Raised Walls and Broken Bones: an Analysis of Defensive

RAISED WALLS AND BROKEN BONES: AN ANALYSIS OF DEFENSIVE

ARCHITECTURE AND VIOLENT SKELETAL TRAUMA IN LATE

PREHISTORIC EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

______

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University, Chico

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

Anthropology

______

Lance L. Blanchard

Spring 2011 RAISED WALLS AND BROKEN BONES: AN ANALYSIS OF DEFENSIVE

ARCHITECTURE AND VIOLENT SKELETAL TRAUMA IN LATE

PREHISTORIC EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

A Thesis

Lance L. Blanchard

Spring 2011

APPROVED BY THE DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH:

Katie Milo, Ed.D.

APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Antoinette M. Martinez, Ph.D., Chair

______Eric J. Bartelink, Ph.D. DEDICATION

To Edmée DeJean, who taught me the importance of an education but also to take the time to stare up at the sky or get lost in the woods.



En mémoire de mon Grand Père, Louis Short.

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writing of this thesis was a grueling and enlightening journey that would not have been possible without the help and support of so many wonderful people. I would first like to thank my committee, Dr. Antoinette Martinez and Dr. Eric Bartelink, for their guidance, support, and especially their patience as they worked their way with me through this lengthy tome. Their unique insights have proven invaluable over the course of this project and will undoubtedly inform the paths I explore throughout my career in anthropology.

I also want to thank the Anthropology Department at California State

University, Chico for the demanding and rewarding graduate school experience I had hoped for the first time around. All of the faculty and staff have made me feel welcome here and I have learned so much from each of you. I would especially like to thank Dr.

David Eaton and Dr. D. Scott Wilson for being such great mentors and friends. Also, I would not be standing here today if Dr. Frank Bayham and Dr. William Collins had not challenged me to carve a new path after my original thesis project fell through. Lastly, although I didn’t have the opportunity to take any of his classes, it seemed like anytime the stress of the thesis was getting to me, Dr. P. Willey would be right around the corner with some encouraging words or a funny story.

I must additionally thank Dr. William Iseminger of the Cahokia Mounds State

Historic Site for sharing his wealth of knowledge of the Cahokia palisade and Illinois

iv Archaeology with me, as well as providing many photos and illustrations of the defensive works at the site. I also want to express my gratitude to Dr. Maria O. Smith for providing me with the raw data from her ongoing research in Eastern Tennessee and leads to other sites in that area.

I am greatly appreciative of the friendships I have made during my time here in Chico. To my fellow graduate students who have made it to this point before me, thank you for showing me the way. For those of you still toiling away, just know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally, I am eternally grateful to my wife Brenna for her help and support in the field, the investment of her intellect and expertise over long hours and late nights, and her ever-present encouragement and love.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Dedication...... iii

Acknowledgments ...... iv

List of Tables...... viii

List of Figures...... x

Abstract...... xii

CHAPTER

I. Introduction...... 1

Research Design ...... 3 Organization of the Thesis...... 7

II. Literature Review...... 9

Definitions ...... 10 Theoretical Perspectives on the Origins, Causes, and Consequences of Warfare ...... 13 Culture History and Violent Conflict in Eastern North America...... 21 Evidence for Violent Conflict in the Archaeological Record ...... 29 Conclusion...... 42

III. Materials and Methods ...... 46

Time Period and Geographical Region ...... 46 Skeletal Samples and Archaeological Sites...... 49 Defensive Architecture...... 52 Violent Skeletal Trauma...... 56 Data Collection Methods...... 60

vi CHAPTER PAGE

Data Analysis Methods...... 64 Summary...... 68

IV. Results...... 70

Description of the Data Set...... 70 Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall Results...... 80 Violent Skeletal Trauma Type Results...... 106 Impact of Preservation Data on Results ...... 128 Summary...... 141

V. Interpretations and Discussion ...... 144

Temporal Comparisons ...... 144 Defensive Architecture Presence...... 148 Regional Variation...... 151 Site Type Comparisons...... 155 Age and Sex Differences...... 157 Patterns of Violent Skeletal Trauma by Type ...... 161 Impact of Preservation Data on Results ...... 172 Summary and Discussion ...... 174

VI. Conclusion...... 181

Summary...... 182 Limitations of the Study ...... 184 Implications and Suggestions for Further Research...... 186

References Cited...... 188

Appendix

A. Project Source Code ...... 214

vii

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

1. Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall by Site...... 72

2. Violent Skeletal Trauma Frequency by Type ...... 73

3. Time Period Results...... 82

4. Defensive Architecture Results ...... 84

5. Sub-Region Results...... 91

6. Individuals with Violent Skeletal Trauma by Age and Sex Category...... 99

7. Adult Age and Sex Comparison Results...... 100

8. Adult Age and Sex Category Results ...... 102

9. Subadult Age Category Results ...... 105

10. Embedded Projectile Point Results...... 107

11. Blunt Force Cranial Trauma Results ...... 113

12. Parry Fracture Results...... 116

13. Scalping Results...... 119

14. Decapitation Results...... 123

15. Dismemberment and Trophy Taking Results ...... 126

16. Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall Results for Sites with Preservation Data ...... 129

17. Embedded Projectile Point Results for Sites with Preservation Data ...... 134

viii

TABLE PAGE

18. Blunt Force Cranial Trauma Results for Sites with Preservation Data ...... 135

19. Parry Fracture Results for Sites with Preservation Data ...... 136

20. Scalping Results for Sites with Preservation Data...... 138

21. Decapitation Results for Sites with Preservation Data ...... 139

22. Dismemberment and Trophy Taking Results for Sites with Preservation Data ...... 140

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. Map of eastern North America Showing Archaeological Sites in the Study Area Divided by Sub-Region...... 48

2. Defensive Architecture and Other Features Typical of Late Woodland and Mississippian Period Sites Eastern North America...... 53

3. Violent Skeletal Trauma Percentages by Type...... 74

4. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Time Period ...... 81

5. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Palisade Presence...... 85

6. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Ditch Presence...... 85

7. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Embankment Presence...... 86

8. Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall by Mound Presence ...... 87

9. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Defensive Architecture Presence...... 89

10. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Sub-Region...... 92

11. Sub-Region: Violent Skeletal Trauma by Time Period...... 96

12. Sub-Region: Violent Skeletal Trauma by Defensive Architecture Presence...... 97

13. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Site Type...... 98

14. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Age and Sex Category...... 101

15. Age and Sex Comparisons of Violent Skeletal Trauma by Time Period ...... 103

FIGURE PAGE

16. Age and Sex Comparisons of Violent Skeletal Trauma by Defensive Architecture Presence...... 104

17. Violent Skeletal Trauma Type by Time Period ...... 108

18. Violent Skeletal Trauma Type by Defensive Architecture Presence ...... 109

19. Violent Skeletal Trauma Type by Age ...... 110

20. Violent Skeletal Trauma Type by Sex...... 111

21. Trauma Type Percentages by Preservation Data Availability...... 130

22. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Time Period: Sites with Preservation Data ...... 131

23. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Sex: Sites with Preservation Data...... 132

24. Violent Skeletal Trauma by Platform Mound Presence: Sites with Preservation Data ...... 133

xi ABSTRACT

RAISED WALLS AND BROKEN BONES: AN ANALYSIS OF DEFENSIVE

ARCHITECTURE AND VIOLENT SKELETAL TRAUMA IN LATE

PREHISTORIC EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

Lance L. Blanchard

Master of Arts in Anthropology

California State University, Chico

Spring 2011

While the causes, practices, and effects of prehistoric warfare have long been speculated on by archaeologists in eastern North America, only recently has our understanding of prehistoric violence been informed by a close examination of the evidence. An intensification of bioarchaeological research on violent conflict has taken place in the last two decades, while studies relating to defensive architecture, weapons, and iconography remain rare. This thesis represents an initial attempt to evaluate the relationship between two of these lines of evidence, defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma. The results of this thesis also call into question many of the assumptions that have driven previous interpretations of prehistoric warfare in eastern North

America.

xii Data on defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma were compiled and reassessed from previously published sources spanning the last century of archaeological research in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valleys and the eastern Gulf

Coastal Plain. A total of 56 sites containing 8,586 individuals dating to either the Late

Woodland (A.D. 500-1000) or Mississippian (A.D. 1000-1500) periods were included in this research. Frequencies of violent skeletal trauma were compared between a number of variables relating to defensive architecture presence, chronology, geographical location, site size, age and sex groups, and the availability of complete skeletal preservation data.

A significant decrease in the overall frequency of violent skeletal trauma was observed through time, questioning the assumption that the widespread construction of defensive architecture across eastern North America at the onset of the Missis- sippian period signaled an intensification of warfare. The prevalence of violent skeletal trauma also decreased significantly with the presence of palisades, ditches, and platform mounds. However, a similar pattern in the frequencies of the types of violent skeletal trauma was observed between sites with and without defensive architecture, suggesting that new warfare strategies were not required once sites were protected by defensive architecture. This result, combined with the patterns of trauma observed between age and sex groups suggests that small-scale raiding against small isolated work parties or lone individuals was the primary strategy employed in Late Woodland and Mississip- pian warfare. Finally, the high variability in the results seen between sub-regions indi-

xiii cates a need for further research to address the multitude of social, political, and environmental factors affecting the patterns of prehistoric violent conflict.

xiv

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

As unpleasant as it may be to deal with this topic, we cannot objectively begin to understand the past without coming to grips with warfare.

~ Steven A. Leblanc

The causes, functions, and effects of warfare in ethnographic and prehistoric societies are currently both heavily debated and poorly understood in the anthropological literature. At a glance, the field appears polarized between scholars who contend that warfare was rare, trivial, ritualized, or even nonexistent before the development of states

(Blick 1998; Brothwell 2000; Ferguson and Whitehead 1992; Sponsel 1996) and others who counter that warfare among non-state societies was equally as, if not more, brutal, deadly, and grievous as warfare in modern state-level societies (Keeley 1996; Leblanc

1999, 2006; Walker 2001). Just as Keeley (1996:22-23) accuses many of his colleagues of assuming a neo-Rousseauian prehistoric golden age of peace, the current batch of researchers who have contributed to the recent upsurge of warfare studies in archaeology must walk a thin line between attempting to explain a previously understudied aspect of prehistoric society and contributing to a neo-Hobbesian view of prehistoric life as short, violent, and brutish.

A common ground between these disparate views must be sought as studies of prehistoric warfare continue to grow in popularity. While care should be taken not to

1 2 project warfare onto every archaeological site we investigate, the substantial body of evidence for prehistoric warfare amassed through more than a century of archaeological investigation in North America must not be overlooked (for examples see Berryman

1981; Hrdlička 1909; Lewis and Kneberg 1946; Milner and Smith 1990; Oakley 1971;

Snow 1948; Wilson 1901). A consideration of warfare in archaeological research can offer new insights into settlement patterns, subsistence strategies, resource stress, changes in sociopolitical complexity, inter-societal trade, religious ideology, human health, and many other aspects of prehistoric society.

Archaeologists working in eastern North America have long considered the importance of prehistoric warfare, especially as it relates to the development of hierarchical chiefdoms during the Mississippian period. However, the discourse on prehistoric violence has until recently been largely “unencumbered by a serious engagement with archaeological data” (Milner 1999:109; for exceptions see Dickson

1981; Lahren and Berryman 1984; Larson 1972). Over the last two decades, the number of investigations incorporating data on violent skeletal trauma, defensive architecture, and to a lesser extent, iconography and weapons has greatly increased. While much of the recent work on warfare in prehistoric eastern North America has been site specific, some attempts have been made to understand the nature and effects of violent conflict from a broader regional perspective (Fontana 2007; Milner 1998, 1999; Smith 2003).

When examining warfare in prehistoric societies, archaeologists are most often left with only the remnants of defensive architecture and the skeletal remains of individuals with traumatic injuries. However, little effort has been made to understand the relationship between these two types of data. Violent skeletal trauma is often cited as the

3 most direct evidence of violent conflict observable in the archaeological record (Smith

2003; Walker 1997, 2001). While patterns in the types of violent skeletal trauma and their distribution within a skeletal sample can suggest warfare, there is always the possibility that the observed trauma may be the product of interpersonal violence (Smith 2003), socially sanctioned conflict resolution (Tung 2007), or even accidental injury during hunting or sporting activities (Hogue 2007). On the other hand, defensive architecture provides clear evidence that the inhabitants of a site were either engaged in warfare or that the threat of attack was high (Fontana 2007; Larson 1972; Milner 1999). However, the presence of defensive architecture alone does not demonstrate that an attack actually occurred. This thesis represents an initial attempt to understand how the co-occurrence of these two types of warfare-related data at sites over a large region affect how prehistoric warfare is interpreted.

Research Design

The central purpose of this thesis is to examine the relationship between multiple lines of evidence for prehistoric warfare observable in the archaeological record, specifically defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma. This thesis also identifies some preliminary regional patterns in the scale and nature of violent conflict during the

Late Woodland (A.D. 500-1000) and Mississippian (A.D. 1000-1500) periods in eastern

North America that may be tested through future research.

The following research questions are addressed to investigate the relationship between defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma:

1. Does the sudden appearance of defensive architecture throughout a region indicate an intensification of violent conflict?

2. Is violent skeletal trauma more prevalent at sites with defensive architecture or at sites that lack defensive architecture?

3. Are changes observed in the patterns of violent skeletal trauma through time or with the presence of defensive architecture that indicate a shift in the tactics or strategies of warfare practiced in late prehistoric eastern North America?

To evaluate these research questions, the available data on violent skeletal trauma and defensive architecture were compiled from one hundred years (1909-2009) of site reports, theses and dissertations, journal articles, and regional surveys focused on the

Late Woodland and Mississippian periods in the Lower and Central Mississippi River

Valley and adjacent eastern Gulf Coastal Plain. While palisades, embankments, and ditches are the types of prehistoric architecture most regularly described as defensive structures (Fontana 2007; Keeley et al. 2007; Larson 1972; Milner 1999), a defensive function for earthen mounds is also considered here. Also, the types of violent skeletal trauma most commonly associated with violent conflict are embedded projectile points, blunt force cranial trauma, parry fractures, scalping, decapitation, and other forms of dismemberment and trophy taking, although the utility of parry fractures in warfare studies is heavily debated (Baker 2001; Hogue 2007; Judd 2008; Milner 1999; Smith

2003; Steadman 2008). To investigate the relationship between these lines of evidence for warfare, I compare the frequency and patterns of violent skeletal trauma through time and between sites with and without defensive architecture.

Previous studies have worked on the assumption that the abrupt spread of palisades throughout eastern North America at A.D. 1000 signals an intensification of warfare (Bense 1994; Dye 1995; Hodge 2005; Larson 1972; Van Horne 1993). To evaluate this assumption, I compared the frequency of violent skeletal trauma between the Late Woodland and Mississippian periods using chi-square tests. If the sudden rise in defensive architecture construction at the onset of the Mississippian period indicates an escalation in warfare, then this development should also be accompanied by an increase in violent skeletal trauma through time. However, if there is no change or a decrease in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma between periods, the presence of defensive architecture may instead indicate a change in the way that warfare was conducted.

As no published research has yet compared the frequencies of violent skeletal trauma between sites with and without defensive works, it is unclear whether the prevalence of violent skeletal trauma should increase or decrease with the presence of defensive architecture. The immense amount of labor required for the construction of large defensive works strongly suggests that a high level of safety must be found within their confines (Dickson 1981; Hodge 2005; Larson 1972). However, people willing to invest large amounts of time and effort into constructing defensive architecture may have also been more likely than others to put themselves at greater risk defending the land and resources that they deemed valuable enough to protect (Hogue 2007; Fontana 2007). A decrease in violent skeletal trauma frequency with the presence of defensive architecture suggests that a level of relative safety was found at sites where defensive architecture was present. Conversely, if violent skeletal trauma increases in prevalence with defensive architecture presence, their primary function may lie in protecting stationary storable

6 resources or homes rather than mobile people. If no relationship is observed between violent skeletal trauma and defensive architecture, it is possible that palisades, embankments, ditches, and mounds served a primary purpose other than defense.

I also assessed possible changes in the patterns of violent skeletal trauma observed through time and with defensive architecture presence. The spread of the bow and arrow during the Late Woodland period (Nassaney and Pyle 1999) suggests that the frequency of embedded projectile points should be relatively high compared to other violent skeletal trauma types during this period, while the importance of the war club in

Mississippian warfare iconography (Van Horne 1993) predicts a shift to a higher prevalence of blunt force cranial trauma and parry fractures during this later period. Also, because previous researchers have suggested a dichotomy between long-range attacks at undefended sites and close combat at fortified sites (Bridges et al. 2000; Dye 2002;

Hogue 2007), I expect to find higher frequencies of embedded projectile points at sites without defensive architecture and an increased prevalence of blunt force cranial trauma and parry fractures at sites with defensive architecture.

Additional questions relating to the nature and scale of warfare in late prehistoric eastern North America are also considered. Were particular age or sex groups targeted more frequently or by different means than other segments of the population?

Did violent skeletal trauma occur more frequently at regional centers, large villages, small villages, or hamlets and farmsteads? Also, did attacks on these different site types require changes in warfare tactics? Additionally, were warfare practices standardized across the Late Woodland and Mississippian world or did the frequencies and patterns of violent skeletal trauma vary across the region?

Finally, a major concern in projects that attempt to identify trends or patterns from previously published sources is the compatibility of the data recorded by multiple authors. Reports for only a third of the skeletal samples included in this thesis contained complete skeletal inventories or detailed descriptions of each individual. The remainder of reports minimally reported age and sex estimations for all individuals and descriptions of each case of violent skeletal trauma. A lack of data on the preservation of skeletal elements most affected by violent trauma should lead to an underestimation in the frequencies of the specific types of violent skeletal trauma and may otherwise affect the results in unknown ways. To evaluate the effect of preservation data on the results of this thesis, chi-square tests were computed for both the overall data set and only those sites with preservation data and the results were compared.

Organization of the Thesis

In Chapter II, the literature on the anthropology of warfare and the prehistory of eastern North America is reviewed. First, key terms associated with warfare and violent conflict are defined. Theoretical perspectives on human violence and warfare are then discussed, followed by a review of the culture history of prehistoric eastern North

America. The various lines of evidence for prehistoric warfare, including iconography, weapons, defensive architecture, and violent skeletal trauma, are also examined. The final section tracks the previous research on warfare and violent conflict in late prehistoric eastern North America.

Chapter III provides an overview of the materials and methods utilized in this thesis. The time span and geographical region encompassed by this project, along with

8 each type of defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma that will be considered, are defined. A brief overview of the skeletal samples and archaeological sites in the data set is also offered. Lastly, the methods for data collection and the statistical analyses performed to assess the lines of evidence for prehistoric warfare are discussed.

Chapter IV reports the results of the data analysis. The defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma observed in the data set are first described separately. Then the frequencies for violent skeletal trauma overall, as well as the frequencies of each type of trauma, are compared between time periods, defensive architecture presence, sub- regions, site types, sex, and age. The impact of the availability of preservation data on the results of this thesis was also evaluated.

In Chapter V, the results of the statistical analyses are interpreted based on previous research and the questions posed in the introduction. A tentative explanation for warfare during the Late Woodland and Mississippian periods in eastern North America is also offered.

Finally, Chapter VI summarizes the content of the preceding chapters and offers some final conclusions. Limitations of the study, along with implications and suggestions for future research, are also discussed.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

Keeley (1996:11) argues that anthropologists have been guilty of pacifying the past since at least the 1960s by ignoring the evidence of violent conflict in non-state ethnographic and prehistoric societies, while Otterbein (1999) suggests this pattern of discounting the presence and influences of non-state war began as early as the 1920s.

Similarly, Walker (2001:574) contends that many of his colleagues misinterpret “pre- modern” warfare as an ineffective and ritual means to “maintain social boundaries while minimizing fatalities” rather than to expand territories or seize resources. Warfare in tribal and chiefdom level societies is reportedly seen as fruitless, safe, and trivial to the people involved, whereas war in complex state level societies appears to serve as an important social institution with political and economic motivations.

This perceived futility of non-state war stems largely from a problem of scale that gives less credence to small-scale raids and ambushes than to the large-scale formal battles that typify modern war (Keeley 1996). Some researchers (Blick 1988; Ferguson

2004; Newcomb 1960; Turney High 1949), whose conceptions of warfare are shaped by the highly formalized conflicts between modern nations with massive armed forces, have been unwilling to place what they perceive as the unproductive conflict of nonstate societies on the same level as modern war. While warfare has not been incorporated into all works of ethnography or archaeology, this pacification of the past may not be as

9 10 pervasive as previously suggested. Both Keeley’s (1996) major work and the research presented here build on over a century of anthropological scholarship focused on or incorporating the practice of warfare (see Dickson 1981; Ember and Ember 1992; Gibson

1974; Hobhouse et al. 1915; Kroeber 1939; Malinowski 1941; Otterbein 1968, 1970;

Tylor 1888; Vayda 1974; Wilson 1901).

Definitions

Due to the varied interpretations of the scale and lethality of what should be considered warfare, it is necessary to provide definitions of terms associated with warfare and violent conflict for use in the current project. Some researchers argue that real war only occurs alongside the florescence of social and political complexity that comes with the rise of state level societies and should remain distinct from raiding conducted by less complex societies (see Brothwell 2000; Carneiro 1970; Cohen 1984; Dye 2002; Haas

2000; Otterbein 2009; Turney-High 1949). Conversely, organized violence between social groups resulting in significant loss of life, land, or other essential resources has been observed at all levels of sociopolitical organization and in both ethnographic and archaeological contexts (see Chagnon 1968; Harris 1984; Keeley 1996; Leblanc 1999,

2006; Milner 1998, 1999; Service 1962; Vayda 1968, 1974; Whitehead 1990).

Keeley (1996) describes the violent conflict of small-scale tribal and chiefdom societies as terribly efficient and stripped of all the ritual and non-essential complexities of the type of warfare conducted by modern state level societies for the purpose of killing large portions of a population with minimal risk. The death toll in non-state war quickly rises with frequent raiding and occasional massacres that spare no segment of a society

11 and can claim anywhere from five percent to more than half of a population (Keeley

1996:91). The definition of warfare used in this thesis must not discount the strategies of organized violent conflict practiced by the majority of societies studied by ethnographers and archaeologists because of reasons that have little to do with the effects of that violence on those societies being studied.

Following Baker (2001:14), “conflict” is simply any antagonism between two individuals or groups. This includes not only “violence,” or the use of physical force to inflict injury, but also various types of verbal, psychological, or political confrontations that may not involve physical force. “Interpersonal violence” and “violent conflict” are often used interchangeably. These terms refer to intentional physical injury inflicted by an individual or group on another individual or group (Baker 2001:14). This can include anything from physical altercations between two individuals, to feuds, ritual battles, torture, cannibalism, or warfare. In this thesis, violent conflict is used to refer to this generalized concept and interpersonal violence is restricted to physical confrontations between two individuals or small groups of individuals within the same society.

The two categories of inter-group conflict at the heart of the debate about what practices should be considered warfare are formal battles and raids. “Formal battles” are mutually agreed upon violent confrontations between at least two opposing groups of warriors, utilizing specialized fighting techniques, battle lines, and formations

(Keeley 1996:59-60). “Raids” involve a small number of warriors relying on stealth to ambush a village or small isolated group of men, women, or children with the intention of killing one or a few individuals with little risk to the attackers (Keeley 1996:65). Raiding

12 can sometimes escalate into “massacres,” which Keeley (1996:67) defines as large surprise attacks with the intent of destroying an entire village or “social unit.”

Milner (1999:106) defines warfare as situations when “spatially discrete groups of people engage in armed, often planned, potentially lethal, and culturally sanctioned confrontations that advance the shared interests of the members of separate communities that take part in the fighting.” The use of the word “sanctioned” excludes inter-group feuds between kin groups, which is argued to “frequently escalate into war”

(Maschner and Reedy Maschner 1998; Thorpe 2003:146) and leaves a similar signature to inter-group raiding in the archaeological record. Ferguson (1984:5) defines warfare as

“organized, purposeful group action against another group that may or may not be organized for similar action, involving the actual or potential application of lethal force.”

This definition is used by Fontana (2007), who investigates palisades as evidence for warfare at sites where more direct lines of evidence are absent because the presence of defensive works alone indicates a readiness for warfare rather than actual attacks. The current project, however, focuses on the physical signature of actual violent conflict.

Maschner and Reedy Maschner (1998:20) have chosen to define warfare broadly as “the use of organized force between independent groups.” Otterbein (1970:3) goes further to distinguish “external war” between political groups that are not part of the same society and “internal war’ between groups within a society. This wide definition that incorporates any form of organized violent conflict between opposing groups of people will be used for the purposes of this thesis because it considers small-scale surprise raids conducted by only a few individuals to be as valid a form of warfare as large-scale formal battles that incorporate massive forces of professional warriors.

Theoretical Perspectives on the Origins, Causes, and Consequences of Warfare

Warfare and Social Complexity

Both the popular understanding and our academic interpretations of prehistoric and non-state warfare have been heavily colored by the contrasting views of

Hobbes (2008[1651]) and Rousseau (2004[1755]). In his major work, Leviathan, Hobbes

(2008[1651]:86) argued that “without a common power to keep them all in awe” early people were in a state of war characterized as “every man against every man.” It was only by the domination of men by a single power that this chaos could be controlled. Hobbes

(2008[1651]:81) believed that Native Americans at the time of his writing remained in this “savage” and “brutish” existence. This sentiment is echoed by Kroeber (1939:148) who depicts indigenous warfare in eastern North America as "insane, unending, continuously attritional.” More recently, Ferguson (2004) claims that many of his colleagues maintain that tribal cultures are in a constant state of war and that Western contact served to suppress violence. Leblanc (2006) argues that when tribal societies reach the carrying capacity of the land, they have few options to respond with and warfare soon becomes endemic. Only with the emergence of complex chiefdoms and states is there an elite class that can decide whether or not to go to war. Leblanc

(2006:442) claims that elites in complex societies view commoners as resources like land or surplus goods that should be protected rather than risked through warfare.

Conversely, Keeley (1996:6, 23) argues that Rousseau (2004[1755]) is responsible for “the myth of the peaceful Savage” that has led to a “pacification of the past” by anthropologists in recent decades. Rousseau (2004[1755]) saw early man as

14 ruled by his desires of food, sleep, and a mate, all of which could easily be satisfied.

However, after a close reading of Rousseau (2004[1755]), it appears that his early man was no more altruistic than later peoples, but simply had no need to act violently until the development of complex society brought new desires such as private property, morality, industry, and wealth that could only be gained at the expense of others.

Most proponents of the theory that warfare is tied with the emergence of social complexity acknowledge that violent inter-group conflict did occur in non-state societies, but refuse to label these practices as war. Dye (2006:103-104) admits that tribal societies are regularly involved in “intersocietal conflict,” but describes war in complex chiefdoms and states “transcending earlier…forms of conflict.” Brothwell (2000) argues that combatants in non-state societies do not conduct war because their motivations are personal and emotional as opposed to warriors in the professional armies of state societies who fight for territorial expansion and the subjugation of their enemies. Within complex societies that conduct both large formal battles and raids, Van Horne (1993) suggests that only formal battles constitute war, granting power and resources to chiefs.

Raids, on the other hand, served only to advance individual status and “provided training for warriors and maintained their battle readiness” (Van Horne 1993:46).

Some neo-Rousseauians still contend that contact with Western states

“intensified war” and “generated war among groups who previously had lived in peace” throughout the world (Ferguson 2004:69; see also Ferguson 1992; Gregor 1996; Jennings

1975; Malone 1991; Peregrine 1992; Sponsel 1996). Small-scale raids and their seemingly personal motives, such as revenge and the seizure of marriage partners appeared minor compared to the large-scale attacks and “genocidal warfare” recorded

15 after contact (Blick 1988:654). Ferguson (2004) and Blick (1988) argued that the influx of European goods transformed previously unknown items into necessary commodities and that new technologies like the horse or gun allowed groups to expand their territories for the first time at the expense of others. Bamforth (1994) suggests that the expansion of complex Mississippian chiefdoms into the Central Plains during the fourteenth century had similar effects of disrupting lifeways, displacing people, and increasing violence as the arrival of Europeans did centuries later.

The classic explanation for conflict among the Yanomamö of Brazil and

Venezuela poses warfare as a mechanism for population control and the dispersal of groups across the landscape (Divale and Harris 1976; Chagnon1968). Frequent warfare with high male mortality leads to an increased incidence of female-directed mortality.

Males must then participate in more raids to recoup marriageable females from neighboring groups. This process locks the Yanomamö in a never-ending cycle of warfare. Ferguson (1995:7) counters that the, Yanomamö, who have come to stand as the archetype for the violent tribal society, had “little or no war” before the arrival of

Western state societies. Looking beyond emic explanations to observed behavior,

Ferguson (1995) claims that the actual causes of Yanomamö warfare are devastation of the indigenous population from foreign disease, the depletion of local game animals, and most of all competition over Western steel tools. While it is clear that contact with modern states have had devastating effects on indigenous populations throughout the world, the theory of Western societies creating violent savages from peaceful natives is at odds with the growing body of evidence of violent conflict in the pre-contact world (see

Ames and Maschner 1999; Bridges et al. 2000; Lambert 1994; Milner 1999; Slayman

1997; Smith 1997, 2003; Walker 1989; Willey 1990).

Evolutionary Perspectives

Several evolutionary or neo-Darwinian models have been proposed that view warfare as an adaptive response that increases the fitness of those participating in attacks.

The conditions that led to the selection for violent tendencies are thought to have occurred in the distant past. Thorpe (2003) and Blick (1988) consider this adaptation towards violence to have occurred in the Old World during the Paleolithic period before the introduction of agriculture. Wrangham and Peterson (1996), noting similarities in raiding activities between modern chimpanzees, the Yanomamö, and American gangs, suggest that our propensity for violent conflict originated approximately five million years ago before the divergence of modern humans and chimpanzees.

Attempting to combine evolutionary and complexity models, Otterbein (2009) suggests two paths to warfare. He claims warfare initially developed with archaic Homo sapiens or possibly H. habilis or H. erectus alongside hunting of large game animals

(Otterbein 2009:66). These raids between competing hunting groups became more common sometime after 40,000 B.P. with the advent of the atlatl and fraternal interest groups. Warfare became less adaptive and eventually disappeared as people transitioned to more sedentary foraging, then agricultural subsistence strategies. Otterbein (2009) argues that warfare would be absent in these contexts because bellicose groups would not allow their neighbors to settle in one place. Warfare only became common again after complex societies grew large enough to fission and competing chiefs begin fighting to control land and neighboring populations (Otterbein 2009:80).

Gil-White (2001:532) suggests that it is adaptive for individuals to view ethnic groups as if they were species because it is less costly for individuals to interact with people who share their cultural norms and easier to identify out-group members without taking the time to learn about each individual. Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1979:123) contends that “cultural pseudospeciation” allows us to dehumanize our enemies, who can now be judged as inferior. Blick (1988:655) adds that this dehumanization of the enemy is the “unifying theme” of tribal and state-level warfare. Cultural pseudospeciation stresses the common thread that an in-group bias is an adaptive mechanism to tell friend from foe and brand outsiders as the likely target of violent conflict (Daly and Wilson

1988; Wrangham and Peterson 1996; Keeley 1996; Sosis et al 2007).

Wrangham and Peterson (1996) argue that chimpanzee and human males will participate in lethal raiding in an effort to increase individual sexual fitness by gaining territories and the mates of vanquished enemies. Humans and chimpanzees live in patrilocal groups of related males and unrelated females. Wrangham and Peterson (1996) suggest that even matrilocal groups are part of larger patriarchal communities where males hold the majority of power. These related males congregate into mobile parties for patrolling group territories and raiding neighboring groups (Wrangham and Peterson

1996; Wrangham 1999). Relative group size is the most important factor in deciding to attack. According to Wrangham’s (1999) imbalance of power hypothesis, any time risk is sufficiently low, males will attempt to increase their relative dominance over their neighbors by taking out lone individuals or smaller parties.

A similar consideration is the propensity for young men, who are at the stage in their life that they have everything to gain and little to lose, to partake in risky

18 activities (Daly and Wilson 1988). By successfully demonstrating their bravery in violent conflicts, these young men can enhance their status and attract potential mates to increase their sexual fitness. Chagnon (1988:987) suggests that young Yanomamö men gain

“reproductive and material benefits” when their success in inter-village raiding over women elevates their status to “unokai,” or one who has killed. Maschner and Reedy

Maschner (1998) modified this perspective to suggest that violence did not become adaptive for young men until the introduction of agriculture when individual success in hunting lost some of its status-enhancing properties. Thorpe (2003) argues that evolutionary explanations of warfare that claim a propensity for violence is adaptive would predict constant fighting within and between populations everywhere.

Evolutionary explanations also tend to overlook the broader causes of war itself and instead focus on individual motivations for participating in violent conflict.

Environmental/Resource Stress

A number of resource stress models, emerging from a cultural ecological perspective, have attempted to explain war in a context of the relationship between people and their environment. Vayda (1974) views warfare as an adaptive solution to increasing pressure on food, land, or other resources. When inequalities in access to limited resources exist between populations within a region, one stressed group may seize those resources from another. It is also suggested that high warfare mortality offers a solution to resource stress by reducing population pressure (Vayda 1974). Conversely, if

“underpopulation” (Vayda 1974:184) becomes a problem, a group may wage war to capture new members from age and sex groups that are underrepresented.

