000-year period. However, during the subsequent Stirling phase and the first half of the Moorehead phase (AD 1100–1250) droughts increased in intensity and persisted for 145 years. This pattern was widespread throughout west central Illinois. Examining PDSI data for the UIRV is somewhat more challenging than for the Cahokia project given the valley’s more than 200 km length, running from the Lake Michigan shore west-southwest to the Great Bend of the Illinois River. We find, given its linear form, the UIRV sometimes falls into multiple precipitation zones. In such instances, we made a judgement call on which zone covered the largest proportion of the UIRV and used the PDSI value for that zone as representative of the whole. Additionally, the PDSI indices are calculated for decadal intervals as opposed to the yearly intervals used for Cahokia.4 While the size of the area considered and the decadal intervals are less fine grain than other comparable studies, they do provide a reliable sense of the wet-dry conditions that may have broadly prevailed in the UIRV between AD 1000 and 1600. The major challenge is that the cultural chronology cannot match the year-by-year or even the decadal resolution of the PDSI. The 60 PDSI decadal units identified for the UIRV range from a drought condition at
2 to wet conditions at +1 (Fig. 5.4). If one considers the 600 years of data available, it reveals that 280 years have drought conditions (40 years ¼
2; 80 years ¼
1.5; 160 year ¼
1) while 320 years have normal (270 years ¼ 0) to wet (50 years ¼ 1) conditions. The key, of course, for agriculturalists is the intervals of occurrence and the persistence of negative conditions. To examine this variable, we can look at the alignment of the timelines of the various native societies in the UIRV (See Fig. 5.4). We observe that the sporadic data we have for the early Des Plaines phase, i.e., AD 800 to 930, indicates eras of severe drought. The record also reveals that four decades (30%) of the 13 decades post-AD 1000 for which we have PDSI for the Des Plaines phase have drought conditions, although such decades are seldom sequential. Such weather patterns may have encouraged their continuance of a mobile lifestyle despite the introduction of maize to the region. Fourteen decades (46%) of Langford agriculturalists suffered under drought conditions, with almost continuously-occurring droughts from AD 1140 to 1250. Yet Langford farmers continued in the area for another century. Fisher groups appear in the UIRV during the last two decades of the century of droughts affecting Langford groups, and go on to experience two subsequent droughts in AD 1360–1400 and AD 1440–1470. The first of these droughts, beginning in the

4

The PDSI indices were generously calculated by Dr. Larry Benson for the period between CE 1000–1600, a time that saw dramatic cultural fluctuations in the UIRV.

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mid-fourteenth century AD, coincided with their construction of a ditched and palisaded village on the Chicago Lake Plain. Based on our current knowledge, Fisher groups abandoned the area in the late 1400s AD after another prolonged period of drought. This abandonment roughly coincides with the intrusion of Huber phase people, presumably moving southeast from Wisconsin. The Huber occupation coincides with a four-decade period of normal precipitation patterns, except for a severe threedecade drought from AD 1550 to 1580. Currently, we believe that the Huber occupation ends in the early decades of the AD 1600s with the intrusion of Algonkian groups from the east.

Discussion: Stability, Resilience, and Change Terminal Late Woodland people associated with the Des Plaines phase occupy the confluence area of the Des Plaines, Kankakee, and Illinois rivers by AD 800 (Emerson & Titelbaum, 2000; Emerson et al., 2019). We know that they followed a mobile lifestyle but practiced maize and native seed agriculture. No large villages have been recorded, but numbers of small family-sized camps are known from northern Illinois. This period sees the first known practice of constructing large communal mounded cemeteries that may have served to socially integrate the dispersed population. These people share cultural similarities with groups in Indiana (Albee phase) and the Central Illinois River Valley (Maple Mills phase). By the beginning of the twelfth century AD archaeological evidence for the Des Plaines phase was absent. The emergence of the Langford phase lifestyles in the UIRV seems to occur between AD 1050 and 1100, essentially during the fading of evidence for the Des Plaines phase. We know a great deal more about the Langford phase based on extensive legacy mortuary excavations and surveys (Emerson, 1999a; Emerson et al., 2005; 2010; Jeske, 1989, 1990, 2003; Strezewski et al., 2012). These people are the first villagers in the UIRV region, practicing full- scale maize agriculture at the same consumption level as Cahokians to the south. The largest villages often contain at least one large communal burial mound and are scattered along the Illinois River floodplain and bluffs and its northern tributaries as well as on the Middle Rock River to the west (Fig. 5.5). Virtually all researchers who have examined Des Plaines – Langford relationships in terms of material culture, spatial locations, subsistence, and mortuary practices posit that we are observing an instance of in situ ethnogenesis. What is fascinating about this cultural transition is that we may have identified the causal factor – regional violence. Emerson (1999a) has suggested that the movement of Mississippian groups out of Cahokia, in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries AD into the adjacent CIRV, initiated a chain of regional violence that is recognizable by a horizon of violent deaths and burned villages (Emerson, 1999a, 2007b; also, Wilson, 2015). He postulated that potentially violent interactions between Des Plaines and Central Illinois River valley populations had implications for Des Plaines societies that:

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Fig. 5.5 Locations of major Langford, Fisher, and Huber villages in northeast Illinois, northwest Indiana, and southwest Michigan

included intensification of maize cultivation, creation of denser population aggregations and decreased residential mobility, increased social and status differentiation and intensified local leadership, introduction and/or elaboration of mortuary ceremonialism and mound construction, increased boundedness of social groups and recognition of territorial frontiers, and emulation and acceptance of certain Middle Mississippian-derived ceramic forms and adoption of some Mississippian ideological concepts. In other words, it led to the creation of Langford tribal entities. (Emerson, 1999a: 35).

The factors involved in the fourteenth century termination of the Langford phase are not obvious. We can observe, however, that Langford and the newly arrived thirteenth century AD Fisher villagers shared portions of the UIRV region for over a century before evidence for Langford occupations disappeared. The clustering of Langford sites in the river valleys and bluffs and the concentration of Fisher sites in the Lake Plain may explain this long period of cohabitation. The confluence area of the Des Plaines and Kankakee Rivers reveals an interesting instance of either cohabitation or contestation at the Fisher Mound and Village site that contains dense intermingling of occupations and mortuary use by both groups. Unfortunately, the early twentieth century excavations do not provide sufficient contextual information to understand their relationship (Langford, 1927, 1930). At the present time, we cannot reliably trace the cultural history of Langford groups beyond the fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries. The thirteenth century appearance of Fisher groups is best known from the Fisher Mound and Village site (K. Emerson, 2007a, 2017; Griffin, 1946; Langford, 1927, 1930) near the juncture of the Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers (Fig. 5.5). The later Fisher phase is represented at the fortified village and nearby habitation-work area at Hoxie Farm (Jackson & Emerson, 2014; Jackson, 2017) in the Lake Plain. Their subsistence practices and material culture resembled that of their Langford neighbors. Although they were agriculturalists, the dietary isotope information from a

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small Fisher phase cemetery indicates that they are less dependent on maize than Langford groups. If the Hoxie Farm fortified village is symptomatic of the political and social conditions in the area (and, based on regional information, that is likely, e.g., Emerson, 2007b) it is possible that these unsettled conditions may have led to decreased maize production and some degree of increased mobility. Fisher phase villages disappear during the late fifteenth century AD, perhaps after a half century of interaction with Huber populations moving in from the westnorthwest. The Huber phase cultural pattern is one shared with the Oneota groups in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. While they follow the pre-contact subsistence patterns and material culture of other late pre-contact native peoples, they are distinctive in their frequent exploitation of bison (or at least their trade for bison scapula hoes). They were farmers whose maize consumption patterns resemble those of the Fisher people. Based on the sites investigated, settlements consist of a few to a half dozen houses, no fortifications are known (Fig. 5.5). Their housing included large communal longhouses that are a striking change from the nuclear family homes of Fisher and Langford groups. Like those before them, Huber farmers endured at least three decades of drought conditions after AD 1550. Huber is of special interest because we can potentially follow them into the period of oral tradition and written European history. Several Huber sites contain the first European materials to appear in the UIRV thus bridging the near mystical pre-contact to proto-historic boundary. Currently, we believe that the Huber people retreat to the west in the first few decades of the seventeenth century – their departure, perhaps recorded in oral history, may coincide with the westward movement of Algonkian groups into Illinois (e.g., Esarey, 2021; Emerson et al., 2021; Hall, 2003; Bacqueville de la Potherie, 1753: 291–301). If so, this would connect the historic Ho-Chunk with the Huber archaeological assemblages. Given this reconstructed scenario of native occupation and utilization of the UIRV, it is useful considering the role that maize agriculture has played in archaeological interpretations of the region’s history, to examine what we know about the importance of maize in local diets. Fortunately, there has been considerable interest in dietary isotope studies of Mississippian era populations in the Midwest, much of it carried out as part of a long-term research project by the authors to identify the initial introduction and varied importance of maize in the region (e.g., Emerson et al., 2005; 2019; 2020; Hedman, 2006; Hedman et al., 2002; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume; Simon, 2000; Tubbs, 2013). These data sets provide the opportunity for us to compare post AD 800 through AD 1600 maize consumption for groups ranging from the American Bottom Cahokians to Chicago area Upper Mississippians (Table 5.1). If we examine maize consumption in the thirteenth century AD among Moorehead phase Cahokians, very near the time of the abandonment of the Cahokian polity (Emerson & Hedman, 2016; Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume), they display a mean δ13C value of
11.7‰, indicating that about 59% of their dietary protein is derived from C4 resources, i.e., maize. Their contemporaries in the CIRV, the Orendorf phase farmers, are much more dependent on maize (
9.7‰ or 71% of their protein from C4 sources), while the neighboring Langford villagers in

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the UIRV are in line with the late Mississippian Cahokians displaying a mean δ13C value of
12.1‰ (56% C4 dietary protein). By the mid-fourteenth century AD Cahokia was abandoned. In the CIRV the hybrid Spoon River Mississippian and intrusive Oneota population of the Bold Counselor phase have a diet less dependent on maize (δ13C
12‰; 57% C4 dietary protein) than the Orendorf people but still in line with Cahokian and Langford patterns. This pattern, essentially a decreasing dependence on maize from the AD 1300s to the 1600s continues through the Fisher (δ13C
15.7‰, 38% C4 dietary protein) and the later Huber phases (δ13C – 14.6‰, 41% C4 dietary protein).

Conclusions The challenge in seeking climate-cultural change correlations is our general lack of detailed control over the cultural histories of the various UIRV groups. Despite improvements in understanding the chronological parameters of cultural transitions, internally we have little information on changes or continuities within the centurieslong history of each of these societies. For example, our picture of Langford societies is dominated by a few legacy excavations at mortuary sites with almost no habitation sites excavated – consequently, our interpretations of their lifestyle for their 300-year occupation of the UIRV remains limited and largely confined to mortuary practices and dietary studies. Our information on the previous Des Plaines phase Late Woodland lifestyles is similarly constrained to one communal mortuary mound and a few small family campsites. Except for the modern excavation of the Fisher component at Hoxie Farm our Fisher and Huber data generally comes from early twentieth century salvage efforts, providing limited and sometimes contextually questionable data. Attempting to understand climate-culture interrelationships is challenging. For example, it is remarkable that the Des Plaines-Langford phase transition occurs during a period that sees a cyclic oscillation between normal and drought conditions followed by a nearly century long period of drought. These hardly seem like events that would encourage the adoption of more intensive agriculture, perhaps, indicating that reactions to regional hostility pushes the change. Fisher groups appear at the onset of a 20-year droughty period, while, similarly, Huber groups move into the Chicago region at the beginning of a drought period. What may be key to this behavior, is that both Fisher and Huber phase groups create villages in the Chicago Lake Plain – an area that because of its marshlands, creeks, and rivers may have been less affected by regional droughts. This pattern is very different from that of the Langford villagers who are concentrated in the UIRV restricted floodplains and marginal bluff edges along the main channel of the Upper Illinois River and its major tributaries and whose utilization of the Chicago Lake Plain is problematic at best, based on our current knowledge. This affinity of Langford villagers to dry field agriculture versus a proclivity for bottomland/wetland agriculture by Fisher-Huber groups (i.e., first observed by Jeske, 1989) means that in drought situations Langford

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farmers would be more severely affected. These microenvironmental variations might be critical in explaining patterns of regional abandonment or persistence for the cultural groups in the UIRV. Based on our current knowledge, there are few direct correlations reflected in regional precipitation patterns and observable cultural shifts. We can, however, make the following observations: • The Des Plaines to Langford transition demonstrates a remarkable, nearly 600 year-long example of continuity, resilience, and in situ ethnogenesis in the face of fluctuating climatic conditions. • The adoption and increased dependence on maize consumption by early Langford populations appears to correlate with a period of normal precipitation in the mideleventh to early twelfth centuries and maize intensification in the CIRV and Cahokia. It may have been driven by social-cultural factors associated with the impact of increased violence. • We suspect the lower levels of maize dependence seen in subsequent Fisher and Huber groups mainly reflect patterns of warfare and settlement mobility rather than being driven by climatic conditions. • Despite lengthy periods of drought conditions, Langford, Fisher, and Huber groups in the UIRV appear to persist, suggesting local conditions or cultural adaptations buffered them against the worst effects of drought/climate fluctuations. • Earlier Langford groups occupy the Illinois River and secondary valleys and adjacent uplands while Late Fisher and Huber phase groups cluster in or adjacent to the wet, marshy environments of the Lake Plain or comparable bottomlands of the major rivers – suggesting that later drought conditions affect the river valley more drastically than the Lake Plain. • The later pre-contact period in the UIRV is marked by the post-thirteenth— fourteenth centuries movement of groups from both the west and east into the Chicago Lake Plain – movement that is part of a region-wide pattern of migration and displacement occurring across the midcontinent (for well-documented examples see Hedman et al., Wilson & Bird, and Zych & Richards, Chaps. 2, 4, 6, all this volume). • The UIRV history demonstrates the need for scholars investigating the effect of climate change on regional cultures to examine the potential of multiple variables and to employ a broad multistate, midcontinental scale in their research. This review of the UIRV demonstrates the critical importance for archaeologists investigating the interrelationship of climate and culture to understand in detail local subsistence and environmental context as well as cultural practices. Equally important is establishing a fine-grain chronology for these variables – broad sweeping vistas of time are of little value in either determining correlation or more importantly, causation. Conversely, when considering cultural responses, it is critical to consider both the micro and macro-scale. While groups’ daily subsistence survival depends on local conditions their cultural world is much larger and may involve multistate interactions. This is especially true in eras such as those discussed here when

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population movements are documented as taking place at the regional scale. We conclude, that there is no obvious one-to-one correlation between agricultural dependence expressed in consumption levels and broad climatic fluctuations in the UIRV (discussed above). To postulate such a direct causal connection would ignore the importance of the local environment (e.g., the availability of a rich floodplain ecosystem), cultural preference and resilience, or the regional social environment of conflict or peace as strong buffers encouraging subsistence collapse or for maintaining social and subsistence sustainability. Acknowledgements We are grateful for the past financial and logistical support provided by the Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) and the Illinois Department of Transportation throughout the years to pursue this research on maize consumption, dietary isotopes, and lifestyles of the Upper Mississippian and American Bottom populations in late precontact times. The Illinois State Museum; the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University; and the Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provided access to critical legacy collections and research facilities and were essential in allowing this research to go forward. We are also grateful for the collaborative and supportive efforts of our many colleagues, both within ISAS and throughout the many midcontinental institutional organizations, who assisted and contributed logistically and intellectually to the success of our efforts. Figures were prepared by K. Emerson unless otherwise acknowledged.

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Esarey, D., & Emerson, K. E. (Eds.), (2021). Palos Village: An early seventeenth-century ancestral Ho-Chunk occupation in the Chicago area. Studies in Archaeology, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, University of Illinois, Champaign. Faulkner, C. (1972). The late prehistoric occupation of Northwestern Indiana: A study of the Upper Mississippi cultures of the Kankakee Valley. Prehistory research series 5:1. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis. Gibbon, G. E. (1972). Cultural dynamics and the development of the Oneota life-way in Wisconsin. American Antiquity, 37(2), 166–185. Griffin, J. W. (1946). The Upper Mississippi occupation at the Fisher Site, Will County, Illinois. Unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago. Griffin, J. B. (1960a). Climatic change: A contributory cause of the growth and decline of northern Hopewell culture. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 41, 21–33. Griffin, J. B. (1960b). A hypothesis for the prehistory of the Winnebago. In S. Diamond (Ed.), Culture in history: Essays in honor of Paul Radin (pp. 809–865). Columbia University Press. Griffin, J. B. (1961). Some correlations of climate and cultural change in Eastern North American prehistory. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 95, 710–717. Griffin, J. B. (1966 [1943]). The Fort Ancient Aspect: Its cultural and chronological position in Mississippi Valley archaeology. Anthropological papers no. 28. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hall, R. L. (1980). An interpretation of the two-climax model of Illinois prehistory. In D. L. Browman (Ed.), Early native America (pp. 401–462). Mouton. Hall, R. L. (2003). Rethinking Jean Nicolet’s route to the Ho-Chunks in 1634. In R. J. Jeske & D. K. Charles (Eds.), Theory, method, and practice in modern archaeology (pp. 238–265). Praeger. Hanson, P. C. (1981). The presettlement vegetation of the plain of Glacial Lake Chicago in Cook County, Illinois. Biological Notes, 15, 159–164. Ohio Biological Survey, Columbus, Ohio. Hargrave, E. A., Hedman, K. M., Jackson, D. K., & Fort, M. A. (2017). In The Hoxie Farm Site Main Occupation Area: Late Fisher and Huber phase components in South Chicago (D. K. Jackson, Ed.) (pp. 325–414). Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Research Report 40. Champaign, Illinois. Hart, J. P. (1990). Modeling Oneota agricultural production: A cross-cultural evaluation. Current Anthropology, 31, 569–577. Hayden, B. (1995). Pathways to power: Principles for creating socioeconomic inequalities. In T. Douglas Price & G. Feinman (Eds.), Foundations of social inequality (pp. 15–85). Plenum Press. Hedman, K. M. (2006). Late Cahokian subsistence and health: Stable isotopes and dental evidence. Southeastern Archaeology, 25(2), 258–274. Hedman, K., Hargrave, E. A., & Ambrose, S. H. (2002). Late Mississippian diet in the American Bottom: Stable isotope analyses of bone collagen and apatite. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 27, 237–271. Jackson, D. K. (Ed.). (2017). The Hoxie Farm Site Main Occupation Area: Late Fisher and Huber phase components in South Chicago. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Jackson, D. K., & Emerson, T. E. (Eds.). (2014). The Hoxie Farm Site Fortified Village: Late Fisher phase occupation and fortification in South Chicago. Research report 27. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Jackson, D. K., & Emerson, T. E. (2017). Summary and discussion. In The Hoxie Farm Site Main Occupation area: Late Fisher and Huber phase components in South Chicago (D. K. Jackson, Ed.) (pp. 521–536). Research report 40. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Jeske, R. J. (1989). Horticultural technology and social interaction at the edge of the prairie peninsula. Illinois Archaeology, 1(2), 103–120. Jeske, R. J. (1990). Langford Tradition subsistence, settlement, and technology. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 15, 221–249.

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Jeske, R. J.(2000) The Washington Irving Site: Langford tradition adaptation in Northern Illinois. In S. Ahler (Ed.), Mounds, Modoc and MesoAmerica: Papers in Honor of Melvin L. Fowler (pp. 265–293). Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers Series, Springfield, Illinois. Jeske, R. J. (2003). Langford and Fisher ceramic traditions: Moiety, ethnicity or power relations in the upper Midwest? The Wisconsin Archeologist, 84(1&2), 165–180. Kuehn, S. R. (2021). Palos Faunal analysis. In D. Esarey & K. E. Emerson (Eds.), Palos Village: An early seventeenth-century ancestral Ho-Chunk occupation in the Chicago area (pp. 137–162). Studies in archaeology, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, University of Illinois, Champaign. Langford, G. (1927). The Fisher Mound group, successive aboriginal occupations near the Mouth of the Illinois River. American Anthropologist, 29, 153–206. Langford, G. (1930). The Fisher Mound and Village site. Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Sciences, 22, 9–92. Loebel, T. (2021). Paleoenvironment, physiography, and Huber phase settlement patterning. In D. Esarey & K. E. Emerson (Eds.), Palos Village: An early seventeenth-century ancestral Ho-Chunk occupation in the Chicago area (pp. 1-10). Studies in archaeology, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, University of Illinois, Champaign. Lurie, R. (1992). Robinson Reserve: A Langford Tradition habitation and mound site on the Des Plaines River in Chicago, Illinois. Michigan Archaeologist, 38, 90–104. Markman, C. W. (1991). Chicago Before history: The prehistoric archaeology of a modern metropolitan area. Studies in archaeology no. 8. Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Springfield. Mazrim, R. F., & Esarey, D. (2007). Rethinking the dawn of history: The schedule, signature, and Agency of European Trade Goods in protohistoric Illinois. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 32(2), 145–200. Mazrim, R. F., & Esarey, D. (2021). The character and implementation of seventeenth-century metals and European Materials at Palos. In D. Esarey & K. E. Emerson (Eds.), Palos Village: An early seventeenth-century ancestral Ho-Chunk occupation in the Chicago area (pp. 105–124). Studies in archaeology, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, University of Illinois, Champaign. McElrath, D. L., Emerson, T. E., & Fortier, A. C. (2000). Social evolution or social response? A fresh look at the “good gray cultures” after four decades of Midwest research. In T. E. Emerson, D. L. McElrath, & A. C. Fortier (Eds.), Late Woodland societies: Tradition and transformation across the midcontinent (pp. 3–36). Lincoln. Michalik, L. K. (1982). An ecological perspective on the Huber phase subsistence-settlement system. In G. E. Gibbon (Ed.), Oneota studies (pp. 29–54). Publications in anthropology 1. University of Minnesota. Milner, G. R., Anderson, E., & Smith, V. G. (1991). Warfare in late prehistoric West Central Illinois. American Antiquity, 56, 581–603. Moffat, D. (1985). Previous research in the canal corridor. In M. J. McNerney & V. E. Noble (Eds.), An inventory and evaluation of known archaeological resources in the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor, Illinois, Volume 1 (pp. 89–117). American Resources Group, Cultural Resources Management Report 111. Redmond, B. G., & McCullough, R. G. (2000). The Late Woodland to late prehistoric occupations of Central Indiana. In T. E. Emerson, D. L. McElrath, & A. C. Fortier (Eds.), Late woodland societies: Tradition and transformation across the midcontinent (pp. 643–684). Lincoln. Sauer, C. O. (1916). Geography of the Upper Illinois Valley and history of development. State Geological Survey, Bulletin 27. Illinois State Geological Survey, Urbana, Illinois. Schwegman, J. E. (1973). The natural divisions of Illinois, comprehensive plan for the Illinois nature preserves system, Part 2. Illinois Nature Preserves Commission. Simon, M. L. (2000). Regional variations in plant use strategies in the Midwest during the Late Woodland. In T. E. Emerson, D. L. McElrath, & A. C. Fortier (Eds.), Late Woodland societies: Tradition and transformation across the midcontinent (pp. 37–76). Lincoln. Steadman, D. W. (2008). Warfare related trauma at Orendorf, a middle Mississippian Site in WestCentral Illinois. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 136, 51–64.

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Chapter 6

Pushing and Pulling the Mississippian Moment into the Western Great Lakes Thomas J. Zych and John D. Richards

In the early eleventh century AD within the expansive Mississippi River floodplain known as the American Bottom, a series of dynamic and complex events were happening. A fluorescence of novel cultural expressions was made manifest across and beyond the confines of the floodplain. From a once modest-sized horticultural village (Dalan et al., 2003; Fowler, 1997), the epicenter of Middle Mississippian society emerged at the city of Cahokia. Immigrants arrived from beyond the confines of the valley, with archaeological evidence highlighting the lower reaches of the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana and the southeastern extent of the Ozarks in southeast Missouri as points of origin (Alt, 2002, 2006, 2012; Hall, 1975; Pauketat, 2003; Pauketat & Lopinot, 1997; Slater et al., 2014; Winters & Struever, 1962). Cahokia pulled in materials, people, and their ideas of the world in what appears now as an archaeological instant. This has fittingly been referred to as Cahokia’s Big Bang (Pauketat, 1997, 1998, 2004), a fundamental, transformative expression of Indigenous North American culture in the midcontinent in the middle of the eleventh century AD, and what we refer to here as the Mississippian Moment. This volume contextualizes climatic fluctuations and shifts with the impact and aftershocks of the Mississippian Moment; reverberations of Cahokia’s Big Bang that reach past the confines of the American Bottom and its upland farming communities across the Eastern Woodlands. Various social, economic, and cosmological forces pulled people to Cahokia during the eleventh century. Potential reasons for these movements run the gamut from polity-driven expansions, entrepreneurial projects, spiritual journeying, and refugee/expatriate movements (Boszhardt et al., 2012; Griffin, 1960; Hall, 1962; Kelly, 1991; Pauketat et al., 2015; Riley & Apfelstadt,

T. J. Zych (*) University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. D. Richards University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_6

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1978). Environmental factors including drought, floods, and general environmental degradation have also been offered as potential catalysts for human movements during the Mississippian Moment. Minimally, the archaeological record shows that while people were pulled in towards the American Bottom, as Cahokia was becoming Cahokia, others were pulled, or perhaps pushed, outwards (see Wilson & Bird (Chap. 4), Emerson et al. (Chap. 5), and Cook and Comstock (Chap. 7), this volume). We hasten to add that none of the data currently at hand constitutes an adequate explanation for human behavior in relation to changes in climate and weather. Rather, it is the interplay of historically contingent events, less discernible longterm patterns, and particular ontologies at play in a society that shapes a people’s response. For example, Rosengren (2018) has reviewed weather and climate related data from southeastern Peru where Indigenous Matsigenka swidden horticulturalists interact with colonos, migrant Andean farmers. Rosengren demonstrates these groups’ understandings of, and responses to, coeval weather events are radically different outcomes of differing ontologies. In a particularly stark example, while colonos accept that rising rivers are caused by increases in precipitation, the Matsigenka understand increased rainfall as a result of the swollen rivers (Rosengren, 2018: 612). Colono perceptions of weather and climate are informed by western modernist perspectives while Matsigenka animist beliefs link cause and effect through the agency of non-human phenomena. We do not suggest that this modern ethnographic case is directly translatable to our precontact cultural context. Nonetheless, Rosengren’s work does highlight the difficulty of identifying direct cause and effect linkages between weather, climate, and human behavior; a point we shall return to later. In this chapter, we focus our attention on those outward movements evident in Cahokia-related settlements north of 43 N latitude; a line roughly coincident with the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers on the west and the mouth of the Milwaukee River where it enters Lake Michigan on the east. This region has been considered the extent of Cahokia’s northern hinterland (Richards, 2020), but it is also the heart of what John Douglas (1976) called Woodfordian Late Woodland cultures characterized by complex adaptations to varied regional environments (Fig. 6.1). We focus our attention on the sites of Aztalan, Fred Edwards, and the Trempealeau/Fisher Mounds Complex that span this northern tier from the Upper Mississippi River valley to the basin of the Rock River in south central Wisconsin.

Northern Moves Northbound Mississippian travelers likely followed a variety of water and overland routes out of the American Bottom. Determining the pathway taken is not the goal of our chapter; however, we recognize, as other researchers have noted (e.g., Alt & Pauketat, 2015; Baires et al., 2013, Skousen, 2018; Turner, 1969), that beyond the mere cause/effect duality of why people migrate, attention should be afforded to the ambulatory experience of such movements is a key element itself. The engagement

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Fig. 6.1 Map of select Middle Mississippian contact sites and localities in the Northern Hinterlands

and shaping of other worlds through movement and construction in and on distant terrains may have been a pivotal component to the creation of Cahokia itself (Emerson, 2012; Pauketat, 2012; Pauketat et al., 2015). As we will highlight, the Aztalan, Fred Edwards, and Trempealeau/Fisher Mounds Complex localities all express some relationship to the eleventh century AD emergence of the Cahokia polity, which was located roughly 500 river miles (ca. 800 km) to the south. However, they are each distinct in temporal ranges of occupation, landscape settings, as well as entanglements with local groups and to the American Bottom homeland. We begin with a focused comparative review of the regional chronology, material culture, and paleoclimate data for these locales to tease out differences in potential Cahokian interest in these areas as well as variations in response of the indigenous groups affected. While several chapters in the volume include osteological datasets in their discussion, such data are not incorporated in this chapter as not all localities included excavation of human remains; hence, a comprehensive perspective would be cursory at best. We do review previous palynological and geomorphological studies and use data from the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) as well as

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excavated archaeological materials to assess environmental conditions in the northern tier in order to evaluate the degree to which climatic factors may have influenced Middle Mississippian settlement at these three locales.

Fisher Mounds The Fisher Mounds site Complex is the earliest known Middle Mississippian entrada into the Western Great Lakes. It is located several miles south of modern La Crosse, Wisconsin, adjacent to the Mississippi River within the unique landscape of the Driftless Area. Unglaciated during the last glacial maximum, the Driftless Area is characterized by a dissected topography with narrow valleys harboring streams that occasionally disappear into the ground and reappear at some distance. American Bottom migrants moving through the area would have been struck by the notable change in the landscape from that to the south and of their homeland. Flowing through the western extent of this landform, the Mississippi River has carved out dramatically steep relief along the bluffs buffering the river’s edge. Fisher Mounds lies on an elevated terrace along a former side channel of the Mississippi River, near the mouth of Coon Creek as it flows from the bluffs to the east (Arzigian, 2015). This location coincides with what Boszhardt and Goetz (2000) identified as a boundary area between two local Late Woodland Effigy Mound cultural expressions situated north and south of the Coon Creek drainage. While the lower Coon Creek drainage appeared to lack local inhabitants at the time of the southerners’ arrival, Arzigian (1987) notes this area, like the broader Driftless Area, would have been home to an abundance of diverse resources. Wild berries, starchy seeds, and various tubers plus a variety of large and small game would have been present among the varied habitats. Riverine resources would have provided a stable supply of sustainable foods including fish, shellfish, waterfowl, otters, muskrats, and other small mammals. Earthen monuments are present at the site which predate the Middle Mississippian entrada to the region, thus Fisher Mounds is not a Mississippian mound center (Arzigian, 2015; Benden, 2004; Benden et al., 2010). Archaeological investigations have yielded an array of imported Cahokia-related pottery, lithic material, including Crescent Hills Burlington and St. Genevieve cherts, as well as architectural designs which align closely to the American Bottom late tenth century Edelhardt and early eleventh century Lohmann phases (Arzigian, 2015; Benden, 2004; Benden et al., 2010; Pauketat et al., 2015; Stoltman et al., 2008). Published radiocarbon dates from Fisher Mounds situate the Mississippian occupation during the early eleventh and early twelfth centuries (Table 6.1), overlapping with the end of the American Bottom Edelhardt phase (AD 1000–1050). Notably, this is the early formative period of the city of Cahokia immediately preceding the Big Bang. Edelhardt-style architectural forms using single-post construction are among the excavated features at Fisher Mounds, associated with artifacts that compare favorably to Edelhardt expressions in the American Bottom. These structures appear to have been replaced by structures

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Table 6.1 Pooled date ranges for select Western Great Lakes localities Site Fisher mounds Fred Edwards Aztalan Trempealeau a

2-Sigma pooled mean date rangea 1022–1154 CE 1052–1219 CE 1045–1160 CE 1042–1159 CE

Source Pauketat et al. (2015) Finney and Stoltman (1991) Richards and Jeske (2002) Pauketat et al. (2015)

IntCal13 (Reimer et al., 2013)

using wall-trench construction; an early Lohmann phase (ca. 1050) innovation (Pauketat et al., 2015: 268) and signature of Middle Mississippian architectural design. Pauketat et al., (2015: 268) propose the Mississippian immigrants at Fisher Mounds were farmers engaging in a series of short-term, warm weather habitations geared toward construction and support of the Trempealeau Complex upriver. While botanical remains were largely absent, likely due to poor preservation in the valley soils, the duration of the occupation corresponds with Middle Mississippian occupations at Trempealeau (see below). Notably, a paucity of local materials from coeval Late Woodland groups in the broader region were recovered in association with the Mississippian contexts at Fisher Mounds suggesting these migrants had little interaction with the indigenous population, and perhaps such interactions were not a principal goal for the journey north.

The Trempealeau Complex The Trempealeau Complex is situated 45 river kilometers to the north of Fisher Mounds in the dynamic terrain of the Driftless Area. Here the Mississippi river turns from an easterly to southerly flow just north of modern Lacrosse, Wisconsin and a prominent bluff dominates the central portion of the valley. Like at Fisher Mounds, a series of earthen mounds attributed to the Middle Woodland period mark the landscape just downstream from the complex. The Trempealeau complex itself consists of several related sites, including the Little Bluff platform mounds, Pelkey, Uhl, and Squier Garden (Boszhardt et al., 2012; Pauketat et al., 2015). Atop the high promontory known as Little Bluff, elevated some 50 m above the river, Middle Mississippians actively engaged the landform and modified the natural bluff top with a central platform mound, flanked by two leveled terraces and causeways, the southeastern of which leads to a third mound at the edge of the promontory (Pauketat et al., 2015, 2017). On the terraces at the bluff’s base paralleling the river, archaeological investigations unearthed wall trench structures at the Squire Garden and Uhl localities. Strikingly similar to Lohmann phase buildings in the American Bottom, these sets of superimposed structures indicate at least three building episodes signifying this occupation was of some duration. Pauketat et al. (2015) note the similarities of these structures with shrines in the Cahokia region indicate the Trempealeau complex represents a Cahokian shrine and/or mission site. A paucity

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of storage pits, lack of substantial midden debris, plus the characteristics of the recovered ceramic and lithic assemblage from the Trempealeau Complex add supporting evidence for the non-domestic nature of the buildings. The data are also suggestive that the area was likely seasonally occupied. Like Fisher Mounds to the south, very few materials associated with local Late Woodland groups were recovered from the Middle Mississippian contexts, again underscoring minimal interaction with the regions’ native inhabitants. Radiocarbon dating from Mississippian contexts places occupation between the mid-eleventh to early twelfth century AD (see Table 6.1). The Trempealeau dates are roughly coterminous with those from the Fisher Mounds site complex; notably, neither the Trempealeau nor Fisher Mounds locales have produced artifacts such as Ramey Incised pottery that would indicate use continuing into the Stirling phase (AD 1100–1200) of the American Bottom. The absence of Stirling phase materials at either Fisher Mounds or Trempealeau suggests either these occupations ended prior to AD 1100, or these migrants ceased engagement with the American Bottom by this time. We should add that neither Fisher Mounds nor Trempealeau produced evidence of a defensive palisade, which are present at the other Northern Middle Mississippian sites with twelfth century occupations – Fred Edwards and Aztalan to which we now turn our attention.

Fred Edwards The Fred Edwards site in Grant County, Wisconsin, some 200 km to the south of the Trempealeau and Fisher localities, is also located within the unglaciated Driftless Area. Unlike Fisher Mounds and Trempealeau, Fred Edwards lies 13 km inland from the main stem of the Mississippi on a terrace of the Grant River, an area likely covered by deciduous forest at the time of occupation. Fred Edwards’ physical setting is thus not unlike several Middle Mississippian-connected sites in the Apple River Valley to the south (see Emerson, 1991; Emerson et al., 2007; Millhouse, 2012). Finney (1993, 2013) and Arzigian (1993) point to a range of productive environments being available in the immediate vicinity. Unlike Trempealeau or Aztalan (discussed below), the Fred Edwards site lacks earthen mounds, but parallels Aztalan in that it is palisaded. Within the fortification are single post structures set over semi-subterranean basins arranged around a central courtyard. Recovered material culture notably includes Stirling phase Cahokian pottery types (Finney, 2013), stylistically different and temporally later than Mississippian materials from Fisher Mounds and Trempealeau. Among the ceramics are sherds resembling Powell Plain, Ramey Incised, and Cahokia Red-filmed pots; all comprising roughly a quarter of the ceramic assemblage. However, almost half of the Fred Edwards vessels are attributable to a grit-tempered cord-impressed local Late Woodland tradition, while the remaining pots are either types exotic to the area or a hybrid blend of Woodland and Mississippian styles. Non-ceramic material culture is

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likewise a mix of local and exotic items including galena, copper, Hixton silicified sandstone, Missouri Flint Clay, and southern toolstones such as Burlington, Dongola, Kaolin, and Mill Creek cherts (Emerson et al., 2002; Finney & Stoltman, 1991). Initial interpretations of Fred Edwards posited the site represents a site-unit intrusion by Late Woodland groups whose homeland was either northwest Illinois or northeast Iowa. Cahokian contact was suggested to be either direct or related to Mississippian polities in the Central Illinois River Valley or groups in the broader Apple River region of northwest Illinois (Finney & Stoltman, 1991). A suite of radiocarbon dates places the Mississippian presence between the later eleventh through very early thirteenth centuries (see Table 6.1). Recent re-analysis of the Lundy and John Chapman sites in this region south of Fred Edwards (Emerson et al., 2007) associates these sites to the early Mississippian Bennett phase, now suggested to date from cal AD 1100–1250. Emerson et al. (2007) posit a link of Fred Edwards to the local Bennett phase in the region on grounds of material culture and radiocarbon chronology. Notably, their recalibration of the original radiocarbon data set from Fred Edwards cites a calibrated range of AD 1156–1208 at the one sigma level (Emerson et al., 2007: 101) suggesting an overlap with Apple River Mississippians. Notable Apple River sites with Middle Mississippian expressions include mound sites such as John Chapman and Mills, thus this broader region establishes a variety of American-Bottom-like expressions in the North. Notably, in Finney’s recent review of Fred Edwards (2013) he identifies Upper Mississippi River Valley late precontact regional interactions to be as, or more, significant than direct Cahokian contact. Thus, compared with Fisher Mounds and Trempealeau, Fred Edwards not only differs in temporal range, but we consider the cohabitation of Middle Mississippians with local Late Woodlanders at the site a stark contrast to the solely Mississippian Fisher and Trempealeau localities.

Aztalan Aztalan is a fortified village and mound complex (Barrett, 1933; Birmingham & Goldstein, 2005; Goldstein & Freeman, 1997; Richards, 1992; Richards & Zych, 2018) on the west bank of the Crawfish River in southeast Wisconsin; a location that, though more remote than the other Mississippi Valley sites, could be reached from Cahokia via a 530-river mile (483 km) journey on the Mississippi, Rock, and Crawfish Rivers. Like Fisher Mounds and the Trempealeau Complexes, extant mounds mark the Aztalan locality including an effigy mound constructed by local Late Woodland groups on the east bank of the river, directly opposite the natural spring that marks the southern boundary of the site. Yet Aztalan’s setting is distinct from the Driftless Area, with the terrain marked by a prominent glacial ridge at its western border overlooking a sloping basin that meets the steeply sloping riverbank to the east (Kolb, 2015). Prior to Euro-American modifications, Aztalan’s location

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was characterized by an extensive span of oak savannahs while land east of the river supported a mixed broadleaf deciduous forest (Goldstein & Kind, 1987; Richards & Jeske, 2002). A rich local biota would have supplied a wide range of plant and animal resources. Four platform mounds, Middle Mississippian in origin, mark four corners of a roughly nine-hectare area that included an open plaza space to the west, and a distinct domestic compound along the riverside. Material culture at the site exhibits a mix of Late Woodland and Mississippian artifacts. Mississippian ceramic types include most of the late Lohmann and Stirling phase types known from Cahokia and American Bottom sites. Paste analyses by James Stoltman (1991) demonstrated that some of the Mississippian vessels were manufactured from American Bottom pastes while others are local copies of Ramey Incised, Powell Plain, and Cahokia Red-filmed jars, bowls, and seed jars. Ramey Incised motifs on the Aztalan pots are a subset of Cahokian motifs (Richards, 2003), and Mollerud (2005) has noted a similarity to Apple River Ramey Incised variants as well. A suite of 23 radiocarbon assays date the Mississippian occupation at Aztalan between the middle 11th to mid-to-late twelfth century AD (see Table 6.1) spanning the Lohmann and Stirling phases in the American Bottom. However, earlier radiocarbon dates (Krus et al., 2019) as well as stratigraphic evidence are indicative of a late tenth century, pre-Mississippian occupation by local Late Woodland collared ware producers (Richards, 1985, 1992). Thus, current data suggest an initial late tenth century occupation by local Late Woodland collared ware producers followed by a post-1050 arrival of Mississippians (Krus et al., 2019). The major Cahokiarelated Mississippian occupation occurred during the twelfth century, likely ending in the early to mid-thirteenth century; however, to date no pottery assignable to later American Bottom Moorehead and Sand Prairie phases nor local Oneota styles have been recovered.

Site Summaries Differences between the localities summarized above are likely a result of timing relative to Cahokia’s emergence as well as purpose (Fig. 6.2). Mississippian presence in the Fisher Mounds area slightly pre-dates Cahokia’s mid-eleventh century Big Bang moment (Pauketat et al., 2015: 269) and continues through the early Mississippian Lohmann phase. Trempealeau seems to be a primarily Lohmann phase occupation as well. A lack of evidence for twelfth century Stirling phase connections at either Fisher Mounds or Trempealeau supports Pauketat and colleagues’ claim that the Trempealeau expression was in some way a part of the emergence of Cahokia as a major center. Radiocarbon dates and material culture suggest the Fred Edwards site was primarily occupied during Stirling times with some occupation likely well into the thirteenth century AD (Finney, 1993, 2013). Published and unpublished dates from

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Fig. 6.2 Plot of calibrated (2-sigma) mean pooled radiocarbon dates at study localities

Aztalan highlight an initial Late Woodland occupation in place during the second half of the tenth century. Material culture places the Mississippian presence as early as the mid-to-late Lohmann phase, with radiocarbon dates suggesting a continued presence of occupants into the thirteenth century. Thus, available data and current interpretations suggest Mississippian arrival occurred first at Fisher Mounds, followed by Trempealeau, Aztalan, and Fred Edwards. If correct, this suggests that Fisher Mounds and Trempealeau are implicated in Cahokia’s rise while the Mississippian presence at both Fred Edwards and Aztalan may be understood as a result of Cahokia’s emergence (Richards, 2020). As discussed in Hedman et al. (Chap. 2) and Schroeder et al. (Chap. 3) in this volume, the climatic conditions seemingly conducive to Cahokian coalescence in the American Bottom simultaneously may have served as one of several catalysts for outmigration into the hinterlands. Next, we turn our attention to assessing the climatic conditions encountered by both the migrating Mississippians and local populations in the Western Great Lakes region.

Paleoclimatic Data From a western perspective, climate may be seen as a pervasive push/pull force acting on any horticultural society that continues to intensify agricultural practices. Science-derived climate models provide pathways to appreciate potential connections between past human populations and the world(s) as they experienced it. A wide variety of data sets have been employed to generate models of past climatic regimes; three are discussed here including palynological sequences, fluvial geomorphology, and rainfall. However, as we discuss below, modern reconstructions of past climatic regimes are built upon Western science, and so may overlook or mask indigenous perspectives on human relationships with climate (Bird-David, 1999; Cozzetto et al., 2013; Rosengren, 2018).

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Palynological Sequences Buried pollen are a frequent and reliable resource useful in reconstructing annual mean temperatures, particularly given the ability to look several thousands of years into the past, unlike tree ring data (see below). Assessment of local pollen sequences can offer more nuanced variation in regional climates, but they must be interpreted cautiously as local weather patterns, vegetation, and topography can lead to varied results even within a small geographic area. While vegetation patterns are generally thought to take up to 50 or 100 years to respond to climatic changes (Webb III, 1986; Williams et al., 2002), other studies have shown that pollen can be a reasonably reliable indicator of relatively real-time temperature variation with a lag-time of 40 years or less (Viau & Gajewski, 2009; Wahl et al., 2012). Thus, paleoclimatic pollen data provides a reasonable indicator for past climatic variation for specific archaeological periods or phases. Trouet et al.’s (2013) reconstruction of North American temperature trends utilizing pollen data demonstrates that starting around the seventh century AD an increase in temperatures occurred across North America (Fig. 6.3). Consequently, Woodland populations of the midcontinent would have experienced warmer than average summer temperatures well into the early eleventh century (Trouet et al., 2013; Wahl et al., 2012). The century of Middle Mississippian emergence and initial florescence corresponded with a cooling trend (Wahl et al., 2012: Fig. 1) that would coincide with generally wetter weather as we discuss below (see also Benson et al., 2009). Pollen sequences from northeast Iowa at the western edge of our study area suggest minimal climatic change in the last 3500 years with prairie grasslands in the region having receded, being replaced by forests dominated by oak and willow

Fig. 6.3 Reconstruction of North American annual mean temperature for past 1500 years derived from pollen data. (After Trouet et al., 2013)

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(Arzigian, 1993; Baker et al., 1992; Bernabo & Webb, 1977). Data from Volo Bog in northeast Illinois indicates that a stable, dry climatic regime persisted from about the sixth millennium BC to the present with cooler or more mesic conditions between AD 1050 and 1550 (King, 1981: 51). Further north, at Hell’s Kitchen Lake near the border of Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula pollen sequences show some temporal variations did occur in recent prehistory. Baerreis et al. (1976) characterize the period between AD 800 and 1100 as generally warm and moist, marked by the increase in mesic tree species and a high charcoal/pollen ratio. Note, the prevalence of charcoal in these data may be indicative of Indigenous fire-management of habitats, practices that are well documented throughout the Eastern Continent (Cronan, 1983; Munoz et al., 2014; Scarry, 2003). A subsequent decrease in pine pollen and decrease in wildfire frequencies suggests the period between AD 1100 and 1350 marks a shift from an initial moist or cool period to a warmer, drier period (Arzigian, 1993; Baerreis et al., 1976). A more recent study by Wahl et al. (2012) utilizing pollen datasets from three lakes in west-central Wisconsin, more proximal to our study area, reiterates these earlier findings. Their results show the period between 1100 through the 1300s was warmer than the preceding century, with only a brief cooling period of perhaps a decade or two occurring at the onset of the thirteenth century. Minimally, palynological sequences in the western Great Lakes highlight shifting climatic patterns by the end of the twelfth century with warm and wet conditions trending towards drier periods during the twelfth through thirteenth centuries. This pattern is supported by tree-ring derived data discussed below. The culmination of past and more recent pollen-based climate studies has led researchers to posit that the transition into the Little Ice Age, which saw a global trend toward cooler temperatures, may have occurred slightly later in this region than observed elsewhere, likely not until the start of the sixteenth century AD (Wahl et al., 2012: 69).

Fluvial Geomorphology Arzigian’s (1993) study of southeastern Wisconsin precontact subsistence includes a review of regional hydrological fluctuations within the Mississippi River drainage, providing additional insights into regional precontact climate fluctuations. Interpretations of hydrologic events, like most data, must be contextualized with other supporting lines of evidence to reasonably interpret temporal trends. Nonetheless, cooler and wetter conditions are generally linked with an increase in annual run-off into streams and rivers, but a reduced sediment yield due to increased vegetation reducing erosion overall. Warmer and drier conditions produce less run-off but can exhibit increased sediment yields which stand as evidence for flooding associated with localized storms but overall decrease in precipitation. In their study of small streams within the Mississippi River drainage in the Driftless Area, Knox et al. (1981) conclude that fluctuations in small stream deposition and erosion patterns during the six centuries prior to AD 750 reveal relative

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stability of waterways; only minor floods occurred during the period. However, more hydrologic activity occurred between AD 750 and 1150 as larger scale floods appear to be more prevalent. Generally, the centuries following 1150 through EuroAmerican settlement saw a return to more stable waterways with only minor floods. This trend coincides with palynological sequences summarized above that suggest increasingly drier conditions by the late twelfth century. However, a later study by Knox (1993) reports that the 200 years between AD 1250 and 1450 saw several large-scale flooding episodes within the region. Thus, sporadic wet years, or wet seasons can still be expected during these late precontact periods. In the following section we explore the annual summertime moisture availability within our region of interest more closely.

Palmer Drought Severity Index While annual temperature fluctuations are undoubtedly noticed by those who reside in a given environment, water availability, rather than temperature, is arguably more integrally linked with a population’s entanglement with their world. In the last two decades, several studies (including several in this volume) have explored the reliability of exploiting tree-ring chronologies to recreate continental-wide climate datasets that can be extended to study paleo-climatic trends (Benson et al., 2009; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Cook et al., 2010; Cook et al., 2004; Nolan & Cook, 2010a, 2010b). Generally, these tree-ring derived models provide temporally reliable results, but tree lifespan and the availability of adequate precontact datasets are among their limitations, and extrapolation of such data must be interpreted cautiously. Many archaeological studies have demonstrated the utility of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Values associated with this index offer an intra-annual measurement between atmospheric moisture supply and demand by analyzing the width of tree rings in samples across geographic regions. The benefit of this analytic technique is that tree-ring derived models provide temporally reliable assessments of climatic settings (as each ring represents a particular year) and are sensitive to regional climatology and short-term hydrologic persistence (width of each ring represents annual growth). Recently, PDSI derived models have become refined given the expansion of available datasets and reliable statistical extrapolation methods. Several recent studies cited throughout this volume have drawn attention to the role that climatic events may have played in Middle Mississippian society. These studies have established the propensity for summer droughts during the tenth, twelfth, and later fourteenth centuries AD, while the eleventh century is characterized by fairly “normal” conditions (Benson et al., 2009; Bird et al., 2017; Comstock, 2017; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Cook et al., 2010; Munoz et al., 2015; Nolan & Cook, 2010b; Wahl et al., 2012; see also Wilson & Bird (Chap. 4), Emerson et al. (Chap. 5), and Cook and Comstock (Chap. 7), this volume). We parallel these efforts to assess the climatic trends in the Western Great Lakes that exhibit potential drought

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conditions during the tenth through thirteenth centuries, the period of direct Middle Mississippian influence in the region. We do so utilizing data derived from Edwin Cook et al.’s (2010) Living Blended Drought Atlas (LBDA). An expansion of the PDSI, this dataset incorporates 1845 tree-ring chronologies and modern instrumental data to extrapolate values across a continental scale going back several hundred years. In our study area, available data permits extrapolation back to AD 920. Specifically, PDSI values provide an index of atmospheric moisture supply and demand for summer months, June through August. The index scale diverges from zero, with values between 1.0 and 1.0 representing near typical conditions (see Palmer, 1965: Table 11). Values of 1.0 and above indicate wet conditions while values at or below 1.0-mark drought conditions. Within our study area of southern Wisconsin, we find similar trends to those previously reported for the broader Midwest US, but we note that annual values show continual variation across this period. Humans perceive their world through cultural filters and lived experience, thus, our review of climatic data aims to adopt an emic perspective by exploring the simple moving averages of the PDSI values. These averages summarize climatic trends by only including a set of preceding years’ data and exclude values from years that follow. Simple moving averages of PDSI indices offer an approximation of what inhabitants of a particular landscape would perceive about meteorological and climatic trends as recorded in their collective memory, particularly experiencing them across several consecutive years. That is not to say these people did not relate experiential changes of their communities across generations. Oral histories along with any number of material cultural expressions, are a potent suite of media forms permitting others to re-experience past events and envision future events as well (Sassaman, 2012). In these human lives that are arguably more directly entangled with the natural world than in our modern Western society, the rhythm of these climatic trends would be apparent to most, and integral in their perception of the world and their relationship to it. We note that yearto-year fluctuations are normal during the period described herein and thus such averages can be misleading about the duration of drought or wet-weather conditions. Review of decadal averages highlights general trends that underscore a history of summer drought conditions in the late tenth century AD followed by an increase in moisture during the eleventh century bringing wet and warm conditions, and then a return to drier conditions in the twelfth century (Fig. 6.4). A similar shift from a warm and wet eleventh century to a warm and drier twelfth and thirteenth century is observed in pollen-derived climatic data as discussed above. We note that Benson et al. (2009) reported a similar normal-to-wet trend during the eleventh century Edelhardt to Lohmann phases for the greater American Bottom, coinciding with Cahokia’s rise (also see Hedmen et al. Chap. 4 in this volume). We reviewed the summer moisture availability at each locality in our study utilizing the data from the nearest LBDA grid point to each site; Trempealeau and Fisher Mounds share the same nearest point and are thus summarized together. Generally, annual PDSI values demonstrate regular volatility at each location, fluctuating between drier to wetter conditions almost annually, but calculation of moving averages demonstrates some short-term trends are present.

