Community Organizations Inthe Scioto, Mann, and Havana Hopewellian
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Chapter 4 Community Organizations in the Scioto, Mann, and Havana Hopewellian Regions A Comparative Perspective BRET J. RUBY, CHRISTOPHER CARR, AND DOUGLAS K. CHARLES This chapter has three purposes. First, it reviews the Ohio Hopewell phase of the Scioto tradi- previous and current models of Hopewellian tion (prufer 1965) and the place of the most community organization in the Midwestern elaborate Hopewellian expression in the East- United States, to stand as context for other ern Woodlands (Figure 4.1). Third, this chap- chapters in the book. Community organizations ter aims at an empirical, controlled compari- modeled implicitly by Prufer (1964a, 1965) son of Hopewellian community organizations for Ohio and Struever (1968a, 1968b) for illi- across the three regions. A comparative perspec- nois in the framework of subsistence-settlement tive holds the promise of highlighting variabil- studies, as well as explicitly by Bruce Smith ity in the organization of Hopewellian communi- (1992) for the northern and midsouthern East- ties and resolving the monolithic, homogenized ern Woodlands in general, are considered. Sec- characterization of Hopewellian community or- ond, this chapter reports, summarizes, and cites ganization presented by Smith and others into many new archaeological data, against which its variant forms. At the same time, a compara- previous and current models of Midwestern tive perspective may draw attention to underly- Hopewellian community organization are evalu- ing ecological, social, and historical factors that ated. Three geographic regions are considered: might account for similarities and differences in the lower Illinois valley, which was a home- community organization across regions. land of the Mound House phase of the Havana The chapter begins with a broad, theoret- Hopewellian tradition (Farnsworth and Asch ical consideration of the nature of communi- 1986); the lower Wabash-Ohio River conflu- ties as a framework for interpretation. Three ence area, where the Hopewellian Mann phase kinds of communities are distinguished: res- developed (Ruby 1997a); and the Scioto-Paint idential communities defined by coresidence Creek confluence area, which was the center of and regular, face-to-face interaction; sustainable 119 120 BRET J. RUBY, CHRISTOPHER CARR, AND DOUGLAS K. CHARLES ) ~T ~ \ 200 0 200 400 600 Kilometers I I N D Wisconsinan Glacial Advance D Older Glacial Advances Figure 4.1. Three Midwestern study areas of Hopewellian expression: (A) the lower Illinois valley,+ where Havana- tradition Hopewell developed; (B) the lower Wabash-Ohio River confluence area, where the Hopewellian Mann phase developed; and (C) the Scioto-Paint Creek confluence area. Five physiographic provinces in the vicinity of these areas are shown. communities of the size necessary to meet the continuously negotiated network of social units. long-term demographic requirements of a pop- Different mounds and earthworks can be vari- ulation; and symbolic communities that may be ously interpreted as cemeteries, as earth shrines more fluid in membership and less territorially or shrines to the ancestors, or as stages for ritual bounded, and that are formed for various social, and political action (Buikstra and Charles 1999). political, and/or economic ends. Thus, some Hopewellian mound and earthwork A brief discussion of the roles of mounds centers hosted a much richer array of activi- and earthworks in community formation, or- ties than simply mortuary ritual. We also note ganization, and maintenance is also provided. that mounds and earthworks may vary in their We point out that mounds and earthworks can spatial relationships to communities. They may play very different roles in relation to differ- occur at the centers or edges of communities, ent kinds of communities, such as defining and or in less definable positions where community displaying corporate identity, defining territo- boundaries are fluid, overlapping, and/or contin- rial rights, and/or symbolizing participation in a uously negotiated. