WARFARE AND THE MATERIALIZATION OF DAILY LIFE AT THE MISSISSIPPIAN COMMON FIELD SITE Meghan Elizabeth Buchanan Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University April 2015 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Doctoral Committee Susan M. Alt, Ph.D. Stacie M. King, Ph.D. Laura L. Scheiber, Ph.D. Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Ph.D 3 April, 2015 ii Copyright © 2015 Meghan Elizabeth Buchanan iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was made possible through the support and encouragement of many people. First, I would like to thank my dissertation committee: Susan Alt, Stacie King, Laura Scheiber, and Rinku Roy Chowdhury. Back in 2002, when I was an impressionable undergrad attending a University of Illinois field school at the Grossmann site, trying to figure out where I wanted to go career-wise, Susan Alt pulled me aside and told me, “You could do this. You could be a great Mississippian archaeologist.” Years later, after I had completed my M.A. at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and was looking to transfer, she urged me to work with her at Indiana University. Since then she has been my supporter, critic, co-author, and mentor. Stacie King has been my teaching inspiration for years. My first teaching assistantship at IU was with her and I have had the opportunity to work with her several more times. She has been a great person to talk through ideas about warfare, violence, movement, and relational ontologies. Laura Scheiber has pushed me to think critically about zooarchaeological methods and theories and generously provided lab space. She has also reminded me that no matter how stressful the world gets, karaoke always makes it better. Rinku Roy Chowdhury taught some of the toughest classes I have taken, but thanks to her I feel more confident in my GIS capabilities and my critical thinking skills. I have been fortunate to work with many wonderful people at IU: April Sievert, Anne Pyburn, Della Cook, Rick Wilk, Dan Suslak, Ray DeMallie, Debra Wilkerson, Susie Bernhardt, Agatha Wong, Eli Konwest, Dru McGill, Liz Watts-Malouchos, Katie Zejdlik, Maura Hogan, Erica Ausel, Rebecca Barzilai, Sheila Blanchard, Larissa Collier, Dawn iv Rutecki, Jenna Basiliere, Sarah Dillard, Allison Foley, Dru McGill, Cameron Griffith, Sheena Ketchum, Tekla Schmaus, Rob Taylor, and Olof Olafardottir have all been of immense help over the years, in more ways than I can count. In that same vein, I also worked with some great people at Southern Illinois University Carbondale: Paul Welch, Heather Lapham, Brian Butler, David Sutton, Tamira Brennan, Zach Gilmore, Corin Pursell, Anne DiCosola, Ayla Amadio, Jessica Howe, Tedi Thomas, Matt Nowak, Nell Haynes, Val Solomon, Yuki Tanaka, Frimpong, and many others I am sure I unintentionally left out. Many thanks also go the Glenn Black Lab of Archaeology. The people of Ste. Genevieve generously let me and my crew members into their town for several summers. I cannot thank the Roth Family enough for their kindness, interest in this project, and their willingness to let me dig in their field over the course of several summers. I would have never met the Roths without the intervention of F. Terry Norris who has been interested in Common Field for decades. Additionally, the Foundation for Restoration of Ste. Genevieve has provided me with funding, housing, and support; thanks especially to Bob Mueller and Ann Casada. Many people have aided me in the field including: Eli Konwest (who was in the field with me for two seasons), Sheena Ketchum, Ryan Jackson, Liz Watts-Malouchos, Maura Hogan, Dawn Rutecki, Tim Pauketat, Jeff Kruchten, Erin Benson, Jon Kelp, Mat Terry, and the many others who helped on weekends and in the lab. Finally, I would like to thank my families. My archaeology family began at the University of Illinois and I cannot thank Susan Alt, Tim Pauketat, and Jeff Kruchten enough; you all made me into an archaeologist. Over the last 10+ years, I have had the v opportunity to work with an amazing group of women in archaeology: C.A.B.B. They have been my collaborators, confidants, rabble rousers, and amazing friends. Thank you Liz Watts-Malouchos, Alleen Betzenhauser, Amanda Butler, Sarah Baires, Melissa Baltus, Eli Konwest, Maura Hogan, Katie Zejdlik, Erin Benson, Erica Ausel, Dawn Rutecki, Tamira Brennan, Eva Pajuelo-Flores, and Jamie Arjona. My real family has been patient throughout this entire process, although they have occasionally asked when I was going to be done. My parents, Doug and Jenny, have been positive and encouraging throughout. They may not have always understood what I was doing and way, but I hope they will be proud of the final