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Fig. 6.4 7-year PDSI moving average for sites within this study

Generally, our reviewed localities exhibit near indistinguishable trends. The arrival of Middle Mississippian migrant farmers at Fisher Mounds and the Trempealeau Complex coincides with fairly consistent moisture-rich conditions during the late Edelhardt phase, just before AD 1050. Both sites yielded stone-tool use and resharpening debitage associated with agricultural tools crafted from non-local materials imported by the migrants (Pauketat et al., 2015: 2). Clearly the travelers that arrived intended to be present at least long enough to plant and harvest crops at these destinations. However, later eleventh century AD PDSI values suggest an increasing frequency of arid summers (Fig. 6.5). During the 50 years that correspond with the Lohmann phase, 22 summers are marked by drought conditions; 14 of which occurred in the last half of the phase. Six of those summers are indexed as moderate-to-severe droughts and three are indexed as extreme droughts. Yet, given the close proximity of these sites to the Mississippi River, irrigation of any crops by hand seems readily achievable even during drier periods. Still, the radiometric dates and recovered archaeological materials summarized above do indicate the forces pulling the immigrants to this corner of the valley trench seemed to have halted before the end of the century. While the timing is coincident with the increase in aridity, PDSI values do not indicate any long-standing trend in the region, and we are reluctant to view the increasingly arid conditions on their own as a substantial impetus for the cessation of Middle Mississippian actions at Fisher or Trempealeau. Fred Edwards and Aztalan follow very similar patterns with drier conditions becoming more common at the end of the eleventh century AD, increasing in frequency and intensity into the next century. As noted previously, both occupations coincide primarily with the American Bottom Stirling phase of the twelfth century, although Aztalan does exhibit a Mississippian presence by the Late Lohmann phase (Picard & Richards, 2014; Richards & Jeske, 2002; Richards et al., 2012). Thus, the

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Fig. 6.5 Annual PDSI values at Fisher Mounds and Trempealeau during the late Lohmann phase

inhabitants of both Fred Edwards and Aztalan occupied their respective towns during a period of overall drier climate, which we explore using Aztalan as an example (Fig. 6.6). During the Mississippian occupation at Aztalan, with occupation dates pooled at two-sigma AD 1045 to 1160, PDSI values designate 52 individual summers, or 43%, that are characterized by drought conditions while 64 years, 53%, indicate normal or wet conditions. Notably, data suggest the longest continuous stretch of summer droughts experienced by inhabitants at Aztalan lasted only four consecutive summers, once at AD 1105, and again in the mid-twelfth century. Fred Edwards, occupied during this period, would have experienced the same drought trends.

Climate Summary Available climatic data for the centuries in which Middle Mississippian movements created connections with south-central Wisconsin Indigenous populations constructs a reasonable narrative of climatic conditions during the late precontact period. Data reviewed above point to a shift from warm, wetter conditions in the eleventh century to drier conditions during the twelfth century AD, conditions that remain dry but begin to cool during the following two centuries. While conditions appear drier in the thirteenth century based on tree-ring data, recreations of past flooding episodes in the Driftless Area reveal that episodes of large floods are not unheard of, suggesting

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Fig. 6.6 Annual PDSI values at Aztalan during the site’s Middle Mississippian occupation

that locally, seasonal rains might persist (Kline & Cottam, 1979; Knox, 1993). Studies of vegetation responses to climatic shifts in the Driftless Area have demonstrated that mesic forests in the region, typically dominated by sugar-maple, generally recorded higher rates of precipitation and cooler summer temperatures; historically there was also less evidence for forest fires than in neighboring vegetative zones (Kline & Cottam, 1979). Thus, microclimates, or meteorological islands such as these in the past may not have necessarily followed broader drying trends reported across the midcontinent from PDSI data. Additionally, while PDSI values are often used to study past climatic conditions, including our own and several studies in this volume, these indices fall short of indicating spring or fall moisture availability. Moisture availability in spring months, as well as the potential for late frosts, has lasting effects on both cultivated plants and wild resources. In our study region, summertime climatic conditions cannot be said to be more favorable in one location versus another for a horticultural community. As noted, each locality would have experienced similar dry and wet periods. Comparison with the American Bottom highlights only minor disparities between these regions. Juxtaposing Aztalan, for example, with the American Bottom indicates similar climatic trends over time; particularly during the twelfth century, where summer droughts increase in number. Only the end of the preceding eleventh century is marked with subtle differences (Fig. 6.5). The American Bottom data indicate slightly wetter trending conditions as compared to the north (also see Hedman et al. (Chap. 2) and Schroeder et al. (Chap. 3) in this volume).

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Climatic Indicators in the Archaeological Record At present, diachronic subsistence data is only available only for Aztalan. Generally speaking, botanical and faunal data from all sites in this study exhibit no indication of subsistence stressors linked directly to climatic change that would point to push or pull factors conveying Middle Mississippian influence to and from southern Wisconsin in the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD. At Aztalan, Warwick’s (2002) comparative faunal analysis from stratified midden contexts shows few significant changes in diet from the initial Late Woodland occupation through the Mississippian presence. With the Mississippian arrival, only a marginal increase in the utilization of locally available resources, including fish and small mammals, is apparent. The faunal diet shows no dietary specialization nor any significant change in the availability of resources, including large mammals such as deer; if anything, Warwick describes the diet as becoming more generalized. Generally, Wisconsin Middle Mississippian sites reveal foodways comparable to Lohmann phase Mississippian sites in the American Bottom and Central Illinois River Valley (Egan-Bruhy, 2014; VanDerwarker et al., 2017). Picard’s (2013) ethnobotanical analysis of similar contexts noted some subtle changes in the botanical record when the Mississippian Moment is expressed at Aztalan. Apart from a decrease in the use of nuts, an increase in maize and starchy seeds is observed, with chenopodium dominating. In fact, many of the wild foods that would have been available in the immediate environment at Aztalan are absent from assemblages. Picard (2013) surmises the Middle Mississippian’s arrival prompted an intensification of agricultural practices as compared to the initial Late Woodland occupation. Thus, while the PDSI data trends toward increasingly drier summer conditions during this coeval occupation, concomitant changes in foodways appear to be subtle and unrelated to climatic shifts. Similarly, increasing frequency of arid conditions in the twelfth century yielded no archaeologically visible impact in the dietary practices at Fred Edwards (Arzigian, 1987; Picard, 2013). Poor preservation in the soil at Fisher Mounds limited macrobotanical remains to a few maygrass seeds. The Trempealeau Complex excavations revealed few specific insights into temporal shifts in foodways given that many of the features appear to exhibit extra-domestic qualities, although chenopod, maygrass, and knotweed are reported (Pauketat et al., 2015). This is considered typical for Middle Mississippian foodways in this region and further south (Egan-Bruhy, 2014; Simon & Parker, 2006). As noted, the Driftless Area was a landscape with plentiful resources, and while the late twelfth century may have been relatively drier than the century prior, inhabitants at these sites seemingly maintained keen relationships with their local environments. No doubt they bore witness to meteorological patterns and cycles and were conscious of the effects such drought trends may have, as well as the likelihood of their persistence. This assertion is further supported by the somewhat simultaneous expansion of Oneota culture in southern Wisconsin during the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Overstreet, 1995; Theler & Boszhardt, 2000). Dietary patterns of these horticultural

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peoples are recognizably distinct from Middle Mississippian patterns, with Oneota groups exploiting more wild resources than their southern Mississippian counterparts, with acorns and wild rice as common staples. Additionally, they cultivated crops such as maize, chenopod, little barley, and knotweed, although usage varied between groups east and west of the Wisconsin River (Egan-Bruhy, 2014: Table 3). The broader archaeological record of the western Great Lakes reveals that Oneota horticultural communities persisted with relative success throughout the Western Great Lakes at a time marked by drier climatic conditions (Krus et al., 2019). While the PDSI data described above show little variation between our three localities, American Bottom PDSI data shows slightly wetter conditions during the later Lohmann phase, corresponding with the end of Middle Mississippian presence at Fisher and Trempealeau (see Figs. 6.4 and 6.7). Conversely, Aztalan and Fred Edwards were occupied by Middle Mississippian peoples during increasingly drier periods that persisted for roughly another century. Sometime before the end of the twelfth century, the connections to Middle Mississippian culture at both sites declined, and by Moorehead times, the push/pull forces associated with the Cahokian-Mississippian moment in the northern region seem to have waned.

Discussion Weather and climate are forces entangled with social beings (including human-and other than human agents), their organization, subsistence practices, and broader cosmological conceptions of the world. Rosengren (2018: 610–11) aptly underscores that Western perceptions of climate and weather weave together complex scientific measurements and modeling with an assumption that reality lends itself to abstract generalities. This framework is often at odds with non-western understandings of the world. Indigenous perspectives are often embedded in everyday local life, knowledge, and sensory participation in a world that is shaped by intentional agencies (Bird-David, 1999; Ingold, 2011; Rosengren, 2018). What we refer to as precipitation may in fact be understood to derive from deliberate actions of an Upper World agent that is tied to some action in the terrestrial world (Rosengren, 2018: 617). Thus, we contend that interpretations of the past ought to perpetually look beyond a cause/effect duality. Humans do not react to climate; they live engaged with it as a recognized agent of the world. As many of the studies throughout this volume underscore, it is problematic to associate a one-to-one ratio of cause-and-effect in lived human social experience, experiences that are processed through various ontologies and embedded within diverse histories. For instance, deMenocal (2001) notes how the early twentieth century Dust Bowl (1933–1938) had immediate, severe impacts on hundreds of thousands of people as well as effects that lingered for generations after. A critical diachronic analysis suggests that the severity of the impacts felt by the population was not only due to the widespread reduction in rainfall. The impact of the crisis was intensified due to irresponsible agricultural practices and overcapitalization in the

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Fig. 6.7 Map of (a) late Lohmann and (b) late Stirling PDSI value distributions

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years leading up to the drought (deMenocal, 2001; McLeman et al., 2014; Warrick, 1980). Cozzetto et al. (2013) note that various contemporary Native American populations associate their respective identities with their surroundings: particularly the waters and the terrains they live among. As such, these landscapes are sources of knowledge and inspiration for their communities which are recognized as changing. While conscious of the modern science that underscores modern, human-induced climate change is impacting their ecological relationship with the land, it is experienced and understood as more than a danger to the biosphere. These modern climatic threats simultaneously impact their relationships to Mother Earth and Father Sky, that is, their relationship to climate and the physical world transcends the Western framework which separates the social sphere of life from surrounding natural environments. Thus, in our precontact case we must pursue multiple layers of reasoning to clarify our insights into the Middle Mississippian entrada into the northern hinterlands. We ought to aim, as this volume endeavors to do, to connect the assorted archaeological signatures and paleoclimatic data with the experienced world of immigrants, religion, temporality, climate, materiality, and a suite of other entwined ontologies present in the world of precontact people of the Eastern Woodlands. The experience of migration involves people moving through varied worlds and engaging new human and non-human agents. Such experiences become enmeshed in their conceptualization of such worlds. In the case of Trempealeau, pilgrimages to the shrines at the Trempealeau Bluffs, a place perceived to be imbued with power, may have been the goal. As Pauketat et al. (2015) contend, Trempealeau was likely a key component of creating Cahokia; perhaps not the physical city itself as much as what that city, its people and practices, represented. Trempealeau may thus be viewed as a component of the spiritual element that wove Cahokia’s connection into the entire world (Pauketat et al., 2015; Richards, 2020). Lithic tool materials and ceramics were brought with the travelers from the south and minimal use was made of locally available resources at Fisher Mounds and Trempealeau. Purely economic advantages do not appear to be a key focus here. These localities were possibly chosen to exploit the unique viewscape associated with the Upper Mississippi valley and Trempealeau Mountain/Little Bluff locales more specifically. The local natural landforms themselves closely resemble the shape and form of earthen pyramids that are hallmarks of Middle Mississippian society (Pauketat et al., 2015: 284). The unique landscape of the Driftless area allowed the dwellers there to engage “with landforms and the spirits and elemental powers resident therein” (Pauketat et al., 2015:262). If Trempealeau does in fact represent a shrine complex, it suggests a Mississippian mission; yet seemingly the missionizing of others was not a key goal as little evidence is present for engagement with local groups. The establishment of new cities was not a focus either given the seasonal occupation of the sites as concluded by Pauketat et al. (2015). Rather, the researchers point to the journey itself as a key push and pull factor. The movement of human actors engages them not just with a landscape but with new worlds that can

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become tied to their identity and their worldview(s). Thus, pilgrimages to a place imbued with power (i.e., the shrines at the Trempealeau Bluffs) may have been the goal. Therefore, a potent agent in the push and pull of the eleventh century Mississippian Moment was apparently not economically driven nor propelled by a requirement to find productive terrains to fit a particular subsistence strategy. While the climatic patterns do shift over time, citing them as a catalyst for driving the observed cultural practices by Mississippian migrants in this region is perhaps, we argue, unwarrented. Aztalan and Fred Edwards exhibit a key trait Trempealeau and Fisher do not – engagement with local people. A confluence of local and migrant people played a pivotal role in the creation and immediate resonance of the Mississippian Big Bang in the American Bottom. A process we see echoed in the coeval Mississippian and Late Woodland occupations at Fred Edwards and Aztalan, as well as locations to the south in the Apple River Valley and Central Illinois River Valley. Yet Fred Edwards’ site structure and architecture invoke a Late Woodland plan more so than a Cahokian aesthetic. Emerson et al. (2007) note a trend in Apple River Mississippian sites exhibiting marked diversity over time following initial departure from the supposed American Bottom homeland. Aztalan’s Mississippian aspect is also distinct, particularly from Trempealeau. If Trempealeau’s entanglements in the north provided a relational link as a spiritual center engaged with Cahokia, Aztalan and Fred Edwards’ entanglements with local inhabitants may be more a relational link to Cahokia in the form of new community construction (Emerson, 2012; Emerson et al., 2007; Millhouse, 2012; Richards, 2020; Zych, 2015). Aztalan and Fred Edwards do continue some connection with Cahokia well into the twelfth century AD, or at least the residents remain connected to objects and ideas that are Middle Mississippian for several more decades beyond Trempealeau and Fisher Mounds. The integration of southern and local views of the world may have been key components in the sustained Mississippian connection; something that Trempealeau and Fisher Mounds seemingly lacked. Therefore, as much as powerful places are indeed key factors for drawing people to them, the local inhabitants, the human agents who share a direct lineage with those places, may be just as potent a force. Mississippian Cahokia materialized from Woodland antecedents, engaged new people, and constructed new ontologies. This process played out within a dynamic climatic regime and related weather events that appear to be implicated in the emergence, expansion, and decline of Cahokia. However, while the importance of climate and weather to northerners cannot be denied, our data at present lend little support to climatic factors operating as key push or pull forces in bringing Cahokian settlers into the western Great Lakes.

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Comstock, A. R., & Cook, R. A. (2018). Climate change and migration along a Mississippian periphery: A fort ancient example. American Antiquity, 83(1), 91–108. Cook, E. R., Seager, R., Jr., Heim, R. R., Vose, R. S., Herweijer, C., & Woodhouse, C. (2010). Megadroughts in North America: Placing IPCC projections of Hydroclimatic change in a longterm Palaeoclimate context. Journal of Quaternary Science, 25(1), 48–61. Cook, E. R., Woodhouse, C. A., Mark Eakin, C., Meko, D. M., & Stahle, D. W. (2004). Long-term aridity changes in the Western United States. Science, 306(5698), 1015–1018. Cozzetto, K., Chief, K., Dittmer, K., Brubaker, M., Gough, R., Souza, K., Ettawageshik, F., Wotkyns, S., Opitz-Stapleton, S., Duren, S., & Chavan, P. (2013). Climate change impacts on the water resources of American Indians and Alaska natives in the U.S. Climate Change, 120(3), 569–584. Cronan, W. (1983). Changes in the land: Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England. Hill and Wang. Dalan, R. A., Holley, G. R., Woods, W. I., Watters, H. W., Jr., & Koepke, J. A. (2003). Envisioning Cahokia: A landscape perspective. Northern Illinois University Press. deMenocal, P. B. (2001). Cultural responses to climate change during the late Holocene. Science, 292(5517), 667–673. Douglas, J. G. (1976). Collins: A late woodland ceremonial complex in the Woodfordian Northeast. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Egan-Bruhy, K. C. (2014). Ethnicity as evidenced in subsistence patterns of late prehistoric upper Great Lakes populations. In Midwest archaeological conference, Inc. Occasional papers (Vol. 1, pp. 53–72). Emerson, T. E. (1991). The Apple River Mississippian culture of Northwestern Illinois. In T. E. Emerson & R. Barry Lewis (Eds.), Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian cultures of the Midwest (pp. 164–182). University of Illinois Press. Emerson, T. E. (2012). Cahokia interaction and Ethnogenesis in the northern midcontinent. In T. R. Pauketat (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of North American archaeology (pp. 398–409). Oxford University Press. Emerson, T. E., Hughes, R. E., Hynes, M. R., & Wisseman, S. U. (2002). Implications of sourcing Cahokia-style Flint clay figures in the American bottom and the upper Mississippi River valley. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 27, 309–338. Emerson, T. E., Millhouse, P. G., & Schroeder, M. B. (2007). The Lundy site and the Mississippian presence in the Apple River Valley. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 88(2), 1–123. Finney, F. A. (1993) Cahokia’s Northern Hinterlands as viewed from the Fred Edwards site in Southwest Wisconsin: Intrasite and regional evidence for production, consumption, and exchange. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Finney, F. A. (2013). Intrasite and regional perspectives on the Fred Edwards site and the Stirling horizon in the upper Mississippi Valley. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 94(1–2), 3–248. Finney, F. A., & Stoltman, J. B. (1991). The Fred Edwards site: A case of Stirling phase culture contact in southwestern Wisconsin. In J. Stoltman (Ed.), New perspectives on Cahokia: Views from the periphery (pp. 229–252). Prehistory Press. Fowler, M. L. (1997). The Cahokia Atlas: A historical atlas of Cahokia archaeology. Illinois transportation archaeological research program, studies in archaeology, number 2. University of Illinois, Urbana. Goldstein, L., & Freeman, J. (1997). Aztalan – A middle Mississippian village. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 78(1/2), 223–248. Goldstein, L. G., & Kind, R. (1987) Early vegetation of the region. In L. Goldstein (Ed.), The Southeast Wisconsin archaeology project: 1986-87 & project summary (pp. 18–37). University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archaeological Research Laboratory. Report of investigations no. 88, Milwaukee.

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Griffin, J. B. (1960). A hypothesis for the prehistory of the Winnebago. In S. Diamond (Ed.), Culture in history: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin (pp. 809–868). Columbia University Press. Hall, R. L. (1962). The archeology of Carcajou Point. University of Wisconsin Press. Hall, R. L. (1975). Chronology and phases at Cahokia. In J. A. Brown (Ed.), Perspectives in Cahokia archaeology (Illinois Archaeological Survey, Bulletin 10, pp. 15–31). University of Illinois, Urbana. Ingold, T. (2011). The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood. Dwelling and Skill. Kelly, J. E. (1991). Cahokia and its role as a gateway center in interregional exchange. In T. E. Emerson & R. B. Lewis (Ed.), Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian cultures of the Midwest (2000th ed., pp. 61–80). University of Illinois Press. King, J. E. (1981). Late quaternary vegetational history of Illinois. Ecological Monographs, 51, 43–62. Kline, V. M., & Cottam, G. (1979). Vegetation response to climate and fire in the Driftless area of Wisconsin. Ecology, 60(5), 861–868. Knox, J. C. (1993). Large increases in flood magnitude in response to modest changes in climate. Nature, 361, 430–432. Knox, J. C., McDowell, P. F., & Johnson, W. C. (1981). Holocene fluvial stratigraphy and climate change in the Driftless area, Wisconsin. In W. Mahaney (Ed.), Quaternary paleoclimate (pp. 107–127). Geoabstracts. Kolb, M. F. (2015). Geomorphological investigations at Aztalan State Park during 2013 and 2014. SMG report of investigation No. 259. Submitted to strata morph Geoexploration. Krus, A., Richards, J. D., & Jeske, R. J. (2019). Bayesian chronological models for the Aztalan site: Challenges and preliminary results. Paper presented at the radiocarbon & archaeology 9th international symposium, Athens, GA. McLeman, R. A., Dupre, J., Ford, L. B., Ford, J., Gajewski, K., & Marchildon, G. (2014). What we learned from the dust bowl: Lessons in science, policy, and adaptation. Population and Environment, 35(4), 417–440. Millhouse, P. G. (2012). The John Chapman site and creolization on the Northern frontier of the Mississippian World. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Mollerud, K. J. (2005). Messages, meanings, and motifs: An analysis of Ramey incised ceramics at the Aztalan site. Unpublished master’s thesis, Dept. of Anthropology, University of WisconsinMilwaukee, Milwaukee. Munoz, S. E., Gruley, K. E., Massie, A., Fike, D. A., Schroeder, S., & Williams, J. W. (2015). Cahokia’s emergence and decline coincided with shifts of flood frequency on the Mississippi River. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6319. Munoz, S. E., Mladenoff, D. J., Schroeder, S., & Williams, J. W. (2014). Defining the spatial patterns of historical land use associated with the indigenous societies of Eastern North America. Journal of Biogeography, 41, 2195–2210. Nolan, K. C., & Cook, R. A. (2010a). An evolutionary model of social change in the middle Ohio Valley: Was social complexity impossible during the late woodland but mandatory during the late prehistoric? Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 29, 26–27. Nolan, K. C., & Cook, R. A. (2010b). Volatile climate conditions and Cahokia: Comment on Benson, Pauketat, and Cook 2009. American Antiquity, 75, 978–983. Overstreet, D. F. (1995). The Eastern Wisconsin Oneota regional continuity. In W. Green (Ed.), Oneota Archaeology: Past, present, and future (pp. 33–64). Report 20, Office of the State Archaeologist, Iowa City. Palmer, W. C. (1965). Meteorological drought (no. 45). Pauketat, T. R. (1997). Cahokian political economy. In T. R. Pauketat & T. E. Emerson (Eds.), Cahokia: Domination and ideology in the Mississippian world (pp. 30–51). University of Nebraska Press. Pauketat, T. R. (1998). Refiguring the archaeology of greater Cahokia. Journal of Archaeological Research, 6, 45–89.

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Pauketat, T. R. (2003). Resettled farmers and the making of a Mississippian polity. American Antiquity, 2003(68), 39–66. Pauketat, T. R. (2004). Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians. Cambridge University Press. Pauketat, T. R. (2012). An archaeology of the cosmos: Rethinking agency and religion in ancient America. Routledge. Pauketat, T. R., Boszhardt, R. F., & Benden, D. M. (2015). Trempealeau entanglements: An ancient Colony's causes and effects. American Antiquity, 80(2), 260–289. Pauketat, T. R., Boszhardt, R. F., & Kolb, M. (2017). Trempealeau's little bluff: An early Cahokian terraformed landmark in the upper Mississippi Valley. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 42(2), 168–199. Pauketat, T. R., & Lopinot, N. H. (1997). Cahokian population dynamics. In T. Pauketat & T. Emerson (Eds.), Cahokia: Domination and ideology in the Mississippian world (pp. 103–123). Lincoln. Picard, J. L. (2013). Northern Flint, southern roots: A diachronic analysis of Paleoethnobotanical remains and maize race at the Aztalan site (47-JE-0001). Unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Picard, J., & Richards, J. D. (2014). Archaeology around Wisconsin: University of WisconsinMilwaukee: Investigations at Aztalan by the 2013 advanced archaeological field school. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 95(1), 138–142. Reimer, P. J., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J. W., Blackwell, P. G., Bronk, R. C., Buck, C. E, Cheng, H., Edwards, R. L., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P. M., Guilderson, T. P., Haflidason, H., Hajdas, I., Hatté, C., Heaton, T. J., Hoffmann, D. L., Hogg, A. G., Hughen, K. A., . . . , van der Plicht, J. (2013). IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon, 55(4), 1869–1887. Richards, J. D. (1985). Aztalan compilation, mapping and excavation. Report of investigations. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archaeological Research Laboratory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Richards, John D. (1992) Ceramics and culture at Aztalan, a late prehistoric village in Southeast Wisconsin. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of WisconsinMilwaukee. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Richards, J. D. (2003). Collars, Castellations, and Cahokia: A regional perspective on the Aztalan ceramic assemblage. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 84(1–2), 139–154. Richards, J. D. (2020). Aztalan and the northern tier of a Cahokia Hinterland. In C. H. McNutt & R. M. Parish (Eds.), Cahokia in context: Hegemony and diaspora (pp. 107–127). University of Florida Press. Richards, J. D., & Jeske, R. J. (2002). Location, location, location: The temporal and cultural context of late prehistoric settlement in Southeast Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 83(2), 32–54. Richards, J. D., & Zych, T. J. (2018). A landscape of mounds: Community Ethnogenesis at Aztalan. In B. H. Koldehoff & T. R. Pauketat (Eds.), Archaeology and ancient religion in the American midcontinent (pp. 234–268). University of Alabama Press. Richards, J. D., Zych, T. J., & Rudolph, K. Z. (2012). Archaeological investigations at Aztalan (47JE1) by the UW-archaeological field school. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 93(1), 95–101. Riley, T. J., & Apfelstadt, G. A. (1978). Prehistoric missionaries in East Central Illinois. Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 49(4), 16–21. Rosengren, D. (2018). Science, knowledge and belief. On local understandings of weather and climate change in Amazonia. Ethnos, 83(4), 607–623. Sassaman, K. E. (2012). Futurologists look back. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress, 8(3), 250–268. Scarry, C. M. (2003). Patterns of wild plant utilization in the prehistoric Eastern woodlands. In P. E. Minnis (Ed.), People and plants in ancient Eastern North America (pp. 50–104). Smithsonian Institution Press.

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Simon, M. L., & Parker, K. E. (2006). Prehistoric plant use in the American bottom: New thoughts and interpretations. Southeastern Archaeology, 25(2), 210–255. Skousen, J. B. (2018). Rethinking archaeologies of pilgrimage. Journal of Social Archaeology, 18(3), 261–283. Slater, P. A., Hedman, K. M., & Emerson, T. E. (2014). Immigrants at the Mississippian polity of Cahokia: Strontium isotope evidence for population movement. Journal of Archaeological Science, 44, 117–127. Stoltman, J. B. (1991). Ceramic petrography as a technique for documenting cultural interaction: An example from the upper Mississippi Valley. American Antiquity, 56(1), 103–120. Stoltman, J. B., Benden, D. M., & Boszhardt, R. F. (2008). New evidence in the upper Mississippi Valley for Premississippian cultural interaction with the American bottom. American Antiquity, 73(2), 317–336. Theler, J., & Boszhardt, R. F. (2000). The end of the effigy mound culture: The late woodland to Oneota transition in Southwestern Wisconsin. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 25, 289–312. Trouet, V., Diaz, H. F., Wahl, E. R., Viau, A. E., Graham, R., Graham, N., & Cook, E. R. (2013). A 1500-year reconstruction of annual mean temperature for temperate North America on decadalto-multidecadal time scales. Environmental Research Letters, 8(2), 024008. Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Aldine. VanDerwarker, A. M., Bardolph, D. N., & Margaret Scarry, C. (2017). Maize and Mississippian beginnings. In G. D. Wilson (Ed.), Mississippian beginnings (pp. 29–70). University of Florida Press. Viau, A. E., & Gajewski, K. (2009). Reconstructing millennial-scale, regional paleoclimates of boreal Canada during the Holocene. Journal of Climate, 22, 316–330. Wahl, E. R., Diaz, H. F., & Ohlwein, C. (2012). A pollen-based reconstruction of summer temperature in Central North America and implications for circulation patterns during medieval times. Global and Planetary Change, 84, 66–74. Warrick, R. A. (1980). Drought in the Great Plains: A case study of research on climate and society in the USA. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Proceedings Series, 10, 93–123. Warwick, M. C. (2002). A diachronic study of animal exploitation at Aztalan, a late prehistoric village in Southeast Wisconsin. M.S. Unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Webb, T., III. (1986). Is vegetation in equilibrium with climate? How to interpret late-quaternary pollen data. Vegetation, 67(2), 75–91. Williams, J., Post, D., Cwynar, L., Lotter, A., & Levesque, A. (2002). Rapid and widespread vegetation responses to past climate changes in the North Atlantic region. Geology, 30, 971–974. Winters, H. D., & Struever, S. (1962). The emerald mound group and village. The Living Museum, 23(11), 86–87. Zych, T. J. (2015). Aztalan’s northeast mound: The construction of community. The Wisconsin Archeologist, 96(2), 53–118.

Part III

Into the Midsouth, Ohio Valley, and the Southeast

Chapter 7

Moving In and Moving On: Climate Change and Mississippian Migration in the Middle Ohio Valley Robert A. Cook and Aaron R. Comstock

In this paper we explore relationships between climate change and human migration by focusing on a Mississippian case known as the Fort Ancient culture of the Middle Ohio Valley (MOV). This archaeological culture is thought to be the product of various influences including local groups that were descendants of the Ohio Hopewell, along with new ideas and peoples from neighboring Mississippian regions (Fig. 7.1) (Cook, 2017; Cowan, 1987; Griffin, 1943, 1967). Recent work has highlighted the role of climate change in creating push and pull factors that fostered the movement of people out of classic Mississippian heartlands and into peripheral regions like the MOV (Comstock, 2017; Comstock & Cook, 2018a; Cook, 2017; Cook & Price, 2015). Following Anthony (1990), who noted that both push and pull factors acted on past populations as catalysts for movement, push factors include any social or environmental elements that convince people that life somewhere else will be better than where they currently reside. Conversely, pull factors are any number of those elements, including the case of the literal “greener pasture” of better climate, which compel people to move into regions that are indeed a better option. Importantly, conditions that foster population movement are most impactful when both push and pull factors act in concert (Anthony, 1990: 899). To explore push and pull factors in a multi-scalar framework, we use both direct biological measures of movement and high-resolution moisture data to contextualize cultural patterns evident at Fort Ancient sites in the MOV. Direct measures of migration and population relationships are derived from strontium and biodistance analyses of human bone (Cook, 2017; Cook & Price, 2015). Characterizing paleoclimatic conditions in the region is accomplished through analysis of modeled R. A. Cook (*) Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. R. Comstock Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography, Indiana University East, Richmond, IN, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_7

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Fig. 7.1 Map of Eastern US showing Mississippian subregions and postulated movement of people prior to any direct testing (Griffin, 1967: Fig. 5)

moisture data derived from dendrochronological reconstructions (Cook et al., 2010). Patterns in these migration and environmental datasets are then considered in reference to social contexts identified through archaeological investigations. Our main finding is that there were likely at least two major waves of migration during

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the Late Precontact period in the MOV, which occurred at the beginning and end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), a global-scale event starting about AD 1000 and ending about AD 1300/1400 (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). The MCA is generally described as a time of warmer and more pluvial conditions. While this affected various locations around the world in different ways, in the Eastern Woodlands it clearly coincides with the spread of intensive maize agriculture (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume and VanDerwarker et al., 2017). The patterns identified here, including the movement of farmers in response to climate gradients and landscape reorganization, fit broader global patterns in the spread of agricultural societies (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). For specific cases, we focus our attention on two sites located in the MOV – Guard (12D29) and Turpin (33HA19). These sites have similar calibrated radiocarbon date ranges that span most of the MCA but are distinct in their histories of incorporating Mississippian peoples and practices. Turpin’s case is more closely tied to previous Woodland traditions as well as distant connections with early Mississippians in Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee. There are mounds at Turpin with both Woodland and Mississippian characteristics associated with small villages that are in some ways similar to Emergent/Early Mississippian ones (Kelly, 1990). While the Guard case also represents the incorporation of earlier Woodland mounds into a new settlement, the footprint of the village is similar to Mississippian villages, with whom they may well have had a periphery peer relationship (Cook, 2008: 125–147). Nesting these two archaeological cases within patterns unfolding at broader socioecological scales helps develop more robust understandings of the relationships between climate change, human migration, and cross-cultural interaction in archaeological contexts. Before focusing on our MOV cases, we briefly describe our general theoretical orientation, which is foremost informed by considerations of the interplay between people and their landscapes at multiple spatial scales. More specifically, our approach considers both human intentions and the environmental niches people were drawn to, in which they lived and helped to create, and that they eventually abandoned. We give no priority to either human action or environmental conditions as prime movers in culture change as we see them as being largely inseparable. Hence, we draw upon theories under the large umbrella of social-environmental systems, particularly frameworks that include historical landscape modifications and their impacts on decision-making like Niche Construction Theory (NCT) (OdlingSmee et al., 2003). At a smaller spatial scale, we find utility in exploring agency through applying practice theory (Bourdieu, 1977), particularly as this relates to archaeological settings of cross-cultural interaction (e.g., Lightfoot et al., 1998). We see equal and intertwined parts played by environmental and social practices, perhaps best thought of as two sides of a coin rather than as the first step of a ladder of inference with the environment supporting everything above it (sensu Hawkes, 1954). Long-distance migrations have long been considered as instigators of culture change in the past (Trigger, 1989). In the Eastern Woodlands, Griffin (1943) suggested that the widespread and abrupt appearance of diagnostic material

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characteristics like certain forms of pottery, pipes, and gorgets pointed to direct movement of individuals from Mississippian centers to outlying regions like the MOV. Much of this general argument was furthered by various Fort Ancient researchers (e.g., Essenpreis, 1978; Prufer & Shane, 1970), but relied on typologies and trait lists without direct biological measures. With the popularizing of gradual in situ models of cultural evolution common to the New/Processual Archaeology, this migrationist stance fell out of favor. Connections between Mississippian polities and such groups on the periphery were conceptually severed and we largely stopped thinking about interregional connections, until relatively recently (Cook, 2008). Here we present preliminary results from our most recent solutions to this problem derived from our ongoing research into the development of Fort Ancient village life in the MOV. Methods to empirically examine human migration and biological relatedness between prehistoric populations have advanced significantly over the last few decades. This paper presents a framework that incorporates biological, geochemical, climatological, and archaeological data to examine the emergence of Fort Ancient societies in the northeastern portion of the Mississippian culture area. When these datasets are used in concert, robust understandings of relationships between past societies and pathways of migration can be explored. Based on these lines of evidence, we strongly suggest that the emergence of Fort Ancient cultures was directly linked to the movement of Mississippian people from regions where the Angel, Averbuch, Cahokia, and Hiwassee Island sites are located. Importantly, these movements occurred at a time of marked climatic change.

Measuring Events of Climate Change and Mississippian Migration Our first research concern is rather obvious, that being to reliably measure climate change and human migration between Mississippian locales. In Mississippian studies, climate has long been a commonly cited impetus for migration (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). Recent research using data from the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) identified pluvial and drought conditions in the Middle Mississippi Valley and linked them to the rise and fall of Cahokia (Benson et al., 2009). This research sparked renewed interest in the links between climate change and Mississippian development on the peripheries (e.g., Comstock & Cook 2018a; Nolan & Cook, 2010). The current project uses data from the Living Blended Drought Atlas (LBDA) (Cook et al., 2010), which is a grid of modelled moisture data derived from tree-ring records calculated for North America, to explore diachronic patterns and spatial variations in the climatic conditions of the Mississippian world and identify possible environmentally-influenced push and pull factors. Consideration of modelled moisture data in the MOV between AD 600 and 1800 allows us to track patterns of change. We use three approaches to explore moisture availability data from a data point in the lower Great Miami Valley (grid point

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Fig. 7.2 Modelled moisture data from the Living Blended Drought Atlas, grid point #2302. (a) 10-year running average. (b) Number of years in the past decade with slight drought conditions (PDSI Value < 1). (c) Number of years in the past decade with moderate drought conditions (PDSI Value < 2)

#2302), which allows us to examine diachronic changes in a small region. First, a 10-year running average of annual LBDA data provides insight into patterns over time (Fig. 7.2a). Then, we provide an examination of how many years in the previous 10-year span experienced slight droughts (PDSI value < 1) (Fig. 7.2b), and an examination of how many years in the previous 10-year span experienced moderate droughts (PDSI value < 2) (Fig. 7.2c). Considerations of the number of stressful years in the preceding decade provides a model of how conditions were experienced by people in this region. Longer periods of sustained drought are more likely to have led to food stress and cultural solutions to deal with such stress. We hypothesize that decades with a majority of years in drought conditions were likely to have catalyzed changes that may be visible archaeologically. These three views of the data allow us to identify long-term trends as well as points in time that people experienced short- and long-term drought conditions. Prior to AD 1000, cyclical periods of droughts and pluvials are evident, including significant droughts in the late AD 600s and late AD 800s (as was also the case in the Illinois River Valley [Wilson & Bird, Chap. 4, this volume]). The case could be made that the transition to conditions we characterize as the MCA begin to develop ca. AD 900, after which a general increase in moisture availability and decrease in variability is observed. After approximately AD 1000 conditions became more consistent (i.e., less variable), beginning a comparatively stable period of more pluvial conditions that lasted until approximately AD 1350. During this period (from AD 1000 to 1350), moderate and severe droughts were less frequent than

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the preceding or following periods. The major exception to this pattern is a drought in the mid-AD 1100s that was also identified in the American Bottom as a time of reorganization and palisade building (Benson et al., 2009). Notably, in our region, this period of lower moisture availability and higher variation coincides with reconstruction events and cultural reorganization at Turpin and the shift to communally focused rituals in the plaza of Guard (see below). This perturbation led to decades where the majority of years exhibited drought conditions, likely reflecting a period of increased unpredictability and food stress for local farmers. After approximately AD 1350 moisture variability increased, with significant pluvials and droughts, including multi-decadal droughts in the mid-AD 1400s and mid-to-late-AD 1500s, and a multi-year drought in the early AD 1600s. Many of these created decades with most years in moderate or severe drought conditions (see Fig. 7.2b, c). For example, the drought that began in the mid-AD 1400s led to decades in which almost every year was at least a moderate drought. These droughts that became more numerous after AD 1350 would have led to significant food stress for societies that had experienced variable but relatively pluvial years for the preceding three centuries. Considering the soil degradation resulting from generations of maize agriculture at early Fort Ancient villages, the onset of these long-term droughts may have provided a final stressor that fostered the significant changes seen within the Fort Ancient system at this time (see below). It is important to note that these LBDA data only track changes in modelled moisture availability (Cook et al., 2010). Limited speleothem data from eastern North America suggest that accompanying these changes were warmer conditions associated with the MCA (ca. AD 1000–1300/1400) and cooler conditions in the LIA (ca. AD 1300/1400–1800) (Hardt et al., 2010; Springer et al., 2008). Together these data paint a picture of the “best of times” experienced during the MCA as a warmer, generally wetter period with decreased variability (or increased predictability), and the “worst of times” experienced during the LIA as a period of less predictable cooler conditions punctuated by droughts that sometimes spanned decades. If we expand our scale of analysis to the broader region, three key climate patterns are evident (see also Comstock & Cook, 2018a). These build on findings of earlier researchers suggesting that notably pluvial times coincided with the rise of large polities in the American Bottom (Benson et al., 2009). Similarly, we found that after this period a shift occurred beginning around AD 1100 in which persistent drought conditions occurred throughout much of the Midcontinent (Fig. 7.3). These multiyear and sometimes multidecadal droughts would have likely placed hereto unforeseen stress on socioeconomic systems highly dependent on maize agriculture and may also have affected the functions of mound centers with more people residing in close quarters that were surrounded by fortifications (e.g., Angel, Cahokia). Next, we found evidence that a geographic disparity in climate conditions existed between the Middle Mississippi Valley (MMV) and the Middle Ohio Valley (MOV). Although droughts became the norm in the MMV, the MOV is marked by continued pluvial conditions that persisted at least until the onset of the Little Ice Age circa AD 1300/1400 (Fig. 7.3). This spatial discrepancy may have created an ecological gradient like

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Fig. 7.3 Regional Patterns in Moisture Availability. (a) AD 1100–1149, (b) 1150–1199, (c) 1300–1349, (d) AD 1350–1399, (e) AD 1550–1599, (f) AD 1600–1649

those that fostered movement among agricultural societies elsewhere in the world (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). Finally, we note a discrepancy between annual and averaged LBDA data that is important to consider. Despite the punctuated droughts discussed above during the AD 1500s and AD 1600s that may have led to substantial change and out-migrations in the MOV (see below), the variability leads

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Fig. 7.4 Biodistance data from cemento-enamel junction (CEJ) of human teeth from several Fort Ancient and other Mississippian sites of likely migrants (see Fig. 7.1). (Analysis and image by Scott Aubry)

to average conditions when considered at broad spatial and temporal scales (see Fig. 7.3). Although these periods appear consistent with normal moisture conditions when examined at regional scales, we know that significant droughts impacted many regions. This highlights the difficulties in working between different spatial and temporal scales that we described earlier in this volume. Evidence from a biodistance study undertaken of the cemento-enamel junction (CEJ) of key teeth and a strontium study of human enamel supports an interpretation of migration from drought affected areas (Cook, 2017). Biodistance analysis from individuals at four Fort Ancient sites and three Mississippian ones identified the early Fort Ancient Turpin site as being unique (Cook, 2017). Individuals from Turpin are more closely related to individuals buried at the Mississippian sites of Averbuch, Cahokia, Dickson, and Hiwassee Island than they are to nearby Fort Ancient populations (Cook, 2017) (Fig. 7.4). A strontium study identified numerous sites as likely containing non-local migrants (Cook & Price, 2015). However, the Turpin site was again most unusual in that approximately one-third of the burial population analyzed was non-local in origin, but were interred at Turpin. Not surprisingly, the strontium ratio of these individuals matches Mississippian areas such as those represented by the burial populations noted above for the biodistance study. Using strontium and biodistance data in conjunction with each other allows us

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to use multiple independent lines of evidence to assess cases of migration such as this one. In each case, the early Fort Ancient Turpin site stands out as having distinct evidence of migration. With this in mind, we must consider what factors influenced these people to pick up and move from Mississippian settlements and mound centers to what might have felt like the edges of their known world. Migration of Mississippians into the region is most frequent at the onset of the MCA and beginning of the Fort Ancient Period (ca., AD 1000–1100) (Cook & Price, 2015), but there is at least one case for a migrant in the Late Woodland period, specifically dating to cal. AD 651–865. What makes this case even more intriguing is that the strontium values are consistent with the Middle Cumberland region of Tennessee. This individual is an adult female who ate little-to-no maize and was located in the stone mound at Turpin (Cook & Price, 2015). Furthermore, there are also a few corn cob fragments recovered from Turpin that date to this same time (Cook, 2017: Fig. 5.10). These findings represent rare insights into pre-AD 1000 movements throughout the midcontinent, but the majority of empirical evidence for such migrations comes from after this point. That more migrants came during the MCA suggests the development of push and pull factors in relation to disparities in moisture availability throughout the region (Comstock & Cook, 2018a) (see Fig. 7.3). This was a period of major population shuffling in the American Bottom and several other early areas for Mississippian developments, resulting in at least some people leaving and settling elsewhere (see Hedman et al. and Zych & Richards, Chaps. 2 and 6, this volume), particularly as outlying farming communities like the Richland complex were depopulated (Alt, 2002). Of course, it appears that the majority of the resident population stayed at Cahokia and elsewhere until the end of the MCA when the so-called Vacant Quarter remained (Williams, 1990), though we now know that this and other seemingly depopulated areas were not entirely devoid of people, but instead saw considerably reduced populations (e.g., Pollack, 2004). The complex societies that developed during the period between AD 1000 and 1300/1400 have often been considered along a social spectrum between chiefdoms and states, although these neo-evolutionary terms have been justifiably critiqued in recent decades (e.g., Pauketat, 2007; Yoffee, 1993). While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to wrestle with this typological problem, suffice it to say here that we recognize that the key Mississippian regions that are possible homelands for migrants into the MOV– places that include Angel Mounds, Cahokia, and Hiwassee Island – contained larger mound centers, and presumably more complex social entities, than did the MOV. There is well-justified disagreement over the degree to which Mississippian mound centers were complex in both hierarchical or heterarchical terms and the proportion of the increased complexity that was ritually-focused as opposed to politically-focused power wielded by the upper echelon (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume and Cobb, 2003). The difference in the MOV may well be that a scalar threshold (sensu Johnson, 1982) was never exceeded that would have necessitated the more complex ranked societal form as occurred at Cahokia in the American Bottom and elsewhere. We see the Fort Ancient culture, at least in our study area, as being Mississippian, but at a

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much lower level of organizational complexity compared to mound centers like Angel and Cahokia. Perhaps developments in the MOV never necessitated social solutions that exceeded the level of autonomous villages. A range of push/pull factors are potentially at play when considering movements within and between regions in the midcontinent over time. At the broadest scale, a set of environmental conditions made maize agriculture quite conducive to intensification in the American Bottom in a way that appears to underlie the rise of complexity after about AD 1000 (see Benson et al., 2009). The onset of droughts beginning after about AD 1100 undoubtedly created novel stressors for the large polities and strained social control, resulting in the eventual abandonment of outlying tributary farming communities. Mississippian migrations into the MOV thus occurred at a time when Cahokia and other complex politico-religious mound centers were first forming and then dealing with the onset of droughts beginning around AD 1100 (Benson et al., 2009). Social adaptations to increases in subsistence unpredictability undoubtedly would have been accompanied by fragmentation and the need for up-and-coming leaders to demonstrate their abilities in distant lands. Such movements were likely not unidirectional, meaning that some of the immigrants into the American Bottom could have been from the MOV, only to return to their homeland to employ at least some of what they had learned in the distant locale (see Cook & Price, 2015 for an example). Thus far, we have presented evidence that biologically and geochemically identifies non-local individuals in early Fort Ancient contexts and links them to neighboring Mississippian groups. These lines of evidence point to direct migration and establishment of communities by Mississippians in the MOV. We have also provided evidence of push factors at Mississippian polities in the form of droughts and the contingent stressors these produce and pull factors in the Middle Ohio Valley in the form of comparatively pluvial and more predictable conditions. This gradient appears to be one of the factors that fostered the movement of non-local groups into the MOV and the establishment of villages at key ecological locations.

Moving In: Comparing Two Early Sites To these data we now add archaeological evidence from ongoing investigations of two early Fort Ancient sites, Guard and Turpin, each of which were occupied between about AD 1000 and 1300 and provide abundant evidence of Mississippian contact (Comstock, 2017; Comstock & Cook, 2018a; Cook, 2017; Cook et al., 2015). As discussed above, individuals interred at Turpin present consistent biological and geochemical evidence for migration. These lines of evidence provide a lens through which we can consider ample evidence from material culture. In particular, annular shell gorgets and a “prisoner” pipe indicate linkages with the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) (see Drooker, 1997: 90) and Powell Plain pottery with “Cahokia shoulders” and Ramey designs (see Griffin, 1943) supports a Cahokia connection more directly. The plain pottery is consistent with the Mississippi Plain type found at Hiwassee Island, which includes frequent rim thickening/strips

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(Comstock & Cook, 2018b) (see below). In short, the biodistance data supports roughly an equal split between connecting Turpin to the CIRV (Dickson), eastern Tennessee (Hiwassee Island), and Cahokia, which matches the same locations for material culture linkages. While the sample is too small from Guard to reliably assess human biological relationships at the same scale, this site also contains clear evidence from material culture for interactions with Mississippians, not least of which is a Ramey knife made from Kaolin chert (see Cook et al., 2015: 103). It should also be noted that these locations are not randomly positioned; it has been argued for example that the lower Great Miami River topography created natural routes that facilitated cultural mixing (Black, 1934: 173). This area is also at the enviable position of being at the intersection of multiple ecozones and situated in a broad floodplain environment, with excellent soil for farming and nearby oxbows and other wetlands that are attractive places to settle from a subsistence standpoint. This environmental locale can be considered a prime example of the Mississippian Adaptive Niche (Smith, 1978). Importantly, these locales were occupied during the Middleand Late Woodland times for the use and production of Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) plants as well as a wide variety of wild resources (e.g., Kozarek, 1997). In these settings, migrants and their descendants reoccupied earlier Woodland mound sites in large, mature floodplains and formed large villages. In this sense, it is crucial to note that Mississippians targeted both a natural and cultural niche, illustrating key aspects of Niche Construction Theory (NCT), which adds a useful historical dimension to considerations of socioecological systems (Odling-Smee et al., 2003). There were undoubtedly also cosmological and sensory aspects of these particular landscapes that mimicked home (i.e., large floodplains and oxbow lakes) and quite possibly preordained their selection as locations for migrants to establish new villages. As stated in the introduction, we find it difficult to separate such environmental and cultural factors, nor do we think it productive to try to do so - the decisions of migrants regarding where to settle were complex and contingent on specific histories and ecologies.

Early Mississippians at the Turpin Site Our first case study is the Turpin site, which is located on the first terrace of the Little Miami River approximately three kilometers from its confluence with the Ohio River in southwest Ohio. The Turpin site is a cornerstone in regional typologies because it is one of the few sites in the region with Late Woodland and Fort Ancient occupations (Cowan, 1987; Oehler, 1973) and has long been cited as evidence for the gradual development of Fort Ancient from Late Woodland societies (e.g., Riggs, 1998). Our work at Turpin has largely focused on investigating residential contexts. Two small villages were relatively clear on the basis of a magnetic gradiometry survey, conducted by the senior author with Jarrod Burks. An auger survey that covered the entire landform was undertaken by the junior author to more fully assess this possibility (Comstock, 2017) (Fig. 7.5).

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Fig. 7.5 Turpin site map showing magnetomery and village plans, large mound pattern with burials, solar alignments, and sub-mound architecture (solid red lines and rectangles), and concentrations of key pottery temper types. (Base map provided by Jarrod Burks, pottery and mound maps after Comstock, 2017)

The senior author is currently conducting a comprehensive investigation of the first fieldwork undertaken at Turpin by Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, led by Frederic Ward Putnam and Charles Metz in the mid-1880s. This work focused exclusively on residential parts of the site and associated burials, pits, basins, and hearths.

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Fig. 7.6 Main burial mound at Turpin showing profile containing a flat-top platform (bottom) which coincides with major concentration of burials (top)

Until recently, we only knew about Turpin from the excavation of two mounds – one Fort Ancient and one Late Woodland – and associated burials that were excavated by the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History along with a few other units at the site (Oehler,, 1973). A large proportion of the burials that were in the Fort Ancient mound were located in the upper portion, possibly deposited sequentially on a flat mound surface (Comstock 2017) (Fig. 7.6). This mound was positioned over a stratified midden with Fort Ancient/Mississippian deposits overtop a Late Woodland cultural component. The Late Woodland component appeared to its excavators to be the remains of a residential occupation that they termed the Old Village (Oehler, 1973). Two more recent stratigraphic excavations and subsequent analyses have clearly shown distinctions between the Late Woodland and Fort Ancient/Mississippian deposits (Comstock, 2017; Riggs, 1998). At present, the clearest distinctions are in terms of relative abundance of plant domesticates, which shifted quickly from plants associated with the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) to maize, and also in terms of pottery temper, which shifted rapidly from rock to shell (Comstock, 2017; Riggs, 1998; Weiland, 2019) (Fig. 7.7). Other than gross distinctions over time in terms of pottery and diet, very little was known about the residential structure of the site before our recent efforts. A large part of the reason that this was the case was that most of the residential excavations were conducted in the late nineteenth century. This was the very dawn of the professional

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Fig. 7.7 Line graphs showing the shift in plant usage and pottery temper types at the Turpin site. (These line graphs are based on data from Weiland, 2019: Fig. 4.10, which are derived from a small stratigraphic collection made by Riggs, 1998)

era of archaeology when methods of recording provenience information were in their infancy. By combining spatial data recorded in the 1880s with results of a modern geophysical and auger survey, we have been able to discern far more than we initially thought possible (see Fig. 7.5).