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS IN THESCIOTO, MANN, ANDHAVANA REGIONS 121 The chapter proceeds to summarize Bruce Bruce Smith for the Woodlands and Prufer, and Smith's (1992) monolithic model of Hopewellian later Dancey and Pacheco, for the Scioto-Paint community organization in the Eastern Wood- Creek area. However, the image that these mod- lands. Smith (1992), like Prufer (1964a) earlier els construct, of the dispersed households of a for Ohio, envisioned the Hopewellian commu- community of one unspecified kind focused on nity to have been a group of dispersed households a single ceremonial center, is not supported em- that associated with a single mounded ceme- pirically. Specifically, ih each region are found tery or earthwork complex and that supported ceremonial centers of diversified functions rather themselves through farming. We then point out than centers of one kind. Some centers served pri- the need, today, to explore regional variations marily for holding mortuary ceremonies; others in community organization and their natural en- as the locations of predomihantly or exclusively vironmental determinants. The chapter goes on other kinds of ceremonies. Some mounds and to detail environmental variability across the mound groups were built and used by relatively three regions, including their natural plant and small, local social groups, while others hosted animal productivity, climate-based agricultural gatherings of social groups drawn from farther potential, spatial circumscription of food avail- afield, forging symbolic or sustainable communi- ability, and ease of transportation. The lower ties. Local symbolic communities used multiple Wabash-Ohio area and the lower Illinois val- kinds of centers within their own territories, and ley are found to have been privileged relative to some centers were used by multiple local sym- the Scioto-Paint Creek area ih food availability, bolic communities.Ceremonial precincts used potential for sedentism, potential for population by singular local symbolic communities were growth, and/or opportunity for regional social in- sometimes segregated from and sometimes com- tercourse. In addition, the lower Illinois valley is bined with ceremonial precincts used by multi- observed to exhibit the greatest circumscription ple local symbolic communities that constituted of food resources and potential for social com- a broad, sustainable community. Individuals in petition and subsequent development of territo- each region likely visited a range of these cere- riality and social complexity. These conditions monial centers for different purposes, each event are found to have been essential in determining a potential context for the construction of group variations among the three regions in the orga- identities and affiliations of varied membership, nization of their local symbolic and sustainable duration, and spatial extent. communities. In addition, the specifics of the en- We conclude that greater circumscription vironmental variations among the three regions and linear distribution of food resources in the suggest that these factors, alone, cannot account lower Illinois valley most likely fostered local for the unusual elaboration of social complexity symbolic communities there to be territorial and in the Scioto-Paint Creek area. relatively fixed in membership, whereas the less Hopewell community organization in each constraining environments of the lower Wabash- of the three regions is explored next. Key exca- Ohio and Scioto-Paint Creek regions allowed the vated sites and survey areas are described, with construction of local symbolic communities that an emphasis on summarizing new information archaeologically do not indicate their territorial- from the lower Ohio-Wabash and Scioto regions ity and that could have been relatively fluid in that has emerged through a resurgence of field membership. Also, differences in environmen- research in these areas. Equivalent studies in the tal natural productivity and agricultural poten- lower Illinois valley are well published and are tial among the three areas are shown to have led presented more briefly. The evidence indicates to different patterns of residential aggregation that none of the three areas had nucleated vil- and sedentism there. Household aggregation was lages during the Middle Woodland and, instead, greatest in the lower Wabash-Ohio area, where supported small residential units of one to a few food resource productivity was highest. The households, in agreement with this basic element Mann site is unique among Hopewell geomet- of the Hopewellian community models posed by ric earthworks in having a substantial residential 122 BRET J. RUBY, CHRISTOPHER CARR, AND DOUGLAS K. CHARLES area within it. Illinois residential sites sometimes invest labor and resources in projects that are were larger than the one-to-two household habi- beyond the capabilities of individual households tation sites that characterized the Scioto-Paint (storage facilities, land clearance, public ar- Creek area.Settlement mobility appears to have chitecture, etc.).Community organization may been greatest in the Scioto-Paint Creek area, afford individuals and households opportunities where food productivity was lowest. for economic specialization. For these reasons All of these variations in the ceremonial and and more, community organization can be a domestic spheres of Hopewellian life, within and useful focus for Hopewellian studies. A com- among the three regions, call