Vayda (1974) envisions warfare as a process of testing neighboring groups for evidence of weaknesses brought on by resource stress. Conducting relatively safe ritual arrow fights with occasional charging of enemy lines will reveal any deficiencies in their enemy’s or their own ability to defend themselves. If sufficient weaknesses are found, a group will conduct a lethal raid of neighboring villages to capture food, women, or territories. Vayda (1974) argues that some or possibly even all participants in war may not realize they are experiencing resource stress and will offer revenge or other personal offenses as the immediate causes for participating in violent conflict.

Ember and Ember (1992), in a cross-cultural study of 186 preindustrial societies, argue that most people can adapt to chronic resource stress without going to war. Only with the fear of unpredictable natural disasters that cannot be prepared for will people seize land or other necessary resources from their neighbors. Ember and Ember’s

(1992) model offers a compelling explanation for the reported rise in violence often associated with major climatic events that bring unpredictable drought or flooding such as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly that effected populations across North America

(Bamforth 1994; Lambert 2002; Leblanc 1999). Societies who experience the “threat of natural disasters” create a “socialization of mistrust” by transferring the fear of natural disasters to the fear of the other through symbolism in mythology (Ember and Ember

1992:256). This transferred fear of outsiders grows as the time since the last disaster increases, leading groups to undertake preemptive attacks against their neighbors.

Leblanc (1999) stresses the close relationship between warfare, population size, and carrying capacity. During periods of favorable environmental conditions, carrying capacity of the land will increase, but local populations will also grow. When

20 bouts of unfavorable climatic change reduced carrying capacity, warfare over now scarce resources would ensue as people sought to fight off starvation. Over time, Leblanc

(1999:309) suggests that chronic intense warfare due to food stress can become institutionalized so that fighting will continue even after the initial stress has been alleviated. The creation of buffer zones between polities during times of war further reduces the carrying capacity by rendering as much as half of the land in an area unused

(Leblanc 2006:445-446). Wars of conquest can eliminate buffer zones and dramatically increase carrying capacity as neighboring groups are removed from the land or integrated into the community of the victors. Leblanc (2006) believes that these drastic effects on carrying capacity brought on by the elimination of buffer zones would provide a foundation for the development of social complexity.

Several authors suggest that warfare does not become a prevalent occurrence until the introduction of agriculture, animal husbandry, or other subsistence strategies that require a sedentary lifestyle. Newcomb (1960:329) contends that “true war” fought over economic reasons is “one of the most important social consequences of the agricultural revolution.” Once people begin to live in permanent villages they become more susceptible to resource stress because relocation no longer provides a solution to food shortages (Torres-Rouff and Junquiera 2006). Carniero (1970) argues that warfare was a major contributing factor in the initial formations of state societies as sedentary populations in environmentally circumscribed regions filled the landscape and were forced to compete over scarce land and resources. Haas (2000:24) suggests that warfare in the American Southwest was a last resort for societies that could no longer flee during periods of environmental stress because of their increased reliance on maize agriculture.

The link between warfare and agriculture is especially relevant in eastern North America because the transition between the Woodland and Mississippian periods brought both the widespread intensification of maize cultivation and an explosion of palisade construction.

Culture History and Violent Conflict in Eastern North America

At the time of Griffin’s (1967) synthesis of eastern North American prehistory in Science, archaeologists working in the area thought they had a firm grasp on the major developments within the region. The Paleoindian and Archaic periods saw small mobile bands subsisting first on Pleistocene megafauna then small game and wild nuts and seeds

(Griffin 1967). It was not until the Woodland period with the appearance of Adena and

Hopewell societies, that most social and technological advances, such as earthwork construction, pottery, and agriculture were either developed in-situ or introduced from

Mesoamerica (Gibson 1996; Griffin 1967). By the Mississippian period, people throughout eastern North America were fully dependent on maize agriculture, which provided the spark for increased social complexity and the rise of chiefdoms (Griffin

1967). New research conducted over the last twenty five years has shown that while some of what we knew and are often still taught today was correct, the timing and extent of many of these developments were much farther off than previously thought.

Paleoindian Period (ca. 12000-8000 B.C.)

The Paleoindian period represents the initial colonization of the Americas as well as the expansion of human groups into eastern North America. The defining artifacts of the Early Paleoindian period are thousands of large lanceolate-shaped fluted points made from high quality lithic material found at only a small number of quarry sites

(Goodyear 1989). Early Paleoindian fluted points are more common along the major river drainages in eastern North America than anywhere else in the continent, but most of these points are isolated surface finds with no other associated material suitable for dating

(Anderson and Faught 1998; Mason 1962). Small mobile bands populated the region during the Early Paleoindian period and subsisted largely or at least in part on hunting megafauna, as several authors suggest that the abundant smaller game and plant resources of the Eastern Woodlands may have also been utilized by even these early peoples

(Cannon and Meltzer 2004; Meltzer and Smith 1986; Steponaitis 1986:369)

With the shift from a Pleistocene to a Holocene environment by 8500 B.C., smaller unfluted Dalton and similar triangular points that likely tipped atlatl darts became common. These points were manufactured from poorer quality local cherts than early fluted varieties and were extensively reworked for use as knives, scrapers, drills, and other tools (Bense 1994:55). Later Paleoindian groups adopted a more generalized subsistence economy with a much smaller range based on hunting white-tailed deer and other medium to small game, and gathering nuts like hickory, walnut, and pecan (Bense

1994; Steponaitis 1986). Morse and Morse (1983) suggest that at least some portion of

Late Paleoindian groups occupied year-round base camps, while small work parties occupied satellite hunting and processing camps at certain times of the year.

Archaic Period (8000-900 B.C.)

It was during the Archaic period that people spread to all areas of eastern

North America and began a more sedentary lifestyle. The dominant settlement pattern remained the semi-permanent home base and seasonal satellite hunting and processing sites, but home bases gradually grew larger with increasing evidence of continual

23 occupation (Bense 1994). The Archaic period saw many firsts, including the initial domestication of cucurbit container crops as early as 4000 B.C., with small grain seeds like chenopod, mayseed, sunflower, and knotweed following as minor additions to the diet in some areas during the Late Archaic (Crites 1991; Smith 1986). Increased interregional contact is evidenced during the Middle Archaic by long distance trade extending from the gulf coast as far up as southern Illinois and Tennessee (Bense 1994; Classen

1996). Pottery was also made for the first time on the Atlantic coastal plain of Georgia and South Carolina and at Poverty Point sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley by at least

2000 B.C. (Gibson 1996; Stoltman 1966).

Indications that sites were becoming more permanent during the Middle and

Late Archaic are concentrations of massive habitation middens known as the Shell

Mound Archaic focused around the Tennessee and Green River Valleys (Classen 1996).

These large mounded middens consist largely of accumulations of freshwater mollusk shells and contain burials both within and on pre-mound surfaces. These sites also provide the first evidence for prepared living floors, wooden structures, and storage pits for nuts and seeds (Steponaitis 1986). The burials from these Shell Mound Archaic sites contain the first evidence of warfare in Eastern North America. At sites in Tennessee,

Kentucky, and Alabama, researchers have observed blunt force cranial trauma, embedded projectile points, cutmarks indicative of scalping and dismemberment, parry fractures, and multiple internments of victims of violence (Bridges et al. 2000; Smith 1993, 1996,

1997; Snow 1948). Some researchers suggest that shellfish sources were restricted and became heavily contested in areas of relative abundance, leading to the creation of these middens as territorial markers (Charles and Buikstra 1983; Walthal 1980). Classen

(1996:240-241) counters that eastern North America is one of the richest sources of freshwater mollusk in the world and that Archaic populations did not come close to collecting shellfish in large enough quantities for them to become scarce.

The earliest monumental architecture north of Mexico, consisting of earthen mounds and embankments, has been firmly dated at sites in the lower Mississippi Valley from 4500 to 2500 B.C. (Gibson and Shenkel 1989; Russo 1996; Saunders and Allen

1994). No evidence of habitation in the form of structures or prepared living surfaces have been found at these Middle Archaic sites, leading to their interpretation as “ritual” or “ceremonial” sites (Russo 1996:260; Saunders et al. 2005:663). For yet unknown reasons, earthwork construction suddenly ceased for approximately 1000 years until Late

Archaic Poverty Point times, and large amounts of trade goods began to show up at sites throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley (Jeter and Jackson 1994; Saunders et al. 2005).

Trade intensified during the Poverty Point phase, shifting from finished exotic goods to large quantities of unworked stone coming from sources in the Ozark Plateau, the Appalachian piedmont, the Tennessee River, and even copper from the Great Lakes and obsidian sourced to a quarry in Wyoming (Gibson 1999, 2001). Keeley (1996:126) warns archaeologists to be weary of interpreting any movement of goods as a product of peaceful exchange. There is only evidence for materials moving in one direction from their sources to the Poverty Point homeland (Gibson 1996, 2001). The one-way flow of goods into Poverty Point sites may indicate that these materials were taken by force or some other means besides trade, although Gibson (1999) suggests that hides, feathers, or other perishable materials may have been traded by Poverty Point peoples.

Woodland Period (900 B.C.-A.D. 1000)

The Woodland period is largely an elaboration on the preceding Archaic period. Both mound construction and pottery became widespread throughout eastern

North America during this time. Mounded sites served as ceremonial centers and the residences of the newly formed tribal elite who were buried there in elaborate graves, while most people lived and worked in semi-permanent villages and temporary campsites

(Anderson and Mainfort 2002). Conflict among hunter gatherer groups over resource rich sites like shell mounds continued until the Middle Woodland period when Milner

(1999:122) suggests that the intensification of native seed crop cultivation alleviated much of the earlier resource stress.

The Ohio Hopewell ceremonial complex influenced populations across eastern North America in the Middle Woodland period, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from Kansas to the Atlantic coast. The major Hopewellian center in the

Mississippi Valley was the Marksville site (16AV1). Marksville’s influence, evidenced by its distinctive pottery styles, spread south to the coast and as far north as Illinois (Toth

1974). Hopewellian geometric earthworks surrounded large villages and burial mounds, where elaborate mortuary rituals involved the defleshing of elite remains in pits, the burning of mortuary structures with sacrificial victims and exotic grave goods, and the constructions of mounds atop these burned remains (Bense 1994; McGregor 1971). The non-elite, however, were normally buried in individual graves with a few utilitarian grave goods in village cemeteries on bluffs or ridges overlooking rivers or streams (McGregor

1971). The Middle Woodland is depicted in studies of prehistoric eastern North

American warfare as a time of relative peace (Lambert 2002; Milner 1999). There is

26 evidence, however, in the form of cutmarks suggesting disarticulation and drill holes for display that at least some of the curated skulls at Hopewellian sites in the Midwest may have been trophies from fallen enemies (Johnston 1996; Seeman 1988).

Major Hopewellian centers were abandoned and the far-reaching burial and ceremonial complex largely disappeared during the last five hundred years of the

Woodland period and the Late Woodland saw a great increase in regional variation with a breakdown of trade systems and little evidence of contact between local groups (Maxwell

1971). Maize agriculture began supplementing wild resources and local domesticates during the last five hundred years of the Woodland period, although it does not appear to have been adopted in resource-rich areas like the Lower Mississippi Valley and coastal

Florida (Anderson and Mainfort 2002; McGregor 1971; Mehrer 1995).

The bow and arrow, which was used by some groups as early as 1500 B.C., was abruptly adopted by populations across the region by A.D. 700 (Nassaney and Pyle

1999). The added stealth offered by the bow and arrow could have led to an intensification of raiding at this time (Blitz 1988; Milner 1998, 1999), although archaeological studies of violent conflict often overlook Late Woodland skeletal samples

(for exception see Rutecki 2009) in favor of those from the later Mississippian period.

Dye (2002:127) suggests that the large formalized battles and fortifications of the

Mississippian period were a direct response to the bow and arrow, while Lambert

(2002:227) argues that the 400-year gap between these shifts in military technology is too long for the two to be related.

Mississippian Period (A.D. 1000-1500)

During the Mississippian period, maize agriculture became widespread across large portions of eastern North America, comprising more than fifty percent of the diet in some areas (Lynott et al. 1986; Steponaitis 1986; Van der Merwe and Vogel 1978). This development paralleled the rise of complex hierarchical chiefdoms, a region-wide ceremonial and burial complex, seemingly endemic warfare, and the sudden construction of palisade walls around mound centers and villages (Bense 1994; Dye 2002, 2006;

Milner 1999). The ruling elites resided at the largest mounded centers like Moundville in

Alabama and Etowah in Georgia, while second-tier local elites occupied smaller mounded villages and commoners lived in non-mounded villages or farmsteads and were required to pay tribute and service to their local and chiefly elites (Bense 1994).

At the start of the Mississippian period, the American Bottom became home to the largest settlement in what is now the United States. Cahokia was first occupied in the late Woodland as a series of small farming villages (Fowler and Hall 1978). Major construction began around A.D. 1050 and by A.D. 1250, Cahokia’s more than 100 mounds, large batsioned palisade, multiple plazas, and many public and residential structures encompassed six square miles (Bense 1994; Milner 1998). The general consensus is that Mississippian society began to decline during the fourteenth century, with the cessation of mound construction and abandonment of large sites like Cahokia and Moundville, accompanied by a further intensification of palisade construction across the region (Anderson 1999; Fowler and Hall 1978; Larson 1972). Milner’s (1999) analysis of palisade distribution in eastern North America, however, indicates that the

28 percentage of sites with palisades actually decreased between A.D. 1350 and 1500, only to rebound after the arrival of Europeans.

Entering the Central Illinois Valley around the time of Cahokia’s collapse were Oneota peoples from the Plains and Great Lakes regions. Oneota populations in west-central Illinois subsisted on a mixed foraging and horticultural economy and were less politically and hierarchically complex than their Mississippian neighbors (Milner

2000; Milner et al. 1991). The relationship between Oneota occupations in Illinois and

Mississippian peoples is not well understood, but relations in this region appear to have been strained. At the Oneota cemetery Norris Farms #36 in west-central Illinois, more than sixteen percent of the skeletal sample is reported to have died violently as a result of multiple surprise raids by either antagonistic Mississippian or other Oneota populations

(Milner et al. 1991). On the other hand, there is also some evidence from pottery type distributions at five sites in the region that Oneota peoples and lingering Mississippian groups may have interacted peacefully around the same time as the Norris Farms raids

(Esarey and Conrad 1998).

Late prehistory in what is now Louisiana, Arkansas, and parts of Mississippi paralleled, but remained heavily isolated from, developments in other parts of the

Mississippian world. The Coles Creek period (A.D. 700-1200) saw an early appearance of many of the elements found in Mississippian societies including platform mounds supporting elite structures, large ceremonial centers, and the rise of elite control of surplus and labor (Kidder 1992). There is, however, little evidence of contact or trade with neighboring Late Woodland or Mississippian groups (Kidder 1992:155-156).

The subsequent Plaquemine culture (A.D. 1200-1500) is viewed as either an elaboration of earlier Coles Creek lifeways (Kidder 1998) or the projection of

Mississippian influence on Coles Creek groups (Brown 1985; Williams and Brain 1983), but is still not well understood. Plaquemine settlement patterns do not show the nucleation seen in other Mississippian period areas, with most people residing in small villages and farmsteads surrounding mounded ceremonial centers (Miller et al. 2000).

Contact with Mississippian groups is indicated by similarities in domestic architecture and the arrival of Mississippian-like shell tempered pottery (Kidder 1998:131). The abundance of wild resources in the region allowed Coles Creek and Plaquemine peoples to build surpluses required of complex societies without relying on large-scale agriculture

(Rose et al. 1984). Domesticated varieties of native seed crops and gourds, as well as maize, have been found at Coles Creek and Plaquemine sites, but appear in insufficient quantities to suggest that they provide a significant contribution to the diet of these peoples (Kidder 1992; Miller et al. 2000). The possibility that the relative isolation of

Coles Creek and Plaquemine cultures and their ability to thrive without the need for agricultural intensification may have precluded their involvement in larger Late

Woodland and Mississippian patterns of violence should be considered here.

Evidence for Violent Conflict in the Archaeological Record

It has been argued (Keeley 1996; Leblanc 1999) that archaeologists, more than our colleagues in related fields, have been guilty of ignoring the indications of warfare in their research other than simply noting their presence. Speculations on the causes and character of prehistoric warfare abound in eastern North America. Until the

30 last two decades, however, very few of these interpretations were based on any of the physical evidence of warfare that has been collected from prehistoric sites over the last hundred years. The evidence of warfare recoverable in the archaeological record includes defensive architecture, violent trauma on human skeletal remains, weapons, and iconographic depictions with warfare-related themes. With few exceptions (Dye 2004,

2006; Fontana 2007; Van Horne 1993), much of the research on warfare in eastern North

America has focused solely on either defensive architecture or violent skeletal trauma.

Since this thesis is a synthesis and reevaluation of previously published materials, weapons and iconography will be discussed briefly as supporting evidence for warfare but the primary analyses will center on the more readily available data on defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma.

Weapons

With the exception of recent conflicts between modern industrial nations, warfare has been conducted using two major classes of weapons. Fire weapons like the bow, atlatl, or sling are used to propel a projectile at a distant target. Shock weapons, such as axes, clubs, or thrusting spears, are used in close combat. Fire weapons are generally safer and have a higher effective range, while shock weapons have much higher accuracy and striking power but put their wielders at great risk because they require direct contact with members of the opposing force (Keeley 1996:49-50).

The relationship between weaponry and warfare is most clear when there is a shift in technology, such as the initial introduction of the bow and arrow in eastern North

America or the sinew-backed bow in the Southwest. Several authors suggest that the introduction of a new weapon technology may indicate an intensification of war,

31 especially when accompanied by other lines of evidence like violent skeletal trauma and defensive site architecture (Blitz 1988; Lambert 2002; Leblanc 1999; Milner 1999).

The connection between weapon technology and warfare becomes less clear in regards to the role of the war club in late prehistoric eastern North America. Van

Horne (1993) and Dye (2002) suggest that the war club became an important instrument of war with the rise of Mississippian chiefdoms. Van Horne (1993:63) describes several types of war clubs used in eastern North America, including a staff with an inset projection, globe-headed club, sword form, spatulate-headed club, staff, and stone celt or axe. Most of the evidence for the rise in importance of these types of weapons has come from iconographic depictions and ethnographic descriptions. This is not surprising because wooden artifacts rarely survive in the soils of this region. The only recovered examples of these weapons that would have been practical for use in battle are ground stone celt heads and a few rare examples of hafted stone celts (Gall and Steponaitis

2001:Figure 2; Krakker 2011; Moore 1905:Figure 27). Most Mississippian war clubs recovered by archaeologists, such as monolithic axes and large copper axe heads, were most likely ceremonial in nature because they were too heavy to be wielded, made of exaggerated lengths, or made of material that was either too soft or brittle to be effective in actual combat (Van Horne 1993:73-74). To determine if an actual increase in the use of war clubs may have contributed to an intensification of warfare during the

Mississippian period, other lines of evidence must be investigated in light of the lack of artifactual evidence for their use.

The most difficult problem with using weaponry as an indicator of warfare is that the tools used to kill enemies are often the same ones used in everyday subsistence-

32 related activities (Keeley 1996; Milner 1999). The same bows and arrows that took down enemies were also used for hunting animals, ground stone celts that felled down trees also crushed skulls, and flaked stone knives were just as effective at dismembering a fallen foe as processing game. Some specialization of tools for warfare did occur in North

America. Keeley (1996:52) notes that several tribes in California loosely hafted stemmed points to arrow shafts during war so that the point would remain in the victim if the shaft were removed, while they tightly secured side-notched points to arrows for hunting.

Other means of inflicting greater injury would include designing war points that would break apart on impact. There is some indication that poison-tipped arrows may have been used by historic tribes in the Lower Mississippi Valley (Swanton 1946:575-576), but environmental conditions in the region make the preservation of poison unlikely and no points from eastern North America have been tested for poison. There is no clear evidence, with the possible exception of certain styles of war clubs, that prehistoric peoples in eastern North America made weapons specialized for war. However, no focused search for these types of weapons has yet been undertaken for this region.

Iconography

Artistic depictions of warriors, weapons, or battle practices on cave walls, pottery, stone, metal, or other media is another source of evidence that warfare is at least known to the society in which it was created. In eastern North America, warfare, along with ancestor worship and fertility, was a central focus of the Southeastern Ceremonial

Complex, a suite of similar site layouts, burial practices, and ritual iconography that spread across the region with the rise of Mississippian chiefdoms (Bense 1994). The

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex grew out of earlier Woodland period traditions of

33 earthwork construction, elaborate elite burial, and iconographic depictions of raptors and serpents. Rather than depicting actual events, researchers regularly interpret warfare- related Mississippian depictions as supernatural beings (Dye 2004; Knight et al. 2001;

Waring 1968) or an “otherworldly reality” (Knight et al. 2001:129).

Fontana (2007:56; also see Knight et al. 2001) suggests that we should be able to glean at least some information about warfare in the societies we study from their iconography. One of the most widespread Mississippian artistic motifs is the bi-lobed arrow (see Fontana 2007:Figure 5). The most obvious interpretation of this image is a bow and arrow (Phillips and Brown 1984:148). The bi-lobed arrow has alternatively been interpreted as an atlatl (Howard 1968:26-27), an axe-form war club (Hudson 1976:247), and a windpipe and lungs (Hall 1989:250). Another item associated with the Southeastern

Ceremonial Complex is an elongated copper or stone pendant (see Moore 1905:Figure

41). These pendants have been found in association with elite burials and are thought to represent a trophy scalp with its hair hanging down (Howard 1968:68; Hudson

1976:251). The skull and long bones motif (see Steponaitis and Knight 2004:Figure 8) may represent trophy taking (Howard 1968:68). This interpretation is supported by the suggestion that designs often found on these skulls indicate scalping cutmarks (Fontana

2007:60). Depictions of warriors and battle scenes have been carved onto shell, stone, and copper, as well as represented on pottery at Mississippian sites (see Moore

1905:Figure 34). The birdman is a winged and beaked warrior figure that is believed to be associated with a thunder deity (Van Horne 1993:134). Depictions of the birdman figure from Spiro in Oklahoma, Etowah in Georgia (see Phillips and Brown 1984:Figure

243), and other large Mississippian centers show him carrying the severed head of a slain enemy and wielding a mace-shaped war club. Atop his head is the bi-lobed arrow motif.

While iconography depicting warfare-related activity is present in eastern

North America, elaborate depictions are rare or absent at all but the largest Mississippian sites like Cahokia, Moundville, or Spiro (Brown 1985; Hamilton et al. 1974). Further, while Mississippian artists must have had some knowledge of the weapons, adornment, and practices of war, we cannot expect to gauge the scale or intensity of warfare based solely on iconography. Keeley (2001:340) likens iconographic depictions of warfare to writings on the walls of high school bathrooms that “imply only familiarity and preoccupation, not necessarily an abundance of experience.”

Defensive Architecture

Discussions of defensive practices in eastern North America are often limited to heavily fortified Mississippian villages and ceremonial centers (Dye 2006; Fontana

2007; Milner 1999, 2000; Van Horne 1993). According to Keeley (1996:73), however, large walled enclosures are not always necessary to withstand lengthy sieges. A small contingency of U.S. cavalrymen were able to fend off 1800 Plains Indians from behind a small hill, and a small group of Modoc warriors withstood over 1200 U.S. troops for five months in the rugged terrain of the Northern California Lava Beds. Site defenses can range from strategic locations on a high bluff, island, or hill to painstakingly constructed wooden palisades, earthen embankments, or ditches. Also, changes in regional settlement patterns, such as a shift from small dispersed sites to tightly spaced village clusters surrounding large ceremonial centers, offers more warriors to aid in defense of a smaller territory and creates large buffer zones between opposing polities (DePratter 1991;

Leblanc 1999). The current project can offer little to expand our understanding of the effects of warfare on larger regional settlement patterns, however, because the only sites considered here will be those that have yielded human remains.

Fortifications surrounding archaeological sites may have offered protection from high winds or flood waters, kept wild animals at bay, or restricted public access to certain locales but are most often considered defensive architecture, especially when they incorporate certain design elements (Otterbein 2009, Leblanc 1999). A recent cross- cultural study by Keeley et al. (2007) suggests that while walls may have served various functions, their defensive purpose can be certain when accompanied by bastions that allow defenders to spot approaching attackers and eliminate blind spots along the wall, baffle gates that control the flow of enemy warriors into the site and leaves them vulnerable from multiple angles, or v-shaped ditches that restrict access to the base of the wall. Most authors argue that defensive structures surrounding village sites were only constructed when absolutely necessary because of the great investments in manpower they require that take time away from subsistence activities (Keeley 1996; Lambert 2002;

Larson 1972; Milner 1999). Stout and Lewis (1998:171), however, contend that wooden palisades at Mississippian sites could have been constructed rapidly with a large enough labor force and could be taken down and the building materials repurposed for habitation construction or fire wood when the village was no longer threatened with attack.

Wooden palisades surrounding villages and mound centers arrive late in the prehistory of eastern North America, appearing suddenly at sites during the Mississippian period and becoming rare again after contact (Larson1972; Milner 1999). While most researchers note the sudden erection of palisades at this time, few detailed studies of

Mississippian defensive architecture have been conducted (but see Fontana 2007; Milner

1998, 1999; Payne 1994) and defensive architecture has not been seriously considered for earlier periods. The emergence of defensive architecture throughout a region may indicate an intensification of warfare (Bense 1994; Dye 1995; Leblanc 1999; Milner

1999; Van Horne 1993) or may instead be a sign of a shift in warfare strategies and tactics that stresses the defense of increasingly larger and more sedentary populations relying on geographically fixed resources. (Allen and Arkush 2006; Fontana 2007).

The literature on palisades stresses the superiority of this defensive technology over small-scale raiding, which was likely the primary form of warfare practiced in late prehistoric eastern North America. Large palisaded sites would have been extremely difficult or impossible to overtake in societies without large standing armies capable of lengthy siege operations (Allen and Arkush 2006; Dye 2002, 2006). Larson (1972:390) reports that raids against palisaded towns would have been “undoubtedly futile” because walls were impenetrable and structures contained within were constructed far enough apart that flaming arrows or “fire in small pots” could not have set the entire town ablaze.

Dickson (1981:913) likens the interaction between palisaded Mississippian villages to the

“stalemate” in Europe during the late Middle Ages, where defenses could withstand almost any attack and no one group could overtake another. If these authors are correct, then rates of violent skeletal trauma in late prehistoric eastern North America should be lower at palisaded sites than sites without this type of defensive architecture.

Authors discussing raised earthen embankments or ditches surrounding archaeological sites as evidence of warfare rarely consider them outside of the context of palisade construction (but see Larson 1972; Payne 1994; Williams and Brain 1983).

Embankments at palisaded Mississippian sites are regularly considered the product of ditch construction or as a means to raise and reinforce the palisade (Larson 1972; Milner

1999). Dry or water-filled ditches surrounding sites have similarly been suggested to be a means of restricting access to the palisade or effectively increasing its height (Leblanc

1999:58). Earthworks and ditches, however, may have offered protection to the people of eastern North America and their resources long before the arrival of palisades.

There is a six thousand year gap between the earliest evidence of violence in eastern North America and the first palisades. During this gap, earthworks bearing striking similarities to later defensive works were built throughout the region. These massive constructions would have required a larger labor investment than erecting a wooden wall around a site, but are assigned esoteric functions (Gibson 2001; Saunders et al. 2005). The earliest earthen embankments in eastern North America were developed in conjunction with mounds and have never been seriously considered to have a defensive function (Saunders et al. 2005:663). The five thousand year old Middle Archaic Watson

Brake site in north Louisiana consists of eleven mounds connected by an oval earthen ring (Saunders et al. 2005). The Late Archaic Poverty Point site has six mounds and six concentric semi-circular embankments (Gibson 2001). Similar semi-circular and earthen embankments are common among Late Archaic sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley

(Williams and Brain 1983:397). By the Middle Woodland period, the embankment that encloses the Marksville site is bordered on the outside by a ditch (Fowke 1928; Toth

1974). Also at this time, large geometric earthworks enclosing up to hundreds of acres were constructed at Hopewellian sites throughout the central Mississippi and Ohio River

Valleys (Griffin 1967:183). Milner (1999:113) specifically excludes earthen mounds

38 from his discussion of defensive structures because of their supposed “ritual or social significance.” However, because mounds and embankments developed together during the Middle Archaic period and have continued to be found together at sites through the

Mississippian period, the possibility that mounds were part of the defensive architecture of archaeological sites in eastern North America will be considered here.

Violent Skeletal Trauma

While a palisaded settlement suggests that the population within its walls perceived a threat of violence, human skeletal remains with traumatic lesions provide the most direct evidence of actual violent conflict in the archaeological record (Smith 2003;

Walker 2001). It is difficult to interpret a skeleton that has been “porcupinized” with projectiles as anything but a victim of violence (Milner 2005:149). Violent traumatic lesions are considered those injuries to the human skeleton inflicted with “malevolent intent” (Walker 2001:576), however, injuries due to accidents or subsistence-related activities during life, various cultural or environmental site formation processes after death, or excavation and curation practices may produce patterns on bone similar to trauma sustained through violent conflict.

Antemortem trauma is more readily identified than perimortem trauma because new bone growth that forms a callus around the fracture site leaves no doubt that the individual was injured before death (Walker 2001). Perimortem trauma is often much more difficult to distinguish from other processes that affect the bone soon after death or long after burial. Injuries occurring at the time of death may be nearly indistinguishable from damage due to mortuary practices that include defleshing or otherwise processing the body. The difference between perimortem trauma and postmortem damage occurring

39 well after death are more easily differentiated. Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994:103) state that perimortem fractures form at an oblique angle, while fractures occurring after bones become brittle from loss of collagen and moisture will break at a right angle to the bone surface. Also, bone that has been buried will darken due to contact with soil, plant material, and other environmental factors. Fractures and cut marks that occurred soon before or after death will be similar in color to the rest of the bone, while newly exposed bone from more recent damage will be lighter in color because newly exposed bone was not subject to same processes as the older bone surfaces (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994).

The types of deliberate traumatic lesions affecting human skeletal remains most often associated with violent conflict at archaeological sites are projectile injuries, craniofacial trauma, parry fractures, and cutmarks associated with scalping, decapitation, or other types of trophy taking or dismemberment (Baker 2001; Hogue 2007; Milner

1999; Smith 2003; Steadman 2008). Other traumatic injury may be inflicted during violent conflict, but are more often associated with accidents. Projectile point wounds are the most easily identifiable type of violent skeletal trauma because the implement that caused the injury often remains embedded in the bone. While Keeley (1996) argues that non-state war is more likely to involve long-distance fire weapons than close-range shock weapons, depressed cranial fractures, parry fractures, and scalping cutmarks indicative of close combat are common throughout prehistoric eastern North America (Bridges 1996;

Hogue 2007; Mensforth 1996; Milner et al. 1991; Ross-Stallings 2007; Smith 1997,

2003). Conservative interpretations of warfare based solely on embedded points may not provide an accurate picture of violent conflict. At the late prehistoric Crow Creek site in

South Dakota, nearly five hundred individuals were massacred and interred together in

40 the fortification ditch surrounding the site (Willey 1990; Willey and Emerson 1993).

However, only seven projectile points were recovered and only one of those was embedded in human bone (Willey and Emerson 1993:238).

Like embedded points, cutmarks around the calvarium indicative of scalping are difficult to interpret as anything other than the product of violence. Other cutmarks that could signify trophy taking or dismemberment may be confused with mortuary practices. Decapitation or the taking of other trophies cannot be positively identified by the mere absence of a particular element. Cutmarks on bone where the missing element articulates with the rest of the body must be present to indicate trophy taking (Owsley et al. 1977; Smith 1993; Willey 1990). With defleshing the body as part of mortuary practices, on the other hand, cutmarks will normally be widely distributed across the body (Olsen and Shipman 1994; Raemsch 1993; Smith 1993, 1997).

Blunt force cranial trauma can lend a great deal to understanding patterns of violent conflict in prehistoric societies. The shape of cranial fractures may suggest the type of implement that caused the injury, such as stone celts or spiked war clubs (Bridges

1996; Lambert 1997; Milner et al. 1991; Smith 2003; Walker 1997). Depressed cranial fractures found in prehistoric skeletal populations are often antemortem, leading researchers to question whether these injuries were intended to be lethal (Lambert 1994,

1997; Smith 2003; Walker 1989, 1997). A predominance of antemortem rather than perimortem blunt force cranial trauma and a concentration of those injuries to certain parts of the cranium may point to ritual battles, interpersonal violence, or socially- sanctioned conflict resolution rather than warfare.