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The results of the magnetic gradiometry survey revealed two roughly circular patterns we interpreted to be small villages, with a large amount of noise we presumed was the result of earth disturbances from the earlier excavations and activities associated with the historic Turpin family house and farming activities. To further evaluate this potential site layout, a systematic auger survey was completed as were test excavations of two houses (Comstock, 2017). Results were generally consistent with the magnetometry results and revealed some interesting distinctions in pottery temper across the site. Specifically, the Mississippian style shell tempered materials were closer to the mounds and the Late Woodland limestone and grit tempers more concentrated along the edges of the site (see Fig. 7.5). In general, the results confirm the strong suspicion from the magnetic gradiometry survey that the site contains at least two small villages. The form of each of these small villages, with a number of small structures arranged around central posts, is similar to small Late Woodland and Early Mississippian villages in the American Bottom (e.g., Kelly, 1990) (Fig. 7.8). While archival and field research is ongoing, it has become clear that there is at least one additional small village at Turpin, bringing the total to minimum of three small villages. These three villages are positioned on the landscape in what may either be consecutively or simultaneously used small villages, in some ways similar to Emergent/Early Mississippian villages in the American Bottom near Cahokia (e.g., Kelly, 1990). Analysis of the assemblages of the three recently defined small villages has just begun. Here, we offer a few general and preliminary comparisons of the two villages located west of the large burial mound in comparison to the village located to the east of this mound. Before comparing various aspects of these villages, there is an important cultural and temporal distinction to consider. We know that at least one of the west villages is spatially associated with a Late Woodland mound that is situated along the river terrace edge and was largely constructed with locally obtained limestone. In contrast, the east village may be more associated with the Fort Ancient/Mississippian mound, and may have been organized together via a solar alignment (see Fig. 7.5). On the basis of a Bayesian analysis of a suite of radiocarbon dates obtained during excavation of a house in the west and one in the east, it is reasonably clear that one of the west villages (date range roughly AD 1050–1250) started earlier than the east village (date range roughly AD 1200–1300) but both may have been contemporary for some time, between about AD 1200 and 1250 (Comstock, 2017). To begin assessing whether there are substantive distinctions between these villages, we compare two mortuary aspects: grave covering and artifact presence/ absence. What we expect regarding grave covering is that stone usage may be relatable to the earlier component near the stone mound, and this holds true. More of the graves in the west villages incorporated stone in their construction than in the east village. Given that biological and geochemical evidence points to east Tennessee, one likely homeland of these communities (see above), and that stone box graves are a hallmark of Mississippian mortuary customs in this area (Brown, 1981), these stone burials may provide an additional linkage to that area. This fits with the more Mississippian-style household excavated in this area (Comstock, 2017).

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Fig. 7.8 Comparison of a Late Woodland/Emergent Mississippian site near Cahokia and a Late Woodland/Mississippian site in Ohio. (The Range village map is based on Kelly 1990: Fig. 34)

A second mortuary aspect concerns the presence of artifacts with burials, the general expectation being that these are often more common over time as status distinctions emerge and are materially defined in a social group or interactions with Mississippians. This expectation is also supported as considerably more burials in the east village have grave goods than is the case in the west villages. Alternatively, this finding could relate to the development of a novel cultural organization that we refer to as Fort Ancient culture. In this region, particularly in the lower Miami River

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Valleys, pottery decoration is extremely common (Cowan, 1987: 16). The pattern of more frequent burial goods, taken with the finding of later structures (cal. AD 1200–1300) with highly decorated pottery assemblages in this area (Comstock, 2017), could reflect the emergence of new ways of life in successive generations of Mississippian migrant communities. Thus far, we have partially excavated one structure in each group of rectangular anomalies identified in the magnetic survey. The anomaly in the western group produced clear evidence of a wall trench structure that was renovated at least once. The structure was initially built between cal. AD 1044 and 1188 and renovated or rebuilt between cal. AD 1181 and 1265. Notably, the basin for this wall trench house was originally dug into a preexisting midden containing diagnostic Late Woodland pottery and projectile points. The result of this is a mixed midden in the top layers outside of the structure, but the house itself appears to be fully Mississippian in terms of its architecture and associated material assemblage. Based on horizontal and vertical stratigraphic relationships and material culture, we suggest that the Mississippian structure was an intrusive occupation into an older and distinctly separate Late Woodland midden. The structure in the east village produced evidence of a second Mississippianstyle wall trench structure that was built between AD 1206 and 1270 and renovated in place at least twice soon after. This occupation is considered more recent than that of the west villages, and comparison of these contexts may provide insight into change over time of Fort Ancient culture at Turpin. The pottery from Fort Ancient contexts at Turpin is overwhelmingly shell tempered (>95%), and much of it is a plain variety that fits well with the Mississippi Plain type that we have observed from the Hiwassee Island site (Comstock & Cook, 2018b) (Fig. 7.9). A distinct difference is evident between the structure assemblages. The earlier western structure includes predominately this Mississippi Plain variety, with a small number of decorated sherds including several Ramey-emulation motifs and both positive and negative painting. Pottery from the eastern structure, while almost all shell tempered, includes a higher percentage of cordmarked vessels and high frequencies of a variety of decorative motifs, including curvilinear guilloche and line-filled triangle designs. This comparison may point to the development over time of what researchers typically consider Fort Ancient pottery (i.e., primarily decorated wares [e.g., Cowan, 1987]).

A Mississippian Periphery Peer at the Guard Site An earlier study of processes of Fort Ancient village formation in relation to Mississippian interactions defined a peer-polity process described as “peripherypeer interaction” (Cook, 2008: 125). This model largely derived the inspiration for the Fort Ancient village form coming from Mississippian villages that they competitively mimicked in developing and maintaining peer status, a relationship that plays out when these villages are compared side-by-side (Fig. 7.10).

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Fig. 7.9 Photographs of pottery rims comparing Turpin to Hiwassee Island (top) and Guard to Angel (bottom). Note that the two Fort Ancient sites (Turpin and Guard) are respectively similar to the two Mississippian sites (Hiwassee Island and Angel)

Our field research over nearly a decade at the Guard site has produced clear evidence for a large early Fort Ancient village/town (Cook, 2017; Cook et al., 2015). The most recent finding is a probable perimeter stockade that encompasses the village (Schulenburg & Cook, 2020). This feature is set much further back from the plaza than other Fort Ancient cases (e.g., SunWatch). Furthermore, it appears to be less strongly circular, making it more similar to Mississippian villages like Southwind (Munson, 1994). To date, we have excavated portions of five structures and numerous features with a focus on understanding both residential and plaza areas. At least four of the five structures we have investigated thus far were constructed using Mississippian-style wall trenches. AMS dating of architectural elements (i.e. carbon from posts or wall trenches) places the construction of these wall trench structures between cal. AD

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Fig. 7.10 A comparison of the Guard site with a “maximal” interpretation of house locations based on magnetometry (top) with a common Mississippian village (bottom) Mississippian village after a painting by Herb Roe [commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Herb_Roe]

1000 and 1250, contemporaneous with similarly built structures at Turpin, and more broadly consistent with early Mississippian expansions covered elsewhere in this volume. Plaza excavations have uncovered a variety of features including at least one large central marker post, a deep (180 cm) straight-sided storage pit, thermal features, hearths, and large shallow basins not uncommonly filled with what we interpret as

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feasting remains, most often being dense deposits of burned corn kernels and mussel shell. Ongoing analysis of calibrated AMS dates from the site suggests that the initial phase of occupation beginning between about AD 1000 and 1050 included structures and the central marker pole, and that the central plaza was filled with these special purpose features beginning between AD 1150 and 1200 (Comstock et al., 2018). This change in use of the central portion of the site from relatively vacant to a locus of ritual activity may coincide with stressors resulting from droughts that occurred during this time that we described above and/or population growth in the village. Our excavations at the Guard site have revealed a marked pattern to the site structure. Like at the Turpin site, the Guard site contains clear evidence of Mississippi Plain pottery, but here we can say that this particular vessel form is more concentrated in the plaza; we do not yet know if this was the case at any of the small Turpin villages. However, the Mississippi Plain pottery at Guard is more similar to the plain pottery from the Angel site (Comstock & Cook, 2018b) (see Fig. 7.9), a large Mississippian mound center located in southwest Indiana near the confluence of the Green River and the Ohio River (Black, 1967). In contrast to the plaza pattern, but similar to the house we excavated in the east village at Turpin, Guard’s residential zone has produced material assemblages largely consistent with other Fort Ancient sites in the region. This pottery is almost invariably shell tempered and includes a mixture of smoothed and cordmarked vessels. Many vessels in residential contexts are decorated, most of which are curvilinear guilloche motifs. Based on these data, Guard exhibits a unique pattern of a Mississippian rituallyfocused plaza encircled by a more classically Fort Ancient residential zone. This pattern may reflect a different scenario than at Turpin where there were either more non-locals or they were more fully integrated into the overall community plan. It is also possible that Turpin was composed of initial or “first order” migrants who influenced people at other communities, possibly Guard, to become what we recognize as Fort Ancient. In this scenario, Guard residents were fully formed as Fort Ancient culture with centrally focused rituals involving Mississippian pottery to bind them together around the new orientation toward intensive maize agriculture. As noted, these Mississippian community rituals may have developed in the latter half of the Guard site’s occupational history, coinciding with periods of drought that saw settlement reorganization throughout the midcontinent. In short, the Guard site layout and public spaces appear to be more dictated by Mississippian rules whereas the residential portion of the site exhibits a pattern that involves Mississippian-style households and hybrid pottery that is predominantly shell tempered, cordmarked, and decorated. Cordmarking, which is traditionally an element of Late Woodland (ca. AD 400–1000) pottery in this region (see Seeman & Dancey, 2000), may reflect an element of ethnic hybridity (i.e. local people incorporating their own traditions into a new system established by non-local groups), although it is unclear at this time if cordmarking is a direct indication of local traditions, an element of a novel Fort Ancient system, or both. As others have shown, it is not uncommon in cases of cultural contact for more powerful newcomers to establish rules of large-scale site structure while residential life reflects more of the local traditions (e.g., Lightfoot et al., 1998). To more interestingly complicate

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matters, a comparison of strontium ratios for first and third molars found that the adult male buried at Guard with a Ramey knife (AD 1039–1251) was one of a small group that may have taken a journey in young adulthood to the American Bottom (Cook & Price, 2015). Hence, while we do not have an adequate sample from Guard for biodistance study, the Ramey knife along with third molar strontium information is strongly suggestive that locals went to Cahokia and returned to the community at Guard. These possible pilgrims evidently returned with tangible and likely intangible ideological markers of their journey to the American Bottom. This back-and-forth migration has been touched on by several others in this volume (e.g., Emerson et al., Zych & Richards, Chaps. 5 and 6).

Moving On: Departures and Descendants Thus far, we have considered the early end of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) as it applies to the movement of Mississippians into the Middle Ohio Valley (MOV). In this section, we consider the other side of the MCA (ca., AD 1300/1400), when the climate shifted to cooler temperatures and drier conditions associated with the Little Ice Age (LIA) (see Figs. 7.2 and 7.3). Somewhere around the AD 1300/1400 time period associated with the end of the MCA, Fort Ancient culture underwent a major shift at a regional scale. The clearest indicator of this change is in the dominant pottery style associated with what is referred to as the Madisonville Horizon (ca., AD 1400–1650) (Drooker, 1997; Henderson, 1992). Earlier Fort Ancient pottery (ca., AD 1000–1300/1400) is more often decorated on the neck with various regional traditions of design and temper types used in the formation of the vessels (Griffin, 1943). In contrast, the later Madisonville Horizon pottery is not often decorated on the neck, is almost always shell tempered, and typically has four symmetrically placed strap handles. In terms of settlement distribution, there are considerably fewer sites, with a geographic focus more restricted to the Ohio River and lower reaches of its tributaries (Fig. 7.11). There are likely several reasons for this, one of which is a focus on better environmental conditions for maize agriculture (e.g., Kennedy, 2000). Another reason may well have been a reorientation of exchange patterns where the focus was again on more distant connections (e.g., Drooker, 1997). Needless to say, these are not mutually exclusive scenarios, and there were likely other contributing factors as well. An interpretation we have never seen questioned concerns the Madisonville Horizon, which has always been thought to develop solely from the preceding Fort Ancient groups, with a departure from the region only occurring at about AD 1650. However, based on recent research into the problem (Cook, 2017), we have reason to doubt this singular exodus scenario. Below, we consider multiple lines of evidence that renders it at least as likely (if not moreso) that there were two major departures from the MOV. One departure was much earlier than traditionally thought and one was more consistent with the established narrative, but perhaps extending

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Fig. 7.11 A comparison of pre- and post- AD 1400 site concentrations and pottery styles in the Middle Ohio Valley

closer to the encroachment of European settlers beginning in earnest in the late eighteenth century (Fig. 7.12).

An Early Exodus? Clues from Biodistance, Linguistics, and Dhegiha Siouan Oral History The onset of drought conditions in the MOV at the end of the MCA fostered the expansion of grassland environments in the region. As the Prairie Peninsula expanded, the range of bison did as well (Brown, 1965; Shay, 1978). Not surprisingly, bison skeletal elements are regularly found in faunal assemblages at Madisonville Horizon sites (Drooker, 1997). Considering global patterns in agricultural migration related to the links between climate change and environmental transitions (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume), this period may have exhibited novel push and pull factors influencing Fort Ancient societies. A recent consideration of human carbon isotopes found a split between the north and south halves of the Madisonville site, with heavy maize eaters on par with Early Fort Ancient instances mostly in the north (Cook, 2017). It appears that those who occupied Madisonville after the MCA had diversified their diet along social lines, possibly within a moiety-type system (Cook, 2017). We also see a marked change in storage pit size, with very deep and generally much larger pits becoming

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Fig. 7.12 Map of the Eastern US showing the two postulated movements and cultural affiliations related to the Middle Ohio Valley

commonplace. This is a clear shift away from the shallower features used in earlier Fort Ancient times. While the issue of storage is complex, with feature size being related to a host of social functions, one issue to closely consider is that of caching and seasonal abandonment (Wagner, 2008). Storage pits may be better thought of as cache pits, with the intention of concealing things when away from the village on long hunts in the off-season (i.e., after harvest and before planting) (Wagner, 2008). Hence, it may be no coincidence that a decrease in maize usage by some and the increase in caching behavior go hand-in-hand at Madisonville.

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Having established some basic parameters of Fort Ancient cultural change during the onset of the LIA, we turn to consider aspects of migration directly. First, we reiterate that there are far fewer sites, which is suggestive of a reduced local population. Second, a biodistance study that considered Madisonville along with three earlier Fort Ancient sites (Anderson, SunWatch, Turpin) and a number of neighboring Mississippian ones (Angel, Averbuch, Hiwassee Island, Mouse Creeks) found Madisonville to be significantly distant from Anderson and Turpin and only weakly related to SunWatch (Cook, 2017: 120). Based on this study, there is certainly reason to believe that many of the occupants of Madisonville came from outside of the Miami Valleys (where Anderson, SunWatch, and Turpin are located). In other words, many of the peoples from Anderson, SunWatch, and Turpin do not appear to be ancestral to the Madisonville population (Cook, 2017). In this sense, we have a possible scenario in which non-local Mississippians moved in and established a new way of life ca. AD 1000/1100, resulting in the emergence of what we call Fort Ancient culture. Following the end of the MCA and the transition into the LIA, we see a significant cultural transition resulting in the establishment of Madisonville Horizon sites ca. 1400, which are occupied by people not only or even mainly descendants of earlier Fort Ancient peoples. In essence, the Middle Ohio Valley corridor may have seen the long-term ebb and flow of populations responding to various environmental and social pushes and pulls. A final consideration comes directly from oral histories of some of the potential descendants of Fort Ancient culture. It has long been known that the five Dhegiha Siouan tribes (Kansa, Omaha, Osage, Ponca, Quapaw) were once a singular entity that traces its geographic origin to somewhere near the shift between the lower and middle portions of the Ohio River (i.e., possibly very close to where the Guard site is located [see Cook, 2017]). Consideration of these accounts, along with linguistic relationships, temporally places the migration somewhere between about AD 1300 and AD 1500 (see discussion in Cook, 2017). This is clearly consistent with the suite of changes occurring in Fort Ancient culture, not least of which is the findings from the biodistance study (see above). In short, we see the Fort Ancient tradition as fundamentally changing during the period marked by a transition from more favorable MCA conditions to less favorable LIA conditions, including the likelihood that many people left the region. We see an increasingly likely connection to Dhegiha Siouans. It remains to be investigated if people came into the region at the end of the MCA and from where, although this case seems likely given the general lack of biological relationships between earlier Fort Ancient peoples and those who lived at Madisonville. Once again, climate change, in the form of cooler and drier conditions that helped reshape local ecologies, played a role in the development of the new settlement system. However, here we see a different pattern, one that led to a dietary divergence with a village contingent decreasing their reliance on maize while possibly increasing their focus on bison hunting. In fact, one could argue that those that left (i.e., some of the Dhegiha Siouans) were pulled by the attraction of bison as a dietary income as this clearly became the focus of Plains groups more generally (Cook, 2017; Drooker, 1997).

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Those that Remained Until 1795 (and Shortly Thereafter) At or before about AD 1650 is a typical cutoff for Fort Ancient chronologies as most of the radiocarbon date ranges stop at that time. However, there are certainly some date ranges that have small proportions of their distribution that extend later, up until AD 1800 and beyond. This is particularly clear at Hahn and Madisonville (Cook, 2017: Fig. 4.16). We should keep open the possibility that, while many people living in the MOV left in the mid-seventeenth century, some may have remained or at least returned periodically. In other words, we should question our interpretations that are often too quick to claim abandonment of regions for this has crucial implications (see Colwell-Chanthaponh & Ferguson, 2006 who argue for a more limited use of the term “abandonment”). The earliest historical accounts of Native Americans in the MOV were not made until the eighteenth century and include a wide number of groups, most of which are Central Algonquian (mainly Miami and Shawnee). Hence, when it comes to cultural connections with the last pre-contact uses of the region, it seems most appropriate to connect these groups with Madisonville Horizon sites, but not with the assumption that they are necessarily connected to the earlier Fort Ancient sites given the accumulating evidence from biodistance and oral history discussed above. However, it is also possible that these groups were new to the region and the original occupants are even more widely represented in living descendants. The more recent parts of the date ranges then would be from newcomers to the area that reused parts of the landscape that contained the ancient sites, a behavior which has a precedent in earlier mortuary contexts in the region (Mann, 2005). In 1795, when the Treaty of Greenville was signed, the southern part of Ohio was legally removed as Native American land. This region was quickly parceled and sold to various prospectors from New England and Virginia that profited greatly from selling it to a flood of settlers. However, climate change and migration continued to influence some of the migrants to the U.S. and indeed movement of peoples throughout the world.

Conclusion There are a range of ways to be Mississippian (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume; also see Blitz, 2010; Cobb, 2003). Like many examples of agriculturalists spreading around the world, we have recognized relationships between migration and climate change (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). In particular, our identification of push and pull factors that likely influenced choices to move, as well as landscape transitions linked to climate change, fit well with broader global patterns regarding why agriculturalists choose to move. Moreover, we see centripetal forces at work radiating out from early centers like Cahokia and Hiwassee Island and then back to these places (see Mehta & Rodning, Chap. 12, this volume). Perhaps

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being Mississippian was as much an “imagined community” than anything else, which is a social phenomenon we are all too familiar with in modern nation states (Anderson, 1983). In summary, our work reveals that unlike traditional autochthonous models of Fort Ancient development, cultural change in this region, at least along the main trunk of the Ohio River, was rapid and instigated by the movement of Mississippians into the region. Early Fort Ancient villages contained structures that were built in a distinctly Mississippian style and contained Mississippian-style pottery and artifacts. While data are limited, larger patterns are beginning to emerge that highlight the complex connections between the non-local and local populations and their environments. It appears at Turpin that there were various levels of residential adoption of the new Mississippian ways, whereas at Guard the new Mississippian ways formed the very central rituals that bound together a population that seems much more homogeneous in terms of material culture. To get to these answers has required a broad suite of data in an anthropological and historical framework inclusive of equal parts biology and culture, not to mention a suite of radiometric dates from individuals of interest alongside short slices of climate data. Taken together, this study should illustrate how we are working in an exciting time where our methods and questions are co-developing to better understand complex and coupled socialenvironmental systems. Our work also fits with the broader ebb and flow of Mississippian pulses as they relate to climate on the front and back ends of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (ca., AD 1000 and AD 1300/1400). Indeed, many of our colleagues in this volume point out the ebb and flow of Mississippian peoples within and between regions during these periods. These are two very different worlds with important implications regarding not only relationships between climate and migration but also identification of descendant communities. One of the additional issues that our work has raised is the importance of the late Late Woodland period, both in the MOV and elsewhere in the Midcontinent. This period between AD 800 and 1000 is elsewhere referred to as the Emergent Mississippian (Kelley, 1990) or Terminal Late Woodland [Fortier et al., 2006]), highlighting the contention between autochthonous and punctuated change as it relates to the development of Mississippian societies. Late Woodland societies, despite early interpretations of large-scale decline when compared to preceding Middle Woodland accomplishments, are now seen as somewhat “balkanized” but still interconnected groups (McElrath et al., 2000). While our work at Turpin and Guard addresses a key aspect of the spread of Mississippians into outlying regions, there are still important questions regarding previous connections. Late Woodland sites like Turpin, the ritual landscape of which was integrated into a new Mississippian community, are important to understand as they relate to long-standing Woodland period networks. Indeed, migrants typically only undertake long-distance moves if they have connections to or knowledge of far-off locations, suggesting that we should expect linkages preceding migration events (Anthony, 1990; Zvelebil, 2000). The networks of segmented but connected Late Woodland societies may have provided just the strands of connectivity to allow for subsequent long-distance movements.

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Our ongoing work at Turpin, both in the field and the archives, has highlighted the possibility of pre-Mississippian connections that may have facilitated the subsequent moves that we have fleshed out in this chapter. For example, a Late Woodland period strontium outlier links Turpin to destinations like east Tennessee (Cook & Price, 2015), where key centers like Hiwassee Island exhibit a similar trajectory of a Late Woodland center seemingly mapped onto by early Mississippian populations (Lewis & Kneberg, 1946). Also evident during this period at Turpin and other Late Woodland sites in the lower Miami Valleys are projectile points that fit well with late Late Woodland Scallorn types, which are typically diagnostic of the central Mississippi Valley (see Justice, 1987: Map 95). Growing evidence of possible late Late Woodland period links between Turpin and other sites on the Mississippian periphery suggest that we need to rethink what was happening during this important period. Although much more subtle than later migrations, these possible Late Woodland connections may provide an important piece of evidence in cultural change during the early Late Precontact period throughout the Eastern Woodlands. Ongoing work by the senior author has also uncovered evidence of possible Late Woodland features at Turpin that require modern investigation and extensive targeted AMS dating. We plan to explore these issues at Turpin and elsewhere in future field seasons.

References Alt, S. M. (2002). Identities, traditions, and diversity in Cahokia’s uplands. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 27, 217–236. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso. Anthony, D. (1990). Migration in archaeology: The baby and the bathwater. American Anthropologist, 92, 895–914. Benson, L. V., Pauketat, T. R., & Cook, E. R. (2009). Cahokia’s boom and bust in the context of climate change. American Antiquity, 74, 467–483. Black, G. A. (1934). Archaeological survey of Dearborn and Ohio counties. Indiana History Bulletin, 11, 173–260. Black, G. A. (1967). Angel site: An archaeological, historical, and ethnological study. Indiana Historical Society. Blitz, J. H. (2010). New perspectives in Mississippian archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research, 18, 1–39. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press. Brown, J. A. (1965). The Prairie Peninsula: An interaction area in the Eastern United States. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Brown, I. (1981). A study of stone box graves in Eastern North America. Tennessee Anthropologist, 6, 1–26. Cobb, C. R. (2003). Mississippian chiefdoms: How complex? Annual Review of Anthropology, 32, 63–84. Colwell-Chanthaponh, C., & Ferguson, T. J. (2006). Rethinking abandonment in archaeological contexts (pp. 37–41). SAA Archaeological Record. Comstock, A. R. (2017). Climate change, migration, and the emergence of village life on the Mississippian periphery: A middle Ohio Valley case study. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus.

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Comstock, A. R., & Cook, R. A. (2018a). Climate change along the Mississippian periphery: A fort ancient example. American Antiquity, 83, 91–108. Comstock, A. R., & Cook, R. A. (2018b). Hidden in plain sight: Mississippi plain pottery as an indicator of movement on the Mississippian periphery. Poster Presented at the 2018 Society for American Archaeology Meeting, Washington, D.C. Comstock, A. R., Cook, R. A., Schurr, M., & Sakai, S. (2018). Chronological complexity of the guard site: Combining AMS, OSL, and fluoride Dating. In Ethnogenesis and village origins: Becoming Fort Ancient at the Guard Site, A.D. 1000–1300. Organized by R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock, and M. Schulenburg. Presented at Midwest Archaeological Conference, South Bend, Indiana. Cook, R. A. (2008). SunWatch: Fort ancient development in the Mississippian world. University of Alabama Press. Cook, R. A. (2017). Continuity and change in the native American Village: Multicultural origins and descendants of the fort ancient culture. Cambridge University Press. Cook, R. A., & Price, T. D. (2015). Maize, mounds, and the movement of people: Isotope analysis of a fort ancient case study. Journal of Archaeological Science, 61, 112–128. Cook, E. R., Seager, R., Heim, R. R., Vose, R. S., Herweijer, C., & Woodhouse, C. W. (2010). Megadroughts in North America: Placing IPCC projections of hydroclimatic change in a longterm paleoclimate context. Journal of Quaternary Science, 25(1), 48–61. Cook, R., Comstock, A., Martin, K., Burks, J., Church, W., & French, M. (2015). Early village life in Southeast Indiana: Recent field investigations at the guard site (12D29). Southeastern Archaeology, 34(2), 95–115. Cowan, C. W. (1987). First farmers of the middle Ohio Valley: Fort ancient societies, A.D. 1000–1670. Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. Drooker, P. B. (1997). The view from Madisonville: Protohistoric western fort ancient interaction patterns (Memoirs of the museum of anthropology no. 31). University of Michigan Press. Essenpreis, P. S. (1978). Fort ancient settlement: Differential response at a Mississippian-late woodland interface. In B. D. Smith (Ed.), Mississippian settlement patterns (pp. 143–167). Academic Press. Fortier, A. C., Emerson, T. E., & McElrath, D. L. (2006). Calibrating and reassessing American bottom culture history. Southeastern Archaeology, 25, 170–211. Griffin, J. B. (1943). The fort ancient aspect: Its cultural and chronological position in Mississippi Valley Archaeology (Museum of anthropology archaeological papers No. 28). University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Griffin, J. B. (1967). Eastern North American archaeology: A summary. Science, 156, 175–191. Hardt, B., Rowe, H. D., Springer, G. S., Cheng, H., & Edwards, R. L. (2010). The seasonality of east central North American precipitation based on three coeval Holocene speleothems from southern West Virginia. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 295(3), 342–348. Hawkes, C. (1954). Archaeological theory and method: Some suggestions from the Old World. American Anthropologist, 56, 155–168. Henderson, A. G. (Ed.). (1992). Fort ancient cultural dynamics in the Middle Ohio Valley. Prehistory Press. Johnson, G. A. (1982). Organizational structure and scalar stress. In C. Renfrew, M. Rowlands, & B. A. Segraves-Whallon (Eds.), Theory and explanation in archaeology: The Southampton conference (pp. 397–421). Academic Press. Justice, N. D. (1987). Stone age spear and arrow points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States. Indiana University Press. Kelly, J. E. (1990). Range site community patterns and the Mississippian emergence. In B. D. Smith (Ed.), The Mississippian emergence (pp. 67–112). Smithsonian Institution Press. Kennedy, W. E. (2000). Interpreting fort ancient settlement variability. M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. Kozarek, S. E. (1997). Determining Sedentism in the archaeological record. In W. S. Dancey & P. J. Pacheco (Eds.), Ohio Hopewell community organization (pp. 141–152). Kent University Press.

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Lewis, T. M. N., & Kneberg, M. (1946). Hiwassee Island: An archaeological of four Tennessee Indian peoples. University of Tennessee Press. Lightfoot, K. G., Martinez, A., & Schiff, A. M. (1998). Daily practice and material culture in pluralistic social settings: An archaeological study of culture change and persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity, 63, 199–222. Mann, R. (2005). Intruding on the past: The reuse of ancient earthen mounds by native Americans. Southeastern Archaeology, 24, 1–10. McElrath, D. L., Emerson, T. E., & Fortier, A. C. (2000). Social evolution or social response? A fresh look at the “good gray cultures” after four decades of Midwest research. In T. E. Emerson, D. L. McElrath, & A. C. Fortier (Eds.), Late woodland societies: Tradition and transformation across the midcontinent (pp. 3–36). University of Nebraska Press. Munson, C. E. (Ed.) (1994). Archaeological investigations at the Southwind site, a Mississippian community in Posey County, Indiana. Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. Nolan, K. C., & Cook, R. A. (2010). An evolutionary model of cultural change in the Middle Ohio Valley. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 29, 62–79. Odling-Smee, F. J., Laland, K. N., & Feldman, M. W. (2003). Niche construction: The neglected process in evolution. Princeton University Press. Oehler, C. (1973). Turpin Indians (Cincinnati museum of natural history popular publication series, No. 1). Cincinnati, Ohio. Pauketat, T. R. (2007). Chiefdoms and other archaeological delusions. AltaMira Press. Pollack, D. (2004). Caborn Welborn: Constructing a new society after the angel chiefdom collapse. University of Alabama Press. Prufer, O. H., & Shane, O. C. (1970). Blain Village and the fort ancient tradition in Ohio. Kent State University Press. Riggs, R. E. (1998). Ceramics, chronology, and cultural change in the Lower Little Miami River Valley, Southwestern Ohio, Circa 100 B.C. to Circa A.D. 1650. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Schulenburg, M., & Cook, R. A. (2020). Summary of the 2019 excavations conducted at the guard site (12D29), Dearborn County, Indiana. Report submitted to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indianapolis. Shay, C. T. (1978). Late prehistoric bison and deer use in the Eastern Prairie-Forest Border. Plains Anthropologist, 82, 194–312. Seeman, M. F., & Dancey, W. S. (2000). The Late Woodland period in southern Ohio: Basic issues and prospects. In T. E. Emerson, D. L. McElrath, & A. C. Fortier (Ed.), Late Woodland societies: Tradition and transformation across the midcontinent (pp. 583–611). University of Nebraska Press. Smith, B. D. (1978). Variation in Mississippian settlement patterns. In B. D. Smith (Ed.), Mississippian Settlement patterns (pp. 479–503). Academic. Springer, G. S., Springer, G. S., Rowe, H. D., Hardt, B., Edwards, R. L., & Cheng, H. (2008). Solar forcing of Holocene droughts in a stalagmite record from West Virginia in East-Central North America. Geophysical Research Letters, 35(17), 17703. Trigger, B. G. (1989). A history of archaeological thought. Cambridge University Press. VanDerwarker, A. M., Bardolph, D. N., & Margaret Scarry, C. (2017). Maize and Mississippian beginnings. In G. D. Wilson (Ed.), Mississippian Beginnings (pp. 29–70). University Press of Florida. Wagner, G. E. (2008). What seasonal diet at a fort ancient community reveals about coping mechanisms. In E. Reitz, C. M. Scarry, & S. J. Scudder (Eds.), Case studies in environmental archaeology (2nd ed., pp. 277–296). Springer.

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Weiland, A. W. (2019). Pathways to maize adoption and intensification in the Little Miami and Great Miami River Valleys. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus. Williams, S. (1990). The vacant quarter and other late events in the lower valley. In D. H. Dye & C. A. Cox (Ed.), Towns and temples along the Mississippi (pp. 170–180). University of Alabama Press. Yoffee, N. (1993). Too many chiefs? In N. Yoffee & A. Sherratt (Eds.), Archaeological theory: Who sets the agenda? (pp. 60–78). Cambridge University Press. Zvelebil, M. (2000). The social context of the agricultural transition in Europe. In C. Renfrew & K. Boyle (Eds.), Archaeogenetics: DNA and the population prehistory of Europe (pp. 57–79). McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Chapter 8

Heading for the Hills: New Evidence for Migrations to the Upper Tennessee Valley Lynne P. Sullivan, Kevin E. Smith, Shawn Patch, Sarah Lowry, John Jacob Holland-Lulewicz, and Scott Meeks

The development of Mississippian culture in East Tennessee was affected by events in adjacent regions from the mid-thirteenth to the early fourteenth centuries. By AD 1300, the people of the Middle Cumberland region of central Tennessee were on the move, a migration related at least in part to climatic instability including multiple drought episodes. Archaeological evidence suggests that some of these migrants went to East Tennessee because it was not much affected by the droughts (e.g., Meeks, 2009). At approximately the same time, events in North Georgia concentrated at the large town of Etowah also likely increased interregional interactions with East Tennessee populations (King, 2020). We consider data from two major sites with platform mounds in East Tennessee: Long Island (40RE17) and Bell (40RE1). These Roane County sites are on islands four river miles apart in the portion of the Tennessee River near the base of the Cumberland Plateau and that now is impounded by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Watts Bar reservoir (Fig. 8.1). Although investigated for over a century, these sites are not well known, but as we will demonstrate, they are now providing new evidence relating to events in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries including possible migrations from the Middle Cumberland region to East Tennessee and interactions with peoples

L. P. Sullivan (*) University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. E. Smith Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA S. Patch · S. Lowry New South Associates, Stone Mountain, GA, USA J. J. Holland-Lulewicz Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA S. Meeks Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, TN, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_8

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Fig. 8.1 Locations of Middle Cumberland Region (MCR), Long Island and Bell sites (Watts Bar), and Etowah site

from North Georgia. Before turning to the two sites, we discuss the setting in the East Tennessee region that may have attracted migrants from the west.

Climate, Environment, Agriculture, and Mississippian Settlement in East Tennessee The effects of a period of sustained drought, brought on by the onset of the Little Ice Age between about AD 1200 and 1450, began affecting the Central Mississippi Valley and then expanded into the Ohio Valley and central (aka Middle) Tennessee (e.g., Bird et al., 2017; Cobb & Butler, 2002; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Krus & Cobb, 2018; Meeks, 2009; Meeks & Anderson, 2013). Migrations may be linked to these droughts, as some drought-stricken areas were depopulated, a phenomenon often referred to as the “Vacant Quarter” (e.g., Cobb & Butler, 2002; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Krus & Cobb, 2018; Williams, 1990). Previous research suggests that most of the Great Valley, including the Ridge and Valley Province, in East Tennessee was not as affected by the droughts as were regions to the west (Meeks, 2009; Meeks & Anderson, 2013).

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The natural environment in a large portion of East Tennessee also would have been welcoming for maize-growing migrants. The Great Valley in East Tennessee encompasses the Tennessee River drainage basin between the escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Topography and related microclimates influence agricultural productivity in different parts of the Valley. These differences are significant for setting the stage for where in East Tennessee immigrants reliant on maize-based agricultural economies might have chosen to settle. A brief comparison of the Watts Bar area with the Chickamauga Basin to the south and the Norris Basin to the north illustrates the significant variation within the Great Valley that likely influenced where migrants would have established settlements and/or integrated with indigenous communities already in East Tennessee. Elevation in the Great Valley decreases from north to south. As a result, the floodplains of the Tennessee River and its tributaries are broader to the southwest (Constantz, 1994; Sullivan & Prezzano, 2001). For example, the Chickamauga Basin boasted some 26,300 ha of prime agricultural soils found mostly in floodplains before the impoundment of TVA’s Chickamauga Reservoir. In contrast, the Norris Basin, with drainage into Watts Bar, had only 1400 ha of prime agricultural soil before the impoundment by Norris Dam of the Clinch and Powell Rivers and tributaries (Harle et al., 2021). The Watts Bar Reservoir area, the focus of this study, is between the Chickamauga Basin and Norris both geographically and in the amount of floodplain soil. The Watts Bar reservoir was created by impoundment of the Tennessee, Clinch, Emory, Little Emory and Piney rivers, and inundated about 17,000 ha of bottomland agricultural soils (Ahlman et al., 2000). Corresponding with the availability of productive agricultural soil, dental analyses of Late Mississippian skeletal series suggest that populations in the more southerly portions of the Great Valley were more dependent on maize than were those in Norris (Harle, 2003; Harle et al., 2021; Betsinger & Smith, 2013, 2018; Smith & Betsinger, 2019). No comparable data have been collected for the Watts Bar sites, but given the availability of agricultural soil, it is likely that Watts Bar populations were more similar in maize dependency to those to the south than to those in Norris. Another important difference between Norris and the areas to the south is the disappearance in Norris of large towns from about AD 1350 to 1450 (Braly, 2013). Within the Chickamauga (Sullivan, 2016) and Watts Bar basins (Koerner & DaltonCarriger, 2016), there are some changes in the locations and characteristics of large Late Mississippian sites, but there is no evidence in either area that the use of such sites ceased during this century. The reason for the hiatus in Norris may relate to some unique environmental conditions. The Clinch and Powell rivers have headwaters in the Cumberland Mountains of southwest Virginia, and the Norris topography is dominated by steep ridges, often rising 200 to 500 m above narrow valleys that run from northeast to southwest. A precipitation phenomenon called a “rain shadow” (i.e., dry conditions of a leeward side of a mountain) also occurs in the Norris Basin. In this area, with its prevailing west to east winds, this process creates microclimate areas that can receive little rain on the east facing slopes. In concert with the relatively small amount of good agricultural soil, the rain shadow’s effect on precipitation would

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have made the Norris Basin less productive for maize growing than Watts Bar (Harle et al., 2021). The absence of large sites in the Norris Basin correlates with the drought years in the Middle Cumberland region, the worst of which were between AD 1350 and 1450 – the century when central Tennessee became part of the “Vacant Quarter” (Cobb & Butler, 2002; Krus & Cobb, 2018). The prevailing weather patterns in Norris may have made this part of East Tennessee more susceptible to being affected during the height of the drought period than was Watts Bar, and suggests a population decrease, or perhaps a dispersal into small settlements in Norris during this period (Harle et al., 2021). These conditions likely would have influenced decisions about settlement locations for migrants into the area, even though at the apex of the drought, a depopulated Norris Basin may have offered less social resistance to an influx of people. After AD 1450, large sites once again appeared in Norris, but they are in the southern part of the area, closer to the main channel of the Tennessee River and Watts Bar (Braly, 2013). Where the people of Norris may have gone during the “lost” century is unclear. Given the steep- sided valleys of the local topography and direction of the river current, a south-west migration would be expedient. Perhaps they also took refuge to the south along the Tennessee River in the Watts Bar Basin, where there are many large sites and some that date to this century (Dalton-Carriger, 2011; Koerner, 2005; Koerner & Dalton-Carriger, 2016). The burial of a Hamilton mound (Late Woodland/Early Mississippian) by village deposits of later residents of the Upper Hampton site (40RH41) in the southern part of Watts Bar may also signal the arrival of new people after AD 1300 (Dalton-Carriger, 2011; Koerner & Dalton-Carriger, 2016). Relationships with these people also possibly was a factor in the more southern location of the large sites in Norris after 1450.

Previous Archaeological Research The idea that connections existed among Mississippian peoples in the Middle Cumberland and North Georgia regions and those in the Upper Tennessee Valley of East Tennessee is not a new one. Especially in southeastern Tennessee, artifacts (including stamped pottery) similar to those found at North Georgia sites are found at contemporaneous thirteenth-century (Late Hiwassee Island phase) sites (Table 8.1) (Sullivan, 2007, 2016, 2019). In the 1940s, Thomas M.N. Lewis and Madeline Kneberg related the Late Mississippian (Dallas and Mouse Creek phases) cultures of East Tennessee, now known to date from AD 1300 to 1600, to those of the Middle Cumberland region (Lewis & Kneberg, 1946). In the 1970s, with the aid of radiocarbon dating, the beginnings of regional Mississippian developments became a focus of study. New evidence supported an in situ development (Faulkner, 1975; Schroedl et al., 1990), thus dissuading ideas about influences of Middle Cumberland peoples. More recent research regarding the Mississippian period in all three regions has emphasized the study of under- or unanalyzed early collections, revisits to major sites using modern field techniques including geophysics, and refinements to

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Table 8.1 Regional late Woodland through European contact archeological chronology and phases Calendar dates

AD 1400

Periods Historic European contact Mississippian

AD 1300

AD 1540

East Tennessee phases Protohistoric

Middle Cumberland phases Protohistoric

Late

Mouse Creek/ Late Dallas Early Dallas

Late Thruston

AD 1200

Middle

Late Hiwassee Island

Early Thruston

AD 1100 AD 1000 AD 900

Early

Early Hiwassee Island/ Martin Farm Hamilton

Dowd/Spencer

AD 500

Woodland Late

Undesignated

North Georgia phases Protohistoric

Lamar/Barnett/ Brewster Savannah/ Late Wilbanks Savannah/ Early Wilbanks Late Etowah/ Early Etowah Woodstock/ Napier Swift Creek

chronology with the aid of more precise dates using Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) technology and new statistical procedures for chronological modeling. The small samples required for AMS dating have advanced work to understand chronologies of sites represented by older collections (e.g., Beahm, 2013; King, 2003, 2010; Koerner & Dalton-Carriger, 2016; Krus & Cobb, 2018; Lulewicz, 2018, 2019a; Smith & Moore, 2018; Sullivan, 2007, 2009, 2016). Studies of unique art forms, iconography, and connections to other regions are clarifying those attributes that distinguish objects made in the homeland as compared with imitations made elsewhere (e.g., Jones, 2018; Marceaux & Dye, 2007; King, 2020; King & Sawyer, 2017; Sharp et al., 2020; Smith, 2020; Smith & Miller, 2009; Smith & Moore, 2018). Geophysical surveys are revealing previously unknown features at major sites, including fortifications as well as a variety of other features such as houses and pit features (Bigman et al., 2011; King et al. 2011; Lowry et al., 2017; Lowry et al., 2019; Patch & Lowry, 2014; Patch et al., 2015, 2016). Results of this research are fostering newly formulated ideas about Middle Cumberland, North Georgia, and Upper Tennessee Valley relationships, including migrations associated with the drought sequences and social unrest beginning in the thirteenth century (e.g., Bird et al., 2017; King, 2020; Lulewicz, 2017, 2018, 2019b; Meeks & Anderson, 2013; Sullivan, 2016, 2018). The cumulative results of these efforts are a better understanding of community plans, sociopolitical organization, and the timing and nature of the rather dramatic changes. These series of cultural changes provide a context for archaeological evidence from the Roane County sites and their relationships to regional interactions and possible migrations. In East Tennessee, the changes culminated in the development of the Late Mississippian cultural expression that Lewis and Kneberg (1946) termed “Dallas.” In the Middle Cumberland region, research confirmed that depopulation, resulting in what was termed the “Vacant Quarter,” was a reality (Krus & Cobb, 2018; Cobb & Butler,

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2002; Williams, 1990). In North Georgia, the sequence and timing of occupation at the large, multi-mound Etowah site was worked out to document its rise and fall during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (King, 2003, 2007; Lulewicz, 2017, 2018, 2019a). While there is archaeological evidence for increased interaction of Middle Cumberland and North Georgia peoples with East Tennessee communities in the thirteenth century, there are difficulties in verifying the actual presence of migrants. The earlier, long-term interactions of East Tennessee communities with those in North Georgia (King, 2020; King & Sawyer, 2017; Sullivan, 2007, 2019) intensified about the same time as those with the Middle Cumberland region and likely also involved movements of people. Bioarchaeological studies generally have been inconclusive regarding biological relationships between Middle Cumberland and East Tennessee peoples (e.g., Berryman, 1975; Boyd, 1984, 1986; Boyd & Boyd, 1991; Kelso, 2018). One study suggests possible migrants from North Georgia to southeastern Tennessee in the late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries (McCarthy, 2011), but by the mid-fifteenth century, there is no evidence for biological relationships of communities in East Tennessee with those in North Georgia (Harle, 2010). We consider these issues following a review of cultural change in these regions and discussions of the Long Island (40RE17) and Bell (40RE1) sites.

Cultural Changes By AD 1200 during the Dowd phase (AD 1050–1250) in the Middle Cumberland region, there were many mound centers, often with multiple mounds, including platform and burial mounds (Beahm, 2013). Moore and Smith (2009) note a population expansion in the Middle Cumberland Valley during the subsequent Thruston Phase (AD 1250–1450). By AD 1325 and continuing until about 1425, the sociopolitical landscape in that region fragmented into a decentralized network of dispersed fortified villages, and by the end of the Thruston phase, from AD 1425 to 1450, continuing droughts contributed to a major decline in regional population (Beahm, 2013; Krus & Cobb, 2018; Sharp et al., 2020). Population movements out of the drought-stricken areas undoubtedly did affect the Upper Tennessee Valley. The initial population increases in Middle Tennessee before AD 1325 likely spilled into East Tennessee, and as the droughts began to seriously affect the Middle Cumberland region, people moved into less affected areas like East Tennessee. In East Tennessee, the mid- thirteenth through early fourteenth centuries was also a time of turbulence, upheaval, and change, corresponding to the transition between the Hiwassee Island and Dallas phases. By the early fourteenth century, this turmoil resulted in people moving out of dispersed farmsteads and hamlets and into palisaded towns, with platform mounds topped by single, large structures. Conical burial mounds, built since the Late Woodland period, no longer were used as people moved into the palisaded towns and began burying their dead in and around houses. Large-diameter, single-set post structures replaced structures built

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with small poles or wall trenches, and buildings were square instead of rectangular (Sullivan, 2016, 2018). In North Georgia, the threat of warfare and violence, likely from outside of the region, began to increase by about AD 1250, as evidenced by construction of fortifications (King & Sawyer, 2017). After a period of abandonment, the multimound Etowah site saw a major construction period beginning around AD 1250 and continuing into the fourteenth century with a bastioned palisade and ditch complex (King, 2003, 2007). The Etowah polity reached its maximum fluorescence between roughly AD 1250 and 1325, but entered a steep decline and was abandoned under violent and hostile circumstances by the mid-fourteenth century (King, 2007; Lulewicz, 2018). By AD 1400, Etowah once again became reoccupied as one of multiple, moderately-sized socio-political centers in the region (King, 2003). Keeping in mind these regional changes, we turn to the Long Island and Bell sites.

Investigations of the Long Island and Bell Sites Two projects contracted by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) with New South Associates have produced new information through fieldwork as well as examination of extant collections from the Long Island and Bell sites. Both projects involved geophysical surveys (Lowry et al., 2017; Patch & Lowry, 2014; Patch et al., 2015). The Bell site investigations also included subsequent excavations1 to ground truth discovered features and obtain samples for AMS dates (Patch et al., 2018). Reports were never written for the 1930–1940s New Deal-era investigations of either site, but the TVA projects prompted reviews of the excavations and collections made by Works Progress Administration (WPA) crews and earlier investigators. A detailed account of the excavation history at Long Island can be found in Lowry et al. (2017). Sullivan and Smith examined primary records and collections from the WPA investigations of the Long Island site, as well as some antiquarian-collected artifacts, all curated by the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture (MMNHC) at the University of Tennessee. Details of the WPA excavations at the Bell site can be found in Patch and Lowry (2014). Ceramics from the WPA excavations at Bell, curated by the MMNHC, were tabulated by Erika Lyle. An additional, ca. 100 sherds, from the WPA work at Bell, currently at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology, were examined and photographed by Patch. The following brief overviews of the sites provide context for the new findings. A subsequent section discusses the AMS dates obtained from the new field investigations at Bell, and highlights non-local artifacts, features, and other evidence observed in the existing collections from Long Island and Bell that may be relevant to site chronologies and relationships with the Middle Cumberland and North Georgia regions.

The field work at Hiwassee Island and Bell, contracted by TVA, was conducted as field schools for representatives of Southeastern tribes now living in Oklahoma, but with ancestry in the South Appalachian region.

1

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Long Island (40RE17) The Long Island site was located on a teardrop-shaped island in the Tennessee River, near the confluence of the Clinch River. Before the impoundment of TVA’s Watts Bar reservoir, the island was about three miles long. The major Mississippian occupation was on the long, narrow, upstream part of the island. The platform mounds and associated residential area at Long Island were inundated by the impounded reservoir and are no longer available for study. The sheer size and complexity of the archaeological features and deposits that once covered the island would be daunting to study even with today’s technology. An early nineteenthcentury account of the archaeological features on the island, cited in a letter to Charles Nash from Lewis (1941),2 mentions “60 or 70 remains of ancient fortifications.” Nineteen mounds, including both platform and conical burial mounds were documented by professionals (Thomas, 1894). The mounds were in three groups. John Emmert, working for Thomas at the Smithsonian in 1889, excavated nine mounds. Six of these likely were burial mounds (one was reported to contain a male individual estimated to be 7.5 ft tall, interred with mica and copper) and three were platform mounds (Thomas, 1894). In one platform mound (about 100 ft on a side and 5 ft high), Emmert found an extended adult male burial placed in a “boat-shaped vessel of clay” accompanied by a male, Middle Cumberland stone statue (Fig. 8.2). Four “sitting skeletons” surrounded this burial at “the cardinal points” (Thomas, 1894:360). A clay pipe, two discoidals, a large shell, and two celts were found with these remains (Thomas, 1894: 360). Emmert did not excavate the largest platform mound, which he reported as 18 ft high (Thomas, 1894: 369). In the 1930s, two local collectors George D. Barnes, a well-known antiquarian from Dayton, Tennessee (Polhemus, 2002: 12), and a man named A. E. Wilkie, both of whom served as field supervisors under Lewis on the Norris Basin project, partially excavated a platform mound near the large one (Lewis 1941). In 1941, a WPA project under the direction of Lewis and Nash at the University of Tennessee excavated three platform mounds that were badly damaged by looting, including part of the largest platform mound and one habitation area that included a large, wall trench structure pattern (Lowry et al., 2017). After the completion of the Watts Bar Reservoir in the early 1950s, a local avocational archaeologist named W.H. Baldwin conducted salvage excavations of the remainder of the largest platform mound. He noted that this mound “was the only visible evidence of the

2

An early account of the archaeological features on Long Island was quoted by Thomas M. N. Lewis, head of the UT WPA/TVA archaeology program, in a letter to Charles Nash, supervisor for the UT archaeological field operations for the Watts Bar Reservoir project. This letter, dated May 8, 1941, is on file at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture (MM) at UT. Lewis’s quote is from an early nineteenth century account, which he references as from the Tennessee Journals (Goodspeed, 1887)

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Fig. 8.2 Middle Cumberland statue found by Emmert at the Long Island Site (Thomas, 1894: Figure 240)

former Mississippian village” and that “wave action has destroyed a good portion of this mound” (Baldwin, 1953:11). In 2017, TVA contracted with New South Associates to conduct a geophysical survey of the island remnant. Two Late Woodland/Early Mississippian (Hamilton) burial mounds remain intact, but the geophysical investigations did not reveal evidence of the Mississippian occupation (Lowry et al., 2017). The extent of the Mississippian habitation area likely will never be known.

