Bridging History and Prehistory: General Reflections and Particular Quandries
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Bridging History and Prehistory: General Reflections and Particular Quandries John E. Worth University of West Florida Abstract How can social entities derived from spatial and temporal patterning in material culture be reconciled with social entities derived from documentary accounts based on the assertions of both colonial and indigenous informants? How can archaeologists and ethnohistorians translate their independently-derived conceptions of the social landscape for one another? Using the Southeastern U.S. as a backdrop, this paper explores fundamental ontological and methodological differences between how we perceive and construct these social entities using material and documentary data, highlighting the rarely-challenged assumption that ceramic assemblages are reasonable indicators of the ethnic identity of their makers, and suggesting potential alternatives and solutions. Paper presented in the symposium “Bridging Prehistory and History” at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Baton Rouge, La., Nov. 9, 2012. 1 For most of the Southeast, what might be described as an enhanced culture-historical framework (e.g. Lyman et al. 1997) is normally utilized by archaeologists to generate the geographical and chronological units that are employed in the analysis of Native American social structure. Even though the advent of processual archaeology during the 1960s is still explicitly avowed to have swept away the discipline’s previous reliance on using the spatial and temporal distribution of material culture (particularly ceramics) as a basis for a normative model of culture that ignored the dynamic nature of culture process, Southeastern archaeologists still make extensive and effective use of the culture-historical concepts of phases and cultures in even their most sophisticated and modern analyses of prehistoric sites. Moreover, this foundational framework, and the principal assumptions that underlie it, is so pervasive as to influence most recent archaeological work on historic-era Native American groups, even when documentary evidence can readily dispute many important aspects of this perspective. In the eyes of most prehistorians, the spatial distribution of artifacts on the landscape can be used to at least some extent as a direct reflection of the social groups that created them. More specifically, when archaeologists speak of archaeological phases with relatively discrete spatial distributions during later prehistory, they commonly conceive of them as equivalent to familiar social groups such as chiefdoms or tribes. This is perhaps most notably the case where there is clear evidence for multi-phase longevity in these discrete areas, especially when such phases are geographically bounded by relatively unambiguous unoccupied zones. Even though early theorists were fairly explicit in their warnings of “formidable difficulties” in “finding social equivalents for archaeological units” (Willey and Phillips 1958:48), this has nonetheless become somewhat entrenched in implicit practice, as evidenced by many examples of direct 2 correspondences between specific named archaeological phases and historically-documented polities. Examples of such proposals include a number of phases thought to correspond to polities documented during 16th-century Spanish exploration of the interior Southeast, and particularly during the Hernando de Soto expedition. These identifications include the Parkin phase and Casqui (Morse and Morse 1983; Hudson 1985; Hudson et al. 1987:853; Mainfort 1999:146; Jeter 2009:369, 371), the Nodena phase and Pacaha (Morse and Morse 1983; Hudson et al. 1987:853; Mainfort 1999:146; Jeter 2009:369, 371), the Mulberry phase and Cofitachequi (Ethridge 2010:104), the Caraway phase and Guatari (Ethridge 2010:104), the Walls phase and Quizquiz (Mainfort 1999:146), the Dyar phase and Ocute (Kowalewski and Hatch 1991:10), the Cowart’s phase and Ichisi (Hudson 1994), the Lockett phase and Toa (Worth 1988), the Lake Jackson and Velda phases and Apalachee (Scarry 1990, 1996; Scarry and McEwen 1995:484- 485; Ewen 1996), the Alachua “tradition” and the Potano (Milanich 1972a:35, 1978:76; Rolland 2012:126), the Suwannee Valley culture and the Timucua (Worth 2012:171), the Safety Harbor phase and the Tocobaga (Bullen 1978:50), the Irene and Altamaha phases and Guale (Pearson 1977:128; Saunders 1992:140-142, 2000:1, 15), the Kymulga or Shine II phases and Talisi (Hudson et al. 1985:731, 735; Smith 2000:100; Jenkins 2009:220; Ethnridge 2010:70), the Big Eddy phase and Tascalusa (Jenkins 2009:215, 221, 223), the Furman phase and Mabila (Jenkins 2009:216), the Blackmon phase and Apalachicola (Worth 2000), the Estatoe phase and the