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A PROLIFERATION OF CHIEFDOMS: A GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE MIDDLE CUMBERLAND REGION OF TENNESSEE

CATRINA CUADRA

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2019

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Charlie Cobb for his mentorship, guidance, and endless patience. I thank Neill Wallis and Ken Sassman for assistance as members of my committee. I also thank

Joe Aufmunth for his GIS expertise and assistance. I thank Lindsay Bloch for her edits and support. I am deeply grateful for the amazing friends who supported me through this. Finally, my endless gratitude for Miri without whom I would not have survived graduate school.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 3

LIST OF TABLES ...... 6

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 7

ABSTRACT ...... 8

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 9

Research Questions ...... 10 The Mississippian Period ...... 11 The Middle Cumberland Region ...... 13 Organization ...... 17

2 MISSISSIPPIAN SETTLEMENT ECOLOGY AND THE MIDDLE CUMBERLAND .....19

Environmental Factors in Southeastern Settlement Patterns ...... 20 Sociopolitical factors ...... 21 The Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee ...... 26

3 SPATIAL DYNAMICS AND INTERPOLITY INTERACTIONS ...... 37

Dataset ...... 40 Methods ...... 41 Results...... 43 Analysis ...... 46 Conclusion ...... 51

4 SETTLEMENT ECOLOGY ...... 61

Methods ...... 64 Results...... 65 Nearest Neighbor ...... 65 Viewshed and Observation Points ...... 65 Slope ...... 67 Distance to River/Distance to Cumberland River ...... 68 Cumberland River Visibility ...... 69 Aspect ...... 70 Discriminant Function Analysis Results ...... 70 Discussion ...... 72 Conclusion ...... 75

5 CLOSING THOUGHTS ...... 85

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 90

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 98

LIST OF TABLES

Table page

2-1 Middle Cumberland Regional Periods ...... 34

3-1 Sites and Mound Types ...... 54

3-2 Distance between the closest contemporary mound site in meters and in travel time ...... 58

4-1 Viewshed and observation extent ...... 77

4-2 Slope over mound sites ...... 77

4-3 Distance to Cumberland River in meters ...... 79

4-4 Distance to nearest navigable waterway in meters ...... 80

4-5 Cumberland River visibility in meters ...... 81

4-6 Aspect of Mound Sites ...... 82

4-7 Discriminant function analysis classification results ...... 83

4-8 Discriminant function analysis factor scores ...... 83

4-9 Discriminant function analysis factor scores excluding 3 lowest variables ...... 83

4-10 Early variable summary statistics ...... 84

4-11 Late variable summary statistics ...... 84

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

1-1 Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee (Beahm 2012:15) ...... 18

2-1 Physiographic regions of Tennessee (Moore and Smith 2001) ...... 34

2-2 Elevation cross section of Tennessee facing north (Sayler 1866, Library of

Congress) ...... 34

2-3 All recorded mounds in the Middle Cumberland Region (Beahm 2012: 30) ...... 35

3-1 Mound and non-mound sites in the Middle Cumberland Region...... 53

3-2 Mound sites in the Middle Cumberland Region ...... 55

3-3 Early mound sites with 22 km Hally circles ...... 56

3-4 Late mounds with 22 km Hally circles ...... 57

3-5 Cost path raster from Castalian Springs...... 59

3-6 Cost path raster from Old Town ...... 59

3-7 Cost path raster from Fisher-Reams ...... 60

4-1 Flow chart showing Jones 2017 discriminant function analysis results (adapted from .. Jones 2017b) ...... 76

Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

A PROLIFERATION OF CHIEFDOMS: A GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE MIDDLE CUMBERLAND REGION OF TENNESSEE

Catrina Cuadra

May 2019

Chair: Charles Cobb Major: Anthropology

During the Mississippian period, the Middle Cumberland region of Tennessee was home to an unusually large number of mound sites posited to be competing chiefdoms. Some archaeologists refer to this regional period as a “proliferation of chiefdoms” (Smith and Moore

2009: 2019). This thesis explores two routes to better understand the high number of contemporaneous mound sites in the region: the first route was an investigation into mound spacing, the second route looked at settlement ecology factors. This study compares the spacing of mounds in this region to David Hally’s (1993; 1996; 2006) settlement model which argued that mounds in the same polity were located within 22 kilometers while competing mounds were located at least 32 kilometers away from one another. This study then looked at GIS generated least-cost path distance to understand travel time between contemporaneous mounds. To investigate settlement ecology, a discriminate function analysis was conducted using a variety of sociocultural and environmental factors.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

While working the cultural resource management (CRM) circuit on the West coast, I was fascinated by how simple locating sites could often be. There was almost a running checklist of traits that made up prime settlement locations. In particular, a site in eastern Oregon always stood out to me. Approaching the site, the project chief said, “alluvial fan, bluff overhead, definitely a site.” A site it was. The site was large and multicomponent. It had been home to

Native Americans for millennia, and then when they were driven out by western expansion, the site was a stop on the Oregon trail, homesteads for pioneers, and a railroad encampment for

Chinese migrant workers. The landscape bore thousands of years of human modification, from the railroad banks to the roads and trails that the pioneers laid, to the pit houses on the bluff above the river.

This piece of land might have been one of the best places to live in the region. The winding river provided water and fish and renewed the arable soil with regular flooding. The woods were home to a variety of edible plants and protein sources. The bluff overhead provided a place to live outside the reach of the river’s winter flooding and offered a view of the surrounding valley, optimal for seeing the approach of visitors, both wanted and unwanted.

Throughout time and space, humans have made decisions on the best place to settle.

Some of these areas are more apparent than others, offering access to resources and a certain amount of security. Other areas fulfill less tangible spiritual or cultural needs. What people value in where they choose to place their homes is often indicative of cultural trends and lifestyles. For example, agrarian peoples needed access to arable lands, hunter-gatherers did not. The factors that contribute to optimal settlement sites are universal considerations for archaeologists.

Settlement patterning is driven by what a culture defines as an appropriate place to live.

Often what drives settlement decision bears commonalities across space and time. Throughout human history, we have sought food, shelter, water, warmth, and safety. Settlement patterning is a topic that interests archaeologists across the world, how people chose where to build their lives is a quintessential part of understanding the human experience.

Research Questions

Like peoples everywhere, Native Americans of the pre-Columbian Southeast considered a variety of social and environmental factors when choosing where to settle; this particular thesis focuses on the settlement space of the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee. This area has a unique spatial distribution of Mississippian (AD 1000 to 1550) mounds, with a high number of competing sites in close proximity to one another, that is unlike other areas of the contemporaneous southeastern United States. In this thesis, I explore the geospatial relationships between sites and what factors might cause their unique spatial patterning. The archaeological dataset that I investigate consists of 310 Mississippian sites from the Middle Cumberland region.

These sites include various mounds and mound complexes, rock shelters, and caves. I focus predominantly on the mound sites, looking into the relationships between the numerous mounds of the region, as the mounds are interpreted as primary administrative centers and the heart of the polity. I use a combination of statistical tests and geographic information systems analysis in an attempt to understand the area’s peculiar settlement patterning. I look at the distances between mound sites and compare how they match up to other regional settlement models (Hally 1993,

1996, 2006). After I demonstrate that this area does not conform to these Mississippian settlement models, I compute travel times between these sites in an attempt to see if the model is applicable when travel time and terrain are taken into consideration. Finally, I conduct a

discriminant function analysis to see what statistics can tell us about the settlement factors most important to people in the area.

The data used to address these questions was collected from the Tennessee Department of

Archaeology by Dr. Charles Cobb, currently Curator of Historical Archaeology at the Florida

Museum of Natural History. The dataset is primarily spatial data with sites divided into types: open habitation, mound (earth mound, platform mound, mound complex, indeterminate), rock shelter, cave, and whether the sites had a cemetery or petroglyphs.

The Mississippian Period

The term “Mississippian” refers to a time period, a particular set of material culture and a set of sociopolitical characteristics (Blitz 2010; Steponaitis 1986). Temporally, the Mississippian appears in the Southeastern United States by AD 1000 and stretches until European contact, AD

1550 (Blitz 2010). “Mississippian” emerged in the early twentieth century in reference to particular ceramic traditions, but over the years has evolved to include late pre-contact agrarian societies in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States that share cultural traits such as hierarchical sociopolitical organization (Blitz 2010; Smith 1986; Steponaitis 1986). Most recently the term has been used to describe the hereditary ranking and centralized leadership of what archaeologists consider to be chiefdoms (Cobb 2003: 65; Steponaitis 1986).

Bioarcheologists have argued for commoner/elite distinctions that are obvious in burial treatments as well as diet and health disparities. Skeletal studies show that elites often had greater access to protein sources, were taller and demonstrated less biological stress (Blakely

1995; Steponaitis 1986). Differing social statuses encouraged trade relations as self-aggrandizing individuals sought out prestige items. These trade relations appear in the archaeological record as copper, marine shell, galena, fluorite, bauxite, diorite and other exotic materials that are found great distances from their sources and often in mortuary settings (Steponaitis 1986).

Sites with what archaeologists refer to as Mississippian components share characteristics such as complex social ranking, maize agriculture, long-distance trade, monumental architecture, and multi-community political organization (Beck and Moore 2002; Cobb 2003). Blitz and

Lorenz (2006) describe Mississippian sites as being defined by “maize horticulture, fortified communities with large earthen mounds, social ranking, and a set of rituals and symbols concerned with fertility, ancestors, and war”.

The emergence of the Mississippian period is a debated topic amongst southeastern archaeologists (Anderson and Sassaman 2012: 158). The cultural shifts that this period experienced saw the expansive change from egalitarian to institutionalized inequality. These changes were correlated with the rise of maize agriculture in the southeast and presumably ritually linked to it (Anderson and Sassaman 2012: 159). Whether the appearance of the

Mississippian was due to a spread of cultural traits or independent, simultaneous development is unclear (Smith 1978; Smith 1984). It was likely a combination of the two in differing degrees across the region (Anderson and Sassaman 2012: 159).

Another significant factor of the Mississippian phenomenon was what is commonly known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex or SECC, a series of symbolically charged material culture referencing culture heroes and the cosmos (Muller 1989). Much like the rest of the Mississippian cultural traits, the SECC is not a singular concept but rather a flexible artistic tradition or belief system that was embraced and manipulated in different ways by different polities with regional variations (Brown 2004; King 2007). There is a general agreement that these various material items were associated primarily with elites as prestige items imbued with power (Blitz 2010; King 2007). SECC iconography includes variations on the long-nosed god,

square in cross, bilobed arrow, striped pole, baton/mace, fringed apron, ogee, chunkey player, raccoon hindquarters and bellows shaped apron (Muller 1989).

The landscapes of Mississippian sites were diagnostic as well. Earthen mounds and monumental architecture began to appear and there was an explosion in population (Cobb

2000:13). Towns with supporting agricultural hinterlands emerged. Massive mound centers were planned and constructed in rich floodplain areas. Mound centers with extensive artificial landscapes arose (Cobb 2000:13). As social and political hierarchies emerged, public architecture and civic ceremonial sites were constructed on a grand scale (Steponaitis 1986).

These sites are often marked by at least one pyramidal mound that housed an elite residence, charnel house, or public building (Steponaitis 1986). Extensive maize agriculture meant these sites needed extensive, mineral-rich land, and areas with plentiful wild resources like wetlands and forests (Smith 1986). These sites were part of larger Mississippian trade networks and were often located along trade routes to better support self-aggrandizing individuals acquiring prestige items and exotic goods (Beck and Moore 2002; Cobb and Garrow 1996). The need for sites to be located in areas that had very specific environmental factors makes settlement modeling for the

Mississippian of particular interest for archaeologists.

The Middle Cumberland Region

The Middle Cumberland Region is an expansive area that covers middle Tennessee, including the urban area of Nashville (Figure 1-1). The region has a long and rich history of occupation with evidence of human presence dating back to 12,100 cal BP (Deter-Wolf and

Peres 2012). Despite a rich archaeological record, the area has mostly been underexamined by archaeologists, leaving a conspicuous but reparable hole in our understanding of the

Mississippian period. This thesis will address this gap, adding a small but robust contribution to the story of the peculiar settlement patterning found in the Middle Cumberland Region.

On a broader scale, the study I conduct will help contribute to the story of settlement patterning in the Mississippian period. It will assist other archaeologists in determining whether settlement patterning in the Middle Cumberland Region is influenced by the same factors as settlement patterning in other regions of the Mississippian southeast. It will help tell the story of the cultural phenomenon that is the Mississippian period by offering the opportunity to compare cultural differences and similarities.

The area is not a stranger to archaeological work, as the urban center of Nashville is located in the heart of the Middle Cumberland Region. Most of this work has been mitigation and heritage management, through the region’s urban and suburban development over the last century. Despite the prevalence of archaeological work conducted, most of the research remains in what Deter-Wolf and Peres (2012) refer to as “grey literature”, or in the form of technical reports, field notes and state files.

Despite the lack of published academic work, archaeological sites in the Middle

Cumberland Region are abundant. Mississippian sites comprise just a fraction of the sites located in the area. According to Deter-Wolf and Peres (2012) only 20% of site occupations have definitive Mississippian occupations, 46% have Woodland components, 9% have Paleoindian components and the majority (74%) have Archaic components. Since the publication of the

Deter-Wolf and Peres (2010) summary, these numbers have probably changed somewhat, but we can expect patterns to remain relatively consistent. Although the Middle Cumberland Region is home to a variety of sites spanning human history, I will focus on the Mississippian occupation of the region for the purposes of this thesis. I acknowledge that in doing so, I may be limiting our greater understanding of how humans have interacted with this region but focusing on the

Mississippian will create room for future investigations on how humans came to have

Mississippian relationships with the Middle Cumberland Region.