Bell (40RE1) The lack of information about the Bell site also has precluded integrating this site into a regional synthesis even though the investigations span more than a century. The Bell site covers approximately 8 hectares and includes at least seven mounds. One of which (Mound 51), reported as 30.4 ft high, 77 ft E-W and 82 ft N-S as measured by Lewis (1935), would be the largest reported platform mound in East Tennessee. Six mounds, Mounds 51, 52, 53, 54, and 55 (west and east), form a group surrounding a plaza on the west end of the site. A single mound (Mound 56) is a major feature on the site’s eastern end. The WPA excavations, directed by Thomas M. N. Lewis in 1935 and Charles Nash in 1941, were the most extensive investigations of the Bell site. Lewis and Nash made excavations into four of the seven mounds. Other recorded professional investigations include those by: Powell (1884:461) from the Smithsonian’s Bureau of American Ethnology; C. B. Moore (1915:415) who described the site, but was not allowed to excavate; a conditions assessment of the site by Cannon (1986) that recommended the subsequent stabilization of the shoreline; and a shoreline

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reconnaissance survey (Ahlman et al., 2000) that made surface collections and seven shovel tests to assess the integrity of the site. In the spring of 2014, Patch and Lowry (2014) conducted a geophysical survey of the Bell site, as part of TVA’s resource management efforts. This survey was followed by small-scale excavations in 2018 (Patch et al., 2018). The geophysical survey located seven mounds, including a large plaza covering one hectare fronting the east side of Mound 51, and discovered multiple fortifications and evidence of residential areas. Structures were indicated on Mounds 51 and 52, while imagery of Mound 53 indicated both structures and burials. Heavy vegetation on Mound 54 prevented geophysical survey (Patch & Lowry, 2014). Imagery of two small mounds (55 east and west) did not show clear evidence related to construction episodes or structures. A small plaza also was visible fronting Mound 56. Subsequent excavations in 2018 confirmed multiple palisade and ditch lines and collected samples for AMS dates (Patch et al., 2018). Lewis (1935) identified two major mound construction episodes in Mound 51, and excavated seven floors, but there were at least five additional floors. Ramps were found on the east side of the mound. Almost all (ca. 95 %) of the cultural material was recovered from the three upper floors. Many artifacts were not recorded with specific provenience information. The investigations also found and excavated a single-post construction structure of the Dallas residential style, Feature 1, in a village area about 100 ft south of Mound 51. Nash’s (1941) excavations in Mounds 52, 53, and 54 were much more limited. A line of posts indicating a building was found in Mound 52. Mound 53 had four levels, but no evidence of structures was found. Two stone-lined burials were found in Mound 53.3 Burial 1 included two, flexed adult individuals; one was assessed as young, the other was of indeterminate age, and neither individual could be assessed as to sex. The grave containing these individuals was covered with limestone slabs set on wooden strips above the burials. A Hixon-style (“turkey cock”) gorget was associated with one of these individuals. Burial 2 was a middle-aged adult female, interred face down. A white quartz discoidal, some quartz pebbles, four bone pins, and a shell ornament and beads accompanied her. Limestone slabs also covered this grave and it was surrounded by more slabs. Mound 54 contained a floor covered with ashes, charcoal, and sherds, and with a line of posts suggesting a structure.

Collections and Chronology The array of artifacts and features discovered at the Bell and Long Island sites by the disparate investigations materializes connections of East Tennessee with the Middle Cumberland region and North Georgia. The information gleaned from the recent studies also makes it possible to determine chronological contexts for these major

3

Age and sex estimates for these individuals are from the MMNHC inventories.

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sites. The AMS dates from Bell, including one obtained from a wood sample collected by the WPA crew from the largest mound, provide absolute dates, while the dating for Long Island relies on chronologically diagnostic artifacts. The AMS dates obtained for the defensive works at Bell are contemporaneous with those from the better-known Hiwassee Island site, some 70 miles downriver (Lewis & Kneberg, 1946; Patch et al., 2015, 2017; Sullivan, 2009, 2016) (Table 8.2 & Fig. 8.3). The dates indicate that at both sites, a series of palisades was constructed beginning in the thirteenth century. The date from Feature 8, a hearth midway down in the large mound at Bell, also produced a thirteenth-century date concurrent with the fortifications. The collections from the Long Island site are larger than those from Bell and contain many artifacts characteristic of the Middle Cumberland region, as well as distinctive artifacts likely associated with the Etowah site. These objects are most consistent with the Thruston Phase (AD 1250–1450) in the Middle Cumberland region (Beahm, 2013) and the Wilbanks phase (AD 1250–1375) in North Georgia (King, 2003, 2007). A few Middle Cumberland style ceramics may date before AD 1250 and relate to the earlier Dowd phase (Ferguson, 1986: Figure 34). The male, Middle Cumberland-style stone statue found by Emmert at Long Island is one of four Tennessee- Cumberland style statues that has intra-site provenience (Smith & Miller, 2009). Radiocarbon dates and diagnostics associated with this statuary suggest that most of them were created between AD 1200 to 1400 (Smith & Miller, 2009). Importantly, since statues also were used at Etowah, the Long Island statue is one of the few found outside of the Middle Cumberland region made according to the artistic conventions of that region. Distinctive ceramics in the Long Island collections also point to Middle Cumberland origins. An exception is one shell-tempered, Savannah Complicated Stamped body sherd from the WPA collections (Fig. 8.4f). Sand-tempered sherds with similar stamped designs are common in Georgia and South Carolina and date from AD 1200–1350 (Anderson et al., 1994). An especially remarkable sherd found by the WPA at Long Island is part of the torso of a Middle Cumberland- style female effigy bottle (Robert Sharp, personal communication 2018) (Fig. 8.4b). These wellcrafted bottles range chronologically from AD 1200 to 1450 (Sharp et al., 2020). A Middle Cumberland style, negative-painted dog effigy bottle, with a “bullseye” motif and from the George D. Barnes collection at MMNHC is provenienced from Long Island (Fig. 8.5). A shoulder section from another bottle painted with a bullseye was found by the WPA investigators. While several regional variants of “dog bottles” ranging from northeast Arkansas to southwest Georgia have been proposed (Dye, 2009), the “knotted tail” style with bullseye motif like that found at Long Island is centered in the Middle Cumberland with outliers in both north Georgia and East Tennessee regions (Smith, 2021). Four intact vessels that include two negative-painted, carafe-necked water bottles (one shown in Fig. 8.5), typical of Middle Cumberland assemblages, and a flared-wall bowl and a jar which appear identical to vessels from the Arnold Village site in the Middle Cumberland region (Ferguson, 1986: Figure 34), also are in the WPA collections. The flared or outslanting wall bowl form is fairly common in Middle Cumberland assemblages,

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Table 8.2 Hiwassee Island and Bell Sites AMS dates from the main substructure mounds and fortifications Site Hiwassee Island (40MG31)

Bell (40RE1)

Context WPA F. 69 Premound 2017 F. 1.1 Midden/ Ditch WPA F. 42 Mound Level E-1 2017 F. 2.2 Palisade 2 post 2017 F. 3.2 Palisade 3 post 2017 F. 1.1 Midden/ Ditch 2017 F. 4.3 Palisade 4 post WPA F. 27 Mound Level D 2017 F. 3.1 Palisade 3 post

Date 893
44 860
30 (bottom)

Calibration 2ơ (% probability) AD 1030–1222 AD 1049–1256

810
40

AD 1161–1276

800
30

AD 1184–1275

790
30

AD 1203–1278

790
30 (top)

AD 1203–1278

780
30

AD 1210–1281

773
44

AD 1180–1288

530
30

2017 F. 13.1 Palisade 5 ditch

390
30

WPA F.8 Mound 51 2018 F 1.1 outer ditch 2018 F 1.1 outer ditch 2018 F 4.1 outer ditch 2018 F 8.1 outer ditch 2018 F 12.1 outer ditch 2018 F 2.1 inner ditch 2018 F 2.2 post 2018 F 2.3 post 2018 F 2.4 post

744
36 760
30 800
30 790
30 740
30 820
30

AD 1391–1440 (80%) AD 1320–1350 AD 1441–1523 (73%) AD 1571–1630 AD 1559–1562 AD 1216–1297 AD 1219–1284 AD 1184–1275 AD 1190–1279 AD 1224–1291 AD 1165–1265

790
30 850
30 810
30 860
30

AD 1190–1279 AD 1169–1270 AD 1052–1260 AD 1049–1256

including vessels from Sellars Farm (aka Lindsley Estate) and Hayes Farm (e.g., Moore & Smith, 2009: Figures 36 and 195), and may date before AD 1250 and relate to the earlier, Middle Cumberland Dowd phase. The form is not typical of Mississippian assemblages in East Tennessee. A negative-painted sherd found by the WPA crew is a Nashville Negative Painted body sherd (Baumann personal communication, 2017). The date range for this type is AD 1300–1400 (Smith, 1998; Hilgeman,

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Fig. 8.3 Calibrated dates for the Bell and Hiwassee Island sites. Dates calibrated in OxCal v4.3.2 (Bronk Ramsey, 2009) using the IntCal13 atmospheric curve (Reimer et al., 2013)

1985, 1991, 2000). Another negative-painted sherd, found by Baldwin (1953), is a rim from a flat plate that was painted on the upper side, as are those found in Thruston phase, Middle Cumberland assemblages (Smith & Beahm, 2006; Smith

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Fig. 8.4 Pottery sherds from Long Island. A. Human effigy head; B. Female effigy bottle (torso); C. Canid rim effigy rattle; D. Canid rim effigy; E. Human head applique F. Savannah River Complicated Stamped (shell-tempered). (Photos courtesy McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Tennessee)

Fig. 8.5 Negative painted dog and carafe-necked bottles from Long Island. (Photos courtesy McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Tennessee)

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& Trubitt, 1998). Also in the WPA collections are three effigy heads that appear identical to those from Middle Cumberland sites; these are two canid rim effigies, one of which is a rattle, and a large, solid human effigy head (Tennessee State Museum, 1985:51–51: Figure 73) (Fig. 8.4a, c, d). A human head applique in the WPA collections that is attached to the wall of the vessel, unlike the rim riders typically on Dallas bowls, is nearly identical to an applique from the Middle Cumberland Gordontown site (Fig. 8.4e) (Smith & Trubitt, 1998). The WPA team assigned the three platform mounds they excavated at Long Island to the Dallas phase, but a preliminary assessment by Smith and Sullivan of the pottery collections from these excavations suggests divergence from typical, contemporaneous East Tennessee Dallas assemblages. The Long Island pottery includes shell-tempered plain wares, effigy heads, and applique fillet rims, similar to fourteenth-century Dallas phase assemblages (Koerner, 2005; Lewis et al., 1995). But, the frequency of shell-tempered, cordmarked pottery is distinctly lower than the 24–30% in contemporaneous Dallas phase assemblages, including those from the Dallas site (40HA1) (Lewis et al., 1995) in the Chickamauga Basin and the DeArmond site (40RE12) in Watts Bar (Koerner, 2005). Of 91 sherds in the type collections from the three mounds, there were only five shell-tempered, cordmarked jar fragments.4 Cordmarked jars are absent in Thruston phase assemblages (Beahm, 2013). Fifteenth-century Late Dallas/Mouse Creek phase assemblages are known to have low frequencies of cordmarking, but this time frame is not compatible with other diagnostic artifacts and attributes of the Long Island site (Sullivan, 1987, 2016). In contrast to the mounds, the WPA team assigned the habitation area to the earlier Hiwassee Island phase because of the presence of a pattern of a large wall trench structure. When examined by Smith and Sullivan, the pottery collection from this unit did not include the loop handles, red-filmed or red-on-buff sherds, or highly excurved rim jars that are characteristic of Hiwassee Island phase assemblages (Lewis & Kneberg, 1946). Instead, the Mississippian pottery assemblage from this unit compares favorably with the later pottery from the platform mounds. In East Tennessee, a wall trench structure is incongruous with such a pottery assemblage. Single-set, large post structures were in use throughout the region by the time filleted rims and strap handles were common (Sullivan, 2016, 2018). In contrast, wall trench structures continued to be used into the fourteenth century in the Middle Cumberland region (Moore & Smith, 2009: 210). At Castalian Springs, the last structures built on Mound 3 were of wall trench construction, and date to AD 1300–1350 (Beahm, 2013:252; Smith et al., 2012). Three, large copper celts and a Duck River-style sword (Marceaux & Dye, 2007) were found by collectors Barnes and Wilkie in a Long Island platform mound

4

Note that the WPA researchers disposed of shell-tempered, plain body sherds, thus potentially inflating the percentage of cordmarked sherds in the collection.

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Fig. 8.6 Copper celts, bird effigy headdress, and chipped stone sword from Long Island. Inset is assembled headdress. (Photos courtesy McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Tennessee)

(Fig. 8.6).5 The celts range from 9.75 in to 15 in long and from 3.5 to 6 in wide, with the largest weighing 3.5 lbs. One celt had discoloration caused from being hafted to a wooden handle (Anonymous, 1950). Identical celts have been found at the Etowah site and date to the Late Wilbanks phase (King, 2007:128; Marceaux & Dye, 2007). The copper headdress also found by the collectors is embossed and resembles a bird. 5 The Mouse Creek phase (AD 1450–1550), with town sites located along the lower Hiwassee River, was thought by Lewis and Kneberg (1946) to be a late intrusion of Middle Cumberland people to East Tennessee, but now is known to represent the Late Dallas phase in the Chickamauga Basin (Sullivan, 2016).

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Fig. 8.7 Etowah-style stone palette from Long Island. (Photo courtesy McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Tennessee)

The various pieces are punctured presumably to allow them to be tied together (Fig. 8.6). Another unusual artifact from the Long Island site, curated by the MMNHC, is a stone palette identical to those from Etowah that date to the Late Wilbanks phase (King, 2007:128; Steponaitis et al., 2011) (Fig. 8.7). The palette was found by a collector, and consequently the within site provenience is not known. At least one other similar palette is reported from East Tennessee. It was found at the Lick Creek site in Greene County (Powell, 1883: 278, Plate LVII.2). There is less evidence of connections with the other regions at the Bell site than at Long Island. The collection of pottery sherds from Bell is surprisingly small given the size of the site and extent of the WPA excavations. The artifacts from Bell include some unusual objects, several of which hint at ceremonies, document highly skilled artisans, and do indicate some interactions with peoples in North Georgia, the Middle Cumberland region, and elsewhere. The Bell site ceramic assemblage from the WPA excavations indicates Woodland, Mississippian, and Cherokee (Qualla) components. Mississippian shell-tempered types predominate (726 of 774 sherds). Unlike the Long Island assemblage, cordmarked surfaces are on 39 percent of the Mississippian sherds, which is more characteristic of Dallas assemblages. The WPA lab was able to reconstruct six vessels from the Bell site. These include a Middle Cumberland– style, carafe- necked and likely negative painted bottle (described as “polychrome” by Nash (1941), but now faded) (Fig. 8.8), a miniature globular jar, three unusual, perhaps unique to Bell, ceramic palettes (Fig. 8.8), and a very large salt pan. A sherd from another palette was identified in the ceramics at Michigan and photographed by Patch. All of these vessels are shell tempered, and all were found in platform mounds. Other unusual objects from Bell are two limestone digging implements, shaped for hafting. Both were discovered in Mound 51 (Lewis, 1935). A right mandible of a black bear is cataloged as provenienced to Bell, but there is no mound or excavation unit number. The four small, bone needles or pins associated with Burial 2 in Mound

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Fig. 8.8 Carafe-necked bottle and ceramic palettes from the Bell site. (Photos courtesy McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Tennessee)

53 could have been used for leather working or tattooing (Krutak & Deter-Wolf, 2017). A variety of ornaments was found in the Bell site mounds, including the engraved shell gorget of the turkey cock or Hixon style, two copper-covered, wooden ear spools, four strands of marine shell beads, a clay earspool, and pieces of mica, shell, and copper that could not be identified as specific ornaments (Lewis, 1935). The Hixon-style shell gorget is named for the Hixon site in the Chickamauga Basin and dates from the last half of the thirteenth to beginning of the fourteenth century, congruent with the Late Hiwassee Island/Early Dallas phases in Tennessee and Early Wilbanks phase in Georgia (King, 2007; Marceaux & Dye, 2007:169; Muller, 2007:25; Sullivan, 2007). Two pipes of interest were found in the large mound (51) at Bell. One is ceramic; the other is groundstone. The ceramic pipe is a fragment of the bowl of a noded pipe style, discussed by Blanton (2015:84–86). He associates these “noded” pipes with the Etowah site, where they have been found in Mound C, and places the dating

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between AD 1200 and 1375 (Blanton, 2015:84–86) This style of pipe also has been found at Moundville (AL), Lake Jackson (FL), Hollywood, Irene, Shoulderbone, Nachoochee (all GA), Peachtree, Warren Wilson (both NC), at the Fains Island site in Jefferson County, Tennessee, and at the DeArmond site in Watts Bar (Blanton, 2015:86). The intact groundstone pipe is an effigy that Blanton (2015:87) references as “Human Effigy, Seated” (Blanton, 2015:87–88). Examples of this pipe style also have been found at the Etowah (multiple examples) and Hollywood sites in Georgia, and the Greenwood site in Middle Tennessee (Blanton, 2015:88–89). Like the noded pipes, Blanton (2015:88) places these effigy pipes in the period between 1200 and 1375 CE. From an iconographic perspective, the rarest variant of this form of steatite pipe (n¼4) depicting a “man holding a ceramic pot” links Bell with the Sellars Mound site (aka Greenwood) in central Tennessee (and with singular examples at Hollywood Mound and Etowah in Georgia). This examination of the sites, collections, and AMS dates leads to several observations about the chronological placement and relationships of the Long Island and Bell sites. First, the presence of numerous Late Woodland/Early Mississippian (“Hamilton”) burial mounds on Long Island indicates its use during this period (ca. AD 600–1200) (Schroedl et al., 1990). Second, although the burial mound groups do not typically include habitation sites (Schroedl et al., 1990), the absence of early Mississippian, Hiwassee Island phase (AD 1000–1300) ceramics in the Long Island collections suggests a lull in occupation at this time. A similar lack of Early Mississippian occupation was noted for the Upper Hampton site (40RH41), another site with Mississippian components in the Watts Bar reservoir area, but about 30 miles downriver from Bell and Long Island (Dalton-Carriger, 2011; Koerner & Dalton-Carriger, 2016:108). An alternate interpretation for the sparse evidence of Early Mississippian occupation at Long Island is that aggregation of the dispersed Late Woodland/Early Mississippian population did not occur until the thirteenth century when the palisades began to be built (Sullivan, 2016, 2018), as indicated by the AMS dates from Bell and Hiwassee Island. Third, the AMS date from near the vertical center of the largest mound at Bell suggests construction of this mound began about the same time as the fortifications, concurrent with population aggregation. The Hixon-style gorget, as well as the noded and effigy pipes from the Bell site, fit comfortably with the time of the “lull” at Long Island (Muller, 2007; Blanton, 2015), which also correlates with the Early Wilbanks phase in Georgia (King & Sawyer, 2017). The correspondence of the date from the Bell mound with that from Level D of the Hiwassee Island mound (Fig. 8.3) also is of considerable interest because Level D is the first mound stratum in which Dallas ceramics occur (Lewis & Kneberg, 1946; Sullivan, 2009). This timing additionally is supported by the pottery sherds collected during the 2018 field investigations, which emphasized the fortifications. These sherds were a mix of Hiwassee Island and Dallas wares, with the majority being Hiwassee Island plain and cordmarked (Patch et al., 2018). The more characteristically Dallas phase assemblage recovered by the WPA crew likely relates to their excavation of a Dallas structure, as noted above. It is not clear when the Mississippian occupation of either Bell or Long Island

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ceased. A handful of Qualla series sherds (18) from Bell indicates a small Cherokee occupation.

Locals or Foreigners? How did artifacts such as a statue and pottery from the Middle Cumberland region and copper celts and a stone palette from North Georgia get to what is now the Watts Bar area? Was it people from these regions who brought them? If so, were they visitors or people who moved to East Tennessee? Integral to this discussion are the inconclusive bioarchaeological studies that have examined the biological relationships of regional Mississippian peoples. Bioarchaeologists have tried to understand biological connections among Late Mississippian peoples and historically-known Indigenous people in the Southern Appalachian region for almost half a century. The very first master’s thesis from the Anthropology graduate program at the University of Tennessee was a study of the biological relationship of Dallas phase Mississippian with Cherokee people (Wright, 1974). Studies by Berryman (1975, 1980) and the Boyds (Boyd, 1984, 1986; Boyd & Boyd, 1991) were designed specifically to investigate relationships among the Dallas and Mouse Creek phase5 populations of East Tennessee, and Middle Cumberland people. A study by Kelso (2013, 2018) also investigated East Tennessee and Middle Cumberland relationships among subadults. McCarthy (2011) studied biological relationships across time in East Tennessee Mississippian groups, while Harle (2010) researched contemporaneous Late Mississippian groups in East Tennessee and North Georgia. Berryman (1975, 1980) used craniofacial measurements of 45 individuals from multiple sites to calculate biological distances. He found similarities between Late Mississippian Mouse Creek phase females from East Tennessee and Middle Cumberland females, and differences between Mouse Creek females and Dallas females. He interpreted these results as supporting Lewis and Kneberg’s (1946) proposal of Middle Cumberland origins for the Mouse Creek phase. Berryman also (1975, 1980) cautioned that the same relationships could result from gene flow from years of trade, travel, and alliances. The Boyds (Boyd, 1984, 1986; Boyd & Boyd, 1991) analyzed craniofacial and mandibular measurements from three Mouse Creek phase, two Dallas, and one Middle Cumberland sites. In contrast to Berryman (1975, 1980), their findings indicated significant differences between Mouse Creek and Middle Cumberland faces and mandibles, as well as between these characteristics in the Dallas and Middle Cumberland samples. Female faces and mandibles from all three groups were distinct, while combined sex and male comparisons did not differentiate Dallas and Mouse Creek faces and mandibles. Kelso’s (2013, 2018) results showed homogeneity both within and between the Middle Cumberland and East Tennessee subadult samples. She also found no evidence for biological differences between Early Dallas or Late Dallas and

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Mouse Creek samples in East Tennessee. Her analysis of skeletal pathology and growth disruptions showed similarity across sites, and indicated no large-scale incursion of an outside population into East Tennessee during the Late Mississippian period. She did not rule out the possibility of small groups of migrants, over time becoming incorporated into the East Tennessee population. McCarthy (2011) used cranial and postcranial non-metric traits to examine biological distance among adults buried at three Mississippian sites in the Chickamauga Basin and the DeArmond site (40RE12) in the Watts Bar area. Relationships between the Dallas site (40HA1) in Chickamauga and contemporaneous DeArmond were particularly strong, and the Rymer site (40BY11), a Mouse Creek site, also was found to be biologically related to Dallas and DeArmond. Of considerable interest, adult individuals at the somewhat earlier Hixon site (40HA3) were found to be unrelated biologically to the populations in both the Chickamauga and Watts Bar Basins, including those at the Dallas site directly across the Tennessee River. This finding regarding the Hixon site is of particular interest because the array of artifacts interred with burials in the platform mound are similar to those found in Mound C at the Etowah site (King & Sawyer, 2017; Sullivan, 2007, 2016). Harle’s (2010) study examined biological distance between adults from East Tennessee and northern Georgia during the Late Mississippian/Protohistoric period (including the Mouse Creek phase), at sites proposed to be part of a political entity named Coosa reported by early Spanish explorers (Hudson et al., 1985; Smith, 2000). She found the East Tennessee populations to be biologically related, but found the Georgia groups to be biologically distinct from those in Tennessee. These varied results suggest that it may be difficult to identify immigrants through biological distance studies, unless there is a fairly large, spatially segregated group of individuals who are biologically distinct, as in McCarthy’s (2011) study. In other words, identifying small groups of individuals scattered in numerous communities is difficult, if not impossible, as Kelso (2018) noted. The distance studies did prove useful for comparing large areas and generally characterizing the regional populations, as in Harle’s (2010) study. Several of the studies also used only one representative site from a region (Averbuch for Middle Cumberland) which may have influenced results. Perhaps future studies with a focus on seeing migration would benefit from using data from multiple sites and emphasizing distinct groupings of individuals. Nonetheless, these studies have provided useful information about migrants and migration processes that can be incorporated into the following conclusions based on the Long Island and Bell sites, for which there are no biological data.

Missionaries and Migrants? The flurry of palisade building in East Tennessee in the mid-thirteenth century is significant for several reasons. After AD 1200, population movements from the Central Mississippi Valley likely put pressure on Middle Cumberland populations

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during the Dowd phase (Smith & Moore, 2018; Sharp et al., 2020). As the droughts worsened, it also is likely that people subsequently moved into the Ridge and Valley region of East Tennessee and North Georgia, beginning in the mid-1200s and continuing into the 1400s (Meeks, 2009). Concurrently, in North Georgia, the threat of warfare and violence probably also was connected to an influx of people from the Central Mississippi Valley that resulted in the construction of Etowah as a major mound center. Based on iconography styles, King and Sawyer (2017; King, 2020) argue that people from the Central Mississippi Valley arrived at Etowah by AD 1250. As already noted, Etowah was abandoned under violent and hostile circumstances by the mid fourteenth century (King, 2003; Lulewicz, 2017, 2018: Table 6.2). Perhaps the unrest in North Georgia also spilled into East Tennessee, especially given the evidence of earlier connections between these regions (Lewis & Kneberg, 1946; Lulewicz, 2019b; Sullivan, 2007, 2019), the presence of artifacts associated with North Georgia traditions, and findings by McCarthy (2011) related to biological connections. The types of nonlocal artifacts from the Bell and Long Island sites suggest different circumstances for interactions with the North Georgia and Middle Cumberland regions. The majority of artifacts that likely are from North Georgia are associated with ritual and religious practitioners, especially the stone palette. Steponaitis et al. (2011) have shown that Etowah stone palettes were parts of bundles used by elite ritual practitioners. The palettes themselves were used as portable altars to prepare colorful minerals for ritual use. These palettes also were “inalienable possessions” (Weiner, 1992), meaning that they could not have been traded as status goods to cement alliance between leaders. There also is some evidence to suggest that palettes, as parts of bundles, had to be decommissioned and had corporate rather than individual significance (Steponaitis et al., 2011:101). While there are probable ritual objects from the Middle Cumberland region (i.e., the statue, effigy bottles, and negative painted wares), utilitarian pottery that is compatible with Middle Cumberland wares also is present in East Tennessee. In contrast, the only pottery that can be associated with North Georgia from either site is the single Savannah Complicated stamped sherd. Such differences may offer clues about the presence of people from these regions at these sites. The Middle Cumberland-style pottery at the Long Island site suggests that women from that region were there. In contrast, the absence of pottery that would be compatible with North Georgia assemblages suggests that women who would have made such pottery were not at these sites. The relatively late, wall trench structure at Long Island additionally suggests the presence of people (likely men) who still built this type of architecture and did the heavy construction work. The burials discovered in mounds at Bell and Long Island reflect both Middle Cumberland and North Georgia connections. It also is interesting that the most unusual burials documented at these sites were an adult male at Long Island, and a mature female at Bell. The male at Long Island was interred in a specially-prepared grave resembling a clay canoe and with a Middle Cumberland male ancestor statue (Thomas 1894). In contrast, the mature female individual at Bell, who was

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associated with possible tattooing needles and a quartz discoidal, among other objects, was interred in a stone slab-lined grave, in a face down position. This burial position, across the world, often indicates the desire of the living to make sure the deceased person does not return (Jacobi, 2003). The two other individuals known to have been interred in Mound 53 at the Bell site also were placed in a stone slab-lined grave, but together, and were associated with several possible ritual objects. The younger of the two individuals had associated the Hixon gorget, while the presumed negative painted (“polychrome”) bottle appeared to the excavators as associated with the other individual. King and Sawyer (2017) classify the Hixon gorgets as Hightower in style, and following Muller (2007), place East Tennessee as the place of origin for this art style. When interred with adults, the Hixon gorgets usually are with females (Sullivan, 2007). King and Sawyer (2017) correlate the presence of these gorgets as funerary associations in burials in Mound C at Etowah with individuals from East Tennessee. The threads that we can finally pull together from the examination of the Long Island and Bell sites are complex and rather ambiguous, especially since excavation records and contexts for many important artifacts are nonexistent. But, since more data are not available, we can offer some observations and discuss a few possible interpretations. First, it seems clear that platform mounds and a Mississippian way of life were constructed at Bell before Long Island. These developments happened soon after AD 1200 during the Hiwassee Island phase. We suggest that local populations built the large Bell platform mound, but contacts with groups to the south were likely, perhaps with Hixon, Citico (Sullivan 2019) or even Etowah, as indicated by the Hixon gorget. King (2020:353–354) suggests that during the Early Wilbanks phase, after a period of abandonment, Etowah was reestablished by groups from East Tennessee and the Central Mississippi Valley. If he is correct, it would make sense for there also to have been visitations from North Georgia to the Upper Tennessee Valley. Even more dramatically, these visits may have involved powerful rituals, as suggested by the face down individual, but in a stone-lined grave reminiscent of those in Etowah’s Mound C. Slow, but constant incursions of small groups of outsiders during this time possibly required any remaining, dispersed resident populations to move close to their mounds and to build fortifications (Sullivan, 2018). But to date, there is no evidence of large numbers of people from other regions living at Bell. There is no “everyday” pottery comparable to that made in North Georgia in the AD 1200s, although assuming women made the pottery, its absence might not preclude the presence of men from other regions. How long the Bell site continued to be occupied is not known, but to date there is no evidence of a Late Dallas/Mouse Creek phase component before what appears to be a small Cherokee occupation. As time passed, the Etowah site became strong and influential, but the droughts to the west became worse and people likely continued to arrive in the Upper Tennessee Valley. By the mid- fourteenth century, Etowah was attacked and once again abandoned (King, 2003, 2007). Ritual objects from that same time frame, including copper celts, a copper headdress, and a stone palette from Etowah ended up at Long Island, but there is no information about the context of these significant objects.

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Middle Cumberland artifacts dating to the Thruston phase (AD 1250–1450) are associated with the same mounds. Once again, the lack of pottery from Georgia suggests that, at least, there were no women from Georgia at Long Island. But, the character of the Long Island pottery is compatible with Middle Cumberland assemblages, suggesting that women from that region were indeed there. Many scenarios could fit these scant clues. One is that the Long Island mounds (those dating to the Mississippian period) were built by outsiders, likely from the Middle Cumberland region. The adult male burial with the statue might represent a “founder.” If this is the case, why were artifacts closely associated with Etowah, including copper celts, and presumably the stone palette, placed in Long Island mounds? King (2020) interprets copper celts, stone blades, and copper hair ornaments at Etowah as emblematic of the Birdman, a powerful mythological being, with iconographic representations originating from the Central Mississippi Valley. It is not inconceivable that the copper bird headdress from Long Island also fits into this genre. But, what is missing at Long Island is evidence of people from the Central Mississippi Valley. Instead, there is ample evidence of Middle Cumberland peoples who may have left their homes because of incursions of people from the Mississippi Valley. So, who brought the Birdman regalia to Long Island? The stone palette may be a clue, because these ritual objects are proposed to be parts of bundles and consequently, inalienable possessions. The lack of within site provenience of these significant objects leaves us only to speculate, but perhaps given the long-standing connections of the Upper Tennessee Valley peoples with those to the south, powerful religious leaders came to Long Island from the North Georgia region. Why might such religious leaders have come to a place where there also likely were migrants from the Middle Cumberland who also brought powerful objects? With the Long Island site inundated, we cannot retrieve more contextual information. The information that is available does seem to point to the Bell and Long Island sites as places where people distant from the East Tennessee region traveled for diverse reasons that possibly included both religion and refuge.

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Smith, M. O., & Betsinger, T. K. (2019). Caries as an archaeological problem-solving tool: Reconstructing subsistence patterns in late prehistoric West-Central Tennessee. Dental Anthropology, 32(2), 51–66. Smith, K. E., & Miller, J. V. (2009). Speaking with the ancestors: Mississippian stone statuary of the Tennessee-Cumberland region. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Smith, K. E., & Moore, M. C. (2018). Middle Cumberland Mississippian archaeology: Past, present, and future directions. Tennessee Archaeology, 9(2), 170–200. Smith, K. E., & Trubitt, M. B. (1998). The Gordontown ceramic assemblage from a regional perspective. In M. C. Moore & E. Breitburg (Eds.), Gordontown: Salvage archaeology at a Mississippian town in Davidson County, Tennessee (pp. 129–131). Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Division of Archaeology Research Series No. 11, Nashville. Smith, K. E., Beahm, E. L., & Hampton, M. K. (2012). The Castalian Springs mound project 2011: Investigations of mound 3 (preliminary interpretations). Paper presented at the 24th annual Current Research in Tennessee Archaeology meeting, Nashville. Steponaitis, V. P., Swanson, S. E., Wheeler, G., & Drooker, P. B. (2011). The provenance and use of Etowah palettes. American Antiquity, 76(1), 81–106. Sullivan, L. P. (1987). The Mouse Creek phase household. Southeastern Archaeology, 6(1), 16–29. Sullivan, L. P. (2007). Dating the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in eastern Tennessee. In A. King (Ed.), Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Chronology, content, context (pp. 88–106). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Sullivan, L. P. (2009). Archaeological time constructs and the construction of the Hiwassee Island mound. In E. Pritchard (Ed.), TVA archaeology: Seventy-five years of prehistoric site research (pp. 181–209). University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Sullivan, L. P. (2016). Reconfiguring the Chickamauga Basin. In D. Dye (Ed.), New Deal archaeology in the Tennessee Valley (pp. 138–170). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Sullivan, L. P. (2018). The path to the council house: The development of Mississippian communities in Southeast Tennessee. In J. Birch & V. Thompson (Eds.), The archaeology of villages in Eastern North America (pp. 106–123). University of Florida Press, Gainesville. Sullivan L. P. (2019). The Citico site (40HA65) in regional context. In C. Clifford Boyd Jr. (Ed.), Archaeological adaptation: Case studies of cultural transformation from the Southeast and Caribbean (pp. 47–65). University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Sullivan, L. P., & Prezzano, S. C. (2001). The concept of Appalachian archaeology. In L. P. Sullivan & S. C. Prezzano (Eds.), Archaeology of the Appalachian highlands (pp. xix–xxxiii). University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Thomas, C. (1894). Report on mound explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. Twelfth annual report, Bureau of Ethnology 1890–91. Smithsonian Institution, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Weiner, A. B. (1992). Inalienable possessions: The paradox of keeping-while-giving. University of California Press, Oakland. Williams, S. (1990). The Vacant Quarter and other late events in the Lower Valley. In D. H. Dye & C. A. Cox (Eds.), Towns and temples along the Mississippi (pp. 170–180). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Wright, M. H. M. (1974). A metrical analysis of the morphological relationship between prehistoric Dallas and historic Cherokee skeletal populations in East Tennessee. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Chapter 9

“Vacant Quarters” and Population Movements: Legacy Data and the Investigation of a Large-Scale Emigration Event from the Savannah River Valley to the Georgia Coast Brandon T. Ritchison and David G. Anderson

Interest in relationships between humans and the environment has a long, and continuing history in archaeology and anthropology. The impacts of climate change, particularly over short spans of time, has always been a subject of interest. However, the extent to which it has attracted research attention has varied over the years, as has the way the subject has been approached. Recent attention to the concerns put forward in this volume, that of the relationships between large-scale, relatively rapid changes in climate and the movements that people undertook in response, is a product of both methodological and theoretical developments in archaeology and paleoclimatology. Our knowledge of past paleoenvironments is vast and growing. We now have annual, or even occasionally seasonal, resolution in records of rainfall, temperature, and extreme storm occurrences. Such increases in resolution have not been limited to paleoenvironmental datasets. Similar, and in many cases more significant, improvements in temporal resolution have been made in archaeology. Examining links between climate and culture change in the past at varying scales of resolution has, long been a common practice in the archaeological investigation of Eastern North America (Griffin, 1960, 1961), and in recent years increasingly so in the southeastern United States (e.g., Anderson, 2001; Anderson & Sassaman, 2012; chapters in the present volume). Important advances have come from the application of Bayesian chronological modeling to archaeological sequences, and have been generally driven by a reemergence of critical interest in temporality and chronology in archaeological studies. Elements of this chapter have previously appeared in Ritchison (2018). B. T. Ritchison (*) University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] D. G. Anderson University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_9

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Such advances in resolution can lead to new understandings, but they also create new issues, with concomitant increases in the scale of the datasets that can be productively used by archaeologists to examine these relationships. In this chapter, we discuss synthetic datasets and their utility in identifying and understanding largescale population movements. We focus on the fourteenth and fifteenth century AD Savannah River Valley as a case study given its position as one of the earliest, synthetic explorations of the multi-faceted relationship between settlement, mobility, climate, and culture in the archaeological literature of the Eastern Woodlands (Anderson, 1990, 1994, 1996; Anderson et al., 1995). We begin by outlining some of the history of synthetic approaches to settlement and demographic analysis and discuss how this tradition of study has successfully and productively made the leap to the digital realm in recent years, using the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) as an example (Wells et al., 2014). We then demonstrate how the types of data indexed by DINAA can be used to identify regional population shifts and investigate the demographic and social trajectories in play. This approach provides an alternative to traditional methods of identifying episodes of migration, such as the various analyses applied to artifact assemblages or to ancestral remains. Due to the nature of the archaeological record in this region, which we will return to, these more traditional analytical approaches are not always applicable or available. Using newly assembled digital datasets, we present evidence for a large-scale emigration to the neighboring coastal region of Georgia, using methods that we believe can be widely and productively applied elsewhere to document large-scale population movements.

Synthesis in Eastern North America: Old and New Approaches to Settlement and Chronology There is a long history in the Eastern Woodlands of plotting the occurrence of archaeological assemblages, and the phases based on them. Such efforts have a distinguished legacy in the region, beginning with pioneering work of scholars like James A. Ford, Philip Phillips, and James B. Griffin (Ford, 1936; Griffin, 1967; Phillips et al., 1951; Phillips, 1970). Indeed, this tradition has continued to the present day, with contemporary efforts increasingly focused on resolving patterns of settlement and landscape change, particularly during the Paleoindian period in the late Pleistocene (Anderson & Gillam, 2000; Anderson & Bissett, 2015; Anderson et al., 2010, 2015; Smallwood et al., 2015), and to document the consequences of European contact on native populations in the late Holocene (Bamforth & Grund, 2012; Jones, 2014; Milner & Chaplin, 2010; Milner et al., 2001; Munoz et al., 2014; Peros et al., 2010). These changes are often interpreted as reflecting increases, declines, or movements of human populations over large areas, patterns frequently assumed to be linked to climatic variation. Until recently, phase distribution maps were intuitively based, with boundaries and core areas impressionistically drawn,

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although they certainly reflected knowledge of materials from many sites. In the case of large-scale studies like those conducted in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, inputs from dozens of scholars and reports were consolidated (Phillips, 1970; Phillips et al., 1951). These maps remain some of the only studies undertaken at such a scale in many areas, although new techniques for mapping the past are rapidly emerging (Davis et al., 2019, 2020; Lambers et al., 2019; Orengo & GarciaMolsosa, 2019; Orengo et al., 2020; Robinson et al., 2019a, b). This methodological approach led to the identification of the most well-known example of demographic change in Eastern North America, the “Vacant Quarter” hypothesis proposed by Stephen Williams (Williams, 1983, 1990). Williams (1990) argued that portions of the central Mississippi and lower Ohio River valleys were depopulated during the Late Mississippian era, creating a “vacant quarter” of relatively low settlement density, a profound change given some of the densest populations in northern North American had been present in the region during previous centuries. Research testing the validity, extent, and timing of the Vacant Quarter has continued to the present, with explanations tied, at least in part, to changes in rainfall regimes (Benson et al., 2009; Cobb & Butler, 2002; Cobb et al., 2015; Krus & Cobb, 2018; Meeks & Anderson, 2013). In the late 1980s, inspired by Williams’s hypothesis, Anderson (1990, 1991) examined large-scale population trends across eastern North America through the generation of phase distribution maps. The goal of this effort was to delimit locations of large-scale settlement change, specifically the expansion and collapse of complex chiefdoms, the depopulation or abandonment of areas, and the formation of buffer zones. Based on input from some 50 scholars on the occurrence and dating of phases in their regions of expertise, Anderson (1990: 241-244, 1991:12–15) produced synthetic maps of archaeological phases across Eastern North America. These maps encompassed four time periods and allowed examination of (1) the emergence and early spread of the Mississippian adaptation, ca. 900–1100 AD (Fig. 9.1); (2) the height of interregional exchange and interaction, ca. 1250–1300 AD (Fig. 9.2); (3) the marked settlement changes associated with the onset of the Little Ice Age, ca. 1400–1450 AD (Fig. 9.3); and (4) initial European contact in the interior by the De Soto entrada, ca. 1540 AD (Fig. 9.4). The maps suggested that regional-scale population movements were a relatively common occurrence during the late pre-contact era (Anderson, 1991; Anderson et al., 1995). Large segments of the Mississippi, Illinois, Savannah, and Tennessee River basins that were occupied by chiefdom-level societies in the Early or Middle Mississippian period, for example, underwent marked depopulation around ca. AD 1400. Most of these events occurred before initial European contact, furthermore, and could not be attributed to disease-induced depopulation. Three of the maps were further refined in a second paper a decade later by George Milner, Marvin Smith, and David Anderson (Milner et al., 2001). While of value for both research and educational purposes, such large-scale intuitive mapping exercises have remained rare, reliant as they are on the labor-intensive compilation of knowledge held by local experts. Intuitively inferred distributions, furthermore, are no substitute for maps created using site and artifact occurrence and density data, something long noted in

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Fig. 9.1 Phase distribution map for the period of the emergence and early spread of the Mississippian adaptation, ca. 900–1100 AD. (Source: Anderson, 1990:241, 1991:12)

Paleoindian studies, where intuitively drawn distribution maps were often wildly inaccurate (Anderson et al., 2010:64). Fortunately, recent research directed to digitizing and making openly available the sorts of data that underlay these traditional efforts have presented new opportunities to revisit and interrogate regional and continental patterns of settlement and

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Fig. 9.2 Phase distribution map for the period of the height of interregional exchange and interaction, ca. 1250–1300 AD. (Source: Anderson, 1990:242, 1991:13)

mobility, particularly as they may relate to climate change (Anderson et al., 2017; Kansa et al., 2018; Robinson et al., 2019a, b). While many synthetic digital databases have been created in recent years, two of our primary concerns here are settlement and chronology. DINAA is one of the most comprehensive examples to date offering a means of synthesizing archaeological settlement data in the

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Fig. 9.3 Phase distribution map showing the marked settlement changes associated with the onset of the Little Ice Age, ca. 1400–1450 AD. (Source: Anderson, 1990:243, 1991:14)

Americas. DINAA was established in 2012 with the goal of integrating and, importantly, rendering interoperable, state-level archaeological site file data (Wells et al., 2014, Kansa et al., 2017; Anderson et al., 2019). This is done while also providing links to information about specific sites in other databases, collections, and

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Fig. 9.4 Phase distribution map for the period of initial European contact in the interior by the De Soto entrada, ca. 1540 AD. (Source: Anderson, 1990:244, 1991:15)

publications. The DINAA interface had to be built to a sufficient geographic scale and level of inclusion before it could be used effectively for research and indexing purposes. Fortunately, it has been growing rapidly and has reached that level for much of the eastern United States, where many states are DINAA partners and together provide the critical mass necessary in terms of numbers of sites and

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geographic coverage to be useful for research, resource management, and public education purposes. One example of how DINAA has proven the utility of such compilations is in documenting the massive losses to the archaeological record that will occur given even minor rises in sea level. Anderson et al. (2017) employed linked data from over half a million archaeological sites to project the loss of more than 13,000 archaeological sites on the continental margins of the eastern United States if a rise of 1 m is experienced by AD 2100, with much higher numbers given greater rises. However, the information in analytical constructs like DINAA must be used carefully (Anderson, 2018; Anderson et al., 2017, 2019; Kansa et al., 2018; Wells et al., 2014). For example, many of the densest concentrations of sites currently recorded correspond to military bases, national forests and parks, and other federal lands where archaeological survey has been mandated. Site concentrations are frequently found close to universities, population centers, and state or federal government agency offices, anywhere large numbers of archaeologists are employed. It is essential to understand and control for such sources of bias in these databases. Standardizing these data is likewise critical to effective interpretation because most of the concentrations reflect thousands of sites. One approach to standardizing this synthetic data is to calculate the numbers of sites or artifacts per century and to then compare these values from one interval to the next (Anderson et al., 2019:251–260; Milner, 2004:28–29). Another exploratory approach to examine potential demographic change is to simply compare maps produced by DINAA or other platforms over time, such as from AD 1100–1250 and AD 1250–1500, using site file data from Georgia and South Carolina to examine the spread of Mississippian culture (Figs. 9.5 and 9.6; see also Chamblee, 2006). When compared side-by-side, obvious changes in distributions are evident. What is happening can then be examined in much greater detail by looking at the specific areas and sites in question. For example, a major Late Mississippian site concentration occurs in central Georgia, in part due to decades of work in the Wallace Reservoir area and the nearby presence of the University of Georgia, but also undoubtedly because a major native society was present in the area at this time, the chiefdom of Ocute visited by DeSoto in 1540 (Hudson, 1997:162–165). DINAA maps are based on site file data where sites are typically attributed to specific time periods based on the presence of diagnostic artifacts, and less commonly, absolute dating. Frequently, the site record is assigned to particular archaeological phases, typological categories that straddle measures of time, place, and material culture. Accordingly, while the research potential of these maps is potentially quite significant, users should be aware of their limitations, particularly regarding temporal resolution. The social processes involved in both large- and small-scale population movements are likely very different if they occur at scales of a few months, years, or generations, rather than across the typical centennial or longer spans represented by most traditional archaeological phases, particularly in the Eastern Woodlands. With synthetic settlement data alone, it is thus unlikely that a researcher would be able to understand the temporality of such changes.

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Fig. 9.5 All sites in DINAA circa AD 1100–1250 (top) and 1250–1500 (bottom) in the Eastern Woodlands, as of January 2021. States that are lacking data either have not made it available, or do not have site files data coded at the fine-grained temporal resolution needed to produce these maps (Maps courtesy Joshua J. Wells)

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Fig. 9.6 All Mississippian sites in DINAA in Georgia and South Carolina circa AD 1100–1400 (top) and 1400–1550 (bottom), as of January 2021 (Maps courtesy Joshua J. Wells)

Luckily, settlement data has not been the only realm of digital consolidation in archaeology. Databases of radiocarbon data are also being increasingly compiled. These databases have brought together archaeological and sometimes paleoenvironmental/palenontological radiocarbon data from scattered sources (e.g., publications, reports, internal agency/company data, laboratory records, etc.) at state

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(e.g., Illinois State Archaeological Survey; http://fms.isas.illinois.edu/fmi/webd), regional (e.g., Turck & Thompson, 2014), and continental scales (e.g., Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database [CARD]; http://www.canadianarchaeology.ca; Robinson et al, 2019a, b). The primary means by which synthesized radiocarbon datasets have been employed in research has been through the creation and analysis of summed probability plots. This approach has been employed at various scales to identify patterns of growth and decline that have been interpreted as reflecting various trends in human activity (Armit et al., 2013; Bamforth & Grund, 2012; Peros et al., 2010; Rick, 1987; Shennan & Edinborough, 2007; Smith et al., 2008; Steele, 2010; Thomas, 2008a, b, c; Robinson et al., 2019a, b; Timpson et al., 2014). Although trends evident in summed probability distributions are likely influenced by human activities to a greater or lesser degree, there are reasons we should be cautious in our interpretations. Inferring population dynamics from summed radiocarbon distributions is difficult, if not dangerous, due to the suite of biases resulting from taphonomic processes, sample selection, and human behavior (Brown, 2015; Carleton & Groucutt, 2021; Contreras & Meadows, 2014; Surovell & Jeffrey Brantingham, 2007; Surovell et al., 2009; Williams, 2012). Bayesian statistical techniques provide an alternative method to interrogate these datasets. Bayesian methods have been used to address both new and long-standing chronological questions (Bayliss, 2009; Bayliss & Bronk Ramsey, 2004; Culleton et al., 2012; Hamilton & Kenney, 2015; Kennett et al., 2014; Pluckhahn et al., 2015; Turck & Thompson, 2016). Bayesian methods, in contrast to traditional statistical techniques, rely on probability curves, a priori information, and numerous, iterative permutations. Thus, Bayesian modeling represents a probabilistic approach to understanding and evaluating radiocarbon data. Its basis lies in Bayes’ Theorem, an approach to statistics that offers an alternative to traditional methods of nullhypothesis testing (Bayes, 1763; Kruschke, 2014). In the past decade, the use of Bayesian analysis has increased across disciplines because of its intuitiveness and analytical power, and increasingly accessible and powerful software (Bronk Ramsey, 2009; Kruschke, 2014; Thompson & Krus, 2018). Bayesian chronological modeling, conducted using the OxCal software package, calculates posterior likelihoods of probabilistic chronological data based on a priori information (Bronk Ramsey, 2009; Pluckhahn et al., 2015). Models in OxCal are evaluated in terms of their significance based on calculated A values, an index related to overall agreement of the individual dates with the a priori information used to structure the model. Both whole models and individual dates are given A values, with an A index over 60 signifying acceptable agreement (Bronk Ramsey, 2009). Models are typically run in an iterative manner, with the goal of gradually increasing the accuracy of a model as problematic dates are identified and individually assessed. These individual assessments are key to producing an internally coherent model when working with legacy dates that have been collected, sampled, and tested by different researchers using different methods, and often lack sufficient contextual information (Graf, 2009). For a more complete explanation of the method of Bayesian chronological modeling, see Bronk Ramsey (2009).

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Archaeologists can take advantage of Bayesian techniques because radiocarbon dates are fundamentally probability curves, providing a date with a range of uncertainty. Further, seriated sequences and stratigraphic information are ideal a priori data for constraining the potential results of a Bayesian chronological model. In Bayesian chronological modeling, Sequence and Phase models are used to account for stochastic variation in dates by grouping, separating, and/or ordering them based on contextual information (Bayliss, 2009; Bronk Ramsey, 2009; Culleton et al., 2012; Krus, 2016). Phases can represent single events, archaeological strata, or even an entire occupation span of a site or component, depending on the intentions of the modeler and/or limitations of the data. This flexibility in defining the parameters of a model is one of the approach’s major strengths, provided one critically evaluates the results of any given model with the potential biases of one’s employed priors and data kept in mind.