Parry fractures are the most difficult type of traumatic injury to positively identify as evidence of violent conflict because numerous accidental injuries can cause similar fracture patterns. Identification of actual parrying injuries is made difficult by a lack of a standardized definition. Parry fractures are sometimes classified as any fracture to the ulna (Baker 2001; Lovell 2008), midshaft fractures of the ulna or radius (Smith

1996) or fractures to the distal end of either forearm bone (Steadman 2008). Observing that too many forearm injuries were classified as parry fractures, Judd (2008:1661) recognized specific criteria for identifying parry fractures including fracture sites below the midshaft of the ulna but especially the distal third, a lack of radial involvement, a transverse to slightly oblique fracture, and minor displacement of the distal end of the ulna. Smith (1996, 1997) argues that parry fractures can only be considered evidence of intergroup conflict when accompanied by craniofacial trauma within the skeletal population. If fractures to the forearm were indeed intended to strike the head, at least some of these blows would have hit the target they sought. Also, when parry fractures and craniofacial trauma are concentrated on the females of a population, they may be considered evidence of domestic abuse or other female-directed violence rather than intergroup conflict (Smith 1996, 2003; Walker 1997).

A major concern in studies of prehistoric violent conflict is how high the frequency of violent trauma should be before it can be attributed to warfare. Keeley

(1996: 89-90), citing examples from modern state, ethnographic, and archaeological cases, suggests that only a small percentage of the total deaths would should be warfare- related. Smith (2003:315), on the other hand, contends that skeletal samples from archaeological sites that lack “double digit casualty frequencies” and “multiple victim

42 violent episodes” are more likely the result of intra-group conflict than warfare. One of the biggest question relating to this issue is how often violent injury actually leaves a mark on bone. Milner (2005) suggests that the amount of trauma observable from human skeletal remains greatly underestimates the victims of violence in a population. In his analysis of surgeon’s reports from the Indian Wars on the nineteenth century Plains and

Southwest, Milner (2005:147-148) reports that only thirty percent of arrow wounds hit bone, while only twenty percent of those were left in bone. Even if no points were removed, some would have only nicked bone to either exit the body or end up in soft tissue. Milner (2005:150) suggests simply tripling the number of arrow wounds on bone to get an accurate count of total injuries. Similarly, a study of injuries on modern assault victims indicates that only twenty five percent of all injuries are visible on bone (Shepard et al. 1990). In a report of three Peruvian mummies who show evidence of violent death, one individual had five sharp wounds to the scalp and one near the ear that left significant damage to the head but only one of these cuts left a mark on bone (Standen et al. 2010).

While it is certain that skeletal remains do not retain a record of all violent injuries inflicted on an individual, there is still no consensus on how pervasive violent trauma must be within a skeletal sample to indicate the presence of warfare.

Conclusion

Previous research suggests that small-scale raids typified warfare in late prehistoric eastern North America (see Bridges 1996; Milner et al. 1991; Steadman

2008). Gibson (1974) claims that most raids were conducted against small groups on hunting or fishing trips, in agricultural fields, along roads, or otherwise isolated from

43 their home villages. Others (Dye 2002; 2006; Fontana 2007; Milner 1999), however, argue that large-scale battles with the intent of conquest were also conducted during the

Mississippian period. While some sites in late prehistoric eastern North America contain double digit frequencies of warfare-related traumatic lesions, there is little contextual evidence at these or other eastern North American sites that suggest large massacres like that at Crow Creek on the Northern Plains took place within the region (Goodman et al.

1984; Hogue 2007; Milner et al. 1991; Rose et al. 1984).

Mirroring general trends in the anthropology of warfare, the causes of war among societies in prehistoric eastern North America have been variously interpreted as resource unpredictability, revenge, status enhancement, defense of agricultural land or hunting territory, or environmental stress (Dye 1995, 2006; Lambert 2002; Milner 1999;

Milner et al. 1991; Strejewski 2006). In the first major debate of prehistoric eastern North

American warfare, Larson (1972) suggests that the major goal of warfare was to capture towns and their associated agricultural land, which was rare except along natural levees on the major rivers crossing the coastal plain. Gibson (1974) countered that warfare in the

Lower Mississippi Valley was a mechanism for coping with complex social hierarchies based on kinship ties in which social rank drops each generation. According to Gibson

(1974), males could negate this drop in status at birth by negotiating a new position through bravery in battle. Dickson (1981) contends that this debate is simply a disagreement based on the scope of analysis, with Larson (1972) focusing on strategic goals of the society as a whole and Gibson (1974) concentrating on the more immediate personal motivations of individuals participating in these conflicts.

With rare exceptions (Larson 1972; Gibson 1974; Dickson 1981), warfare in prehistoric eastern North America has received little focused attention before the last two decades. The presence of defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma is often noted in site reports, but is rarely incorporated into explanatory models. Ahead of the regional trends, Lahren and Berryman (1984) examined fracture patterns to suggest a warrior elite class at Mississippian sites in Tennessee. The current florescence of warfare research in eastern North America, however, can be largely traced to works in the early 1990s at

Norris Farms #36 (Santure et al. 1990; Milner et al. 1991) and Crow Creek on the northern Plains (Willey 1990, Willey and Emmerson 1993) that reported high levels violent skeletal trauma, and the volume by Powell and colleagues (1991) that stemmed much of the increase in bioarchaeological research over the last twenty years.

Most bioarchaeological studies of violent conflict have been included only as minor parts of larger studies of diet or health (Berryman 1981; Hogue 2007; Powell 1991,

1992; Rose et al. 1984) or focus on individual sites or unusual cases (Bridges 1996; Cobb and Harn 2005; Milner et al. 1991; Steadman 2008; Strejewski 2006). Studies of defensive architecture in eastern North America are rare with the exception of the works of Milner (1998, 1999, 2000) and studies by Oggs (2003) and Fontana (2007) who investigate palisades as evidence for warfare at sites that lack skeletal remains. The only substantial consideration of other lines of evidence for warfare is Van Horne’s (1993) study of the war club as the primary weapon and a symbol of status and prestige for

Mississippian and early historic warriors in eastern North America.

While defensive architecture and violent traumatic injuries on human skeletal remains are the most reliable indicators of prehistoric warfare, the relationship between

45 these two lines of evidence remains unclear as few researchers have considered them together on a regional level. Milner (1998, 1999) utilized both palisades and skeletal trauma in his broad discussion of warfare across eastern North America, but considers the two types of evidence separately. In her reanalysis of previously studied data sets from

Tennessee, Smith (2003) investigated trauma patterns at fortified Mississippian period sites to suggest intra-group conflict rather than inter-group warfare, but does not compare this data to non-palisaded sites. Dye (1990, 1994, 1995, 2002, 2004, 2006) has built a substantial body of research, first relying heavily on historic documents and then later incorporating new data on defensive architecture, weapons, iconography, and violent skeletal trauma to support his argument that Mississippian warfare served to advance the political ambitions of the elite and facilitate the redistribution of prestige goods. The current project reevaluates much of the previous research on violent conflict from late prehistoric eastern North America in an effort to understand the relationship between patterns of violent skeletal trauma and defensive architecture presence at Late Woodland and Mississippian period sites.

CHAPTER III

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This thesis investigates the relationship between multiple lines of evidence for warfare in prehistoric societies recoverable in the archaeological record, specifically defensive architecture and violent trauma on human skeletal remains. Patterns observed within and between these two lines of evidence will add to our understanding of the nature of warfare and its connection with other social and political processes during late prehistory in eastern North America. The data included in this research was collected from previously published sources and reports archived at universities within the study region and reassessed so that data sets will be comparable for the purposes of this project and for future researchers interested in related topics.

Time Period and Geographical Region

The current project focuses on the last one thousand years of prehistory in eastern North America before contact with Europeans. The Late Woodland and

Mississippian periods in Eastern North America offer an ideal opportunity to study the relationship between multiple lines of evidence for prehistoric warfare due to the clear division of these time periods into two equal 500-year spans and the occurrence of two major warfare-related technological shifts that occurred within this relatively short time span. First, the widespread adoption of the bow and arrow across eastern North

46 47

America around A.D. 600 is argued to coincide with the decline and dispersal of once- powerful Hopewellian societies and a marked increase in violent conflict (Milner 1999;

Nassaney and Pyle 1999; Phillips 1970; Williams 1963). Anderson and Mainfort (2002), however, counter that the shift from large cohesive site clusters to small dispersed settlements during the Late Woodland period may actually represent a period of highly localized cultural florescence and elaboration. The debated rise in violence may have contributed to the second development, the rapid rise of palisade construction across eastern North America beginning around A.D. 1000 at the onset of Mississippian period

(Dye 2002; Larson 1972; Milner 1998, 1999).

Previous discussions of warfare in eastern North America have been limited to a small number of sites within a tightly confined area or to single extraordinary cases that may distort rather than inform larger regional trends (Lahren and Berryman 1984; Milner et al. 1991; Smith 2003; Strejewski 2006). Milner’s (1998, 1999) inclusion of the entire eastern North America from the Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Gulf Coast into Canada, on the other hand, renders any in-depth engagement with the data nearly impossible. To include an area that facilitates the observation of regional patterning but is not overwhelming in scope, the attention of this thesis is directed towards the Central and

Lower Mississippi River Valley and the Gulf Coastal Plain of Louisiana, Mississippi, and

Alabama (Figure 1). This region comprises the core of the Mississippian world and has been a major center for social, technological, and political development throughout the prehistory of eastern North America (Gibson 2001; Mehrer 1995).

The limits of the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley for the purposes of archaeological research are not fully agreed upon. Swanton (1911:Plate 1) defines the

Figure 1. Map of eastern North America showing archaeological sites in the study area divided by sub-region.

Lower Mississippi Valley as spanning from the confluence of Arkansas and Mississippi rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. Rollingson and Mainfort (2002:20) designate the areas bordering both sides of the Mississippi River from Arkansas to Illinois as the Central

Mississippi Valley. Kidder (1998:125) places the northern border of the Lower

Mississippi Valley in Cairo, Ilinois at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi River

49 valleys. Taking the varied definitions of these geographical regions into consideration, the study area for the current project includes the entirety of the states of Illinois,

Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

Skeletal Samples and Archaeological Sites

The data sets collected for this thesis represent nine Late Woodland period sites, 42 Mississippian period sites, and five sites that have separate skeletal collections associated with both periods. These 56 sites contain a total skeletal sample of 8,586 individuals, including 5,311 adults and 3,275 subadults. A total of 23 palisade walls were recorded at 18 sites, eight sites were each surrounded by a ditch, and three sites contained an earthen embankment. Also, 41 sites contained a total of 370 mounds, ranging from a single mound each at 19 sites to 104 mounds at Cahokia.

The study area was divided into six sub-regions based on broadly-defined

Mississippian cultural areas (Figure 1). This division was created to facilitate analysis across a large geographical area and to identify any regional differences in the relationship between defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma, but does not indicate that all of the sites within each sub-region interacted directly with one another or that there was no interaction between sub-regions.

The Oneota sub-region comprises the northern periphery of the Mississippian world in Illinois. Central and southern Illinois, along with most of Missouri, make up the

Cahokia sub-region. The Middle Mississippian sub-region includes parts of Missouri,

Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi that border the Mississippi River. The

Hiwassee Island sub-region consists of a group of tightly spaced sites in eastern

Tennessee. The western half of Alabama and eastern Mississippi form the Moundville sub-region. The Plaquemine sub-region at the southern border of the study area includes southern Arkansas, western Mississippi, and most of Louisiana.

The typical Mississippian settlement pattern consists of a large ceremonial center surrounded by large multi-mounded villages, small single mound or non-mounded villages, and dispersed hamlets or farmsteads along major waterways and their tributaries, as well as isolated resource procurement and processing sites located further inland (Bense 1994; Harn 1978; Price 1978; Young and Fowler 2000). A similar settlement pattern can be found in the preceding Late Woodland period (Nassaney 1996;

Rollingson 2002), although in some areas there is a tendency towards smaller site size and earthwork construction on a much smaller scale (Kidder 2002:87). Human skeletal samples appropriate for inclusion in this thesis have been found at all but the resource procurement and processing sites. The term “ceremonial center” can be misleading because these largest sites like Moundville and Cahokia often contained large residential populations and were the seats of political and social power, along with their religious function. For the purposes of this thesis, “ceremonial” will be replaced with “regional” as to avoid possible biased interpretations.

Each site discussed in this thesis, with two exceptions, was placed into one of the four above listed site type categories based on the descriptions given by the original researchers, site area, and the overall layout of each site. Pinson Cave (1JE20) is a small two room cave with only one hidden narrow entrance that is accessible without modern climbing gear (Oakley 1971). The Turner and Snodgrass sites (23BU21A/B) are adjacent palisaded villages with a single cemetery at the smaller Snodgrass site to serve the

51 inhabitants of both sites. This paired village settlement pattern is uncommon in eastern

North America but is typical for the Middle Mississippian Powers Phase in northeastern

Arkansas and southern Missouri (Price 1978:214).

While some variation occurs, the layout of Mississippian villages and towns appear follow the same “architectural grammar” across eastern North America (Lewis et al. 1998:2; Phillips et al. 1951). Most large Mississippian sites consist of a central plaza bounded by one or more mounds surrounded by or adjacent to residential spaces. Smaller villages may consist of only a habitation area, although a plaza may also be present.

During the Mouse Creek Phase in eastern Tennessee, however, mounds were absent at even the largest sites (Lewis and Lewis 1995; Smith 2003). While some Late Woodland sites, such as Lake George (21N1) and Hiwassee Island in Tennessee (Lewis and

Kneberg 1946; Williams and Brain 1983), follow the general Mississippian pattern, the use and placement of particular architectural elements, such as plazas and mounds, within these earlier sites appears highly variable across the region. The location of burial spaces at Late Woodland and Mississippian sites range widely from mound interments, to burials beneath house floors, stand-alone cemeteries adjacent to village areas, and burials scattered among residential structures (for examples see Giardino 1977; Lewis and Lewis

1995; Polhemus 1990; Schwartz 1961).

Late Woodland and Mississippian residential and community structures are generally square or rectangular structures constructed of wooden posts individually placed or set in wall trenches, although a number of circular house features were observed at the Kellog Site (22CL527) in Mississippi (Atkinson et al. 1980:196). Payne

(1994) offers an in-depth survey of Mississippian period architecture. In this work, she

52 reports that the mean area of Mississippian house structures is 35.2 square meters, while elite or community structures constructed atop platform mounds were twice as large at

71.9 meters square (Payne 1994:156). Residential structures found at the sites included in this thesis fall well within Payne’s (1994:156) range of 6.7 to 186.3 square meters for the floor area of house structures. Evidence from Hiwassee Island and the Snodgrass site indicates that some of these structures may have been covered with clay (Lewis and

Kneberg 1946:48; Price 1978:288). Alternatively, remnants of wall coverings made from split cane were found associated with structures at the Lake George and Toqua (40MR6) sites (Polhemus 1985:26; Williams and Brain 1983:58).

Defensive Architecture

Defensive architecture observed at archaeological sites (Figure 2) include purposefully erected public works constructed of transported earth or wooden posts that functioned to protect people, homes, or resources contained within their confines from aggressive neighbors or foreign enemies. The presence of defensive architecture within or surrounding sites was recorded from site records, excavation reports, scholarly articles, and regional surveys. Earthen embankments, dry or water-filled ditches, and mounds are major features on the landscape and often remain visible to researchers on the ground or in aerial photographs, even at sites where extensive plowing or other processes have heavily disturbed the ground surface (Gibson 2001). The wooden posts utilized in palisade construction, however, are unlikely to survive into the present day and must often be identified through excavation by the presence of lines of post molds or wall trenches surrounding an archaeological site.

Figure 2. Defensive architecture and other features typical of Late Woodland and Mississippian period sites eastern North America.

Embankments

Embankments are purposefully raised linear, semi-circular, or rectangular earthen ridges that surround an entire site, encircle a group of mounds, or connect mounds to one another, and often end at a body of water (Figure 2; Lewis et al. 1998;

Saunders et al. 2005; Toth 1974). At late prehistoric eastern North American sites, embankments range from just over one to seven meters in height and from two to ten meters in width (Ford 1954; Squier and Davis (1973[1848]). Embankments have alternatively been described as “rings” (Gibson 2001:7) or “causeways” (Demel and Hall

1998:220). Any earthworks labeled causeways or rings that meet the above geometrical requirements for embankments listed above will be included in this research.

Ditches

Ditches or moats are narrow linear, semi-circular, or rectangular depressions surrounding a site or a portion of a site where earth has been purposefully removed to allow water to flow into it from an adjacent source (Figure 2). Ditches and embankments are often associated with one another at sites and there is much debate as to whether one of these features may be the product of constructing the other (Larson 1972; Milner 1999;

Squier and Davis 1973[1848]). The physical dimensions of ditches surrounding archaeological sites in eastern North America are similar to embankments, with depths ranging from one to four meters and widths varying from one to ten meters.

Mounds

Mounds are large, purposefully constructed raised earthen features that may have served a number of functions including tombs, bases for public or elite structures, astronomical alignment, and possibly defense. The four major classifications of mounds found in eastern North America are conical, platform, ridge top, and effigy mounds.

Effigy mounds, which are often in the shape of birds, serpents, or other animals, are not considered here because they are not associated with Late Woodland or Mississippian period sites (Gibson 2001; Squier and Davis 1973[1848]). Midden accumulations from normal habitation use or other raised features that do not show signs of purposeful construction were also not considered to be mounds for the purposes of this thesis.

Platform mounds (Figure 2) have square, rectangular, or oval bases, a flat top, and flat sloping sides. They range in size from less than one meter high due to heavy

55 disturbance with basal areas less than ten square meters for the smallest known mounds

(Gibson 2001) to nearly 30 meters tall and a basal area of 68,676 square meters for

Monk’s Mound at Cahokia (Fowler 1989:87). Platform mounds have been alternately labeled flat-topped mounds, temple mounds because they often serve as a base for large public structures, or truncated pyramidal mounds because of their resemblance to pyramids with their tops cut off.

Conical mounds (Figure 2), often labeled burial mounds because of their presumed function, have circular or oval bases and domed tops (Demel and Hall 1998;

Lewis et al. 1998). Conical mounds were often originally flat topped mounds on which burials were placed, then capped with a conical top (Bense 1994). The smallest conical mounds are comparable in size to the smallest platform mounds (Saunders and Allen

1994), but the tallest conical mounds recorded reach heights of only 20 meters (Squier and Davis 1973[1848]).

Ridge topped mounds, which are much less common than platform and conical mounds, have long rectangular bases and either flat, triangular, or rounded tops

(Demel and Hall 1998). They are similar in height and width to embankments, with heights ranging from 1.5 to seven meters and widths between three and ten meters but rarely extend more than 60 meters in length (Squier and Davis 1973[1848]).

Palisades

The remnants of palisades are less readily visible. However, their frequent close association with embankments and ditches (Fontana 2007; Larson 1972; Milner

1999) makes their discovery through excavation likely at most sites. Palisades that surround sites or portions of larger sites in eastern North America are represented by lines

56 of closely spaced individual postmolds or wall trenches that once contained upright wooden posts, which ranged from 15 to 50 centimeters in diameter (Demel and Hall

1998; Milner 1999). Palisade postmolds average approximately one meter in depth and ethnographic descriptions of fortified Natchez villages place their height at approximately three meters (Larson 1972; Swanton 1911).

The presence and dimensions of any bastions or gates incorporated into the design of palisades were also recorded. Baffle gates are lengths of palisade wall that overlap and run parallel to one another to create an entryway that restricts the flow of people into the palisaded settlement and forces attackers to expose all sides as they maneuver around the gate (Figure 2; Keeley et al. 2007:62-63). Bastions are evenly spaced rectangular or circular lines of posts that extend beyond the outside of the palisade wall to offer a raised platform for surveillance and to fire arrows on approaching attackers (Figure 2; Keeley et al. 2007:67-68). Bastions at sites from eastern North

America range from three to six meters on any side and are spaced evenly along palisade walls from 20 to 40 meters apart (Demel and Hall 1998; Vogel and Allan 1985).

Violent Skeletal Trauma

Violent skeletal trauma include fractures and other traumatic lesions inflicted on the human skeleton that are caused by deliberate violent acts rather than accidental injury, normal lifetime activities, or mortuary practices. The presence of violent skeletal trauma on human remains including embedded projectile points, cutmarks from scalping, decapitation, or other forms of trophy taking, parry fractures, and cranial trauma were recorded and reassessed from previously published data sets. A number of biases that are

57 difficult or impossible to control for, including the variable skill levels of different observers in identifying particular types of trauma and outdated data collection methods used in older reports, are inherent in research based on previously recorded data (Judd

2008; Milner 1999; Smith 1996, 2003). The nature of this research project, however, requires the assumption that the researchers who initially recorded the data included here were reasonably accurate in their identification of violent skeletal trauma.

Embedded Projectile Points

Projectile injuries are most readily identified when stone, antler, or other types of projectile points or fragments remain embedded in bone (see Perino 1971:Figure 23).

Points that were not fully embedded in bone or were extracted from the wound may also leave marks on bone in the form of penetrating wounds, cut marks, and depressed fractures (Lambert 1997; Steadman 2008). Projectile points closely associated with human remains but not in contact with bone may also provide evidence of violence

(Lambert 1997; Milner 2005), but can only be identified in-situ and are often difficult to distinguish from possible grave goods that may have shifted into place as soft tissue decayed. A conservative definition of embedded projectile points as only those injuries in which at least a portion of the projectile point remains either embedded in bone or firmly lodged between two bones will be used here.

Blunt Force Cranial Trauma

Blunt force cranial trauma considered here consists of depressed fractures to the frontal, parietals, temporals, and occipital bones (see Steadman 2008:Figure 6).

Depressed cranial fractures occur as result of “low-velocity direct trauma” that pushes the broken fragments of the outer table inward (Lovell 2008:351). The type of weapon used

58 to inflict the injury can often be determined by the shape of the fracture. Fractures caused by wooden clubs will generally have a round or elliptical shape, while those caused by stone celts or axes will form an elongated narrow v-shaped depression (Galloway 1999;

Lambert 1997; Milner et al. 1991; Walker 1989; Willey 1990). Cranial injuries that consist only of linear fractures are not considered here because they are more likely caused by a fall onto a hard flat surface (Lambert 1997; Lovell 2008).

When the majority of wounds are healed and are confined to particular areas of the skull, depressed cranial fractures are often interpreted as interpersonal violence or culturally-sanctioned conflict resolution rather than warfare-related (Lessa and de Souza

2006; Smith 2003; Steadman 2008). Some cases of cranial blunt force trauma, however, such as one individual from the Fisher site with a stone celt still embedded in his cranial vault (Strejewski 2008) were clearly intended to be fatal.

Parry Fractures

A parry fracture (see Judd 2008:Figure 4) is an injury to the ulna shaft that may result from raising the arm to block a blow to the head, but may just as likely be caused by a fall or other form of accidental injury. A major concern with the term “parry fracture” is that the name itself suggests the mechanism of injury, which may bias interpretations towards violent conflict without a full consideration of the potential causes of these injuries (Judd 2008; Jurmain 1999; Lovell 1997; Walker 2001). While a more neutrally worded alternative to the term “parry fracture” should be devised as research to distinguish the various types of forearm fractures moves forward, it remains the standard term in the bioarchaeological and clinical literature and therefore will be cautiously used in this thesis.

There is much confusion among researchers over the elements affected by parry fractures. Some consider only fractures to the ulna (Hogue 2007; Lovell 2008;

Walker 2001), while others include involvement of the radius (Smith 1996; Steadman

2008). There is also disagreement as to whether a fracture location on the proximal

(Lovell 1997, 2008), mid (Smith 1996; 1997), or distal (Steadman 2008) shaft of the ulna is diagnostic of parrying a blow. As stated in the previous chapter, new research by Judd

(2008) more clearly defines the criteria that distinguish actual parrying injuries meant to block a blow to the head from Monteggia, Colles’, or other forearm fractures that are likely caused by falling onto an outstretched hand or other accidental injury. However, a broad definition of parry fractures that includes transverse fractures to any segment of the ulna shaft or ulna and radius shaft must be used here because of the varying definitions of parry fractures used by earlier researchers whose data sets are incorporated into this thesis. Fractures that only affect the radius were not counted as parry fractures.

Trophy Taking and Dismemberment

Instances of dismemberment or trophy taking can be identified by cutmarks or chopmarks to the articular surface of the skeletal element that was removed or the articular surface of adjacent bones if the body part is taken. Cutmarks are thin, often v- shaped marks created by a slicing motion along the surface of the bone while chopmarks, which are more common in modern forensic cases than archaeological studies, are formed by the “abrupt contact” of the tool edge with bone (White and Folkens 2005:60).

Taking or dismemberment of limbs, portions of limbs, and other postcranial elements will be considered separately from decapitation and scalping in the analyses that follow.

Scalping offers a unique form of trophy taking here because flesh is taken rather than bone. Scalping is identified by a pattern of parallel cutmarks along the frontal bone or alternately, circumferentially on the crown of the skull (Milner et al. 1991:Figure

2; Steadman 2008:53). While trophy-taking is normally considered a perimortem injury, scalping injuries showing evidence of healing are not uncommon in prehistoric skeletal populations (Lahren and Berryman 1984; Hrdlička 1909; Milner et al. 1991; Owsley and

Berryman 1975; Smith 2003, 2008; Willey 1990).

Healed decapitation cutmarks, however, are unlikely to be identified because the entire head is taken. The absence of the skull or its placement out of its original anatomical position alone is insufficient for determining decapitation. Instances of decapitation should minimally show evidence of cutmarks on the mandible, the base of the skull, or cervical vertebrae (Steadman 2008; See Milner et al. 1991:Figure 3).

Data Collection Methods

Due to the large scale of this research project, both the data on defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma used in this study are drawn from previously published data sets rather than collected through new excavation or analysis of previously unstudied skeletal collections. Since the main goal of this thesis is to compare patterns of violent skeletal trauma between sites with and without defensive architecture, sites were chosen blind to the presence or absence of palisades, embankments, ditches, or mounds to avoid a bias for sites with a particular type of defensive architecture or against sites without defensive works. Sites were initially considered if they contained a skeletal sample of at least 20 individuals. Skeletal samples included in this research must have

61 had age and sex estimated and must have been examined for evidence of violent skeletal trauma. Sites were not included in this analysis if they contained too few individuals or the preservation of skeletal material was too poor to allow identification of trauma.

To be included in this study, site reports or other records must have additionally contained either detailed descriptions of defensive architecture at the site or sufficient description of work at the site to determine that defensive architecture would likely have been recovered if present. Sites were not considered if an attempt to find the limits of the site, where defensive architecture is most likely located, was not conducted.

Both defensive architecture and skeletal samples were also only included if they could be dated firmly to either the Late Woodland or Mississippian periods through radiocarbon dating or by association with diagnostic artifact types. Defensive architecture was not considered if it was not present at the site at the time that the human skeletal remains were interred. The Lake George site in west-central Mississippi contained only one mound and no other major architectural features during the Coles Creek period when the skeletal population was buried but later grew to have a total of 25 mounds, a large wooden palisade, embankment, and ditch during the subsequent Plaquemine period

(Williams and Brain 1983). To facilitate data analysis, discrete Late Woodland and

Mississippian components within a single site have been labeled as separate sites.

The majority of data included in this thesis was gathered during a three week data collection trip to university libraries and archaeological sites within the study area.

To better utilize the time spent at these institutions, the available literature in online journal databases and the collections of the Meriam Library at California State University

Chico and the libraries at University of California Berkeley were surveyed before

62 departing. Data was recorded from 19 Late Woodland and Mississippian period sites that meet the above requirements. This initial survey, as well as contact with the Cahokia

Mounds State Historic Site, Arkansas Archeological Survey, Louisiana Division of

Archaeology, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and independent researchers also provided sources and other information that helped to locate additional data sets during the research trip.

The major data collection trip began on May 15, 2010 and was completed on

June 5, 2010. The author spent no more than one full day per location at University of

Missouri, Washington University, University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana,

Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Kentucky, University of

Tennessee, University of Alabama, Mississippi State University, University of

Mississippi, University of Arkansas, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Tulane

University, and Louisiana State University. Rather than recording the architectural and skeletal data into spreadsheets while at these libraries, site reports, journal articles, theses, dissertations, and portions of regional surveys were photocopied so that a wider search of the literature could be undertaken during this limited research trip and so the required information would later be available. During the data collection trip, an additional 42 skeletal samples that meet the requirements for inclusion in this thesis were recorded. The

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, the Moundville Archaeological Park, and the Parkin

Archeological State Park, which was later found to not meet the requirements of this study, were also visited to photograph architectural features of the sites and artifacts associated with Late Woodland and Mississippian warfare.

Architectural and other descriptive data for each site were recorded in

Microsoft® Office Excel 2007. The number of embankments, ditches, palisades, and each type of mound were recorded for each site. Physical dimensions and other descriptive information of each defensive structure were recorded where available. Brief descriptions of habitation features, site boundaries, radiocarbon dates associated with skeletal remains or defensive architecture, other chronological indicators, and any additional evidence of violent conflict were also recorded for each site when available.

To facilitate data analysis, skeletal data for each site were initially recorded in separate spreadsheets and later compiled and combined with defensive architecture data in SPSS V. 18® for data analysis. Because many of the sources included in this research were written before the publication of Standards for Data Collection from Human

Skeletal Remains (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994), methods used for estimating age, sex, and reporting other osteological information vary between reports and are not always provided. Age was recorded using the notation methods of the original authors and later grouped into broad age categories to allow for useful comparisons between data sets:

0. Unaged adult: 18+ years

1. Young adult: 18-29 years

2. Middle adult: 30-44 years

3. Old adult: 45+ years

I. Infant: 0-2 years

C. Child: 3-11 years

A. Adolescent: 12-17 years

Sex estimations are more standardized than age in the original sources because fewer categories exist for individuals to be placed. Adults were classified as male or female. If any ambiguity in the determination of sex was noted in the original source or if sex was unable to be determined, the individual was placed in an indeterminate adult sex category. Because there are currently no reliable methods for estimating sex of immature remains, all infants, children, and adolescents were labeled as indeterminate subadults even if the original authors labeled these individuals as male or female (see

Schwartz 1961 for example).

Each instance of embedded projectile points, blunt force cranial trauma, scalping, parry fractures, decapitation, and other forms of trophy taking or dismemberment was recorded for each individual. Other traumatic lesions that are less readily distinguishable from accidental injury, such as fractures to postcranial elements or dislocations, were recorded but not considered in the analyses of violent conflict. Specific details of each injury, the location of each burial within the site, associated artifacts, the inclusion of individuals in mass graves, and other information relating to violent conflict deemed important by the original author were also recorded for each individual when available.

Data Analysis Methods

Once data collection was completed, the data relating to defensive architecture presence, time period, sub-region, site type, age, sex, and violent skeletal trauma were then recorded and analyzed in SPSS v. 18®. Since all of the data collected for this thesis are nominal or ordinal, non-parametric statistical tests were used for the analyses.

Pearson’s Chi-square is the most appropriate test for this type of data because it compares the relationship between the frequencies of two variables (Levin and Fox 2007). When at least 20 percent of cells had expected counts of less than five, Fisher’s exact test was used because the assumptions of the chi-square test were violated.

Before evaluating each type of violent skeletal trauma, the frequency of individuals affected by any type of violent skeletal trauma was tested against variables relating to chronology, defensive architecture, geographical location, site type, age, and sex. First, the relationship between overall violent trauma and time period was evaluated.

A significant chi-square value indicates that rates of violent skeletal trauma differed between the Late Woodland and Mississippian periods. A chi-square value that is not significant indicates that similar rates of violent skeletal trauma were observed for both time periods. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was also tested for each of the sites in the data set that have skeletal samples dating to both the Late Woodland and

Mississippian periods and between these five multi-component sites.

Chi-square tests were computed to compare the relationships between overall violent skeletal trauma and each type of defensive architecture. The relationship between overall violent skeletal trauma and the types of defensive architecture, as well as all defensive architecture together, was then computed. A significant chi-square value indicates a difference in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma existed between sites with and without defensive architecture. A chi-square value that is not significant indicates that the frequency of violent skeletal trauma is not affected by the presence of defensive architecture. Tests relating to time period and defensive architecture presence were computed both with all individuals and with only individuals classified as adults.

Chi-square tests were also computed for each sub-region to examine the relationship between overall violent skeletal trauma and variables relating to chronology and defensive architecture presence within each sub-regions. The results of these tests were then represented visually on bar charts to identify any regional differences in the relationship between overall violent skeletal trauma and other variables. Further tests were then computed to determine whether the frequency of overall violent skeletal trauma differed between sub-regions within each time period and for sites with and without various types of defensive architecture. The intra- and inter-regional results were then combined to identify any regional patterns or differences in violent skeletal trauma.

Next, the relationship between overall violent skeletal trauma and site type was evaluated. A significant chi-square value indicates that the frequency of violent trauma differs between the types of site. A chi-square value that is not significant indicates that similar frequencies of violent trauma were observed at all site types. The frequencies of overall violent skeletal trauma for each site type were visually represented on a bar chart to identify which, if any, site types were more or less prone to violent conflict.

Chi-square tests were then computed to identify any differences in the frequency of overall violent skeletal trauma between and within age and sex categories.

The relationship between overall violent trauma and sex was evaluated for all individuals, within each time period, and for sites with and without defensive architecture. The same tests were also computed for all age categories. Tests comparing the frequencies of overall violent trauma between the two time periods and the presence or absence of defensive architecture were also computed for each age and sex category. The results of

67 these tests were then combined to identify if any segments of the skeletal sample were more often the victims of violent conflict than other age and sex groups.