The Middle Cumberland Region is an opportune area to study settlement patterns as it boasts one of the densest concentrations of Mississippian mound sites in the American Southeast.

It spurs the question of what the conditions are of this region that enabled it to host so many mounds? Before we venture into that topic, we should discuss the rest of the Mississippian tradition in the region to better understand the Middle Cumberland Region as a whole. The

Middle Cumberland Region ceramic tradition consisted primarily of Mississippian Plain and secondarily of Bell Plain (Smith 1992: 140). Smith believed that the data supports two phases for the Middle Cumberland Mississippian: an earlier Mississippian phase spanning from roughly AD

900 to 1250 and a later Thruston phase spanning from AD 1250 to 1450. Occupation of the area sees a sharp drop after AD 1450 as a byproduct of the vacant quarter phenomenon and has been referred to as “regional abandonment” (Cobb and Butler 2002; Smith 2010; Williams 1990).

The Thruston phase saw the appearance of several distinctive vessel forms and decorative techniques. These include carafe-necked bottles, full figure hooded effigy bottles, hemispherical bowls with notched strips applied to their rims and jars with strap handles (Smith 1992: 140).

The region is also known for its characteristic stone-box graves. Stone-box graves can be found throughout the Southeast and as far north and west as Minnesota, but they are most typically associated with the Middle Cumberland Region where they appear in dense numbers.

These stone-box graves are rectangular and built to fit the individual they entomb. The grave was dug and large slabs of stone were placed upright against the walls of the graves. The individual would be placed within and a stone slab would be placed on top of the upright stone slabs encasing the body (Smith 1992: 237).

In a study on five contemporaneous mound sites, Emily Beahm (2013: 10) noted that mounds within the Middle Cumberland Region do not follow the spatial trends of other

Mississippian chiefdoms (1993, 1996, 2006). According to Hally, Mississippian peoples generally constructed mounds either less than 18 km apart or more than 31 (Hally 1993; 1996;

2006). The conclusion drawn by Hally was that mounds that were located within 18 km of one another were part of the same polity while mounds greater than 31 km apart were separate chiefdoms. The space between 18 and 31 km was interpreted as a buffer zone. Little is known about the relationships between the mound sites in the Middle Cumberland Region, but many are interpreted to be small sociopolitical centers due to the presence of platform mounds (Beahm

2013: 2; Renfrew 1986:2, Smith and Moore 2010: 208). The vast majority of these mounds were placed within 31 km of one another, violating the buffer zone and in many instances suggesting that mounds should be part of the same polity, when research does not establish same polity affiliation. Beahm’s research concluded that there was no evidence to suggest the contemporary mounds she studied were part of the same complex mound chiefdom (Beahm 2013:382). Smith and Moore (2010: 208) suggested that some of these mound sites were likely complex chiefdoms with a hierarchy of mound sites, but that there were also a significant number of political centers that did not appear to be affiliated.

In this thesis, I offer an exploratory geospatial study of the Middle Cumberland Region of

Tennessee by adding a more in-depth analysis of the spatial distribution of contemporary mound sites as well as a statistical analysis of the factors that contributed to Middle Cumberland Region site selection. My thesis contributes a nearest neighbor analysis and an in-depth travel time analysis of contemporaneous mound sites. It also looks at a variety of environmental and sociocultural factors that contribute to the peculiar settlement patterning.

Organization

This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter 2 is dedicated to Mississippian settlement patterning. I discuss the geography, geology and other pertinent factors, both environmental and sociocultural, that would play a role in settlement patterning in the Middle

Cumberland Region. Chapter 3 discusses mound spatial dynamics. I compare the mound centers of the Middle Cumberland Region to Hally’s chiefdom model and demonstrate that the region does not conform to the model. From there, I analyze the distance between contemporaneous mounds in travel time. Even when travel time is taken into account, the mound sites in the region were placed closer together than Hally’s model would allow. In Chapter 4, I use a discriminant function analysis to determine which factors were the most important in determining site settlement. The discriminant function analysis stresses that distance from river and high soil quality were the most important settlement characteristics while secondary contributing factors were aspect, observation, river visibility, and slope. Chapter 5 will conclude my thesis: it will discuss future directions for research on settlement patterning and geospatial analysis on the

Middle Cumberland Region and potential theories on why Middle Cumberland peoples felt the need to move away from navigable rivers.

Figure 1-1. Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee (Beahm 2012:15)

CHAPTER 2 MISSISSIPPIAN SETTLEMENT ECOLOGY AND THE MIDDLE CUMBERLAND

The archaeological landscape is the interaction between humans, culture, and physical environment (Marquardt and Crumley 1987:1). Settlement archaeology focuses on regional spatial interactions between sites and closely examines the factors and influences that cause people to settle where they did (Marquardt and Crumley 1987: 9). Settlement factors provide cultural clues as to what was important to people’s every day lives. These variables allow us to make inferences about how pre-Columbian peoples lived their lives.

Ecological and settlement archaeology are at the forefront of functional-processual archaeology, wedding the environmental needs of peoples of the past with their sociocultural ones (Trigger 1989: 376). Ecological archaeology appeared alongside Steward’s materialism wherein archaeologists attempted to take on large scale interdisciplinary projects to better understand topics like subsistence economies, population size, and settlement patterning (Trigger

1989: 372-373). In the 1970s, there was a push to understand settlement patterning as evidence of relationships between humans and their environments, as well as between different groups of people (Trigger 1989: 376). This push laid the groundwork for using settlement data to analyze social and political interactions (Trigger 1989: 377).

My thesis will follow this analytic tradition, bringing environmental factors to bear on sociopolitical structures. While I am using these environmental factors, I reject environmental determinism, acknowledging that while all people need access to resources, they are active agents within their own lives and cultures. In Chapter 2, I describe Mississippian settlement patterning and the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee. First, I explore the ecological variables that contribute to settlement choice. Then, I examine the sociopolitical factors that influenced where Mississippian peoples chose to live. Finally, I describe the Middle Cumberland

Region of Tennessee. In doing so, I will lay the ground work for investigating how the Middle

Cumberland Region does not conform to other settlement models of this culture period.

Environmental Factors in Southeastern Settlement Patterns

While avoiding the trap of environmental determinism, it is still imperative to acknowledge that there were environmental factors that influenced settlement choice. By looking at the environmental factors that influenced settlement throughout the rest of the Mississippian

Southeast, we are better able to home in on the factors that were the most influential in the

Middle Cumberland Region and explore the unique metahistorical features of the area. This section focuses on the study of environmental factors in settlement patterning.

Resource acquisition was a major factor in site selection. Mississippian villages were often located on river terraces to better access riverine resources while upland resources were acquired by establishing small seasonal encampments (Moffat 1987). Mississippian cultural traits first began to appear in the meander belt zone of the lower alluvial valley of the Mississippi

River around AD 800 (Smith 1978: 480-488). The first major development of Mississippian culture took place in this area and then expanded along the major floodplain valley corridors that were formed by tributaries (Smith 1978: 481). These settlement patterns were characterized by environmentally circumscribed linear bands that created floodplain zones (Smith 1978: 483).

These zones contained oxbow lakes, U-shaped bodies of water that form when river meanders are cut off and create free standing bodies of water. Rivers are constantly changing and do not stay within the confines of their natural banks, they reliably break through naturally formed sand and silt levees, creating new channels. The predicted zone where the river shifts is called a meander belt. As new meanders form, associated natural levees form a continuous ridge of superimposed former levees that are linear meander belt zones. The oxbow lakes are low areas which reliably flood and create natural levee ridges which contain a variety of soil types (Smith

1978: 483). These areas support a rich variety of flora and fauna, making them advantageous for settlement across time.

Mississippian populations arose in areas where there were dependable, abundant energy sources within a floodplain ecosystem. Human habitation was made possible by taking advantage of the energy subsidy that these floodplains provided (Smith 1978: 483). The subsidy was defined by summer drain off and topographic characteristics. It can be measured using two variables: the total area of arable land and the area of lakes and seasonally flooded low areas

(Smith 1978:484). The agricultural land provided the ability to farm and produce maize and other foodstuffs important for ceremonial purposes and supporting large populations. The lakes provided wild resources such as waterfowl, fish and other animals that came to drink and forage from the waters. Lakes provided protein that the settlement needed to survive (Smith 1978: 480).

The relationship between soils and settlements cannot be determined by a single set of associations. Location, size and variety of Mississippian settlements cannot only be decided by soil type, but also by productivity of those soils (Peebles 1978: 408). There has been suggestion of a relationship between settlement size and catchment productivity where the population of a village or hamlet could be discerned by that site’s productivity, the distance to agricultural fields, and the organization of ceremonial centers that dictated both administrative and resource production duties (Peebles 1978: 409-410).

Sociopolitical factors

While resource acquisition was important, sociocultural factors also influenced how and where and when and why people settle in the places they did. Ultimately, many sociocultural factors were tied to resources. Competition over resources stoked violence, while differing access to resources created hierarchies, and could facilitate trade. Although different, resources and sociocultural factors were interrelated.

Polities within the Mississippian period boasted a wide variety of settlement types and cultures. Although many sites shared the moniker of “Mississippian”, the variety within that term was vast. Moundville as compared to the Pocahontas region of Mississippi proves this point

(Steponaitis 1991). Moundville was a powerful and complex hierarchical chiefdom, whereas the

Pocahontas region, located 260 km west of Moundville, displayed evidence of modest social ranking. The polities within this region consisted of small, dispersed farmsteads and hamlets.

Mississippian communities began with the establishment of the household with social phenomena arising around the household unit (Muller 1997: 221). Polities were built around homesteads, scaling upwards (Muller 1997: 192). These communities often grew by kin groups reproducing and moving to more distant fields, spilling out onto further ridges, and opting for more distant fields, with less fertile soils that were safer from flood risks (Muller 1997: 193).

The concept of the chiefdom was a defining characteristic of the Mississippian phenomenon, referring to politically centralized polities with ranked hierarchies and hereditary leadership positions (Carnerio 1981). There was a certain level of power and authority exercised by some individuals over other individuals. The nature of this power and authority influenced spatial relations. This ranked hierarchy has profound implications for this thesis and the settlement modeling of the Mississippian. Power and authority were limited by geographic location to places where people in power could more easily access (Bell et al. 1988: 178;

Spencer 1990: 6-8). The lack of bureaucracy that defined the Mississippian chiefdom meant that delegation of authority was limited or nonexistent and that chiefs were only able to exercise power and authority to areas they themselves could reach (Wright 1977; 1984).

Chiefdoms were often divided into various settlement types. These included some combination of ceremonial centers and farmsteads (Peebles 1978:404). Mississippian settlement

organization minimized the energy costs of transporting materials and information between settlements, facilitating the movement of goods and tribute (Steponaitis 1987). Mississippian peoples balanced living close enough to the ceremonial sites to be active and present in the community, while sidestepping overbearing chiefs (Steponaitis 1987). The chief’s reach was an integral part of shaping Mississippian settlement patterns.

David Hally’s (1993, 1999, 2006) revolutionary work with “Hally circles” made the argument that chiefdoms could not have territories larger than 22 km in radius from their mound sites. Hally argued that these boundaries were a distance that chiefs could walk to/from civic ceremonial sites to/from all affiliated sites in a single day, without imposing upon the hospitality of those living at the outskirts of the territory.

Patrick Livingood (2012) looked at Hally’s work and considered how Mississippian peoples would have understood distance. Livingood (2012; 2015) computed the travel distance between settlements within a chiefdom and between competing mound centers. To analyze travelling distance, Livingood used Tobler’s hiking function, a formula which averages a travel time of 5 kilometers per hour on flat land and then slower speeds when elevation is introduced.

Livingood’s simulation proposed that most secondary mound centers were located less than four hours away from the primary administrative mound site and that all sites were located less than five hours away from their primary mound site. There was also evidence that most affiliated mounds were located a 2.2 hour walk away from the primary mound site. These distances gave officials plenty of time to travel to and from secondary sites within a single day, allowing them to exert any kind of authority they needed to (Livingood 2015). Livingood tied this into Hally’s model by supporting the assertion that chiefdoms were limited in size by how far one could

travel in a day but revised it by arguing that directly calculating travel time was a better estimate than attempting to translate a spatial-temporal estimate to a metric value.

In addition to sociocultural settlement patterns taking into consideration the chief’s sphere of influence within one polity, Mississippian peoples also had to consider the relationship of their own chiefdoms to other polities. Competing polities would have needed to be far enough away from one another to avoid tension over resources, territory, and other points of contention.

I use the term competing, in reference to competition over resources. This does not imply that the polities were necessarily hostile towards one another, but they were different groups of people.

Hally (2006) argued that the primary mounds of competing polities would have needed to be at least a full day’s walk away from one another. He concluded that competing mounds needed to be more than 32 km away from one another (Hally 2006). Livingood’s (2015) calculations put competing mound centers at least 7.5 hours away from one another. If we consider a “day’s walk” to be 8 hours the way Hally does, then Livingood’s conclusions corroborate Hally’s.

