Archaeological Perspectives on the Southern Appalachians

A Multiscalar Approach

Ramie A. Gougeon, Maureen Meyers

• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781621901167
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

In the last four decades, southeastern archaeology has increasingly developed a processual method of looking at archaeological data through varying levels of scale. By adjusting the scale, archaeologists can further define societal interactions and exchanges, which is particularly useful to those researching the Mississippian period, as the rise and fall of chiefdoms was both internally complex and externally influenced by broader regional factors. This use of the most current research methods has enabled a more comprehensive understanding of prehistoric and historic sociopolitical entities.
            In Archaeological Perspectives of the Southern Appalachians, Ramie A. Gougeon and Maureen S. Meyers have brought together a dozen archaeologists to delineate multiscalar approaches to Native American sites throughout southern Appalachia. The essays range in topic from ceramic assemblages in northern Georgia to public architecture in North Carolina to the frontiers of southern Appalachia in Virginia. Throughout the volume, the contributors discuss varying scales of analysis in their own research to flesh out the importance of maintaining different perspectives when evaluating archaeological evidence.
            Additionally, the volume makes particular reference to the work of David Hally, whose influence on not only the editors and contributors but on southeastern archaeology as a whole cannot be overstated. While Hally was neither a pioneer nor vocal champion of scale variation, his impeccable research, culminating with the publication of his magnum opus King: The Social Archaeology of a Late Mississippian Town in Northwestern Georgia paved the way for younger scholars to truly develop research methods for holistic social archaeology.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface. King of Coosa, Ruler of Little Egypt: David Hally’s Life in Ruins - Jim Langford and Marvin T. Smith
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction - Maureen S. Meyers and Ramie A. Gougeon
• 1. The Changing Social Landscape of the Late Woodland to Mississippian Transition in Northern Georgia - Julie G. Markin
• 2. Explaining Ceramic Stylistic Variability during the Late Mississippi Period in Northwest Georgia: A Design Type Analysis of Lamar Bold Incised Pottery - John E. Worth
• 3. Protohistoric Ceramics of the Upper Coosa River Drainage - Marvin T. Smith
• 4. The King Site: Refining a Pattern Language Model for the Late Mississippian Period in Northwest Georgia - Ramie A. Gougeon
• 5. Native American Public Architecture in the Southern Appalachians - Christopher B. Rodning
• 6. Closely Spaced Administrative Centers and the Organization of Mississippian Chiefdoms - M. Jared Wood
• 7. Space and Time: The Culture Historical Setting for the Hollywood Phase of the Middle Savannah River Valley - Keith Stephenson, Adam King, and Karen Y. Smith
• 8. Social Archaeology is Multiscalar Archaeology: Multiple Views of Savannah Period Settlement Pattern Change in Georgia - John F. Chamblee and Mark Williams
• 9. The Role of the Southern Appalachian Mississippian Frontier in the Creation and Maintenance of Chiefly Power - Maureen S. Meyers
• 10. The Many Dimensions of Hally Circles - Patrick Livingood
• Afterword - Robbie Ethridge
• Contributors
• Index