More specific patterns of violent skeletal trauma were identified by evaluating the frequency of each trauma type separately against time period, types of defensive architecture present at sites, age, sex, sub-region, and site type. All skeletal elements required to observe each type of violent skeletal trauma were not present for every individual. Additionally, only 20 data sets provided sufficient information on skeletal preservation to determine the completeness of each individual and whether specific skeletal elements were present. Criteria were created for the inclusion of individuals in the analysis of each trauma type. Chi-square tests were then computed both for all individuals that either met the criteria described below or contained insufficient information to determine skeletal completeness and for only the individuals with complete preservation data from the 20 sites where this data was available.

Individuals were included in the analyses of cranial blunt force trauma and scalping only if the entire skull was present. A missing skull or the burial of a skull without the postcranial elements was insufficient to suggest decapitation. The cervical vertebrae must be present for an individual to be included in the decapitation tests. At least one ulna must be present for an individual to be included in the analyses of parry fractures. Embedded points and dismemberment or trophy taking cut marks were not confined to a particular skeletal element. Only individuals that are at least 60 percent complete were included in the analyses of these two types of violent skeletal trauma. The results of the tests utilizing all sites were compared with the tests using only the 20 sites

68 with detailed skeletal preservation data to determine whether including data sets with only limited skeletal data may affect our interpretations of the archaeological record.

Summary

This thesis evaluates the relationship between defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma at Late Woodland and Mississippian period sites from the Lower and Central Mississippi River Valley and the Gulf Coastal Plain. Defensive architecture considered here includes palisades, embankments, ditches, and mounds. The types of violent skeletal trauma included are embedded projectile points, blunt force cranial trauma, parry fractures, scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment or trophy-taking.

The data used in this thesis was gathered from previously published sources and reassessed on a regional scale. Data on the number, size, and other details of the defensive architecture were recorded for each site, as well as data on the age and sex, skeletal completeness, and each instance of traumatic injury for each individual. This data was compiled and analyzed in SPSS v. 18®. Chi-square tests were computed to compare the frequencies of violent skeletal trauma by time period, defensive architecture presence, sub-region, site type, sex, and age to assess the nature and scale of Late Woodland and

Mississippian period warfare. Chi-square tests were also computed for each type of violent skeletal trauma to identify patterns that may suggest changes in warfare tactics or strategies. The effects of the availability of preservation data on the results of this thesis were also evaluated by comparing the results of the chi-square tests incorporating the overall data set with tests that included only individuals from sites with complete

69 preservation data. The following chapter presents the results of the statistical analyses described above.

CHAPTER IV

RESULTS

This chapter reports the results of the analyses described in the previous chapter. First, the demographic and traumatic data for the skeletal sample is summarized and the defensive architecture observed at each site is described in detail. Next the frequency of overall violent skeletal trauma is compared with the presence of each type of defensive architecture and defensive architecture presence overall, along with time period, geographical location, site type, age, and sex, using Pearson’s Chi-square tests.

Fisher’s exact test is used when small expected counts violated the assumption of the

Chi-square test. Chi-square tests were run to compare the frequency of each trauma type separately by defensive architecture presence, time period, sub-region, site type, age, and sex. The final section of this chapter compares the frequencies of each trauma type between sites with complete data on skeletal preservation and all sites in the data set to determine if the inclusion of skeletal samples with incomplete preservation data results in significantly different rates of trauma.

Description of the Data Set

A total of 56 archaeological sites met the requirements for inclusion in this thesis. Nine of these sites dated to the Late Woodland period, 42 were Mississippian period sites, and five sites had components with skeletal samples dating to both periods.

70 71

For the following analyses, Late Woodland and Mississippian components that occur at the same site will be considered separate sites. Twelve sites each were recorded in the

Cahokia, Middle Mississippian, and Hiwassee Island sub-regions. Eleven sites were located in the Moundville sub-region. The Plaquemine and Oneota sub-regions on the north and south peripheries contained five and four sites respectively. The data set includes seven regional centers, 26 large villages, 20 small villages, and six isolated hamlets or farmsteads. One of the multi-component sites, Norris Farms #36, grew from a small village during the Late Woodland period to a large village and burial mound during the Bold Counselor Oneota phase of the Mississippian period (Santure et al. 1990).

Pinson Cave in Alabama and the paired Turner and Snodgrass villages in Arkansas did not fit into any of the above categories.

Skeletal Sample Demography and Trauma

The 61 archaeological site components represented here comprise a total of

1,717 (20.0%) Late Woodland and 6,869 (80.0%) Mississippian individuals. Of the 8,586 individuals, 2,029 (23.6%) are male, 2,074 (24.2%) are female, and 1,208 (14.1%) are adults of indeterminate sex. Subadults include 487 (5.7%) adolescents, 1,807 (21.0%) children, and 981 (11.4%) infants.

The overall rate of violent skeletal trauma when all sites are considered is 5.3 percent, with 452 individuals exhibiting a total of 558 traumatic lesions. Table 1 summarizes the frequency of individuals with violent skeletal trauma at each site. Eleven sites have violent skeletal trauma frequencies greater than ten percent. The highest frequency of violent trauma is 20.1 percent (53/264) at the Mississippian component of

Norris Farms #36. The site with the largest number of individuals was Averbuch

Table 1. Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall by Site.

Site Name Time Period Na nb Percent with Violent Trauma

Norris Farms #36 Miss. 264 53 20.1% Spencer Mound LW 44 8 18.2% 1PI61 LW 95 16 16.8% Campbell (23PM5) Miss. 37 6 16.2% Kroger’s Island (1LU2) Miss. 109 17 15.6% Dickson Mounds (11F10) Miss. 221 34 15.4% Elizabeth LW 74 9 12.2% Orendorf Miss. 268 32 11.9% Lyon’s Bluff (22OK520) Miss. 69 8 11.6% Schild LW 214 23 10.7% Chucalissa (40SY1) Miss. 166 17 10.2% Norris Farms #36 LW 31 3 9.7% Dickson Mounds (11F10) LW 339 31 9.1% Fisher (11W11) Miss. 176 16 9.1% Pinson Cave (1JE20) LW 46 4 8.7% Koster Mounds LW 228 19 8.3% Kellog (22CL527) Miss. 39 3 7.7% Sale Creek (40HA10) Miss. 74 5 6.8% 1GR2 Miss. 34 2 5.9% Rymer (40BY11) Miss. 152 9 5.9% Schild Miss. 283 16 5.7% Ocoee (40PK1) Miss. 54 3 5.6% 1PI33 Miss. 39 2 5.1% Kane (11MS104) Miss. 133 6 4.5% Mount Nebo F (16MA18) LW 44 2 4.5% Rolling Hills (22OK593) Miss. 44 2 4.5% Mouse Creek (40MN3) Miss. 161 7 4.3% Tolu Miss. 23 1 4.3% Candy Creek (40BY14) Miss. 101 4 4.0% Ledford Island (40BY13) Miss. 426 17 4.0% Dallas (40HA1) Miss. 287 10 3.5% Zebree (3MS20) Miss. 29 1 3.4% Lake George (21N1) LW 185 6 3.2% Hazel (3PO6) Miss. 127 4 3.1% Hiwassee Island Miss. 201 6 3.0% Boytt’s Field Miss. 37 1 2.7% Neely’s Ferry (3CS24) Miss. 37 1 2.7% Tinsley Hill (15LY18B) Miss. 80 2 2.5% Hixon (40HA3) Miss. 84 2 2.4% Cahokia Miss. 264 6 2.3% Moundville (1HA11) Miss. 564 13 2.3% Florence Street (11S458) Miss. 48 1 2.1% Pete Klunk LW 51 1 2.0% Lubbub Creek (1PI83/85) Miss. 107 2 1.9% Fenton Mounds (23SL1064) Miss. 56 1 1.8% E. St. Louis Stone Quarry (11S468) Miss. 120 2 1.7% Hiwassee Island LW 173 3 1.7%

Table 1 (Continued)

Site Name Time Period Na nb Percent with Violent Trauma

Middle Nodena (3MS3) Miss. 69 1 1.4% Toqua (40MR6) Miss. 439 6 1.4% Turner / Snodgrass (23BU21A,B) Miss. 103 1 1.0% Averbuch (40DV60) Miss. 887 6 0.7% Upper Nodena (3MS4) Miss. 159 1 0.6% 22OK902N Miss. 24 0 0.0% 40SU20 Miss. 105 0 0.0% Discovery (16LF66) Miss. 35 0 0.0% Lawhorn Miss. 35 0 0.0% Mount Nebo A (16MA18) Miss. 42 0 0.0% Range (11S47) LW 36 0 0.0% Vernon Paul (3CS25) Miss. 102 0 0.0% Ward Place Miss. 21 0 0.0% Yokem Miss. 90 0 0.0% a Total number of individuals. b Number of individuals with violent skeletal trauma.

(40DV60), with a violent trauma frequency of 0.7 percent (6/887). Ward Place in southern Arkansas, the site with the fewest number of individuals (21), was one of nine sites that contained no individuals with violent skeletal trauma.

Table 2 presents the frequencies of individuals with each type of violent skeletal trauma and the total number of each type of trauma. Blunt force cranial trauma

Table 2. Violent Skeletal Trauma Frequency by Type.

Type of Violent Skeletal Trauma na Total Trauma

Embedded Projectile Points 73/8086 97 Blunt Force Cranial Trauma 168/8436 188 Parry Fracture 113/8197 114 Scalping Cut Marks 62/8436 62 Decapitation Cut Marks 45/8151 45 Trophy Taking / Dismemberment 38/8086 52 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

(2.0%) and parry fractures (1.4%) were the only types of violent skeletal trauma affecting more than one percent of individuals (Figure 3). Ninety seven projectile points were embedded in the bones of 73 individuals (0.9%). Cutmarks indicative of scalping were

Violent Skeletal Trauma Percentages by Type

Embedded 0.9% Projectile Points

Blunt Force Cranial 2.0% Trauma

Parry Fractures 1.4% Trauma Type Scalping 0.7%

Decapitation 0.6%

Trophy Taking / 0.5% Dismemberment

0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5%

Percent of Individuals with Trauma

Figure 3. Violent skeletal trauma percentages by type.

present on 62 crania (0.7%), including seven individuals who showed evidence of healing

(Milner and Smith 1990:145; Smith 2003:308; Strejewski 2006). The trauma types with the fewest number of individuals affected were decapitation (0.6%) and trophy taking or dismemberment (0.5%).

The feet (N = 16) and hands (N = 12) were the most common skeletal elements removed from the body, excluding scalps or the entire skull. Six forearms and

75 five whole arms were also taken. One older male (burial 37) from the Kane Village site

(11MS104) had a poorly healed amputation to the proximal shafts of the left radius and ulna (Milner 1982:168). Four lower legs and eight whole legs were also taken. The mandible of one individual from the Lake George Site (21N1) was also disarticulated while still fleshed (Williams and Brain 1983:51).

Defensive Architecture

When palisades, ditches, embankments, and all types of mounds are considered together, defensive architecture is present at 47 (77.0%) of the 61 sites in the data set. One Late Woodland site and 17 Mississippian sites contained a total of 23 palisades. Palisades at six of these sites contained bastions. Palisades were reported at

Lyon’s Bluff (22OK520), Zebree (3MS20), 1GR2, 1PI33, and 1PI61 but the total area enclosed by those palisades and dimensions of post molds that form those palisades were not published for these sites (Hogue 2007; Jenkins and Ensor 1981; Morse 1975:27-28).

Morgan (1999) suggests that a palisade may have accompanied other defensive architecture at Upper Nodena (3MS4). This possible palisade will not be considered here because no evidence of palisade post molds or wall trenches have been recovered.

The palisade at the Dallas site (40HA1) enclosed an area of approximately four acres (Schroedl 1998:77). Baffle gates were located on the north and east sides and post molds had an average depth of 0.5 meters and diameter of 21.3 centimeters (Lewis and Lewis 1995:335). A 182.9-meter long section of palisade with a single baffle gate on its southwest corner was reported at the Ledford Island site (40BY13), but no post mold dimensions were provided (Lewis and Lewis 1995:524). A similar 221.6-meter long section of palisade with one baffle gate was excavated at the Ocoee site (40PK1) (Lewis

76 and Lewis 1995:75). The palisade at Mouse Creek (40MN3) originally contained single posts, but was later reconstructed by placing posts ranging from 15 to 30 centimeters in size into a wall trench (Lewis and Lewis 1995:499-501). The palisade that surrounded the

Moundville site (1HA11) consisted of 20 to 35 centimeter pine logs placed in a two meter deep and 30 to 50 centimeter wide trench, with four by six meter bastions spaced between

35 and 40 meters apart (Vogel and Allan 1985:63, Scarry 1998:79).

Four sections of palisade totaling 56.4 meters in length were recorded at

Averbuch. The completed palisade would have enclosed a total area of 17.3 acres

(Berryman 1981:9-10). The 9.6-acre Toqua site (40MR6) was surrounded by a wall trenched palisade with at least eight bastions that averaged 3.5 square meters and were spaced 15 meters apart (Schroedl 1998:77). The bastioned palisade at Orendorf in Illinois underwent three separate construction stages as the site expanded in size to enclose a final area of 17.5 acres (Conrad 1991:132-133). Four consecutive palisade walls enclosed a total 202.6 acres at the Cahokia site, including the central plaza, Monk’s Mound, and 17 other mounds (Demel and Hall 1998:204). The first palisade at Cahokia consisted of posts that measured 30 centimeters wide with circular bastions that averaged 3.5 meters in diameter (Iseminger et al. 1990). The next three construction stages contained posts ranging from 40 to 75 centimeters in diameter set in wall trenches, square bastions that averaged 4.5 meters squared, and at least one baffle gate (Demel and Hall 1998;

Iseminger et al. 1990).

Multiple palisades were present together at four sites. The excavated portion of the larger palisade surrounding the Mississippian component of the Hiwassee Island site consisted of two 180-meter long wall sections with 18 centimeter posts set in 0.6

77 meter deep trenches (Lewis and Kneberg 1946:78). A smaller palisade made of 12.2- centimeter posts set individually at approximately 15 centimeters apart enclosed the area around a large rectangular community building, and is suggested by Lewis and Kneberg

(1946:79) to serve a privacy rather than a defensive function. The Hixon site (40HA3) contained two palisades constructed of 15-centimeter posts set in 30 centimeter trenches

(Lewis and Lewis 1995:393). The larger of the two palisades surrounded 2.5 acres and the smaller palisade enclosed 1.2 acres (Schroedl 1998:77). The paired Turner and

Snodgrass sites were each surrounded by palisades covered in white clay (Price

1978:288). The palisade surrounding the major village area and plaza of the Snodgrass site enclosed an area of approximately one acre and contained one gate and three circular bastions spaced 23 meters apart, while the palisade at Turner contained no bastions or gates and its extent was not recorded (Price 1978; Price and Griffin 1979).

Three separate palisades were recorded at the Lubbub Creek site (1PI83/85).

A 240-meter long section of the outer palisade that surrounded the site was constructed of individual posts ranging from 72 to 120 centimeters in diameter and contained six square bastions that measured four square meters (Peebles 1983:184-185). The two palisades that ran parallel to one another and enclosed the interior of the site including a large plaza area were reconstructed at least three times (Peebles 1983:154). Excavated sections of these palisades, the full extent of which were not investigated, span from 15.6 meters to

100.9 meters in length each (Peebles 1983:Figure 1). Postmolds set either individually or in trenches ranged from 18 to 22 centimeters in diameter and averaged 24 centimeters in depth. Only the last of these inner palisade constructions contained a single rectangular bastion and a possible gate (Peebles 1983:148-150).

Eight ditches and three embankments were recorded at nine Mississippian period sites and none were observed at Late Woodland sites. Both the Zebree site and the

Mississippian component of Hiwassee Island have a ditch bordering the outer edge of the palisades that surround their sites (Lewis and Kneberg1946; Morse 1975). The ditch surrounding Hazel (3PO6) enclosed five acres that included the village area and conical mound (Brandon 1995:90-91). The dimensions of these ditches were not reported. The ditches at Ocoee and Ledford Island bordered the interior of the palisades that surrounded each site. The Ocoee ditch was approximately 0.3 meters in depth, the Ledford Island ditch measured 0.9 meters deep, and both ditches averaged two meters wide (Lewis and

Lewis 1995:524,566). The ditch at the Snodgrass site, which measures 0.6 meters deep and ranges from 1.2 to 2.4 meters wide, is unique in the study area because of circular bastion and gate located on its southwestern border and the three semi-circular bastions spaced 23 meters apart along its eastern side (Price and Griffin 1979:37-38).

Along with three palisades, the Lubbub Creek site also contained a ditch and accompanying embankment that enclosed 3.3 acres of the site (Dye 2006:123). The ditch ranged from three to six meters wide and averaged 1.4 m deep and no dimensions were recorded for the embankment (Peebles 1983:310). The Upper Nodena site was surrounded by an embankment and ditch that enclosed an area of 12 acres (Hampson

1989:9). At the Chucalissa site (40SY1), a broad embankment that ranged from 20 to 30 meters wide surrounded the plaza and intersected a large platform mound and a conical mound (Lahren and Berryman 1984:16; Robinson 1976).

Ten Late Woodland and 31 Mississippian sites included in this study contain a total of 343 mounds. Space limitations and incomplete records in the published reports

79 prohibit the inclusion of detailed descriptions for each mound. A total of 79 platform mounds with square, rectangular, or oval basal shapes were recorded at 15 sites. The average reported height of platform mounds is 3.7 meters with an average width of 36.5 meters. Both the largest and smallest platform mounds were observed at Cahokia.

Monk’s Mound (mound 38) measures 291 meters wide by 236 meters long, with a height of 30.1 meters (Fowler 1989:87). Mound one was the smallest platform at 0.8 meters high and 27 meters wide (Fowler 1989:59).

Twenty-three sites contain 111 circular or oval conical mounds. Conical mounds were considerably smaller, with an average basal diameter of 12.8 meters and height of 1.5 meters. The largest conical mound reported here is the 61-meter long, 39.6 meter wide, and 4.6 meter high burial mound at the Hazel site (Zinke 1975:5). At 0.5 meters high and 5.3 meters in diameter, Mound nine at the Pete Klunk site is the smallest conical mound (Perino 1973a).

A total of 17 ridge top mounds were reported from Schild, Yokem, Cahokia,

Koster Mounds, and the Pete Klunk site. Mound 66 at Cahokia, at 7.4 meters high, 51 meters wide, and 132 meters long, is the largest ridge top mound in this study and one of the largest constructions at the site (Fowler 1989:133). The typical ridge top mound observed here averages 1.8 meters in height, 10.7 meters in width, and 24.4 meters in length. Mound five at Koster Mounds is the smallest ridge top mound observed, with a height of one meter, a width of 7.3 meters and a length of 13.7 meters (Perino 1973b).

Indeterminate mounds include those mounds that were insufficiently described in reports, heavily damaged by cultural or ecological processes, or have a shape that does not fit into the above categories. Twenty-one sites contained a total of 163

80 indeterminate mounds. While the majority of indeterminate mounds received this label because of the first two conditions, five mounds from Cahokia were unusual in shape.

Mound two at 0.7 meters high and mound 52 at 2.4 meters high are tear drop shaped

(Fowler 1989:59,119). Mound 47 is roughly in the shape of a comma (Fowler 1989:111).

Finally, mounds 79 and 96 are a shape similar to a capital letter ‘T’ (Fowler 1989:186).

Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall Results

The results comparing the frequency of individuals with violent skeletal trauma overall between time periods are reported first. Then the relationship between the rate of violent skeletal trauma and the presence of defensive architecture is evaluated.

Next, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma is compared between time periods and by defensive architecture presence within and between sub-regions. The rate of skeletal trauma attributed to violence is also compared between site types. Finally, violent skeletal trauma prevalence is compared between age and sex categories.

Time Period

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased through time for the skeletal sample as a whole and for adults. For the Late Woodland period, 7.6 percent of individuals were affected by violent skeletal trauma, while 4.7 percent of Mississippian period individuals were affected (Figure 4). Also, 10.3 percent of Late Woodland period adults and 6.9 percent of Mississippian period adults have traumatic lesions.

When only sites with skeletal samples from both time periods are considered, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma increased from 7.7 percent in the Late Woodland period to 10.8 percent in the Mississippian period. At Dickson Mounds (11F10),

Violent Skeletal Trauma by Time Period 12.0% 10.8%

10.0% 7.7% 8.0% 7.6%

6.0% 4.7% Late Woodland Mississippian 4.0%

2.0% Percent of Individuals with Trauma 0.0% All Sites Sites with both Late Woodland and Mississippian Components

Figure 4. Violent skeletal trauma by time period.

violentskeletal trauma increased from 9.1 percent to 15.4 percent from the Late

Woodland to the Mississippian period. Hiwassee Island saw a slight rise in violent skeletal trauma through time from 1.7 percent to three percent. Violent skeletal trauma was reported for 9.7 percent of Late Woodland and 20.1 percent of Mississippian individuals at Norris Farms #36. None of the Mississippian period individuals and two

(4.5%) Late Woodland individuals from Mount Nebo were affected by violent skeletal trauma. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma also decreased through time at the

Schild site from 10.7 percent in the Late Woodland period to 5.7 percent in the

Mississippian period.

Table 3 presents the results of the Chi-square tests that compare the frequency of violent skeletal trauma between time periods. The decrease in violent skeletal trauma from the Late Woodland to the Mississippian period was statistically significant for both

Table 3. Time Period Results.

χ² P na Trend

Time Period 22.903 < .001 130/1717 vs. 322/6869 M < LW Time Period-Adult 14.329 < .001 110/1067 vs. 292/4244 M < LW Sites with Both LW 4.807 .028 62/801 vs. 109/1012 LW < M and Miss. Samples Dickson Mounds 5.007 .024 31/339 vs. 34/221 LW < M Hiwassee Island F.E. .514 3/173 vs. 6/201 Norris Farms #36 F.E. .165 3/31 vs. 53/264 Mount Nebo F.E. .494 2/44 vs. 0/42 Schild 4.373 .037 23/214 vs. 16/283 M < LW a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals

the sample as a whole (χ² = 22.903; df = 1; p <.001) and adults (χ² = 14.329; df = 1; p

<.001). Considered together, the increase in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma through time at these multi-component sites is statistically significant (χ² = 4.807; df = 1; p = 0.028). However, only the increase in violent skeletal trauma frequency at Dickson

Mounds (χ² = 5.007; df = 1; p = 0.24) and the decrease at the Schild site (χ² = 4.373; df =

1; p = 0.37) were statistically significant.

The Oneota occupation at Norris Farms #36, which has the highest rate of trauma in this study (20.1%), is often cited as unique in eastern North America for the high level of violence occurring at a single site (Lambert 2002; Milner 1998, 1999;

Steadman 2008:51). Chi-square tests that excluded this site from the data set were run for time period and several variables related to defensive architecture presence. Removing the Mississippian component of Norris Farms #36 from the comparison of time period and overall violent skeletal trauma frequency had no impact on the significance of the

83 relationship between violent skeletal trauma and time period (χ² = 35.526; df = 1; p

<.001; N = 8321).

Defensive Architecture Presence

The results of the comparisons between violent skeletal trauma overall and defensive architecture presence are summarized in Table 4. Violent skeletal trauma was observed in 3.4 percent of individuals at sites with palisades and seven percent of individuals at sites without palisades (Figure 5). Violent skeletal trauma was also reported in 5.3 percent of adults at palisaded sites and 9.5 percent of adults at non- palisaded sites. All but one of the palisaded sites occurs during the Mississippian period and palisade construction rapidly spread across eastern North America during this period.

Violent skeletal trauma was reported in 3.1 percent (4.8% in adults) of individuals at palisaded sites and 6.9 percent (9.5% in adults) of individuals at non-palisaded sites from the Mississippian period. Among only palisaded sites, the frequency of violent trauma is

3.4 percent (5.0% vs. 5.5% in adults) regardless of bastion presence.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma is significantly lower at palisaded sites than non-palisaded sites for all individuals (χ² = 54.650; df = 1; p <.001) and adults

(χ² = 32.904; df = 1; p <.001). As with the results for time period, the exclusion of the

Mississippian component of Norris Farms #36 did not affect significance (χ² = 34.369; df

= 1; p <.001). The relationship between violent skeletal trauma and palisade presence is also statistically significant when only Mississippian period sites are considered (χ² =

55.406; df = 1; p <.001). The inclusion of bastions on palisades did not significantly influence their effectiveness as defensive architecture (χ² = .010; df = 1; p = .920).

Table 4. Defensive Architecture Results.

χ² p na Trend

All Individuals Palisade Presence 54.650 <.001 140/4111 vs. 312/4475 Pal. < no Pal. Palisade-Bastion Presence .010 .920 60/1745 vs. 80/2366 Palisade Presence (Miss. 55.406 <.001 124/4016 vs. 198/2853 Pal. < no Pal. Sites) Ditch Presence 15.699 <.001 35/1206 vs. 417/7380 Ditch < no Ditch Embankment Presence .367 .544 20/432 vs. 432/8154 Palisade, Ditch, or 51.641 <.001 168/4600 vs. 284/3986 P,D,E < no P,D,E Embankment Mound Presence 10.738 .001 351/6082 vs. 101/2504 no Mound < Mound Platform Mound Presence 19.191 <.001 100/2699 vs. 352/5887 PM < no PM Conical Mound Presence 41.067 <.001 267/3820 vs. 185/4766 no CM < CM Ridge Top Mound Presence 1.101 .294 64/1079 vs. 388/7507 Indeterminate Mound 2.930 .087 145/3077 vs. 307/5509 Presence Plat. Mound vs. Other 39.814 <.001 100/2699 vs. 270/3611 PM < Other M Mounds Defensive Architecture .068 .795 417/7948 vs. 35/638 Def. Architecture (Revised) 72.309 <.001 177/5010 vs. 275/3576 Def. < Def.

Adults Palisade Presence 32.904 <.001 124/2405 vs. 275/2906 Pal. < no Pal Palisade - Bastion Presence .257 .612 57/1132 vs. 70/1273 Palisade Presence (Miss. 37.060 <.001 112/2353 vs. 180/1891 Pal. < no Pal Sites) Ditch Presence 18.977 <.001 31/808 vs. 371/4503 Ditch < no Ditch Embankment Presence .991 .319 20/325 vs. 382/4986 Palisade, Ditch, or 33.972 <.001 155/2789 vs. 247/2522 P,D,E < no P, D,E Embankment Mound Presence 5.221 .022 307/3793 vs. 95/1518 no Mound < Mound Platform Mound Presence 17.046 <.001 94/1735 vs. 308/3576 PM < no PM Conical Mound Presence 21.055 <.001 230/2456 vs. 172/2855 no CM < CM Ridge Top Mound Presence .156 .693 51/708 vs. 351/4603 Indeterminate Mound 7.401 .007 127/2014 vs. 275/3297 IM < no IM Presence Plat. Mound vs. Other 32.637 <.001 94/1641 vs. 231/2209 PM < Other M Mounds Defensive Architecture .127 .721 370/4863 vs. 32/448 Def. Architecture (Revised) 48.394 <.001 164/3043 vs. 238/2268 Def. < no Def. a Number of individuals affected / total number of individuals

Violent skeletal trauma was present in 2.9 percent of individuals at sites with ditches and 5.7 percent of individuals at sites without ditches (Figure 6). Violent

Figure 5. Violent skeletal trauma by palisade presence.

Figure 6. Violent skeletal trauma by ditch presence.

86 skeletal trauma was also observed in 3.8 percent of adults at sites where ditches were present and 8.2 percent of sites that lacked ditches. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma for sites with embankments was 4.6 percent (6.2% in adults) and was 5.3 percent

(7.7% in adults) for sites that lacked embankments (Figure 7). When sites with palisades, ditches, or embankments are considered together, 3.7 percent of individuals at sites with these types of defensive architecture and 7.1 percent of individuals at sites without defensive architecture were affected by violent skeletal trauma.

Figure 7. Violent skeletal trauma by embankment presence.

A statistically significant relationship was observed between the frequency of violent skeletal trauma and ditch presence (χ² = 15.699; df = 1; p <.001), but not between violent skeletal trauma and embankment presence (χ² = .367; df = 1; p = .544). A similar pattern was observed in adults for both ditch (χ² = 18.977; df = 1; p <.001) and

87 embankment presence (χ² = .991; df = 1; p = .319). Considered together, violent skeletal trauma was significantly less common at sites with palisades, ditches, or embankments than sites that lack these defensive structures for all individuals (χ² = 51.641; df = 1; p

<.001) and adults (χ ² = 33.972; df = 1; p <.001).

When all types of mounds are considered, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was 5.8 percent at sites that contain mounds and 4.0 percent at sites that lack mounds (Figure 8). The rate of violent skeletal trauma was also higher at sites with

Figure 8. Violent skeletal trauma overall by mound presence.

conical mounds (7.0%) than sites without conical mounds (3.9%). Violent skeletal trauma was reported in 5.9 percent of individuals at sites with ridge top mounds and in 5.1 percent of individuals at sites without ridge top mounds. Violent skeletal trauma was present in 4.7 percent of individuals at sites with indeterminate mounds and in 5.6 percent

88 of individuals at sites without indeterminate mounds. The presence of platform mounds corresponded with a decrease in violent skeletal trauma (3.7% vs. 6.0%).

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was significantly higher at mounded sites than non-mounded sites for all individuals (χ² = 10.738; df = 1; p <.001) and adults

(χ² = 5.227; df = 1; p = .022). There was also a significant relationship between conical mound presence and violent skeletal trauma for all individuals (χ² = 41.067; df = 1; p

<.001) and adults (χ² = 21.055; df = 1; p <.001). The rate of violent skeletal trauma did not differ significantly with the presence of ridge top mounds (χ² = 1.101; df = 1; p =

.294), and only approached significance with indeterminate mounds (χ² = 2.930; df = 1; p

=.087). The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was significantly higher (6.3% vs.

8.3%; χ² = 7.401; df = 1; p = .007) for adults at sites with indeterminate mounds than sites without indeterminate mounds. Individuals at sites with platform mounds, however, were significantly less likely to be affected by violent skeletal trauma than individuals at sites that lack platform mounds (χ² = 10.738; df = 1; p <.001).

The presence of platform mounds at sites appear to provide some protection from violence, while the presence of other mound types or all mounds together has either no relationship to or may actually increase the rate of violent skeletal trauma. At sites where conical, ridge top, or indeterminate mounds are present but platform mounds are absent, violent skeletal trauma was observed in 7.5 percent of all individuals and 10.5 percent of adults. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma is significantly lower at sites with platform mounds than sites with only other mound types for all individuals (χ² =

39.814; df = 1; p <.001) and adults (χ² = 32.637; df = 1; p <.001).

When palisades, ditches, embankments, and mounds are considered together, violent skeletal trauma was reported in 5.2 percent (7.6% in adults) of individuals at sites with defensive architecture and 5.5 percent (7.1% in adults) of individuals at sites without defensive architecture (Figure 9). No significant relationship exists between defensive

Figure 9. Violent skeletal trauma by defensive architecture presence.

architecture as a whole and the frequency of violent skeletal trauma for all individuals (χ²

= .068; df = 1; p = .795) or adults (χ² = .127; df = 1; p = .721). The exclusion of the

Mississippian component of Norris Farms #36 did lower the frequency of violent skeletal trauma at sites with defensive architecture to 4.7 percent (364/7683) but had no impact on significance (χ² = .722; df = 1; p <.395). Based on the opposing results for platform mounds and other mound types, a revised definition of defensive architecture that includes only palisades, ditches, embankments, and platform mounds will be considered.

Violent skeletal trauma was present in 3.5 percent (5.4% in adults) of individuals at sites with the revised defensive architecture and 7.7 percent (10.5% in adults) of individuals at sites without the revised defensive architecture. There is a significant relationship between the revised defensive architecture and the frequency of violent skeletal trauma for all individuals (χ² = 72.309; df = 1; p <.001) and adults (χ² = 48.394; df = 1; p

<.001). Since the result of this test was significant, the revised definition of defensive architecture that considers only palisades, ditches, embankments, and platform mounds will be used throughout the rest of this chapter.

Sub-Regions

This section presents the results of tests comparing violent skeletal trauma overall with time period and defensive architecture presence within and between sub-

Regions. The results of the sub-region tests are summarized in Table 5. Thirteen percent

(169/1300) of individuals in the Oneota sub-region were affected by violent skeletal trauma (Figure 10). There was a statistically significant increase in violent skeletal trauma through time at Oneota sites from 9.2 percent in the Late Woodland period to 14.5 percent in the Mississippian period (χ² = 6.641; df = 1; p = .010). No embankments or ditches were observed in the Oneota sub-region and the only palisade and mound were found at the Orendorf site. Violent skeletal trauma was present in 11.9 percent of individuals at Orendorf and 13.3 percent of individuals at Oneota sub-region sites without defensive architecture. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma at Mississippian period

Oneota sites without palisades or platform mounds is 15.6 percent. There is no significant relationship between violent skeletal trauma and defensive architecture presence for all

Table 5. Sub-Region Results.

