Political change in chiefdom societies: Cycling in the Late Prehistoric Southeastern United States.

Abstract

This study explores political change in chiefdoms, specifically the formation and fragmentation of complex chiefdoms, or cycling behavior, and how this process may be examined with ethnohistorical, archaeological, bioanthropological, and paleoclimatic data. Cycling occurs at a regional level, amid a landscape of simple chiefdoms and, through comparative ethnographic examination, is shown to be caused by a range of factors, including rules of succession, marriage and post-marital residence; intensity of warfare and factional competition; and the affect of ecological parameters such as regional physiographic structure, biotic resource occurrence, and climatic perturbations on alliance network formation and tribute mobilization. These and other propositions about the causes of cycling are evaluated using Mississippian archeological and ethnohistoric data from across the Southeast. How organizational change in these societies has been examined by Southeastern archeologists is reviewed in detail, specifically the effects of warfare, factional competition, succession to leadership, tribute mobilization, and territorial boundary and buffer zone formation and maintenance. Patterns and explanations for political change within the Cahokia, Moundville, and Coosa chiefdoms are examined. At a more general level, how the distribution of Mississippian societies throughout the region illustrates the cycling process is also explored. Political change in the Savannah River Valley is addressed following a detailed synthesis of archaeological investigations in the basin, encompassing survey and excavation results, and the cultural sequence. Changes in architecture, mortuary behavior, and subsistence were observed at many sites. Fortifications were constructed during both the emergence and collapse of chiefdoms locally, and at several centers a decline in elite grave goods preceded site abandonment. Using locally-derived bald-cypress dendrochronological data, relationships between climate, simulated crop yields and stored food reserves, and political change were inferred. The spacing and expansionist tendencies of complex chiefdoms over the region were also found to significantly affect the stability of local chiefdoms.