Douglas K. Charles

Woodland demographic and social dynamics in the American Midwest: Analysis of a burial mound survey

Abstract The Woodland period in eastern North America was the climax of the gatherer‐hunter‐horticultural‐ist way of life. In many areas, the dead from this period were buried in earthen mounds. These facilities are readily discovered during systematic pedestrian surveys, and they can provide data for regional population estimates and for studies of social change. This paper presents the rationale for such inferences, and it documents a case‐study from west‐central Illinois. The results suggest a refinement in our understanding of Hopewell and the transition from Middle to Late Woodland patterns of material culture. The Middle Woodland period, at least in this region, was not one of stable development but was instead an era of marked population redistribution. Hopewell exchange and mortuary ritual were used by elite segments of communities to create, sustain and/or augment their social standing. The ‘less interesting’ Late Woodland material culture reflects a stabilization of the social and demographic sc...

Sod blocks in Illinois Hopewell mounds

Explaining prehistoric mound development requires both anthropological and geoarchaeological perspectives. Illinois Hopewell (Middle Woodland) mounds are remarkable for the range of earthen materials used in their construction. Adding to this variety we document the presence of upturned sod blocks in a mound at the Mound House site. There and at other Illinois sites the sods have dark, 3-10-cm-thick A horizons with minimal or no evidence of B horizon development. They required no more than a few decades to form and did so under a grass cover. Humans probably created the conditions that enabled sods to form, but the sod blocks were not cut from soils adjacent to the mounds (unless from another mound surface nearby) or from soils in habitation areas. In some respects, sod blocks would have been a superior earthen building material, appropriately chosen, for instance, to construct stable, near-vertical walls of above-ground tombs. Their selection and use, however, cannot be explained solely according to principles of sound and efficient mound construction. We argue that sod blocks and other kinds of earth for Illinois Hopewell mounds surely had important symbolic dimensions in addition to their structural properties.

Diachronic Regional Social Dynamics

For 25 years it has been generally acknowledged that archaeological remains from cemeteries carry symbolic content, but the methods by which we may identify and interpret these symbols have been greatly contested. Two works set the tone for the 1970s: Lewis Binford’s seminal article, “Mortuary Practices: Their Study and Their Potential,” first offered in 1966 and published in 1971, and Arthur Saxe’s Ph.D. dissertation, Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, available since 1970. Both address the potential of mortuary studies for the reconstruction of social organization. This approach is particularly exemplified in the work of Joseph Tainter (1975, 1977a,b, 1978) during this period, and perhaps culminated in the volume The Archaeology of Death, edited by Robert Chapman and others (1981), with contributions by Richard Bradley, James Brown, Jane Buikstra, Lynne Goldstein, and John O’Shea. The Binford-Saxe approach may be encapsulated by the statement: The variability and structure in a society’s treatment of its dead, including that which can be archaeologically recovered, will be isomorphic with the variability and structure of the social dimensions of the society.

Time and archaeological traditions in the lower Illinois valley

The issue of time remains a crucial one in Lower Illinois Valley archaeology, and key problems remain unresolved. In this paper, new radiocarbon assays and published dates are used to test hypotheses concerning intra-site bluff top mound chronologies, timing and structure of valley settlement, and the emergence of regional symbolic communities during the Middle Woodland period (ca. 50 cal B.C.-cal A.D. 400). We show that within sites Middle Woodland mounds were constructed first on prominent, distal bluff ridges and subsequently in less-visible spaces, though additional dates are needed to fully understand intra-site chronology. Our analyses generally support previous studies suggesting a north-to-south settlement trajectory of the valley, though habitation site dates indicate a more complicated pattern of regional occupation that has yet to be fully explicated. In addition, floodplain regional symbolic communities also emerged along a north-to-south pattern, though not as rapidly as bluff crest mounds. Importantly, results indicate future areas of research necessary to elucidate regional chronology, resettlement of the valley, and community interactions.