χ² p na Trend

Inter-Regional Comparisons Sub-Region 218.424 <.001 8586b N/Ab Sub-Region (Adults) 200.424 <.001 5311b N/Ab Oneota Time Period 6.641 .010 34/370 vs. 135/795 LW < Miss. Palisade Presence .335 .563 32/268 vs. 137/1032 Palisade Presence (Miss.) 2.013 .156 32/268 vs. 103/662 Moundville Time Period 19.839 <.001 20/141 vs. 49/1029 Miss. < LW Palisade Presence 9.861 .002 43/908 vs. 26/262 Pal. < no Pal. Ditch Presence 3.444 .063 2/107 vs. 67/1063 Mound Presence 28.228 <.001 23/740 vs. 46/430 M < no M Plat. Mound Presence 38.016 <.001 15/671 vs. 54/499 PM < no PM Palisade Presence (Miss.) 17.730 <.001 27/816 vs. 2/216 Pal. < no Pal. Hiwassee Island Time Period .007 .934 7/274 vs. 71/2870 Palisade Presence 3.036 .081 57/2539 vs. 21/605 Palisade-Bastion Presence 1.865 .172 6/439 vs. 51/2100 Ditch Presence 6.423 .011 26/681 vs. 52/2463 no Ditch < Ditch Mound Presence 2.177 .140 48/1676 vs. 30/1468 Plat. Mound Presence 1.164 .281 14/724 vs. 64/2420 Plat. Mound vs. other Mounds 3.965 .046 14/724 vs. 34/952 PM < other M Palisade Presence (Miss.) 4.780 .029 57/2539 vs. 14/331 Pal. < no Pal. Plaquemine Time Period F.E. .162 8/229 vs. 1/135 Mound Presence F.E. .365 9/308 vs. 0/56 Plat. Mound Presence F.E. .458 8/271 vs. 1/93 Plat. Mound vs. other Mounds F.E. 1.000 8/271 vs. 1/37 Middle Miss. Palisade Presence F.E. .306 2/132 vs. 34/891 Ditch Presence 7.082 .008 7/418 vs. 29/605 Ditch < no Ditch Embankment Presence 5.721 .017 18/325 vs. 18/698 no Emb. < Emb. Mound Presence 4.981 .026 34/816 vs. 2/207 no M < M Plat. Mound Presence 6.257 .012 25/501 vs. 11/522 no PM < PM Plat. Mound vs. other Mounds 2.203 .138 25/501 vs. 9/315 Def. Architecture Presence 2.729 .099 31/760 vs. 5/263 Cahokia Time Period 25.206 <.001 60/647 vs. 31/938 Miss. < LW Palisade Presence 7.042 .008 6/264 vs. 85/1321 Pal. < no Pal. Mound Presence .321 .571 71/1273 vs. 20/312 Plat Mound vs. other Mounds 6.907 .009 6/264 vs. 84/1237 PM < other M Palisade Presence (Miss) 1.225 0.268 6/264 vs. 25/674 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals. b When Chi-square test is larger than 2 x 2, total number of individuals tested is provided.

Figure 10. Violent skeletal trauma by sub-region.

sites (χ² = .335; df = 1; p = .563) or Mississippian sites (χ² = 2.013; df = 1; p = .156) in the Oneota sub-region.

Sixty-nine of 1170 individuals (5.9%) in the Moundville sub-region were affected by violent skeletal trauma. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma in the

Moundville sub-region dropped sharply from 14.2 percent in the Late Woodland period to 4.8 percent in the Mississippian period. The decrease in violent skeletal trauma through time in the Moundville sub-region is statistically significant (χ² = 19.839; df = 1; p <.001). The only Moundville sub-region site with a ditch or embankment is Lubbub

Creek. Violent skeletal trauma is less common at this site than at sites without ditches or embankments, but the difference only approaches significance (1.9% vs. 6.3%; χ² =

3.444; df = 1; p = .063). In contrast to the results for all sites, Moundville sub-region

93 sites with mounds have a significantly lower frequency of violent skeletal trauma (3.1% vs. 10.7%; χ² = 28.228; df = 1; p <.001) than sites without mounds. Violent skeletal trauma was also reported in 2.2 percent of individuals at Moundville sites with platform mounds and 10.8 percent of individuals at sites without platform mounds. The relationship between violent trauma and platform mound presence is statistically significant (χ² = 38.016; df = 1; p <.001). No defensive architecture is present at any

Moundville sub-region sites that lack palisades. Violent skeletal trauma was present in

4.7 percent of individuals at palisaded sites and 9.9 percent of individuals at non- palisaded sites in the Moundville sub-region. A significant relationship between palisade presence and violent skeletal trauma was observed for all Moundville sites (χ² = 9.861; df

= 1; p = .002) and at only Mississippian sites (χ² = 17.730; df = 1; p <.001).

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma for the Hiwassee Island sub-area is

2.5 percent (78/3144). Violent skeletal trauma was present in 2.6 percent of individuals from Late Woodland period sites and 2.5 percent of individuals from the Mississippian period. No significant change in violent skeletal trauma through time was observed at

Hiwassee Island sites (χ² = .007; df = 1; p = .934). Also, no significant relationship was found between palisade (χ² = 3.036; df = 1; p = .081), mound (χ² = 2.177; df = 1; p =

.140), or platform mound (χ² = 1.164; df = 1; p = .281) presence and violent skeletal trauma. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was 3.8 percent at Hiwassee Island sites with ditches and 2.1 percent at sites without ditches. The relationship between violent skeletal trauma frequency and ditch presence is significant (χ² = 6.423; df = 1; p = .011).

Hiwassee Island sites with platform mounds had a significantly lower (1.9% vs. 3.6%; χ²

= 3.965; df = 1; p = .046) rate of violent skeletal trauma than sites with only other mound

94 types. There is also a significant increase (2.2% vs. 4.2%; χ² = 4.780; df = 1; p = .029) in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma during the Mississippian period between palisaded and non-palisaded sites.

For the Plaquemine sub-region, violent skeletal trauma was observed in 2.5 percent (9/364) of individuals. Palisades, ditches, and embankments were absent at

Plaquemine sub-region sites. Eight Late Woodland period individuals (3.5%) and one

Mississippian period individual (0.7%) were affected by trauma. This decrease in violent skeletal trauma through time is not statistically significant (Fisher’s Exact, p = .162).

There is also no significant relationship between violent skeletal trauma and mound presence (Fisher’s Exact, p = .365), platform mound presence (Fisher’s Exact, p = .458), or platform mounds versus other mounds (Fisher’s Exact, p = 1.00) for sites in the

Plaquemine sub-region.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma at Middle Mississippian sites is 3.5 percent (36/1023). None of the sites in this sub-region dated to the Late Woodland period. Violent skeletal trauma was observed in 1.7 percent of individuals from Middle

Mississippian sites with ditches and 4.8 percent of individuals at sites without ditches.

There is a significant relationship between ditch presence and violent skeletal trauma (χ²

= 7.082; df = 1; p = .008) at Middle Mississippian sites. Unlike the results for all sites, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma at Middle Mississippian sites increased significantly with the presence of embankments (5.5% vs. 2.6%; χ² = 5.721; df = 1; p =

.017) and platform mounds (5.0% vs. 2.1%; χ² = 6.257; df = 1; p = .012). Violent skeletal trauma was also significantly more common (4.2% vs. 1.0%; χ² = 4.981; df = 1; p = .026) at Middle Mississippian sites with mounds than sites that lack mounds.

Violent skeletal trauma was reported in 5.7 percent (91/1585) of individuals from the Cahokia sub-region. No ditches or embankments were observed in this sub- region and Cahokia is the only site with a palisade or platform mounds. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma is significantly lower at Cahokia than at Cahokia sub-region sites without defensive architecture (2.3% vs. 6.4%; χ² = 7.042; df = 1; p = .008). There is also a significant decrease in the rate of violent skeletal trauma through time (9.3% vs. 3.3; χ²

= 25.206; df = 1; p <.001). Violent skeletal trauma is significantly less frequent in the

Cahokia sub-region at sites with platform mounds than at sites with only other mounds

(2.3% vs. 6.4%; χ² = 6.907; df = 1; p = .074).

When violent skeletal trauma is compared between sub-regions, the Oneota sub-region had the highest frequency of violent skeletal trauma (13.0%), followed by

Moundville (5.9%), Cahokia (5.7%), and the Middle Mississippian (3.5%) sub-regions

(Figure 10). The Hiwassee Island and Plaquemine sub-regions had the lowest rates of violent skeletal trauma with 2.5 percent. The relationship between violent skeletal trauma and sub-region was significant for all individuals (χ² = 218.424; df = 5; p <.001) and for adults (χ² = 200.448; df = 5; p <.001).

Figure 11 illustrates that the frequency of violent skeletal trauma by sub- region for the Mississippian period generally conformed to the pattern observed for all sites, with an exception of Middle Mississippian sites having a higher violent skeletal trauma frequency than Cahokia sites (3.5% vs. 3.3%), and the difference between sub- regions was significant (χ² = 243.752; df = 5; p <.001). During the preceding Late

Woodland period, however, the Moundville (14.2%) and Cahokia (9.3%) sub-regions had higher frequencies of violent skeletal trauma than was observed in the Oneota (9.2%)sub-

Figure 11. Sub-Region: Violent skeletal trauma by time period.

region (Figure 11). None of the individuals at Middle Mississippian sub-region sites were recorded for the Late Woodland period. A significant difference in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was also observed between sub-regions during the Late Woodland period (χ² = 27.432; df = 5; p <.001).

The difference in violent skeletal trauma frequency between sub-regions was significant for both sites with defensive architecture (χ² = 73.958; df = 5; p <.001) and sites that lacked defensive architecture (χ² = 83.441; df = 5; p <.001). A lower frequency of violent skeletal trauma was observed at sites with defensive architecture than sites without defensive architecture for the Oneota (11.9% vs. 13.3%), Cahokia (2.3% vs.

6.4%), Hiwassee Island (2.4% vs. 4.0%), and Moundville (4.7% vs. 9.9%) sub-regions

(Figure 12). Sites with defensive architecture had a higher rate of violent skeletal trauma than sites without defensive architecture at sites in the Middle Mississippian (3.8% vs.

1.0%) and Plaquemine (3.0% vs. 1.1%) sub-regions.

Figure 12. Sub-Region: Violent skeletal trauma by defensive architecture presence.

Site Type

This section presents the results of tests comparing the frequency of violent skeletal trauma by site type. Four of the regional centers are surrounded by palisades, one has an embankment, two have ditches, and six have platform mounds. Among Large villages, seven have palisades, two have ditches, two have embankments, and eight contain platform mounds. Six palisades, three ditches, and one platform mound are found at small villages. The paired Turner and Snodgrass sites were each surrounded by a

98 palisade and Snodgrass contained one ditch. Hamlets and farmsteads, as well as Pinson

Cave, contain no defensive architecture.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma at regional centers was relatively low at 2.3 percent (3.1% of adults), while for the rest of the sites violent skeletal trauma decreased along with site size from 7.5 percent (10.9% in adults) at large villages to 4.3 percent (6.8% in adults) at small villages to 2.2 percent (3.3% in adults) at hamlets or farmsteads (Figure 13). Violent skeletal trauma was reported for 8.7 percent of

Figure 13. Violent skeletal trauma by site type.

individuals (17.4% in adults) at Pinson Cave and 1.0 percent of individuals (1.2% in adults) at the paired Turner and Snodgrass sites. A significant relationship was observed between violent skeletal trauma and site type for all individuals (χ² = 86.05; df = 5; p

<.001; N = 8586) and for adults (χ² = 86.211; df = 5; p <.001, N = 5311). The exclusion of Pinson Cave and the Turner and Snodgrass sites from consideration had no effect on significance (χ² = 80.652; df = 3; p <.001; N = 8437).

Age and Sex Comparisons

Table 6 reports the frequency of individuals with violent skeletal trauma for each age and sex category. Eight percent of females and 9.6 percent of males were

Table 6. Individuals with Violent Skeletal Trauma by Age and Sex Category.

Male Female Unsexed Subadult

Infant (0-2) - - - 1/981 Child (3-11) - - - 38/1807 Adolescent (12-17) - - - 11/487 Young Adult (18/29) 48/576 44/736 2/136 - Middle Adult (30-45) 53/635 38/528 4/95 - Old Adult (45+) 23/207 29/179 0/19 - Unaged Adult 70/611 55/631 36/958 -

affected by violent skeletal trauma. While violent skeletal trauma was more frequently reported in males than in females, the difference only approached significance (χ² =

3.108; df = 1; p = .078). Violent skeletal trauma was observed in 13.7 percent of both males and females during the Late Woodland period (χ² < .001; df = 1; p = .990).

Additionally, more males (8.6%) were affected by violent skeletal trauma than females

(6.9%) during the Mississippian period. The difference between sex groups approached significance for the Mississippian period (χ²= 3.415; df = 1; p = .065). There was also no significant relationship between violent skeletal trauma and sex for any adult age group or by palisade or defensive architecture presence (see Table 7).

100

Table 7. Adult Age and Sex Comparison Results.

χ² p na Trend

Sex (M / F) All Adults 3.108 .078 194/2029 vs. 166/2074 Young Adults 2.748 .097 48/576 vs. 44/736 Middle Aged Adults .528 .467 53/635 vs. 38/528 Old Adults 2.134 .144 23/207 vs. 29/179 Late Woodland <.001 .990 51/372 vs. 45/329 Mississippian 3.415 .065 143/1657 vs. 121/1745 Palisade 2.770 .096 65/893 vs. 54/997 No Palisade .521 .470 129/1136 vs. 112/1077 Def. Architecture 2.714 .099 78/1147 vs. 65/1249 No Def. Architecture .318 .573 116/882 vs. 101/825

Age ( Y / M / O) All Individuals 17.957 <.001 94/1448 vs. 95/1258 vs. 52/405 Y < M < O Males 1.701 .427 48/576 vs. 53/635 vs. 23/207 Females 21.479 <.001 44/736 vs. 38/528 vs. 29/179 Y < M < O Late Woodland 3.527 .171 10/98 vs. 16/86 vs. 4/43 Mississippian 21.813 <.001 84/1350 vs. 79/1172 vs. 48/362 Y < M < O Palisade 2.247 .345 46/852 vs. 46/730 vs. 17/210 No Palisade 16.491 <.001 48/596 vs. 49/528 vs. 35/195 Y < M < O Def. Architecture 3.489 .175 57/1046 vs. 48/897 vs. 20/246 No Def. Architecture 8.366 .015 37/345 vs. 47/361 vs. 32/159 Y < M < O a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

Violent skeletal trauma was observed in 6.5 percent of young adults, 7.6 percent of middle aged adults, and 12.8 percent of older adults. There was a significant increase in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma with age (χ²= 17.957; df = 2; p

<.001). The rate of violent skeletal trauma is 8.3 percent for both young and middle aged males and 11.1 percent for older males (Figure 14). Violent skeletal trauma was also reported in six percent of young females, 7.2 percent of middle aged females, and 16.2 percent of older females. A significant relationship between violent skeletal trauma and age was found for females (χ²= 21.479; df = 2; p <.001) but not for males (χ²= 1.701; df

= 2; p = .427). The frequency of violent skeletal trauma increased significantly with age

101

Figure 14. Violent skeletal trauma by age and sex category.

for the Mississippian period (6.2% vs. 6.7% vs. 13.3%; χ²= 21.813; df = 2; p <.001), but not during the Late Woodland period (10.2% vs. 18.6% vs. 13.3%; χ²= 3.527; df = 2; p =

.171). There was also a significant relationship between age and violent skeletal trauma at sites without palisades (8.1% vs. 9.3% vs. 17.9%; χ²= 16.491; df = 2; p <.001) and sites for without any type of defensive architecture (10.7% vs. 13.0% vs. 20.1%; χ²= 8.366; df

= 2; p = .015).

Table 8 summarizes the adult age and sex category test results. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased significantly through time for both males (χ²= 9.065; df = 1; p = .003) and females (χ²= 17.097; df = 1; p <.001). During the Late Woodland period the frequency of violent skeletal trauma increased from 6.1 percent in young males

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Table 8. Adult Age and Sex Category Results.

Adult Young Adult Middle Adult Old Adult χ² P χ² P χ² P χ² P

Male Time Period 9.065 .003 .343 .588 11.628 .001 F.E. .322 Def. Architecture 23.262 <.001 5.608 .018 14.232 <.001 .821 .365 Palisade Presence 9.610 .002 1.295 .255 3.671 .055 .619 .432 Plat. Mound 6.688 .010 .506 .477 10.614 .001 .142 .706 Ditch Presence 5.759 .016 1.543 .214 2.669 .102 3.072 .080 Embankment 1.839 .175 .343 .558 .893 .345 .588 .443

Female Time Period 17.097 <.001 9.053 .003 5.187 .023 .029 .856 Def. Architecture 33.425 <.001 7.227 .007 10.889 .001 13.779 <.001 Palisade Presence 17.495 <.001 1.863 .172 1.587 .208 9.460 .002 Platform Mound 18.135 <.001 4.542 .028 12.683 <.001 1.807 .179 Ditch Presence 7.189 .007 .003 .955 3.253 .071 .272 .602 Embankment 6.645 .010 1.512 .219 F.E. .062 F.E. 1.000

to 21.7 percent in middle aged males then decreased to 4.0 percent in older males (Figure

15). Violent skeletal trauma was also reported in 8.5 percent of young males, 6.5 percent of middle aged males, and 12.1 percent of older males during the Mississippian period.

For females, the rate of violent skeletal trauma remained relatively constant with age

(16.7% vs. 16.7% vs. 17.6%) during the Late Woodland period and increased from 5.3 percent in young females, to 6.5 percent in middle aged females, and 16.0 percent in older females during the Mississippian period. A significant relationship between time period and violent skeletal trauma was observed for only young females (χ²= 9.053; df =

1; p = .003), middle aged males (χ²= 11.628; df = 1; p = .001), and middle aged females

(χ²= 5.187; df = 1; p = .023).

Violent skeletal trauma was recorded in 6.8 percent of males and 5.2 percent of females at sites with defensive architecture and 13.2 percent of males and 12.2 percent of females at sites without defensive architecture. A significant association was observed

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Figure 15. Age and sex comparisons of violent skeletal trauma by time period.

between violent skeletal trauma and defensive architecture presence for both males (χ²=

23.262; df = 1; p <.001) and females (χ²= 33.425; df = 1; p <.001). The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was lower at sites with defensive architecture than sites without defensive structures for all adult age and sex categories (see Figure 16). This decrease in the rate of violent skeletal trauma with defensive architecture presence was significant for young males (χ²= 5.608; df = 1; p = .018) and females (χ²= 7.227; df = 1; p = .007), middle aged males (χ²= 14.232; df = 1; p <.001) and females (χ²= 10.889; df = 1; p

<.001), as well as older females (χ²= 13.779; df = 1; p <.001).

Violent skeletal trauma was recorded in 7.3 percent of males and 5.4 percent of females at palisaded sites and 11.4 percent of males and 10.4 percent of females at non-palisaded sites. A significant relationship was observed between palisade presence

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Figure 16. Age and sex comparisons of violent skeletal trauma by defensive architecture presence.

and violent skeletal trauma for both males (χ²= 9.610; df = 1; p = .002) and females (χ²=

17.495; df = 1; p <.001), as well as for middle aged males (χ²= 3.671; df = 1; p = .055) and older females (χ²= 9.460; df = 1; p = .002). There was also a significant association between platform mound presence and the frequency of violent skeletal trauma for females (χ²= 18.135; df = 1; p <.001), young females (χ²= 4.542; df =1; p = .028), and middle aged females (χ²= 12.683; df = 1; p <.001). However, violent skeletal trauma was significantly more common (χ²= 6.688; df = 1; p = .010) for males at sites with platform mounds (7.6%) than sites without platform mounds (4.7%). The frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased significantly with ditch presence for males (χ²= 5.759; df = 1; p

105

= .016) and females (χ²= 7.189; df = 1; p = .007), and with embankment presence (χ²=

6.645; df = 1; p = .010) for females.

The subadult results are summarized in Table 9. A significant decrease in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was observed for children (4.6% vs. 1.4%) through

Table 9. Subadult Age Category Results.

Adolescent Child Infant χ² P χ² P χ² P

Time Period .025 .874 15.343 <.001 F.E. 1.000 Def. Architecture 5.248 .022 16.275 <.001 F.E. .362 Palisade Presence 3.258 .071 11.049 <.001 F.E. .498 Platform Mound Presence 1.326 .250 5.118 .024 F.E. 1.000 Ditch Presence .191 .662 .232 .630 F.E. 1.000 Embankment Presence .260 .610 F.E. .624 F.E. 1.000

time (χ²= 15.343; df = 1; p <.001). Sites with defensive architecture had a significantly lower frequency of violent skeletal trauma than sites without defensive architecture for adolescents (χ² = 5.248; df = 1; p = .022) and children (χ² = 16.275; df = 1; p <.001). The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was also significantly lower in children at sites with palisades (χ² = 11.049; df = 1; p <.001) and platform mounds (χ² = 5.118; df = 1; p =

.024) than at sites without these types of defensive architecture. Also, the relationship between violent skeletal trauma and palisade presence approached significance for adolescents (χ² = 3.258; df = 1; p = .071). None of the statistical tests run on infants were significant because only one infant was affected by violent skeletal trauma. Skeleton 230 from Norris Farms #36 had a single perimortem cranial fracture and was also scalped.

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Violent Skeletal Trauma Type Results

This section reports the results of statistical tests comparing the frequencies of each type of violent skeletal trauma individually with defensive architecture presence, time period, age, sex, sub-region, and site type. Tests were run with all individuals, adults, males, and females. Sample sizes became too small to be informative when tests were attempted for subadults and more specific adult age and sex categories.

Embedded Projectile Points

Table 10 summarizes the embedded projectile point test results. Embedded projectile points were recorded in 2.3 percent (3.4% in adults) of Late Woodland period individuals and 0.6 percent (0.9% in adults) of Mississippian period individuals (see

Figure 17). A significant decrease in the frequency of embedded projectile points was observed through time for all individuals (χ² = 39.013; df = 1; p <.001) and for adults (χ²

= 37.075; df = 1; p <.001). The relationship between embedded projectile points and time period was also significant for both males (5.6% vs. 1.3%; χ² = 25.180; df = 1; p <.001), and females (2.6% vs. 0.7%; Fisher’s Exact; p <.001).

Projectile points were found embedded in 0.7 percent of individuals at sites with defensive architecture and 1.2 percent of individuals at sites that lacked defensive architecture (see Figure 18). A statistically significant association was observed between embedded projectile point frequency and defensive architecture presence (χ² = 5.267; df=1; p = .027). Additionally, embedded projectile points were significantly more common in adults (1.1% vs. 1.8%) at sites with defensive architecture than sites without defensive architecture (χ² = 4.361; df = 1; p = .037). Males were less likely to be affected by projectile injuries when defensive architecture was present (χ² = 4.344; df = 1; p =

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Table 10. Embedded Projectile Point Results.

χ² P na Trend

All Individuals Time Period 39.013 <.001 35/1555 vs. 38/6528 M < LW Def. Architecture 5.267 .022 35/4926 vs. 38/3160 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 2.028 .154 31/4100 vs. 42/3986 Plat. Mound Presence 1.356 .244 19/2615 vs. 54/5471 Ditch Presence 3.689 .055 5/1195 vs. 68/6891 no D < D Embankment Presence F.E. .033 0/421 vs. 73/7665 E < no E Sub-region 25.210 <.001 8086b N/Ab Age 37.301 <.001 8086b N/Ab Site Type 12.574 .006 7937b N/Ab

Adults Time Period 37.075 <.001 33/963 vs. 35/3976 M < LW Def. Architecture 4.361 .037 33/2999 vs. 35/1940 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence .965 .326 29/2395 vs. 39/2544 Plat. Mound Presence 1.232 .267 19/1691 vs. 49/3248 Ditch Presence 3.961 .047 5/798 vs. 63/4141 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. .021 0/315 vs. 68/4624 E < no E Sex 8.758 .003 41/1916 vs. 19/1963 F < M Sex – Late Woodland 3.632 .057 20/356 vs. 8/306 F < M Sex – Mississippian 3.814 .051 21/1560 vs. 11/1657 F < M Sex – Def. Arch. 1.812 .178 18/1142 vs. 12/1247 Sex – no Def. Arch. 7.512 .006 23/774 vs. 7/716 F < M Age .535 .765 3031b Age – Mississippian 2.313 .315 2812b Age – Def. Arch. .934 .627 2242b Age – no Def. Arch. .694 .707 789b

Males Time Period 25.180 <.001 20/356 vs. 21/1560 M < LW Def. Architecture 4.344 .037 18/1142 vs. 23/774 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence .987 .321 16/893 vs. 25/1023 Plat. Mound Presence .920 .337 10/598 vs. 31/1318 Ditch Presence 2.638 .104 2/257 vs. 39/1659 Embankment Presence F.E. .174 0/117 vs. 41/1799

Females Time Period F.E. .005 8/306 vs. 11/1657 M < LW Def. Architecture .002 .969 12/1247 vs. 7/716 Palisade Presence .382 .537 11/997 vs. 8/966 Plat. Mound Presence .706 .401 5/696 vs. 14/1267 Ditch Presence F.E. .554 2/356 vs. 17/1607 Embankment Presence F.E. .637 0/136 vs. 19/1827 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals. b When Chi-square test is larger than 2 x 2, total number of individuals tested is provided.

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Figure 17. Violent skeletal trauma type by time period.

.037) but one percent of females were inflicted with projectile injuries regardless of defensive architecture presence (χ² = .022; df = 1; p = .969). When the types of defensive architecture are considered separately, no significant relationship was reported between embedded projectile point frequency and palisade or platform mound presence (see Table

10). The decrease in embedded point frequency with ditch presence was significant for all individuals (χ² = 3.689; df = 1; p = .055) and adults (χ² = 3.961; df = 1; p = .047). Also, a significant association between embedded projectile point frequency and embankment presence was observed for all individuals (Fisher’s Exact; p = .033) and for adults

(Fisher’s Exact; p = 0021).

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Figure 18. Violent skeletal trauma type by defensive architecture presence.

Embedded projectile points were reported in 1.1 percent of young adults, 1.2 percent of middle aged adults, 1.5 percent of older adults, and 1.7 percent of adults of indeterminate age (see Figure 19). Three adolescents (0.6%), two children (0.1%), and no infants were also affected by embedded projectile points. There was a significant relationship between age and embedded projectile point frequency for all age groups (χ² =

37.301; df = 6; p <.001) but not for adults (χ² = .535; df = 2; p = .765). Projectile points were embedded in 3.2 percent of young adults, 7.1 percent of middle aged adults, and no older adults during the Late Woodland period. However, a chi-square test could not be run because 50 percent of cells had expected counts less than five. For the Mississippian period, a significant difference was not observed between embedded point frequency and

110

Figure 19. Violent skeletal trauma type by age.

age (χ² = 2.313; df = 2; p = .315). Additionally, no significant relationship was reported between age and embedded projectile points at sites with defensive architecture (χ² =

.934; df = 2; p = .627) or sites without defensive architecture (χ² = .694; df = 2; p =

.707).

One percent of females and 2.1 percent of males were inflicted with embedded projectile points (see Figure 20). Males were significantly more likely to be inflicted with embedded projectile points than females (χ² = 8.758; df = 1; p = .003). The difference in embedded point frequency by sex was also significant during both the Late

Woodland (χ² = 3.632; df = 1; p = .057) and Mississippian periods (χ² = 3.814; df =

111

Figure 20. Violent skeletal trauma type by sex.

1; p = .051). The relationship between sex and embedded projectile points was not significant for sites with defensive architecture (χ² = 1.812; df = 1; p = .178) but was significant at sites that lacked defensive structures (χ² = 7.512; df = 1; p = .006) where

2.5 percent of males and only 0.8 percent of females were affected by projectile wounds.

Embedded projectile points were reported in 1.6 percent of individuals in the

Oneota sub-region, 1.5 percent in the Cahokia sub-region, 1.2 percent in the Moundville sub-region, 0.8 percent in the Plaquemine sub-region, 0.6 percent in the Middle

Mississippian sub-region, and 0.3 percent of individuals in the Hiwassee Island sub- region. This difference in embedded projectile point frequency between sub-regions is significant (χ² = 25.210; df = 5; p <.001). Also, the frequency of embedded projectile points was 0.5 percent at regional centers, and then decreased with site size from 1.2

112 percent at large villages to 0.7 percent at small villages and 0.2 percent at hamlets and farmsteads. A significant relationship was observed between site type and the frequency of embedded projectile points (χ² = 12.574; df = 3; p = .006).

Cranial Blunt Force Trauma

The results for cranial blunt force trauma are presented in Table 11. A slight reduction in cranial blunt force trauma frequency was seen from the Late Woodland

(2.2%) to the Mississippian (1.9%) period (Figure 17), but this difference was not significant for all individuals (χ² = .722; df = 1; p = .395), adults (χ² = .049; df = 1; p =

.826), or either sex category (χ² = .890; df = 1; p = .345) (χ² = .482; df = 1; p = .488).

Blunt force cranial trauma was observed in 1.3 percent of individuals (1.9% in adults) at sites where defensive architecture was present and 3.0 percent of individuals

(4.0% in adults) at sites that lack defensive architecture (Figure 18). A significant relationship between the frequency of cranial blunt force trauma and defensive architecture presence was found for all individuals (χ² = 29.960.; df = 1; p <.001) and adults (χ² = 21.623; df = 1; p <.001). Cranial blunt force trauma was also significantly less frequent at sites where defensive architecture was present than at sites that lacked defensive architecture for both males (χ² = 16.048; df = 1; p <.001) and females (χ² =

12.797; df = 1; p <.001).

A significant decrease in the rate of cranial blunt force trauma was reported with the presence of palisades for all individuals (χ² = 20.066; df = 1; p <.001), adults (χ²

= 13.372; df = 1; p <.001), males (χ² = 6.071; df = 1; p = .014), and females (χ² = 4.549; df = 1; p = .033). Additionally, cranial blunt force trauma was significantly more frequent at sites where platform mounds were absent for all individuals (χ² = 15.512; df =

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Table 11. Blunt Force Cranial Trauma Results.

χ² P na Trend

All Individuals Time Period .722 .395 38/1689 vs.130/6747 Def. Architecture 29.960 <.001 65/4997 vs.103/3439 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 20.066 <.001 53/4104 vs.115/4332 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 15.512 <.001 30/2689 vs.138/5747 PM < no PM Ditch Presence .047 .828 23/1204 vs.145/7232 Embankment Presence .275 .600 10/428 vs.158/8008 Sub-Region 55.982 <.001 8436b N/Ab Age 80.868 <.001 8436b N/Ab Site Type 32.312 <.001 8287b N/Ab

Adults Time Period .049 .826 30/1043 vs.114/4144 Def. Architecture 21.623 <.001 57/3030 vs.877/2157 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 13.372 <.001 45/2398 vs. (99/2789 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 15.418 <.001 26/1725 vs.118/3462 PM < no PM Ditch Presence .307 .579 20/806 vs.124/4381 Embankment Presence .146 .703 10/321 vs.134/4866 Sex .273 .601 61/1973 vs.69/2039 Sex – Late Woodland .001 .916 14/362 vs. 13/323 Sex – Mississippian .332 .565 47/1611 vs. 56/1716 Sex – Def. Arch. .719 .397 20/1139 vs. 28/1248 Sex – no Def. Arch. .061 .806 41/834 vs. 41/791 Age 15.521 <.001 3072b N/Ab Age – Mississippian 19.206 <.001 2851b N/Ab Age – Def. Arch. 11.272 .004 2240b N/Ab Age – no Def. Arch. 1.825 .402 832b

Males Time Period .890 .345 14/362 vs. 47/1611 Def. Architecture 16.048 <.001 20/1139 vs. 41/834 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 6.071 .014 18/887 vs. 43/1086 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 8.767 .003 8/597 vs. 53/1376 PM < no PM Ditch Presence .002 .964 8/255 vs. 53/1718 Embankment Presence F.E. .580 2/117 vs. 59/1856

Females Time Period .482 .488 13/323 vs. 56/1716 Def. Architecture 12.797 <.001 28/1248 vs. 41/791 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 4.549 .033 25/996 vs. 44/1043 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 12.360 <.001 10/698 vs. 59/1341 PM < no PM Ditch Presence .114 .736 11/356 vs. 58/1683 Embankment Presence F.E. .321 2/136 vs. 67/1903 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals. b When Chi-square test is larger than 2 x 2, total number of individuals tested is provided.

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1; p <.001), adults (χ² = 15.418; df = 1; p <.001), and both sexes (χ² = 8.767; df = 1; p =

.003) (χ² = 12.360; df = 1; p <.001). No significant relationship was observed between the frequency of cranial blunt force trauma and ditch or embankment presence for any segment of the skeletal sample (Table 11).

The frequency of cranial blunt force trauma increased with age from 2.5 percent in young adults, to 3.1 percent in middle-aged adults, and 6.5 percent in older adults (Figure 19). Cranial blunt force trauma was also present in 2.0 percent of adults of indeterminate age, 0.8 percent of adolescents, 1.1 percent of children, and 0.1 percent of infants. The increase in cranial blunt force trauma frequency with age was significant for both adults (χ² = 15.521; df = 2; p <.001) and all age groups (χ² = 80.868; df = 6; p

<.001). For the Late Woodland period, cranial blunt force trauma was present in 5.3 percent of young adults and 2.4 percent each for middle aged and older adults, but significance could not be tested due to low expected cell counts. Cranial blunt force trauma increased significantly with age for the Mississippian period from 2.3 percent in young adults, to 3.2 percent of middle aged adults, and 6.9 percent of older adults (χ² =

19.206; df = 2; p <.001). A significant relationship between cranial blunt force trauma and age was also observed for sites with defensive architecture (χ² = 11.272; df = 2; p =

.004), but not for sites without defensive architecture (χ² = 15.521; df = 2; p <.001).

