Lynne P. Sullivan

A Reassessment of the Chronology of Mound a at Toqua

Abstract The Toqua site (40MR6) is one of the most thoroughly excavated Late Mississippian mound sites in East Tennessee. The site has been a focal point of research on late prehistory in southern Appalachia, but there are issues surrounding its chronological placement. The radiometric dates obtained for the site in the 1970s and the archaeomagnetic dates reported in 1999 have large standard deviations. These dates are too imprecise to be useful for a temporal placement of the site that is clear enough for current discussions of the development of Mississippian culture. A newly obtained Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) date from the large platform mound (Mound A) allows a reevaluation of the occupation sequence of the Toqua site. This date provides an anchor for a refined chronology for Mound A. In addition to the new AMS date, this refined chronology is based on complementary lines of evidence, including architectural evidence, mortuary practices, pottery traditions, and shell gorget styles.

WHAT I BELIEVE: TAKING UP THE SERPENTS OF SOCIAL THEORY AND SOUTHEASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

Abstract Social theory in Southeastern archaeology is constantly transforming. This generally positive process is nonetheless often fraught with growing pains. A sack of snakes serves as a humorous guise to highlight some of the issues currently being faced with social theory in the Southeast. Each “snake” poses a reality check on contexts of social theory as created by Southeastern archaeologists.

Attempting to Distinguish Impairment from Disability in the Bioarchaeological Record: An Example from DeArmond Mound (40RE12) in East Tennessee

In bioarchaeological contexts involving interpretations of impairment and disability, scholars can benefit by engaging with the literature from other fields, particularly Disability Studies (DS), to better understand the complexities and nuances of these terms. In this chapter, definitions of impairment and disability are introduced from a number of perspectives, including academic scholarship, as well the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). While impairment has typically been identified by bioarchaeologists as paleopathological in nature, some frameworks from DS expand this definition to include social components. The nuances of these terms are applied to an archaeological case study from a Mississippian site in East Tennessee and describe the remains of a woman who presented a lifelong musculoskeletal impairment of her upper and lower limbs. This impairment would have restricted her ability to move around the landscape in the same way as her peers. Despite these physical differences, her mortuary treatment was not markedly different from other members in her community and does not appear to fit a recent definition of deviant burial practices proposed by Tsaliki (2008). While mortuary data are vital to better understand impairment and disability in the past, bioarchaeologists must be careful to not over interpret the subtle, and simultaneously, marked differences between these two concepts.