The Mississippian Transition at the Washausen Site: Demography and Community at a Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D. Mound Town in the American Bottom, Illinois.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the development of the Washausen mound and village settlement in west-central Illinois, which was occupied during the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. Results from a high-resolution geophysical survey as well as from excavations, artifact analyses, and radiocarbon dating provide information on how large farming villages were organized just prior to initial rapid growth of the massive Mississippian center of Cahokia. Casey Barrier presents a regional demographic trajectory demonstrating that large villages like Washausen formed through an ongoing process of population aggregations and dispersals by migrating residential groups. By taking a community-based approach informed by political-economic theories on kin-based agricultural societies, Barrier shows how coalesced corporate groups created new institutions that favored the development of larger nucleated settlements and regional integration.