The Savannah River Valley Emigration Event We will now turn to the case of the Late pre-contact Savannah River Valley to demonstrate how these approaches to the use of synthetic data can result in new, more complete understandings of even well-studied and well-understood archaeological contexts. For his dissertation research, Anderson (1990, 1994) examined late pre-contact occupations in the Savannah River Valley. Although survey coverage at the time was not ideal, nearly 5000 sites had been recorded in the Savannah basin, with over 300 specifically attributed to the Mississippian period. Twenty of these sites, including most of the major mound centers, had already received substantial excavation. From these excavations, a detailed cultural sequence already existed, with ca. 100–150-year resolution. Dating most sites to tight intervals was thus possible, given that a site yielded a sufficient ceramic assemblage. Eventually tens of thousands of sherds and hundreds of site records were examined in what eventually came to be a synthesis of the valley’s archaeology, published in 1994 as The Savannah River Chiefdoms: Political Change in the Late Prehistoric Southeast. The Late Mississippian period Savannah River Valley has since come to be regarded as one of the best documented examples of a regional depopulation event in the Eastern United States, although, as we will show, refinements in our understanding of this event are still ongoing. Middle Mississippian populations left both major and minor population centers in the Savannah River Valley between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD, due to a combination of recurring droughts and increased political competition (Anderson, 1994, 1996). These developments influenced the collapse of the valley’s hierarchical political systems and resulted in a near-complete depopulation that persisted for well over a century, at least up to the point that when the central portion of valley was traversed by the de Soto entrada in AD 1540, it was described as the ‘Desert of Ocute’ because no peoples were encountered from whom the Spanish could appropriate food. The result of this

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was that the expedition nearly foundered (Anderson, 1994; Anderson et al., 1995; Beck, 2013; Hudson, 1997:165–172). A clear spatial and temporal gradient of depopulation was evident in the archaeological record, beginning in the lower part of the basin and moving upstream. At three sites, Irene, Lawton, and Rucker’s Bottom, fortifications appeared prior to abandonment. At Rucker’s Bottom, the fortifications grew more complex over time (Anderson, 1994:299–302; Wood, 2009; Stephenson et al., 2010). In cooperation with dendroclimatologists David Stahle and Malcolm Cleavelend, rainfall patterns evident in bald cypress cores dating to the late pre-contact/early colonial era were used to model potential crop yields and related storage surpluses and deficits in the area (Anderson, 1990: 536–559; Anderson et al., 1995). In this analysis, close temporal associations were observed between climate and settlement. The depopulation of the central and lower basin appears to have been related to major downturns in rainfall in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD, which was inferred to have served as a push factor influencing residents’ decision to presumably relocate to larger and more stable chiefdoms in other, neighboring basins. This project was one of, if not, the first examinations in the eastern United States to specifically investigate and demonstrate the existence of, and reasons for, a sharp decline in settlement and population across an extensive region. Since that time, the continued applications and developments of dendrochronological/climatological methods (e.g., the Living Blended Drought Atlas [Cook et al., 2010]) has supported these initial observations. Since that analysis and the initial identification of the depopulation event, additional research has clarified its timing. Stephenson et al. (2015) used a multi-method approach to better understand the chronology of the Middle Savannah River chiefdoms, employing both ceramic seriation and Bayesian modeling. The ceramic seriation included 10 sites in the Middle Savannah River Valley, representing farmsteads, villages, and mound centers. The chronological ordering of these sites was then used as the a priori specifications for a Sequence model in OxCal 4.2. By grouping their set of 44 dates by site, and by provenience when applicable, and placing these groups in the order predicted by a ceramic frequency seriation, Stephenson et al. (2015: 181) constrained the probability distributions of their radiocarbon dates, ultimately creating precise estimates for spans of occupation each sites. Their results show that six of the 10 sites in their model had occupations that ended in the decade between cal. 1376 and 1386 AD1; only one of the 10 sites persisted longer (until cal. 1398 AD at the latest). Included among these six sites are five of the region’s mound centers: Spring Lake, Red Lake, Hollywood, Lawton, and Mason’s Plantation. It also becomes clear in that analysis that populations had already been reorganizing themselves throughout the river valley in the century prior to the

1

Dates resulting from Bayesian modeling are presented as cal. (in italics) to distinguish them from non-modeled dates following recommendations of Hamilton and Krus (2018) and the Society for American Archaeology Style Guide.

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major depopulation event of the late fourteenth/early fifteenth century AD; while some peoples remained in the upper reaches of the basin near the headwaters after this time, evidence for settlement lower in the drainage is almost nonexistent for the next two centuries, until well into the seventeenth century AD (Anderson, 1994; Bowne, 2005; Smith, 1987). Stephenson et al. (2015:183) argue that major Middle Mississippian population centers in the lower part of the basin were likely occupied sequentially, rather than contemporaneously. This sequence of Middle Mississippian settlement began with a decline in population outside of the major centers at around 1250 AD. Centers near the Fall Line at Hollywood and Mason’s Plantation and further to the south in the interior Coastal Plain at Lawton, Red Lake, and Spring Lake grew in size as populations apparently concentrated at these sites. They suggest that collective feasting and new symbolic behaviors served to pull populations to these primary centers (Stephenson et al., 2015:185). It may also be that increases in real, or perceived, agricultural and/or political uncertainty at earlier, smaller centers may have served to push populations together at larger centers. This consolidation of populations and the seemingly related increase in the centralization of political authority, set the stage for the eventual failures of these relatively inflexible chiefly hierarchies to respond to the challenges imposed by agricultural shortfalls and increased levels of inter-regional competition. These factors seem to have led to the depopulation of the valley’s primary population centers, and eventually the rest of the central and lower basin. Ultimately, this human “desert” formed an expansive buffer zone between the growing polities of Ocute and Cofitachequi in the Oconee and Wateree valleys, to the west and east of the central and northern Savannah River valley (Anderson, 1994, 1996; Hudson, 1997). At the mouth of the Savannah River, at approximately the same time (i.e., the Late Mississippian Irene period [ca. 1350–1550 AD]), changes in settlement have been documented by Thomas (2008a, b, c), Sipe (2013), Thompson (2009), and M. S. Thompson (2014). While long suspected, this settlement transformation has only recently been directly linked to the depopulation of the Savannah River Valley (Ritchison, 2018). As the middle reaches of the Savannah were abandoned, residents at the Irene site enacted new forms of public architecture and political organization (Anderson, 1994:174, 290–294, 308; Caldwell & McCann, 1941; Thompson, 2009). Located near the mouth of the Savannah River, the Irene site exhibited a platform mound, one burial mound, a council house of immense scale, a mortuary building, and a series of palisades and enclosures (Anderson, 1994:174–186; Caldwell & McCann, 1941; Thompson, 2009:451). The site was probably occupied almost continuously between 1150 and 1450 AD. The platform mound at Irene consisted of seven stages, all constructed during the Savannah period (Anderson, 1994:291). The cessation of platform mound construction at Irene was marked by the addition of a final, conical capping layer added to the platform mound. This closing of the mound had been preceded by other alterations to the site’s landscape, notably the construction of a series of palisades enclosing elements of the site’s core, a practice also observed at Rucker’s Bottom and Lawton prior to their depopulation (Anderson, 1994:291; Caldwell & McCann, 1941; Stephenson et al., 2010). According to Anderson (1994:291), these enclosures

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suggest one of two possibilities. First, elite residents of Irene may have been increasingly isolating themselves from the general population, perhaps producing a schism between social classes that may have led to organizational destabilization followed by the cessation of mound construction and abandonment of elite moundtop structures. However, the presence of palisades could also be explained by increased tension and hostilities between Irene and its neighbors. Although there is no evidence of destruction, the eventual depopulation of Irene after ca. 1450 AD could have resulted from violence, or perhaps just its threat or expectation. Along the coast to the south of Irene, the number of new settlements increased far beyond levels observed for previous periods (Pearson, 1977, 1978, 2014; Ritchison, 2018; Thomas, 2008c; Thompson & Turck, 2009). This pattern persists when corrected for the varying durations of those periods, as shown below. The settlement system appears to have also become more dispersed than in prior periods (Sipe, 2013; Thomas, 2008c), and an apparent site-size hierarchy was also established (Pearson, 1977, 1978, 2014). This is very similar to the settlement pattern that Jones (1978) initially identified ethnohistorically for the Guale, the Native Americans living on the northern Georgia Coast in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries AD during the Spanish mission period. Jones labeled this pattern the “dispersed town.” In combination, these changes suggest that populations on the coast grew at rates never previously experienced in the region and this growth was generally concomitant with the abandonment of the central and lower Savannah River Valley. This leads to the two questions that we address in the remainder of this chapter: (1) Do these changes indicate a large-scale immigration to the Georgia Coast coincident with the abandonment of the Savannah River Valley? And, if so, (2) how did the coastal settlement system transform in relation to this population influx?

Identifying Immigration to the Georgia Coast – Methods Understanding the character, degree, and temporality of settlement and demographic change is necessary to ascribe those changes to either external or internal demographic forces. The analytical procedures described below are, to our knowledge, novel approaches intended to create a series of simple quantitative measures relating to settlement that could be used to compare these behaviors over time (Ritchison, 2018). These measures were chosen to make the best use of available data (i.e., one state’s archaeological site file record). Although our analysis focuses on the Georgia Coast, we believe that the methods described below could be readily applied to other regions. Our source of settlement data was the Georgia State Archaeological Site File (GASF). To investigate the Georgia Coast, sites were selected in the Sea Islands/ Coastal Marsh Ecoregion (Fig. 9.7). To control for uneven site discovery, St. Catherines Island was also used as a discrete sample region because, unlike most of the rest of the region, the island has been systematically surveyed (Thomas,

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Fig. 9.7 Sites in the Georgia Coastal Ecoregion used in the settlement analysis

2008a, b, c). Sites in these areas were categorized based on whether they had either multiple or single component occupations. Components were attributed to the specific archaeological periods used in the GASF database.

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Rates of Component Accumulation and Co-occurrence With rates of change being the primary variable in question, we can restructure mathematical equations of population growth, like the growth curve proposed by Malthus (1798) for unconstrained, exponential population growth, where P ¼ population, PO ¼ initial population, t ¼ time, and r ¼ rate of change per unit of t, such that, if the values of the other variables are known, calculating the rate of change in a population over a given period is possible:   P ¼ Po e

ðrt Þ

!r¼

P Po

ln t

:

This equation is reliant on the availability of population estimates at the beginning and end of a defined period. Additionally, we know that Malthus’s understanding of demographic forces was heavily influenced by his social context and that populations do not tend to grow exponentially and that his warnings of overpopulation were founded on incomplete and highly biased understandings of the relationships between demography and social institutions. However, for an estimate of the rate of change in a population with the data we have available, a rough proxy for population measures will have to suffice, but we note that exploring alternative models of growth more applicable to the specific context at hand would increase the robustness of this approach. Human populations tend to increase over the long-term but can fluctuate significantly over the short-term. Archaeological components are similar; sites may be occupied or unused in the short-term, but the total number of components visible in the archaeological record increases over the long-term (for a discussion on similar accumulative patterns, see Surovell & Jeffrey Brantingham, 2007). As such, rates of archaeological component accumulation in a region can, given a few assumptions, serve as a proxy for the rate of population growth. One assumption is that socioecological systems (such as settlement, subsistence, and social organization) remain static within defined spans of time. Conveniently, delineations between major archaeological periods tend to mark significant and observable transformations in these systems, albeit with sometimes significant cross-regional variation, but often with little intra-regional variation within a single archaeological period. An additional assumption is that a certain number of components is needed to support a certain, albeit unknown, population in a given settlement system. With these assumptions, we can substitute P and PO with C and CO, respectively, where C ¼ the total number of archaeological components within span t, CO ¼ an estimated initial number of occupied components at the start of span t, and r(C) ¼ the rate of change in number of archaeological components per unit of t, resulting in the following equation:

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  r ðC Þ ¼

C Co

ln t

This allows the calculation of the rate of accumulation of archaeological components. Although real population levels and rates of population growth cannot be determined, this equation allows comparison of rates of accumulation of components on the landscape, as well as comparison of rates of change in component accumulation across multiple regions and across temporal boundaries within regions. This, in turn, should help identify demographic disjunctures that cannot be explained wholly by in situ processes. To calculate CO, the number of components occupied in temporally preceding components was used. For example, 57.66% of Middle Woodland sites remained occupied, or were at some point subsequently reoccupied, during the Late Woodland (see Table 9.1). Therefore, CO for the Late Woodland period would equal 57.66% of the total number of multiple component sites dating to the Middle Woodland.

Rates of Settlement Continuity and Reoccupation Here, we understand settlement continuity as a measure of the percent of components that were occupied in two subsequent periods out of the total number of settlements recorded for the latter period. So, for any given two temporally adjacent periods (e.g., Period A and Period B), where CCO ¼ the percent of multi-component occupations that co-occur with temporally subsequent occupations, MC ¼ the number of multi-component occupations, and C ¼ the total number of components, such that: PerAC CO  PerAMC ¼ %Continuity PerBC This measure of continuity generally reflects the degree to which locations were subject to reuse between subsequent periods. Reuse at this temporal and geographic scale primarily reflects economic choices and, consequently, the persistence of structures that constrained these choices. To additionally examine historic trends of settlement choice, reoccupation rates were calculated as the number of components per period that exhibit any earlier occupations, whether immediately preceding or not. Ratios of single to multi-component sites also reflect these kinds of choices. Ratios were simply calculated by dividing the number of single component occupations ascribed to a period by the number of multi-component occupations from the same period. Demographic growth or contraction could affect this ratio, as could economic changes. The results of the calculations described above are provided in Tables 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4 and 9.5 and are discussed in detail below. Although we are most concerned

Late Archaic Early Woodland Middle Woodland Late Woodland Early Mississippian Middle Mississippian Late Mississippian Historic Indian

Early Woodland 37.63% – 36.50% 23.64% 41.30% 21.14%

18.00% 16.33%

Late Archaic – 53.03% 43.07% 32.12% 30.43% 31.71%

26.67% 18.37%

40.00% 24.49%

Middle Woodland 63.44% 75.76% – 47.88% 56.52% 40.65% 52.00% 48.98%

Late Woodland 56.99% 59.09% 57.66% – 76.09% 54.47% 12.67% 20.41%

Early Miss. 15.05% 28.79% 18.98% 21.21% – 21.14% 50.67% 26.53%

Middle Miss. 41.94% 39.39% 36.50% 40.61% 56.52% –

Table 9.1 Rates of co-occurrence of components at multicomponent sites for the Northern Georgia Coast Region Historic Indian 9.68% 12.12% 8.76% 14.55% 21.74% 10.57% 22.00% –

Late Miss. 43.01% 40.91% 43.80% 47.27% 41.30% 61.79% – 70.21%

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Table 9.2 Rates of component accumulation for the Georgia Coast

Period Late Archaic Early Woodland Middle Woodland Late Woodland Early Mississippian Middle Mississippian Late Mississippian Historic Indian

C 136 77 177 253 47 149 276 61

CO 1 35 50 79 35 67 76 33

t 1200 1000 500 500 200 200 150 150

r(C) 0.41% 0.08% 0.25% 0.23% 0.15% 0.40% 0.86% 0.41%

Table 9.3 Rates of component accumulation for St. Catherines Island

Period Late Archaic Middle Woodland Late Woodland Middle Mississippian Late Mississippian Historic Indian

C 9 17 47 14 64 11

CO 1 1 4 5 10 7

t 1200 1500 700 200 150 150

r(C) 0.18% 0.19% 0.35% 0.51% 1.24% 0.30%

Table 9.4 Rates of settlement reoccupation, continuity, and ratios of single to multicomponent sites

Period Late Archaic Early Woodland Middle Woodland Late Woodland Early Mississippian Middle Mississippian Late Mississippian Historic Indian

Continuity 1.60% 42.59% 23.55% 33.11% 76.36% 13.81% 35.24% 51.69%

Ratio 0.41 0.32 0.38 0.50 0.02 0.24 0.73 0.22

Reoccupation 3.19% 42.59% 45.56% 40.13% 89.09% 63.33% 54.17% 82.02%

Table 9.5 Intraregional comparison of settlement continuity for the Georgia Coast

Period Late Archaic Early Woodland Middle Woodland Late Woodland Early Mississippian Middle Mississippian Late Mississippian Historic Indian

Continuity St. Catherines Island 0.0% 5.8%

Northern Georgia Coast 2.2% 45.5% 28.2%

Southern Georgia Coast 0.0% 35.5% 13.4%

Whole Coast 1.6% 42.6% 23.6%

8.5%

31.2% 74.5%

43.5% 87.5%

33.1% 76.4%

35.7%

17.4%

4.9%

13.8%

15.6%

27.5%

58.3%

35.2%

63.6%

55.9%

36.7%

51.7%

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with the Mississippian period results here, the nature of these analyses requires comparison between periods; it is not the values themselves that are important or informative, but the changes between these measures across time. As such, we report the results from all major temporal periods of occupation represented on the coast to situate the changes apparent in the Late Mississippian period into their historical context.

Identifying Immigration to the Georgia Coast – Results of the Settlement Analyses Rates of Component Accumulation The Late Archaic period experienced the second highest rate of component accumulation of any period on the Georgia Coast at 0.41% growth per year (Table 9.2). This growth reflects the first intensive settlement of the coastal region that is archaeologically visible. Although the area now forming the coastal margin may have been occupied prior to the Late Archaic, since sea levels only approached current levels at roughly the beginning of this period, coastal occupations would have been located much further eastward in earlier times, and the area now along the coast would have been well inland, and likely less favored. Postglacial flooding of the continental shelf, furthermore, would have obscured whatever signatures of human activity were present prior to this time along earlier coastlines. The growth rate in the Early Woodland period exhibited a sharp decline to 0.08%, a decline noted in many parts of the region that may itself be due to climatic impacts and localized sea level fluctuations (e.g., Anderson, 2010; Fiedel, 2001; Kidder, 2006; Ritchison et al., 2021; Thompson & Turck, 2009; Turck & Thompson, 2016). Accumulation rates grew during the Middle Woodland (i.e., 0.25% per year) and Late Woodland periods (i.e., 0.23%). The Early Mississippian period had a reduced growth rate of 0.15% per year, but this may be due to the proportion of the GASF database consisting of sites from the systematic survey of St. Catherines Island where the Late Woodland, Early Mississippian, and Middle Mississippian, periods are frequently combined into a single “St. Catherines” phase (Thomas, 2008b:423). Elsewhere, St. Catherines ceramics are classified either as Late Woodland or Early Mississippian. This causes some confusion that needs to be addressed when interrogating the GASF database at a regional scale for the coastal zone. During the Middle Mississippian period, components accumulated at a rate of 0.40% per year for the entire coast, and 0.51% for St. Catherines Island. The Late Mississippian period experienced the highest rate of component accumulation of any archaeological period on the Georgia Coast at 0.86% per year, with an even higher rate of 1.24% for the systematically surveyed St. Catherines Island. This analysis demonstrates that rates of component accumulation varied over time, yet the rate of growth during the Late Mississippian period was more than

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twice that of the previous period. Although the calculated values for r(C) do not directly equate to population growth rates, the relationship between growth rates across components likely mirrors trends in population growth within and between these periods.

Rates of Settlement Co-occurrence and Reoccupation Measures of settlement continuity demonstrate changes in patterns of settlement and activity across our temporal boundaries. Measuring continuity first requires calculation of settlement co-occurrence. Of course, this measure only considers multicomponent sites in the site file because single component sites, by definition, do not co-occur with other occupations. The results of the calculation of co-occurrence are reported in Table 9.1. As with rates of component accumulation, rates of component co-occurrence vary over time. The Late Archaic evinces a low rate of co-occurrence with the previous period, with only five Middle Archaic components recorded for the coastal zone. After the region was first occupied following the stabilization of sea levels during the Late Archaic, rates of co-occurrence generally increased. During the Early Woodland, 56.1% of components had been occupied during the Late Archaic. There appears to be a large decrease in the rate of co-occurrence between the Early and Middle Woodland periods. Only 32% of Middle Woodland sites were in locations previously utilized by Early Woodland populations. The rate increases again for the Late Woodland, with 50% of Late Woodland sites re-occupying Middle Woodland components. The Early Mississippian period exhibited a high degree of co-occurrence with the preceding Late Woodland period, with 78% of multi-component sites occurring in the same locations as Late Woodland occupations. This is the highest degree of co-occurrence for any combination of temporal periods. This is followed by the lowest rate of co-occurrence observed; 17% of Middle Mississippian sites were located on sites occupied during the Early Mississippian. Moving into the Late Mississippian, 54% of sites shared locations with Middle Mississippian components. Co-occurrence increased into the Historic period, with 60% of sites occupying locations with Late Mississippian components. Rates of co-occurrence were also used to calculate the percentage of sites reoccupied in any subsequent periods (Table 9.4). This measure is also influenced significantly by the absolute number of components per period. Throughout the Woodland period, the degree of reoccupation was relatively stable, with rates between 40% and 45%. The rate of reoccupation increased substantially during the Mississippian. The Early Mississippian period exhibited a re-occupation rate of 89% from the Late Woodland, the highest rate of reoccupation observed. However, this rate may be suspect due to the previously discussed coding of the state site file database.

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The Middle Mississippian rate of reoccupation drops to 63%, higher than any rate observed for the Woodland, but lower than the (potentially suspect) 89% observed for the Early Mississippian. This is followed by a reoccupation rate of 54% in the Late Mississippian. It should be noted that Late Mississippian Irene components are the most numerous of any period, meaning that, at the end of the pre-contact sequence, fewer locations remained that had not been utilized in a previous period.

Settlement Continuity Rates of co-occurrence can be used in combination with counts of single components to calculate an overall measure of settlement continuity; that is, the percentage of components occurring in a location that had been occupied or utilized in immediately preceding periods. The calculated rates of settlement continuity are presented in Table 9.4. The Early Woodland period exhibited a continuity of 43% from the preceding Late Archaic. Continuity falls during the transition into the Middle Woodland, with only 24% of sites occupying Early Woodland locations. This is more reflective of the increase in the total number of sites in the Middle Woodland, with nearly 75% of multi-component Early Woodland sites reoccupied during the Middle Woodland. The degree of continuity in the Middle to Late Woodland transition is somewhat higher, with a rate of 33%. The rate of continuity increases substantially during the Mississippian. The Early Mississippian period evinces a settlement continuity of 76% from the Late Woodland. This is the highest rate of continuity observed. As discussed, this rate may be influenced by the underlying coding of the state site file database. If due to errors and inconsistencies at the time of entry, this variance in the database would likely overrepresent the number of Early Mississippian sites and, consequently, the values of continuity also include some number of Middle Mississippian components that co-occur with Late Woodland occupations. We attempted to address this by analyzing the settlement continuity for St. Catherines Island alone, following the categorical conventions of that project (Table 9.5). The St. Catherines Island combined Late Woodland/Early Mississippian period only has a continuity rate of 8.5% over the combined Early and Middle Woodland periods. St. Catherines Island, generally, has lower rates of settlement continuity than the coast as a whole. This may be a contingent occurrence for this specific island and/or likely could be due to a higher rate of single component site discovery due to the survey design, but this is just speculation until other, comparable island-wide systematic surveys are conducted. The lower rate of Early Mississippian continuity on St. Catherines suggests that the actual rate for the coast as a whole should be lower than the calculated rate of 76%, but probably not as low as the 8.5% observed for St. Catherines. This makes the comparison of continuity into the Early Mississippian difficult to compare with the rate of the Middle Mississippian. For the coast as a whole, the Middle

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Mississippian rate of continuity declines to the region’s lowest point at 14%. This is followed by a continuity of 35% into the Late Mississippian. This rate is almost as high as the rate observed at the beginning of the Mississippian but is likely accurate as noted for the rates of co-occurrence discussed previously.

Ratios of Single Component and Multicomponent Sites The third factor of the settlement analysis is the calculation of ratios of single component to multi-component sites for each period. Single component sites represent occupations in locations that had never before, and were never again, utilized (i.e., at least leaving a measurable material signature) by populations on the Georgia Coast. The calculated ratios are reported in Table 9.4. For every period, there are more multi-component sites than single component sites. This is not surprising because locations that were environmentally or socially preferable likely tended to remain so. In fact, multi-component sites, on average, were occupied during three temporal periods. However, ratios exhibit substantial variation over time. The Late Archaic has a ratio of 0.41, with this ratio declining during the Early and Middle Woodland as single component sites represent a smaller proportion of components. This may reflect a general similarity in subsistence strategy during these periods following re-stabilization of sea levels, which had dropped 1–2 m during the Early Woodland, disrupting coastal settlement until sea levels returned to near-contemporary stands at the end of the period (Thompson & Turck, 2009; Turck & Thompson, 2016). The rates of co-occurrence seem to support this, with approximately 50% of Early and Middle Woodland multi-component sites exhibiting earlier Late Archaic components (Table 9.1). The Late Woodland period saw an increase in the ratio to 0.5 due to an increase in the number of single component sites. The ratio falls dramatically to 0.01 in the Early Mississippian, but, as with the rate of component accumulation discussed above, we believe that this outlier merits further study. The ratio for the full coastal zone during the Middle Mississippian is the lowest (i.e., 0.24) of any period besides the Early Mississippian. The ratio of single and multi-component sites increased to 0.74 during the Late Mississippian, the highest ratio for any period on the coast. Considering that the Late Mississippian followed millennia of occupations throughout the coastal landscape, the existence of so many single component sites within the settlement system is surprising. This high ratio suggests that previously unattractive locations were considered suitable for use at that time. As discussed further below, this was likely due to a combination of demographic and economic transformations. The settlement analysis demonstrates a record of growth on the Georgia Coast that, although generally stable for long periods of time, was punctuated by rapid expansion and decline; the Late Mississippian Irene period is the most significant outlier in this respect. During the Irene period, rates of component accumulation increase, continuity decreases, and the number of new single component sites increases to the highest proportion of total settlement observed. These comparative

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measures suggest that the Irene period was a time of region-wide changes and, in the next section, we will show that these changes occurred during the same short span of time as the final abandonment of the major population centers of the Savannah River Valley.

Temporality of the Migration – Bayesian Modeling Understanding how changes in settlement practices affected coastal residents, and how these changes relate to regional population movements, requires accurate assessment of the timing of both the depopulation of the Savannah River Valley and the settlement changes on the Georgia Coast described above. Chronologies for the Georgia Coast typically place the beginning of the Irene period at the end of the Savannah period at about 1300 AD based on the absolute dating of the regional ceramic sequence (DePratter, 1991; Thomas, 2008b). The beginnings of settlement dispersal, if related to an influx of population in the latter half of the fourteenth century AD, would occur later than the initial development of Irene ceramics; this is a hypothesis that can be tested with chronological data. Dates from a synthetic radiocarbon database produced by Turck and Thompson (2014) were first selected based on their documented association with Irene ceramics. Given that primary documentation of sampling methodologies and excavation contexts is often unclear or absent, dates without specifically noted Irene ceramic associations were not included. Dates with an uncertainty of over 90 years were excluded because dates with long probability “tails” can stretch the results of the Bayesian model to such a degree that the method becomes unproductive. Following these initial sorting criteria, 47 dates spanning 9 sites remained (Table 9.62 and Fig. 9.8). These dates were then placed into two groups: those found in association with Irene ceramics from multi-component sites and those from single-component Irene sites. These chronological analyses were conducted to understand the timing and tempo of changes on the Georgia Coast related to the abandonment of the Savannah River Valley. These two groups were chosen based on the settlement discontinuity apparent in the settlement analysis in the ratios between these types. The single-component group included six sites and 26 individual dates, whereas the multi-component group included 21 dates from only three sites, and thus may not be fully representative as these sites are largely located on St. Catherines Island. The two groups of dates were calibrated using the IntCal20 and Marine20 curves and

2

Note that a previous iteration of the following model was reported in Ritchison (2018); the iteration here excludes dates from ancestral remains that were created without the knowledge or consent of the descendant community.

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Table 9.6 Radiocarbon dates used in the Bayesian models Laboratory ID Code Beta-155443 Beta-157089 UGA-10116 Beta-82812 UGA-2225 UGA-2226 UGA-10117 UGA-10118 UGA-10120 UGA-10119 UGA-2263 Beta-20810 Beta-20805 Beta-21395 Beta-21396 Beta-20817 Beta-20821 Beta-242426 Beta-242423 Beta-242424 Beta-242425 Beta-242427 Beta-242241 Beta-242420 Beta-242422 Beta-21972 Beta-21973 Beta-21974 Beta-30264 Beta-30269 UGA-1009 UGA-1010 Beta-20808 Beta-20806 Beta-20807 Beta-30265 Beta-30270 Beta-30262 Beta-30263 Beta-30266 Beta-30267 Beta-30268

Radiocarbon age BP 310 380 420 430 510 540 540 600 610 830 970 330 530 580 740 800 860 600 660 680 680 740 760 890 1070 440 320 590 540 290 580 690 680 760 690 747 807 857 967 797 1007 727

RC Age Uncertainty 50 80 50 60 40 40 70 50 60 50 40 68 70 60 70 60 60 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 59 68 59 68 68 68 68 60 60 60 59 86 68 68 68 86 86

Description Wood charcoal Shell Wood charcoal Corn cob Wood charcoal Wood charcoal Wood charcoal Wood charcoal Wood charcoal Wood charcoal Wood charcoal Charcoal Crassostrea sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Crassostrea sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal Crassostrea sp. Crassostrea sp. Crassostrea sp. Crassostrea sp. Crassostrea sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp.

Site 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9CH71 9LI170 9LI170 9LI170 9LI170 9LI194 9LI197 9LI207 9LI207 9LI207 9LI207 9LI207 9LI207 9LI207 9LI207 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21 9LI21

Site Type Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Multi-component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component Single component (continued)

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Table 9.6 (continued) Laboratory ID Code Beta-217229 Beta-217228 Beta-232113 UGAMS5237b UGAMS5237a

Radiocarbon age BP 670 830 870 420 630

RC Age Uncertainty 40 40 60 25

Description Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Mercenaria sp. Charcoal

Site 9LI216 9LI216 9LI91 9MC351

Site Type Single component Single component Single component Multi-component

25

Shell

9MC351

Multi-component

Full metadata for selected dates is available in Turck and Thompson (2014)

were modeled independently as Phase3 models in OxCal 4.4 (Bronk Ramsey, 2009; Heaton et al., 2020; Reimer et al., 2020). Phase models allow grouping of dates together, effectively telling the modeling software that, based on external information, these several dates together represent a singular occurrence, whether it is a rapid event or a long-lasting cultural practice. By grouping dates, the overall probabilistic range of the dates is reduced, minimizing the effects of “reversals” or “plateaus” in the radiocarbon calibration curve (Bronk Ramsey, 2009; Stephenson et al., 2015). The multi-component model places the beginning of the Irene phase in the thirteenth century, sometime between cal. 1200–1270 AD4 (Table 9.7), earlier than the conventionally accepted start date of between AD 1300 and AD 1350 (Deagan & Thomas, 2009; DePratter, 1991). A posterior Date estimate for the model suggests that the most likely span of activity at the sampled sites was between cal. 1265–1510 AD. The start of the multi-component model represents the advent of the “Irene” ceramic type, whereas the single-component model represents the span of time during which single-component sites were established and utilized. Given that materials in the archaeological record, especially those signaling identity in some manner, follow patterns of increasing and decreasing popularity, limited production of Irene ceramics likely began before they became ubiquitous, which is the point archaeologists recognize as the start of the Irene period. This pioneering production is likely what is represented in the multi-component model, with sites where the dates were recovered being occupied prior to the Irene period and occupation then continuing throughout the period. However, the somewhat earlier than expected end date in the model represents a combination of the particular histories of the included sites and also the lack of very late pre-contact and early contact period dates (see Thompson & Krus, 2018). The single component model places the start of single component Irene settlements sometime between cal. 1325–1395 AD, with an estimated Date range between cal. 1380–1495 AD (Table 9.8). The models only bracket the start of occupation at

3

Capitalized forms of Phase and Date represent elements of the coding language (Chronological Query Language; CQL2) used in OxCal 4.4. 4 All modeled date ranges in the text are reported at the 68.3% highest probability density interval.

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Fig. 9.8 Locations of sites with dates used in the Irene period Bayesian models

Irene single component sites within a possible range, so, to relate settlement dispersal to a potential emigration from the Middle Savannah River Valley, we must compare the timing of these two events. Although the terminus ante quem of the Savannah River Valley depopulation below the headwaters had been placed at circa 1450 AD (Anderson, 1994:237–245,

Multi comp Irene sequence Multi comp Irene start boundary Multi comp Irene phase Beta-155443 R_Date 1500 (310,50) UGAMS-5237b 1440 R_Date (420,25) UGA-10116 R_Date 1430 (420,50) Beta-82812 R_Date 1420 (430,60) UGA-2225 R_Date 1400 (510,40) UGA-2226 R_Date 1325 (540,40) UGA-10117 R_Date 1315 (540,70) UGA-10118 R_Date 1305 (600,50) UGA-10120 R_Date 1300 (610,60) UGA-10119 R_Date 1175 (830,50)

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

1645

1475

1620

1620

1445

1430

1440

1405

1400

1270

1045

1280

1290

1285

1310

1320

1405

1415

1430

1460

Unmodelled (BC/AD) from to % from

1285

1425

1425

1470

1445

1455

1635

1635

1615

1665

to

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

%

1230

1300

1305

1315

1325

1400

1420

1430

1440

1470

1200

1280

1400

1405

1440

1430

1440

1505

1500

1475

1560

1270

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

Modelled (BC/AD) from to %

Table 9.7 Results of the multicomponent Irene Bayesian chronological model

1180

1280

1290

1290

1310

1320

1400

1410

1430

1450

1120

from

1380

1425

1425

1465

1445

1455

1620

1620

1505

1630

1285

to

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

%

103.2

99.9

99.6

100.7

99.4

99.8

109.6

110.1

103

95.2

Amodel 130.3 Acomb A

Indices

(continued)

98.2

99.1

99.3

99.6

99.8

99.9

99.7

99.7

99.8

99.5

96.2

Aoverall 114.4 L P C

9 “Vacant Quarters” and Population Movements: Legacy Data and the. . . 285

Marine20 curve (marine20.14c) LocalMarine Delta_R (286,68) Beta-242426 R_Date (600,40) UGAMS-5237a R_Date (630,25) Beta-242423 R_Date (660,40) Beta-242424 R_Date (680,40) Beta-242425 R_Date (680,40) Beta-242427 R_Date (740,40) Beta-242241 R_Date (760,40) Beta-242420 R_Date (890,40) Beta-242422 R_Date (1070,40) Date Multi comp Irene end boundary

Table 9.7 (continued)

216

1690

1660

1645

1630

1630

1585

1560

1445

1300

356

1495

1485

1465

1450

1450

1395

1370

1285

1105

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

1020

1180

1305

1315

1340

1340

1385

1415

1430

423

Unmodelled (BC/AD) from to % from

1395

1525

1655

1665

1720

1720

1770

1780

1820

149

to

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

%

1305 1510 1635

1265 1510

1410

1510

1530

1555

1555

1560

1570

1575

261

1220

1280

1360

1380

1420

1420

1430

1450

1455

367.5

68.3 68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

Modelled (BC/AD) from to %

1205 1475

1170

1225

1295

1305

1345

1345

1355

1405

1415

418.5

from

1620 1700

1390

1475

1585

1600

1630

1630

1645

1645

1650

216.5

to

95.4 95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

%

110.7

108.5

106.7

106.2

103.5

103.5

102.3

99.3

95.7

106.2

Amodel 130.3 Acomb A

Indices

99.4 97.1

98.4

99

99.5

99.6

99.6

99.6

99.6

99.4

99.4

98.8

Aoverall 114.4 L P C

286 B. T. Ritchison and D. G. Anderson

Single comp Irene sequence Single comp Irene start boundary Single comp Irene phase Beta-30269 R_Date (290,68) Beta-21973 R_Date (320,68) Beta-20810 R_Date (330,68) Beta-21972 R_Date (440,59) Beta-30264 R_Date (540,68) UGA-1009 R_Date (580,68) Beta-21974 R_Date (590,59) UGA-1010 R_Date (690,68) Marine20 curve (marine20.14c)

1795

1645

1640

1615

1440

1420

1410

1395

1495

1490

1490

1415

1320

1305

1305

1265

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

1220

1285

1285

1285

1395

1435

1435

1450

Unmodelled (BC/AD) from to % from

1405

1430

1440

1465

1635

1800

1800

...

to

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

%

1360

1355

1375

1385

1420

1445

1445

1450

1325

1405

1430

1440

1445

1480

1510

1510

1515

1395

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

Modelled (BC/AD) from to %

Table 9.8 Results of the single component Irene Bayesian chronological model

1310

1325

1320

1325

1395

1425

1425

1430

1280

from

1435

1445

1450

1470

1520

1560

1560

1560

1415

to

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

%

86.6

92.8

95.8

107.3

122.8

88

85.5

77.5

Amodel 165.3 Acomb A

Indices

(continued)

99.8

99.8

99.8

99.9

99.9

99.6

99.2

99.2

97.5

Aoverall 154.9 L P C

9 “Vacant Quarters” and Population Movements: Legacy Data and the. . . 287

LocalMarine Delta_R (286,68) Beta-217229 R_Date (670,40) Beta-20808 R_Date (680,60) Beta-20807 R_Date (690,60) Beta-30268 R_Date (727,86) Beta-21396 R_Date (740,70) Beta-30265 R_Date (747,59) Beta-20806 R_Date (760,60) Beta-30266 R_Date (797,68) Beta-20817 R_Date (800,60) Beta-30270 R_Date (807,86) Beta-217228 R_Date (830,40)

Table 9.8 (continued)

1640

1635

1625

1605

1590

1560

1525

1515

1525

1480

1445

1435

1395

1390

1385

1355

1325

1325

1310

1315

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

1245

1220

1265

1255

1290

1295

1290

1280

1320

1330

1600

1665

1645

1655

1670

1675

1690

1730

1730

1750

1750

1355

1635

1455

68.3

to 149

Unmodelled (BC/AD) from to % from 356 216 68.3 423

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

% 95.4

1370

1375

1380

1380

1390

1395

1395

1395

1415

1420

1430

1460

1480

1480

1480

1490

1495

1500

1500

1510

1510

1515

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

Modelled (BC/AD) from to % 346 270 68.3

1325

1325

1325

1325

1335

1340

1335

1335

1355

1360

1380

from 381.5

1510

1530

1525

1530

1540

1545

1545

1550

1565

1565

1570

to 226

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

% 95.4

123.3

129.4

126.5

127.4

124.3

122.2

121.5

119.8

107.3

104

100.1

Amodel 165.3 Acomb A 119.3

Indices

99.9

99.8

99.9

99.9

99.8

99.7

99.8

99.8

99.7

99.7

99.4

Aoverall 154.9 L P C 99.5

288 B. T. Ritchison and D. G. Anderson

Beta-30262 R_Date (857,68) Beta-20821 R_Date (860,60) Beta-232113 R_Date (870,60) Date Single comp Irene end boundary

1475

1470

1460

1290

1295

1285

68.3

68.3

68.3

1175

1190

1185

1570

1585

1600

95.4

95.4

95.4

1455 1495 1545

1380 1475

1455

1460

1365

1365

1365

68.3 68.3

68.3

68.3

68.3

1320 1450

1315

1315

1320

1550 1610

1500

1505

1510

95.4 95.4

95.4

95.4

95.4

120.9

122.2

123.3

99.8 97.9

99.8

99.9

99.8

9 “Vacant Quarters” and Population Movements: Legacy Data and the. . . 289

290

B. T. Ritchison and D. G. Anderson

326), Stephenson et al. (2015) demonstrate that major centers in the central part of the valley depopulated rapidly, potentially in a single decade at the end of the fourteenth century AD between cal. 1376 and 1386 AD. Settlement evidence from the Savannah River Site demonstrates that, prior to complete abandonment of the region, residents of the valley reoccupied the uplands following the collapse of the centralized mound centers (Stephenson et al., 2015). However, the degree to which reoccupation of the uplands can account for the populations of these major centers remains unclear. The timing of abandonment of the Savannah River Valley, compared to the Savannah-to-Irene phase transition along the coast, strongly suggests coastal immigration. Specifically, following Stephenson et al. (2015), depopulation of the major population centers of the Middle Savannah River Valley occurred within the period of Irene settlement dispersal on the Georgia Coast, suggesting a strong temporal relationship between the two events likely predicated upon migration.

Discussion We have shown that the depopulation of the central and lower Savannah River Valley and the dispersal of settlements on the Georgia Coast probably occurred during the same span of a few decades in the latter half of the fourteenth century AD, and that settlement data can potentially provide insight concerning the process of, and response to, this probable mass population movement. One assumption of the equation used to calculate the rate of component accumulation is that no significant changes in settlement practices occurred during the course of the analyzed time period. We assumed this to be the case for the Late Mississippian “dispersed town.” As mentioned previously, during this period on the Georgia Coast, people adopted a regionally novel settlement pattern referred to as a “dispersed town” (Jones, 1978), a pattern featuring central towns surrounded by dispersed, affiliated homesteads, agricultural fields, and other resource collection and processing locales, similar to other late pre-contact settlement systems observed elsewhere (Rodning, 2015; Williams, 1994). The creation of large numbers of single component sites in the decades following the apparent start of the Irene period may cast doubt on our methodological assumption of no change in settlement practices. However, this discrepancy would only affect the results of the rate of change calculations in a downward manner, thus minimizing and not inflating the apparent rate of component accumulation. If most growth occurred across a short span of time, then the evident rate of growth for the entire period would be lower than it actually was thus lessening the apparent effect of any rapid, but short-lived, increase in growth rate. The calculated rate is thus a conservative estimate. By the latter portion of the fifteenth century AD, along with shifts in settlement practice, maize agriculture had become more important in the diet of coastal peoples (Hutchinson et al., 1998). Population growth rates are typically higher after adoption of agriculture due to non-proportional increases in both fertility and mortality rates

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(Hassan, 1981; Warrick, 2008). As Irene-period residents of the Georgia Coast increasingly adopted agricultural subsistence practices into their economies, some degree of endemic population growth would be expected. However, at present, we are unable to distinguish the relative contributions of local population growth and immigration to the rate of component accumulation. Yet, localized examinations of population at the Kenan Field site on Sapelo Island supports the interpretation of these region-scale rates of component accumulation as reflective of population growth. At Kenan Field, ceramic accumulations and occupation areas, in combination with radiocarbon data, suggest that populations at the site doubled, at a minimum, between the Middle Mississippian Savannah period and the Late Mississippian Irene period (Ritchison, 2020). Comparison of known rates of population change with the calculated rate of component accumulation reveals higher rates of accumulation than expected based on in situ population growth. Population growth rates for hunter-gatherer groups have been estimated to range from 0.008% to 0.05% per year (Hassan, 1981; Peros et al., 2010). Accepted rates of population growth in early agricultural societies are only marginally higher, with estimates ranging from 0.008–0.013% growth per year for the Old World Neolithic (Carneiro & Hilse, 1966) to 0.07–0.11% for the Pueblo I through Pueblo IV periods in the southwestern United States (Schlanger, 1988; Zubrow, 1975). Thus, an accumulation rate of up to 1% per year seems unlikely without a corresponding increase in population due to immigration, particularly when growth rates during earlier periods were less than half that during the Irene period, the proximate nature of the accumulation rate notwithstanding. The final decades of the fourteenth century AD were times of substantial change for the people of the coastal zone of Georgia. These results and those of previous studies (Saunders, 2017; Stephenson et al., 2015; Thomas, 2008c; Thompson, 2009) show that the ways of life of both residents and migrants were suddenly ruptured and the subsequent decisions which were made in this context constitute the material changes observed in the archaeological record for the Irene period. Often, transformative events are conceptualized as only a swift rupture in the schemas and resources that constitute social structures (Beck et al., 2007). However, if events force creative adjustments, relinking material resources to virtual schemas in innovative ways (Beck et al., 2007:835; Sewell, 2005), they can then be conceived as occurring not only rapidly, but over longer periods of time. On the Georgia Coast, the restructuring of ruptured social systems may have occurred over the course of a single generation. As a result of immigration, cultural schemas of two regions came into contestation. Resources and schemas of both Savannah River Valley emigrants and coastal residents became detached from the structures that had persisted over previous centuries and millennia. Future investigations of the Irene period should examine how socioecological structures were reordered, not only through improvised ritual (Sewell, 2005:248–257), but during the course of everyday life (Beck et al., 2007). While climatic shifts are implicated in the decision of residents of the Middle and Lower Savannah River Valley to relocate (i.e., a strong push factor), at present there are few comparable lines of evidence that may relate to why the coast may have

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pulled in potential migrants. We can speculate, however, a few reasons why the coast may have been an attractive destination. For example, we can hypothesize the existence of long-standing social relationships between the peoples living in these two regions, likely predicated upon the networks of exchange that funneled culturally important coastal resources into the interior of the continent, which could have paved the way for immigration (e.g., marine shell, yaupon holly). It’s likely that such relationships were based on kinship or clan affiliations, archaeological investigations of which are only in their incipient stages in the region (e.g., Sanger et al., 2020). It may further be that the coastal people’s lack of reliance on maize agriculture up to this point would have made settling in the region appear a less risky option for potential immigrants who had recently suffered agricultural precarity. Additionally, the mortuary record of the Georgia Coast exhibits very little evidence for violent conflict (Thomas, 2008a, b, c), suggesting that the coast could have been perceived as a place where the rising tensions of the SRV could be avoided. There is much we do not yet know about the factors that were involved in these decisions. We should note that we do not believe that the coast was the sole destination for SRV emigrants, but one of several destinations. If we want to reach a fuller understanding of this migration event, future investigations should focus on evaluating other potential destinations in this context and more fully exploring the social context of the pre-emigration coast.

Conclusion As noted recently by Clark et al. (2019), a full, historically situated understanding of migration events requires an evaluation of their scale, organization, and the social, historical, and environmental contexts of both source regions and destinations. Herein, we believe that we have laid the groundwork in pursuit of such a history for a portion of the Southern Atlantic Coastal Plain. The Late Mississippian period on the Georgia Coast is distinguished not only by the speed of change, but by the degree of change. During no other period do we observe the sudden expansion and reorganization of settlement at both the regional scale and at the level of individual sites. Component accumulation rates during the Late Mississippian are more than twice as high as in any other archaeological period. The number of single component sites substantially increases relative to reoccupied multicomponent sites, with the ratio of these sites being as distinct from previous periods as the rate of component accumulation. Further, these changes in regional settlement practice coincide with the abandonment of the major population centers of the Middle and Lower Savannah River Valley, attesting to a highly probable relationship. This case presents us with the opportunity to consider how regions, themselves directly impacted by climatic

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downturns, may have been dramatically transformed due to ruptures in either neighboring or far-flung socioecological systems. Ultimately, we have provided an example of how to productively use the imperfect sets of legacy data that have resulted from over half a century of archaeological investigations. As more archaeological data are created, at an ever-increasing rate, we should take pains to make use of these products of our discipline’s cumulative, collaborative efforts. Unfortunately, “taking pain” is almost less idiomatic than analogous because these legacy datasets are challenging to both use and interpret in the pursuit of modern research concerns. Issues of bias lurk throughout these analyses, either in site discovery, in research attention, or in various issues with compounding user errors. Consequently, we do not think that the analyses here should directly challenge the culture histories that have, for decades, proven their usefulness and apparent accuracy. At best, we have attempted to quantify long-term spatio-temporal trends to allow intra-regional comparisons, while providing a model that can be used more broadly. The analyses in this chapter demonstrate a long-term history of cycles of growth and decline. The tempo of these fluctuations appears to vary more than established ceramic chronologies would suggest. Some of these changes were gradual while others were rapid, such the beginnings of Irene period settlement expansion. To conclude, as of the writing of this chapter, people in some 30 states in the continental United States are actively working with the DINAA team, and radiocarbon dates are being compiled from across the continent. One result of this work has been to highlight the need for better, and more open, archaeological data moving forward, especially improving the temporal resolution of existing site data. As these analyses demonstrate, when people synthesize and share data, much good can come of it. But as the blank areas on our map of DINNA coverage demonstrates, developing these partnerships and syntheses is often a far greater challenge than the technical aspects of creating the appropriate online infrastructure. We are confident that if site file records were made available, a continental scale data structure could be put in place quickly, and at a surprisingly low cost, ideally suited to exploring the kinds of settlement changes (i.e., population movements) that form the subject of this volume. Archaeology has important lessons to provide about how past peoples responded to changes that foreshadowed those that we, and the generations to come, will need to prepare for. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the editors, and our co-contributors, for bringing together this important set of work under a singular banner and for their efforts in seeing it along to its final form. Figures 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4 are used courtesy of the Eastern States Archaeological Federation. Joshua J. Wells is to be thanked for producing versions of Figs. 9.5 and 9.6 using the DINAA dataset. Large scale analyses are, of course, a team effort, and the information reported here reflects the work of dozens of colleagues over more than a century of archaeological research. As we move forward, working with indexed and integrated legacy data will be increasingly important and we thank those whose assistance has, and will continue to be, invaluable in making accessible the products of archaeological inquiry.

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Chapter 10

Population Aggregation and Dispersal as a Driver for Settlement Change in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley Between AD 1100 and 1500 Stefan Brannan

In this chapter, I explore the settlement history of the lower Chattahoochee River valley (LCRV) between AD 1100 and 1500, as it relates to the major themes of this volume, namely migration and climate change and how they interface with the pushpull settlement decisions of individuals, groups, and communities (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). Even though migration and climate change are perennial themes in archaeology, they have not been well-assessed in tandem until recently, at least in Mississippian period archaeological research. The LCRV has long been used as a relevant case study for both migration events and the effects of both consistent rainfall and major drought conditions on the growth and decline of polities (e.g., Anderson et al., 1995; Blitz & Lorenz, 2006). This chapter expands on those themes. Blitz (1999; see also Blitz & Lorenz, 2006) used the settlement patterns in the LCRV to develop his concept of polity fission-fusion as a top-down explanatory framework for identifying migration in a region through tracking the distribution of mound centers in a region. For Blitz, the timing between the abandonment of one mound and the use of another was critical because the construction and subsequent use of a mound served as a proxy for the specific location of a minimal political unit, defined as a leader or chief and his/her body of followers. If the number of single mound centers increased through time, then that represented the creation of new minimal political units. If the number remained the same but locations changed, then migration occurred. If multiple mounds were occupied at a single location, especially if other single mound centers were abandoned at the same time, then the minimum political units aggregated and the community went through the process of fusion. Similarly, if a multiple mound center was abandoned when contemporaneous single mound centers were founded, then the community fissioned and populations dispersed.

S. Brannan (*) New South Associates, Stone Mountain, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_10

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The ability to track droughts in time and space in terms of good year-bad year crop yield scenarios might be one variable explaining Mississippian period polity growth and decline (Anderson et al., 1995; Blitz & Lorenz, 2006). In the version outlined by Blitz and Lorenz (2006: 132–133) for the LCRV, periods of consistent rainfall produced larger crop yields, sustained greater population aggregation, and created surpluses to fund integrative traditions of mound building, feasting and the crafting of prestige goods. Alliances between neighboring polities, secured by elite marriage and gifting, reduced the frequency of warfare. When rainfall was adequate, polities grew in size, and political and social integration expanded in scale. The opposite scenario may also have been true, that extended drought periods led to harvest and other resource shortfalls and might have destabilized polities dependent on surpluses to subsidize political and social integration. In other words, climate conditions conducive to agricultural surpluses drove the growth and increasing organizational diversity of Mississippian period polities, whereas endemic climate conditions that were antithetical to those surpluses contributed to the breakdown of polities unless those scalar stresses could be successfully mitigated. In this chapter, I focus on the ideas of migration, aggregation, and integration at the community and regional scales and how they shaped the occupational history of the settlement landscape in the LCRV. My analysis combines archaeological, radiocarbon, and climate data from site, regional, and macroregional datasets to articulate the historical trajectory of the region. This history included the initial appearance of people bearing distinct cultural materials and practices circa AD 1100 with the subsequent settlement of the landscape and the construction of several mound centers, followed by large-scale population aggregation starting around AD 1300, followed by an abandonment of these large centralized towns in favor of a more dispersed settlement pattern after AD 1400.

Archaeological Research in the LCRV The area under study is the 190-km stretch of the Chattahoochee River from the Fall Line, near the modern-day city of Columbus, GA, to the vicinity of the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, where the Apalachicola River flows into the modern-day state of Florida (Fig. 10.1). This part of the Chattahoochee River has been home to people since the initial peopling of the Americas. The region during the period under study, circa AD 1100 to 1550, served as the final frontier of Late Precontact period (i.e., Mississippian period) peoples moving east (Blitz & Lorenz, 2002). Despite the abundance of sites dating to this period, the LCRV is better known for other temporal periods of occupation, specifically the impressive Woodland period occupations at Kolomoki (Pluckhahn, 2003; West et al., 2018) and as the heartland of the Lower Muscogee (Creek) Nation prior to their forced removal in the early nineteenth century (Ethridge, 2003; Knight, 1994; Worth, 2001).