Cranial blunt force trauma affected 3.1 percent of males and 3.4 percent of females

(Figure 20). No significant difference was reported between cranial blunt force trauma and sex for all individuals, either time period, or at sites with or without defensive architecture (see Table 11).

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A significant difference in cranial blunt force trauma frequency was observed for both sub-region (χ² = 55.982; df = 5; p <.001) and site type (χ² = 31.312; df = 3; p

<.001). Cranial blunt force trauma was present in 4.6 percent of Oneota sub-region individuals, 2.0 percent of Cahokia sub-region individuals, 1.6 percent of Hiwassee

Island individuals, 1.4 percent of Moundville individuals, 1.2 percent of Middle

Mississippian individuals, and 0.6 percent of Plaquemine individuals. The frequency of cranial blunt force trauma increased with site size from 1.0 percent at hamlets or farmsteads, to 2.0 percent at small villages, and 2.8 percent at large villages. Only 0.5 percent of individuals at regional centers were affected by cranial blunt force trauma.

Parry Fractures

Table 12 summarizes the parry fracture results. The frequency of parry fractures decreased through time from 2.4 percent in the Late Woodland period to 1.1 percent in the Mississippian period (Figure 17). This relationship between parry fractures and time period was significant (χ² = 16.295; df = 1; p <.001). A significant decrease in the frequency of parry fractures from the Late Woodland period to the Mississippian period was also observed for adults (χ² = 9.774; df = 1; p = .002), males (χ² = 4.269; df =

1; p = .039), and females (χ² = 16.038; df = 1; p <.001).

Parry fractures were reported in 0.8 percent (1.3% in adults) of individuals at sites that contained defensive architecture and 2.2 percent (3.0% in adults) of individuals at sites where defensive architecture was absent (Figure 18). The difference in parry fracture frequency between sites with defensive architecture and sites without defensive architecture is significant for all individuals (χ² = 26.155; df = 1; p <.001) and adults only

(χ² = 17.444; df = 1; p <.001). A significant relationship between parry fractures and

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Table 12. Parry Fracture Results.

χ² P na Trend All Individuals Time Period 16.295 <.001 39/1603 vs. 74/6594 M < LW Def. Architecture 26.155 <.001 42/4961 vs. 71/3236 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 25.245 <.001 30/4100 vs. 83/4097 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 4.549 .033 26/2650 vs. 87/5547 PM < no PM Ditch Presence 7.904 .005 6/1195 vs. 107/7002 D < no D Embankment Presence .007 .993 6/421 vs. 107/7776 Sub-region 158.994 <.001 8197b N/Ab Age 48.696 <.001 8197b N/Ab Site Type 18.949 <.001 8084b N/Ab Adults Time Period 9.774 .002 32/986 vs. 68/4021 M < LW Def. Architecture 17.444 <.001 40/3016 vs. 60/1991 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 16.085 <.001 28/2395 vs. 72/2612 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 3.770 .052 25/1708 vs. 75/3299 Ditch Presence 9.111 .003 5/798 vs. 95/4209 D < no D Embankment Presence .015 .904 6/315 vs. 94/4692 Sex .540 .462 42/1934 vs. 50/1978 Sex – Late Woodland 1.841 .175 13/361 vs. 18/310 Sex – Mississippian .025 .875 29/1573 vs. 32/1668 Sex – Def. Arch. .870 .351 20/1145 vs. 16/1248 Sex – No Def. Arch 3.731 .053 22/789 vs. 34/730 Age 4.657 .097 3057b Age – Mississippian 4.204 .122 2833b Age – Def. Arch. .645 .724 2243b Age – No Def. Arch. 5.184 .075 804b Males Time Period 4.269 .039 13/361 vs. 29/1573 M < LW Def. Architecture 2.386 .122 20/1145 vs. 22/789 Palisade Presence 4.002 .045 13/893 vs. 29/1041 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence .478 .489 11/601 vs. 31/1333 Ditch Presence 2.709 .100 2/257 vs. 40/1677 Embankment Presence F.E. .106 5/117 vs. 37/1817 Females Time Period 16.038 <.001 18/310 vs. 32/1668 M < LW Def. Architecture 21.299 <.001 16/1248 vs. 34/730 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 16.556 <.001 11/997 vs. 39/981 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 5.219 .002 10/697 vs. 40/1281 PM < no PM Ditch Presence 5.003 .025 3/356 vs. 47/1622 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. .254 1/136 vs. 49/1842 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals. b When Chi-square test is larger than 2 x 2, total number of individuals tested is provided.

defensive architecture presence was also present for females (χ² = 21.299; df = 1; p

<.001) but not for males (χ² = 2.386; df = 1; p = .122).

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Palisaded sites had a significantly lower frequency of parry fractures than non-palisaded sites for all individuals (χ² = 25.245; df = 1; p <.001), adults (χ² = 16.085; df = 1; p <.001), males (χ² = 4.002; df = 1; p = .045), and females (χ² = 16.556; df = 1; p

<.001). Parry fractures were significantly less frequent at sites with platform mounds than sites without platform mounds for all individuals (χ² = 4.549; df = 1; p = .033), adults (χ² = 3.770; df = 1; p = .052), and females (χ² = 5.219; df = 1; p = .002). A significant difference in the frequency of parry fractures by ditch presence was also reported for all individuals (χ² = 7.904; df = 1; p = .005), adults (χ² = 9.111; df = 1; p =

.003), and females (χ² = 5.003; df = 1; p = .025). There was no significant relationship between parry fractures and embankment presence (see Table 12).

Parry fractures were observed in 2.5 percent of males and 2.2 percent of females (Figure 20). No significant difference in the frequency of parry fractures was reported between sex categories (χ² = .540; df = 1; p = .462). For the Late Woodland period, 3.6 percent of males and 5.8 percent of females were affected by parry fractures, while only 1.8 percent of males and 1.9 percent of females were affected during the

Mississippian period. There was no significant association between parry fractures and sex for either time period (χ² = 1.841; df = 1; p = .175) (χ² = .025; df = 1; p = .875). The relationship between parry fracture frequency and sex was also not significant at sites with defensive architecture (χ² = .870; df = 1; p = .351) and at sites that lacked defensive architecture (χ² = 3.731; df = 1; p = .053).

The frequency of parry fractures for both young adults and middle aged adults was 1.5 percent, while 3.0 percent of older adults and 2.5 percent of indeterminate aged adults were inflicted with parry fractures (Figure 19). Parry fractures were also present in

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0.6 percent each of adolescents and children and in no infants. The association between age and parry fracture frequency was significant when all age groups were considered (χ²

= 48.696; df = 6; p <.001) but not for adult age groups alone (χ² = 4.657; df = 2; p =

.097). A test between parry fractures and age could not be run for the Late Woodland period. No young adults were inflicted by parry fractures, while 8.1 percent of middle aged and 7.3 percent of older adults suffered parry fractures during Late Woodland period. There was no significant relationship between parry fracture frequency and age for the Mississippian period or for sites with or without defensive architecture (Table 12).

The Oneota and Moundville sub-regions had the highest frequencies of parry fractures at 5.1 and 2.4 percent respectively. One percent of individuals in the Middle

Mississippian and Plaquemine sub-regions, 0.5 percent of Cahokia sub-region individuals, and 0.3 percent of Hiwassee Island sub-region individuals were also affected by parry fractures. A significant relationship was observed between parry fracture frequency and sub-region (χ² = 158.994; df = 5; p <.001). Also, two percent of individuals at large villages and one percent of individuals at small villages were inflicted by parry fractures, while 0.8 percent of individuals at regional centers and hamlets or farmsteads suffered parry fractures. The difference in parry fracture frequency was significant between site types (χ² = 18.949; df = 3; p <.001).

Scalping

The scalping results are summarized in Table 13. Scalping cut marks were recorded in 0.9 percent of individuals from the Mississippian period and only one individual from the Late Woodland period (Figure 17). A statistically significant relationship was observed between scalping frequency and time period (χ² = 13.218; df =

119

Table 13. Scalping Results.

χ² P na Trend

All Individuals Time Period 13.218 <0.001 1/1689 vs. 61/6747 LW < M Def. Architecture 7.740 0.005 26/4997 vs. 36/3403 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 1.127 0.288 26/4104 vs. 36/4332 Plat. Mound Presence 1.059 0.303 16/2689 vs. 46/5747 Ditch Presence 6.229 0.013 2/1204 vs. 60/7232 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. 0.076 0/428 vs. 62/8008 Sub-region 118.982 <0.001 8436b N/Ab Age 59.244 <0.001 8436b N/Ab Site Type 18.785 <0.001 8287b N/Ab

Adults Time Period 12.085 0.001 1/1043 vs. 56/4144 LW < M Def. Architecture 5.027 0.025 25/3030 vs. 32/2157 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 0.130 0.718 25/2398 vs. 32/2789 Plat. Mound Presence 1.251 0.263 15/1725 vs. 42/3462 Ditch Presence 6.355 0.012 2/806 vs. 55/4381 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. 0.049 0/321 vs. 57/4866 E < no E Sex 1.809 0.179 32/1976 vs. 23/2039 Sex –Late Woodland F.E. .289 0/362 vs. 1/323 Sex –Mississippian 2.581 .108 32/1611 vs. 22/1716 Sex –Def. Arch. 3.490 .062 16/1139 vs. 8/1248 Sex –No Def. Arch. .001 .974 16/834 vs. 15/791 Age 0.240 0.887 3072b Age –Mississippian .472 .790 2851b Age –Def. Arch. 2.150 .341 2240b Age –No Def. Arch. .562 .755 832b

Males Time Period 7.309 0.007 0/362 vs. 32/1611 LW < M Def. Architecture 0.796 0.372 16/1139 vs. 16/834 Palisade Presence 0.344 0.563 16/887 vs. 16/1086 Plat. Mound Presence 0.070 0.791 9/597 vs. 23/1376 Ditch Presence F.E. 0.421 2/255 vs. 30/1718 Embankment Presence F.E. 0.257 0/117 vs. 32/1856

Females Time Period F.E. 0.158 1/323 vs. 22/1716 Def. Architecture 6.841 0.009 8/1248 vs. 15/791 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 1.842 0.175 8/996 vs. 15/1043 Plat. Mound Presence 1.613 0.204 5/698 vs. 18/1241 Ditch Presence F.E. 0.023 0/356 vs. 23/1683 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. 0.397 0/136 vs. 23/2039 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals. b When Chi-square test is larger than 2 x 2, total number of individuals tested is provided.

120

1; p <.001). The difference in scalping frequency between the Late Woodland and

Mississippian periods was also significant for adults (χ² = 12.085; df = 1; p = .001) and males (χ² = 7.309; df = 1; p = .007).

One percent (1.5% in adults) of individuals at sites without defensive architecture and 0.5 percent (0.8% in adults) of individuals at sites with defensive architecture were scalped (Figure 18). The frequency of scalping was significantly lower at sites with defensive architecture than sites that lacked defenses for all individuals (χ² =

7.740; df = 1; p = .005) and adults (χ² = 5.027; df = 1; p = .025), as well as for females

(χ² = 6.841; df = 1; p = .009). No significant relationship was observed between scalping and the presence of any type of defensive architecture for males (see Table 13). Scalping was less frequent at sites with ditches than sites without ditches for all individuals (χ² =

6.229; df = 1; p = .013), adults (χ² = 6.355; df = 1; p = .012), and females (Fisher’s

Exact; p = .023). The relationship between scalping and embankment presence was significant for adults (Fisher’ Exact; p = .049) and approached significance for all individuals (Fisher’s Exact; p = .076). No significant relationship was observed between scalping and palisade or platform mound presence (Table 13).

The frequency of scalping was consistent among adults, with 1.5 percent of young adults, 1.8 percent of middle aged adults, and 1.7 percent of older adults affected

(Figure 19). Scalping was also reported in 0.6 percent of adolescents, 0.1 percent of children, and one infant. The difference in scalping frequency was significant between all age groups (χ² = 59.244; df = 6; p <.001) but not adult ages (χ² = .240; df = 2; p = .887).

A single young adult was the only Late Woodland scalping victim, while 1.6 percent of young adults and 1.9 percent each for middle aged and older adults were scalped during

121 the Mississippian period. No significant association was observed between sex and scalping for the Mississippian period or at sites with or without defensive architecture

(Table 13).

Scalping cut marks were observed in 1.6 percent of males and 1.1 percent of females (Figure 20), however, no significant relationship was observed between scalping and sex (χ² = 1.809; df = 1; p = .179). One female and no males were scalped during the

Late Woodland period. For the Mississippian period, two percent of males and 1.3 percent of females were scalped. The difference in scalping frequency between the sexes was not significant for either time period Fisher’s Exact; p = .289) (χ² = 2.581; df = 1; p

= .108). Scalping was recorded in 1.4 percent of males and 0.6 percent of females at sites with defensive architecture, as well as 1.9 percent for both males and females at sites that lack defensive architecture. The relationship between scalping and sex approached significance for sites with defensive architecture (χ² = 3.490; df = 1; p = .062), but was not significant for sites without defensive architecture (χ² = .001; df = 1; p = .974).

Three percent of individuals in the Oneota sub-region, 0.9 percent of

Moundville sub-region individuals, and 0.4 percent of Hiwassee island individuals were affected by scalping cut marks. No scalping cases were observed in the Middle

Mississippian, Cahokia, or Plaquemine sub-regions. A significant difference in the frequency of scalping cut marks was reported between sub-regions (χ² = 118.982; df = 5; p <.001). A significant relationship was also observed between scalping frequency and site type (χ² = 18.785; df = 3; p <.001). Scalping cut marks were recorded in 0.1 percent of individuals at regional centers, 1.1 percent of individuals at large villages, and 0.7

122 percent of individuals at small villages. No evidence of scalping was observed in individuals at hamlets or farmsteads.

Decapitation

Table 14 reports the decapitation results. Decapitation cut marks were identified in 0.6 percent of individuals at Late Woodland period sites and 0.5 percent of individuals at Mississippian period sites (Figure 17). No significant difference in the frequency of decapitation was observed between time periods for all individuals (χ² =

.010; df = 1; p = .922), adults (χ² = .157; df = 1; p = .692), males (Fisher’s Exact; p =

.786), or females (Fisher’s Exact; p = .438).

The frequency of decapitation cut marks was 0.4 percent (0.6% in adults) at sites with defensive architecture and 0.8 percent (1.2% in adults) at sites that lack defensive architecture (Figure 18). A significant relationship was reported between decapitation and defensive architecture presence for all individuals (χ² = 8.259; df = 1; p

= 044), adults (χ² = 6.393; df = 1; p = .011), and males (χ² = 3.987.; df = 1; p = .046), but only approached significance for females (Fisher’s Exact; p = .081). Decapitation cut marks were significantly less frequent at palisaded sites than non- palisaded sites for all individuals (χ² = 14.270; df = 1; p <.001), adults (χ² = 11.391; df =1; p = .001), and females (χ² = 4.021; df = 1; p = .045). Additionally, a significant relationship was found between decapitation and ditch presence for all individuals (χ² = 7.774; df = 1; p = .005) and adults (χ² = 7.906; df = 1; p = .005), but only approached significance for males

(Fisher’s Exact; p = .062). No significant difference was reported in decapitation frequency with platform mound or embankment presence (Table 14).

123

Table 14. Decapitation Results.

χ² P na Trend

All Individuals Time Period .010 .922 9/1583 vs. 36/6568 Def. Architecture 8.259 .044 18/4960 vs. 27/3191 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 14.270 <.001 10/4100 vs. 35/4051 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence .193 .661 16/2649 vs. 29/5502 Ditch Presence 7.774 .005 0/1195 vs. 45/6956 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. .293 4/421 vs. 41/7730 Sub-region 54.874 <.001 8151b N/Ab Age 22.508 .001 8151b N/Ab Site Type 19.622 <.001 8002b N/Ab

Adults Time Period .157 .692 7/970 vs. 34/4001 Def. Architecture 6.393 .011 17/3016 vs. 24/1955 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 11.391 .001 9/2395 vs. 32/2576 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence .399 .528 16/1708 vs. 25/3263 Ditch Presence 7.906 .005 0/798 vs. 41/4173 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. .328 4/315 vs. 37/4656 Sex 2.999 .083 23/1926 vs. 13/1963 Sex –Late Woodland F.E. .849 3/355 vs. 3/304 Sex –Mississippian 3.940 .047 20/1571 vs. 10/1659 F < M Sex –Def. Arch. 1.525 .217 9/1145 vs. 5/1248 Sex –No Def. Arch. 1.169 .280 14/781 vs. 8/715 Age 2.103 .349 3042b Age –Mississippian 1.107 .575 2282b Age –No Def. Arch. 1.913 .384 799b

Males Time Period F.E. .786 3/355 vs. 20/1571 Def. Architecture 3.987 .046 9/1145 vs. 14/781 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 2.376 .123 7/893 vs. 16/1033 Plat. Mound Presence .139 .709 8/601 vs. 15/1325 Ditch Presence F.E. .062 0/257 vs. 23/1669 Embankment Presence 1.506 .220 0/117 vs. 23/1809

Females Time Period F.E. .438 3/304 vs. 10/1659 Def. Architecture F.E. .081 5/1248 vs. 8/715 Palisade Presence 4.021 .045 3/997 vs. 10/966 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence F.E. 1.000 4/697 vs. 9/1266 Ditch Presence F.E. .143 0/356 vs. 13/1607 Embankment Presence F.E. 1.000 0/136 vs. 13/1827 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals. b When Chi-square test is larger than 2 x 2, total number of individuals tested is provided.

124

The frequency of decapitation cut marks was higher for males (1.2%) than females (0.7%), but this difference only approached significance (Figure 20; χ² = 2.999; df = 1; p = .083). One percent of females and 0.8 percent of males at Late Woodland sites and 0.6 percent of females and 1.3 percent of males at Mississippian sites were decapitated. A significant association between decapitation and sex was observed for the

Mississippian period (χ² = 3.940; df = 1; p = .047) but not for the Late Woodland period

(χ² = Fisher’s Exact; p = .849). No significant relationship between sex and decapitation frequency was reported for sites with defensive architecture (χ² = 1.525; df = 1; p = .217) or sites without defensive structures (χ² = 1.169; df = 6; p = .280).

Decapitation was recorded in 0.5 percent of young adults 1.0 percent of middle aged adults and 0.8 percent of older adults (Figure 19). One percent of indeterminate aged adults, 0.4 percent of adolescents, 0.1 percent of children, and no infants were victims of decapitation. The relationship between decapitation frequency and age was only significant when both adults and subadults were considered (χ² =

22.508; df = 6; p = .001). Statistical tests between decapitation and age could not be run for the Late Woodland period or for sites with defensive architecture as a result of low expected cell counts. No significant difference in the frequency of decapitation was reported for the Mississippian period (χ² = 1.107; df = 6; p = .575) or at sites that lacked defensive architecture (χ² = 1.913; df = 6; p = .384).

Decapitation cut marks were reported in 1.7 percent of individuals in the

Oneota sub-region, 1.1 percent of Cahokia sub-region individuals, 0.7 percent of individuals in the Plaquemine sub-region, 0.6 percent of Middle Mississippian sub-region individuals, and 0.2 percent each for individuals in the Moundville and Hiwassee Island

125 sub-region. The difference in the frequency of decapitation cut marks between the sub- regions was significant (χ² = 54.874; df = 5; p <.001). The frequency of decapitation cut marks was 0.4 percent at regional centers, 1.0 percent at large villages, and 0.2 percent at small villages. Also, none of the individuals at hamlets or farmsteads were decapitated. A significant relationship was reported between decapitation frequency and site type (χ² =

19.622; df = 3; p <.001).

Dismemberment and Trophy Taking

Since dismemberment and trophy taking differ only in whether disarticulated elements remained with the body or were taken, the term ‘dismemberment’ will be used exclusively throughout this section to simplify discussion. The dismemberment results are summarized in Table 15. The frequency of dismemberment cut marks decreased significantly from 0.8 percent during the Late Woodland period to 0.4 percent during the

Mississippian period (χ² = 5.480; df = 1; p = .019). The decrease in dismemberment frequency through time was also significant for adults (χ² = 19.622; df = 1; p <.001) and females (Fisher’s Exact; p = .003), but not for males (Fisher’s Exact; p = .571).

Dismemberment was observed in 0.2 percent of individuals at sites with defensive architecture and 0.8 percent of individuals at sites that lacked defensive architecture (Figure 18). A significant relationship between the rate of dismemberment and defensive architecture presence was found for all individuals (χ² = 13.806; df = 1; p

<.001), adults (χ² = 5.808; df = 1; p = .013), and males (χ² = 4.076; df = 1; p = .043). A significant decrease in dismemberment frequency was reported with the presence of palisades for all individuals (χ² = 9.086; df = 1; p = .003), adults (χ² = 6.786; df = 1; p =

.009), and females (χ² = 4.706; df = 1; p = .030). A significant relationship between ditch

126

Table 15. Dismemberment and Trophy Taking Results.

χ² p na Trend

All Individuals Time Period 5.480 .019 13/1558 vs. 25/6528 M < LW Def. Architecture 13.806 <.001 12/4926 vs. 26/3160 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 9.086 .003 10/4100 vs. 28/3986 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 2.223 .136 8/2615 vs. 30/5471 Ditch Presence 6.621 .010 0/1195 vs. 38/6891 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. .264 0/421 vs. 38/7665 Sub-region 47.506 <.001 8086b N/Ab Age 24.576 <.001 8086b N/Ab Site Type 7.249 .064 7937b

Adults Time Period 5.808 .013 13/963 vs. 24/3976 M < LW Def. Architecture 12.508 <.001 12/2999 vs. 25/1940 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence 6.786 .009 10/2395 vs. 27/2544 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence 2.635 .105 8/1691 vs. 29/3248 Ditch Presence 7.184 .003 0/798 vs. 37/4141 D < no D Embankment Presence F.E. .170 0/315 vs. 37/4624 Sex 3.401 .065 21/1916 vs. 11/1963 Sex –Late Woodland .312 .577 5/356 vs. 6/306 Sex –Mississippian 6.493 .011 16/1560 vs. 5/1657 F < M Sex –Def. Arch. 1.720 .190 8/1142 vs. 4/1247 Sex –No Def. Arch. 1.384 .239 13/774 vs. 7/716 Age .641 .726 3031b Age –Mississippian 832 663 2812b

Males Time Period F.E. .571 5/356 vs. 16/1560 Def. Architecture 4.076 .043 8/1142 vs. 13/774 Def. < no Def. Palisade Presence .618 .432 8/893 vs. 13/1023 Plat. Mound Presence .069 .793 6/598 vs. 15/1318 Ditch Presence F.E. .099 0/257 vs. 21/1659 Embankment Presence F.E. .635 0/117 vs. 21/1799

Females Time Period F.E. .003 6/306 vs. 5/1657 M < LW Def. Architecture F.E. .111 4/1247 vs. 7/716 Palisade Presence 4.706 .030 2/997 vs. 9/966 P < no P Plat. Mound Presence F.E. .347 2/696 vs. 9/1267 Ditch Presence F.E. .232 0/356 vs. 11/1607 Embankment Presence F.E. 1.000 0/136 vs. 11/1827 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals. b When Chi-square test is larger than 2 x 2, total number of individuals tested is provided.

127 presence and dismemberment was observed for all individuals (χ² = 6.621; df = 1; p =

.010) and for adults (χ² = 7.184; df = 1; p = .003). Neither embankment or platform mound presence shared a relationship with the frequency of dismemberment (Table 15).

The frequency of dismemberment cut marks was 0.7 percent in young adults,

0.5 percent in middle aged adults, 0.8 percent in older adults, 0.9 percent of indeterminate aged adults, and 0.1 percent of children (Figure 19). No dismemberment cut marks were present in adolescents or infants. A significant relationship between dismemberment and age was observed between all age categories (χ² = 24.576; df = 6; p <.001) but not when only adult age groups were considered (χ² = .641; df = 2; p = .726). Statistical tests comparing dismemberment and age could not be run for the Late Woodland period or at sites where defensive architecture was either present or absent, and no significant difference was reported for the Mississippian period (χ² = .832; df = 2; p = .663). More males (1.1%) were affected by dismemberment than females (0.6%), but the difference only approached significance when all sites were considered (Figure 20; χ² = 3.401; df =

1; p = .065). One percent of males and 0.3 percent of females at Mississippian period sites were victims of dismemberment. The association between dismemberment and sex was significant for the Mississippian period (χ² = 6.493; df = 1; p = .011) but not during the Late Woodland period (χ² = .312; df = 1; p = .577) The relationship between dismemberment and sex was also not significant for sites with or without defensive architecture (Table 15).

A significant difference in the frequency of dismemberment was observed between sub-regions (χ² = 47.506; df = 5; p <.001) but only approached significance between site types (χ² = 7.249; df = 3; p = .064). The frequency of dismemberment was

128

1.4 percent in the Cahokia sub-region, 0.8 percent in the Oneota sub-region, 0.4 percent in the Moundville and Plaquemine sub-regions, and 0.1 percent in the Middle

Mississippian sub-region. No Hiwassee Island sub-region individuals had elements dismembered. Dismemberment was most common at large villages (0.7%) and regional centers (0.5%). The frequency of dismemberment cut marks was 0.2 percent at both small villages and hamlets or farmsteads.

Impact of Preservation Data on Results

Reports for 20 of the 61 archaeological sites (32.8% of the total sample) included in the overall data set contained sufficient data on the skeletal elements present for each individual to be included in these comparisons. Eight sites, including the

Elizabeth site, Koster Mounds, Lake George, Mount Nebo F, Pete Klunk, Range, Schild, and Spencer Mound date to the Late Woodland period. The twelve Mississippian period sites include Boytt’s Field, Campbell, Discovery, Fisher, Kellog, Lawhorn, Mount Nebo

A, Schild, Tinsley Hill, Tolu, Ward Place, and the Yokem site.

No palisades, ditches, or embankments were reported for any of the sites included in this section, while a single platform mound was recorded at Campbell, Lake

George, and Mount Nebo A and F. Chi-square tests were attempted for age, site type, and sub-region, but could not be run due to low expected cell counts. Statistical analyses for this sub-set of the data were confined to temporal comparisons, platform mound presence, and sex. The frequencies of overall violent skeletal trauma and of each type of violent skeletal trauma were also compared between all sites in the data set and only the sites with complete skeletal preservation data.

129

Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall

Table 16 summarizes the overall violent skeletal trauma results for sites with preservation data. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was 6.4 percent at sites with preservation data, while violent skeletal trauma was present in only 5.3 percent of individuals in the larger data set (Figure 21). The difference between violent skeletal trauma overall and the availability of preservation data, however, only approached significance (χ² = 3.484; df = 1; p = .061).

Table 16. Violent Skeletal Trauma Overall Results for Sites with Preservation Data.

χ² p na Trend

Pres. Sites vs. All Sites 3.484 .061 113/1774 vs. 452/8586 Time Period 5.629 .018 68/876 vs. 45/898 M < LW Plat. Mound Presence 2.080 .149 14/308 vs. 99/1466 Sex 1.287 .257 52/450 vs. 36/393 Sex – LW .009 .924 26/168 vs. 24/159 Sex – Miss. 3.138 .076 26/282 vs. 12/234 Time Period – Male 4.032 .045 26/168 vs. 26/282 M < LW Time Period – Female 11.300 .001 24/159 vs. 12/234 M < LW Plat. Mound – Male .317 .574 5/54 vs. 47/396 Plat. Mound – Female 3.444 .063 7/41 vs. 29/352 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased significantly through time from 7.8 percent during the Late Woodland period to five percent in the Mississippian period (Figure 22; χ² = 5.629; df = 1; p = .018). Violent skeletal trauma was also observed in 15.4 percent of males and 15.1 percent of females from the Late Woodland period and 9.2 percent of males and 5.1 percent of females from the Mississippian period.

A significant relationship between violent skeletal trauma and time period was observed

130

Figure 21. Trauma type percentages by preservation data availability.

within both male (χ² = 4.032; df = 1; p = .045) and female (χ² = 11.300; df = 1; p = .001) sex categories. When the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was compared between sex groups, the difference was not significant (χ² = 1.287; df = 1; p = .257). Violent skeletal trauma affected 11.6 percent of males and 9.2 percent of females (Figure 23). There was no significant relationship between sex and violent trauma at sites with preservation data during the Late Woodland period (χ² = .009; df = 1; p = .924), but the difference approached significance for the Mississippian Period (χ² = 3.138; df = 1; p = .076).

131

Figure 22. Violent skeletal trauma by time period: Sites with preservation data.

Violent skeletal trauma was reported in 4.5 percent of individuals at sites with platform mounds and 6.8 percent of individuals at sites that lack platform mounds for sites with complete preservation data (Figure 24). The relationship between platform mound presence and violent skeletal trauma frequency was not significant for sites with preservation data (χ² = 2.080; df = 1; p = .149) but was significant for the entire data set.

This was the only case for violent skeletal trauma overall that the presence of complete skeletal preservation data affected significance. Also, there was no significant difference in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma with platform presence for males (χ² = .317; df

132

Figure 23. Violent skeletal trauma by sex: Sites with preservation data.

= 1; p = .574) but the difference approached significance for females (χ² = 3.444; df = 1; p = .063).

Embedded Projectile Points

The results for embedded projectile points at sites with complete preservation data are reported in Table 17. Embedded projectile points were present in 2.9 percent of individuals at sites with skeletal preservation data and 1.1 percent of individuals when all sites were considered (Figure 21). A significant relationship was observed between the frequency of embedded projectile points and the availability of preservation data (χ² =

14.156; df = 1; p <.001).

133

Figure 24. Violent skeletal trauma by platform mound presence: Sites with preservation data.

Projectile points were embedded in 2.9 percent of Late Woodland period individuals and 1.1 percent of Mississippian period individuals (Figure 22). The frequency of embedded projectile points decreased significantly between time periods (χ²

= 5.090; df = 1; p = .024). A significant relationship between the frequency of embedded projectile points and time period was also reported for males (χ² = 4.326; df = 1; p =

.038). None of the Mississippian period females and four Late Woodland females were affected by embedded points. The difference between embedded projectile point and time periods was significance for females at sites with complete preservation data (Fisher’s

Exact; p = .054).

134

Table 17. Embedded Projectile Point Results for Sites with Preservation Data.

χ² P na Trend

Pres. Sites vs. All Sites 14.156 <.001 26/1261 vs. 73/8086 All < Pres. Time Period 5.090 .024 20/692 vs. 6/569 M < LW Plat. Mound Presence .276 .599 4/236 vs. 23/1025 Sex 6.958 .008 18/335 vs. 4/281 F < M Sex – LW 4.069 .044 13/152 vs. 4/136 F < M Sex – Miss. F.E. .069 5/183 vs. 0/145 Time Period – Male 4.326 .038 13/152 vs. 5/183 M < LW Time Period – Female F.E. .054 4/136 vs. 0/145 Plat. Mound – Male F.E. 1.000 2/49 vs. 16/289 Plat. Mound – Female F.E. .528 1/39 vs. 4/243 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

The frequency of embedded projectile points was 5.4 percent in males and 1.4 percent in females (Figure 23). Embedded projectile points were significantly more common in males than in females for all sites with preservation data (χ² = 6.958; df = 1; p

= .008) and for the Late Woodland period (χ² = 4.069; df = 1; p = .044). However, a significant relationship between embedded projectile points and sex was not recorded for the entire data set during the Late Woodland period.

Embedded projectile points were reported in 1.7 percent of individuals at sites with platform mounds and 2.2 percent of individuals at sites without platform mounds

(Figure 24). This decrease in embedded point frequency with platform mound presence at sites with preservation data was not significant (χ² = .276; df = 1; p = .599). There was also no significant association between embedded projectile points and platform mound presence for males (Fisher’s Exact; p = 1.000) or females (Fisher’s Exact; p = .528).

135

Blunt Force Cranial Trauma

Table 18 summarizes the blunt force cranial trauma results for sites with complete skeletal preservation data. Two percent of individuals in the overall data set and

2.5 percent of individuals at sites with preservation data were affected by cranial blunt force trauma (Figure 21). The relationship between the frequency of cranial blunt force trauma and the presence of skeletal preservation data was not significant (χ² = 1.685; df =

1; p = .194).

Table 18. Blunt Force Cranial Trauma Results for Sites with Preservation Data.