Some chiefdoms, such as Moundville and Cahokia, grew to become primate mound centers with large spheres of influence. Sprawling chiefdoms could be assumed to have a greater sphere of influence than small, isolated chiefdoms. In the Middle Cumberland Region, there was not a particular polity that appears to be superior to the others. Why did none of the many polities in this area emerge as a primate center?

If we look at a variety of preeminent polities, we might be able to find common ties as to what made a polity rise above others. Singer-Moye, a southwest Georgia multi-mound site occupied from AD 1100 to 1500, experienced a surge in population growth due not just to the wide resource range residents had access to but also due to their socio-political position (Brennan and Birch 2016: 79). The settlement was located close to other, smaller mound sites which

enabled the people of Singer-Moye to interact in a “peer-polity network.” Such a network offered them the benefits of being part of a larger community while also maintaining a certain degree of autonomy (Brennan and Birch 2016).

The success of various chiefdoms could also have been attributed to geographic location.

Peter Peregrine (1991) argued that the location of Cahokia allowed the polity to control trade across the entire midcontinent, which enabled it to rise to the level of sociopolitical prominence it once experienced. According to the graph-theoretic concept of centrality, Cahokia was located at the most central point in the Mississippi river system, offering an advantage over competing mound sites in the area (Peregrine 1991). Similar to the graph-theoretic concept of centrality: was John Kelly’s (1991) suggestion that Cahokia was a gateway center. Kelly suggested that

Cahokia’s location-controlled trade not necessarily by being in the center of the region but by controlling areas key to the transport of goods, which granted Cahokia control of interregional trade.

While location was a contributing factor in primate mound sites, other factors contributed to overall settlement patterns. Within these overarching decisions of where to put a polity, there was variation dictated by cultural factors that determined configuration of settlements within the polity. Steponaitis (1983: 171) posited that dispersed settlements could only have been possible during times of peace, as outlying farmsteads or hamlets would have been at greater risk for attack. He also suggested that settlements may have moved further away from the major ceremonial sites in an attempt to avoid paying tribute and so that individuals could operate with greater autonomy from authorities. There is also the possibility that wartime looked different in the Mississippian period than what modern warfare would come to have us expect; hostilities

could have been predictable enough to give inhabitants of dispersed sites time to retreat to a fortified and nucleated village (Steponaitis 1983:172).

Mississippian settlement patterning embraces a variety of settlement types and several key trends emerge. One is the importance of agriculturally viable soils. Another is that mounds and settlements have hierarchical interactions and that spacing is reflective of these interactions.

As throughout history, Mississippian settlement patterning is a complex interaction of sociocultural and environmental factors, wherein peoples navigated both in order to find optimal site locations.

The Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee

The Middle Cumberland region of Tennessee refers to the Mississippian period of North

Central Tennessee. The region spreads from the Cumberland River to the Caney Fork River on the east to Lake Barkely on the west. Modern Tennessee is divided into 11 physiographic regions that vary drastically in elevation, climate, geology, soil composition, flora and fauna (Figure 2-1)

(Beahm 2013: 19). The Middle Cumberland region is made up of two of these regions: the

Central Basin and the Highland Rim. The Central Basin of Tennessee, which is surrounded by the Highland Rim, is an elliptical depression (Smith 1992: 24). The basin measures 125 miles, or

201 kilometers, north to south, and 60 miles, or 97 kilometers, east to west. The Central Basin is further divided into inner and outer sections (Smith 1992: 24).

The inner section of the Central Basin is characterized by a smooth and softly rolling topography that sits at roughly 180 meters above sea level (Smith 1992: 26). The inner basin is made up of limestone deposits with little to no phosphate content; the land within the inner basin has low agricultural potential (Smith 1992: 26). This area is home to sinkholes and caves. The area hosts cedar glades and rocky soils (Smith 1992: 26). The vegetation found in the inner

central basin is characterized by its ability to thrive in the cedar glades setting and includes sedges, grasses and eastern red cedar (Baskin and Baskin 2004; Beahm 2013: 22).

The Outer Basin sits at a much higher elevation, averaging about 230 meters above sea level. The topography is characterized by narrow valley floors between high narrow ridges. The tallest of these ridges has an elevation of close to 400 meters (Smith 1992: 26). The bedrock of the Outer Basin is Ordovician limestone, shale, and dolomite with chert bearing formations

(Smith 1991: 26). The most densely populated of the Middle Cumberland Region, the Outer

Basin had high agricultural potential due to underlying phosphatic limestone (Springer and Elder

1980). Vegetation in the area is characterized by oak-hickory forest and cedar glades (Beahm

2013:22-23; Griffith 1998).

The basin is surrounded by the Highland Rim (Figure 2-2). In contrast to the varying elevations of the Central Basin, the Highland Rim has nearly level terrain (Beahm 2013: 21). The area is home to karst topography as well as sinkholes and caves (Miller 1974). Vegetation on the

Highland rim is predominantly oak-hickory forest as well as some yellow poplar (USDI 2006:

395).

The basin has three major drainage systems: the Cumberland, Duck, and Elk Rivers. The

Cumberland River drains the north Central Basin area (Smith 1992: 27). The soils found along the Cumberland river are high in silt and rich in calcium from the underlying limestone deposits.

The stream valley floors are thick deposits of alluvium and colluvium composed of clay and silt

(Smith 1992: 26). The soils are friable; they are made up of coarse sediment and gravels, during dry periods compaction would be an issue and agricultural cultivation of these soils without plows would have been difficult (Smith 1992: 26). The Duck and Elk Rivers feed into the

Tennessee River drainage and are completely separated from the Cumberland River drainage system by high ridges.

The Cumberland River and its tributaries have extensive, well developed floodplains

(Smith 1992: 27). Along the Cumberland, the alluvial terraces are underdeveloped, dramatically increasing the likelihood of flooding. Ironically, the flooding created rich soils with high agricultural potential. The regular flooding renewed the soils often but meant that crops were often at high risk of destruction. Smith (1992: 27) suggested that this was why civic ceremonial sites appeared on secondary river and stream terraces.

Environmentally, the Middle Cumberland Region has a temperate deciduous forest biome (Shelford 1963: 18). The different physiographic regions mean that forests in the region vary highly in composition and provide an excellent environment for a wide variety of flora and fauna to flourish (Smith 1992: 28). The mixed deciduous forests are made up of broad-leaved trees, pines, hemlocks, cedars, and magnolias. The high canopy is comprised of beech, yellow poplar, sugar maple, chestnut, sweet buckeye, red and white oaks, hemlock, birch, black cherry, cucumber tree, white ash, red maple, black gum, black walnut and various hickory varietals

(Sutton and Sutton 1987).

The forests have a rich and extensive subcanopy with a variety of dogwood, redbud, maples, pines, ironwood, sourwood, American holly, and a slough of wildflower varieties

(Delcourt 1979: 255-256). The Middle Cumberland hills and flat lands are home to hickory, winged elm, hackberry, and blue ash. The stream margins and flood plains are home to willow, box elder, silver maple, cottonwood, and sycamore (Smith 1992: 29).

The lush landscape supports a diverse variety of wildlife (Smith 1992: 29-30). Small animals and birds flourish in the area and include rabbit, beaver, muskrat, gray and fox squirrels,

groundhogs and a variety of small rodents (Smith 1992: 30). Larger mammals included deer and black bear. There is a wide variety in the faunal remains that appear in the archaeological record and it appears the inhabitants of the Middle Cumberland Region enjoyed a diverse diet of protein sources (Smith 1992: 30).

Archaeologically, the Middle Cumberland Region has been home to people stretching back to Paleoindian times (Deter-Wolf et al. 2011). The Mississippian tradition in the Middle

Cumberland Region flourished from AD 900 to 1450 (Smith 1992: 6). The ample resources, navigable and potable water sources, fertile soils and long growing seasons made the area prime for settlement. As a result, the Middle Cumberland region had one of the densest concentrations of Mississippian mound sites in the Southeast (Beahm 2013: 25).

Settlement patterning within the area was strongly dictated by several environmental aspects. Access to soils with high agricultural potential was important as demonstrated by the scarce occupation of areas where there were shorter growing seasons, steeper slopes and rocky soil (Beahm 2013: 26). The Outer Basin provided more fertile agricultural land meaning that agrarian societies gravitated toward this region (Jolley 1982). The area was home to rare salt springs that attracted animals and provided Mississippian peoples with trade goods (Jolley 1982).

The Cumberland River was a natural mode of transportation which would have likely facilitated both trade and polity communication between polities. Beahm (2013: 27) argued that residents would have regularly interacted with one another and with other polities located up and downstream. Simultaneously, the rough terrain of the region probably made foot travel difficult between many polities, with parts of the Cumberland plateau acting as an obstacle between the people located on either side. Transporting goods by land would have been difficult over the steep and rugged landscape. The plateau would have acted as a boundary between people on the

eastern edge of the region and people in southeastern and eastern Tennessee, perhaps isolating them.

The relationships between the mounds in the Middle Cumberland region is largely up for debate. In 2009, Smith and Moore (202-210) attempted to create a regional chronology that was distinct from the “phases” previously discussed. The regional chronology Smith and Moore

(2009: 210) presented were less “rigorously controlled spatially and temporally” and their fluid nature made it easier to establish regional patterns. Because it is easier to establish regional patterns using these periods, it is the chronology that I will be using for this thesis. From their years of research dedicated to the Middle Cumberland Region, they asserted that there were five of these regional periods (Table 2-1): period I stretched from roughly AD 1000 to 1100, and was early/emergent Mississippian; period II was west to east expansion and Mississippianization from AD 1100 to 1200; period III stretched from AD 1200 to 1325 and was a proliferation of chiefdoms; period IV spanned AD 1325 to 1425 and witnessed region-wide decentralization; period V stretched from AD 1425 to 1474 and was regional abandonment. My work is focused primarily on regional periods II and III, as these have the highest number of contemporaneous mound sites. I refer to these periods as “early” and “late” respectively.

The first mounds appeared on the western edge of the Central Basin (Figure 2-3) (these included Mound Bottom and Love Mound). Radiocarbon dating suggested a founding date of

AD 1000 for Mound Bottom (Smith 1999). Mound Bottom was abnormal in that dates and chronology suggested that the mound site was occupied for roughly three to four hundred years, where it has been argued that the majority of chiefdoms lasted between 50 and 150 years in the southeastern United States (Anderson 1994; Cobb 2003; Hally 1996: 2006). Ceramics suggested that these mounds on the western periphery of the Middle Cumberland Region were settled and

established by non-local immigrants, perhaps from the north and west, that already had

Mississippian cultural ties (Moore and Smith 2009: 207). Throughout the rest of the area, an emergent Mississippian process occurred wherein ceramics at these polities underwent a slow evolution from their limestone tempered woodland ancestors to a shell tempered Mississippian variety (Moore and Smith 2009: 207; Spears et al. 2008).

During regional period II Smith and Moore (2009:207-208) argued four points 1) that

Mound Bottom was expanded 2) Love Mound was still occupied 3) the Lindsley Estate mounds were being constructed 4) the Bowling Farm site was established. It was also suggested that at this time Old Town was established as a mound center too (Smith and Moore 2009: 208). Early on, we begin to see the Middle Cumberland Region as an area that was dense with mound centers.

Regional Period III was marked by an explosion of small chiefdoms across the Middle

Cumberland Region starting sometime after AD 1200 (Smith and Moore 2009: 208). Smith and

Moore pointed out that the relationships between these sites was unclear and that it was a distinct possibility that some of these sites were more complex polities with a hierarchy of mounds sites.

This was the same time that new mortuary rituals emerged including the stone box graves distinct to the region. Mound sites with Regional Period III components included Mound

Bottom, Love Mound, Miss Bowling’s Farm, Lindsley Estate, Williams Farm, Rutherford’s

Farm, Cain’s Chapel, Gray’s Farm, Emily Hayes Farm, and Wilkinson’s Farm (Smith and Moore

2009: 208).

Regional Period IV began between AD 1300 and 1350 and was characterized by the establishment of many small fortified villages. These village sites lacked mound construction and the wall-trench architecture was replaced by single post construction. Mound Bottom and

Love Mound were largely abandoned. Smith and Moore (2009:210) interpreted these changes as being a region wide decentralization as Mississippian peoples dispersed into nucleated villages.

During this time Rutherford’s Farm, Cain’s Chapel, Gray’s Farm, Emily Hayes Farm,

Wilkinson’s Farm, Jarman’s Farm and Overton Estate all had significant occupations.

Regional Period V marked the beginning of regional abandonment, consistent with the

“Vacant Quarter Hypothesis (Cobb and Butler 2003; Williams 1990). The Vacant Quarter

Hypothesis suggested a massive abandonment of Mississippian ceremonial centers and sites during this period (Williams 1990:173).

Emily Beahm’s (2013) dissertation work attempted a synthesis of the work conducted in the Middle Cumberland Region over the last two hundred years, and focused on the relationships between five mound sites. Beahm developed a more thorough ceramic seriation to explore whether five mounds in the area were truly contemporaneous and competing. Beahm compared the five mound complexes of Rutherford Kizer (40SU15), Castalian Springs (40SU14), Sellars

(40WI1), Beasley Mounds (40SM43), and Moss Mounds (40SM25), concluding that they were contemporaneous competing mound sites despite spacing that contradicts Hally’s hypothesis for contemporaneous Mississippian mound spacing, all mounds had neighboring mounds that were closer than Hally’s model allowed if not part of the same chiefdom (Figure 2-3) (Beam 2013:

395). Beahm focused on the precise dating of these complexes, and argued that these five contemporaneous mounds fall into Hally’s buffer zone of 18 to 31 kilometers, suggesting that

Hally’s model did not fit the region.