product. Eric has been very accepting of me missing various events so that I could make dissertation progress, deadlines, and attend conferences. He has pushed me to think about why my research (and archaeology in general) should matter to other people. I want to give a special thank you to my granny, Helen Burch; she instilled in me a curiosity and love of the past, reminding me that we have a lot to learn about the world. Funding for field and lab research and writing was provided by: Wenner Gren Dissertation Research Grant (#8366), Foundation for Restoration of Ste. Genevieve Research Award, Indiana University Department of Anthropology David C. Skomp Research Feasibility Award, and Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship. vi Meghan Elizabeth Buchanan WARFARE AND THE MATERIALIZATION OF DAILY LIFE AT THE MISSISSIPPIAN COMMON FIELD SITE ABSTRACT: As a period of relative peace associated with the founding of the Cahokia polity dissolved around AD 1150-1200, Mississippians living at Cahokia constructed fortifications, large portions of the population left the city, and walled compounds at the nearby East St. Louis site were destroyed in a large-scale conflagration event. Analyses and interpretations of the evidence for violence and warfare in the Mississippian Midwest have traditionally focused on the most overt manifestations of those phenomena: fortified community spaces, physical traumata, and symbols of violence like warriors, weapons of war, and severed body parts. However, historic and ethnographic accounts of peoples’ lives and experiences during periods of war highlight that violence during politically and socially tumultuous times impacted the daily practices of wide swaths of people living in these societies. Carolyn Nordstrom (1997) advocates the telling of “a different kind of war story,” one that focuses on human experiences, tragedies, and creativity in light of threats of danger. The Common Field site was founded by people leaving the Cahokia region during this period of political fragmentation and escalating violence. Shortly after settling at the site, the inhabitants constructed a fortification. A later catastrophic conflagration resulted in the burning of hundreds of structures, the destruction of a community, and the complete abandonment of the site. In this dissertation, I propose a theoretical and methodological framework for studying the intersections of violence and daily practices in archaeological contexts through an exploration of micro-scale actions (such as those vii enacted in histories of practices and embodied knowledge of technological processes) and macro-scale regional histories and practices in order to elucidate the multiple contexts and effects of violence and warfare in the past and their impacts on peoples’ lived experiences. The data from Common Field demonstrate that the inhabitants of this site were engaged in processes of hybridity (with regards to ceramic technological practices and decorative techniques), moved resource procurement practices away from riverine contexts, and oriented themselves in new ways towards other regional communities and the supernatural realm. Susan M. Alt, Ph.D. Stacie M. King, Ph.D. Laura L. Scheiber, Ph.D. Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Ph.D viii Table of Contents Abstract vii List of Tables xiii List of Figures xv Chapter 1: introduction 1 1.1 Research Orientation 2 1.2 Organization of the Dissertation 9 1.3 Project significance 11 Chapter 2: Theoretical Perspectives 15 2.1 Theorizing Warfare 16 2.1.1 Violence and Warfare in Anthropology 16 2.1.2 What is War? Peace? Definitions and Types 21 2.2 Middle Range Theory, Part I: Archaeological Evidence for Warfare 26 2.2.1 Settlement Patterns 27 2.2.2 Defenses 28 2.2.3 Weaponry 29 2.2.4 Iconography Intergroup 30 2.2.5 Trauma 30 2.3 Social Dimensions of Warfare: Theories and Bridging Arguments 31 2.3.1 Ethnographies of Warscapes 32 2.3.2 Middle Range Theory, Part II: Hybridity, Embodied Knowledge, and Technological Production 35 2.3.2.1 Theoretical Approaches 35 2.3.2.2 Hypotheses and Expectations 41 2.4 Summary and Conclusion 45 Chapter 3: Historical and Regional Contexts 48 3.1 Pre-Mississippian Lifeways and Violence 48 3.2 The Mississippian Midwest 53 3.2.1 Lohmann Phase – A.D.1050-1100 55 3.2.2 Stirling Phase – A.D. 1100-1200 63 3.2.3 Moorehead Phase – A.D. 1200-1300 66 ix 3.2.4 Sand Prairie Phase – A.D. 1300-1350 and the Vacant Quarter Hypothesis 71 3.2.5 Evidence of Midwestern Mississippian Violence Summarized 76 3.3 Archaeological Correlates of Mississippian Violence and Warfare 78 3.3.1 Iconography of Violence 78 3.3.2 Weaponry 81 3.3.3 Palisade Constructions 81 3.3.4 Trauma 83 3.3.5