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Alabama

303

Georgia

A

B

J

C D

E Pataula Creek

F

G

LBDA Grid Location

Chattahoochee River

H

I N 0

Sites with Monumental Architecture 5

10

20

Kilometers

A) Rood’s Landing B) Shorter C) Gary’s Fish Pond D) Lampley E) Cool Branch

F) Mandeville G) Cemochechobee H) Purcell’s Landing I) Omussee Creek J) Singer-Moye

Fig. 10.1 Location of the lower Chattahoochee River Valley in the United States, specific sites discussed in text, and LBDA grid point location

Most modern research in the LCRV resulted from various cultural resource management surveys relating to dam and reservoir construction, waterway erosion, Section 106 or 110 compliance, road projects, pipeline construction, and other cultural resource management projects. Many of these projects provided preliminary

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data used to define the geographic extent and material culture of the region (e.g. Hurt, 1975; Huscher, 1959; Kellar et al., 1962; Knight & Mistovich, 1984). Not surprisingly, the sites with earthen mounds garnered the most attention from avocational and professional archaeologists. Ten sites had at least one mound constructed and in use between AD 1100 and 1500 that were also unambiguously associated with Mississippian period cultural manifestations (Fig. 10.1). Seven sites were the location of only a single mound, Cool Branch, Gary’s Fish Pond, Lampley, Mandeville, Omussee Creek, Purcell’s Landing, and Shorter. Three sites had multiple mounds, Cemochechobee had three mounds, Rood’s Landing and Singer-Moye each had eight. Excepting Kolomoki, which predates the time period under study, no major excavations have been conducted on late Precontact period mounds or at other well preserved sites in the valley since those at Cemochechobee in the late 1970s (Schnell et al., 1981) and at Singer-Moye between 2012 and 2017 (Brannan, 2018; Brannan & Birch, 2017). Blitz and Lorenz’ (2006) analysis and interpretation for many of the mound centers concentrated on the record recovered from mound contexts, and excepting Singer-Moye, are the most modern treatment of those locations. I have supplemented Blitz and Lorenz’ (2006) work with other published records and incorporated non-mound settlement contexts and extents when possible (e.g. Caldwell, 1955; DeJarnette, 1975; Huscher, 1959; Kellar et al., 1962; Knight & Mistovich, 1984; Neuman, 1959, 1961; Schnell et al., 1981), as well as unpublished field notes, maps, and documents available at the University of Georgia’s Laboratory of Archaeology and Georgia Archaeological Site File (GASF) and from the Alabama Archaeological Site File (AASF). Unfortunately, regional trends specific to sites without monumental architecture are virtually unknown apart from locational data and an inventory of artifacts representing temporal and cultural constructs, a difficulty also echoed by Ritchison and Anderson (Chap. 9, this volume). The absence of detailed settlement histories for many other similar communities necessitates a coarse analysis of synchronic relationships and diachronic patterns.

Chronology and Paleoclimate of the LCRV As part of my ongoing research at Singer-Moye, I refined the existing chronology of the LCRV through ceramic and radiocarbon analyses to situate sites in their historical context, especially those without monumental architecture. Based on non-mound stratigraphic excavations at Singer-Moye (Brannan, 2018), I identified four shifts in ceramic attribute/mode composition, called Time Frames, and situated them in absolute time through radiocarbon dates (discussed below, see also Brannan, 2018). Time Frame I is characterized by incised arcades on the shoulders of collared jars. Time Frame II is associated with the addition of rectilinear and curvilinear incising on the exterior of bowls and the initial appearance of rectilinear incising on the interior of shallow flaring-rim bowls and plates. Time Frame III is demarcated through the use of appliques added just below the lips of bowls; pinched fillets on jar necks; the addition of check, linear, and other complicated stamping designs; and the

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Table 10.1 Proposed regional chronologies for the lower Chattahoochee River Valley (all dates AD)

Date 1550

1500 1450 1400 1350 1300 1250 1200 1150 1100 1000 950 900

Jenkins (1978) Ocmulgee Fields I/Abercrombie Rood’s Creek III/Bull Creek

Knight and Mistovich (1984) Bull Creek

Schnell and Wright (1993) Stewart

Bull Creek Rood

Rood’s Creek II Rood’s Creek I

Bull Creek

Jenkins (2009) Abercrombie/ Stewart

Brannan (2018) After SingerMoye Abandonment (AD 1500)

Singer

Singer Rood III

Bull Creek Singer Rood III

Time Frame III

Rood

Rood II

Rood II

Time Frame II

Rood I

Averett/Rood I

Time Frame I

Wakulla/ Averett

Averett

Prior to SingerMoye’s Founding (AD 1100–1150)

Standley/ Cat Cave Late Weeden Island – Cat Cave Complex (?)

Blitz and Lorenz (2006) Stewart

Time Frame IV

inclusion of punctations and zoned punctations other than those associated with arcades. Time Frame IV coincides with the first appearance of curvilinear incising on the interior of shallow flaring-rim bowls and plates coupled with the distinct minority of rectilinear designs in the same area, and arcades on jar shoulders disappear. In all cases, the proportion of sand/grit to shell tempered pottery decreases through time, an indication that the identified attributes contain temporal significance. At the regional scale, prior researchers have interpreted the LCRV chronological and cultural sequences using ceramics as a relative marker and in some cases backing up chronological positions with radiocarbon dates (Table 10.1). My findings specific to Singer-Moye did not substantially modify the chronological ordering of the region (Table 10.1). Across the study area, I identified 199 sites that shared similar social and cultural patterns and were occupied between AD 1100 and 1500 by using the ceramic chronology just discussed, mound construction dates suggested by Blitz and Lorenz (2006), and additional radiocarbon dates when possible (Table 10.2). These sites included both those with monumental construction and public spaces, typically hypothesized by archaeologists as the central places for polities; and those without clear examples of monumental construction, interpreted as specialized activity areas, isolated households, hamlets, and villages. Between ca. AD 1100–1300 (i.e. Time

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Table 10.2 Summary information about sites, associated monumental architecture construction, and culture-historical typology in the LCRV SingerMoye time frame I/II

Number of sites 38

III

19

IV

142

Known mound construction location Cemochechobee; Cool Branch; Mandeville; Purcell’s Landing; Rood’s Landing (?); Singer-Moye Gary’s Fish Pond (?); Omussee Creek (?); Rood’s Landing; Singer-Moye Gary’s Fish Pond; Lampley; Omussee Creek; Rood’s Landing (?); Shorter; Singer-Moye

Associated culture-history taxa Cat Cave; Rood-single component Rood Associated with: Bull Creek; Etowah; Fort Walton; Lamar Bull Creek; Fort Walton; Lamar

Frame I/II), 38 sites were occupied. Between ca. AD 1300 and 1400 (i.e. Time Frame III), 19 sites were occupied. Between ca. AD 1400 and 1500 (i.e. Time Frame IV), 142 sites were occupied. Ten sites (5% of all sites) had at least one mound constructed and in use between AD 1100 and 1500 (Fig. 10.1). Seven sites were the location of only a single mound, Cool Branch (E), Gary’s Fish Pond (C), Lampley (D), Mandeville (F), Omussee Creek (I), Purcell’s Landing (H), and Shorter (B). Three sites had multiple mounds, Cemochechobee (G) had three mounds and Rood’s Landing (A) and Singer-Moye (J) each had eight. Of these, I identified contexts from four sites dating to Time Frame I (ca. AD 1100–1200): the submound burial pit and mound contexts at Cool Branch, the midden beneath Rood’s Landing, possibly the final mound stage at Mandeville, and the submound occupational surface at Omussee Creek. Time Frame II (ca. AD 1200–1300) contexts are as follows: the mound at Cool Branch, the early stages of Mound A and Mound B at Cemochechobee, and the final mound stage at Mandeville may also be associated with this period. I have classified components from five sites as Time Frame III (ca. AD 1300–1400): the mound and aggregated village contexts at Cool Branch, the latter mound stages at Cemochechobee, premound and mound contexts at Gary’s Fish Pond, several mounds at Rood’s Landing, and several mound stages at Omussee Creek. Contexts dating to Time Frame IV (ca AD 1400–1500) include the mound at Gary’s Fish Pond, Mound A at Rood’s Landing, all contexts at Shorter, all contexts at Lampley, and the final mound stage at Omussee Creek.

Radiocarbon Dating Results in the LCRV Currently, 30 legacy and modern radiocarbon dates are available from five mound sites (discussed in detail in Blitz & Lorenz, 2006 and Brannan, 2018): Cool Branch (n ¼ 2), Cemochechobee (n ¼ 14), Gary’s Fish Pond (n ¼ 2), Rood’s Landing

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(n ¼ 2), and Singer-Moye(n ¼ 10). I used OxCal v4.2 to carry out the calibration using the IncCal13 atmospheric curve and chronological modeling for the five sites with radiocarbon dates (Bronk Ramsey, 2009; Reimer et al., 2013) and rounded all radiocarbon distributions to the nearest 5 years. For Singer-Moye, I had access to radiocarbon assays that corresponded to Time Frame I, II, III, and IV. I calibrated those ten dates using the IntCal13 atmospheric curve and modeled them using Oxcal (Bronk Ramsey, 2009; Reimer et al., 2013). I placed the dates in a contiguous sequence mirroring the order indicated by my ceramic chronology. For all other sites, I set AD 1100 and 1500 as hard boundaries and removed all dates that either did not fall into that range or had dates that spanned the entire date range. For sites with at least 10 dates, I ignored dates that ended up with low agreement values once modeled, indicating that they were likely intrusive. I modeled a simple sequence for the three sites with two dates (Cool Branch, Gary’s Fish Pond, and Rood’s Landing) since rough stratigraphic contexts were available for them. For Cemochechobee, I modeled the Mound B construction sequence as a simple sequence from oldest to newest contexts based on the excavation records and combined the multiple dates from Stage IV and VI into discrete phases (see Schnell et al., 1981 for the construction sequence). My radiocarbon analysis results from Singer-Moye provides absolute date spans for contexts from the Time Frames at 95.4% probability (Brannan, 2018). The Time Frame I context dates to between ca. AD 1170 and 1255; the Time Frame II context dates to between ca. AD 1215 and 1270; the Time Frame III contexts date to between ca. AD 1275–1390; and the Time Frame IV context (a single structure) does not date to before ca. AD 1450–1460 when dates from both samples overlap. Because the earlier of the two dates is on a large wooden support, the structure was likely constructed some time during the second half of the fifteenth century. The modeling from the other four sites are compatible with my findings from Singer-Moye. Cool Branch was occupied between AD 1145 and AD 1295. Gary’s Fish Pond was occupied between AD 1285 and AD 1455. Rood’s Landing is problematic because the sample from Stage A2 of Mound A (AD 1450 to post-AD 1500 at 95.4%) dates later than the sample from the overlying Stage A1 (AD 1220 to AD 1400 at 95.4%). Either the Stage A1 date is too early, the Stage A2 date is too late, or one or the other is intrusive due to taphonomic processes. I suspect that the Stage A2 date may be intrusive and have originated from older contexts elsewhere and that the A1 date may also reflect an early date due to it being on charcoal instead of a short lived annual. None of these issues can be resolved with the current samples. The occupational sequence for Cemochechobee is divided into three distinct spans of time. The first two stages of Mound B were constructed between AD 1125 and 1240. Stage IV was constructed between AD 1175 and 1265. Stage VI was constructed after Stage IV, sometime between AD 1260 and 1370.

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Paleoenvironmental Considerations AD 1100–1500 Paleoclimatic data have not been collected in the region and as a result, a comprehensive paleoenvironmental reconstruction has not yet been conducted at either the local or regional scale in the LCRV. I relied on the Living Blended Drought Atlas (LBDA) to characterize drought and wetness conditions over the period under study (Cook et al., 2010). The LBDA employs 1845 annual tree-ring chronologies to reconstruct past conditions, divided into gridded measurements of relative wetness and dryness of a location for 2000 years, including AD 1100–1500. The measurement is reported in terms of the Palmer Modified Drought Index (PMDI), a derivative of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), which characterizes long term meteorological drought conditions based primarily based on available tree-ring and when possible, other climatological data (Palmer, 1965). The values for PDSI and PMDI are equal during established wet and dry spells. Following Palmer’s (1965: Table 1) designations, the index characterizes extremely wet conditions as 4.00 and above, increasing wet periods ranging from 1.00 to 3.99, incipient wet spells, near normal conditions, and incipient droughts as 0.50 to 1.00, 0.49 to 0.49, and 0.50 to .99, respectively, increasing drought conditions from 1.00 to - 3.99, followed by extreme drought at 4.00 and below. To measure the temporal variability in moisture availability, I used the LBDA grid location (Lat 31.75, Long: 85.25) to characterize the yearly and 10-year running average PMDI values from AD 1050 to 1550 (Fig. 10.2). The grid point is centrally located in the study area at approximately 75 km south of the Fall line and 12 km west of the Chattahoochee River (see Fig. 10.1). I opted against creating a composite with multiple nearby LBDA points because it already functions as a 13841396

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composite index and the paucity of local datasets meant that differences in PMDI values between points would be due to those datasets located furthest away from the LCRV. I also choose to use the year-long instead of summer-month (May–July) moisture characterization because of the long growing season, on average over 200 frost free days, which provide for significant flexibility in the timing of planting crops and even the possibility of two crops in a year. There are several notable trends in the data. Between AD 1075 and 1205, the LCRV vacillated between periods of drought and normal conditions, with marked droughts occurring between AD 1117–1126, AD 1140–1149, AD 1172–1187, and AD 1192–1203. Between AD 1205 and 1260, the moisture availability remained normal throughout with little average variation. Between AD 1260 and 1310, the moisture availability dropped slightly into incipient drought conditions, but remained constant. Between AD 1310 and 1365, moisture availability was either within normal expectations or occasionally dropped into incipient drought. Major changes in moisture content occurred between AD 1365 and 1410, with three major shifts in content from mild drought from AD 1369 to 1383, mild wet from AD 1384 to 1396, to mild drought again from AD 1397 to 1411. Between AD 1410 and 1460, moisture content varied between incipient drought and normal conditions, and between AD 1460 and 1500, moisture content vacillated between mild drought and normal conditions, with a sustained period of minor drought from AD 1463 to 1478.

(Re)Visiting the Settlement History of the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley Although I have discussed the settlement history of the LCRV elsewhere (see Brannan, 2018; Brannan & Birch, 2017), the articulation of the available moisture content based on paleoclimatic data to that history allows for a more nuanced exploration of how the inhabitants made society work in the face of changing environmental conditions between AD 1100 and 1500. Between ca. AD 1100 and 1200, people settled in an uninhabited section of the LCRV at a small number of sites, not exceeding 38 known locations by AD 1300 (Fig. 10.3). The suite of behaviors associated with these initial settlements, including mound construction, large settlement plans, agriculture, and pottery modes, had no encompassing antecedents in the LCRV although some combinations of the above practices, excluding the pottery modes, have been noted from other contexts dating between AD 1 and 750, especially at Kolomoki. The rapid appearance of these settlements without previous local antecedents is suggestive of a site unit intrusion rather than local reorganization and independent innovation (Blitz & Lorenz, 2002, 2006; Pauketat, 2007). Scholars agree that the evidence points to the migration of populations from the west circa AD 1100, introducing agricultural economies, and a suite of material, ideological, and socio-settlement patterns common to

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Fall Line

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Fig. 10.3 Regional settlement pattern circa AD 1100–1300. See Fig. 10.1 for site names

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Mississippian societies found west of the region (Blitz & Lorenz, 2002, 2006; Knight, 2010; Regnier, 2014). Ceramic motifs resembling those produced by inhabitants of Moundville-related polities in west-central Alabama also suggest that these populations came from the west, although the relationship of the local inhabitants to Moundville itself remains unclear, as does the degree of interaction with a ‘homeland’ (Jenkins, 2009; Knight, 2010; Regnier, 2014). Four known communities erected platform mounds or repurposed abandoned mounds along the LCRV during the initial Mississippian period settlement (Cool Branch, possibly Mandeville, Purcell’s Landing, and Singer-Moye [Blitz & Lorenz, 2006: 33–59]). They were spaced between 16 and 36 km apart, close enough for regular interaction but perhaps far enough apart to avoid the effects of social or environmental circumscription. None were more than 6 ha in size when first established, though several grew larger than that by or soon after AD 1300. At least one site, Cool Branch, was surrounded by a bastioned palisade encompassing 4.85 ha, possibly suggesting a concern for collective defense, though the town expanded beyond the palisade footprint to somewhere between 9 and 18 ha by AD 1300. Mandeville was originally founded as a 16-ha residential area with two mounds during the preceding Woodland period and subsequently abandoned. The Mississippian period settlers added to one of the mounds, but the village size is unknown. Rood’s Landing was settled at the same time, but the excavations that contain contemporaneous artifacts were derived from sub-mound midden contexts only and the extent of occupation dating to this period is unknown. Village areas at Cemochechobee likely were occupied but mound construction did not begin until after circa AD 1200. Singer-Moye was also established at this time circa AD 1150 and did not exceed 6 ha in size until later in its history (Brannan, 2018; Brannan & Birch, 2017). Prior to AD 1300, household settlement patterns at Singer-Moye suggest multiple isolated household clusters at some distance from each other (Brannan, 2018), a pattern probably replicated at other multiple-household communities throughout the region. The first major population aggregation event happened in the AD 1200s at Cemochechobee (Blitz & Lorenz, 2006; Schnell et al., 1981). Cemochechobee was the first Mississippian period multi-mound settlement in the valley. It had two platform mounds constructed between AD 1200 and 1350 over large pre-mound structures, and a third separate burial mound (Blitz & Lorenz, 2006: 40–42; Schnell et al., 1981). Between 25 and 61 ha of village surrounded the monumental site core, an order of magnitude larger than other contemporary settlements. Schnell et al. (1981) believed the village areas may have been occupied for longer than the mounds, although the village may not have been occupied continuously. The small amount of midden accumulation, at least near the mounds, may have been the result of widely dispersed households. Unfortunately, the configuration of the non-mound portions of Cemochechobee remains un(der-)evaluated. The vacillation of moisture content between periods of drought and normal conditions circa AD 1100–1200 likely contributed to these settlements remaining small while people tried to establish a foothold. They settled adjacent to the Chattahoochee River where large floodplains were conducive to agricultural

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intensification but still provided access to wild terrestrial and riverine subsistence resources. Investments in the built environment also were small, either in the form of new low-lying platform mounds or the re-use of Woodland period ones. The size of the population in the LCRV during this time was probably not large based on the number of contemporaneous sites (Brannan, 2018; Brannan & Birch, 2017). There was little need to develop the types of institutions or mechanisms necessary for combatting scalar stress at the community level. Between AD 1205 and 1260 the moisture availability remained normal throughout with little average variation. This decrease in variation and incidence of drought corresponded to when Cemochechobee became a focal point of population aggregation as evidenced from an increase in settlement size and greater investments in the built environment, greatly surpassing those attempted elsewhere over the previous 100 years. For the second half of the century, between AD 1260 and 1310, the moisture availability dropped slightly into incipient drought conditions, but remained constant. Cemochechobee continued to exist as a point of aggregation on the landscape and the community there continued to invest in monumental architecture. Less certain is the origin of the people who consolidated at Cemochechobee, whether they originated from outside of the region or represented population relocation from one polity to the next. Blitz and Lorenz (Blitz, 1999; Blitz & Lorenz, 2006) suggest that the growth of Cemochechobee came about from the movement of people from other single mound centers to it. At least in some cases, such as at Singer-Moye and Cool Branch, people continued to live in adjacent villages despite the inconclusive evidence for intensive mound construction between AD 1200 and 1300. Circa AD 1300, massive construction programs and significant population aggregation events marked changes in the LCRV (Fig. 10.4). Singer-Moye represents the clearest settlement reconstruction, including: several major mound construction projects, the definition of two plazas, and the expansion of residential occupation from 6 ha to more than 38 ha (Brannan, 2018). The first major expansion occurred between AD 1300 and 1350 and corresponded to when moisture availability was either within normal expectations or occasionally dropped into incipient drought conditions. A second major expansion at Singer-Moye occurred between AD 1350 and AD 1400, when moisture availability was much more variable circa AD 1365–1410, with mild drought conditions between AD 1369 and 1383, mild wet from AD 1384 to 1396, back to mild drought again between AD 1397 and 1410. Singer-Moye experienced rapid aggregation and community change at the same time that the multi-mound center of Rood’s Landing also rose to prominence. Rood’s Landing rivaled Singer-Moye in complexity of monumental architecture, size of the central precinct, and probably in overall settlement size (Caldwell, 1955; Knight & Mistovich, 1984), though our understanding of those changes is temporally coarse. Rood’s Landing is located only 30 km away from Singer-Moye and as argued elsewhere (Brannan & Birch, 2017; Brannan, 2018), the settlement growth and changes in complexity in the built environment at Singer-Moye and Rood’s Landing were likely due to peer-polity interaction between the two communities as opposed to warfare or conflict. Both sites developed in a similar fashion at about the same pace, have similar mound and plaza configurations, and neither exhibited

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heavy investments in defense even though they are located centrally in the valley, only 1–2 day’s travel from each other. At least in the case of Singer-Moye, the settlement was spread out over several landforms and would have been difficult to protect with a palisade. There is a double ditch surrounding the site core at Rood’s Landing (Caldwell, 1955), but the village extends at least 700 m beyond it to the northeast (Knight & Mistovich, 1984), which suggests that the ditches served to demarcate space within the community or were artifacts of an earlier, smaller settlement. These building programs are suggestive of continued place-making, socio-political consolidation, and community-building. The reconfiguration of the site core at Singer-Moye as well as building programs elsewhere may have been undertaken as large-scale labor projects as part of continued negotiations between incoming residents converging at these central places and extant populations (see for example Dalan, 1997), either during the first half of the century when moisture content remained fairly consistent or during the second half of the century when moisture variability see-sawed between periods of minor drought and wet conditions. The lack of predictability may have required increased investments in the social fabric of society to mitigate increased scalar stress from population pressure, coupled with some food insecurity. The settings for such negotiations may have also involved collective rites at which feasts, religious ceremonies, mound construction, and other integrative practices may have occurred (Pauketat & Alt, 2005). The consolidation of people at the particular places just discussed is also reflected in the regional site distribution (Fig. 10.4). The number of sites with components dating to this time period decreased from a maximum of 38 for the previous 200 years to only 19. All evidence points to a regional population aggregation, especially at Rood’s Landing and Singer-Moye, as well as the potential incorporation of populations from further afield. The single mound centers of Gary’s Fish Pond and Omussee Creek may have had active construction episodes associated with their monuments and a continued residential occupation, but both straddled the transition from the second half of the AD 1300s into the AD 1400s. The villages at Cool Branch and Cemochechobee were probably occupied through the early part of the AD 1300s, though continued monumental construction was sporadic or nonexistent at both locations. Most sites continued to be adjacent to the Chattahoochee River, with only a few found in upland locations. Several sites were clustered at the Fall Line and may represent population expansion to the north, potentially to an area where people met and settled with groups moving south after the collapse and reorganization of communities in North Georgia and eastern Tennessee in the early AD 1300s (see Sullivan et al., Chap. 8, this volume). These aggregation events do not seem to be well correlated to changes in moisture content in the region, either as an attractive pull if there were surpluses from increased rainfall or as a buffering mechanism from crop failures. If changes in moisture content had an effect on communities, it occurred in the second half of the century when variability increased due to the minor drought- increased rainfall-minor drought cycle. If that is the case, then the lack of predictability may have destabilized long standing aggregated communities, not the availability of moisture.

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After AD 1400, the era of large settlements in the LCRV was effectively over and larger aggregation events are not archaeologically recognizable until some 200 years later with the reconfiguration of the settlement landscape culminating in the Lower Muscogee (Creek) Nation (Ethridge, 2003; Knight, 1994; Worth, 2001). Settlement patterns shifted, evidenced by the reorientation of interregional interaction, decreases in polity size, and the shift to a dispersed settlement pattern (Fig. 10.5). Mound centers were shorter lived, and the scale of construction was smaller than in the AD 1200s and 1300s. The timing of this settlement pattern shift reflects panregional trends towards smaller but more numerous sites, as evidenced across the Southeastern United States (e.g. Anderson, 1994; Beck, 2013; King, 2003; Knight & Steponaitis, 1998; Meeks & Anderson, 2013). Only a few small mound centers were occupied at this time and large local populations no longer inhabited the multi-mound centers that had been central to earlier social, political, and ritual life. Singer-Moye contracted to a small 6 ha settlement around a single mound, and it was eventually abandoned as a place of habitation sometime between AD 1450 and AD 1500 (Brannan, 2018). Blitz and Lorenz (2006) argue that Rood’s Landing was not inhabited at this time but was briefly inhabited after AD 1500. It may be that these once large settlements became vacant ceremonial centers serving a dispersed population with only a few local inhabitants serving as caretakers, a similar process as that suggested for Moundville (Knight & Steponaitis, 1998). At Gary’s Fish Pond, a single mound may have also been in use. At Shorter and Lampley, two other communities near Gary’s Fish Pond, mounds were built or repurposed (Blitz & Lorenz, 2006). A final stage was also added to the platform mound at Omussee Creek in the southern part of the valley. In all cases, these were small single mound settlements similar to those constructed during the initial occupation of the LCRV circa AD 1100. Whether the new single mound centers represent long-standing social segments that periodically relocated, as argued by Blitz (1999; Blitz & Lorenz, 2006), new populations moving into the region from elsewhere, or some combination of the two remains an unresolved question. At least 142 sites were occupied throughout the valley between AD 1400 and AD 1500, a significant increase from earlier settlement practices (Fig. 10.5). At a minimum, people dispersed into the region from the previously occupied large central places, such as Singer-Moye, though some migration from outside of the region also likely occurred, similarly to that identified by Wilson and Bird (Chap. 4, this volume) in the Central Illinois River Valley. Although the greatest site concentration remained along the Chattahoochee River, numerous smaller sites in upland areas demonstrate that it served as a viable alternative to floodplain settlement. Again, the relationship between moisture availability and local settlement patterns is not easily correlated with the available information. Between AD 1410 and 1460, moisture content varied between incipient drought and normal conditions, and between AD 1460 and 1500, moisture content vacillated between mild drought and normal conditions, with a sustained period of minor drought from AD 1463 to 1478. The driving forces behind the dispersal of populations across the landscape may have been connected to moisture availability, but whether they were push or

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pull forces is yet unresolved. The increased variability and unpredictability of moisture conditions leading into the start of the century may have contributed to the breakdown of community cohesiveness at larger sites through scalar stress (Brannan, 2018). However, unlike patterns discussed in several other chapters of this volume, people did not abandon the valley but dispersed across the landscape, as did those social and ritual institutions attached to the construction and maintenance of monumental architecture. The available moisture content between AD 1400 and AD 1500 was not significantly different from previous periods when people aggregated on the landscape, and apart from the slightly greater variability, the moisture content alone was similar to periods when prior aggregation events occurred. In other words, the decision to not re-aggregate in the LCRV seems to have been driven more so by social considerations than by environmental ones.

Conclusion In conclusion, and returning to the major themes of this volume, the LCRV represents one of many examples of the often repeated macroregional pattern of population aggregation and dispersal through time. My own findings do not contradict Blitz’s description of fission-fusion as one of the mechanisms that influenced migration between communities. The location of active mounds changed through time, but not always in lock step with the length of occupation of a community located in the same place. The number of active mounds and site size are also positively connected, such that multi-mound centers were significantly larger than those with only a single in-use mound. In addition, when multi-mound sites were large few other contemporaneous sites were occupied, and when those large sites were abandoned, there was a significant increase in the number of contemporaneous sites in the valley. The influence of moisture content on patterns of aggregation and dispersal are less clear. Blitz and Lorenz (2006: 131–139) incorporated a discussion of environmental change as one of the mechanisms influencing the growth and decline of Mississippian period polities in the LCRV. In the vein of Anderson et al. (1995), they proposed that periods of favorable rainfall led to polity growth through crop surpluses, and that crop shortages due to drought correlated to the reduced scale of mound building and shrinking populations. The PMDI data indicates that lack of moisture availability played only a limited role and that settlement growth and stability occurred during periods of little variability in moisture content. In some small way, periods of higher variability may have decreased the drive for people to aggregate, inducing individual settlements to remain small or contributing to the fission of large settlements as populations dispersed. Either way, the movement of people was more highly influenced by the socio-cultural dynamics of living together, as opposed to major environmental issues or fluctuations identified in several other regions in this volume (see Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume for similar findings). The strength of the argument employed by Anderson et al. (1995) in their

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comparison of paleoclimatic and societal change in the Savannah River valley rests on spatially proximate datasets. Similar reconstructions elsewhere are critical for illuminating the articulation of climate and socio- cultural changes in meaningful ways and may reveal environmental issues not apparent in macroregional datasets. I do think that site-specific histories have been undervalued in the southeastern United States and more work is needed to connect migration events between both individual settlements and regions, as well as evaluating migration events as they pertain to monument construction. As Thompson and Birch (2018: 1) state, pivotal cultural transformations took place when people aggregated together into villages, including new traditions and social milieus that had no previous analogues. The reasons why people came together and stayed together are varied, as are the patterns behind why people decided to leave and go elsewhere. Duffy (2015) identified six possible determinants that explain differences in settlement sizes in a particular region, including the seasonal rounds of people taking advantage of mobility and differential access of resources, the long-term aggregation and dispersal of populations between villages due to external and internal forces, the fissioning of large settlements into constellations of smaller ones as people wrestle with how to make communities work, differences in resource availability setting limits on settlement size, regional ritual/functional specialization of specific settlements acting as an attractive force for people, as well as regional political hierarchies exerting control over the region and the people that live in it. Several of these determinants exist at numerous settlements in the LCRV, including long-term aggregation and dispersal, fissioning, and ritual or functional specialization, in addition to the often relied upon chestnut of political hierarchy. Other regions will have a different mix of factors, all contributing to the particular historical narratives of the people who lived there and the places they inhabited. This volume goes a long way towards identifying what brought people together during the Mississippian period and what eventually caused them to break apart and reform into new configurations of villages and communities. More work needs to be done to identify regional settlement patterns, the role of migration, and the development of locally specific paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the LCRV, but it should continue to be a productive place for studying how communities, groups, and individuals negotiated through and adapted to the processes of migration and environmental change.

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Blitz, J. H. (1999). Mississippian chiefdoms and the fission-fusion process. American Antiquity, 64(4), 577–592. Blitz, J. H., & Lorenz, K. G. (2002). The early Mississippian frontier in the lower ChattahoocheeApalachicola River Valley. Southeastern Archaeology, 21(2), 117–135. Blitz, J. H., & Lorenz, K. G. (2006). The Chattahoochee chiefdoms. University of Alabama Press. Brannan, S. (2018). The settlement archaeology of Singer-Moye, a large 14th-century town in the Chattahoochee Valley. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Georgia. Brannan, S., & Birch, J. (2017). Settlement ecology at Singer-Moye: Mississippian history and demography in the southeastern United States. In L. C. Kellett & E. J. Jones (Eds.), Settlement ecology of the ancient Americas (pp. 57–84). Routledge. Bronk Ramsey, C. (2009). Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon, 51(1), 337–360. Caldwell, J. R. (1955). Investigations at Rood’s landing, Stewart County, Georgia. Early Georgia, 2(1), 22–49. Cook, E. R., Seager, R., Heim, R. R., Vose, R. S., Herweijer, C., & Woodhouse, C. A. (2010). Megadroughts in North America: Placing IPCC projections of hydroclimatic change in a longterm paleoclimate context. Journal of Quaternary Science, 25, 48–61. Dalan, R. A. (1997). The construction of Mississippian Cahokia. In T. R. Pauketat & T. E. Emerson (Eds.), Cahokia: Domination and ideology in the Mississippian world (pp. 89–102). Lincoln. DeJarnette, D. L. (Ed.). (1975). Archaeological salvage in the Walter F. George Basin of the Chattahoochee River in Alabama. University of Alabama Press. Duffy, P. R. (2015). Site size hierarchy in middle-range societies. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 37, 85–99. Ethridge, R. F. (2003). Creek country: The creek Indians and their world. University of North Carolina Press. Hurt, W. R. (1975). The preliminary archaeological survey of the Chattahoochee Valley area in Alabama. In D. L. DeJarnette (Ed.), Archaeological salvage in the Walter F. George Basin of the Chattahoochee River in Alabama (pp. 1–86). University of Alabama Press. Huscher, H. A. (1959). Appraisal of the archaeological resources of the Walter F. George Reservoir Area, Chattahoochee River, Alabama and Georgia. River Basin Surveys, Smithsonian Institute. Jenkins, N. J. (1978). Prehistoric chronology of the lower Chattahoochee Valley: A preliminary statement. Journal of Alabama archaeology, 24(2), 73–91. Jenkins, N. J. (2009). Tracing the origins of the early creeks. In R. Ethridge & S. M. Shuck-Hall (Eds.), Mapping the Mississippian shatter zone: The colonial Indian slave trade and regional instability in the American south. University of Nebraska Press. Kellar, J. H., Kelly, A. R., & McMichael, E. V. (1962). The Mandeville site in southwest Georgia. American Antiquity, 27(3), 336–355. King, A. (2003). Etowah: The political history of a chiefdom capital. University of Alabama Press. Knight, V. J. (1994). The formation of the creeks. In C. M. Hudson & C. C. Tesser (Eds.), The forgotten centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American south, 1521–1704 (pp. 373–392). University of Georgia Press. Knight, V. J. (2010). Mound excavations at Moundville: Architecture, elites, and social order. University of Alabama Press. Knight, V. J., & Mistovich, T. S. (1984). Walter F. George Lake: Archaeological survey of fee owned lands, Alabama and Georgia (Vol. 42). Office of Archaeological Research, University of Alabama. Knight, V. J., & Steponaitis, V. P. (1998). Archaeology of the Moundville chiefdom. Smithsonian Institution Press. Meeks, S. C., & Anderson, D. G. (2013). Drought, subsistence stress, and population dynamics: Assessing Mississippian abandonment of the vacant quarter. In J. D. Wingard & S. E. Hayes (Eds.), Soils, climate and society (pp. 61–84). University Press of Colorado. Neuman, R. W. (1959). Two undecorated pottery vessels from the Purcell landing site, Henry County, Alabama. Florida Anthropologist, XII, 101–103.

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Neuman, R. W. (1961). Domesticated corn from a Fort Walton Mound site in Houston County, Alabama. The Florida Anthropologist, 14(3–4), 75–80. Palmer, W. C. (1965) Meteorological drought (Research Paper Number 45). US Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau. Pauketat, T. R. (2007). Chiefdoms and other archaeological delusions. AltaMira Press. Pauketat, T. R., & Alt, S. M. (2005). Agency in a postmold? Physicality and the archaeology of culture-making. Journal of Archaeological Method & Theory, 12(3), 213–236. Pluckhahn, T. J. (2003). Kolomoki: Settlement, ceremony, and status in the deep south, A.D. 350 to 750. University of Alabama Press. Regnier, A. L. (2014). Reconstructing Tascalusa’s chiefdom: Pottery styles and the social composition of late Mississippian communities along the Alabama River. The University of Alabama Press. Reimer, P. J., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J. W., Blackwell, P. G., Ramsey, C. B., Buck, C. E., Cheng, H., Edwards, R. L., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P. M., Guilderson, T. P., Haflidason, H., Hajdas, I., Christine, H., Heaton, T. J., Hoffmann, D. L., Hogg, A. G., Hughen, K. A., . . . van der Plicht, J. (2013). IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0-50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon, 55(4), 1869–1887. Schnell, F. T., & Jr., Wright, N. O. (1993). Mississippi period archaeology of the Georgia coastal plain. Laboratory of Archaeology Series 26, University of Georgia. Schnell, F. T., Jr., Knight, V. J., & Schnell, G. S. (1981). Cemochechobee: Archaeology of a Mississippian ceremonial center on the Chattahoochee River. University Press of Florida. Thompson, V. D., & Birch, J. (2018). The power of villages. In J. Birch & V. D. Thompson (Eds.), The archaeology of villages in eastern North America (Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen series) (pp. 1–19). University of Florida Press. West, S. E., Pluckhahn, T. J., & Menz, M. (2018). Size matters: Kolomoki (9ER1) and the power of the hypertrophic village. In J. Birch & V. D. Thompson (Eds.), The archaeology of villages in eastern North America (Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen series) (pp. 54–72). University of Florida Press. Worth, J. E. (2001). The lower creeks: Origins and early history. In B. G. McEwan (Ed.), Indians of the greater southeast: Historical archaeology and ethnohistory (pp. 265–298). University Press of Florida.

Part IV

Into the Lower Mississippian Region

Chapter 11

Climate Change, Population Migration, and Ritual Practice in the Lower Mississippi Valley Dorian J. Burnette, David H. Dye, and Arleen A. Hill

What caused the late Mississippian decline in the central area? Was it drought, soil exhaustion, disease, political upheaval or passenger pigeons? What are the processual answers? – but first a detailed analysis of the data, please. (Stephen Williams 1983:78)

Studying the ways in which climate change impacts human social systems presents “wicked and messy” challenges that necessitate cross- or multi-disciplinary partnerships (Cook et al., 2018; Jackson et al., 2017; Tengö et al., 2017). Pairing archaeology and geography, for example, allows crucial connections and contributions for climate change science through their respective multiscalar, spatial, and temporal, views, as well as a “detailed analysis of the data” as pointed out by Stephen Williams in the above epigraph. While archaeology interrogates long-term social barometers as a component of paleoenvironmental records (Rockman, 2012:196), geography is well-suited for making significant assessments of how humans adapt to climate change through spatial analyses of broad ranges of data (Aspinall, 2010:716; Winkler, 2016:1419). Such transdisciplinary approaches, with their overlapping focus, aid in exploring how human groups create, maintain, and manipulate organizational strategies, political efficacy, and ritual practice. While the overlap of archaeology and geography is cited and framed along multiple scales, paleoclimate research engenders a focal point for climate models with its emphasis on tree-ring analysis, which provides intensity, as well as spatial and temporal scales of climate change (Cook et al., 2010). The interconnections of human agency and global climate aberrations inform our insights into and interpretations of past human adaptations, agency, behavior, and social resilience and transformation. As Colin Renfrew (1983:315) notes, archaeology and geography hold in common the perspective of “human actors as unique repositories of consciousness and intentionality, governed by complex social interactions, where the

D. J. Burnette (*) · D. H. Dye · A. A. Hill University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_11

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role of the individual and of individual motivation can never be overlooked”. The two fields also bring basic, important, and useful skill sets to this enterprise, including how to collaborate and how to learn from the past (Crumley, 2013:269). And they both hold to the premise, as collapse theorists point out, that human history is by and large a story of adaptation, regeneration, resilience, risk avoidance, transformation, and vulnerability (Faulseit, 2016; McAnany & Yoffee, 2010; Middleton, 2017; Schwartz & Nichols, 2006; Tainter, 1988, 2006). We examine multiple scales of social adjustments to climate change based on Kates et al.’s (2012) conceptions of incremental and transformational adaptations. By adding a transitional component of adaptation, multiscalar perspectives may be couched as incremental, intermediary, and transformational adjustments. We engage these three modes or scales by considering conflict, population migration, resilience, and ritual practice as varying social responses to climate change through an archaeological case study of Mississippian polities in the northern half of the Lower Mississippi Valley (nLMV), the area between the Ohio and Arkansas rivers. By investigating low-scale farming communities during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD when climate stresses were especially egregious, we may interrogate the articulation and intersection of climate change and human agency, especially fragility, resiliency, and vulnerability to better assess past adaptations or adjustments. After briefly discussing these incremental, intermediate, and transformational adjustments, we review the paleoclimate evidence of multidecadal droughts in the nLMV and consider how varying adaptations are reflected in the archaeological and iconographic record. We suggest Mississippian farmers coped and responded in numerous ways to climate change, including incremental or slight changes in ritual practice such as motif popularity, intermediate or transitional changes resulting in institutional realignments, and transformative changes in which people abandon their homelands in the Mississippi-Ohio River Confluence Region (hereafter Confluence Region), moving to new locales farther south. We then turn to the nLMV and assess climate change through tree-ring reconstructions, focusing on population migrations to new environs. We further trace these movements by noting similarities in ceramic iconography in the Confluence Region and the appearance of these same iconographic, mythic, and ritual themes in new locales to the south. We propose that these continuities in ritual beliefs, institutions, and practice often reflect social responses to climate change through appeals to fertility and weather- related deities. We conclude by noting that Mississippians adapted to climate change through multiple and varied strategies, and caution archaeologists and geographers to be cognizant of the entangled and multiscalar webs of adjustments, adaptations, and transformations that people embraced and employed to minimize disruptions, risks, stresses, and vulnerabilities to their lived experiences.

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Climate Change and Migration in the Lower Mississippi Valley Small-scale farming societies around the world are especially subject to the vagaries of climate change, and archaeologists and geographers are well-suited to assess the interplay of environmental dynamics and social adaptations in the ancient world (Frank & Buckley, 2012; McIntosh et al., 2000; Van de Noort, 2015). Evaluating social responses to environmental aberrations provides an important basis for appreciating both spatial and temporal dimensions of climate-related social stress and behavioral responses. Human populations adapt to climate change, especially drought, through a variety of means, including but not limited to conflict (Abel et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2007), migration (Brown, 2008; Emerson et al., 2020; McLeman & Hunter, 2010:451), and ritual practice (Jobbová et al., 2018; Moyes et al., 2009). While climate change alone is unlikely to precipitate conflict or migration, compounded with challenging political and social conditions, adverse impacts, including droughts, pluvials, and extreme temperatures, may heighten risks endured by a population and prompt drastic transformations, resulting in changes in religious beliefs, ritual practice, and ultimately the decision to abandon one’s homeland and relocate elsewhere. Here we consider the diasporic lens as “a means of engaging the process of homeland creation, imagining, and dissolution as entangled with the creation of different kinds of persons (human and otherwise)” (Baltus & Baires, 2020:116). Diaspora studies incorporate concepts of diversity and plurality, along with adaptations, adjustments, entanglements, historical contingencies, identities, interconnections, motivations, processes, and transformations (Dufoix, 2008). Climate change is increasingly the focus of both archaeologists and geographers whose approaches center on the spatial and temporal dimensions and interactions of human resiliency and vulnerability (Cable, 2020; McLeman & Hunter, 2010), as components of multidisciplinary endeavors that interrogate the ways in which past cultures adapted to climate challenges and environmental risks. Environments are dynamic, and climate is chaotic, risky, and unpredictable, especially for small-scale farmers. Although people develop complex belief, knowledge, and ritual practices, including sophisticated social strategies for mitigating both short- and long-term climatic fluctuations, their strategies sometimes fail, resulting in homeland abandonment and resettlement in neighboring, perhaps hostile and unwelcoming regions. People are not passive culture bearers, nor pawns at the mercy of adverse climate change, especially droughts, extreme temperatures, and floods. Human societies are vulnerable to environmental risks at multiple scales, and small-scale horticulturalists such as Mississippian farmers are especially endangered, with social adjustments and changes being complex and historically contingent on climate, political, and social events and processes. In this sense, we identify vulnerability as “the degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes” and as such is a “function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate change and variation to which a system is

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exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity” (Parry et al., 2007:883). Thus, climate, as a chance-influenced event, may result in contingent connections between climate and social stress, creating choices in adapting to and reducing vulnerability to climate change. Inspired by Robert W. Kates’s (Kates, 2012; Kates et al., 2012) seminal work on climate change, human adaptation, and natural hazards, we identify three variously scaled responses by Mississippian polities in the nLMV: incremental adjustments, intermediate or transitional adjustments, and transformational adjustments. By incremental adjustments we envision people “tweaking the system” to avoid disruptions. Such adjustments might include varied responses, including continued or increased ritual practice, especially conjuration, propitiation, or supplication to ancestors or culture heroes. Evidence for incremental adjustments might include continuities in ritual practice despite ongoing adjustments in other political and social spheres. Intermediate or transitional adjustments entail restructuring or reorganizing ritual and social institutions. Transitional adjustments typically comprise restrictions or reorganizations, especially to ritual and social institutions sensitive to political efficacy tied to surplus, and thus indirectly to climate change and crop yields. The durability, flexibility, and resiliency of social institutions provide the social means for actors to adapt to changing conditions (Holland-Lulewicz et al., 2020). Intermediate adjustments might entail challenges to or declines in elite efficacy (Weiberg & Finné, 2018), the creation or invention of new ritual sodalities (Hayden, 2018; Ware, 2014), or the rise and fall of social houses (Beck, 2007; Joyce & Gillespie, 2000). Proxies for intermediate social responses would encompass new ritual institutions, characterized by the crafting, employment, and decommissioning of ritual gear, goods, paraphernalia, or props, especially mythic charters reflected in ceramic and shell gorget iconographic themes centering on relationships with other-than-human beings. Transformational adjustments engender, among other things, new visions of the social order or movements to a new locale. For example, abandonment of one’s homeland might entail a radical realignment of the social order as populations dispersed and ritual programs are decommissioned or restructured. The abandonment or termination of medicine lodges or other ritual buildings, as well as whole towns, via fire is sedimented in termination rituals and aligned goods, the results of such conflagrations being both purifying and transformative (Baltus & Wilson, 2019; Pauketat et al., 2012). Mound capping is an additional signal for ritual structure decommissioning (Knight Jr., 2010). But migration may also bring about conservative values that strengthen existing ritual institutions and bolster positions of authority and power. These adaptational tendencies do not constitute a typological scheme, but rather we employ them as varying modes of behavior that are entangled, interconnected, and overlapping. We envision these adjustments as heuristic concepts to better aid in appropriating and appreciating the complex and myriad responses made by Mississippian people to both internal and external stresses and threats. We argue that nLMV polities expressed resilience through varying modes as multiple scales of adjustments to extreme droughts, manifested and reacted to differentially across

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space and through time, comprised of the articulation of political efficacy, ritual practice, and social actors (Tengö et al., 2017). As responses to both external and internal stresses, extreme climate events were manifested and reacted to differentially by people as they managed risk and were resilient to impacts and perturbations through each of the various degrees or scales of adjustment (Conolly & Lane, 2018). Kates (2012:49) notes that most adaptations are incremental, “doing slightly more of what is already being done to deal with natural variation in weather and climate”. However, at the other extreme, migration is perhaps one of the most drastic reactions to climate change (Abel et al., 2019; Brown, 2008). We note that scalar latitudes of human responses to intense climate events may be considered as a range of possible adaptations and that migration due to climate change is only one of a number of possible ways by which people adapt and cope with adverse impacts of climate fluctuations and perturbations (McLeman & Hunter, 2010:450). We explore the dynamics and nature of adaptation and resilience using the case study of late fourteenth and early fifteenth century Mississippians who lived in the nLMV. These farmers faced serious climatic challenges during a time of increased risk and stress, prompting multiple adaptive responses. We focus on the local context to explore the relationships among adaptation, transformation, and resilience. In this light we note how archaeologists and geographers play a crucial role in furthering our interpretations and understanding of human responses to climate change (Mitchell, 2008; Van de Noort 2011).

The Northern Lower Mississippi Valley and Tree-Ring Reconstructions Archaeologists are increasingly focusing their attention on the role of climate change, especially extreme drought and pluvial conditions, with regard to Mississippian migrations, population dynamics, and regional abandonments (Aharon et al., 2012; Alt, 2006; Anderson, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2017; Anderson et al., 1995; Baires et al., 2015; Baltus & Baires, 2020; Benson et al., 2007, 2009; Bird et al., 2016; Blitz, 2010; Blitz & Lorenz, 2006; Buchanan, 2015; Burnette et al., 2020; Cobb & Butler, 2002; Comstock, 2017; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Emerson & Hedman, 2016; Emerson et al., 2020; Johnson, 1996; Krus & Cobb, 2018; Meeks & Anderson, 2013; Munoz et al., 2015a, b; Pauketat, 2019; Williams, 1983, 1990, 2001). Despite much negativity and opposition in the early to mid-twentieth century against proposals for abandonments and migrations, archaeologists working in the nLMV by the late 1970s and early 1980s, began addressing what they saw in the archaeological record as clear, well-substantiated evidence for abandonments (Chapman, 1980; Morse & Morse, 1983; Price et al., 1976; Williams, 1983). With the founding and initial growth of Cahokia beginning around AD 1050, people from far and wide visited and helped build the city, and while some returned

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home, many remained for much longer durations (Pauketat, 2019). Recent genetic analysis suggests people from the nLMV were among those attracted to Cahokia in the eleventh century (Slater et al., 2014). During the Medieval Climate Anomaly (ca. AD 950–1250), a warmer and wetter climate provided ample precipitation for maize crops (Bird et al., 2017). However, as the Little Ice Age began in the early to mid-twelfth century, major social changes were underway at Cahokia as periods of drought struck the midcontinent (Cook et al., 2010; Comstock & Cook, 2018; Foster, 2012). By the early thirteenth century aridity became increasingly severe, and people began exiting Cahokia (McNutt & Parish, 2020; Emerson et al., 2020). These chronic droughts contributed to population migrations out of the Cahokia area and into surrounding regions, including the nLMV’s Confluence Region. During times of extreme stress associated with drought-induced agricultural failures combined with the loss of political and ritual efficacy by aristocratic families, people fled their drought-stricken homelands seeking better living conditions. Locales with sandy soils and a lack of adequate surface water storage may have been the first places abandoned. For example, southeastern Missouri is a distinct agricultural and physiographic region, with sand predominating on the terraces where people farmed and lived (Krusekopf, 1966:8). At the same time, long-term continuities in ritual practice based on stylistic and thematic similarities in ceramic vessels found in the Confluence Region and extreme southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas (hereafter Eastern Lowlands) provide support for population movements southward out of the Confluence Region. Continued emphasis on key culture heroes and deities, especially the Earth Mother (Emerson, 2015; Sharp, 2019), the Great Serpent (Lankford, 2007a, b; Reilly III, 2011), and the Hero Twins (Dye, 2017, 2020a), alerts us to social resilience in the face of internal (political/ social) and external (environmental/warfare) stresses through fertility rituals and mortuary programs.

Climate Change in the Lower Mississippi Valley Some 1600 km in length, the Mississippi River is the fourth largest river in the world, and the Lower Mississippi Valley is the third largest drainage basin; the alluvial floodplain encompasses some 13,000 square kilometers (Fisk, 1944; Saucier, 1994; Whitney et al., 1991). Prior to modern drainage, it was a morass of intertwined back swamps, bayous, meandering rivers, natural levees, oxbow lakes, and sloughs, resulting in an amazing amalgam of biodiversity and habitats. The northern half of the valley was home to numerous polities, for whom archaeologists have coined the term “Middle Mississippian” (Holmes, 1886; Morse & Morse, 1983). In 1541, members of the Hernando de Soto expedition slogged their way through the valley, with the chroniclers recording their impressions of mutually antagonistic, chiefly polities (Clayton et al., 1993; Hudson, 1997; Young & Hoffman, 1993), with people constructing heavily fortified towns situated on natural levees. The towns

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abutted oxbow lakes and tributary rivers and were often placed in defensible locations such as the interiors of river bends and neck cutoffs for additional protection. Swampy, uninhabited buffer zones separated the town clusters into a patchwork of polities (Hudson, 1997). Their economy, based on horticulture that included domesticated beans, corn, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco, as well as the continuation of natural resources acquired through fishing, gathering, and hunting, supported culturally differentiated polities fractured along ethnic lines. The nLMV was home to people who spoke various dialects of a linguistic isolate – Tunican (Kaufman, 2019, 2020), augmented by multiple migrations of people into this massive, swampy floodplain refuge from the east, north, and west. Based on archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence, archaeologists in the 1970s began noticing gaps in temporal sequences and vacancies in the spatial distribution of nLMV sites. In 1976, Jim Price et al. (1976:50) noted fifteenth century abandonments over much of southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, although the reasons behind these population movements were unknown at the time. Carl Chapman (1980:256), a few years later, also recognized the abandonment of the Confluence Region. Chapman suggested these abandonments had taken place just prior to or during the early part of the fifteenth century AD because of disease or droughts. Subsequently, Dan and Phyllis Morse (1983:282) noted there was no substantial permanent population in the Confluence Region after about AD 1400. They argued for these populations migrating from the Confluence Region into the Eastern Lowlands, shifting southward into the “meander belt areas of the Mississippi and St. Francis rivers, the Little River-Pemiscot Bayou crevasse channel of the Mississippi, and the alluvial soils of the White River. These particular regions experienced significant increases in population” (Morse & Morse, 1983:282). Out of these observations and based on conversations with Dan and Phyllis Morse and Jim Price, Stephen Williams (1983, 1990, 2001) formulated the Vacant Quarter hypothesis. The Morses (1983), Price et al. (1976), and Williams (1983) entertained the idea that drought might be a significant factor in the abandonment of the Confluence Region in particular, and the “Vacant Quarter” in general.