Lower Cherokee (Hally 1986:95-111), the Qualla phase and the Middle Cherokee (Dickens 1976:213; 1986:84), the Brewster phase and Itaba (King 1999:116), the Barnett phase and the “heartland” of Coosa (Hudson et al. 1985:732; Hudson et al. 1987:850; Langford and Smith 1990), and portions of the Burke phase and Joara (Beck and Moore 2002:201; Ethridge 2010:104), to name but a few. This expected correlation between archaeological phases and 3 named polities was in fact so strong that when Charles Hudson and colleagues reconstructed the Coosa paramountcy to encompass all or part of no fewer than five distinct phases, they were prompted to remark that “One would expect that the chiefdom of Coosa should coincide rather more neatly with the distribution of protohistoric archaeological phases” (Hudson et al. 1985:724). From the relatively easy-to-digest correlation between late prehistoric phases and named Native American polities on the comparatively stable social landscape of the early historic era, archaeologists have naturally been prone to make the leap between the material culture characteristic of those same phases, and the ethnic identity of the groups and individuals that relocated so frequently across the 16th-19th-century Southeastern landscape in the widespread diaspora of indigenous polities that occurred in the context of European colonialism. Many examples can be found in the archaeological literature attributing specific ceramic assemblages or types to the members of named ethnic groups, or ethnies (sec. Smith1986), who once belonged to polities generally believed to be coterminous with phases characterized by the same or similar ceramics. To cite a few examples, specific named ceramic assemblages and types found in mixed or extralocal colonial contexts have been claimed to be diagnostic for a diversity of Native American ethnies, including the Guale (Deagan 1973:61; 1978a:31, 33; 1978b:115; 1990:304, 1993:95-101; King 1984:79: Hoffman 1997:33; Saunders 1992:143, 2000:1), the Mocama (Milanich 1972b:290-291; King 1984:77-78; Deagan 1990:304, 1993:95-101; Hoffman 1993:76; 1997:33), the Yamasee (Milanich 1972b:290; Deagan 1993:95-101; Waselkov and Gums 2000: 126), the Creek (Sears 1955; Silvia 2000:46, 217; Waselkov and Gums 2000: 124, 127; Honerkamp and Harris 2005:108; Johnson et al. 2008:11), the Apalachee (Goggin 1951:171; Deagan 1990:304; Worth 1992:171-182; Silvia 2000:26, 45, 122, 126, 217, 252, 305, 4 342-343; 2002:29-31; Waselkov and Gums 2000: 126, 127; Cordell 2002), the Chato/Chacato (Silvia 2002:27; Waselkov and Gums 2000: 124, 126-130), the Tomé (Silvia 2000:46-47, 217; 2002:29-31; Waselkov and Gums 2000: 125), the Mobilians (Silvia 2000:46-47, 217; 2002:29- 31; Waselkov and Gums 2000: 125, 127; Cordell 2002:51-52), the Choctaw (Quimby 1942:265; 1957:127, 162; Silvia 2000: 217, 305; Waselkov and Gums 2000: 124, 128), the Natchez (Quimby 1942:268; Silvia 2000:48, 148; Johnson et al. 2008:11), the Taensa (Silvia 2000:48), the Cherokee (Caldwell 1955; Sears 1955), and the Caddo (Silvia 2000:46, 148), among others. Clearly, there is a long and ongoing tradition of lending ethnicity to pottery, even if only on an informal basis. In sum view, Southeastern archaeologists have long been prone to connect assemblages of ceramic types both with the political identity of geographically stable polities, and also with the ethnic identity of geographically mobile groups and individuals. As one of my own anthropology professors (who shall remain nameless) once commented ironically regarding archaeologists’ typical view of the relationship between pots and people, for most archaeologists, “the pots are the people.” Despite protestations to the contrary, and routine clarifications and caveats in all the appropriate times and places, there seems to be a generally-accepted underlying consensus that pottery, as measured through assemblages of archaeological ceramic types, represents a reasonably good indicator of political affiliation and ethnic identity. Pottery, in other words, can almost be viewed to possess ethnicity, insofar as it is generally viewed as a relatively conservative dimension of everyday culture that persists alongside political and ethnic identification. In recent decades, with the florescence of various strains of post-processual theoretical approaches to the archaeological analysis of material culture, there have been several attempts to 5 conceptualize this longstanding assumption within the framework of theories of agency and materiality, positing an active role for ceramics in constituting and communicating social identity. For example, Rebecca Saunders (1992:139, 2000:49-51, 169-170, 180-181) hypothesized based on extensive and detailed ceramic analysis that the presence of the “world symbol” in stamped pottery decorations among the Guale Indians