Christopher B. Rodning

MOUNDS, MYTHS, AND CHEROKEE TOWNHOUSES IN SOUTHWESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

This paper explores the role of public architecture in anchoring Cherokee communities to particular points within the southern Appalachian landscape in the wake of European contact in North America. Documentary evidence about Cherokee public structures known as townhouses demonstrates that they were settings for a variety of events related to public life in Cherokee towns, and that there were a variety of symbolic meanings associated with them. Archaeological evidence of Cherokee townhouses—especially the sequence of six townhouses at the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern North Carolina—demonstrates an emphasis on continuity in the placement and alignment of public architecture through time. Building and rebuilding these public structures in place, and the placement of burials within these architectural spaces, created enduring attachments between Cherokee towns and the places in which they lived, in the midst of the geopolitical instability created by European contact in eastern North America.

ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM AND CHEROKEE TOWNHOUSES

Abstract Public structures known as townhouses were hubs of public life within Cherokee communities in the southern Appalachians before and after European contact. Townhouses themselves were architectural manifestations of Cherokee towns. The architectural symbolism of townhouses was related to the symbolism of late precontact Mississippian platform mounds, mythical connections between earthen mounds and Cherokee townhouses, and color symbolism that was widespread in the Southeast during the eighteenth century. These points are evident from documentary sources, oral tradition, and the sequence of protohistoric Cherokee townhouses at the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern North Carolina.

SOUTH APPALACHIAN MISSISSIPPIAN AND PROTOHISTORIC MORTUARY PRACTICES IN SOUTHWESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

Abstract Mississippian societies of southwestern North Carolina are generally thought to have been less centralized and less hierarchical than their counterparts elsewhere in the Southeast. This paper compares and contrasts mortuary patterns at the Warren Wilson, Garden Creek, and Coweeta Creek sites to reconstruct patterns of social and spatial differentiation within late prehistoric and protohistoric communities in southwestern North Carolina. These sites include, respectively, a late prehistoric stockaded village, a platform mound and village, and a protohistoric Cherokee town with a public structure and several domestic dwellings. Distributions of burial goods and the placement of burials indicate that some social distinctions were reflected in the treatment of the dead by Mississippian and protohistoric groups in southwestern North Carolina, and that those distinctions were embedded in the architecture and built environment of these sites.

Cherokee Townhouses: Architectural Adaptation to European Contact in the Southern Appalachians:

Public structures known as townhouses were hubs of public life in Cherokee towns in the southern Appalachians during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries A.D., and in towns predating European contact. Townhouses were sources of cultural stability and conservatism during periods of dramatic change, and they were an architectural medium through which Cherokee towns adapted to life in the postcontact Southeast. This article summarizes the characteristics of townhouses in the southern Appalachians dating from the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries A.D., focusing on size and shape, the surfaces on which they were built, sequences of building and rebuilding, and the presence or absence of burials inside townhouses. The architectural form of townhouses rooted people to particular places, but Cherokee townhouses also enabled towns to move from one place to another, because a town could build a townhouse at any particular place, old or new.

LATE PREHISTORIC AND PROTOHISTORIC SHELL GORGETS FROM SOUTHWESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

Abstract Written versions of Cherokee myths, recorded in the late nineteenth century, refer to earthen mounds, rattlesnakes and raptors, and other aspects of Cherokee cosmology. These themes are manifested in the iconography of engraved shell gorgets and masks from late prehistoric and protohistoric sites in Cherokee town areas of southwestern North Carolina. Comparable iconography is seen on gorgets and masks from surrounding areas of the southern Appalachians. This paper summarizes themes from Cherokee myth and legend that are related to iconography engraved on gorgets and masks, describes the content and context of these artifacts from southwestern North Carolina, and discusses the implications of these finds for understanding connections of late prehistoric and protohistoric Cherokee towns to the broader networks in the Southeast through which gorgets and iconography circulated.

The Politics of Provisioning: Food and Gender at Fort San Juan De Joara, 1566–1568

Abstract Beginning with Kathleen Deagan’s description of the St. Augustine Pattern, in which domestic relations between Spanish men and Native American women contributed to a pattern of mestizaje in Spanish colonies, gender has assumed a central role in archaeological perspectives on colonial encounters. This is especially true for those encounters that accompanied colonialism in the Americas during the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Gender relations were essential to the creation of new cultural identities during this time, as indigenous communities encountered immigrant, European settler groups often comprised mostly or entirely of adult men. Yet as significant as gender is for understanding how an encounter unfolded in time and space, it can be a challenge to identify and evaluate the archaeological correlates of such relations through material culture patterns. In this article, we use the related domains of food and foodways, particularly in the social context of provisioning, to evaluate how gender relations changed during the occupation of Fort San Juan de Joara (1566–1568), located at the Berry site in western North Carolina. Our research contributes to reappraisals of the St. Augustine Pattern, which posits well-defined roles for Native American women and Spanish men, by likewise situating the agency of Native American men.