χ² P na Trend

Pres. Sites vs. All Sites 1.685 .194 40/1603 vs. 168/8436 Time Period 2.526 .112 25/803 vs. 15/800 Plat. Mound Presence 4.615 .032 2/286 vs. 38/1317 PM < no PM Sex .242 .622 15/408 vs. 16/366 Sex – LW .293 .588 8/158 vs. 10/154 Sex – Miss. <.001 .984 7/250 vs. 6/212 Time Period – Male 1.400 .237 8/158 vs. 7/250 Time Period – Female 2.864 .091 10/154 vs. 6/212 Plat. Mound – Male F.E. .235 0/52 vs. 15/356 Plat. Mound – Female F.E. .697 2/41 vs. 14/325 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

The frequency of cranial blunt force trauma declined from the Late Woodland period (3.1%) to the Mississippian period (1.9%) for sites with preservation data, but this decrease was not significant (Figure 22; χ² = 2.526; df = 1; p = .112). There was also no significant association between cranial blunt force trauma and time period for males (χ² =

1.400; df = 1; p = .237) or females (χ² = 2.864; df = 1; p = .091). Cranial blunt force trauma was present in 3.7 percent of males and 4.4 percent of females (Figure 23). No

136 significant relationship was reported between cranial blunt force trauma and sex at sites with preservation data for all individuals, or either time period (Table 18).

Cranial blunt force trauma was observed in 0.7 percent of individuals at sites with platform mounds and 2.9 percent of individuals at sites without platform mounds

(Figure 24). There was a significant difference in cranial blunt force trauma frequency with platform mound presence for sites with preservation data (χ² = 4.615; df = 1; p =

.032). The relationship between cranial blunt force trauma and platform mound presence was not significant in males (Fisher’s Exact; p = .235) or females (Fisher’s Exact; p =

.697) for sites with preservation data but was significant for the overall data set.

Parry Fractures

Table 19 reports the parry fracture results for sites with complete preservation data. The frequency of parry fractures was 0.6 percent for sites with preservation data and

1.4 percent for all sites (Figure 21). Parry fractures were significantly more frequent for the entire data set than at sites with preservation data (χ² = 5.426; df = 1; p = .020).

Table 19. Parry Fracture Results for Sites with Preservation Data.

χ² P na Trend

Pres. Sites vs. All Sites 5.426 .020 8/1322 vs. 113/8197 Pres. < All Time Period F.E. .077 7/716 vs. 1/606 Plat. Mound Presence F.E. .168 3/243 vs. 5/1079 Sex F.E. .151 2/349 vs. 6/292 Sex – LW F.E. .260 2/157 vs. 5/140 Sex – Miss. F.E. .442 0/192 vs. 1/152 Time Period – Male F.E. .202 2/157 vs. 0/192 Time Period – Female F.E. .108 5/140 vs. 1/152 Plat. Mound – Male F.E. .271 1/51 vs. 1/298 Plat. Mound – Female F.E. .177 2/38 vs. 4/254 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

137

Parry fracture frequency decreased through time from one percent during the

Late Woodland period to 0.2 percent during the Mississippian period (Figure 22). The relationship between parry fracture and time period approached significance for all individuals (Fisher’s Exact; p = .077), and was not significant for males (Fisher’s Exact; p = .202) or females (Fisher’s Exact; p = .108) at sites with preservation data but was significant for all sites. Additionally, no significant difference in parry fracture frequency was observed by sex for all individuals or either sex (see Table 19).

Parry fractures were recorded in 1.2 percent of individuals at sites with platform mounds and 0.5 percent of individuals at sites without platform mounds (Figure

24). This increase in parry fracture frequency between sites with and without platform mounds was not significant (Fisher’s Exact; p = .168). The relationship between parry fractures and platform mound presence was also not significant for males (Fisher’s Exact; p = .271) or females (Fisher’s Exact; p = .177). A significant difference was observed, however, in the overall data set for all individuals and females.

Scalping

The scalping results for sites with complete skeletal preservation data are summarized in Table 20. The difference in scalping frequency between sites with preservation data (0.6%) and all sites (0.7%) was not significant (Figure 21; χ² = .234; df

= 1; p = .626). There was also no significant relationship between scalping and sex at sites with preservation data for all individuals (Fisher’s Exact; p = .112) or males

(Fisher’s Exact; p = .117). A comparison of scalping frequency between males and females could not be run for the Late Woodland period because no cases of scalping were reported during this time period. During the Mississippian period, 1.3 percent of

138

Table 20. Scalping Results for Sites with Preservation Data.

χ² P na Trend

Pres. Sites vs. All Sites .234 .626 10/1603 vs. 62/8436 Time Period F.E. .001 0/803 vs. 10/800 LW < M Plat. Mound Presence F.E. .225 0/286 vs. 10/1317 Sex F.E. .112 8/408 vs. 2/366 Sex – Miss. F.E. .117 8/250 vs. 2/212 Time Period – Male F.E. .025 0/158 vs. 8/250 LW < M Time Period – Female F.E. .511 0/154 vs. 2/212 Plat. Mound – Male F.E. .604 0/52 vs. 8/356 Plat. Mound – Female F.E. 1.000 0/41 vs. 2/325 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

individuals were affected by scalping (Figure 22). A significant association between scalping frequency and time period was observed for all individuals (Fisher’s Exact; p =

.001) and males (Fisher’s Exact; p = .025).

None of the individuals at sites with platform mounds and 10 individuals

(0.8%) at sites that lacked platform mounds were scalped (Figure 24). The difference in the frequency of scalping observed with platform mound presence at sites with complete preservation data was not significant for all individuals or either sex (See Table 20).

Decapitation

Table 21 summarizes the decapitation results for sites with skeletal preservation data. The frequency of decapitation cut marks was 1.6 percent at sites with preservation data and 0.6 percent for all sites in the data set (Figure 21). A significant relationship was reported between decapitation frequency and preservation data presence

(χ² = 16.854; df = 1; p <.001).

139

Table 21. Decapitation Results for Sites with Preservation Data.

χ² P na Trend

Pres. Sites vs. All Sites 16.854 <.001 19/1183 vs. 45/8151 All < Pres. Time Period .324 .569 10/698 vs. 9/485 Plat. Mound Presence F.E. .776 4/231 vs. 14/952 Sex F.E. .360 8/299 vs. 3/248 Sex – LW F.E. 1.000 2/151 vs. 2/134 Sex – Miss. F.E. .142 6/148 vs. 1/114 Time Period – Male F.E. .170 2/151 vs. 6/148 Time Period – Female F.E. 1.000 2/134 vs. 1/114 Plat. Mound – Male F.E. .616 2/47 vs. 6/252 Plat. Mound – Female F.E. .047 2/33 vs. 1/215 No PM < PM a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

During the Late Woodland period, 1.4 percent of individuals were affected by decapitation, while 1.9 percent of Mississippian period individuals were decapitated

(Figure 22). No significant difference in the frequency of decapitation through time was observed for all individuals, males, or females at sites with preservation data (see Table

21). Decapitation cut marks were also present in 2.7 percent of males and 1.2 percent of females (Figure 23), but this difference was not significant for all individuals (Fisher’s

Exact; p = .360) or the Late Woodland period (Fisher’s Exact; p = 1.000). A significant relationship between decapitation frequency and sex during the Mississippian period was reported for the overall data set, but not for the sites with complete preservation data

(Fisher’s Exact; p = .142).

Decapitation cut marks were present on 1.7 percent of individuals at sites with platform mounds and 1.5 percent of individuals at sites without platform mounds (Figure

24). No significant association was found between decapitation and platform mound

140 presence for all individuals (Fisher’s Exact; p = .776) or males (Fisher’s Exact; p =

.616). A significant difference in the frequency of decapitation was observed for females between sites with platform mounds and sites without platform mounds in sites with preservation data (Fisher’s Exact; p = .047) but not in the overall data set.

Dismemberment and Trophy Taking

The dismemberment results for sites with complete skeletal preservation data are summarized in Table 22. Dismemberment was reported in 1.6 percent of individuals

Table 22. Dismemberment and Trophy Taking Results for Sites with Preservation Data.

χ² P na Trend

Pres. Sites vs. all Sites 22.036 <.001 20/1261 vs. 38/8086 All < Pres. Time Period .215 .643 12/692 vs. 8/569 Sex .020 .888 9/338 vs. 7/282 Plat. Mound Presence F.E. 1.000 3/236 vs. 17/1025 Sex – LW F.E. .739 4/152 vs. 5/136 Sex – Miss. F.E. .472 5/186 vs. 2/146 Time Period – Male F.E. 1.000 4/152 vs. 5/186 Time Period – Female F.E. .268 5/136 vs. 2/146 Plat. Mound – Male F.E. .367 0/49 vs. 9/289 Plat. Mound – Female F.E. .250 2/39 vs. 5/243 a Number of individuals affected/total number of individuals.

at sites with preservation data and 0.5 percent of individuals at all sites in the data set

(Figure 21). This relationship between dismemberment frequency and the presence of complete preservation data is significant (χ² = 22.036; df = 1; p <.001).

A slight reduction in dismemberment was observed through time at sites with complete preservation data from 1.7 percent of Late Woodland period individuals to 1.4 percent of Mississippian period individuals, but this difference was not significant for all

141 individuals (Figure 22; χ² = .215; df = 1; p = .643) or either sex (see Table 22). For the overall data set, however, there was a significant decrease in dismemberment between time periods for all individuals and females.

Dismemberment cut marks were also found on 2.7 percent of males and 2.5 percent of females (Figure 23). No significant relationship between dismemberment frequency and sex was observed in all individuals (Fisher’s Exact; p = .1.000) or for the

Late Woodland (Fisher’s Exact; p = .739) or Mississippian (Fisher’s Exact; p = .472) periods at sites with preservation data. A significant relationship between sex and dismemberment was reported during the Mississippian period for the entire data set.

The frequency of dismemberment was 1.3 at sites with platform mounds and

1.7 percent at sites without platform mounds (Figure 24). However, the difference was not great enough to be significant (Fisher’s Exact; p = 1.000). There was also no significant relationship between the frequency of dismemberment and platform mound presence for males (Fisher’s Exact; p = .367) or females (Fisher’s Exact; p = .250) at sites with complete skeletal preservation data.

Summary

The presence of a palisade or ditch appears to offer some level of protection from violent skeletal trauma for the people who live within their confines. The presence of violent skeletal trauma was lower in the few cases where embankments were present, although this result was not significant. Sites with platform mounds saw a reduction in violent skeletal trauma while an increase was observed when other mounds were considered. These unexpected results for mound presence led to a revised working

142 definition of defensive architecture that only includes palisades, ditches, embankments, and platform mounds.

Violent skeletal trauma decreased from the Late Woodland to the

Mississippian period overall, although the effect of time on the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was seen to vary when multi-component sites were tested. Violent skeletal trauma increased with site size with the exception of regional centers, which appear to have been spared from the brunt of violent conflict. Very little difference in violent skeletal trauma frequency was observed between males and females, while violent skeletal trauma generally increased with age.

Cranial blunt force trauma and parry fractures were much more common than other types of violent skeletal trauma that are all less likely to be mistaken for accidental injury or violence not associated with warfare. The frequency of each violent skeletal trauma type, with the exception of scalping, decreased through time. Also, all violent skeletal trauma types were less frequent at sites with defensive architecture than at sites where defenses were not present. Blunt force trauma and parry fractures increased with age, while the frequency of embedded projectile points, scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment were similar between age groups. Males were affected more than females by all violent skeletal trauma types except for cranial trauma, although the difference between the sexes was only significant for embedded projectile points.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma increased on the whole with the presence of complete skeletal preservation data. Only parry fractures were significantly less frequent at sites with preservation data than in the overall data set. The availability of preservation data affected significance of several tests relating to time period, sex, and

143 platform mound presence but had no effect on the directional trend of any test with a significant result.

In the following chapter, the results reported above are interpreted in light of the major hypotheses of this thesis, along with previous research and assumptions about the nature of prehistoric warfare.

CHAPTER V

INTERPRETATIONS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses the results presented in the previous chapter to examine how the relationship between defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma on a regional level informs our interpretations of warfare in prehistoric eastern North America.

First, changes in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma through time are discussed.

Next, the relationship between defensive architecture presence and violent skeletal trauma is examined. Possible variations in violent skeletal trauma between sub-regions and site types are then discussed. Age and sex differences in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma are also discussed in relation to time period and defensive architecture presence. Patterns in the types of violent skeletal trauma are then compared to identify potential changes in warfare tactics and strategies through time and between sites that contain or lack defensive architecture. Next, the impact of including human skeletal samples with incomplete preservation data on the results of this project is examined. The final section summarizes the overall interpretations and offers some discussion on the development of warfare and social complexity in late prehistoric eastern North America.

Temporal Comparisons

Previous authors have suggested that violent conflict increased sharply during the Late Woodland period with the introduction of the bow and arrow, and further

144 145 intensified until warfare became endemic in the Mississippian period with the widespread construction of palisades across eastern North America (Dye 2002; Hodge 2005; Knight and Steponaitis 1998; Larson 1972; Milner 1999). The results presented here indicate that, while violent conflict was not absent in late prehistoric eastern North America, warfare during this time was also not endemic throughout the region. While four Late

Woodland period and seven Mississippian period sites discussed here meet Smith’s

(2003) double digit violent skeletal trauma frequency expectation for intergroup warfare, the mean frequency of violent skeletal trauma for all sites was only 5.3 percent. Also, violent skeletal trauma was completely absent at one Late Woodland period and eight

Mississippian period sites.

Along with the proliferation of palisades, the transition between the Late

Woodland and Mississippian periods saw a rapid rise in all defensive architecture types.

Twenty Mississippian period sites were surrounded by palisades, embankments, or ditches, while only one Late Woodland site (1PI61) contained a palisade and none had ditches or embankments. When platform mounds are considered as well, defensive architecture was reported at 24 Mississippian sites and only three Late Woodland sites.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was compared between time periods to test the assumption that the sudden appearance of defensive architecture within a region signals an intensification of warfare (Bense 1994; Dye 1995; Hodge 2005;

Leblanc 1999; Larson 1972; Milner 1999; Van Horne 1993). Surprisingly, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma in the overall data set decreased significantly through time for all individuals (7.6% vs. 4.7%) and for adults (10.3% vs. 6.9%). These results suggest that the abrupt rise in defensive architecture construction between the Late Woodland and

146

Mississippian periods may not be a reliable indicator of an intensification of warfare, but instead suggests a shift to a different style of warfare that focused more on the protection of people and resources than on offensive strategies and tactics.

Along with the arrival of chiefdoms and defensive architecture, there was also a shift from small-scale household storage of food resources to the large-scale communal storage of agricultural surpluses near or within elite structures during the Mississippian period (Fontana 2007; Payne 1994). In response to the elevated levels of violence during the Late Woodland period, the new chiefly elite may have chosen to invest large amounts of labor in the construction of defensive works to protect these surplus resources and the individuals that produce them. The decrease in violent skeletal trauma between time periods suggests that the newly constructed defensive architecture may have offered a greater military advantage than the bow and arrow and other weapon technologies that were available in late prehistoric eastern North America.

While the trend in violent skeletal trauma through time for the overall data set does not support the use of defensive architecture presence within a region as an indicator of warfare intensification, the results for the five sites with skeletal samples dating to both time periods were highly variable. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased significantly between time periods at the Schild site (10.7% vs. 5.7%), while a significant increase in violent skeletal trauma frequency was observed at Dickson

Mounds (9.1% vs. 15.4%). Results for the other three sites were not significant, however, the rate of violent skeletal trauma more than doubled through time at Norris Farms #36

(9.7% vs. 20.1%). Also, while 4.5 percent of Late Woodland individuals at Mount Nebo were affected by violent skeletal trauma, none of the individuals from the Mississippian

147 component of Mount Nebo showed evidence of violent skeletal trauma. Previous researchers (Berkson 1978; Crans and Shuster 2008; D’Agostino et al. 1988) have argued that Fisher’s Exact test produces results that are too conservative. It is possible that the results for Mount Nebo (p = .494) and Norris Farms #36 (p = .165) were affected by the conservative nature of this test. The varied results observed for these five multi- component sites support Anderson’s (1999:224) statement that the rise of chiefdoms during the Mississippian period may have at the same time “both constrained warfare and given it reign in new forms over the region.” When considered together, the significant increase in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma through time for these five multi- component sites (7.7% vs. 10.8%) conflicts with the results reported for the overall data set. The relatively high frequency of violent skeletal trauma for these ten skeletal samples

(9.4%), however, suggests that this subset may not be a good representative sample of the entire data set.

In his treatment of warfare in eastern North America, Milner (1998:593) did not include the Oneota component of Norris Farms #36 in his overall assessment of late prehistoric warfare because he believed the high incidence of violent death associated with this recent intrusion into the northern frontier of the Mississippian world was

“atypical” for the region. With this in mind, chi square tests were computed for time period and for the presence of several types of defensive architecture that both included and excluded the Mississippian period skeletal sample from Norris Farms #36. Milner’s

(1998, 1999) concerns may have been unwarranted, as the presence of Norris Farms #36 had no significant effect on violent skeletal trauma frequency through time or for defensive architecture presence.

148

Defensive Architecture Presence

Studies of defensive architecture in late prehistoric eastern North America generally confine their discussion to palisades, ditches, and embankments (Dickson 1981;

Fontana 2007; Larson 1972; Milner 1998, 1999). Mounds, on the other hand, are often labeled non-defensive without warrant or investigation due to their additional functions in mortuary ritual or as elite symbols of power (Milner 1999; Saunders et al. 2005:663).

Palisades, ditches, and embankments are first considered separately from mounds. All types of defensive architecture are then discussed together.

While most researchers agree that the presence of defensive architecture indicates the existence of warfare, few have questioned whether violent skeletal trauma should occur in greater frequency at sites with or without defensive architecture. In her study of human diet and health in late prehistoric eastern Mississippi, Hogue (2007:250) suggests that more skeletal evidence of violent conflict should be observed at large palisaded sites than smaller non-palisaded sites. The threat of violence should be great before a group would be willing to divert a significant portion of its labor force away from subsistence-related activities for defensive architecture construction (Fontana

2007:3; Milner 1999:119). Conversely, other researchers (Dickson 1981; Hodge 2005;

Larson 1972) argue that populations would not spend time constructing defensive works if they did not provide some level of protection over sites that lack defensive architecture.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased significantly with the presence of palisades (3.4% vs. 7.0%) and ditches (2.9% vs. 5.7%). Violent skeletal trauma was also less frequent at sites with embankments (4.6% vs. 5.3%), but the difference was not significant. The results for palisades and ditches indicate that the

149 presence of defensive architecture did provide at least partial shelter from violent conflict for individuals residing within their confines. This interpretation holds true for palisade presence during the Mississippian period and when palisades, ditches, and embankments are considered together. It is possible that embankments were not intentional defensive constructions, but simply a result of ditch or palisade construction (Larson 1972:384).

Alternatively, the lack of a significant result for embankment presence may be the product of the relatively small sample of sites in the data set that contain embankments

(3/61) compared to other defensive architecture types.

Keeley and colleagues (2007) contend that palisades cannot be positively considered to serve a defensive function unless they are accompanied by bastions, baffle gates, and v-shaped ditches. All of the ditches reported in this thesis were either u-shaped or rectangular in cross-section. Also, while baffle gates were recorded at Dallas, Ledford

Island, Ocoee, and Cahokia, tests were not computed for baffle gate presence because all walls around sites should have some means of ingress and egress for the purpose of resource procurement and other survival-related activities. It is more likely that insufficient excavation rather than total isolation from the outside world accounts for the absence of any type of gate at some sites. Contrary to the assessment of palisade function by Keeley et al. (2007), the results presented here indicate that the presence of bastions had no effect (3.4% for palisaded sites with or without bastions) on the defensive capabilities of palisade walls in late prehistoric eastern North America.

A significant decrease in violent skeletal trauma was also observed with the presence of platform mounds (3.7% vs. 6.0%). However, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma increased with the presence of all types of mounds, conical mounds, and ridge top

150 mounds, although the difference was not significant for ridge top mounds (see Figure 8).

Sites that contained platform mounds had significantly lower frequencies of violent skeletal trauma than sites with only other types of mounds. This disparity in results suggests that platform mounds may serve a defensive function, but other mounds were not likely used for defense. These results are not entirely unexpected. Both conical and ridge top mounds served mainly as mortuary facilities. Ridge top mounds have also been interpreted as alignment markers for site planning (Demel and Hall 1998:207). A combination of the sacred character of these burial places and their domed or sloping shapes would make conical and ridge-top mounds impractical for site defense.

Platform mounds on the other hand, have broad flat tops and often serve as substructures for elite residences or religious buildings. Swanton (1911:133) reports that historic Natchez groups in the Lower Mississippi Valley regularly modified a large tree in the center of their fortified settlements to serve as a defensive watchtower. Platform mounds could have provided a similar function in late prehistory, with warriors posted at their summits to identify approaching enemy forces at great distances. It is just as likely, however, that any protection from violent conflict offered by platform mounds was more symbolic than practical. Platform mounds were the most visible cultural features on the landscape in the Mississippian world and served as the physical manifestation of power and authority for the newly formed chiefly elite class (Payne 1994:290). The only Late

Woodland period platform mounds in the data set are from the Coles Creek Lake George

Mount Nebo sites. Coles Creek was the center of the initial development of hierarchical chiefdom societies in eastern North America at least three hundred years before the start of the Mississippian period (Kidder 1992). The size and quantity of these massive

151 earthworks signaled the strength of the chief and the polity (Van Horne 1993:39) and demonstrated the number of able-bodied adults that a chief could assemble for the construction of public works or in times of war.

Since the presence of conical mounds and ridge top mounds appear to have the opposite effect on the frequency of violent skeletal trauma as palisades, ditches, embankments, and platform mounds, it is concluded that they likely did not function as defensive architecture in late prehistoric eastern North America. When conical and ridge top mounds were removed from consideration, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased significantly with defensive architecture presence. These results led to a redefinition of defensive architecture for the purposes of this thesis that proposes a defensive function for only palisades, ditches, embankments, and platform mounds.

Indeterminate mounds were also not included in this definition because their ambiguous shapes or insufficient descriptions gave no clues to their original functions or forms.

Regional Variation

As with the results comparing violent skeletal trauma and time period between multi-component sites, the interregional comparisons discussed below illustrate that patterns in the scale, tactics, and overall nature of warfare are much more complex than can be observed with broad regional trends. Some initial interpretations are made here, but more fine-grained analyses of smaller areas within eastern North America that include independent analysis of previously unreported data sets should be conducted in the future to expand our understanding of prehistoric warfare.

152

Most strikingly, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma in the Oneota sub- region was more than double that of any other sub-region at 13 percent. This was also the only sub-region where violent skeletal trauma was higher in the Mississippian period

(14.5%) than in the preceding Late Woodland period (9.2%). The high level of violent conflict experienced within the Oneota sub-region was not restricted to Norris Farms #36.

All six sites in this sub-region had violent skeletal trauma frequencies greater than nine percent (see Table 1). Previous research has shown that the threat of violence tends to be elevated on frontiers, where there is a greater likelihood that populations are experiencing resource stress and the rules and norms guiding interactions between culturally-related groups are no longer in play (Bamforth 1994; Keeley 1996). The placement of this sub- region on the northern edge of Late Woodland and Mississippian societies may have led to a greater risk of conflict with both expanding populations from the interior and outsiders encroaching from the north and west.

Violent skeletal trauma frequencies in the Moundville and Cahokia sub- regions were most similar to the overall data set at 5.9 percent and 5.7 percent respectively. Also, the Moundville sub-region most closely replicated the patterns of the overall data set. Violent skeletal trauma in the Moundville sub-region decreased through time (14.2% vs. 4.8%), as well as with palisade (4.7% vs. 9.9%) and platform mound

(2.2% vs. 10.8%) presence. A non-significant decrease was also observed with ditch and embankment presence (1.9% vs. 6.3%).

Cahokia, the only site in the Cahokia sub-region with defensive architecture, had a significantly lower frequency of violent skeletal trauma than the sites that lacked defensive architecture (2.3% vs. 6.4%). The only human skeletal remains analyzed from

153 the Cahokia site were recovered from Mound 72 (Fowler et al. 1999). Mortuary analyses suggest that this mound served as a burial space for the highest ranked individuals at

Cahokia, including one individual buried with five possible retainer burials and large quantities of exotic trade goods. Fowler (1974:22) suggests that this individual may have been one of Cahokia’s chiefs. The elite status of the Mound 72 burials and the presence of defensive architecture at the Cahokia site may have sheltered these individuals from the violent conflict occurring at other sites in the Cahokia sub-region.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was 3.5 percent for the Middle

Mississippian sub-region. A lack of available skeletal samples from any Late Woodland period sites may have contributed to this low frequency of violent skeletal trauma.

Unexpectedly, violent skeletal trauma was more frequent in the Middle Mississippian sub-region at sites with platform mounds (5% vs. 2.1%) and embankments (5.5% vs.

2.6%) than sites without those types of defensive works. No information found in the archaeological literature relating to Middle Mississippian sites could explain this surprising increase in violent skeletal trauma with the presence of defensive architecture.

The Hiwassee Island and Plaquemine sub-regions, with 2.5 percent each, had the lowest violent skeletal trauma frequencies of any sub-region. None of the tests computed for the Plaquemine sub-region produced significant results. Again, it is possible that Fisher’s Exact test produces results that are too conservative. For example, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma among Plaquemine sub-region individuals decreased from 3.5 percent at Late Woodland period sites to 0.7 percent at Mississippian period sites, but the difference was not significant. Platform mounds at Lake George and

Mount Nebo were the only defensive architecture reported in the Plaquemine sub-region.

154

According to Kidder (1998:149), defense was not a priority in this area, with the only evidence of a palisade and ditch occurring at a later occupation of the Lake George site than that of the skeletal sample included in the current data set. Also, the resource-rich river valleys in this sub-region allowed Coles Creek and Plaquemine populations to accumulate food surpluses without the need for intensive maize agriculture (Gibson

1974; Rose et al. 1984). As suggested earlier in this thesis, the abundance and reliability of wild resources in the southern Lower Mississippi Valley, along with the isolation of

Coles Creek and early Plaquemine populations from other Woodland and Mississippian groups, may have contributed to the relatively low frequency of violent skeletal trauma observed in the Plaquemine sub-region.

For the Hiwassee Island sub-region the difference in violent skeletal trauma frequency between time periods was less than 0.1 percent. Smith (2003) compared frequencies and patterns of violent skeletal trauma between four Dallas Phase and four

Mouse Creek Phase Mississippian period sites in this sub-region. Working on the assumption that all Dallas and Mouse Creek villages were palisaded, Smith (2003) made no comparisons by defensive architecture presence. When the original surveys associated with these sites (Lewis and Kneberg 1946; Lewis and Lewis 1995) were consulted, it was found that no defensive architecture was reported at the Rymer or Sale Creek sites. For the current study, a significant decrease in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was observed when palisades were present at Mississippian period sites in the Hiwassee

Island sub-region (2.2% vs. 4.2%). However, violent skeletal trauma was significantly higher in this sub-region at sites with ditches (3.8%) than sites that lacked ditches (2.1%).

The low frequency of warfare-related trauma that she observed, led Smith (2003:315) to

155 suggest that “more vulnerable” hamlets or farmsteads may have been the more likely targets of intergroup conflict in this area. No trauma was observed at site 40SU20, the only Hiwassee Island small hamlet in the current data set. The limited data reported here tentatively do not support Smith’s (2003) suggestion until further research is conducted utilizing additional skeletal samples from hamlets and farmsteads.

Site Type Comparisons

Dye (2002) proposed a pattern for late prehistoric warfare in eastern North

America based on the emergence of Mississippian chiefdoms, a class of elite warriors, and a new form of weapon technology. Dye (2002:128) suggests that farmsteads and small to medium sized villages should be most vulnerable to attack. In this model, small unprotected farmsteads should be affected by frequent raids with long-range projectile weapons, while small and medium villages with moderate defenses should be vulnerable only to attacks by a large group of warriors using war clubs. Differences in the types of trauma observed by site type will be discussed later in this chapter. According to Dye

(2002:128) and supported by research by Hodge (2005) at the Moundville site, heavily fortified regional centers would have been sufficiently protected from the brunt of violent conflict occurring within the region.

The results of the current study support part of Dye’s (2002) model and contradicts others. All of the regional centers except for the Late Woodland Hiwassee

Island site contained some form of defensive architecture. The scale of the defensive architecture at regional centers was also more substantial than at other types of sites.

Regional centers appear to have been spared from the majority of intergroup conflict,

156 with a combined violent skeletal trauma frequency of only 2.3 percent. Earlier in this chapter it was suggested that the elite status of individuals buried at Cahokia may have contributed to the relatively low frequency of violent skeletal trauma at this site. While elite burials are more common at regional centers than other types of sites, previous studies comparing social status and trauma at Moundville (Powell 1992) and the Etowah site in Georgia (Blakely 1980) found no significant difference in the frequency of violent skeletal trauma between elite and non-elite burials at these regional centers. These results suggest that either the strength of the defensive architecture or simply the presence of the highest ranking elites provided relative safety from violent conflict for all individuals regardless of social status at regional centers.

For all other site types, however, the rate of violent skeletal trauma was directly related to site size. Isolated hamlets and farmsteads had frequencies of violent skeletal trauma comparable to those at regional centers (2.2%), while the rate of violent skeletal trauma increased to 4.3 percent for small villages and 7.5 percent for large villages. The added strength of the combined populations and dual palisades of the

Turner and Snodgrass sites may have contributed to the low frequency of violent skeletal trauma (1.0%) at these paired sites. At Pinson Cave, 8.7 percent of individuals were directly affected by violent skeletal trauma. Hamilton type points were embedded in seven individuals, and another 50 points were scattered among the remains of the 44 individuals in the cave. The interpretation of this site as the location of a massacre

(Bridges et al. 2000) or “ritualistic homicide” (Oakley 1971:71) may account for the relatively high violent skeletal trauma rate at Pinson Cave.

157

Age and Sex Differences

A frequent theme in previous studies of warfare in prehistoric eastern North

America is that, largely because of their role in warfare, males should outnumber females as the victims of violent conflict (Hodge 2005; Lahren and Berryman 1984; Milner 1998;

Walker 2001). Especially after the development of hierarchical chiefdoms at the transition to the Mississippian period where social status was ascribed rather than achieved, displays of bravery in battle were one of the few ways that young men could hope to elevate their status within their society (Gibson 1972; Van Horne 1993). Milner

(1999:116) suggests that males also put themselves at higher risk of attack because of their participation in remote hunting excursions that isolated small groups of men from their home bases with little hope of assistance against surprise raids.

The results of previous bioarchaeological analyses of violent trauma in eastern

North America indicate that sex differences in the victims of violence varied greatly throughout the region. At Kroger’s Island, Bridges (1996:70) found that males (37.1%) outnumbered females (17.6%) in warfare related deaths when both violent skeletal trauma and the inclusion in mass graves was considered. When Steadman (2008:59) modified the results from Kroger’s Island to exclude the data on mass graves, 20 percent of males and only 8.8 percent of females were affected by violent skeletal trauma. At

Moundville, the frequency of skeletal trauma was more than twice as high for males

(1.0%) than females (0.4%). However, Powell (1992:87) suggested that this difference may be due to sampling biases because non-elite males exhibited more trauma than elite males, who have the most to gain by exhibiting their “prowess” in battle. Conversely,

Milner and colleagues (1991:587) reported that similar frequencies of males (34.6%) and

158 females (29.0%) died as a result of frequent raiding at Norris Farms #36. At the nearby

Orendorf site, violent skeletal trauma was observed in 20.4 percent of both males and females (Steadman 2008:58). Similar rates of violent skeletal trauma between males

(5.6%) and females (6.7%) were also observed by Smith (2003) at Mississippian period sites in eastern Tennessee. However, when temporal phases were considered separately, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was significantly greater in females (7.0%) than in males (1.0%) at earlier Dallas phase sites, while the higher frequency of violent skeletal trauma in males (10.9%) compared to females (6.5%) at Mouse Creek phase sites was not significant (Smith 2003:307).

The current study does not support the general assertion that males were more frequently the victims of violent conflict than females. While the rate of violent skeletal trauma was higher for males than females in nearly all comparisons, none of the results of these tests were significant (see Table 7). However, the data presented here cannot contest that the majority of individuals participating in warfare-related activities were males. While Bridges (1996:72) suggests that warfare-related trauma among females indicates that they participated in raiding, the archaeological record often leaves researchers with only evidence of the victims of violent conflicts and few traces of the perpetrators. This is not to say that members of attacking forces in prehistoric eastern

North America were never injured or that females did not fight alongside men. However, it is unlikely that the remains of inter-group raiders would be deposited alongside their victims. An analysis of the demographic makeup of the victims of violent conflict should offer more insight into the type of warfare fought during the Late Woodland and

Mississippian periods than into the composition of the attacking force.

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Males should be expected to make up a significantly larger proportion of the victims of violent conflict than females if formal battles that pitted large groups of young male warriors against one another were the preferred form of warfare strategy. The similar frequencies of violent skeletal trauma between males and females and the increase in the prevalence of violent skeletal trauma with age, especially between females age groups (6.0% vs. 7.2% vs. 16.2%), observed in the current study supports an interpretation that opportunistic raiding against isolated individuals or small vulnerable work parties was the major warfare strategy employed in late prehistoric eastern North

America (Milner 1999:17; Milner et al. 1991:594).

As observed in the overall data set, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased through time among all female age groups and for middle aged males (Table

8). An increase in violent skeletal trauma frequency between the Late Woodland and

Mississippian periods was reported for young males (6.1% vs. 8.5%) and older males

(4.0% vs. 12.1%), but these non-significant differences between periods do not indicate that a shift from small-scale surprise raids that would have affected all segments of the population to large formal battles fought between male warriors occurred with the emergence of hierarchical chiefdoms during the Mississippian period.