In some ways, the chiefdoms of the Middle Cumberland Region conformed to other

Mississippian expectations: centers surrounded by habitation sites, monumental construction, occupation span of roughly 100 years and social ranking (Beahm 2013: 395-396). For some

reason though, Mississippian mound spacing defied the model that Hally (2006) outlined as characteristic of the Mississippian phenomenon. The mounds of the Middle Cumberland Region existed in much closer proximity than they theoretically should have.

We also see ways in which settlement patterning in the Middle Cumberland Region was unlike settlement patterning elsewhere in the Mississippian world. During regional period III, the proliferation of chiefdoms, mound sites existed in very close proximity to each other, closer than

Hally’s circles would have us come to expect. Many sites were located not on primary waterways but instead on upper river terraces on secondary and tertiary streams. In many ways, these settlement choices seem to not be ideal as per several decades of settlement archaeology research.

The work of Beahm, Smith, and Moore cause several settlement patterning questions to arise. The obvious one would be why were there so many competing mound sites in close proximity to one another? What are the factors that might contribute to the establishment of so many different chiefdoms? Why did one dominant chiefdom not conquer the others? What are the environmental factors that contribute to the spatial patterning of these chiefdoms? And further, what are the cultural and sociopolitical impacts of living in such close quarters?

In Chapter 2, I discussed the history of settlement patterning in the Mississippian southeast and established that the Middle Cumberland Region was unique. Throughout Chapters

3 and 4 I address these questions. In Chapter 3, I address the question of geospatial distribution by comparing the Middle Cumberland Region to Hally’s model both in straight line distances and in Livingood’s travel time.

Figure 2-1. Physiographic regions of Tennessee (Moore and Smith 2001)

Figure 2-2. Elevation cross section of Tennessee facing north (Sayler 1866, Library of Congress)

Table 2-1. Middle Cumberland Regional Periods Period Date Range I AD 1000-1100 II AD 1100-1200 III AD 1200-1325 IV AD 1325-1425 V AD 1425 to 1474

Figure 2-3. All recorded mounds in the Middle Cumberland Region (Beahm 2012: 30)

Figure 2-4. Mound sites investigated by Beahm (Beahm 2013: 17)

CHAPTER 3 SPATIAL DYNAMICS AND INTERPOLITY INTERACTIONS

The interactions of mound sites and chiefdoms have long been of interest to archaeologists. In the Middle Cumberland Region, the high numbers of mound sites in close proximity to one another calls the nature of interpolity interactions into question. How do different groups of people living so close to one another interact? To investigate these interactions, I am going to explore mound spacing by using Hally’s North Georgia Chiefdom model and investigate how the Middle Cumberland Region compares to it.

I begin this exploration of the relationships between these different mound sites by trying to understand the space between them. How far apart were these mounds? What happened in the space between them? How did people from neighboring polities navigate these spaces? David

Hally (1993, 1996, 2006) was interested in the spatial distribution of Mississippian mound sites and spent a decade conducting seminal research into the distances between mounds. Underlying

Hally’s work was the theoretical expectation that any territory further than a day’s walk was too unwieldy to control for many chiefdoms (Bauer and Covey 2002: 847-848; Livingood 2012).

Spencer (1991) argued that in preindustrial societies the most effective size of a chiefdom was a radius of half a day’s walk. The lack of formal bureaucracy that characterizes chiefdoms prevented the delegation of authority and confined territories to smaller tracts of land (Wright

1977; 1984). This inability to delegate would have encouraged chiefs to govern from the center of their territory radiating outward (Spencer 1987, 1990, 1993). Because of this limiting factor, chiefdoms were often reduced to the distance a chief could travel to and from in a single day

(Bell et al. 1988: 178; Livingood 2012). By limiting the distance to a half day’s walk, the chief would not impose upon the hospitality of those living on the fringes of the polity (Spencer 1990).

Furthermore, territory of this size allowed for a rapid defensive response in cases of warfare.

Hally (2006) posited that each chiefdom had an administrative center with at least one platform mound, a plaza, and a habitation area where resource acquisition occurred. It would be from this administrative center that the chief would govern. Hally (2006) argued, “the minimum distance separating neighboring, contemporary administrative centers ranged between 35 and 55 km.” Any mounds within 22 kilometers of a primary administrative center were secondary mound sites affiliated with the primary mound site (Hally 1993). The remaining 22 to 35 kilometers between primary mounds was an uninhabited zone, despite being made up of productive soils that under normal circumstances would draw settlers, “people would have ventured into these zones less frequently and remained in them for shorter periods because of the greater likelihood of encountering hostile neighbors” (Hally 2006). The 22 km territory of the chiefdom made it simpler to extract tribute from sites, while the 32 km distance between primary mound centers offered security.

Livingood (2012; 2015) analyzed Hally’s circles using GIS to measure how long travel time was between sites, as opposed to distance in meters. Livingood (2012) argued that measuring travel time directly would be a more potent analysis of the spatial distribution of mounds as kilometers and straight-line Euclidean distances are a modern, western creation.

Converting Hally’s mound distances into travel time, Livingood (2012) found confirmation of

Hally’s arguments: by Livingood’s standards, secondary sites were mostly located within 4 hours of travel from the administrative center and all were within 5 hours. On average, contemporaneous mounds that were in the same polity were located within 2.2 hours or 9.9 kilometers of the principal administrative center. Livingood (2015) went on to argue that travel time was a more appropriate measure of distance over straight line distance and caloric cost.

Livingood (2015) also pursued the question of whether Mississippian peoples were aware of this spatial arrangement or if it was a by-product of other settlement factors that happened to result in a particular distribution of sites. To investigate, he examined linguistic evidence from

Choctaw, with the thought that although most Mississippians did not speak Choctaw, many spoke a language in the Muskogean family. Livingood (2015) made the connection that the primary word for territory is apelichika which has a definition of “the circuit of a king’s dominion,” the word circuit alluding to the circular nature of the territory. From these linguistic clues, Livingood deduced that Mississippian peoples were aware of the spatial orientation of their territories.

At first glance, the spacing of the mound sites in the Middle Cumberland Region does not seem to abide by Hally’s pattern, a system which Hally (2006:42) argued could be applied to the entire Southeast region. The period that Smith and Moore (2009:208) referred to as the

“proliferation of chiefdoms,” seem to have more than one competing mound site in a 22 km radius, let alone a 35 km radius. In Chapter 3, I explore how the chiefdoms of the Middle

Cumberland Region do not conform to Hally’s model in metric distance and pursue Livingood’s alternative that the region might conform to Hally’s model if distance were measured in travel time. I use straight line Euclidean distances and then I use a least cost path analysis to evaluate the travel time between mounds.

A notable criticism of Hally’s circles is that it relied almost entirely upon sociopolitical factors. Because the Middle Cumberland Region was ecologically different from the North

Georgia region that Hally explored, the mound spacing might have been more of a compromise between environmental and cultural factors. Chamblee et al. (2012) believed that the spacing of the North Georgia model correlated heavily with agriculturally productive soils and might have

been a by-product of environmental factors that happened to correspond with Hally’s political factors. This hypothesis might be a viable alternative to Hally’s model.

Dataset

My sample size consists of the locations of 310 Mississippian sites in the Middle

Cumberland Region (Figure 3-1). These include mound sites, rock shelters, and open habitation sites that are on file at the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. The bulk of my analysis focuses on the mound sites that have contemporaneous occupations in either regional period II or III (n=

24). The location data for the sites was gathered by Dr. Charles Cobb of the Florida Museum of

Natural history. The soil, watershed, and elevation data used were collected from open-access government sources.

The mounds I use in this study have been confidently dated by Smith and Moore using a combination of radiocarbon dates and ceramic seriation, making it possible to reasonably establish contemporaneous occupations (Moore and Smith 2009; Smith 2002). Beahm (2013) attempted to strengthen the dates of five of these mound sites by focusing in on the ceramic seriation. I look at mounds from two of the Middle Cumberland Region periods: early and late

(Figure 3-2). The “early” period refers to mound sites occupied between AD 1100 and 1200 in

Regional Period II. The “late” period refers to mound sites occupied between AD 1200 and 1300 in Regional Period III or the “proliferation of chiefdoms.” The exception to this, was Mound

Bottom which has an occupation spanning both of these time periods (Moore and Smith 2009:

208).

I am hesitant to use site size or number of mounds in this analysis. Many of the sites have conflicting records on the number and size of mounds. Many sites no longer exist, or have been partially destroyed, with few, if any records, left behind. By 1877, most of the French Lick

mound site was buried beneath Nashville and, allegedly, the largest was levelled to provide fill for roads (Smith and Moore 2010: 201). Since then, the growth that Nashville has experienced has been detrimental to the archaeological record. Even when records exist, there are conflicting accounts of the numbers of mounds.

Mound Bottom, the largest civic ceremonial site in the area, has conflicting reports on the number of mounds but between 11 and 20 mounds have been reported. A 1974 investigation produced a table of mound sizes but only 14 mounds were recorded (Smith 1992: 333). Pack site is located next to Mound Bottom and is posited to be part of the same mound complex (Smith

1992: 332-333). Pack site had 11 recorded mounds. Mound numbers and size varied drastically.

Some sites had only a platform mound (Maddux and Chenowith) while several others had four

(East Nashville mounds, French Lick, Old Town), or five (DeGraffenreid, Castalian Springs,

Rutherford Kiser) mounds. Mound size varied, from being as small as “lumps,” (Smith

1992:333) to Moundville’s Mound A, which was recorded at 11 meters tall, 80 meters long and

75 meters wide. The next largest recorded mound was at the Castalian Springs site and was recorded as being 25ft tall (Moore and smith 2001: 22). Palisades and other defensive structures were common in later sites; Mound Bottom and Pack Site both have archaeological evidence of extensive palisades, suggesting there were security concerns in the later period.

Methods

I applied several spatial models to evaluate mound spacing in the Middle Cumberland

Region. I modeled my work after Hally’s and draw circles with a 22 km radius over each mound site. I chose 22 km because it is the absolute closest competing chiefdoms could be if I eliminate the buffer zone entirely. Originally, I planned to draw a series of two circles around each mound site, one indicating the 22-kilometer zone, the other indicating the 32-kilometer zone, with

shading indicating the buffer zone between the two. It quickly became obvious that the Middle

Cumberland Region does not conform to this particular aspect of Hally’s circles and I chose to offer the visualization of overlapping 22-kilometer circles as proof. Believing that Hally’s model might be adjusted if I followed Livingood’s methods, I follow up with an attempt to measure distance in travel time between sites. Given the rough terrain of the landscape, I thought that mound spacing might adhere to distances equivalent to half a day’s travel time.

The first step I took in evaluating mound spacing was conducting a nearest neighbor analysis. The statistical test addressed whether distribution of mounds wwas random or non- random. If non-random, the nearest neighbor analysis would reveal whether the sites were intentionally placed closer together (clustered) or further apart (dispersed). I conducted the nearest neighbor analysis in Esri’s ArcMap 10.5.1, using the “nearest neighbor” tool.

My second step in evaluating mound spacing was to analyze Hally’s circles. Using the

ArcMap Buffer tool, I superimposed a set of circles on early and late mound sites: the circles had a radius of 22 km. This gave us a visualization of whether Hally’s models fit the Middle

Cumberland mounds. If Hally’s model were to hold true, each separate polity would have its own 22 km circle with a buffer zone between the next nearest mound site’s circle. The nearest neighbor analysis also provided a table of the Euclidean distances between a mound and its nearest contemporaneous neighbor, I used these Euclidean distances in Chapter 4 as a discriminant function factor.

Finally, I evaluated mound spacing by exploring Livingood’s travel times and assessing whether Hally’s model fits the region if we consider travel time instead of Euclidean straight-line distance. To evaluate walking speed, I first created a series of least cost paths and then I followed

Livingood’s example and used Tobler’s hiking function (1993) which has been used by other

archaeologists to measure travel time (Hare 2004; Kantner 1997). Cost refers to the unit of measurement that is being used instead of Euclidean straight-line distance. For the purpose of my study, cost is travel time in hours based on terrain. Caloric expenditure is another common cost measurement.

To develop least cost paths, I used the distance tool set of ArcMap and a series of steps published by Nicholas Tripcevich (2009). I computed the cost allocation using Tobler’s Hiking

Function as the vertical function table and the slope raster as the input raster. I used the resulting cost allocation raster to compute cost distance and cost connectivity.

Tobler’s formula looks at walking speed as a function of slope, predicting a speed of

5km/hr on level terrain (1993). To determine speed, we must calculate a number of variables including walking velocity (5km/h), elevation difference, distance, slope and the angle of the slope. Tobler defines pace as being the reciprocal of speed, where pace is a function of slope/gradient uphill or downhill.

To calculate Tobler’s hiking function in ArcGIS, I converted the digital elevation model rasters into slope and aspect rasters. From there, I was able to use the raster algebra calculator to apply Tobler’s hiking function to the different mound sites to compute how long it would take to get from one mound to another.

Results

The nearest neighbor ratio or index is the observed average distance that has been divided by expected average distance. When this index is less than 1, the features can be interpreted as clustered. If the index is greater than 1, the features trend toward dispersed. The greater the absolute distance from 1, the stronger that pattern is and the more likely it is to be non-random.