Paleoclimate Reconstructions Tree rings are one form of paleoclimate data, where the width of any given tree can be influenced by the environmental conditions affecting the tree during that particular year (Fritts, 1976). In this chapter, we use the North American Drought Atlas, which was developed from a network of climatically sensitive trees across North America (Cook et al., 2010). With the onset of the Little Ice Age in the late thirteenth century, droughts intensified across the midcontinent (Cable, 2020; Foster, 2012). As farming societies are especially prone to the vagaries of climate change and resulting crop failures, polities in the Confluence Region would have struggled from year to year to harvest sufficient yields for survival and to meet ritual and social obligations. Recent climate studies, based on tree-ring analysis, provide a window

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into the onset of long- lasting and severe drought conditions in the nLMV (Cook et al., 2010). These data reveal a series of severe droughts in the Midsouth and Midwest from the thirteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century. While these droughts, often stretching over several decades, affected crop yields, declines in the ability to host feasting events also contributed to social stress and political tensions and relationships with other-than-human beings. The network of tree ring chronologies is used to reconstruct the summer (June– August) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) on a grid across much of North America. The PDSI is a complex combination of temperature and precipitation that estimates the soil moisture balance, which influences tree growth. If the PDSI is negative, conditions were warm and dry; if the PDSI is positive, conditions were cool and wet. This gridded reconstruction across North America means that not only can we assess the intensity of a drought at any individual location, but we can also examine the spatial extent, or footprint, of a drought (e.g., the conditions in the Confluence Region). A portion of the instrumental record is used to establish a statistical relationship between tree growth and PDSI, which is then extended back in time to develop the reconstruction. Confidence in the reconstructions comes from comparisons between the reconstruction and a separate portion of the instrumental period that was purposefully withheld during the development phase. In other words, the tree rings are calibrated, or trained, on a portion of the instrumental record and then verified on another portion of the instrumental record that is withheld from the training phase to assess the validity of the reconstructions. Tree-ring reconstructions of summer soil moisture balance reveal that several, multidecadal droughts impacted the nLMV between ca. AD 1100 and 1500. Mississippian failed harvests may be evaluated by employing Scott Meeks and David Anderson’s (2013) crop failure model, in which they establish PDSI values above plus four and below minus two as a proxy for crop yields, as well as, horticultural downturns and storage shortfalls. We use their approach to assess environmental conditions for the nLMV from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries AD. The most recent version of the North American Drought Atlas, the Living Blended Drought Atlas (Cook et al., 2010), is a 0.5-  0.5-degree grid of summer (June–August) PDSI reconstructions from tree rings over North America. These tree-ring reconstructions run from AD 0 to 2005 and are used to assess PDSI conditions during key years of interest. The summer PDSI reconstruction for the grid point associated with the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers is shown in Fig. 11.1. Note the series of multi-decadal droughts, which end with intense pluvial episodes (e.g., AD 1266–1268 and AD 1309–1312). Such climatic whiplash events would have been especially devastating for small-scale farming communities, being hit by intense droughts followed by severe floods. We identify six megadroughts likely to have been especially troublesome for Mississippian farmers, and which seem to have prompted people to move elsewhere. These intense, multiple megadroughts hit the Confluence Region between the mid-twelfth and mid-sixteenth centuries AD (see Table 11.1). In addition to their duration and intensity, expressed as failed harvests, each megadrought covered a large geographic area (Fig. 11.2).

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Fig. 11.1 Summer PDSI Reconstruction of the Grid Point associated with the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers from AD 1100 to 1500. Individual years are plotted in gray and a 10-year cubic smoothing spline is plotted in black to enhance the decadal-scale variation. The darkblack, parallel lines denote the failed harvest thresholds proposed by Meeks and Anderson (2013) Table 11.1 Megadroughts in the northern lower Mississippi valley from AD 1100 to 1500 and the number of years the failed harvest threshold was satisfied

Megadroughts 1176–1202 1207–1248 1284–1308 1343–1370 1378–1401 1430–1458

Years of failed harvests 15 18 9 12 13 15

People and polities in the nLMV were accustomed to droughts and over time learned to cope with them through economic, political, ritual, and social means. However, not all drought periods were the same; intensity, duration, and/or spatial extent varied, but these droughts draw our attention to the potential for stresses resulting in transformations in ritual practice and episodes of multiple population exoduses and migrations. While climate change alone is not an adequate explanation for migration, a strong correlation between severe climate change and permanent mass movements is detected in the Confluence Region. We recognize that correlation is not the same as causation; but we also suggest that chronic drought was at least an important and significant factor in the fourteenth and fifteenth century migrations and social transformations with impacts on ritual practice.

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Fig. 11.2 Composite maps of each megadrought from Table 11.1. (a) 1176–1202, (b) 1207–1248, (c) 1284–1308, (d) 1343–1370, (e) 1378–1401, and (f) 1430–1458. Darker colors denote lower PDSI values (warmer and drier conditions). Note the large spatial extent of each megadrought

Regional Abandonments and Population Migrations in the Northern Lower Mississippi Valley Migration is only one of many social responses to climate change, with people choosing to move based on complex and conscious deliberations. Understanding the varied dimensions of migration is dependent on a web of events, processes, relations, and situations that underlie those decisions (Anthony, 1997; Burmeister, 2000; Crumley, 2012; Fröhlich & Klepp, 2018; Lee, 1966). Factors such as economic strategies, historical traditions, political systems, and social memory must be considered prior to moving from one’s ancestral homeland and into another polity’s territory, which would have significant ramifications, resulting in economic, political, and ritual responses, as well as long-term social transformations. Although droughts are regional phenomena, they result in significant costs to human societies throughout the world (Benson et al., 2007; Gautier et al., 2016; Hansen & Libecap, 2004; Kelley et al., 2015), often triggering political and social disruptions through crop failures and food shortages. Agricultural production downturns undermine political efficacy for small-scale middle range farming societies in part because they create indebtedness for the average family, while denying aristocratic cohorts the legitimacy they require by weakening their claims of control over weather, coupled with their inability to garner surplus resources. Maintaining

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connections with ancestors and deities is often achieved by hosting honorific and supplicatory feasts (Dietler & Hayden, 2010; Hayden, 2014). For example, Mississippian public feasting, as a component of world renewal ceremonies was “essential for mediating the ritual relations with the otherworld necessary to release obligations to spirits” as the fulfillment of “cosmic debt” requirements (Cobb & Stephenson, 2017:161). Significant climate stressors in the form of intense and multidecadal droughts may ultimately prompt homeland abandonments, with push-pull models being especially popular among archaeologists and geographers (Anthony, 1990). Migration studies have also focused on dynamic, multilayered connections between homeland and migrant communities (Baltus & Baires, 2020; Cabana & Clark, 2011; Clark & Laumbach, 2011; Mills, 2011; Ortman & Cameron, 2011). Mississippian migrations involved long-term political and social transformations with populations establishing and reestablishing homeland communities and towns, while at the same time continuing linkages with neighboring polities (Mehta & Connaway, 2020; Sharp et al., 2020:321; Watts Malouchos, 2020; Wilson et al., 2020).

Migration into the Lower Mississippi Valley As Anthony Krus and Charles Cobb (2018:316) point out, the question of migrations leaves unstated, “Where did all the people go?” We suggest that several egregious megadroughts triggered large population movements in the Midsouth and that many of the affected people moved into the Mississippi River floodplain. Williams (1990) noted in his discussion of the Vacant Quarter that a large area of the Midsouth appears to have been at least partially vacated, including a broad band of Mississippian polities from northwestern Mississippian northward through western Tennessee and western Kentucky, including the Lower Tennessee Valley. This swath of abandonment also comprises southern Illinois, as well as east central Missouri, including the Confluence Region. Continuing from the Confluence Region to the west and turning south, the braided stream surfaces of the Western Lowlands of Arkansas and Missouri also became devoid of any substantial permanent populations. With village abandonments, people resettled along the eastern margins of the Western Lowlands and near the Ozark escarpment in the Eastern Lowlands (Morse & Morse, 1983:280–282; Price et al., 1976; Williams, 1983). Contemporary with these migrations into the nLMV, people in the Middle Cumberland Region also began moving into the Upper Tennessee Valley of southeastern Tennessee (Smith, 2020:132; see also Meeks et al. this volume). Thus, Mississippian people from the east, north, and west of the nLMV, vacated their former homelands, relocating into the Mississippi Valley’s swampy Eastern Lowlands during the AD 1378–1401 megadrought (Fig. 11.1). Although drought conditions in the Mississippi Valley were as severe as those in the surrounding areas, the swampy environment would have provided a more secure means of survival. In support of populations fleeing the

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drought-ravaged areas surrounding the Eastern Lowlands of the St. Francis Basin, Dan Morse and Phyllis Morse (1983:282) note that the Eastern Lowlands experienced significant increases in population, and that these populations arrived from adjacent areas.

The Confluence Region Diaspora In this section we focus on specific migration patterns from the Confluence Region southward into the Eastern Lowlands. The earliest of these migrations took place around AD 1375, as the Powers polity (ca. AD 1275–1375) vacated its homeland on the headwaters of the Black River in Missouri’s Western Lowlands. The polity occupied a series of low sand dunes, marginal for farming during prolonged aridity. The apparent trigger for the exodus may have been the AD 1343–1370 megadrought, which resulted in 12 years of failed harvests (Fig. 11.1, Table 11.1). Archaeology provides important insights into the Powers polity migration process (Black III, 1979; O’Brien, 2001; Price, 1978; Price & Griffin, 1979; Smith, 1978). Based on extensive archaeological investigations, the abandonment was quick and well-planned; everyone apparently left at about the same time (Morse & Morse, 1983:283). The exiting people torched their own towns – few useful or easily portable artifacts were left behind, and no accidental human casualties have been found, nor has warfare been implicated in the conflagration. The population movement marked the end of any extensive occupation of the Arkansas and Missouri Western Lowlands of the Confluence Region (Lafferty III & Price, 1996:35). When Hernando de Soto asked the people of Coligua, a polity located some 100 miles to the south of the Powers polity on the White River, about populations to the north in the Missouri Western Lowlands the chief replied that the land there was cold and sparsely inhabited (Hudson, 1997:315). A second migration streamed out of the Cairo Lowland possibly late in the fourteenth century (Cottier & Southard, 1977; Lafferty III & Price, 1996: Table 1.1; Price & Price, 1990). A 24-year megadrought dating from AD 1378 to 1401 apparently triggered decisions by Mississippians to abandon their towns, and to move down the Mississippi River or Little River-Pemiscot Bayou to settle on the natural levees adjacent to the Mississippi River oxbow lakes or along the Little-River Pemiscot Bayou (Fig. 11.3). Given the timing and sequence of movements, these Confluence Region populations may have included people who had earlier migrated into southeastern Missouri from Cahokia, the Lower Ohio River, the Middle Cumberland Region, or the Lower Tennessee Valley. As this farrago of peripatetic people moved southward to the equally drought-stricken, but well-watered, swampy environments of the nLMV’s Eastern Lowlands, social responses included assimilation and interpolity, if not interpersonal, conflict. Three especially intense episodes are noted within this second drought, a 24-year megadrought (1378–1401): 2 years with the PDSI below 3 (AD 1379–1380) followed 4 years later by five continuous years (AD 1384–1388) with the PDSI

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Fig. 11.3 Map of late fourteenth to early fifteenth century population movements in the northern lower Mississippi Valley. (After O’Brien & Wood, 1998: Fig. 6.1)

below 2, three of which had PDSI values below 4, and then 2 years later another period of drought set in from AD 1391 to 1394 with PDSI values below 2. Only one of the 24 years had a PDSI value above zero. Overall, there were 13 years during

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this 24-year drought that would have resulted in failed harvests, with two periods (AD 1384–1388 and 1391–1394) where failed harvests took place over four to five continuous years. Based on excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, several archaeologists suggested the Lilbourn (Lafferty III & Price, 1996: Table 11.1) and Towosahgy (aka Beckwith’s Fort) (Cottier & Southard, 1977; Price & Price, 1990) sites were abandoned in the late-fourteenth century AD. We propose that any populations remaining in the Confluence Region’s Lowland would not have survived the AD 1430 to 1458 megadrought (Fig. 11.2), which was separated from the previous megadrought by only 27 years (AD 1402–1429). The last ten years of this megadrought (AD 1449–1458) had PDSI values below-2 and would have been especially devastating to aristocratic Mississippians still clinging to denials of climate change. These years of drought in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century were conducive to severe impacts on human agency, especially the efficacy and legitimization of aristocratic aggrandizement. As the Morses (1983: 282) note, “there was no substantial permanent population in the Cairo Lowland after about AD 1400”. Movement southward into the Eastern Lowlands resulted in single component fifteenth century sites, an indication of sudden population increases (Morse & Morse, 1983: 283). Finally, the migration generated significant intercommunity conflict based on the archaeological record and ethnohistoric observations; each of the newly settled areas possessing nucleated populations sequestered into compact, fortified towns, and separated from one another by clearly demarcated and widely spaced buffer zones.

Change and Continuity in Ritual Beliefs, Institutions, and Practice While transformations in political, religious, and social practices took place as a result of various external and internal stresses, it is equally apparent that long-term continuities were maintained in ritual practice as expressions of resilience in the face of population relocation. Based on a large corpus of whole ceramic vessels from the Lower Mississippian Valley Tunican Homeland, we identify four iconographic depictions of other-than-human beings crafted over some four hundred years of ritual practice that is both conservative, but stylistically innovative. Here we briefly present evidence of continuity and change in ritual practice by assessing continuities in theme that suggest population movements and changes in ritual protocols. We do not suggest that artistic longevity represents stasis in ritual practice, but we argue that there is an adherence to basic and enduring cosmological beliefs and traditions, expressed in conservative artistic religious themes that were employed in legitimizing and perpetuating an aggrandizing aristocracy through ritual sodalities and social houses and their legitimizing charter myths. Here we propose that an iconography imagery is a proxy for and reflection of chartering narratives.

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These ritual themes exhibit long-term practice, yet express stylistic change over time. We are reminded of Plog and Solometo’s (1997) observations of Pueblo ritual as never-changing and ever-changing, with religious beliefs and ritual never static but maintaining long-standing ritual continuities in motifs, styles, and themes (Bell, 1997; Pauketat, 2013). Such enduring trends are apparent in Mississippian art, iconography, and ritual practice (Diaz-Granados et al., 2015; Emerson, 1997; King, 2007; Lankford et al., 2011; Pauketat, 2013; Reilly III & Garber, 2007; Townsend & Sharp, 2004). While numerous Mississippian artistic themes are discernable, we have chosen four other-than-human themes that enjoyed long-term ritual practice but which also witnessed either continuities or stylistic changes over time. These themes may be traced in the Confluence Region during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and into the Eastern Lowlands, continuing over the fifteenth and into the early seventeenth centuries. Ritual conservatism and continuity serve as a proxy not only for migration, but also longevity for the institutional organization of ritual sodalities. These four themes, expressed in ceramic form, are the Great Vulture, Earth Mother, Great Serpent, and Hero Twins. With one exception, the examples are taken from the Charleston site (23Mi7) (ca. AD 1250–1400) in the Confluence Region site, and the Bradley site (3CT7) (ca. AD 1400–1650) in the Eastern Lowlands, located some 135 miles to the south. In choosing these sites, we are not suggesting a direct link between them, but rather that they represent the general movement of rituals and associated paraphernalia southward from the Confluence Region into the Eastern Lowlands.

The Great Vulture Bird effigy bowls comprised an important artistic theme for Mississippian potters. Vulture imagery is one of the most long-lived and stylistically coherent forms, with their large heads and round eyes, in eastern North American belief systems and artistic traditions from Poverty Point beads through, Adena, Hopewell, Weeden Island, and Mississippian crafting (Giles, 2010, 2013; Krech, 2009; Wheeler, 1996). Mississippian ceramic adorno images are constructed with a large, squared beak; a bald, bulbous, and oval head; and large, round eyes; the back of the heads often display the wrinkled skin characteristic of vultures (Figs. 11.4 and 11.5). The example from the Charleston site (23Mi7) (Fig. 11.4) (ca. AD 1250–1400) may be contemporaneous or slightly earlier than the bowl from the McDuffee site (3CG21) (Fig. 11.5) (ca. AD 1300–1400), some 127 miles to the south. We argue that McDuffee represents an early migration out of the Confluence Region, perhaps in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century into the Eastern Lowlands along the St. Francis River, with its two Eddyville-style shell gorgets, as well as Cahokia-style arrowpoints and discoidals (Buchner & Albertson, 2020). While the natural prototype may be the Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) or the Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), it could also be the extinct Painted Vulture (Vultur sacra) (Snyder & Fry, 2013, 2016). The Muskogee prized the Painted Vulture for its

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Fig. 11.4 Great Vulture bowl. Charleston site (23Mi7), Mississippi County, MO. Cat. No. 2076, courtesy of the division of anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

Fig. 11.5 Great Vulture bowl. McDuffee site (3CG21), Craighead County, AR. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

tail feathers, which were incorporated into “royal standards” (Bartram, 1791:150–152). Several features of these vultures may have captured the attention of Mississippians. The red head of the Turkey Vulture and the habit of the black vulture regurgitating its food may also have resonated with Mississippians who ritually vomited as a component of purification (Bull & Farrand Jr, 1977; Hudson, 1975, 1979), as well its appearance of old age. Vultures “dance” around the dead, flapping their wings and hopping; their involvement in flesh removal is reflected in numerous Southeastern buzzard or vulture dances. Also, Choctaw “buzzard pickers” held elite status marked by distinctive tattooing; as mortuary specialists they cleaned the bones of the dead and may have constituted a mortuary ritual sodality (PantherYates, 2005; Swanton, 1931, 1946). Finally, their importance is seen in a Choctaw narrative in which the Hero Twins ride a giant vulture to their homeland, perhaps the constellation Gemini, after visiting the Sun and Moon (Bushnell Jr, 1909). Despite their similarity to natural forms, vulture bowls reference a mythical supernatural, with their discorporate heads, overly large eyes, and squared bills. Such effigy bowls almost certainly held animistic, sentient, and tutelary qualities through which the Great Vulture could be conjured or supplicated. We use the term

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effigy here, but recognize that such bowls are not representational, but rather possessed animacy, power, and sentiency. The vulture ceramic form is largely unchanged from the examples found in the Confluence Region to those in the Eastern Lowlands. The remarkable continuity in style suggests a basic conformity to a mortuary belief system sedimented in iconographic imagery, mythic narratives, and ritual sodalities. The relative continuity may have been seated in a conservative mortuary program that was strengthened by an increase in death rates, but nevertheless documents the movement of a community into the Eastern Lowlands.

The Earth Mother Unlike the almost standardized vulture imagery that evidences scant change from the Confluence Region to the Eastern Lowlands, female effigies show distinct temporal transformations (Figs. 11.6, 11.7, and 11.8). This morphological progression has been well-documented by Robert Sharp (2019) for the Middle Cumberland Region. In the Confluence Region three groups of female effigies are evident: straight-back, sitting on an object, and hunch-back, while the forms further south continue the hunch-back image, they shift from a hooded bottle to an open top form. In addition, throughout this sequence multiple stylistic changes are evident within these vessel forms. Female effigies as iconic Earth Mother deities have antecedents in Missouri flint clay statuary from Cahokia (Boles, 2017, 2020; Emerson et al., 2021), strengthening their connection to a homeland in the Cahokia area. Thomas Emerson (1997, 2015) has proposed a Cahokian Earth Mother ritual sodality, based on Earth Mother figural imagery, sodalities were important components of social configurations as populations migrated southward from Cahokia in the thirteenth century into the Fig. 11.6 Female hooded bottle. Charleston site (23Mi7), Mississippi County, MO. Cat. No. 2291, courtesy of the division of anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

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Fig. 11.7 Female hooded bottle. Charleston site (23Mi7), Mississippi County, MO. Cat. No. 2182, courtesy of the division of anthropology, American museum of natural history. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

Fig. 11.8 Female hooded bottle. Bradley site (3CT7), Crittenden County, AR. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

Confluence Region and then moved again out of the Confluence Region in the late fourteenth century into the Eastern Lowlands. Earth Mother fertility rituals employing female effigies centered on the idea that the souls of children cycled through a process of reincarnation (Sharp, 2019; Sharp et al., 2011). The effigy bottles as animistic other-than-human beings could be conjured, supplicated, and venerated for health, fecundity, longevity, power, and wealth, serving as guardian-spirits and personal patrons (Dye, 2020b). Transformations in Earth Mother sodalities may have resulted from decreased fertility due to climate change stresses. Communal earth/fertility cults contraposed with chiefly

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cults of nobility (Knight Jr., 1986), appear to have been more diverse than mortuary practices associated with vulture mortuary sodalities affiliated with the Great Vulture as other-than-human beings. Such diversity would have given rise to greater changes in ritual paraphernalia under the stresses of climate change. The failure and success of ritual sodalities, coupled with the need for divine intervention for fertility and longevity, would have been especially volatile during times of stress, including droughts, political turmoil, and social unrest. For example, when Hernando de Soto met the chief of the Casqui polity in northeastern Arkansas in 1541, Casqui lamented that his fields were dry as a result of an ongoing drought and that the children were dying from hunger (Biedma, 1993). The chief asked de Soto for supernatural aid to mitigate the drought with “some kind of sign or symbol to which he could turn for help in warfare or to which he would pray for rain” (Hudson, 1997:291). The lack of political efficacy over droughts and floods, coupled with the deaths of children may have brought about a relatively quick turn over in ritual sodalities as people lost faith in their ritual leaders.

The Great Serpent Great Serpent materializations, often referred to as cat serpents, underwater panthers, or watery realm spirits, are rare in the Confluence Region but undergo a dramatic increase in popularity to the south in the Eastern Lowlands. Their visualization in the Eastern Lowlands Tunican homeland is widespread, expressed in divergent forms, and reaching their height in popularity in the fifteenth through early seventeenth centuries (Figs. 11.9 and 11.10). The great variation in crafting was driven by numerous and often short-lived ritual sodalities that flourished among the various

Fig. 11.9 Great Serpent bottle. Charleston site (23Mi7), Mississippi County, MO. Cat. No. 2319, courtesy of the division of anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

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Fig. 11.10 Great Serpent bottle. Bradley site (3CT7), Crittenden County, AR. Cat. No. 1958.14.111. Courtesy of the Memphis Museum of Science and History. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

polities, cross-cutting kin groups bolstering and legitimizing social houses (Dye, 2018). Great serpent cultic institution growth in popularity in the Tunican Homeland mirrors increases in regional ritual sodalities that supplicated and venerated the Great Serpent throughout the Mississippian world and the circulation of Great Serpent ritual paraphernalia and regalia. For example, rattlesnake gorgets were part of the widespread circulation of Beneath World ritual paraphernalia, including ceramic effigy vessels and copper masks (Brain & Phillips, 1996; Crawford III, 2013). Great Serpent imagery, especially rattlesnake gorgets, but also ceramic effigies, depict the cosmos at night, the movement of forces, powers, prayers, and souls from the night sky to people on earth. The Great Serpent resides in the Beneath World and watery realm and is a source of life-giving forces and water that regenerate the earth and replenish human populations. The watery realm is where the souls of the dead go and then return through reincarnation to inhabit the bodies of children (King et al., 2018:147; Sharp, 2019). Great Serpent ritual sodality institutions do not appear to have been related to climate phenomena, as they were relatively unpopular during the great fourteenth century AD droughts. Rather, cat serpent sodalities were associated with Beneath World powers, death, and the circulation of life-forces via the Path of Souls as part of mortuary programs sedimented in ritual sodalities (Lankford, 2007a, b). Beliefs in the Great Serpent in the nLMV embrace a preoccupation with the watery Beneath World and the realm of the dead (Reilly III, 2011). Such highly charged imagery was integral to ritual sodalities and their funerary ceremonies, which guided the dead onto the Path of Souls and sought their return through reincarnation. Cat serpent effigies in this sense comprised specialized ceramics deployed in funeral rituals associated with the souls of the dead. While ritual practices and ceramic crafting continuities are evident in the southward migrating populations that left the Confluence Region and moved into the Eastern Lowlands, most of the stylistic changes are

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evident in the post-migration period. While Earth Mother and Great Serpent ritual sodalities are both associated with mortuary programs, differences are found in the ritual goods of cultic institutions and how people perceived the recycling of life forces, which may have been indirectly impacted from drought-related climate change.

The Hero Twins The Hero Twins possessed many personas in their role as shapeshifters and as “sons of the sun”, but an important dimension to these transformational culture heroes is their weather affinities – they are often conceptualized as Thunder beings and referred to as Lightning Boy and Thunder Boy. Hero Twins imagery has a long history from the beginning of the Mississippian period to European contact and into modern times (Lankford & Dye, 2014). Their visualization was crafted in ceramic, copper, and shell media as “birdmen’‘and chunkey players. In the Confluence Region they are found on all three media, but their images were most popularly modeled as adorno rims for bowls, often with rattle heads and elaborate bladder skin headgear regalia (Lankford & Dye, 2014) (Fig. 11.11). In the Eastern Lowlands the headgear remains essentially the same, reflecting basic continuities in the Hero Twins mythic cycle (Fig. 11.12). Head pots, especially the Janus forms of the Charleston-style, appear to be the Twins and are found in both the Confluence Region (Fig. 11.13)., as well as the Eastern Lowlands (Fig. 11.14). The later forms in the Eastern Lowlands may identify the retrieval of the father/uncle’s head by the Twins, frequent mythic motif in the Twins narratives. The basic mythic charter associated with Hero Twins sodalities are concerned with demonstrations of renewing life and resurrection. While changes in vessel morphology are noteworthy, continuities in this theme of life and death are consistent, but with an increase in popularity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century in the Eastern Lowlands. Fig. 11.11 Hero Twins bowl. Charleston site (23Mi7), Mississippi County, MO. Cat. No. 2314, courtesy of the division of anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

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Fig. 11.12 Hero Twins bowl. Bradley site (3CT7), Crittenden county, AR. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

Fig. 11.13 Head pot. Charleston site (23Mi7), Mississippi county, MO. Cat. No. 2306, courtesy of the division of anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

The Twins mythic narratives typically relate to mortal combat with monsters and the creation of medicine lodges affiliated with resurrection as opposed to Earth Mother ritual sodalities with their concerns with reincarnation and the recycling of life sources and souls. Hero Twins popularity remains largely unchanged as ceramic imagery throughout the Mississippian period, but subtle changes in form and style do take place over time. Ritual sodalities associated with the Twins were crucial to supplication for rain. In this sense we would expect that their thematic resilience would peak during periods of climate change that resulted in droughts. Key regalia include cone-shaped hats and rattle heads. However, their popularity increased in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century AD as reflected by the numerous Hero

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Fig. 11.14 Head pot. Bradley site (3CT7), Crittenden County, AR. Cat. No. 1958.14.128. Courtesy of the Memphis Museum of Science and History. (Photograph by David H. Dye)

Twins effigy bowls and face mask gorgets (Dye, 2017, 2021a). Gorget styles also run the entire sequence, but we see Hero Twins gorgets in the Confluence Region as chunky players. They appear in the area in the south as face mask gorgets, which circulate into the region in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries from the south Appalachians. The Hero Twins as anthropomorphic and crested bird other-than-human beings were important weather powers (Lankford, 2004, 2007c, 2008), but they may not have been supplicated and honored as weather-changers. Their popularity during the megadroughts suggests they were held in high esteem as storm powers. While they were crafted throughout the Mississippian period, there are subtle changes in ceramic materialization as adorno rims. But dramatic changes are evident in Hero Twin shell gorget visualizations, suggesting the weather-related functions of ritual sodalities emphasized different aspects of power through paraphernalia and regalia, with ceramic use focusing on medicinal preparation and consumption, while shell gorgets bore a greater amount of symbolic value as inalienable ritual goods. Pottery effigies of the Hero Twins may reflect weather powers, especially lightning and thunder, while shell gorgets may have been supplicated for weather changes, especially to conjure or entice rain-bearing clouds or the Twins themselves. Extremes in climate, expressed in drought and pluvial episodes, were mitigated through sodality rituals that supplicated ancestors, culture heroes, and deities. We have identified continuities in Vulture, Earth Mother, the Great Serpent, and the Hero Twins iconography as expressions of their associated medicine lodges. Their simulacrums as anthropomorphic ceramic effigies we see as proxies for weatherrelated rituals that were popular in the Confluence Region from the late thirteenth through mid-fifteenth centuries. As populations moved south, these communities of artistic production or practice continued with many of the same artistic themes, albeit with noticeable stylistic changes, reflecting incremental, transitional, and transformative adaptations and adjustments.

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Social Responses to Climate Change We see migration in terms of how Mississippian polities went about assimilating and incorporating nonlocals, if not foreigners, into existing social institutions, and how aristocratic aggrandizers redefined ritual and social institutions to garner and maintain holds over power and wealth, especially incremental, intermediate, and transformational adjustments as outlined above. The Mississippian social system, based on descendent communities, apparently consisted of exogamous, ranked, totemic matriclans, within a dual moiety kinship system, coupled with prestigious ritual sodalities and social houses (Brown, 2007; Dye, 2020c; Holland-Lulewicz et al., 2020; Knight Jr., 1990, 2018). Of interest for our argument, these interconnected regional webs of clans, ritual sodalities, and social houses dispersed among several communities provided flexibility and transformational adjustments, as each town potentially included members of several clans and ritual sodalities, allowing for continuity in the face of population movement and social challenges. As Mississippian clans were weakly corporate, with obligations and rights not including stewardship of land and property, they were relatively powerless (Knight Jr., 1990). On the other hand, ritual sodalities may have shouldered much of the ritual protocols, serving as important sources of authority and power based on chartering narratives and performative theatrics (Dye, 2020d); thus, while clans codified proper conduct and etiquette among kin, conducted traditional roles at ceremonies, and settled disputes, it was the sodality that provided aggrandizers with the ability to gain influence and status, and the social house that promoted genealogical stability and land tenure rights. Important for our discussion is that while clans established and enforced rules regarding hospitality extended to kin and strangers, and for marriage transaction protocols, it was the ritual sodality that provided opportunities for myriad kinship attachments and relations among an aristocratic cohort. Although ritual sodalities are crucial sources of power, they are relatively short-lived; it is the social house that provides generational continuity necessary for ritual transfers of offices, prerogatives, and titles, guaranteeing longterm political and social stability. John Ware (2014:161) notes for Ancestral Puebloans of the American Southwest, that by mobilizing a finite set of totemic clan names, new arrivals and residents could immediately activate kinship relations and reciprocal obligations. Clan names that crossed linguistic boundaries would have been especially useful in building new relations in multiethnic Mississippian communities. Such internal diversity would have been part of the Mississippian social landscape, which helps explain the conservative rules for adoptions, appropriate behavior, mortuary programs, and ritual practices, as they served as assimilation mechanisms in later, post- contact, social environments. Sodalities in particular thrive in these coalescent, multiethnic, and multilinguistic communities (Ware, 2014:161), suggesting they provide an important component of social adaptation and transformations during migration episodes.

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Mississippian newcomers would be incorporated into existing totemic clans and accepted or adopted into ritual sodalities and social houses by activating real and fictive kinship relations, predicated on reciprocal obligations and relationships that had been long-established prior to migration. In this sense, mutual kinship and sodality relationships would help organize and usher emigrants into burgeoning and perhaps relatively unfriendly communities. Antagonisms likely arose from competition over resources, jealousy over mates, overcrowding, and political conflict. Animosities due to sudden social change from migrations typically resulted in escalations of witchcraft accusations, which are evident in the Cahokia area, Confluence Region, and Eastern Lowlands based on owl imagery (Dye, 2021b). As a result of migrations, ethnic, linguistic, and social diversity would have become increasingly commonplace, resulting in the nLMV sprachbund. As David Kaufman (2014:49) notes “Intensive trade and migration are major factors in language contact in the LMV, involving the convergence of six different language families, including four isolates.” While in many instances new communities were created and quickly fortified, existing towns were also scenes of population coalescence. For the Southwest, “domestic households, whole communities, or community segments consisting of at least two sub-clans were the units that most often moved in concert across the landscape” (Ware, 2014:160). For these Puebloan societies, immigrants might be welcomed, whether by fact or fiction, because their presence would expand the community, meaning more warriors, more ritual participants, and more potential marriage partners. But immigrants also placed undue pressure on already competitive economic, political, ritual, and social factions. To incorporate refugees, and to prevent them from forming potentially fractious enclaves, new arrivals in the Southwest were given exogenous clan names and urged to marry into the receiving community (Ware, 2014:162). Migration and assimilation thus would provide distinctive political, ritual, and social opportunities for Mississippian powerholders; especially aggrandizers who could manipulate ritual institutions, performances, practices, and structures for their own ends. In addition, internal diversity may have led to the emergence and strengthening of a plurality of social houses, which derived power from holds over corporate resources, horticultural production, inalienable sacra and wealth, and the clan’s and social house’s articulation and involvement with cross-cutting, exclusive, regional ritual sodalities (Brown, 2007). There was not always peace in the nLMV through assimilation, but rather, there were considerable troubles in the glen, as evidenced by archaeological investigations and ethnohistoric accounts (Dye, 1994). The presence of fortified towns with their evenly spaced bastions, protected entryways, stout palisades, and wide moats, direct our attention to endemic interpolity conflict throughout the Eastern Lowlands in the post-migration period (Morse & Morse, 1983). That virtually all towns were fortified suggests violence was as much intrapolity as interpolity and may hint at their coalescent nature. Hernando de Soto was often invited to aid polity chiefs in the region’s internecine warfare through marriage to cement alliances (Hudson, 1997). While the causes of interpolity conflict stem from multiple reasons, one complicating factor would include competing coalitions mutually strengthened from an influx of

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people, unseating any semblance of alliances and power balances formed through entanglements of political and social factions.

Conclusion In this chapter we have considered extreme, region-wide, multidecadal droughts as imposing significant stresses on human populations across the nLMV. We focus on regional migrations that reveal resilience of culture, population, and ritual through a fusion of archaeological evidence, ethnographic analysis, ethnohistoric accounts, iconographic studies, and paleoclimate data. Migrations triggered distinctive political and social opportunities for Mississippian elites, whose political agency gave rise to novel ritual institutions, paraphernalia, practices, sacra, and structures. Migration as part of a continuum of resilience is expressed by social units; with migrations as perhaps a final step in the progression of social responses to socio-political and environmental stresses rooted in drought-induced pressures. Having lost the histories and wisdom of their sacred landscapes, displaced corporate groups would have created new or realigned existing institutions and rituals, especially ritual sodalities and social houses. Continuities in ritual practice support the idea of population movements from the Confluence Region into the Eastern Lowlands. Ultimately, migrations are not only responses to stress, but they also create stress as populations move into places that already have an existing population. By conjoining cultural resilience, environmental impacts, ritual practice, and social alignments, we see human agency as expressed not only in migrations, but also in stresses at the end destinations that promote assimilation, coalescence, and conflict. We emphasize ritual continuities by Mississippians as helping to manage risks in the face of adverse climate change, while acknowledging that inherently complex relationships between climate change and human behavioral responses are neither deterministic, static, nor straightforward. Archaeologists and geographers play important roles in understanding how humans respond to climate change by focusing on incremental, as well as rapid transitions and transformations in political, ritual, and social practices. Acknowledgements We thank the undergraduate and graduate students in our Global Environmental Change class, who, during the spring 2017 and 2019 semesters, helped us test many of these ideas. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (AGS-1266015).

References Abel, G. J., Brottrager, M., Cuaresma, J. C., & Muttarak, R. (2019). Climate, conflict and forced migration. Global Environmental Change, 54, 239–249.

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Tainter, J. A. (1988). The collapse of complex societies. Cambridge University Press. Tengö, M., Hill, R., Malmer, P., Raymond, C. M., Spierenburg, M., Danielsen, F., Elmqvist, T., & Folke, C. (2017). Weaving knowledge systems in IPBES, CBD and beyond – Lessons learned for sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 26-27, 17–25. Townsend, R. F., & Sharp, R. V. (Eds.). (2004). Hero, hawk, and open hand: American Indian art of the ancient Midwest and South. Yale University Press. Van de Noort, R. (2015). Conceptualizing climate change archaeology. Antiquity, 85(329), 1039–1048. Ware, J. A. (2014). A Pueblo social history: Kinship, sodality, and community in the Northern Southwest. School for Advanced Research Press. Watts Malouchos, E. (2020). Angel Ethnogenesis and the Cahokian Diaspora. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 27(1), 128–156. Weiberg, E., & Finné, M. (2018). Resilience and persistence of ancient societies in the face of climate change: A case study from late bronze age Peloponnese. World Archaeology, 50(4), 584–602. Wheeler, R. J. (1996). Ancient Art of the Florida Peninsula: 500 B.C. to A.D. 1763. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville. Whitney, J. A., Burns, S. F., Miller, B. J., Saucier, R. T., & Snead, J. I. (1991). Quaternary geology of the lower Mississippi Valley. In Quaternary geology of the conterminous U.S. https://doi.org/ 10.1130/DNAG-GNA-K2.547 Williams, S. (1983). Some ruminations on the current strategy of archaeology in the southeast. Southeastern Archaeological Bulletin, 21, 72–81. Williams, S. (1990). The vacant quarter and other late events in the lower valley. In D. H. Dye & C. A. Cox (Eds.), Towns and temples along the Mississippi (pp. 170–180). University of Alabama Press. Williams, S. (2001). The vacant quarter hypothesis and the Yazoo Delta. In D. S. Brose, C. Wesley Cowan, & R. C. Mainfort Jr. (Eds.), Societies in eclipse: Archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands, A.D. 1400–1700 (pp. 191–203). Smithsonian Institution Press. Wilson, G. D., Bardolph, D. N., Esarey, D., Jeremy, J., & Wilson. (2020). Early Mississippian diasporas of the north American midcontinent. Journal of Method and Theory, 27(1), 90–110. Winkler, J. A. (2016). Embracing complexity and uncertainty. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(6), 1418–1433. Young, G. A., & Hoffman, M. P. (Eds.). (1993). The expedition of Hernando de Soto West of the Mississippi, 1541–1543. University of Arkansas Press. Zhang, D. D., Breche, P., Lee, H. F., He, Y.-Q., & Zhang, J. (2007). Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(49), 19214–19219.

Chapter 12

Environment, Climate, and Mississippian Origins in the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Mississippi River Delta Jayur Madhusudan Mehta and Christopher B. Rodning

Mississippian culture spread widely across the Eastern Woodlands during the early second millennium AD. One of its major points of origin was the American Bottom (AB), and the landscape encompassing Cahokia, in the Central Mississippi Valley (CMV), but important elements of Mississippian culture also can be sourced to the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV), including earthen mounds and plazas as elements of the Mississippian cultural landscape. During this period, both natural and anthropogenic changes to environment and climate impacted the adoption of “classic” Mississippian traits in the Yazoo Basin (YB) of northwestern Mississippi (Brain, 1978, 1987), and in the Mississippi River Delta (MRD) of southeastern Louisiana (Rees, 2007, 2010). Herein, we focus on the timing and development of monumental landscapes and maize agriculture at the Carson, Winterville, and Lake George sites in the YB, and cultural developments in the MRD more broadly (Fig. 12.1). Through consideration of published datasets about past climate and environment, and archaeological knowledge about culture history in the YB and MRD, we identify climatic and environmental impacts on the development and spread of Mississippian culture in these areas.

J. M. Mehta (*) Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. B. Rodning Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_12

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Fig. 12.1 Selected archaeological sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley and Mississippi River Delta with Mississippian components mentioned in the document

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Introduction Archaeologists have long recognized both parallel and regionally specific developments in the “Mississippian emergence” across expansive floodplain ecosystems of the lower Midwest and Southeast (Anderson, 1999; Blitz, this volume; Blitz & Lorenz, 2002; Brown, 2007; Cobb & Garrow, 1996; Kelly, 1990; Kidder, 2007; Morse & Morse, 1983; Muller, 1986; Pauketat, 1998, 2004; Phillips, 1970; Phillips et al., 1951: 451; Scarry, 1990; Smith, 1978, 1984, 1990; Wauchope, 1956; Wilson, 2017). Mississippian culture and Mississippian chiefdoms originated principally within river valley settings, including those in the CMV and LMV (see also Brain, 1978; Kidder, 1998, 2002; Rees, 2010, 2012), although Mississippian culture spread more widely through diverse forms of regional interaction and exchange, and through diasporic processes and ethnogenesis (see Baltus et al., 2020; Emerson et al., 2020, Chap. 5, this volume; McNutt & Parish, 2020). For over 50 years, archaeologists have sought to reconstruct how the spread of Mississippian culture was related to the movements of people or ideas, and/or patterns of interaction and exchange, and/or the spread of innovations in technology and subsistence practices, and/or any combinations thereof. Recent treatments of “Mississippian beginnings” emphasize the diverse historical pathways through which Mississippian culture took shape (Wilson, 2017; Wilson & Sullivan, 2017). Local histories of exchange and interaction, warfare and diplomacy, movement and migration, and ritual practice all contributed to the development of Mississippian communities. These histories would have been shaped at least in part by environment and climate, as well as both long-term changes and shorter-term fluctuations in environmental and climatic conditions (Anderson, 2001; Anderson et al., 1995; Benson et al., 2007, 2009; Burnette et al., Chap. 11, this volume; Cook & Comstock, Chap. 7, this volume; Mehta & Rodning, Chap. 12, this volume; Schroeder et al., Chap. 3, this volume; Wilson & Bird, Chap. 4, this volume). We consider current evidence for these developments in the YB and MRD. We recognize differences in “Mississippianization” within these different areas of the LMV, and we recognize differences in the downstream effects of the “Cahokian big bang” that emanated outward from the AB during the early second millennium (Pauketat, 2002; Wilson et al., 2017).

Culture Histories (AB, YB, and MRD) The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) estimates relative dryness in the environment on a scale of 10 (dry) to 10 (wet) using soil moisture as a proxy for rainfall conditions (Palmer, 1965). In archaeological studies, PDSI is estimated using historical dendrochronological records to approximate localized water availability (Cook et al., 2004; Benson et al., 2009, 2010; Nolan & Cook, 2010). According to Palmer Drought Severity Indices (PDSI) for the immediate American Bottom

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(AB) region, the Lohmann phase in the American Bottom corresponds to particularly wet precipitation regime, followed by almost 150 years of significant drought (Fig. 12.2; Cook et al., 2004, 2010; Benson et al., 2009: 478; Hattori, 2007). The emergence of Cahokia as a major geopolitical center in the CMV, and its ascendance to a dominant geopolitical center within the AB can be tied to favorable climatic conditions that enhanced and facilitated high agricultural productivity. The northward expansion of Cahokian hegemony has been attributed to religious proselytization (Alt, 2012), and it is likely that political changes within the Cahokian community, the spread of Cahokian culture and attendant elements of religious practice and ideology, and changes in climatic conditions were all related in complex ways. In the YB, many different communities with long histories of moundbuilding and subsistence economies based on the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) and maize, beans, and squash (MBS) agriculture constructed towns at a remarkable density (Brain, 1978; Fritz, 2008; Fritz & Kidder, 1993; Kidder, 1992; Settle, 2012). Of these, the 1.6-kilometer-long Carson site (Fig. 12.3) has the earliest, and perhaps only, evidence for pithouses in the YB that were constructed in the style of Lohmann-phase architecture typically found at sites in the AB. We believe this is indicative of the establishment of a Cahokian enclave in northwestern Mississippi at the end of the eleventh century (Mehta & Connaway, 2020). Several Lohmann-style structures were constructed within a confined area, with excavations revealing Powell Plain pottery, Burlington chert microlithic tools, and a persimmon seed fragment dated to 915 +/ 15 yBP (cal AD 1041 – cal. AD 1116; ISGS 41118) (Mehta & Connaway, 2020). At the beginning of the thirteenth century AD, mound construction commenced across a 1.6 km-long crevasse splay, a flood-built natural levee perpendicular to an active Mississippi River channel or tributary stream. Excavations at Carson have identified evidence for rapid mound building, a structure situated atop one of the large mounds associated with craft production activities, and a village component with over 70 structures, numerous bundle burials, and a mixed assemblage of local and non-local lithic and ceramic materials (Mehta, 2019; Mehta et al., 2017). Evidence from Winterville and Lake George demonstrates further evidence for Cahokian influence on and interactions with groups in the YB, although perhaps more fleeting and more ephemeral than in the case of the Carson mounds site (Brain, 1987; Griffin, 1993; Williams & Brain, 1983). Jeffrey P. Brain (1989, 1991) has written that based on Cahokian material found at Winterville, a large Mississippian site 180 km to the south of Carson via the Mississippi River, and at Lake George, a Coles Creek and Plaquemine/Mississippian center a bit further to the south, that “strong, organized contact from the Cahokia climax of the Stirling and/or Moorehead phases intruded deeply into the Coles Creek world [the LMV]” (Brian, 1989: 117). At Winterville, as Griffin put it, “a minor amount of Stirling phase pottery appears” (Griffin, 1993: 5). At Lake George, fleeting traces of AB pottery and a single engraved chunkey stone attest to a Cahokian presence in the YB (Williams & Brain, 1983: 257; Yancey & Koldehoff, 2010). Carson is located

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Fig. 12.2 Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) trends in the Mississippi River Valley and North America. The emergence of Cahokia as a major mound center and regional polity is associated with a period of low PDSI, and conditions favorable for highly productive agriculture in the American Bottom and the CMV. Coles Creek societies were also flourishing at the transition between the first and second millennium AD The emergence of Mississippian culture in the LMV and the appearance of Cahokian cultural elements at Carson is associated with a period of higher PDSI in the CMV but lower PDSI in the LMV

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Fig. 12.3 Top image shows the Carson drawing from Thomas (1894:PL22). Bottom image shows excavation data from the Mound A village tract at Carson. (Adapted from Mehta & Connaway, 2020: 36)

further upstream, and further north within the YB, than Winterville and Lake George, which perhaps accounts for the greater evidence of Cahokian presence there than at sites further south and further downstream.

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Although west of the YB and in the Tensas Basin of northeastern Louisiana, archaeology at the Lake Providence mounds provides further evidence of Cahokian connections in the LMV, dating approximately to the late twelfth century AD (Wells & Weinstein, 2007). Some sherds of Cahokian pottery—including pottery from the AB and pottery resembling AB types that are probably local copies of Cahokian pottery—as well as an arrowhead made of Illinois kaolin chert demonstrate the presence of Cahokian goods and perhaps Cahokian people at Lake Providence. Many of these finds at Lake Providence come from midden deposits located on and close to mounds at the site, indicating important connections between these materials and the statuses and settings associated with monumental earthworks, which were altered and augmented during the thirteenth century AD, but which were originally built between AD 1000 and 1200, atop midden deposits dating back to the late first millennium BC and early first millennium AD. At present, it is not known whether the Cahokian presence at Lake Providence was related to exchange and interaction, or occupation by one or more Cahokian groups, or something else. Mound-and-plaza arrangements in the LMV predate similar practices in the Midwest by at least several hundred years and date to the Middle Woodland period, and they represent the continuation of long-term practices tied to memory, ecology, world renewal, and resilience (Kassabaum, 2019; Rodning & Mehta, 2016, 2019; Steponaitis et al., 2015). Mississippian influences from the CMV are more evident in the northern LMV, and in the northern YB, than they are further south. Based on these assertions, some questions arise: 1. How did interaction with Cahokia influence the development of the Carson site and other contemporaneous towns? What environmental events took place during this time and how might they have affected social and cultural developments? 2. Is the growth and development of settlements with monumental earthworks in the MRD related at all to developments in the YB or AB? Furthermore, how were groups residing in these areas influenced by environmental conditions and changes? 3. How are environmental and climatic changes, including cycles of flooding, correlated with cultural developments in the YB and LMV?

Environmental Events and Culture Histories In the LMV, the Mississippi River drives environmental changes on annual cycles, because the scale of spring flooding is more than enough to inundate large areas and force the abandonment of archaeological sites. Between AD 1000 and 1200, riverbased flooding impacted the development of anthropogenic landscapes in the Tensas Basin of northeastern Louisiana during the transition from Coles Creek to Mississippian and Plaquemine cultural traditions (Kidder et al., 2008). Large-scale floods from 1000 to 500 BC contributed to the development of the high- elevation, crevasse splay landform on which the Carson site was later constructed (Mehta, 2015: 202; Mehta et al., 2017). River valley stabilization was critical to encourage long-term

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Fig. 12.4 Monumental and mounded archaeological sites in the Mississippi River Delta (MRD)

settlement and the establishment of mounds and plazas as enduring community symbols and as places of investment into the landscape through mound building. In a way, we can think of the elaboration of mound building and of large-scale earth moving events as a form of landesque intensification, wherein capital investments in land are manifest through the coordination of massive amounts of human labor for mound building, as opposed to canal building or other efforts directed at enhancing agricultural potential (Widgren, 2007). Low-water years replenish lowlands with nutrient-rich silt; medium-water years back up second- and third-order streams, creating lakes out of forests and farmlands; high-water years flood large areas of concentrated human settlement, change the course of streams, and force abandonment of entire regions (Barry, 1997; Kidder et al., 2008; Tornqvist et al., 1996). In the lower reaches of the MRD (Fig. 12.4), high-water years had the potential to flood entire landscapes and to force upstream switching of deltaic lobes, prompting abandonments of deltaic ecosystems. Given the prevalence of floods and watery, primeval worlds in the oral traditions of Native Americans in the Gulf South (Judson, 1914; Kidder, 2012; Kimmerer, 2013; Lankford, 1987; Swanton, 1929), we would expect that the timing of mound building and mound renewal would be closely tied to river activity.

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If the abundance of water can be problematic, so also can its absence. Megadroughts are well- documented in the CMV at various intervals, most notably at AD 940–985, AD 1100–1247, and AD 1340–1400, and these occurrences probably contributed to Cahokia’s decline and the spread of a Cahokian diaspora (Benson et al., 2007, 2009). The middle range (AD 1100–1247) largely coincides with the founding and initiation of mound construction at Carson. Analysis of PDSI data derived directly from the YB for the interval between AD 1000 and 1600 demonstrates that drought was common between the following intervals: AD 1100–1150, AD 1175–1200, AD 1210–1240, and AD 1400–1450, with some indication that droughts also worsened after the era of the Hernando de Soto entrada, from 1539 through 1543. Tying the PDSI sequences from CMV and YB together, it appears that drought from AD 1100 to AD 1240 must have been felt by people living at the Carson mounds site and others in its vicinity. How would Carsonians have adjusted to these rain-poor conditions? Based on OSL dates of samples from Mound D, major mound building efforts were initiated after AD 1200 (Mehta, 2015: 200); with more refined chronologies, perhaps we will find that moundbuilding episodes are correlated with the amelioration of drought conditions, potentially supported by oral histories of world emergence in watery landscapes (Judson, 1914). Alternatively, landscapes with abundant water like the MRD may have possessed greater inherent resilience in the face of drought conditions, and consequently, Indigenous communities persisted in their practices of mound construction as world renewal over thousands of years. Another water-related factor that impacted Indigenous communities in the LMV, particularly in the MRD, are hurricanes and flooding related to hurricanes and other storms. Although not directly applicable to the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic hurricane frequencies are thought to have reached peaks at approximately 1000 BP and 500 BP, dates that bookend the period of emergence and collapse of Mississippian chiefdoms, in general (Mann et al., 2009). Average hurricane land-fall rates along the Louisiana coast are, on average, two major tropical storms for every 3 years (Keim & Muller, 2009; Roth, 2010). Catastrophic hurricane frequency in the Gulf of Mexico was far more common from 1800 BC to AD 1000, typically at one per 200-year cycle; in the past 1000 years, catastrophic hurricanes have formed far less frequently than they did during the preceding 2800 years (Liu, 2007). Furthermore, large-scale fires are associated with hurricanes several months after landfall, due to the sheer quantity of kindling and dead vegetation left in the wake of such storms (Liu et al., 2008). Therefore, hurricanes and coastal marsh fires would have been far more common during the late first and early second millennium AD, leading up to the Mississippian period in the MRD (conventionally dated at AD 1200 onward), but by the time Coles Creek and Plaquemine groups were building mound-and-plaza complexes in southeastern Louisiana, tropical cyclonic storms and subsequent fires were far less frequent than they had been before. Historical ecological studies of the YB and MRD demonstrate that anthropogenic fires were also a common occurrence in both regions as early as 1000 BP, as documented through palynological studies and as documented in eighteenth-century written accounts by the French colonist, Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville (Chapman et al., 1982; Delcourt & Delcourt, 1985; Kidder, 1992, 1998; Whitehead & Sheehan, 1985).

