Vernon James Knight

The Institutional Organization of Mississippian Religion

Symbolic objects for ceremonial display, or sacra, tend to be systematically related in their representational content to the cult institutions that produce and manipulate them. Cult organization is normally pluralistic among preliterate complex societies. Mississippian sacra suggest a triad of coexisting types of cult institution: (1) a communal cult type emphasizing earth/fertility and purification ritual, (2) a chiefly cult type serving to sanctify chiefly authority, and (3) a priestly cult type mediating between the other two, supervising mortuary ritual and ancestor veneration.

Social Organization and the Evolution of Hierarchy in Southeastern Chiefdoms

Ethnohistorical analysis of Southeastern chiefdoms reveals a pattern of hierarchy very different from those proposed in the ideal evolutionary types of Kirchhoff and Service. In this area, Mississippian aristocratic organization probably evolved on a uniform base of ranked exogamous matriclan and moiety systems. Despite stratification into classes of noble and commoner, nobilities retained their character as exogamous groups. Ranking by genealogical distance from the royal line was restricted to the close kin of the paramount. A limited agnatic inheritance of nobility was adopted to offset the effects of noble exogamy on the offspring of male nobles in an otherwise uterine system.

Characterizing elite midden deposits at Moundville

Insufficient attention has been paid to differences among elite archaeological contexts in middle-range or chiefdom societies. At Moundville, a major Mississippian center in Alabama, midden and feature-fill deposits attributed to elite behavior have been excavated in several areas. Deposits on Mounds Q and G dating to the Moundville II and III phases (ca. A.D. 1260–1450) are similar in that they incorporate abundant domestic debris associated with structures on mound summits. On both mounds, food remains show evidence of provisioning and the consumption of small-scale meals rather than feasting. However, the two contexts differ in the occurrence of evidence for skilled crafting and the display of human skeletal remains. At Mound Q, skilled crafting is abundantly attested, employing local and nonlocal raw materials. Display goods were routinely handled, and pigment processing and use were important. Burials were rarely made, but fragmentary human bone is scattered throughout, emphasizing portions of the skeleton consistent with display. In contrast, elite contexts on Mound G show little or no evidence of crafting, pigment use, and bone handling.

STYLE IN SWIFT CREEK PADDLE ART

Abstract Woodland period Swift Creek designs have received considerable attention in recent years. Bettye Broyles and Frankie Snow, among few others, have created a working corpus within which stylistic aspects of Swift Creek designs can be explored. Here, we focus both on “observer” models that governed acceptable visual form and on “task” models used by Swift Creek artisans to produce that form by creating paddle designs. Reconstructed procedures for several paddle designs emphasize the stepwise nature of creating art in this style. We discuss the key importance of guide points, guidelines, and creatively manipulated bandwork in Swift Creek compositions. Using this approach, we hope to demonstrate the value of reconstructed whole paddle designs in the study of layout, symmetry, design concept, and other stylistic domains. Finally, we chart the historical trajectories of selected style characteristics through time and offer suggestions for future research in this domain.

CORE ELEMENTS AND LAYOUT CLASSES IN SWIFT CREEK PADDLE ART

Abstract Our work here extends a study in which we identified a set of task models used by early Swift Creek artisans to produce paddle designs. Reconstructed procedures for early bandwork compositions highlighted the importance of the placement of guide points and guidelines to the final product as well as the hierarchal nature of the production sequence, leading to the realization that designs can be profitably classified by the geometry of these initial steps. In this paper, we examine two layout classes defined from observations across some of the more common core elements in the Swift Creek design corpus. We then seriate the most common of the core elements, the Omega, by virtue of variation in its visual characteristics. We draw on the stratigraphic sequence at Fairchild’s Landing (9SE14), Seminole County, Georgia, as a test of the core-element seriation and discuss developmental differences in the Omega between two prolific Swift Creek regions, the lower Chattahoochee River of southwestern Georgia and southeastern Alabama and the lower Ocmulgee and upper Satilla rivers of central and south-central Georgia, on the other.

The Holly Bluff style

ABSTRACT We recognize a new style of Mississippian-period art in the North American Southeast, calling it Holly Bluff. It is a two-dimensional style of representational art that appears solely on containers: marine shell cups and ceramic vessels. Iconographically, the style focuses on the depiction of zoomorphic supernatural powers of the Beneath World. Seriating the known corpus of images allows us to characterize three successive style phases, Holly Bluff I, II, and III. Using limited data, we source the style to the northern portion of the lower Mississippi Valley.