MORTUARY PATTERNS AND COMMUNITY HISTORY AT THE CHAUGA MOUND AND VILLAGE SITE, OCONEE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA

Abstract The Chauga mound and village site (38OC47) in Oconee County, South Carolina, is the location of a late prehistoric Mississippian town and the probable location of the eighteenth-century Lower Cherokee town of the same name. After brief explorations of Chauga by John Rogan, Joseph Caldwell, and Carl Miller, excavations were conducted at the site in 1958 and 1959 by the University of Georgia, under contract with the National Park Service, in advance of dam construction and inundation of the site and surrounding areas by Lake Hartwell (Roberts Thompson and Williams 2015). Patterns in mortuary data from Chauga have been interpreted to reflect status distinctions within the Mississippian community centered at this site. Evidence drawn from Cherokee oral tradition sheds light on another dimension of mortuary practices at Chauga. From this perspective, burials and associated artifacts from the Chauga site can also be seen as sacred possessions of the community, placed in the ground when the town was founded in the twelfth-century A.D., and when it was reestablished during the sixteenth century after a period of abandonment during late prehistory.

Cherokee Towns and Calumet Ceremonialism in Eastern North America

Calumet ceremonialism was widely practiced by Native American and European colonial groups in the Great Plains and Southeast during the late seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century. Cultural practices associated with smoking calumet pipes have roots in the prehistoric past, but the spread of calumet ceremonialism across the Southeast was associated with the spread of European colonists and colonialism. Calumet ceremonialism served the needs for groups to have a means of creating balance, and of setting the stage for peaceful interaction and exchange, during a period marked by considerable instability and dramatic cultural change. The presence of a redstone elbow pipe bowl fragment from the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern North Carolina demonstrates the participation of Cherokee towns in calumet ceremonialism, despite the remote location of this site in the southern Appalachians, far from major European colonial settlements, and far from areas such as the Mississippi River Valley and the upper Midwest where such pipes are much more common.

A ROAD TO ZACATECAS: FORT SAN JUAN AND THE DEFENSES OF SPANISH LA FLORIDA

From 1565 to 1570, Spain established no fewer than three networks of presidios (fortified military settlements) across portions of its frontier territories in La Florida and New Spain. Juan Pardos network of six forts, extending from the Atlantic coast over the Appalachian Mountains, was the least successful of these presidio systems, lasting only from late 1566 to early 1568. The failure of Pardos defensive network has long been attributed to poor planning and an insufficient investment of resources. Yet recent archaeological discoveries at the Berry site in western North Carolina—the location of both the Native American town of Joara and Pardos first garrison, Fort San Juan—warrants a reappraisal of this interpretation. While previous archaeological research at Berry concentrated on the domestic compound where Pardos soldiers resided, the location of the fort itself remained unknown. In 2013, the remains of Fort San Juan were finally identified south of the compound, the first of Pardos interior forts to be discovered by archaeologists. Data from excavations and geophysical surveys suggest that it was a substantial defensive construction. We attribute the failure of Pardos network to the social geography of the Native South rather than to an insufficient investment of resources. Desde 1565 hasta 1570, España estableció no menos de tres redes de presidios (asentamientos militares fortificados) en partes de sus territorios fronterizos en La Florida y Nueva España. La red de seis fuertes de Juan Pardo, que se extendió desde la costa atlántica hasta las Montañas Apalaches, fue la menos exitosa de estos sistemas de presidios, ya que duró solo desde finales de 1566 hasta principios de 1568. El fracaso de la red defensiva de Pardo se ha atribuido a la inversión insuficiente de recursos. Sin embargo, recientes descubrimientos arqueológicos en el sitio Berry en el oeste de Carolina del Norte —la ubicación del poblado indigena de Joara y de la primera guarnición de Pardo, el Fuerte San Juan— justifican una reevaluación de esta interpretación. Mientras que las investigaciones arqueológicas previas en el sitio Berry se concentraron en el complejo doméstico donde residían los soldados de Pardo, la ubicación del fuerte permanecía desconocida. En 2013, los restos del Fuerte San Juan fueron finalmente identificados al sur del complejo doméstico. Este es el primer fuerte interior de Pardo que ha sido descubierto por arqueólogos. Los datos procedentes de excavaciones y estudios geofísicos sugieren que fue una construcción defensiva sustancial. Atribuimos el fracaso de la red de Pardo a la geografía social del los grupos indigenas del Sur en lugar de una inversión insuficiente de recursos.