For the contemporaneous mounds of my study, the early mounds had an expected average distance of 7990.67 meters and an observed distance of 10913.27 meters indicating the mounds were further apart than expected. The nearest neighbor ratio was 1.37.

For all later mounds with a contemporaneous element, the distance between mounds shrank. The expected distance was 6851.60 meters while the observed distance was 5855.25 meters. This returns a nearest neighbor index of 0.85, indicating that late mounds were placed closer together than early mounds. We will further explore whether late or early mounds have intentional or significant placements in the discriminant function analysis in Chapter 4.

The only mound that conformed to Hally’s model was DeGraffenreid with a distance of

35 kilometers to its nearest contemporary site. Sellars was placed right in the buffer zone with its nearest neighbor being 28 kilometers away. The average nearest neighbor of early mound sites was 11 kilometers, half of Hally’s model, while the average nearest neighbor for late mound sites was just under 6 kilometers, 16 kilometers less than Hally’s model. If these mound sites were competing chiefdoms, Hally’s model does not fit. Conversely, for Hally’s model to fit, these mound sites could not have been competing chiefdoms but rather secondary mound centers within a chiefdom, in opposition to the conclusions of Smith and Moore’s model.

The cost path rasters indicate travel time by color (Figure 3-5). The color key aligns with how long it would take to travel from one site to anywhere else in the Middle Cumberland

Region. To demonstrate how least cost path works, this particular cost path raster measures travel time from Castalian Springs, in the northeast, to the other mound sites. From Castalian

Springs, the sites that were most easily accessible were often those that were placed along rivers and streams. Other sites, like Fewkes, would take longer to reach.

The computation of the least cost path travel time placed the average travel time between all late mounds (not just nearest neighbor) at 4.11 hours, while travel time between all early mounds was 4.64 hours. That means all contemporaneous late mounds in the Middle

Cumberland Region were on average half a day’s walk from each other. The average travel time between nearest neighbor mounds was 1.09 hours. Many mounds saw their neighboring mounds at less than an hour’s walk away. Chenoweth and Sanders were the most remote mounds with their nearest neighbors being at least two hours’ walk away.

Three mounds emerge as having been the most difficult to access from a regional, overall standpoint. While the average mound distance in travel was 4.11 hours, Fisher-Reams, Old Town and Sanders were most difficult to access from the across the region. Note that these were all late mound sites. For Fisher-Reams the trek from Castalian Springs would have been 14.65 hours, the trek from Sellars would have been 13.64 hours and the trek from Rhinehart would have been

13.24 hours. Old Town had distances further than Fisher-Reams; it would have taken 15.39 hours to reach Old Town from Castalian Springs, 14.22 hours from Sellars and 14 hours from

Rhinehart.

A secondary consideration for least cost path in travel times was location near river. The major rivers and streams provided a great deal of accessibility between sites. Despite this, only some sites were positioned in areas where waterways would have been the optimal form of travel. Figure 3-5 illustrates the cost distance raster in travel time in hours on foot from Castalian

Springs. This cost distance raster described above does not take into account canoe travel, which would have been fastest in some instances. On foot, travelling alongside rivers and streams would have been the fastest route from Castalian Springs and Rhinehart to most areas in the

Middle Cumberland Region. Most of the cost distance rasters demonstrate a combination of both river access and overland trails to make up the most efficient routes between sites.

Both Old Town and Fisher-Reams were centrally located so that least cost path radiates from the center point outward, regardless of river and stream location (Figure 3-6; Figure 3-7).

The cost path rasters suggest that at no point was it faster to travel from one of these sites along a river or stream. Both sites seem to have been placed without regard to the efficiency and advantages of having access to a navigable waterway, rather that something resembling a straight-line distance would have been the most efficient direction of travel in all scenarios.

These two sites are anomalies compared to the rest of the sites in the Middle Cumberland

Region.

Analysis

Hally’s (1993) model suggested that the optimal size for a chiefdom was within a radius of 22 km which would allow control and protection while fostering community and contact between members of a single polity. Hally suggested that chiefdoms generally had a territory of less than 22 kilometers, which Livingood (2012) confirmed could be traveled in roughly 5 hours or half a day. If Smith (1991) was correct in the assertion that each of these mound sites was its own separate polity, we can assert that the Middle Cumberland Region does not conform to

Hally’s model. This conclusion was supported by Beahm’s work (2013:383) which looked at a smaller number of Middle Cumberland Region mound sites and argued that the mounds in her study area did not conform to the north Georgia chiefdom model. Not only does the region not conform to Hally’s model, but most of the mound sites within the entire Middle Cumberland

Region are within a half day’s walking distance to one another, during both early and late periods.

Calculating travel time is difficult. We do not know what foliage looked like from season to season nor to what extent the foliage was manipulated. Additionally, we cannot know where popular river crossings were. The river problem added a substantially more difficult layer to this thesis than I would have imagined. River crossings would have undoubtedly changed not just over the years but between seasons as well. The river meanders and oxbow lakes that characterize prime Mississippian lands also meant that river crossings were variable. Seasonal differences in the river and its crossing points would have changed drastically. This complicates the calculation of travel times and demonstrates the shifting and variable reality of environmental factors. Travel time can be delayed by adverse weather conditions, misfortune, cultural and manmade obstacles, and secondary activities that include things like foraging for food and carrying goods (Livingood 2012). For this reason, I did not take into consideration the added difficulty of physically crossing the river. In this study, every least cost path analysis I ran suggested that for at least some of the sites, travel alongside rivers and streams would have been the most efficient. Removing travel along bodies of water returned skewed results, therefore I chose to keep them in the analysis.

Additionally, the least cost path rasters showed us, not every mound site was positioned to speed up travel times by moving alongside the rivers and streams. In particular, neither Old

Town nor Fisher-Reams had easy access to drainage. Other sites, primarily the ones located along the Cumberland River, seem to have been placed to take advantage of the enhanced travel speed that location had to offer.

Although several of these later period sites were placed in areas that were more accessible, some sites, such as Fisher-Reams, Old Town, and Sander’s, were more removed from

the rest. While the average travel time between sites was roughly 4 hours, accessibility to these sites was more limited, and travelers would have to prepare for longer trips.

While Hally (2006: 42) “could argue that… similar regional systems encompassed all of the Mississippian Southeast,” it becomes increasingly clear that the Middle Cumberland Region was an exception. Beahm (2012: 385) concludes that “it appears that contemporary sites are spaced closer together and chiefdoms have smaller territories in the Middle Cumberland region than in North Georgia.” How do we come to terms with the disparities between Hally’s North

Georgia chiefdom model and the Middle Cumberland Region? There are a few possibilities as to why the mound spacing looked so different. The first is that the landscape of the Middle

Cumberland Region was different than North Georgia’s. The Middle Cumberland Region is home to rough terrain, and one of my original thoughts was that travel across the difficult terrain may have still been equivalent to a half day. As the Least Cost Path analysis showed us, the landscape was not so rough as to shift travel times to conform with Hally’s model. This leads us to two separate possibilities. The first possibility as per Hally’s model, is that the mound sites in the Middle Cumberland Region were not competing polities because they were located too close to one another. The second possibility is that mound spacing more heavily correlated with fertile soil distribution (Chamblee et al. 2012).

The first possibility, that mound sites were not competing polities, was addressed by

Beahm in her dissertation. Beahm concluded that it was likely some of these sites were competing polities operating as independent chiefdom capitals. While the exact nature of the relationship between these sites is unknown, Smith and Moore (2008: 205-207) suggested that many of these sites were small independent chiefdoms.

Aditionally, trauma affiliated with warfare was comparatively low in the area when compared to contemporaneous populations from Illinois and Alabama (Worne 2011: 167-168).

This does not mean there was no traumatic violence, as Worne (2011) noticed an uptick in regional violent trauma during the Mississippian. In addition to skeletal evidence, the presence of palisades at many of the sites indicates that Middle Cumberland peoples experienced anxiety over the potential for violence. The rates of violence-related trauma were not substantially different from southeastern Tennessee sites (Hally 1993; Smith 2003; Worne 2011) suggesting that mound centers co-existed relatively peacably.

The placement of certain sites away from navigable rivers and streams potentially indicates that threats were extra-regional, particularly as sites moved further away from the river over time, as more chiefdoms appear. Sites placed further from the river would be more difficult for inter-regional attackers to locate. Meanwhile, placing sites out of view and limiting river accessibility does not necessarily hinder intra-regional attackers to a great degree.

The second possibility is that site placement has little to do with the need for security at all. A hallmark of Mississippian culture was maize cultivation and Mississippian villages appear in areas with highly fertile soils. Chamblee et al. (2012) suggested that mound spacing in northern Georgia was partially the way it was due to widely spaced patches of highly productive alluvial soil. Perhaps the Middle Cumberland Region had a more regularly spaced distribution of alluvial soils allowing sites to be closer together.

There are several models in Mississippian archaeology that attempt to explain the interaction of mound sites in close proximity to one another. Hally (1996) noted that

Mississippian polities were unstable, a sentiment echoed by other archaeologists. Hally suggested that these polities rarely survived for more than a hundred years and many moved

through a cycle of construction, abandonment, and reoccupation. Anderson (1994) argued for a model of “chiefdom cycling,” wherein these polities moved between various levels of size and complexity, beginning with a series of small mound centers, these became large mound centers, then multi-mound primary centers with single mound secondary administrative centers, finally these complex chiefdoms dissolve into a series of small, autonomous mound centers. Hally

(1996: 125) found evidence against the concept of chiefdom cycling, namely that most small mound centers remained small mound centers, few complex chiefdoms seemed to have arisen from small autonomous chiefdoms, and that there was little evidence of these complex chiefdoms returning to small autonomous centers.

Taking both Hally and Anderson’s arguments into consideration, Blitz (1999) argued for a “fission-fusion” model wherein “small and large chiefdoms formed by the aggregation and dispersal of minimal or basic political units.” Blitz presented the case that polities moved between dispersed and clustered, trying to find balance between autonomy and security. In their hypothesis on “paired towns,” Williams and Shapiro (1990) argued for the alternating abandonment and subsequent reoccupation of two “paired” mound centers in the Mississippian

Southeast. These mound centers existed in close proximity to each other and perhaps prevented overextending environmental resources.

The incompatibility of my data with most of these models is the issue of contemporaneity. If these sites in the Middle Cumberland Region were truly occupied contemporaneously then they did not necessarily fit these models. I felt comfortable in the established chronology of the area as Smith and Moore established it using ceramics and often radio-carbon dates. It was also part of Emily Beahm’s (2012) dissertation to separately confirm the ceramic seriation. There are also other mound sites in the area without reasonably accurate

dating that I avoided using in this thesis. There is a secondary consideration that these case studies took place in the southern Appalachian region, and there may have been different cultural factors in play. These models might not fit the happenings of the Middle Cumberland Region of the time.

Hally’s North Georgia Chiefdom model was built on the political factors of competing chiefdoms. It was focused on interpolity interactions, and the need for chiefs to control and exercise power. While this may have been true in North Georgia, the Middle Cumberland Region does not conform to this model. While sociopolitical factors may have played a role in the mound spacing of the Middle Cumberland, I believe we need to take a deeper look into the ecological factors as well. Chamblee et al. (2012) make an ecological argument based on soil productivity and it is possible that the Middle Cumberland Region settlement patterning was more a by-product of soil productivity. The complexity of the mound spacing deserves an analysis just as complex, taking into account a variety of both sociopolitical and environmental factors.

Conclusion

In conclusion of Chapter 3, I have established that the Middle Cumberland Region does not necessarily conform to Hally’s mound spacing model for North Georgia. If Smith was correct that the mound sites were separate polities, then the mounds themselves were placed much closer in straight-line Euclidean distances than Hally’s model would allow. After investigating Hally’s model, I analyzed the mounds using Livingood’s methods of travel time. I concluded that even by the measure of travel time, the Middle Cumberland Region did not conform to the North Georgia model. Instead, both early and late sites were, on average, a four hour walk from any contemporaneous site in the region. These results indicate that the factors

that drove settlement patterns in North Georgia were different from those that drove settlement patterns in the Middle Cumberland Region; further analysis is needed to determine which factors did drive settlement choice. Perhaps Hally’s circles are too simplistic to apply to this region. For this reason, I have chosen a multivariate technique that enables me to take more variables into account. In Chapter 4, I use discriminant function analysis on the variables of soil quality, distance to the Cumberland river, distance to the nearest navigable river, aspect, observation, river visibility, slope, number of tributaries and streams, viewshed, and nearest neighbor to further investigate this patterning.

Figure 3-1. Mound and non-mound sites in the Middle Cumberland Region.