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Palynological studies demonstrate significant changes in species diversity at 1000 BC in the YB. Documented increases in charcoal and fire-resistant taxa at this time suggest regional changes in cultural practices associated with the transition from the Archaic to Woodland periods (Delcourt et al., 1998; Scharf, 2010). Lake cores taken from near the YB demonstrate that the arrival of maize, Zea mays, at around AD 500 is correlated with increased charcoal and the rise of weedy and herbaceous plants, like goosefoot (Chenopodium), plantain (Plantago), sumpweed (Iva), and Purslane (Portulaceae), and early successional tree taxa, like pine (Pinus). These temporal changes in pollen profiles indicate that hardwoods were burned and depleted to create arable lands for maize agriculture (Delcourt & Delcourt, 1985; Scharf, 2010; Whitehead, 1972), as well as to encourage growth of native plants like Iva and Chenopodium that were food staples as part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) (Fritz, 1990; Pearsall, 2012). Peaks in the frequency of Asteraceae (Helianthus annus), Poaceae (likely from maygrass), and Cheno-Ams (likely from amaranth and Chenopodium) are also present at the beginning of the Mississippian period (circa AD 1000), and each of these plant species are all disturbance indicators, as are the taxa representing EAC cultigens, which would have thrived in disturbed habitats (Holloway & Valastro, 1983; Scharf, 2010: 168). Concomitant decreases in arboreal pollen taxa support this interpretation, that is, until the very end of the Mississippian period and the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. Numerous studies have documented how mound and shell midden construction in the MRD changed the species composition in and around Indigenous habitations. Documented increases in calciphilic biodiversity on earthen and shell mounds suggest indigenous inhabitants were aware of the effects of topography in low-lying coastal ecosystems and created earth islands and/or anthropogenic landscapes specifically to enhance the productivity of functional, usable plant species (Brown, 1936; Dunn, 1983; Eleuterius & Otvos, 1979; Kidder, 1998; LeMaire, 1961; Shenkel, 1981). Archaeological sites dating from the Middle-to-Late Woodland periods—including Cedar Island, Big Oak Island, Little Oak Island, and Little Woods—all feature artificially enhanced topographies that promoted the growth of useful plants in quantities far more abundant than in natural freshwater or saline marshes. Mounded topographies in low-lying coastal zones or in upland natural levee landforms produced over double the biodiversity of saline marshes and 10% more species than freshwater marshes (Brown, 1936; Dunn, 1983), including species like Sagittaria minutiflora that have only been documented on earthen and shell mounds (Eleuterius & Otvos, 1979). In considering the long-term effects Indigenous peoples had on the landscape, we recognize that anthropogenic fires, earthen and shell mounds, the domestication of local plants, and the farming of local and non-local plants all significantly and dramatically altered pre-Columbian landscapes in the YB and MRD regions. The arrival of Spanish conquistadors and French colonists then led to other significant alterations of those landscapes. With large-scale Indigenous population decline in the YB and surrounding regions following the Soto entrada (Brown, 1990, 2008; Mehta ,2013), arboreal forest reclaimed lands that had been consistently burned and kept clear of vegetation through fires, trampling, and agriculture. Population die-offs

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in the New World were so significant that with the regrowth of forests on Indigenous lands, enough carbon was sequestered to force significant cooling in the North Atlantic and in Europe, creating what we today call the Little Ice Age (Koch et al., 2019).

Environment and Society in the Lower Mississippi Valley Moundbuilding and mound-and-plaza arrangements from the Archaic and Woodland periods precede episodes of Mississippian terraforming and monumentality in the LMV (Gibson, 2000, 2010, 2019; Kassabaum, 2019, 2021; Saunders et al., 1994; Saunders, 2010, 2012). Similarly, quadripartiteism and dualism in mound arrangements at Coles Creek mound centers in the LMV predate Cahokia by several centuries (Emerson & Pauketat, 2008; Pauketat & Alt, 2003; Roe, 2007; Roe & Schilling, 2010; Steponaitis et al., 2015). However, the full suite of Mississippian culture, including agriculture, architecture, art, and material elements of religious practices, were not widespread within the LMV until after AD 1200. How did cycles of flooding, episodes of drought, cycles of hurricanes, and trends in warming and cooling shape the developments of Mississippian culture in the LMV? Coles Creek societies flourished in the LMV (the southern YB and MRD) during Cahokia’s ascendancy and hegemony from AD 1000 to 1200 (McNutt & Parish, 2020; Pauketat & Emerson, 1999), and at the early point of the Mississippian period in the LMV (conventionally dated at AD 1200), there were severe droughts affecting the CMV. There was generally less precipitation within the YB at AD 1200 than at AD 1050, but there were vibrant communities at Carson, Winterville, and Lake George, even as Cahokia itself had diminished. During this interval, Cahokian traits arrived in the northern YB, as well at other sites across the entire Mississippi River Valley, including at Gahagan in northwestern Louisiana (Emerson & Girard, 2004). The appearance of these Cahokian markers in the archaeology of the LMV corresponds to worsening climatic conditions in the CMV, and less pronounced and less prolonged episodes of drought in the LMV. Thinking about the timing of the beginnings of mound and plaza construction in the CMV and the timing of Cahokian influences in the LMV, it appears possible that migrations of Coles Creek communities north might have influenced monumental mound and plaza complexes in the CMV and that Cahokia’s presence in the LMV might actually mark a return migration of earlier, antecedent Coles Creek influences. Why did they return south? Were migrating groups escaping climatic deterioration as they were in the Middle Ohio River Valley (Comstock & Cook, 2018: 105; Cook, 2015; Cook & Comstock, Chap. 7, this volume) or were migrations and/or movements driven other factors, like the missionization of Mississippian belief systems (Alt, 2012; Boszhardt et al., 2015; Pauketat et al., 2015). As mentioned previously, the material and architectural evidence of Cahokians at Trempealeau and Aztalan suggests a migration driven by religion motivated specialists from the AB to go north, and, importantly, those Mississippian outposts in Wisconsin are located at

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greater distances from Cahokia than the distances between Cahokia and the YB and Carson site. Migration away and then back to Etowah by Mississippian communities demonstrates how movements of people are entwined within political processes, and connected to religiosity and/or responses to climatic and environmental changes (Cobb & King, 2005: 187, 2015), and the complexity of these processes should remind us that decisions to move from one area to another are not necessarily easy choices to make, and they are not necessarily highly formalized and carefully scripted events. In 2021, as of this writing, political narratives of migrations out of California seem to revolve around political, economic, and environmental ideologies. Ask a former Californian why they left, and they would likely provide a combination of reasons spanning the economic to the political to the environmental. Many people seek to migrate from places in Mexico and Central America to seek economic opportunity, to seek better livelihoods as global climate change impacts productivity of farmland in different areas, or to escape political oppression and even violence. Similar motives for migrations likely shaped movements of Indigenous peoples of the Mississippian Southeast both before and after European contact. Defining the economic, political, religious, and environmental processes for the Cahokian presence in the YB will require additional and more thorough excavations at the Carson site, as well as more extensive excavations at other sites with Cahokian artifacts in the LMV. Nevertheless, existing data provide a compelling narrative, one in which an expanding Cahokian polity sought to exert its influence across the Mississippian world, during a time in which its homeland was experiencing drought and likely some degree of agricultural famine. The early second millennium AD also corresponds to a period of relatively high frequency of hurricanes, followed by a period of somewhat less frequent hurricanes, perhaps creating conditions that were favorable for the eventual adoption of agriculture in coastal areas, and lending some relative stability in coastal and riverine landscapes both along the Louisiana coast and upriver along the Mississippi, that were then colonized. Hurricanes were more common along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico before AD 1000 than afterwards, and they were more common before AD 1000 and after AD 1500 than during the intervening years. We therefore suggest that hurricane frequency, and the problems associated with violent storms and the severity and scale of subsequent wildfires that led to disturbances and disruptions in the marshes and forests of coastal and inland areas, were diminished after AD 1000. Decreasing severity and frequency of violent storms probably did not directly correlate with nor or cause or force the adoption of maize agriculture, but decreased intensity and prevalence of disruptive storms probably made delayedreturn and labor-intensive practices like farming more predictable and more feasible, both in the YB and in the MRD. The increase in fire-tolerant taxa, decrease in arboreal taxa, and increased charcoal in lake cores at AD 1000 has been attributed to anthropogenic fires related to landscape management for agriculture in the LMV (Chapman et al., 1982; Delcourt & Delcourt ,1985; Whitehead & Sheehan, 1985). Coupled trends in frequency, severity, and scale of hurricanes and wildfires (Liu, 2007; Liu et al., 2008) also likely influenced the increase in fire-resistant taxa and

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decline in arboreal taxa. Both factors likely favored the adoption of maize agriculture, as well as greater landscape stability after AD 1000. Given the effects of water on landscapes and settlement patterns in the LMV, there probably were many cases of relatively short-distance movements in response to episodic and seasonal flooding, and periodic aggregations of people on relatively high and dry ground. Fine-grained analyses and OSL dating of flood sediments from the northern YB might be able to parse migration and movement as responses to river-based flooding. At the Carson mounds site, flooding was responsible for building long crevasse splay itself, and settlement activity at this locale increased dramatically after this land surface had stabilized, although some time elapsed between the formation of the crevasse splay and its stabilization and colonization by the Carson mounds community. Similarly, the formation of deltaic landscapes in the MRD did not immediately create a substrate on which Indigenous mound builders could colonize. Rather, several hundred years would transpire between land formation and occupation (Chamberlain et al., 2020); likely a sufficient timeframe for plants to colonize newly formed land, sediments to consolidate into soils, and for features of the landscape to become recognized as stable landforms that had developed from watery (under)worlds.

Conclusions Mississippian culture did not develop in the LMV in exactly the same ways as it did in the CMV or elsewhere, in part because of regional characteristics of environmental history and settlement history. Monumentality and moundbuilding have a long history in the LMV, going back to the Archaic period (Gibson, 1994, 2006; Saunders, 1994), although the density of mounded sites increased greatly after AD1200 (Brain, 1978; Kidder, 1998). At this point, droughts were more severe and more prevalent in the CMV than in the LMV, and the frequency and severity of hurricanes and associated disturbances and disruptions were less dramatic than they had been during much of the Woodland period, making the LMV a favorable setting for the spread of Cahokian lifeways and perhaps Cahokian colonists as well. Landscape stability during the early second millennium AD probably did not cause the adoption of maize agriculture in the LMV in and of itself, but it was probably favorable to the spread of this subsistence mode and attendant forms of settlement patterns during the Mississippian period. Paleoenvironmental evidence indicates the presence of a managed landscape in the LMV, the practice of anthropogenic fires following the introduction of maize during the mid-to-late first millennium AD, and the cessation of intensive landscape management following mid-sixteenth-century Spanish entradas and the demographic and political collapse of many communities during the late 1500s and 1600s (Mehta, 2013). Given the appearance of Cahokian architecture and artifacts at sites like Carson, Gahagan, and others, it is possible—and we consider it likely—that some Cahokian colonists moved southward and downstream from the CMV to the LMV during the

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early twelfth or thirteenth centuries. The arrangements of earthen mounds around plazas, evident at Cahokia and elsewhere in the CMV, may have been an export from the LMV, where it was present at Coles Creek sites dating from the first millennium AD It is possible that Cahokian migrants to the LMV were returning to an ancestral landscape, of a sort—with arrangements of mounds, plazas, and ritually emplaced posts (Kassabaum, 2019; Kassabaum & Nelson, 2016; Nelson, 2017; Nelson & Kassabaum, 2014)—and this topic is worthy of further consideration. We argue that people in the CMV may have imported some Mississippian elements northward and upstream—like the mound-and-plaza arrangement—and that some Mississippian elements were then exported southward and downstream back to the LMV as part of the broader Cahokian diaspora. Aspects of recognizable Mississippian culture, including maize agriculture, spread widely in the YB and MRD after AD 1200, when environmental conditions were more favorable for it, and more favorable in the LMV than they were in the CMV, contributing to the diminished status of Cahokia and movement of many people out of the AB. The development of Mississippian culture in the LMV then encompasses longterm histories of settlement and monumentality within the region, movements and migrations as well as long- distance interaction and exchange, and localized adaptations to changes in environment and climate. Cahokian influences become apparent in the LMV at the point of demographic and political decline of Cahokia itself, which was related in part to droughts that followed precipitation regimes that were conducive to high agricultural productivity. Drought conditions were less severe in the LMV, and other cultural and environmental factors were favorable for the development of the many powerful and prosperous chiefdoms that were present during the era of the Soto entrada in the mid-sixteenth century. Acknowledgements We are grateful to Robert Cook and Aaron Comstock for the opportunity to contribute to this collection of papers, and we thank John Connaway, Jessica Fleming Crawford, Tim Pauketat, William Balée, Tanya Peres, Jessi Halligan, Tom Leppard, Mark Rees, and Greg Wilson for guidance and encouragement. We acknowledge funding and other support from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the National Geographic Society; the Mississippi Department of Archives and History; the Louisiana Division of Archaeology; and the School of Liberal Arts, the Department of Anthropology, the Center for Archaeology, the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South, and the ByWater Institute and A Studio in the Woods at Tulane University.

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Part V

Commentary and Further Discussion

Chapter 13

Reassessing Migration and Climate Change During the Mississippian Period Charles R. Cobb

It is rare in a diverse collection such as this to find a very broad, underlying connection, even when the contributions are organized around the same topic(s)— in this case climate change, migration, and social transformation. I would propose, though, that the theme of political ecology is a leitmotif to this compilation even while the term does not appear even once in any of the contributions. While the concept has been around for almost a century, Eric Wolf (1972) is credited with re-establishing it in the social sciences. In his view, political ecology focused on how relations of power mediate the interaction between society and the environment in a dialectical and multivariate way. Through the decades political ecology has continued to be informed by ongoing theoretical concerns in anthropology, such that currently emphasis is placed on its non-essentialist character (Escobar, 1999; Taylor, 2015). From this perspective, nature and culture are not ontologically distinct; their blurring requires a consideration of how the environment is experienced and acted upon by individuals or societies. In turn, the socialization of nature is articulated with the construction of human identity and communities (Escobar, 1999:7–11; Lovell, 1998:72–73; Paulson et al., 2003:205). Local knowledge and practices are pivotal in this process. This atmosphere of mutualism pervades all of the chapters in this volume, although it has been ratcheted up yet another level to encompass climate change as well. One might say that these are studies in political climatology: how societies phrased their understandings and reactions to the ways that climate affected their environmental milieu. All of the studies are careful to avoid climatological or environmental determinism, and one of the constant refrains is that transformations enacted by societies in their engagement with the environment establish new sets of

C. R. Cobb (*) Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, FL, USA e-mail: ccobb@flmnh.ufl.edu © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. A. Cook, A. R. Comstock (eds.), Following the Mississippian Spread, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89082-7_13

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conditions that further shape and are shaped by society. In the systems-speak of days of yore, communities create continually undulating networks of socially-induced feedback loops in their accommodations to climate and ecology. Collectively, the chapters provide a solid longitudinal perspective on the trajectories of Mississippian political ecologies through various regions in the American Southeast and Midwest, and how they shifted—or did not shift—in concert with major pluvial and drought episodes. But it is evident that there are two climatic-tocultural correlations that hold special significance. First, the warm and wet conditions that marked the onset of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (ca. AD 950) coincided with the Big Bang (Pauketat, 1994) in the American Bottom of westcentral Illinois. Second, severe multi-decadal droughts in the AD 1300s and 1400s co-occurred with large-scale regional abandonments in the mid-continent (the so-called Vacant Quarter [Williams, 1990]), much of the Savannah River drainage (Anderson, 1994; Ritchie & Anderson, Chap. 12), the Yazoo Basin (Williams, 2001), and the coast of the Carolinas (Cable, 2020). These climatic bookends to classic Mississippian culture were intimately associated with multi-scalar population movements that restructured significant swathes of the Southeast and Midwest. As Comstock et al. helpfully remind us in this volume, there has long been an interest in climate change and migration in Mississippian research. But the popularity of the topics has varied through the years and they are enjoying a special period of attention in the twenty-first century. Part of the reason for this seems to be changing trends in theory, where these variables are now more greatly appreciated for the importance in culture change than they were in the heyday of the processual era. Part of the reason may be current events. As climate change and transnational migrations have increasingly become regular features of front-page news, archaeologists and historians increasingly are turning their attention to deeper histories of these processes. As Comstock et al. point out, one of the challenges, at least in Mississippian studies, is that there has been insufficient study of the nature of the relationship between migration and climate change. The chapters in this volume make a particularly important contribution toward filling this gap. Although these studies approach migration, climate change, and social change in diverse ways, there are three strands running through the volume that I think are particularly worthy of critical appraisal: the revival of migration studies; the predicament of surplus; the social implications of droughts and floods; and, I have added a fourth topic of my own making: how climate change and migration during the Mississippian period might have had implications for Native American lifeways during the colonial era— and continue to do so today.

The Migration Revival In the overview at the beginning of this volume, Comstock et al. comment on how migration has re-entered the mainstream of research in North American archaeology. In Mississippian studies it is now a common topic of study (e.g., Alt, 2006; Blitz,

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1999; Cobb & Butler, 2006; Cook & Schurr, 2009; Pauketat, 2003). Two quotations from within the last 10 years reflect the Lazarus-like revival of migration studies: In a little over two decades, the study of migration in U.S. archaeology has gone from a discredited remnant of culture history to a major research theme (Cameron, 2013:218). We now realize that migration across great distances is one of the fundamental processes of human history (Earle et al., 2011:192).

John Chapman (1997) makes a case for two factors leading to the marginalization of migration during the rise of processual, scientific archaeology in the 1960s. First, advances in chronology-building discredited a number of important instances of presumed migration in the first half of the twentieth century. Second, as the critique of the notion of bounded cultures (and culture areas) gathered steam, migration was fingered as one of the central villains in perpetuating a normative perspective that elided the importance of cultural variability. To Chapman’s two factors we may add a third, which is that migration was viewed as a historical or ideographic variable of the sort that had little to contribute to a theoretical framework that privileged generalizing and systemic explanations of the past (Binford, 1968). The resurgence of migration studies is due in large part to the recognition that these earlier critiques were misplaced, and it is now recognized that migration is fundamental to the production and reproduction of culture. In the American Southwest, though there may be debates about some of the details and timing of population movement, it is now well accepted that numerous small–scale and large–scale migrations took place throughout the late prehistoric period, ca. AD 900–1500 (e.g., Bernardini, 2005; Cameron, 1995, 2013; Duff, 2002). The restored emphasis on migration has coincided with a renewed appreciation for the role of history and historical processes in framing explanations about the past. David Anthony (1990, 1997) has argued that migration is “rule-governed and regular” to some degree, whereas Malcolm Todd (2001:15) maintains “No single formula [for migration] will suffice because the motivations were never simple and relations between migrants and the populations they sought to join do not adhere to any set of rules.” These differences in outlook to some extent reflect what the respective individuals find of particular importance about migration. Anthony’s work is the product of his sustained effort toward exploring systematic variability in the structure and mechanisms for migration. He has provided some important typologies that reflect scalar and organizational conditions that do seem to recur through history. Todd’s focus on motivations and relations suggests a greater interest in intentionality and unintended consequences. Yet Anthony’s (1997) insistence that migration is also a social strategy subject to a variety of “push” and “pull” variables seems to reflect an interest in historicity, as well. As Comstock et al. observe in the introduction to this volume, the chapters in this volume now ask us to consider how these aspects of migration may be specifically linked, directly or indirectly, with climate change. The additional challenge is to foster an understanding of migration as a process of culture-making (Pauketat, 2003) within a shifting climatic and environmental milieu.

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As the connection between abandonment and climate was enjoying an upswing of attention in the American Southwest in the 1990s, Stephen Lekson and Catherine Cameron (1995: 184) made an important distinction between abandonment and migration: abandonment is to depart, but migration is to travel and arrive. Accordingly, it is important to elaborate on this distinction and the chapters in this volume have done so in important ways. Some have pointed out that many of the Mississippian migrations were not just about adverse climatic conditions, but also were responses to ameliorating environments and other opportunities. This is an example of Anthony’s (1997) point that migration can be a social phenomenon responding to a pull factor. The great influx of peoples from many directions toward the American Bottom is the clearest example of this (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). These waves of migrants do not necessarily represent abandonment of their home regions insofar as we can tell; they seem to have fissioned from parent groups and departed for what they perceived as greener pastures in Greater Cahokia. The same seems to be true for some of the other migration–recipient regions documented in other chapters, like the Chattahoochee drainage (Brannan, Chap. 10, this volume) or the Middle Ohio Valley (Cook & Comstock, Chap. 7, this volume). If climate alone cannot account for these movements, what was the allure of these regions such that peoples were willing to uproot and travel fairly lengthy distances to reach them? Even if we cannot yet satisfactorily answer that question, a number of studies also have made strides in understanding the materiality of the consequences of migration, particularly with regard to the cultural mixing of traditions. In a somewhat prescient study published over a decade ago, Susan Alt argued that archaeologists needed to be more attentive to the convergence of migration and hybrid practices. Drawing on Bhabha’s (1994) observations on how hybridity is a liminal “thirdspace,” Alt (2006:300) proposed that: Hybridity would imply that the mix of immigrants and local people and the encounters with difference created thirdspaces, in which the creation of new cultural forms became possible. I argue that the movements of people on the landscape would have engendered new senses of space and place that themselves helped to create Mississippian culture as we know it. People moving across the landscape inevitably resulted in encounters with difference not only in a spatial sense but also in a cultural sense. People with different traditions met and such meetings resulted in changed sensibilities for those engaged in the encounters.

Her related case study of the Richland Complex east of the American Bottom suggested that hybrid caches of objects from different places as well as atypical forms of architecture (faux wall trenches) attested to much more than just the convergence of peoples; these were material expressions of new cultural sensibilities that were far more than the sum of their parts. The concept of hybridity has enjoyed somewhat of a checkered career in the archaeological literature on colonialism (cf. Card, 2013; Liebmann, 2015; Silliman, 2015; VanValkenburgh, 2013). I would submit, nonetheless, that the framework of cultural mixing as a process of continual innovation and invention linked to migration remains important for Mississippian studies because the movement of peoples in southeastern North America occurred with such frequency at different scales. The complexity of population movement surrounding the emergence of Greater Cahokia in particular borders on the staggering. What is particularly

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fascinating is that there is no clear unidirectionality to this process—there was simultaneous inflow and outflow of peoples to the American Bottom ca. 1000 CE and afterwards leading to an ongoing, swirling coalescence of peoples (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). As Zych and Richards also observe in this volume, this was a multi-scalar phenomenon where emissaries were traveling hundreds of kilometers out of the American Bottom in the eleventh century at the same time that travelers were arriving from similar distances. Cahokian emissaries appear to have been radiating up the Illinois Valley in the same time frame (Wilson & Bird, Chap. 4, this volume). Elsewhere, Cook and Comstock (Chap. 7, this volume) document a fascinating intrusion into the Middle Ohio Valley whereby the core of one site (Guard) appears to have Mississippian characteristics, but the residential zone looks Fort Ancient. Was this some kind of hybrid social partnership where a Mississippian founding population laid out the sacred nucleus by constructing a plaza with some surrounding wall trench houses, then Fort Ancient peoples were allowed to build a halo of domestic life around this sacred center? The Carson site in the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Fisher Mounds and the Trempealeau Complex in the Upper Mississippi Valley seem to represent a study in contrasts in the ways in which emigrants from Cahokia were received in different locales. At the Carson site, the appearance of archetypical American Bottom semi-subterranean architecture accompanied by diagnostics like Powell Plain pottery and Burlington chert suggest some degree of integration into the community (Mehta & Rodning, Chap. 12, this volume). In contrast, apparent American Bottom emigres at Fisher Mounds appear to have remained spatially and culturally distinct from their Late Woodland neighbors (Pauketat et al., 2015). Despite the importance of migration and hybrid practices, perhaps we need to also pay more attention to apparent-site unit intrusions where communities persisted as socially isolated enclaves. Pottery seems to be the most common proxy for hybridity, either in terms of mixed attributes on pots themselves, or the co-mingling of different ceramic types (e.g., Late Woodland and Mississippian) from the same context. Cook and Comstock (Chap. 7, this volume) suggest that some of the ceramic attributes at the Guard site are potentially an expression of an “ethnic hybridity” related to Mississippian migrants who mixed with local Woodland peoples and traditions in the central Ohio Valley. For the Upper Illinois River Valley, Emerson et al. (Chap. 5, this volume) posit that ethnogenesis, or ethnic hybridity, characterized the outcome of violent confrontations accompanying the likely movement of Mississippian groups out of Cahokia in the late 11th and 12th centuries AD. These changes were not limited to pottery, but extended to mortuary ceremonialism, mound construction, and other activities. In other regions, terms like hybridity and ethnogenesis are not used specifically, but the notions carry over. Sullivan et al. (Chap. 8, this volume) make the fascinating case for a distinct duality in extralocal intrusions into the towns of eastern Tennessee. The appearance of utilitarian pottery from the Middle Cumberland region is suggestive of families arriving and mixing with the local communities. In contrast, artifacts arriving from the Etowah region in northern Georgia seem to have ritual

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connotations, attesting to the presence of ritual specialists and/or their ideas. Here we have another great snapshot of the true complexity of migration during the Mississippian period, where we have the possibility of one region (eastern Tennessee) receiving migrants likely pushed by droughts out of central Tennessee (more on this below), while at the same time receiving an influx of religious specialists from the Etowah locality—perhaps to cater to a new audience under physical and emotional distress? It almost conjures up the image of a good old-fashioned Southern tent revival carried out at a regional scale.

The Predicament of Surplus The contributions to this volume convincingly make the case that the Medieval Climate Anomaly encouraged the swarms of people to trek to Cahokia and environs in the eleventh century AD, fueling the rapid coalescence of a cultural phenomenon that would eventually have pan- regional repercussions. Although not the only variable in this process, the Medieval Climate Anomaly seemingly made it all possible by establishing an environment particularly suitable for maize agriculture. In this regard, the very rapid adoption of maize and ensuing surpluses seems to have been strongly implicated in the institutionalization of a dense network of communities bound by ritual and politics—not only in the American Bottom, but throughout the Mississippian Southeast and Midwest. The difficulty with this argument, at least as a line of causation, is that the enabling power of surplus is so often taken for granted. In other words, many of these chapters observe (correctly, in my opinion) that the pas de deux of population increase and surplus production was subtle, where neither dance partner clearly took the lead. But there is an unspoken assumption that once that dynamic spiral was established, the conditions were created for consistent maize surpluses that enabled social hierarchy and the other embellishments we associate with cultural complexity. This facile portrayal of surplus production as a simple abundance that somehow gets directed in creative ways has become an established trope in anthropology—and the social sciences in general—that is remarkably resistant to excision. It originally came under systematic fire in the late 1950s and 1960s in a debate in economy anthropology (cf. Dalton, 1960, 1963; Harris, 1959; Orans, 1966; Pearson, 1957). Harry Pearson (1957) was among the first to argue that surplus is not simply an extra volume laying around that could be put to various uses as a society saw fit. Instead, it was always socially defined and not necessarily some kind of threshold as a precursor to social stratification. In fact, the arrows of causality could be reversed. George Dalton (1960, 1963) observed that all known societies created some kind of surplus. The question then becomes why would that surplus become necessarily linked to the sustenance of social hierarchy? Certainly, population pressure is always lurking in the background, but, as Dalton noted, it could be that social structure itself becomes an impetus for promoting surplus production.

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Even in modern society the fetishized ideology persists that large surpluses accrue as a function of general and impersonal principles of supply and demand rather than the outcome of deliberate social decision-making that favors some parties over others. In 2018, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. government’s infamous and enormous cheese surplus had reached an all-time high of 1.39 billion pounds (Dewey, 2018). The Post attributed this stockpile to a “booming production of milk and consumers’ waning interest in the dairy beverage.” Left out of this equation is an incredibly complicated skein involving government incentives, the collapse of family dairy farms, the rise of massive, corporate dairy operations, and other variables that fuel this huge surplus. The inertia of a history of networked obligations confounds the consideration of alternative ways of paring it down. Even as the cheese sits, apparently idle, it is a socially necessary surplus. My point here is not to criticize dairy subsidies. Instead, it is to emphasize that surpluses do not just materialize as a function of productivity. Productivity itself is encouraged, restrained, and channeled through a complex welter of social choices. Having made this argument, I will concede that the variables involved in the adoption and intensification of maize by Native American peoples were surely multivariate and not easily mapped. They no doubt included demography, but may have further included opportunity, emulation, and social pressures from above. Maize surpluses may have been one of the foundations of chiefly authority, but it is problematic as to whether abundances preceded hierarchy or were a cause of it. Finally, the spark for the Mississippian phenomenon required a convergence of the right place (a rich, arable region such as the American Bottom), the right time (the suitably pluvial conditions of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly), and the right resource (maize, with its highly flexible genome and capacity for productivity). Even if we still cannot precisely place a finger on the reasons and timing behind the adoption of maize and its promising yields by Indigenous groups in the American midcontinent, as the chapters in this volume attest, there are still fundamentally important issues to be addressed in this complex process. Aside from the opportunities afforded by maize intensification, it may be equally interesting to consider the kinds of predicaments created by the wholesale adoption of a new keystone species within a subsistence repertoire. Mark Hauser (2017) applies the term “predicament” to the rapid transition of colonial-era plantations from coffee and cacao to sugar on the Caribbean Island of Dominica, which instigated a number of unforeseen shifts in the local ecology, demands on water, and contradictions in capitalist production. Predicament does not necessarily have a negative connotation; it primarily means that societies may develop complex scaffoldings of practice as they embark along certain historical trajectories, and these structures may create new circumstances and paradoxes for social reproduction. Indeed, as some of the studies herein emphasize, abandonment and migration under times of social and climatic duress are not necessarily a signature of failing to thrive; they could be flexible and resilient responses to social and environmental hazards (Burnett et al. & Emerson et al., Chap. 11, Chap. 5, this volume).

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One of the predicaments of maize farming is that, even if we only hazily understand the factors underlying its adoption, the social surpluses made possible by its intensification came to undergird the political and moral economies of chiefly power. Anything that threatened those surpluses, ranging from droughts to the arrival of needy European explorers, created a predicament of authority for leaders who lacked strongly secularized positions of power. As various chapters underscore, severe droughts likely impaired the ability of chiefs to employ their powers of persuasion founded on the distribution of surpluses through patronage, gifting, debt and other social mechanisms. Moreover, the Mississippian life way in large part was predicated on the symbolic and practical rhythms of the harvest. The green corn ceremony, world-renewal ceremonialism, and other elements of a rich ritual life tethered to maize seem to have been fundamental to the Mississippian worldview. These beliefs were deeply materialized in the landscape, ranging from mound construction to woodhenges to feasting pits. Mississippian identity as linked to the cycle of maize was very much founded in the temporality the landscape. Severe declines in maize production potentially challenged the moral authority of leaders who were supposed to strike a balance with the cosmos, potentially destabilizing chiefdoms during times of want. One possible response to this anxiety was the increasing importance of weather-related heroes and deities from the Mississippian religious pantheon (Burnette et al. Chap. 11, this volume). Another potential predicament was the speed of maize adoption, which, in the American Bottom at least, appears to have been extremely rapid. Mary Simon has carefully documented that the long-accepted Middle Woodland contexts and/or species identifications of maize are now flat- out wrong, or at best problematic (see Comstock et al., Chap. 1, this volume). In turn, strontium isotope data from American Bottom skeletal series now suggest a rapid, if variable, adoption of maize after AD 900, coinciding with what appears to be a significant wave of immigration into the region (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). Surrounding regions appear to have adopted maize very soon after in the process of Mississippianization. Even in more “distant” locations, such as the Fort Ancient region, the transition to maize reliance was swift (Cook & Comstock, Chap. 7, this volume). What was once thought to be a slow, long-term incorporation of maize into a suite of native cultigens has now been replaced by a model of dramatic replacement. Now that this idea seems to be established, it seems that even more attention must be paid to the consequences and predicaments of abrupt subsistence change. Focusing on a productive staple comes at a cost of greater risk by reducing the buffer of a diverse subsistence base. Did the increasing independence on maize agriculture make societies more vulnerable to droughts and floods during the Mississippian period to a much greater degree than earlier times (see Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume)? Moreover, what is the technological, social, demographic, and cultural baggage that accompanied, likewise in rapid fashion, the adoption of maize? One of these seems to be the need for nixtamalization to effectively release maize nutrients (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). What kinds of demands, if any, did this place on acquiring the resources (limestone and/or firewood) to catalyze this process? Limestone was only readily available in some regions of the Southeast. Firewood

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was far more accessible, but did nixtamalization place greater stress on forests around settlements that were already heavily exploited? Evidence from the American Bottom for increasing dependence on upland species of trees for fuel and construction suggests that bottomland forests were being progressively cleared (Lopinot & Woods, 1993). In turn, deforestation may have prompted rising water levels, such that settlements began to migrate toward more elevated points in the floodplain landscape (Milner, 2006: 126 [but see Rankin et al., 2021 for a counterargument). Overall, the complicated dynamic between maize productivity and population growth may have instilled its own set of idiosyncratic predicaments by fostering a highly managed landscape that may have made it more prone to environmental perturbations. These are the kinds of conditions that may make migrations more feasible in times of climatic unpredictability. Not all of the landscape predicaments of maize and the need for maize surpluses were based in ecology, though. As Hedman et al. point out (Chap. 2, this volume), Cahokia’s challenges may have equally been those of urbanization: population density and social stress. History and the entrenchment of traditions also created predicaments. Once committed to maize or another staple crop and a highly managed landscape, it is not necessarily easy to reverse or change course. As Ian Hodder (2012) puts it, social engagements with materiality (ranging from objects to the landscape) create a relational web of constraints and entrapments. This is why droughts are likely to have had an impact in a way in the AD 1300s that they would not have had 500 years earlier. In addition to the abandonment scenarios discussed in the various chapters to the volume, there were also the entrapments of staying in place. For those who opted to remain, the impacts of droughts may have been devastating in ways that went well beyond providing sufficient sustenance. Warfare seems to be one of the correlations with the periodic droughts marking the Mississippian period, with a spike in the AD 1200s that seems to have become endemic by the AD 1300s and 1400s. Wilson and Bird (Chap. 4, this volume) propose that the fortified villages that characterize this era became “population sinks” associated with many adverse health consequences that extend well beyond the mortality associated with warfare. As they argue, communities behind palisades may have found their mobility greatly circumscribed because of fears of violence, which, in turn, may have hampered their ability to farm and gather other resources. Evidence of this kind of pattern has been documented by VanDerwarker and Wilson (2016) for the Central Illinois River Valley. Some of the later Mississippian sites there exhibit a decrease in wild plant abundance and a decline in fish remains during a time of endemic Mississippian warfare, which they attribute to a constriction in the range in which people felt safe foraging. Parallel arguments have been made for the Averbuch site in the Middle Cumberland region, where a significant restriction in the spectrum of plants coincides with a period of heightened violence (Cobb & Steadman, 2021; Worne et al., 2012). This particular population sink likewise experienced a range of adverse health conditions potentially linked to dietary deficiencies and immuno-suppression, including enamel hypoplasia, porotic skull lesions, tuberculosis, and treponematosis. Interestingly, a biodistance study of 16 Mississippian sites in the Middle Cumberland region has shown that intraregional

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migration increased through time, along with the threats of violence and drought (Vidoli & Worne, 2018). It seems that for those who opted not to decamp this area for eastern Tennessee (Sullivan et al., Chap. 9), northwestern Arkansas (Burnette et al., Chap. 11, this volume), and the Middle Ohio Valley (Cook and Comstock, Chap. 7, this volume) as conditions deteriorated, their patterns of migration became increasingly tethered to local communities that offered safe harbor—surely a very complex web of predicaments emanating in part from decisions by forebears to adopt maize several centuries earlier.

Droughts and Floods and Disasters, Oh My! As the foregoing chapters demonstrate, we are now at a point where we have the necessary data to argue that there are general correspondences between long-term climate change, episodic environmental events, migrations, and various social transformations during the Mississippian period. Some of the methodological strides being made to achieve these insights are truly impressive. As just a few examples: Lake sediment cores are providing the data for new insights on climate, flood episodes, and population proxies at a local level of resolution that would have been unimaginable not that long ago (Schroeder et al. and Wilson and Bird, Chap. 3, Chap. 4, this volume). Richison and Anderson (Chap. 9, this volume) provide the only study I am aware of that actually tries to estimate the scale of Mississippian population movement with some degree of precision, an absolutely critical step for addressing the social consequences of migratory flows. Stable isotope data from human skeletal samples now provide the hard evidence for population movement that we formerly could only indirectly infer from the circulation of artifacts and the reorganization of settlement patterns (Hedman et al., Chap. 2, this volume). Despite having the basic necessary facts on climate change and migration change provided by these compelling studies, however, in many cases we still lack sufficient facts and models to explain why changes occurred the way they did. As we scan the panorama of outcomes related to droughts and floods it is hard to escape the notion that, with all due respect to the importance of generalizations and comparative research, the idiosyncrasies of cultural tradition and historical contingency figured importantly in the ways that people responded to dramatic changes—both positive and negative—in the world around them. In other words, at some point we have to invoke the “X Factor” (Pauketat, 2007:107): What is the zeitgeist created by specific Mississippian peoples within a specific setting, that which is a synthesis of their past practices and present experiences, and which prompts communities into certain directions in the future? Why do different communities respond to similar stimuli or stressors in such divergent, and often unpredictable ways? And, to complicate matters even more, how do these local histories intersect with regional and pan-regional currents, both social and environmental?

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Floods and droughts are not merely oppositions in terms of relative water abundance, they tend to be temporally distinct. Whereas floods that induce social change are episodic, it usually takes protracted periods of drought to spur migrations and other significant forms of reorganization. Given the recurrence of inundations in the floodplain settings typical of many major Mississippian towns, it now seems that this periodicity may have been integrated into larger worldviews. Mehta and Rodning (Chap. 12, this volume) propose that seasonal flooding in the Lower Mississippi Valley may have been implicated in regular bouts of mound building and world renewal, while Sarah Baires (2017) has argued that Cahokia and other communities in the American Bottom had integrated their ritual landscapes with the watery environs that accompanied the predictable waxing and waning of the Mississippi River. At the other end of the spectrum, unanticipated major flood events prompted more dramatic physical responses. Schroeder et al. (Chap. 3, this volume) convincingly show through their work on fecal stanols that a very large magnitude flood (Flood Event V) was a key variable in the population decline in the American Bottom in the 1200s CE. Further, they highlight a constellation of contemporary landscape shifts, including the desertion of the Lunsford-Pulcher mound complex south of Cahokia and the conversion of the East St. Louis mound complex into a vacant ceremonial center. Given that these communities all were located in bottomlands exposed to Flood Event V, these kinds of events are perhaps understandable. Left unanswered, however, is why the Richland Complex would have been deserted, another abandonment episode that Schroeder et al. point out also occurred at the same time? These sites were in an upland plain environment, unlikely to have been directly affected by any flood of less than biblical proportions. Nevertheless, it is still quite possible that the dissipation of social networks with the settlement upheaval in the American Bottom may have made the Richland environs less appealing from a cultural point of view—the X Factor at work. Transformations in the social environment may have been just as significant in prompting social relocation as climatic and environmental changes. Likewise, responses to a shortage of water can be as much a function of the dependencies that a society has created as much as a shortfall that is actually lifethreatening. Mississippian peoples were continually contending with droughts as defined by modern standards. The American Bottom witnessed several significant drought episodes during the Mississippian period (Benson et al., 2009); the PDSI measures for the Yazoo Basin indicate that droughts were a regular feature of that landscape (Mehta & Rodning, Chap. 12, this volume); at least three mega-droughts visited the Upper Illinois River Valley between AD 940 and 1400 (Emerson et al., Chap. 8); the Lower Chattachoochee Valley regularly had mild droughts (Brannan, Chap.10, this volume); and, as Meeks and Anderson (2013) have demonstrated, the Vacant Quarter region was periodically visited by significant droughts before it became the Vacant Quarter. Why do some droughts trigger migrations and others not? Is it a matter of the scale of the drought? Is it a function of the vulnerability of populations that may be more reliant on staple crops? Or is it perhaps

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some combination of these and other variables that lead a community or group of communities to believe that they have come to reside in socially or ecologically uninhabitable space? Comstock et al. (Chap. 1, this volume) has provided us the important service of thinking about drought in the context of variability in maize genotypes and phenotypes. As they point out, since the varieties of maize moving eastward through the Colorado Plateau and the Great Plains were already adapted to arid conditions, from the perspective of the plant a Midwestern drought might still represent a wetter and more attractive environment than normal conditions in the Southwest where it was also a staple. Given that so many of the preceding chapters presume that droughts may have had profound effects on Mississippian social organization and mobility, Simon’s observations really should urge us to look much more closely at the relative nature of droughts vis-à-vis the resiliency of various plants to withstand them—and how substitute resources may be called into play. In this regard, Amanda Logan’s (2016) work in Ghana provides an interesting lesson for Mississippian archaeologists. The Banda region where she has been working underwent a severe series of droughts ca. AD 1400–1650, suspiciously about the same time as the droughts associated with the Vacant Quarter in the American Midcontinent. Millet and sorghum were (and are) particularly important agricultural plants in Banda, but sorghum prefers pluvial conditions whereas millet has a tolerance for drought. Logan’s archaeological research found that there was almost a total shift to millet reliance in the AD 1400–1650, with the resumption of a more balanced mix of crops with the return of wetter conditions. Despite the severity of the decline in rainfall that seems to have equaled that witnessed in the American midcontinent during the same period, there was a strong sense of continuity and settlement stability due to the innovative swapping back and forth of agricultural dependencies. A key lesson we can take from her study is that droughts can be relative, and that even the most severe ones as measured by modern standards do not always predictably lead to upheaval and abandonment. Certainly, major migrations in other parts of the world have been attributed to dramatic climate change, ranging from Bronze Age Mesopotamia (Weiss et al., 1993) to the Viking abandonment of the north Atlantic region in the early AD 1400s (Antunes et al., 2012). But as we all know, correlation does not necessarily beget causality, and the problematic nature of this symmetry is widely recognized in research on climate and large-scale abandonments worldwide. In the American Southwest, which has some of the more precise data on settlement relocations and precipitation oscillations, direct ties between abandonment and climate deterioration continue to be problematic despite periods where the overlap between the two strongly implies a relationship (Kintigh & Ingram, 2018). Marked boom and bust cycles occurred throughout Neolithic Europe without any clear link to climatic proxies (Shennan et al., 2013). Moreover, climatic events may have greatly variable expressions in different settings. The Medieval Climatic Anomaly that encouraged the Mississippian phenomenon was typified by extreme variations in precipitation that, in other parts of the globe, may actually have challenged agricultural societies (Bradley et al., 2003; Stine, 1994).

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In addition to assessing contingent responses in the temporality and scale of climatic episodes, we must also consider their spatiality. The Vacant Quarter poses particularly interesting challenges in this regard. Tackling a similar scale of abandonment in Copper Age Iberia, Katina Lillios (1993) asks these questions: What could account for a relatively synchronous exodus over such a huge and heterogenous region? How could a single cause (such as massive droughts) lead so many people to evacuate an area that surely had considerable variation in temperature and precipitation, in either very dry or very wet times? Was there some kind of domino effect where just simply the knowledge that a sizable population was deserting one locality would prompt a neighboring population under less stress to depart? On a larger scale, this latter point is the same one that arose relative to the upland Richland complex peoples emigrating in the wake of a large flood event that likely had no direct impact on their subsistence. A major step in addressing these questions will be developing a high-resolution chronology of the ordering of the dominoes. Meeks and Anderson (2013) have laid a key foundation stone for this kind of study with their abandonment estimates for different sub-regions within the Vacant Quarter. These estimates rely on probability-distributions based on hundreds of legacy radiocarbon dates, but realistically we are thousands of AMS dates away from the kind of temporal resolution that we need. Now that the Vacant Quarter has been more clearly delineated spatially, the time also seems ripe to consider its edge-effects. In other words, what was occurring in those fuzzy areas transitional to abandoned areas? These seem to reflect some of the more interesting patterns of re-organization resulting from a complex mix of social and environmental choices. Piedmont Georgia and eastern Mississippi seem to have similar histories in this regard. Jay Johnson (2000) believes that a mid-fifteenth century abandonment of the Upper Tombigbee drainage westward to the uplands of the Black Prairie was accompanied by a dissolution of aggregated mound-and-plaza centers and the development of a dispersed settlement pattern. The AD 1400s abandonment of the mound centers in the Savannah drainage seems to have been followed by a move to the uplands, where groups along drainages like the Oconee River also spread into small, scattered farmsteads and towns (Anderson et al., 1995; Kowalewski & Hatch, 1991). This type of dispersal also seems to have accompanied the radiation down the Savannah Valley to the coast (Richison & Anderson, Chap. 9, this volume), a pattern also seen in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley after AD 1400 (Brannan, Chap. 10, this volume). Brannan (Chap. 10, this volume) suggests that dispersals coinciding with the Vacant Quarter were common throughout the Southeast; however, this pattern seems to apply more to the southern rim of the Southeast. In contrast, on the western edge of the Vacant Quarter the exact opposite occurs, where there is an upsurge of fortified, nucleated towns (Burnett et al., Chap. 11, this volume). Meanwhile, eastern Tennessee gives a sense of migrants moving in with extant communities (Sullivan et al., Chap. 9). Along the northerly perimeter of the Vacant Quarter, Oneota populations seems to have engaged in a variable dynamic with Mississippian peoples, ranging from co-existence, to conflict, to displacement (Emerson et al., Chap. 5, this volume; Milner et al., 1991; Wilson & Bird, Chap. 4, this volume; Zych

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& Richards, Chap. 6, this volume). To expand on the query raised by Lillios (1993) asking why a large and relatively heterogeneous region would be abandoned more at less all at the same time: if the Vacant Quarter can be attributed to a single cluster of variables felt equally across the midcontinent, why are there so many variable responses that accompanied the out-migration? As a final point on climatic conditions, I think it is worth our while to distinguish between protracted periods of climatic and social stress versus threshold or tipping points of rapid change—and why one versus the other might occur. Burnett et al. (Chap. 11, this volume) describe what appears to have been an extremely rapid exodus out of the Cairo Lowland, perhaps fueled by tandem concerns with upsurges in climate change and violence beginning sometime in the 1300s AD. My own work assessing the timing of the Middle Cumberland portion of the Vacant Quarter gives me the sense that the remaining communities abandoned it relatively rapidly in the mid-1400s AD (Cobb et al., 2015; Krus & Cobb, 2018). This is not to say that the chain of migration had not already started; regions both to the west (Burnett et al., Chap. 11, this volume) and to the east (Sullivan et al., Chap. 8, this volume) have tantalizing evidence of outmigration from the Middle Cumberland region in the 1300s AD. But the 1400s in particular seem to reflect a period of building or rebuilding of fortifications across a number of sites and endemic violence, followed by an apparent sudden absence of occupations in the final quarter of the century. I have pointed out elsewhere (Cobb, 2019:140–141) that it is hard to overlook the fact that largest volcanic explosion of the last 700 years (and second largest in the last 2000) occurred in the mid-1400s, which may have represented the final kicker for many populations already undergoing decades of droughts. Although the eruption of Kuwae occurred in the South Pacific, its effects seem to have swept large parts of the globe. Contemporary reports from Europe to China described unusual fogs that were likely part of a massive dust veil, in turn linked to extremes in temperature, precipitation, and crop failures in the late 1400s. Volcanic forcing episodes are believed by many to have played a major role in the onset of the Little Ice Age, and they may have continued to be a significant factor in climate and social change in the first century or two of European colonialism in the Southeast.

What Came After Several Southeastern archaeologists, myself included, have argued that we must move away from overgeneralized notions of Mississippian collapse with the arrival of Europeans (Beck, 2013; Cobb, 2019; King, 2006; Wesson, 2008). As these chapters make clear, by the AD 1300s and 1400s societies were already re-organizing in profound ways across much of the Southeast. Ongoing regional conflict, declines in mound building, widespread migrations, and restructuring of settlement patterns were the norm well before the first Spanish expeditions and colonization efforts began to make their mark on the landscape. Although climate and environment were not the sole driving forces behind these changes, they seem to

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have been deeply implicated. There is no question that European incursions greatly hastened the later transformations that led to the emergence of the well-known Southeastern Indigenous group, such as the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees. But as a matter of balance, it might be worthwhile to continue to follow the threads laid down by the various contributions in this volume to see how they played out in colonial times. The retraction of European expeditions and colonization efforts in the interior Southeast that began in the latter 1500s and extended until the later 1600s has been referred to as the “forgotten centuries” because of the relative documentary silence that ensued (Hudson & Tesser, 1994). The paucity of European accounts for this interval to a large degree has fueled the mystery of how various Mississippian communities transformed into the re-organized “civilized tribes'' associated with the Southeast, the obscurity of this process making it possible to believe in a Mississippian collapse spurred by colonialism. Certainly, European-borne diseases, the rise of slaving, and continuing conflicts with colonial powers prompted transformative changes in the Indigenous societies of the Southeast. But what was occurring with the climate in this same timespan and immediately beforehand? This question came to the fore in the 1990s with the seminal article by Anderson et al. (1995) that used tree-ring data to examine the impacts of severe droughts on maize production in the early colonial era in the Southeast (late 1500s AD primarily), and then projected that model back into the Mississippian period to estimate periods of likely maize shortfalls. In his book, A Cold Welcome (White, 2017), an insightful treatment of the travails of North American colonialism in its early going, historian Sam White lays out some sobering statistics. A period of cooling associated with the Little Ice Age, beginning around the 1300s, seems to have been exacerbated even further in the late 1500s by a series of major volcanic explosions in Central and South America. Due to this volcanic forcing, by the late 1500s to early 1600s the earth was experiencing one of its coldest stretches in some 2,000 years. During this same interval, numerous North American colonizing efforts failed, in large part due to the challenges posed by cool and dry conditions. Like archaeologists, White is careful not to draw a direct line between climate change and colony collapse. There were certainly many other missteps along the way to which adverse climatic conditions often proved a crowning blow. But his work is a culmination of a point that Dennis Blanton (2000, 2004) began making in the 1990s with his work on the impacts of droughts on the travails of the Jamestown colony: why is it that we credit climate as being a significant factor before the arrival of Europeans in North America, then it becomes a mere backdrop to the fur trade, disease, warfare, and other events and processes that we associate with the colonial era? Now that that particular ship has begun to be righted for the history of European colonies, we now have to ask how the severe climate conditions of the AD 1300s and 1400s in the Southeast and Midwest, which we now know continued into the AD 1500s and 1600s, continued to impact the lives of Native Americans? Were the broad traditions of heightened migration and cultural mixing developing before the arrival of Europeans instrumental to the patterns of coalescence and ethnogenesis

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that we associate with the AD 1600s and 1700s? Did climatic conditions, both chronic and acute, contribute to the shaping of the “shatter zones” (Ethridge, 2006) of constant, fusion, fission, and relocation among Native Americans instigated by the introduction of European slaving and warfare? This is not just a question of addressing a more recent past, it also involves the present and future. Many of the places where Native Americans are settled today are a function of the colonial and federal history of the United States. The ways in which many of these landscapes have been put in place—notably reservations—oftentimes have created living conditions that are particularly vulnerable to significant shifts in the climate and environment. Consequently, “[t]he tribes are on the front line of climate change” (Garrit Voggesser, in Halpert, 2012). As is evident, there is now a major role for contemporary archaeology to play in addressing the political ecology of a very long historical trajectory of climate change, migration, and cultural transformation.

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