Table 3-1. Sites and Mound Types Site Site Name Early/Late Mound Type Pack CH1 1 Mound Complex Mound Bottom CH8 1 Mound Complex Doddsville CH19 2 Mound Complex Chandler CH74 2 Not Recorded H4 40DS44 2 Mound Complex Fewkes 40WM01 2 Mound Complex Old Town 40WM02 2 Mound Complex DeGraffeneid 40WM04 1 Mound Complex Fisher-Reams 40WM11 2 Single Mound Chenowith 40WM86 2 Platform Mound Sanders 40WM405 2 Mound Complex Cain's Chapel 40DV3 2 Mound Complex East Nash Md 40DV4 2 Mound Complex French Lick 40DV5 1 Single Mound Gordontown 40DV6 2 Mound Complex Traveler's Rest 40DV11 2 Single Mound Maddux 40DV17 2 Platform Mound Brick Ch Pike 40DV39 1 Mound Complex Bowling 40DV426 2 Mound Complex C22/Rhinehard 40MT44 2 Mound Complex Moss-Wright 40SU61 1 Single Mound Castalian Springs 40SU14 2 Mound Complex Rutherford Kiser 40SU15 2 Mound Complex Sellars 40Wl1 2 Mound Complex

Figure 3-2. Mound sites in the Middle Cumberland Region

Figure 3-3. Early mound sites with 22 km Hally circles

Figure 3-4. Late mounds with 22 km Hally circles

Table 3-2. Distance between the closest contemporary mound site in meters and in travel time Site Site Number Early/Late Nearest Neighbor Nearest Neighbor (meters) (hours) Pack Ch1 Early 2666.93 0.59 Mound Bottom CH8 Early 2128.73 0.66 DeGraffenreid 40WM04 Early 35040.38 9.34 French Lick 40DV5 Early 8,111.96 0.89 Moss-Wright 40SU61 Early 289.7 0.37 Doddsville CH19 Late 1462.73 0.38 Chandler CH74 Late 4865.44 0.55 H4 40DS44 Late 7310.68 0.72 Fewkes 40WM01 Late 8810.15 1.65 Old Town 40WM02 Late 4856.66 1.06 Fisher-Reams 40WM11 Late 4865.66 1.07 Chenowith 40WM86 Late 3863.63 2.24 Sanders 40WM405 Late 7194.64 2.60 Cain’s Chapel 40DV3 Late 4207.52 1.28 East Nashville 40DV4 Late 1436.08 0.28 Mound Gordontown 40DV6 Late 3246.17 1.21 Traveler’s Rest 40DV11 Late 3246.17 1.16 Maddux 40DV17 Late 4688.82 0.86 Brick Church 40DV39 Late 4688.82 1.78 Pike Bowling 40DV426 Late 5314.03 1.41 C22/Rhinehard 40MT44 Late 15852.94 2.48 Castalian Springs 40SU14 Late 2152.25 0.65 Rutherford Kiser 40SU15 Late 5091.66 0.67 Sellars 40WI1 Late 28168.92 8.72

Figure 3-5. Cost path raster from Castalian Springs

Figure 3-6. Cost path raster from Old Town

Figure 3-7. Cost path raster from Fisher-Reams

CHAPTER 4 SETTLEMENT ECOLOGY

The term settlement ecology was coined by Glenn Davis Stone, an archaeologist and anthropologist who worked with the Nigerian Kofyar (1996). While archaeologists had long been interested in settlement patterning, Stone used both a heavily anthropological and geographical approach to better understand the relationships between settlement and production activities, with a focus on cultural change and adaptation. Stone described settlement ecology as a “body of theory dealing not only with the effects of various factors but with their relative importance. When the farmer wants to be on fertile soil, near water and adjacent to his brother, where do the priorities lie?” (Stone 1996: 12-13).

The landscape is a product of long-term human-environment interaction that leaves the earth visibly altered (Brennan and Birch 2016). Humans are not passive respondents in these environmental and cultural contexts but are actively shaping the world around them, manipulating and constructing their environments (Marquardt 1992: 105-106; Thompson and

Waggoner 2013). In modern approaches to settlement ecology, we acknowledge that sociocultural change is produced by individuals who navigate the circumstances into which they were born. This accommodates explaining the archaeological record through the analysis of social and ecological landscapes, and how people navigated them over time (Brennan and Birch

2016).

Settlement ecology is a natural lens through which to view large datasets. As information becomes easier to access and spatial variables become easier to measure, data sets become larger.

Data that once would have taken years to track down can now be downloaded with the click of a mouse as academia and heritage resource management transition to being open access. Huge,

unwieldy datasets that once would have been a nightmare to process, take only a fraction of the time as software packages advance.

I modeled much of Chapter 4 after Jones’ recent work with discriminant function analysis and settlement patterning. Jones and Ellis (2016) conducted a nearest neighbor and discriminant function analysis on Piedmont Village Tradition sites in North Carolina and Virginia with the goal of determining spatial correlations between settlements and the factors that influenced various settlement choices. The sites were divided into early and late periods, then Jones and

Ellis (2016) categorized sites based on region, size and settlement occupation: short-term, small long-term, medium long-term, and large long term. They used environmental and landscape data: wetlands, stream and river locations, historic trail locations, viewshed and catchment radius.

Jones and Ellis (2016) concluded that in one region long-term settlement types were more dispersed, while other regions displayed an opposite pattern with short-term, small long-term, and medium long-term settlements being more dispersed. They also argued that most Piedmont

Village Tradition communities were most likely to choose settlement location based on food acquisition and access to overland networks, but there was some small-scale variation on influential landscape features.

Jones (2017a) then used a discriminant function analysis to measure change in settlement patterns in the same area over a span of 800 years. He concluded that over the Late Woodland period Piedmont Village Tradition communities in the upper Yadkin River Valley experienced a decrease in population, moved up stream, and became less sedentary. This was a notable trend because it was at odds with the rest of the Mississippian Southeast, which experienced increased population, increased sedentism, and increased settlement size.

After the initial discriminant function analysis, Jones (2017b) moved to explain his methods in an article addressing how the discriminant function analysis works as applied to archaeology. His example began by sorting environmental and cultural factors into six different categories: factors that measured food production, factors that measured defensibility, factors that measured access to exchange, factors that measured structure placement, factors that measured access to building materials, and factors that measured access to water (Figure 4-1).

Jones (2017b) argued that based on the discriminant function analysis, the primary factors for settlement choice in the Piedmont Region of North Carolina and Georgia were factors relating to food production (flood plain area, loam, slope, sediment drainage, and wetland areas) and defensibility (viewshed). Secondary factors for settlement choice related to structure placement (solar radiation), access to trade and exchange (distance to trail node), more complex food production abilities (number of wetlands, hardwood growth), and access to building materials (hardwood growth again and conifer growth). Tertiary factors were access to water

(distance to nearest streams, number tributaries), food production again (forested wetland, slope in 2km catchment) and access to trade and exchange (distance to trail node). Jones (2017b) concluded that these results corroborated regional hypotheses of several other archaeologists

(Beck and Moore 2002; Meyers 1995; Smith 1978) and argued that this evidence is support of discriminant function analysis as a reliable method in archaeological analysis.

With the geospatial dataset that I have, I believe that modeling my work after Jones’ would yield the most comprehensive answers to the mysteries of settlement patterning in the

Middle Cumberland Region. In this Chapter 4, I conducted an in-depth analysis of the factors that may have encouraged Mississippian peoples to settle where they did, using Jones’ variables as a guide.

Methods

I chose eleven variables: soil index, nearest neighbor, viewshed, observation extent, distance to nearest navigable river/stream, distance to Cumberland river, number of tributary streams within a 5 km catchment, slope, aspect, and distance to nearest open habitation site. I divided these variablels into categories based on what they might reveal about a site’s location: resource procurement, security, and intersite relations. I decided on soil type, slope, aspect and number of tribute streams because of their connection to resource procurement. All of these variables would fall into the category of resource extraction. Viewshed and observation both fall into the category of security. Nearest neighbor, distance to the Cumberland River, distance to nearest navigable river, and distance to nearest open habitation site are all variables related to intersite relations.

For the sake of consistency, I used the same mound site data from Chapter 3 in this analysis. These included the 24 contemporaneous mound sites from regional periods II and III.

The United States Department of Agriculture provided soil data from the United States Soil

Survey (2017). They were ranked using the National Commodity Crop Productivity Index

(NCCPI). The NCCPI ranks soils on their productivity potential using a scale of 0 to 1, where 0 is completely non-productive/waterlogged and 1 is optimum (USDA NCCPI 2008). LiDAR, elevation, and topographic data were sourced from the United States Geological Survey. River, stream and wetland data were all sourced from the Tennessee Geographic Information Council that offers open access GIS datasets.

All data was first downloaded and opened in Esri’s Arc 10.5 suite. I predominantly used

ArcMap for calculating variables. I calculated the discriminant function analysis in SPSS.

Results

Nearest Neighbor

For the nearest neighbor factor, I used the straight-line distance in meters to the nearest contemporaneous mound site. By including this metric in the DFA, we can assess whether the distance between neighboring mounds in Regional Period II and Regional Period III were primary factors in mound placement. The results from Chapter 3 suggest that there is a change from dispersed to clustered over these periods, but the relative importance of this difference remains unknown and the discriminant function analysis might shed more light on it.

Viewshed and Observation Points

Viewshed and observation analyses are related factors having to do with seeing and being seen. Viewshed measures the extent of what can be seen from a singular point on the landscape.

The viewshed tool creates a raster based on elevation data and records how much of the surrounding terrain the feature overlooks. The observation extent tool works similarly to the viewshed analysis tool in that it creates an elevation-based raster but instead of measuring the view from a particular feature, it returns how visible the feature is on the surrounding terrain.

I chose these factors as I believe that they are deeply related to interpolity relations (Wheatley

1995; Jones 2006; Maschner 1996). A mound site that has an extensive viewshed but very limited observation may be concerned with being able to see its neighbors while remaining hidden from sight. Such choices may be indicative with a concern for safety and security.

Likewise, a mound site that has both an extensive viewshed and observation extent might not be concerned about security at all, perhaps indicating a more prominent physical location. There is also an element of control that comes with visibility; mounds with greater observation extents that overlook more habitation sites might indicate attempts to exercise more control over the general population by elites.

Views from mound sites varied drastically as did the distance from where each particular site could be viewed (see Table 4-1). Rutherford-Kizer’s viewshed stretched up to 80 kilometers and could be observed from as far as 114 kilometers out. The site overlooked two other mound sites, Fewkes and Gordontown and five habitation sites, providing direct line of sight onto the on-goings of those settlements. Noticeably, Fewkes could not see Rutherford-Kizer but could see

Gordontown, while Gordontown could see neither mound. This might suggest that Rutherford-

Kizer was a primary mound center in a complex chiefdom and that both Fewkes and

Gordontown were secondary mound centers in the same polity.

Noel Cemetery also had views reaching upwards of 81 kilometers, but unlike

Rutherford-Kizer, no other mound sites could be observed from Noel Cemetery. Noel

Cemetery/Brick Church could be viewed from roughly the same distance and shared line of sight with three sites. These two mound sites had the furthest viewsheds of the study sample.

Mound Bottom had a more limited viewshed at 6 km but overlooked Pack site, 7 other open habitation sites, and 2 other mounds, H45, and D14 (these were left out of the analysis because they lacked reliable dating). Mound Bottom was the largest mound site in the region and the viewshed suggests that it might have occupied a place of prominence within the Middle

Cumberland world. This viewshed and observation analysis suggests that Mound Bottom held a politically influential place in the Middle Cumberland region in the early period, while

Rutherford-Kizer may have emerged as a dominant mound center in the later period.

A further exploration into the roles of Mound Bottom and Rutherford-Kizer would be beneficial. Rutherford-Kizer was placed on the landscape to see and be seen. Furthermore, it had the tallest mound in the region at 7.9 meters (Moore and Smith 2001: 22). This suggests that the mound center occupied a place of political prominence in the late Middle Cumberland Region. If

there was a politically prominent mound site in the early Middle Cumberland Region, it would have been Mound Bottom. Noticeably, Mound Bottom also overlooked a higher number of open habitation sites, however, it was not prominently placed on the landscape in the same way that

Rutherford-Kizer was.

Slope

The degree of slope that the mound sites were situated on varied drastically. Some mounds were placed in the middle of the flood plain, while others were constructed on bluffs overlooking the river. Still others were placed far away from the main rivers altogether, tucked back by tributary streams still navigable by canoe. The majority of mound sites were placed in areas where elevation change and slope were minimal, although some were placed directly on slopes (Table 4-2). I used an area of 250 meters around site coordinates for this measurement.

Bowling, Noel Cemetery, Lick Branch, East Nashville, Sellars Farm, Mound Bottom,

Doddsville and Castalian Springs all had minimal slope ranging between 0 and 2.16%. Mound

Bottom and Doddsville were located in the flood plain while Castalian Springs was placed further away, off a tributary.

Several sites had a wide range of slope. Rutherford-Kizer, Fewkes, Chenoweth, and Old

Town all had ranges from no slope in some places to as much as 4.95% in others. In some places, the range of slopes varied greatly as Gordontown and DeGraffenreid had slopes ranging from 0 to

15.15% in places.

Traveler’s Rest and Moss Wright Park had slopes ranging from 2.16 to 4.95%. Sanders had a slope range of 4.95-11.75%. All of these sites had moderate slopes that would have been noticeable during construction.

Some sites were located on bluffs and had significant slope components. Chandler Site had a slope ranging from 8.35 to 15.15%. The Pack Site was located right off the river built onto a bluff and had a range of 8.35 to 11.75%. Maddux Mound also had a significant range of slope with the lower end at 8.35% reaching to more than 30% in places. H4 was located on a bluff overlooking the Cumberland River. The slopes at these mound sites were significant ranging from 11.75% to more than 30%.

There is a trend of early sites being located in areas where there is less slope, suggesting later sites moved into the hills.

Distance to River/Distance to Cumberland River

The distance to river factor measures the distance to the nearest navigable river in meters.

Most sites had access to a navigable river or creek which would act as a transportation route and been a highly trafficked area. The Cumberland River would have acted as a highway of sorts for native peoples from all different regions; distance to/from the river might indicate a desire to be connected to a larger network. Distance may also reflect how important security was at the time.

Sites located further from highly trafficked areas could indicate the desire for increased security.

If the sites were out of sight from the river, they would have been harder to locate without prior knowledge of the site location. This would have added an increased layer of security during times that seemed to experience a rise in violent death (Worne et al. 2012). Conversely, sites located closer to the river may indicate an increased desire to be a part of a greater community with increased access to foreign goods and information, or less concern for defense.

I conducted two sets of analyses for the factor of distance to the river (Table 4-3; Table 4-

4). The first set was distance to the Cumberland River. The second set was distance to the nearest navigable body of water; this included tributaries as well as streams and creeks that were deep

enough to use as a transportation way. These were streams and creeks that were present in both summer and winter; while an imperfect measurement, I reasoned that a body of water deep enough to be present during the normal seasonal cycling was most likely deep enough to be navigated by canoe. I conducted two sets of analysis because I reasoned that the Cumberland

River was one of the largest regional waterways and, therefore, a security risk during tumultuous times, particularly for extra-regional attackers. I also reasoned that people fearing for their lives would have reason to move further away from all navigable streams and rivers, as they would be harder to reach. Logically, sites located further from the Cumberland River but still on navigable rivers or streams might be concerned about the security risks posed from outsiders unfamiliar with the region. Sites located further from all navigable waterways might be concerned about the security risks posed from all extra-polity peoples. Note that this factor is different from numbers of tributaries or streams which would also record non-navigable bodies of water that provide resources.

Looking at the two tables, there seems to be a trend away from the Cumberland River but not away from navigable rivers or streams between early and late sites.

Cumberland River Visibility

I chose to use river visibility because I believe it represented defensive planning. Given the rise in violence during the later years of the Middle Cumberland Region, it would make sense for sites to want greater river visibility. This would allow residents to see attackers from afar and respond accordingly. To measure river visibility, I measure the overlap between the viewshed and major waterways (Table 4-6).

The table below is arranged by how much of the Cumberland River could be seen in meters, where 0 signifies no river was in sight. Looking at the table, there is a trend where early

sites have less river visibility than later sites. This is notable given that the analysis also shows a paradoxical trend of sites moving away from the same river. If there was a preoccupation with moving further from the river but still needing to see the river, these trends might indicate security concerns over the Cumberland River, with peoples being concerned about danger the river might bring.

Aspect

The aspect is the direction that the slope faces. In particular, the aspect tells us in which cardinal direction the downslope is facing. This will tell us if there are any trends in mound orientation that might be important. For instance, if sites trended toward a southernly aspect, we might deduce that sites were placed for maximum sun exposure. Or, if sites trended toward an easternly aspect, we might deduce that the sunrise held a particularly important place in society.

There is also an aspect of security. If extra regional threats came from the west, perhaps sites needed to look out on to the west. To interpret the aspect, directionality is based on a 360 degree circle with north being 0, the 360 degrees are divided by 8 and placed into a scale of 1 to 8 where

1 is 0 to 45, 2 is 45 to 90, 3 is 90 to 135, 4 is 135 to 180, 5 is 180 to 225, 6 is 225 to 270, 7 is 270 to 315, and 8 is 315 to 360.

From first glance, there is a trend toward slopes that face 180 to 360 degrees or south, southwest, west, and northwest. Fifteen sites fall into this category, while 9 sites are constructed on slopes facing 0 to 180 degrees. Of these 15 sites in the former category, 12 sites face a western orientation.

Discriminant Function Analysis Results

Discriminant function analysis condenses variation within a dataset and assesses group membership. Results are returned as classification results, which decides if there is a statistical

difference between groups, while the canonical discriminant function coefficients provide values on how influential each variable was in group classification. My categorical variable was whether the mound was early or late while the other categories were my predictor variables. I coded Mound Bottom as an early site for the purposes of the discriminant function analysis, because the mound construction took place during the early period.

The classification results predicted early group membership at a rate of 100% and late group membership at a rate of 72.2%. The discriminant function analysis misclassified 5 late sites as early sites. The misclassified late sites were Doddsville, Chandler, Chenowith, Maddux, and Castalian Springs. A classification rate of 72.2% indicated that the variables I chose for the discriminant function analysis were influential in selecting late sites.

After the first discriminant function analysis, I removed the three variables with the lowest canonical discriminant function coefficient values and reran the test to see if it resulted in better classification results (Tables 4-8; 4-9). Distance to nearest settlement, viewshed, and number of tributaries and streams were the three variables with the lowest values.

I received the same classification results for both the first and second discriminant function analysis, suggesting that nearest neighbor, distance to nearest open habitation site, and viewshed extent all played negligible roles in site selection for early and late sites.

As reflected in the factor scores, the two most influential variables in separating early and late site types were the soil index and the distance to the Cumberland River (Table 4-8). As we can tell from the variable means (Table 4-11), higher soil quality became more important in later mound sites than earlier mound sites as Middle Cumberland peoples sought out higher quality soils. The next most influential variable was that of distance to the Cumberland River.

Aspect, river visibility, observation, slope, and nearest neighbor all have factor scores of

~0.2, which indicate they were not primary, but still contributing factors.

Discussion

In this discriminant function analysis, I ran ten variables to analyze which were most influential in Middle Cumberland site selection in order to better understand why mound sites are placed where they are. I chose a variety of variables that I hoped would reveal both environmental and sociopolitical factors to try to better understand the intersection of both. I chose the soil index, slope, and the number of tributaries and streams because they are all variables reflecting resource acquisition. Aspect, observation, viewshed, distance to Cumberland

River and nearest neighbor are all variables reflecting sociopolitical interactions. Distance to river acts as both an environmental and sociopolitical variable as it provides both resource acquisition and a means of travel.

From the returns on the discriminant function analysis we can see that soil quality and the distance to the Cumberland River were the most important variables in early versus late site choice. Other influential variables were aspect, observation, river visibility, and slope. The least impactful of the variables were nearest neighbor, tributaries and streams, and viewshed. The least impactful of these had no bearing on classification results.

From the rate of correctly classified mounds (100% for early sites, 77.8% for late sites), we can deduce that the other variables were all influential in site settlement. Middle Cumberland peoples considered soil quality, the distance to the Cumberland River, slope, which direction the slope faced, river visibility, and observation in selecting where to settle. A natural follow up question becomes which of these variables were choices and which were subsequent consequences of primary choices?

The discriminant function analysis shows us that soil quality and distance to the river were primary choices made by Middle Cumberland peoples and that late Middle Cumberland mound sites were based predominantly on high soil quality further from the river. The need for soil with high agricultural yield was likely a byproduct of Mississippian reliance on agriculture to support larger sedentary populations. The reason why mound sites needed to be located further from the river is not clear. The discriminant function analysis shows that being further away from the Cumberland River was most important but being able to see the river also becomes important in later sites. In his dissertation, Smith (1992: 28) suggested that movement away from the river could be due to increased flood risk as the Cumberland River lacks well developed terraces. Smith (1993a) also suggested that the move may also have been for security purposes; the discriminant function analysis would support the latter claim, as late Middle Cumberland peoples settled in locations where they could view the river.

It is worth noting that the compromise of moving further from the Cumberland River was in increased slope, not in lesser soil quality. As groups of people moved into the hills, they settled in areas with higher quality soils (Tables 4-11 and 4-12), making a potential tradeoff between high quality soil and flood risk moot. Later sites were better for agricultural production regardless of flood risk. This could be due to the phosphatic limestone bedrock in the hills above the river; the calcium and phosphate rich soils would be highly fertile (Smith 1992: 26). This finding is in line with Chamblee et al.’s (2012) argument that the spacing of chiefdoms was a byproduct of placing sites on high quality soils. As the importance of maize agriculture increased, it would be unsurprising that Mississippian groups would prioritize high quality soil over all else.

The discriminant function analysis results showed that the location of neighboring mound sites had statistically little bearing on settlement choice. Soil quality as the primary factor in driving settlement choice supports Chamblee et al.’s (2012) argument. As late sites move away from the Cumberland River, Middle Cumberland peoples still needed to be located on navigable waterways, suggesting that a regional network was in place.

I believe that these results, and the results from the cost distance analysis, support

Smith’s (1993) hypothesis that a confederacy, or a similar cooperative political arrangement, was a better model for the Middle Cumberland Region than a traditional chiefdom model. It would explain why so many polities were able to coexist in such tight quarters, without any buffer zone between them. The results from my thesis support the idea that the Middle Cumberland Region banded together in a confederacy to push back against hostile visitors from outside the region.

This would explain the geographical intimacy between sites while also explaining why there was anxiety over needing to see the Cumberland River. The fact that they settled in areas that still had access to riverways, suggests that Middle Cumberland peoples were not hiding from one another.

This assertion is also supported by the discriminant function analysis’ return on the viewshed factor, which scored low on influencing variable; it was one of the variables removed in the second iteration of the analysis.

Viewshed did not change between early and late period site choice (Table 4-11) which indicates that Middle Cumberland people did not feel the need to watch over the land surrounding their neighbors. In fact, observation distance increased in the late period, suggesting that people felt more comfortable with being viewed from the surrounding landscape. These factors suggest that Middle Cumberland people were friendly with their neighbors. The only defensive factor that played a role in mound site location was the need to see the same river, a

demand that increased in the late period. This suggests that anxiety was over extra-regional attackers using the Cumberland River. The confederacy would also explain why Hally’s model fits poorly in the Middle Cumberland Region.

The top five factors in settlement choice were a mix of sociopolitical and ecological factors, showing that mound spacing in the Middle Cumberland Region was dictated by more than just inter-mound politics. The complexity of the area and the discriminant function analysis reflect that Middle Cumberland peoples were driven primarily by the need to find high quality soils, followed by the need for security.

Conclusion

From the discriminant function analysis, we can confirm Smith’s (1993) assertion that the move from the river into the hills was an intersection of sociocultural and environmental factors.

The people of the Middle Cumberland Region sought plentiful harvests in the hills above the

Cumberland River. The need to see major waterways suggests that there was anxiety over visitors, whether that anxiety was due to hostile visitors or to monitor trade activity remains unknown. Other factors that contributed to site location were observation extent, the slope of the terrain, the aspect of the site, river visibility, distance to the nearest navigable river, and the number of tributaries and streams. The discriminant function analysis results are in line with

Chamblee et al.’s (2012) hypothesis that chiefdom spacing may have been a byproduct of high- quality soil spacing but might also suggest that a chiefdom model is not the best fit for the region.

Figure 4-1. Flow chart showing Jones 2017 discriminant function analysis results (adapted from Jones 2017b)

Table 4-1. Viewshed and observation extent Mound Sites Early/L Viewshed Sites within Mounds in View Observation ate Extent (km) Viewshed Extent (km) Rutherford-Kizer Late 80 5 Fewkes and 114 Gordontown Mound Bottom Early 6 7 Pack site 6 & Late Fewkes Late 11 0 Gordontown 11 Gordontown Late 4 0 None 6 Pack Site Early 6 4 None 6 Sellars Farm Late 44 1 None 43 Lick Branch Early 16 1 None 9 East Nashville Late 14 1 Lick Branch 17 Castalian Springs Late 5 1 None 5 Rhinehart Late 7 4 None 6 Doddsville Late 18 7 None 18 Chandler Late 1.6 0 None 3 H4 Late 7 1 None 7 Fisher-Reams/Grays Late 25 2 None 27 Farm Old Town Late 25 2 None 31 Sanders Late 9 0 None 17 DeGraffenreid Early 25 0 None 29 Chenoweth Late 11 0 None 11 Traveler’s Late 19 0 None 80 Brick Church/Noel Early 81 3 None 79 Cemetery Bowling Late 19 3 None 19 Maddux Late 67 1 None 67 Moss Wright Park Early 21 1 None 21

Table 4-2. Slope over mound sites Mound Period Slope (%) Bowling Late 0-2.16 Noel Cemetery Late 0-2.16 Lick Branch Early 0-2.16 Brick Church Pike Early 0-2.16 East Nashville Late 0-2.16 Sellars Farm Late 0-2.16 Mound Bottom Early 0-2.16 Doddsville Late 0-2.16 Castalian Springs Late 0-2.16 Rutherford-Kizer Late 0-4.95 Fewkes Late 0-4.95 Chenoweth Late 0-4.95 Old Town Late 0-4.95 Gordontown Late 0-15.15 De Graffenreid Early 0-15.15 Moss Wright Park Early 2.16-4.95 Traveler's Rest Late 2.16-4.95 Sanders Late 4.95-11.75 Pack Site Early 8.35-11.75 Chandler Late 8.35-15.15 Maddux Mound Late 8.35-78.85 Fisher-Reams/Gray's Farm Late 11.75-15.15 Rhinehart Late 11.75-15.15 H4 Late 11.75-78.85

Table 4-3. Distance to Cumberland River in meters Site Period Distance to River (Meters) East Nashville Mounds Late 49.67 Chandler Late 54.17 C22/Rhinehart Late 186.84 Fisher-Reams Late 268.57 French Lick Early 273.38 Mound Bottom Early 276.29 Pack Early 298.06 Sanders Late 307.51 Doddsville Late 340.19 Moss-Wright Early 416.28 Maddux Late 1148.11 H4 Late 2856.28 Chenowith Late 3608.03 Bowling Late 3830.91 Rutherford Kiser Late 5239.33 Brick Church Pike Early 5346.06 Castalian Springs Late 6314.18 Cain’s Chapel Late 6483.67 DeGraffenreid Early 7432.42 Traveler’s Rest Late 9351.18 Old Town Late 11070.09 Gordontown Late 12941.11 Sellars Late 17611.61 Fewkes Late 125551.59

Table 4-4. Distance to nearest navigable waterway in meters Site Period Distance to River (Meters) Chenowith Late 42.04 East Nashville Mounds Late 49.67 Chandler Late 54.17 H4 Late 86.34 Fewkes Late 104.63 Brick Church Pike Early 123.57 Old Town Late 139.85 C22/Rhinehart Late 186.84 DeGraffenreid Early 253.93 Fisher-Reams Late 268.57 French Lick Early 273.38 Mound Bottom Early 276.29 Rutherford Kiser Late 283.57 Castalian Springs Late 294.46 Pack Early 298.06 Gordontown Late 298.1 Sanders Late 307.51 Sellars Late 320.24 Doddsville Late 340.19 Cain’s Chapel Late 399.85 Moss-Wright Early 416.28 Bowling Late 477.08 Maddux Late 1148.11 Traveler’s Rest Late 2341.24

Table 4-5. Cumberland River visibility in meters Site Period River Visibility (Meters) Pack Early 0 Traveler’s Rest Late 0 Chenowith Late 0 Mound Bottom Early 174 Doddsville Late 268 Gordontown Late 276 Chandler Late 373 French Lick Early 927 Maddux Late 1322 Brick Church Pike Early 2336 Old Town Late 2368 H4 Late 2800 Fewkes Late 3260 Cain’s Chapel/Noel Cemetery Late 4141 Fisher-Reams Late 4694 Sellars Late 4933 Castalian Springs Late 4999 C22/Rhinehart Late 5312 DeGraffenreid Early 5354 East Nashville Mounds Late 5412 Moss-Wright Early 6843 Bowling Late 10153 Sanders Late 11710 Rutherford-Kiser Late 30129

Table 4-6. Aspect of Mound Sites Site Period Aspect Old Town Late 0 Chandler Late 2 Fewkes Late 2 DeGraffenreid Early 2 East Nashville Mound Late 3 French Lick Early 3 Chenowith Late 4 Traveler’s Rest Late 4 Moss-Wright Early 4 Pack Early 5 H4 Late 5 Rutherford Kiser Late 5 Doddsville Late 6 Sanders Late 6 Cain’s Chapel Late 6 Brick Church Pike Early 7 Bowling Late 7 C22/Rhinehard Late 7 Castalian Springs Late 7 Mound Bottom Early 8 Fisher-Reams Late 8 Gordontown Late 8 Maddux Late 8 Sellars Late 8

Table 4-7. Discriminant function analysis classification results Early/Late Predicted Group Membership Total 1 2 Original Count 1 6 0 6 2 5 13 18 % 1 100.0 .0 100.0 2 27.8 72.2 100.0

Table 4-8. Discriminant function analysis factor scores Variable Value Soil Index .447 Distance to Cumberland River .341 Aspect .269 Observation .262 River Visibility .233 Slope .225 Distance to Navigable River .156 Tributaries and Streams -.148 Nearest Neighbor -.065 Distance to Nearest Habitation Site .046 Viewshed -.022

Table 4-9. Discriminant function analysis factor scores excluding 3 lowest variables Variable Value Soil Index .568 Distance to Cumberland River .434 Aspect .343 Observation .333 River Visibility .296 Slope .286 Distance to Navigable River .198 Tributaries and Streams -.188

Table 4-10. Discriminant function analysis excluding 3 lowest variables classification results Early/Late Predicted Group Membership Total Period 1 Period 2 Original Count 1 6 0 6 2 5 13 18 % 1 100.0 .0 100.0 2 27.8 72.2 100.0

Table 4-11. Early variable summary statistics Variable Mean Standard Median Min Max Range Skew Kurtosis Deviation Soil Index 0.44 0.12 0.40 0.33 0.59 0.26 0.39 -1.95 Nearest Neighbor 10913.27 15710.63 3677.88 289.70 35040.38 34750.68 0.55 -1.87 Viewshed (km) 25.83 28.11 18.50 6.00 81.00 75.00 1.13 -0.44 Distance to 269.32 77.47 290.80 123.57 330.57 207.00 -0.94 -0.79 Navigable River (m) Distance to 2340.42 3205.28 357.17 273.38 7432.42 7159.04 0.64 -1.70 Cumberland River (m) Slope 2.74 1.84 2.03 1.36 6.22 4.86 1.00 -0.75 Aspect 4.83 2.32 4.50 2.00 8.00 6.00 0.17 -1.85 Observation 18.33 10.39 20.00 6.00 29.00 23.00 -0.19 -1.97 Number of 4.33 2.16 4.50 1.00 7.00 6.00 -0.26 -1.58 Tributary Streams River Visibility (m) 2605.67 2867.11 1631.50 0.00 6843.00 6843.00 0.42 -1.84 Distance to Nearest 2280.33 1835.57 1550.50 456.00 5351.00 4895.00 0.61 -1.45 Settlement (m)

Table 4-12. Late variable summary statistics Variable Mean Standard Median Min Max Range Skew Kurtosis Deviation Soil Index 0.58 0.21 0.62 0.22 1.00 0.78 0.04 -0.69 Nearest Neighbor 5855.25 14058.57 4978.55 502.49 59814.42 59311.93 2.43 5.58 Viewshed (km) 24.87 25.68 16.00 1.60 81.00 79.40 1.23 0.00 Distance to 396.80 546.32 289.02 42.04 2341.24 2299.20 2.58 6.16 Navigable River (m) Distance to 5234.06 5417.34 3719.47 49.67 17611.61 17561.94 0.76 -0.71 Cumberland River (m) Slope 3.84 3.13 3.22 0.36 11.87 11.51 1.26 0.82 Aspect 5.83 2.15 6.00 2.00 9.00 7.00 -0.40 -1.14 Observation 31.17 32.40 17.50 3.00 114.00 111.00 1.19 0.15 Number of 3.78 2.24 3.00 1.00 8.00 7.00 0.50 -1.12 Tributary Streams River Visibility (m) 5119.44 7064.12 3700.50 0.00 30129.00 30129.00 2.42 5.86 Distance to 2426.00 1854.61 1990.50 352.00 6956.00 6604.00 0.98 0.05 Nearest Settlement (m)

CHAPTER 5 CLOSING THOUGHTS

We all make decisions in deciding where to settle. Do we want to be close to family? Do we want the urban sprawl of New York City or the flat prairies of Kansas or snow-capped mountains in Oregon? The hustle and bustle of downtown or the peace and quiet of the country side? In addition to these personal decisions we also base our decisions off more practical ones, how far is the closest grocery store? How much does it cost to live here? What are the work opportunities here like? We also ask ourselves questions related to health and safety. What is crime like in this neighborhood? Is there clean drinking water and air? People throughout time and space have made similar decisions based off meeting basic needs and more culturally subjective ones. The Middle Cumberland Region was no different.

People in the Middle Cumberland Region chose where to settle based on particular factors that made their lives easier and more fulfilling. The contemporaneous mounds of the

Middle Cumberland Region existed in close proximity to one another in a period that Smith and

Moore (2009: 208) refer to as a “proliferation of chiefdoms”. The spacing of these mounds varied from settlement patterns found in other areas of the Mississippian Southeast.

In this thesis, I explored whether the contemporaneous mounds from two different time periods conformed to Hally’s (1993, 1996, 2006) model. After coming to the conclusion that contemporaneous mounds did not conform to Hally’s model using Euclidean distances, I used

GIS to simulate what travel time would have been, using Livingood’s (2012) model. After this analysis, I came to the conclusion that travel times did not conform to Livingood’s translation of

Hally’s model and that it was not complex enough to adequately capture the settlement pattern of the Middle Cumberland Region. In an attempt to understand the factors that influenced settlement choices, I conducted a discriminant function analysis to conclude that the most

important settlement factors were soils with high agricultural potential and distance from river.

In early sites, high quality soil was less important and being closer to the river was more common. In later sites, high quality soil becomes an attractive settlement feature and sites move further away from the river. These revelations provide scholars with data about Middle

Cumberland culture on a microscale and more data about Mississippian culture on a macroscale.

It enables us to create informed hypotheses about the cultural happenings of the people who lived in the area.

The conclusions of Chapters 3 and 4 reveal that settlement patterning within the Middle

Cumberland Region was a complex interplay of environmental and sociocultural factors. The conclusions of Chapter 3 were that Hally’s model does not fit the area: by neither straight-line

Euclidean distances nor travelling time. Hally’s (1993; 1996; 2006) model was primarily a political argument: it argued for a buffer zone of rich environmental resources that Mississippian peoples forgo for security purposes, as well as territories that optimize a chief’s control over his own people. The fact that Hally’s model does not fit illustrates that the political culture of the region may have been different, at the very least, it was more complex. I believe that the results of this thesis might align with Chamblee et al.’s (2012) hypothesis that mound spacing corresponded with high quality soils and the next natural step would be to test this hypothesis. I am not arguing that high quality soil is the only driving factor in site selection; the results of the discriminant function analysis show that the peoples of the late Middle Cumberland Region were driven primarily by a definitively environmental factor (high quality soil) while balancing a definitively sociocultural one (the need to see the Cumberland River).

In an interesting paradox, the need to see the Cumberland River was coupled with the trend of moving further away from the Cumberland River, which could have been an

environmental factor (flooding) or a sociocultural one (extra-regional hostilities). If the choice to move mound sites away from the river was solely environmentally determined, I argue that being able to see the river would not have been a contributing factor but river visibility was a secondary consideration in the Middle Cumberland Region. This could suggest that defense was a secondary factor, influential but not the most important.

Observation was another influential factor. Middle Cumberland peoples needed to live in areas that looked over the river, perhaps the river brought violence. If the violence was extra- regional, we could assume that being able to see while not being seen was important. In this case, the observation extent would be lower and viewshed would be higher. Instead, the observation extent was higher for later mound sites while viewshed played no statistical role in settlement choice. Late mounds were placed in areas where they could see the happenings on the

Cumberland River, hiding was not paramount, and non-river visibility was of little importance.

There is an endless amount of speculation that could occur surrounding the relationships between the mounds of the Middle Cumberland Region. The lack of formal academic work in the area creates exciting opportunities for archaeologists to better investigate and understand these relationships. The work that I have conducted here has created space for a variety of future directions. Ond would be more comprehensive radiocarbon dating on all mounds in the region.

This thesis only covered mounds that been confidently dated, meaning there are potentially more contemporaneous mounds during these time periods. Another future direction would be to pursue the interactions that habitation sites had with contemporaneous mounds. I did not take into consideration habitation sites because few had reliable dates. To further test my own hypothesis,

I would like to conduct the same discriminant function analysis on a series of randomly generated points and compare the results. Testing a variety of non-environmental, spiritual

factors could be a revealing approach as well. Measuring certain ritualistic elements like the distances between mound sites and cedar glades as well as the alignment of these sites to certain astronomical phenomenon might be revealing.

It should be noted that other sites were constructed to fulfill more spiritual needs. The

Mississippian city of Cahokia was deliberately designed with reference to the cosmological order

(Pauketat 2013) and some sites, such as the Emerald Acropolis, were configured in reference to the moon, as mounds were aligned with particular lunar cycles (Pauketat et al 2017). The

Emerald site bears evidence of being a pilgrimage site where Mississippians would walk between it and Cahokia. Therefore, as a mound complex site, the Emerald Acropolis site had different criteria for settlement than the variables that I explored in this work. The site was chosen for its cosmological significance rather than resource based environmental variables.

While I did not take cosmology into consideration in this thesis, there were definitely sites that held strong ritual significance, and the probability for cosmological factors to have had bearing on settlement choice is high. I believe this would be a particularly fruitful future direction to take this research.

I also believe that this work would heavily benefit from an ethnohistorical component.

While this thesis focused on a GIS analysis, historical documents would add an element of humanity that this piece of work is lacking. I think a deep dive into perceived distance using ethnohistorical and linguistic evidence would also be a fascinating approach.

There is also the overall problem that Livingood (2014) touched briefly upon, travel in hours and minutes is very different than perceived time. While time is a topic that will always elude archaeologists, how fair is it to measure travel in a unit that is specifically Western?

Another issue is that the people of the Middle Cumberland Region, in all likelihood, moved

differently than we did, as different shoe types change the way people walk (Webber and

Raichlen 2016) and Tobler’s Hiking Function is based off of modern movement. Tobler’s Hiking

Function is problematic in other ways; for instance, it fails to take into account exhaustion.

Throughout this thesis, I was able to conclude that the mound spacing of the Middle

Cumberland Region defied Hally’s North Georgia model, even when terrain and travel time were taken into consideration. I was able to follow that up with an analysis that revealed that while

Regional Period III’s mound sites trended strongly away from the river and to higher quality soils Middle Cumberland peoples were drawn to overlook the Cumberland River.

All in all, the settlement patterning of the Middle Cumberland Region is out of the ordinary. People lived and farmed and celebrated in close proximity to one another. Their interactions and relationships remain a mystery. Perhaps with more time and research, archaeologists will better be able to tell the story of the Middle Cumberland Region’s proliferation of chiefdoms.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Catrina Cuadra graduated with B.A. in anthropology and history from Western

Washington University in 2014. She went on to work for Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello conducting both field and lab work. While at the University of Florida, she spent her days working at the Florida Museum of Natural History in the Historical Archaeology Department.