The suggestion that raiding was largely confined to small undefended sites, while lengthy sieges occurred at larger fortified sites (Dye 2002:128; Fontana 2007:3), is also not supported by the age and sex patterns observed in the current study. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma decreased significantly for every adult age and sex category with defensive architecture presence except for older males (see Table 8). The only incongruous result when considering defensive architecture presence is a significant

160 increase in adult male violent skeletal trauma with platform mound presence. Apart from the higher frequencies of violent skeletal trauma at sites that lack defensive architecture, a similar age and sex pattern emerges for both sites with and without defensive architecture until the oldest age group is reached (see Figure 16).

Older females at sites without of defensive architecture were affected by violent skeletal trauma nearly four times more than older females at sites with defensive architecture (28.4% vs. 7.6%) and approximately two times more than any other age and sex group at sites without defensive architecture (Figure 16). If the majority of violence- related trauma observed in older females were arrow wounds or dismemberment, it is likely that these elderly women were singled out as targets of inter-group conflict.

Conversely, if most of their injuries were healed cranial and parry fractures, it is possible that these older females were the victims of a type of female-directed elder abuse perpetrated within their own societies. This scenario would seem more probable if older females at sites with defensive architecture also exhibited exceptionally high rates of violent skeletal trauma. Patterns in the types of violent skeletal trauma will be discussed in the next section. It seems more likely that some subsistence-related task or other activity carried out by elderly females at sites without defensive architecture placed them at greater risk than other segments of the data set.

The most readily apparent observation about subadults in this study is that they comprise such a large portion (38.1%) of the entire data set. Only 2.3 percent of adolescents (12-17 years), 2.1 percent of children (3-11 years), and a single infant (0-3 years) were affected by violent skeletal trauma. Some factor other than violence must account for the high frequency of subadult deaths in the current study. Evidence of poor

161 childhood health in late prehistoric Eastern North America in the form of arrested growth rates (Cook 1984; Lallo 1973; Mensforth 1985), nonspecific periosteal reactions

(Mensforth 1985), decreased tooth size (Larsen 1982), and porotic hyperostosis (Cook

1984; Milner and Smith 1990; Parham and Scott 1980; Rose et al. 1984) suggests that poor nutrition and other physiological stressors associated with the transition to maize agriculture and increased sedentism during these periods may be the cause of the majority of childhood deaths. Patterns of violent skeletal trauma in subadults largely parallel patterns in adults. The frequency of violent skeletal trauma in children decreased significantly through time and with the presence of defensive architecture, palisades, and platform mounds, while the adolescent violent skeletal trauma frequency decreased with defensive architecture presence when all types were considered (see Table 9).

Patterns of Violent Skeletal Trauma by Type

Keeley (1996:49) argues that the psychological stress associated close combat would make shock weapons, such as the war club, the choice of only the most “severely disciplined armies” of state level societies. Projectile weapons, such as the bow and arrow or atlatl, should offer the range and relative safety preferred by warriors in tribes and all but the most complex chiefdoms (Keeley 1996). However, the higher frequencies of cranial blunt force trauma (2.0%) and parry fractures (1.4%) compared to embedded projectile points (0.9%) observed in the overall data set suggests that more injuries were sustained during close combat than by distant sniping (see Figure 3). The lowest violent skeletal trauma frequencies were reported for scalping (0.7%), decapitation (0.6%) and dismemberment or trophy taking (0.5%). However, 1.7 percent (142/8586) of all

162 individuals in the data set were affected when individuals with any of these three types of dismemberment were combined.

The appropriateness of cranial blunt force trauma and parry fractures as indicators of warfare has been heavily questioned. Fractures similar to those inflicted by actual parrying injuries are commonly caused by falls or other accidental injuries. Even the use of the term “parry fracture,” which implies a particular injury mechanism, may lead to hasty interpretations of violence while unsystematically precluding other possible causes (Judd 2008; Lovell 1997). In fact, Lovell (2008:376) reports that trauma to the ribs, hands, feet, and other elements are more likely to be violence-related than forearm fractures. In the current study, 370 individuals were affected by a total of 488 traumatic lesions that did not fall into the above violent skeletal trauma type categories. The ribs were the most affected element (N = 90), followed by the clavicle (N = 65), humerus (N

= 56) and vertebrae (N = 50). Instances of trauma were also reported for the feet (N =

43), femur (N = 33), radius (N = 32), fibula (N = 29), tibia (N = 26), hands (N = 25), pelvis (N = 11), scapula (N = 8), sternum (N = 2), and patella (N = 3). Also, 14 ulna fractures that could not be described as parry fractures and one cranial fracture not classified as blunt force trauma were also observed.

Smith (1996, 1997) contends that parry fractures can only be considered the product of intergroup conflict when they are accompanied within a sample by cranial blunt force trauma. In a later article, however, Smith (2003:315) argued that a high proportion of healed cranial trauma compared to other types of violent skeletal trauma suggests interpersonal violence within a society rather than warfare. Steadman

(2008:53,58) initially considers both perimortem and antemortem blunt force cranial

163 trauma to be warfare-related but later argues that healed trauma may be the result of intra-group violence instead of inter-group conflict when it occurs in higher frequencies than “lethal and mutilation trauma.”

The majority of blunt force cranial trauma (89.9%) observed in the current study was antemortem. However, with only a few exceptions (Lewis and Lewis 1995;

Milner and Smith 1990; Strejewski 2006), the authors whose data are included in this thesis did not attempt to identify perimortem cranial trauma unless lesions were readily apparent due to postdepositional processes that left many crania highly fragmented.

Without a directed search by the original authors for perimortem blunt force cranial trauma or a firm definition of actual parrying injuries, the influence of intra-group violence and accidental injury on patterns of violent skeletal trauma cannot be fully considered in this thesis. However, the occurrence of blunt force cranial trauma and parry fractures together, along with the presence of embedded projectile points, scalping, decapitation, and trophy taking, indicates that warfare was at least present in late prehistoric eastern North America.

Age and Sex Patterns

Males were more frequently affected than females by each type of violent skeletal trauma except for cranial blunt force trauma (see Figure 20); however, the difference was only significant for embedded projectile points. With the exception of the disparity in embedded projectile point frequency between males (2.1%) and females

(1.0%), the pattern of decreasing frequency from blunt force cranial trauma, to parry fractures, embedded projectile points, scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment observed in both sex categories closely conforms to the pattern reported for the overall

164 data set. The possibility that the violent skeletal trauma in males was warfare-related and the female cases of violent skeletal trauma were the result of female-directed violence cannot be eliminated. However, the similar frequencies and patterns of violent skeletal trauma observed between sex categories instead suggest that the form of warfare conducted in late prehistoric eastern North America placed little distinction between male and female casualties.

The frequencies of cranial blunt force trauma and parry fractures increased with age, although only the difference in cranial trauma frequency was significant (see

Figure 19). Conversely, very little difference in the frequency of embedded projectile points, decapitation, scalping, and dismemberment was observed between adult age groups. While all cases of decapitation and dismemberment, as well as most instances of scalping and embedded projectile points, were sustained near the time of death, some individuals may have survived for years with the evidence of cranial blunt force trauma and parry fractures remaining on their bones. However, the accumulation of non-lethal violent skeletal trauma through life appears insufficient to fully explain the large disparity in blunt force cranial trauma and parry fractures between older adults and the two younger age categories (Figure 19).

Earlier in this chapter, it was suggested that older females may have been the victims of elder abuse. While high frequencies of blunt force cranial trauma (7.4%) and parry fractures (5.1%) were observed in older females, they were also more frequently the victims of scalping (2.8% vs. 1.7% & 1.0%) and decapitation (1.1% vs. 1.0% &

0.4%) than middle aged and young females. Also, older males had a similarly high frequency of blunt force cranial trauma (6.3%), although parry fractures were only

165 recorded in 1.5 percent of older men. Walker (1997:163) states that in modern populations, cranial trauma is most often violence-related in adults until their forties and is more frequently caused by accidental falls in individuals over 50 years old. Accidental injury can explain many of the parry fracture cases, but falls would produce a different fracture pattern than the small circular or ellipsoidal depressions associated with war clubs and stone celts most frequently observed in this study. It is possible that older adults were more vulnerable targets of small-scale raiding because they would have been able to offer less resistance to attack than younger and healthier adults.

Site Type Patterns

A significant difference in the frequency of each violent skeletal trauma type, with the exception of dismemberment, was reported between site types. Following the results for overall trauma, the frequency of each type of violent skeletal trauma was highest at large villages, decreased for small villages, and dropped again to little or no trauma in hamlets and farmsteads. Regional centers had the lowest frequencies of any site type for cranial blunt force trauma and embedded projectile points, and frequencies similar to hamlets and farmsteads for parry fractures and scalping. The frequencies of decapitation and dismemberment among regional centers were higher than both hamlets or farmsteads and small villages. As with the comparisons for overall violent skeletal trauma, the decrease in each trauma type with site size further conflicts with Dye’s

(2002) claim that evidence for warfare should be high at small villages and hamlets or farmsteads, but does support his argument that regional centers were spared from the vast majority of violent conflict.

166

The results presented in this thesis also do not support Dye’s (2002) proposed dichotomy of long-range projectile attacks at undefended farmsteads and hamlets and war club battles at fortified village sites. Blunt force cranial trauma and parry fractures occur more frequently than embedded projectile points at hamlets and farmsteads, small villages, and large villages. Also, scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment were reported in lower frequencies than other violent skeletal trauma types at these site types.

All trauma types occurred in relatively low frequencies at regional centers compared to other site types, suggesting that while violent conflict was infrequent at regional centers, attacks did occur at these sites and were sometimes successful.

Sub-Regions

Comparing the frequencies between the types of violent skeletal trauma within each region further illustrates the complexity and variety of warfare tactics and strategies in late prehistoric eastern North America. The Middle Mississippian and Moundville sub- regions violent skeletal trauma patterns most closely resemble the patterns for the overall data set. Blunt force cranial trauma and parry fractures occur most frequently, followed by embedded projectile points, then scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment. A few minor departures from the overall pattern are apparent. Parry fractures (2.4%) occur at a higher frequency than cranial trauma (1.4%) in the Moundville sub-region. Also, scalping is absent in the Middle Mississippian sub-region and there is a preference for the taking of heads (0.6%) compared to other elements (0.1%).

The highest frequencies for all trauma types considered in this study, with the exception of dismemberment, occur in the Oneota sub-region. Parry fractures (5.1%) and blunt force cranial trauma (4.6%) are the most common violent skeletal trauma types

167 found in this sub region, and scalping (3.0%) occurs at a relatively higher frequency than embedded projectile points (1.6%), decapitation (1.7%) or dismemberment (0.8%). The remoteness of the Oneota sub-region from the core of Late Woodland and Mississippian societies and the stress brought on by the influx of foreign populations during the

Mississippian period may account for much of the comparatively increased evidence of violent conflict in this sub-region.

Very few parry fractures (0.5%) and no cases of scalping were observed in the

Cahokia sub-region, which is characterized by relatively high frequencies of blunt force cranial trauma (2.0%), embedded projectile points (1.5%), decapitation (1.1%), and dismemberment (1.4%). Cobb and Harn (2005:66) interpret several cases of decapitation and dismemberment in late prehistoric Illinois as ritual sacrifices associated with the commemoration of burial structures. At the Cahokia site, Cobb and Harn (2005) cite low frequencies of other types of violent skeletal trauma and the interpretation of Mound 72 as a high status burial structure to corroborate this interpretation. Similar instances of decapitation and dismemberment associated with relatively high frequencies of other types of violent skeletal trauma at the Schild, Koster, and Elizabeth sites imply that at least some cases of decapitation and dismemberment were warfare-related (Charles et al.

1988; Perino 1971, 1973b).

For the Hiwassee Island sub-region, blunt force cranial trauma was observed in 1.6 percent of individuals, while all other violent skeletal types had frequencies of 0.4 percent or lower. This low level of warfare-related trauma and the prevalence of blunt force cranial trauma in this sub-region supports Smith’s (2003) interpretation that the

168 violence observed in late prehistoric Tennessee was largely a result of non-lethal interpersonal conflict resolution rather than intergroup warfare.

The Plaquemine sub-region experienced generally low levels of violent skeletal trauma. No violent skeletal trauma type in this sub-region exceeded one percent and scalping was altogether absent. This pattern of low frequencies in all trauma types supports the claim made earlier in this thesis that the isolation of Coles Creek and

Plaquemine chiefdoms and the reliable abundance of wild resources in the Plaquemine sub-region protected these groups from the majority of violent interactions.

Time Period

The pattern of violent conflict during the Late Woodland period indicates a high occurrence of embedded projectile points (2.3%), blunt force cranial trauma (2.2%) and parry fractures (2.4%) and a low frequency of scalping (0.1%), decapitation (0.6%), and dismemberment (0.8%). The frequencies of embedded projectile points (0.6%), parry fractures (1.1%), and dismemberment cut marks (0.4%) decreased significantly into the

Mississippian period, while the frequencies of blunt force cranial trauma (1.9%) and decapitation (0.5%) remained similar to those in the Late Woodland period. Only scalping, at 0.9 percent, was significantly more frequent in the Mississippian period.

The bow and arrow was rapidly adopted across eastern North America during the Late Woodland period. This offered a distinct advantage over the atlatl in range, accuracy, and stealth for both hunting and warfare (Blitz 1988:137; Nassaney and Pyle

1999; Walker 2001). The relatively high frequency of embedded projectile points during the Late Woodland period attests to the strategic advantage that this new weapon technology offered during its initial adoption. However, the similarity in the frequencies

169 of embedded points, blunt force cranial trauma, and parry fractures during the Late

Woodland period suggests that the bow and arrow supplemented, but never replaced older shock weapons as implements of war.

The decrease in the frequency of embedded projectile points through time indicates that the advantage offered by the bow and arrow was short lived. In his treatment of chiefly warfare in the late prehistoric Southeast, Van Horne (1993:237) contends that the war club became a symbol of status among elite warriors during the

Mississippian period and likens their significance to the sword in Medieval Europe and

Feudal Japan. It is possible that Mississippian warriors attempting to elevate their sociopolitical status by demonstrating bravery in battle preferred the war club, which placed them in more direct contact with the enemy, over the bow and arrow. War clubs, however, were in use long before the arrival of chiefdoms in eastern North America

(Milner 1999; Smith 1997; Snow 1948). If the greater importance of the war club in the

Mississippian period held more than a symbolic meaning, a significant increase in blunt force cranial trauma should have accompanied the decrease in embedded projectile points through time. It is more likely, given the non-significant decrease in blunt force cranial trauma frequency that accompanied the decline in embedded projectile point frequency between the Late Woodland and Mississippian periods, that the sudden rise in the construction of defensive architecture during the Mississippian period offered sufficient protection from long-range attacks to offset the military advantage of the bow and arrow

(Larson 1972; Dye 2002; Hogue 2007).

The taking of scalps increased sharply during the Mississippian period, while other forms of dismemberment decreased in frequency. These results are consistent with

170 the survey of trophy taking cases in the Midwest and eastern North America by Ross-

Stallings (2007:Table 12.1), which found only four cases of scalping during the Late

Woodland period and 60 individuals with scalping cut marks from the Mississippian period, excluding the 437 scalping victims from the Crow Creek site. Scalping was not a new warfare technique adopted during the Mississippian period. Evidence for the removal of scalps has been observed in parts of eastern North America as early as the

Late Archaic period (Ross-Stallings 2007; Smith 1997). The cause of this change in dismemberment preference to the taking of scalps over other elements is unclear in light of the current research on Late Woodland and Mississippian period warfare.

Defensive Architecture Presence

The patterns between the violent skeletal trauma types presented here do not support the claim that the presence of defensive architecture at sites in late prehistoric eastern North America necessitated a different warfare strategy than that required at sites without defensive architecture (Bridges et al. 2000; Dye 2002; Hogue 2007). All types of violent skeletal trauma were significantly less frequent at sites with defensive architecture than at sites that lacked defensive architecture. The patterns between the different types of violent skeletal trauma, however, were remarkably similar regardless of the presence of defensive architecture. Blunt force cranial trauma and parry fractures were the most frequent trauma types reported, followed by embedded projectile points, and then scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment (see Figure 18).

With minimal differences, this pattern in the types of violent skeletal trauma was also observed when the presence of palisades, ditches, and platform mounds were considered separately. Sites with these types of defensive architecture, along with sites

171 that lacked any defensive works, most closely parallel the overall pattern. However, no cases of decapitation or dismemberment were reported at sites surrounded by ditches.

Also, embedded projectile points were observed in slightly higher frequencies than parry fractures at sites with palisades (0.8% vs. 0.7%) and platform mounds (1.1% vs. 1.0%).

Additionally, decapitation (0.9%) was more frequently reported than scalping (0.6%) and dismemberment (0.3%) at sites with platform mounds.

The only types of violent skeletal trauma observed at sites with embankments were blunt force cranial trauma (2.3%), parry fractures (1.4%), and decapitation cut marks (1.3%), while sites that lacked embankments maintained the pattern in the violent skeletal trauma types observed for the overall data set. Sites with embankments closely replicate the expected pattern of close-range formal battles suggested for fortified sites by

Dye (2002:128) and Hogue (2007:250). However, the inclusion of only three sites with embankments in the current study suggests that these results may be distorted by small sample size.

While the possibility that large formal battles occurred in late prehistoric eastern North America cannot be entirely rejected, the results of the above comparisons suggest that Late Woodland and Mississippian period warfare most frequently took the form of small-scale raiding. Larson (1972:390) argues that Mississippian fortifications were virtually impenetrable against the weapon technology available in prehistoric eastern North America. The majority of casualties at sites where defensive architecture was present were likely caught isolated and vulnerable away from the confines of these defensive structures just like the victims of violent conflict at sites where defensive architecture was absent. Instead of forcing changes in military strategies and tactics, the

172 presence of defensive architecture at sites may have simply limited the opportunities for lurking raiders to attack unsuspecting victims.

Impact of Preservation Data on Results

The principal difference observed between sites with complete preservation data and the overall data set is a moderate increase in the prevalence of violent skeletal trauma with the presence of preservation data (6.4% vs. 5.3%). The frequencies of embedded projectile points (2.1% vs. 0.9%), dismemberment (1.6% vs. 0.5%), and decapitation (1.6% vs. 0.65%) were significantly higher at sites with preservation data than in the overall data set. Conversely, the frequency of parry fractures was significantly higher in the overall data set (1.4%) than at only sites with preservation data (0.6%).

Also, a significant difference based on the presence of preservation data was not observed for blunt force cranial trauma or scalping. The pattern of violent skeletal trauma for sites with preservation data remained similar to the pattern reported for all individuals, with the exception of the relatively lower frequencies of parry fractures and scalping compared to other violent skeletal trauma types (see Figure 21).

These results are not entirely unexpected. While excluding individuals that were less than 60 percent complete for embedded projectile points and dismemberment and individuals that lacked cervical vertebrae for decapitation at sites with preservation data may have eliminated a small number of individuals with these types of trauma, a greater proportion of individuals without trauma were also not considered. The skull, on the other hand, is the skeletal element most often recovered, described, and analyzed.

Most individuals that could have been examined for cranial blunt force trauma and

173 scalping were included in the analyses of both the overall data set and only those sites with preservation data. Also, a lack of sufficient details on the location and type of fractures that are labeled as parry fractures in the original reports used in this study may have inflated the prevalence of this type of trauma in the overall data set compared to sites with preservation data.

While the frequency of violent skeletal trauma was lower at sites with platform mounds (4.5%) than sites without platform mounds (6.8%) for sites with preservation data, the significant difference observed in the overall data set was not seen for these sites. Significant decreases with platform mound presence seen in the overall data set were also not reported for cranial blunt force trauma in males and females or for parry fractures in females at sites with preservation data. Also, the frequency of decapitation was significantly higher with platform mound presence among females at sites with preservation data, but not for the overall data set. The effect of preservation data on these results calls the defensive function of platform mounds into question.

However, the overall pattern of decreased violent skeletal trauma with platform mound presence (see Figure 24) indicates that original hypothesis of platform mounds as defensive architecture is supported.

While some differences in significance were also seen for comparisons related to time period and sex, the patterns of violent skeletal trauma reported for these variables were similar to the patterns observed in the overall data set. All types of violent skeletal trauma, with the exception of scalping, were reported in higher frequencies in the Late

Woodland than the Mississippian period or were similar between the two periods for sites with preservation data (Figure 22). Also, while males were significantly more affected by

174 embedded projectile points than females, frequencies of other types of violent skeletal trauma were not significantly different between sex groups.

The presence of preservation data affected the significance of 18.6 percent

(11/59) of tests comparing the various types of violent skeletal trauma with platform mound presence, time period, and sex. However, the presence of preservation data did not reverse the directional trend of any comparison that had a significant result in the overall data set. These results suggest that while including reports that lack complete preservation data in large regional studies like the one conducted here may lead to a reporting of lower violent skeletal trauma frequencies, the inclusion of these reports will not greatly affect the overall results.

Summary and Discussion

The results discussed here suggest that when defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma are considered together on a regional scale, these two types of archaeological data offer a somewhat different view of prehistoric warfare than when they are considered separately or if they are compared within a single site. While some fortified sites considered here, such as 1PI61 (16.8%) and Orendorf (11.9%), suffered relatively high frequencies of violent skeletal trauma, sites containing palisades, ditches, embankments, and platform mounds in general provided a level of comparative safety over sites without defensive architecture. Also, similar patterns in the violent skeletal trauma types and the distribution of violent skeletal trauma by age and sex between sites with and without defensive architecture indicate that rather than the presence of defensive architecture signaling a shift from frequent small-scale raids to formal battles involving

175 large groups of male warriors, these defensive works did not necessitate alternative warfare strategies from those practiced at sites that lacked defensive architecture. These defensive works would have been extremely effective at protecting individuals within their confines, but even the most impregnable defenses are “no help if one is caught outside the walls” (Bridges et al. 2000:60). Lone individuals and small groups performing subsistence related or other tasks away from their homes were vulnerable to surprise raiding regardless of the presence of defensive architecture.

The decrease in the prevalence of violent skeletal trauma through time also suggests that while the sudden proliferation of defensive architecture construction during the Mississippian period may indicate an increased concern with warfare or a heightened threat of attack, the spread of defensive architecture actually accompanied a decrease in the overall severity of violent conflict throughout the region. Of course, general trends can sometimes mask variation within the data and should be used only as a testable model rather than as a rule. When sites with both Late Woodland and Mississippian components were considered, the frequency of violent skeletal trauma increased through time in three of the five sites, although the difference was only significant at Dickson

Mounds. Also, both the frequency and patterns of violent skeletal trauma and the prevalence of defensive architecture varied greatly between sub-regions, suggesting that the complex social, political, and environmental factors leading to the occurrence of warfare may have affected these areas in vastly different ways.

Many explanations have been offered as causes of warfare in late prehistoric eastern North America, including resource stress due to population growth or the intensification of maize agriculture, environmental deterioration, the introduction of new

176 weapon technologies, the rise of social complexity, elite male status enhancement, and the fission and fusion of chiefdom societies (see Anderson 1994; Bense 1994; Blitz 1988,

1999; Carniero 1970; Dye 1995, 2002, 2006; Gibson 1974; Larson 1972; Milner et al.

1991). None of these potential causes can yet be discounted due to the paucity of focused research, until recently, that deals directly with the archaeological evidence of warfare. It is also unlikely that any simple explanation related to a single causal factor will be able to explain the presence and intensity of Late Woodland and Mississippian warfare. The purpose of this thesis is not to speculate on the causes of warfare in late prehistoric eastern North America, but rather to identify patterns in the data relating to violent skeletal trauma and defensive architecture. However, an attempt is made here to provide some possible explanations for the occurrence of warfare in late prehistoric eastern North

America and its relationship to the development of social complexity with a preface that this general narrative will surely be unable to account for the great variation in the causes, strategies, scale, and effects of warfare across the region.

Since the majority of studies on warfare in late prehistoric eastern North

America focus on chiefly warfare during the Mississippian period, few explanations have been offered for the initial high rate of violent skeletal trauma during the Late Woodland period. Milner (1999), Blitz (1988) and Walker (2001) draw a connection between the widespread adoption of the bow and arrow during this period and the increase in violent conflict. For groups incorporating this new technology, the bow and arrow offered a distinct advantage over the atlatl in range, accuracy, and stealth (Blitz 1988:137). This shift in weapon technology may have provided the mechanism for an increase in violent

177 conflict, but it does not alone explain why Late Woodland peoples became more violent than the Middle Woodland groups that preceded them.

The adoption of the bow and arrow in eastern North America coincided with two other developments that may have contributed to the high rate of violent conflict during the Late Woodland period. For yet unknown reasons, the Middle Woodland

Hopewell society collapsed, leading to a dispersal of populations into small isolated settlements, a breakdown of trade and other interregional contact, and even a temporary abandonment of some areas like the American Bottom during the Late Woodland period

(Kelley 2002:153; Maxwell 1971; Phillips 1970). Citing the dense pattern of residential structures at Late Woodland sites, Anderson and Mainfort (2002:15) contend that a major episode of population growth also occurred alongside this dispersion.

At the same time that Late Woodland populations were filling the landscape, maize agriculture began to infiltrate the diet of peoples throughout eastern North

America. The first firm evidence of maize in the study area dates to A.D. 400 in eastern

Tennessee (Steponiatis 1986:379). Maize became a major component of diet in many parts of this region by the end of the Late Woodland period (Anderson and Mainfort

2002; Lynott et al. 1986; Yarnell 1993). Maize agriculture offered a stable and reliable food source for those who adopted this new resource. However, the nutrient-rich silty loam soils required for maize cultivation with the existing hoe technology also effectively reduced the portion of the landscape that could be utilized for resource procurement to small “environmentally circumscribed linear bands” within the major river valleys

(Larson 1972; Smith 1978:483). Resource stress brought on by a simultaneous dispersal and increase of populations and the adoption of a new subsistence strategy that decreased

178 the amount of useable land in the region may have provided sufficient motivation for the high levels of violent skeletal trauma seen during the Late Woodland period.

Competition for arable land with the intensification of maize agriculture is the most frequently cited factor contributing to both the rise in sociopolitical complexity and the patterns of warfare in the Mississippian period (see Larson 1972; Dickson 1981;

Milner 1998; Oggs 2003; Steponaitis 1986; Van Horne 1993). However, the rise in social complexity is now known to have predated agricultural intensification in areas like the southern portion of the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Central Tombigbee drainage in

Alabama (Kidder 1993, Welch 1990). Regardless of the type of subsistence strategy being practiced, a need would have arisen for the buildup of surplus resources and a strong organizational structure for the management, redistribution, and defense of those resources as populations continued to grow and fill the landscape to the point where relocation in response to environmental deterioration or conflict over resources was no longer an option (Bense 1994; Carneiro 1970; Fontana 2007; Gibson 1974).

While the complex combination of phenomena that led to the formation of

Mississippian chiefdoms remains poorly understood, the accumulation of subsistence surpluses and their redistribution was likely a valuable tool for the new chiefly elites seeking to secure and maintain positions of power. This concern with the control of food surplus is seen in the shift from underground household storage pits to communal storage in large above ground structures wherever Mississippian chiefdoms appear (Blitz 1993;

Fontana 2007, Mistovich 1988:23; Payne 1994, Scarry 1984; Wesson 1999). Among sites considered in this thesis, evidence for chiefly storage facilities was reported in the form of large wall-trench structures containing accumulations of corn cobs and kernels at the

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Lubbub Creek site (Blitz 1993:100; Lewis and Kneberg 1946:75). Also, similar structures containing corn kernels and human burials were reported at the Toqua site, along with evidence of food storage in the corners of an elite structure that sat atop the main mound

(Polhemus 1990:127,131).

Before the bulk of a population’s economic capitol was concentrated into a relatively small number of elite storage facilities, there would have been little incentive for the erection of site defenses. However, once subsistence resources came under elite control, Mississippian chiefs would have felt pressure from both competing chiefdoms attempting to seize these newly acquired surpluses (Dye 2002) and the individuals responsible for producing them (Wesson 1999) to construct defensive architecture to protect these resources and the populations that depend on them for survival. Once in place, these palisades, ditches, embankments, and platform mounds would have not only served their practical defensive functions, but also signaled an “aura of strength and sense of legitimacy that successful chiefs sought to maintain” (Milner 2000:62).

Previous research illustrates that warfare and defense were persistent concerns of Mississippian societies (Dye 1995, 2002, 2006; Fontana 2007; Milner 1999, 2000; Van

Horne 1993). How, then, can the drastic rise in defensive architecture construction during the Mississippian period and the pervasiveness of warfare-related themes in

Mississippian iconography be reconciled with the overall decrease in the prevalence of violent skeletal trauma through time observed in this thesis? Milner (2000:62-63) suggests that the mere visibility of impressive defensive architecture within a society could often provide a sufficient deterrence against outside attacks. Also, when political control is dominated by a small segment of the population, a complete consensus is no

180 longer required for negotiating peaceful alternatives to all out war (Dye 1995; Keeley

1996:149). In late prehistoric and early historic societies in eastern North America, these peaceful negotiations between competing chiefdoms often took the form of reciprocal gifting of prestige goods, feasting, and ritual smoking, as in the Calumet ceremony of the

Natchez (Brown 1989; Dye 1995, Fenton 1953; Hall 1987; Swanton 1911). Although these peaceful alternatives to war were not always successful, especially in times of heightened social or environmental stress, they may account for the significant decline in violent skeletal trauma seen during the Mississippian period.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

The principal goal of this thesis was to examine the relationship between defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma as they relate to prehistoric warfare. A secondary objective of this study was to identify regional patterning in the practices and scale of violent conflict during the Late Woodland and Mississippian periods in eastern

North America. It was not the intention of this thesis to attempt to de-pacify the past with a compilation of battered bodies and impressive fortifications, but to investigate an aspect of prehistoric society that has until recently been largely overlooked and remains poorly understood. Large-scale regional studies of prehistoric violent conflict offer researchers an opportunity, not only to identify locations and periods when societies were embroiled in war, but also to uncover instances where peaceful interactions prevailed.

In his evaluation of warfare in eastern North America, Milner (1999:128) concludes that “violence plagued prehistoric Eastern Woodland people” during the time encompassed by this thesis. The widespread construction of defensive architecture in the region, along with the remains of individuals who were shot with projectiles, struck with clubs, and had body parts taken by their attackers, can leave little doubt that warfare was a very real concern to Late Woodland and Mississippian peoples. However, the results of this thesis present a view that is a bit less grim. While some areas, such as the Oneota sub-region and the Late Woodland Moundville and Cahokia areas, clearly experienced

181 182 high levels of violent conflict, others like the Hiwassee Island and Plaquemine sub- regions appear to have been spared from the brunt of warfare-related violence. Also, several sites throughout the study area had no evidence of violent skeletal trauma. The results of this thesis can offer neither a Rousseauian view of an idyllic golden age or a

Hobbesian vision of prehistoric life as short and relentlessly brutal, but rather a highly variable view of Late Woodland and Mississippian societies as they navigated through the costs and rewards of both war and peace.

Summary

This thesis presents a preliminary attempt to examine the relationship between multiple lines of evidence for prehistoric warfare in the Lower and Central Mississippi

Valleys and the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain. Through a systematic search of the archaeological literature within the region, data on defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma were collected for 61 skeletal samples from 56 Late Woodland and

Mississippian period sites. The overall frequency of violent skeletal trauma, as well as the frequencies of embedded projectile points, blunt force cranial trauma, parry fractures, scalping, decapitation, and dismemberment or trophy taking, was compared between these sites using chi-square tests to identify patterns in the scale and practices of late prehistoric warfare in eastern North America.

While the presence of defensive architecture indicates that the threat of intergroup conflict was high enough to warrant a significant redirection of labor towards site protection, it cannot alone confirm that attacks occurred at these sites or were successful.

The frequency of violent skeletal trauma was significantly lower at sites with palisades,

183 ditches, and platform mounds than at sites that lacked these defensive works. Violent skeletal trauma was also less prevalent at sites with embankments, but the difference was not significant. The elevated rates of violent skeletal trauma at sites with conical and ridge top mounds, however, led to a redefinition of defensive architecture that excluded these constructions. Also, similarities in the patterns between the violent skeletal trauma types suggest that warfare strategies and tactics were not altered because of the presence of defensive architecture.

The decrease in violent skeletal trauma through time does not support the assumption that the sudden widespread construction of defensive architecture across eastern North America during the Mississippian period indicates an intensification of warfare. The relatively high frequency of embedded projectile points during the Late

Woodland period attests to the importance of the bow and arrow in warfare after its initial adoption. The decline in both projectile injuries and violent skeletal trauma overall between periods suggests that the strength of Mississippian defensive architecture negated any offensive advantage that the bow and arrow may have offered. Also, an increase through time in scalping compared to other forms of dismemberment indicates a shift in the preference of elements that were taken as trophies of successful campaigns.

The majority of violent conflict in late prehistoric eastern North America appears to have taken place at large and small village sites. The highest frequencies of all types of violent skeletal trauma, with slight variations in the patterns for decapitation and dismemberment, were reported at these site types. Either the presence of the highest elite classes or the robustness of site defenses spared individuals at regional centers from the

184 high frequencies of violent trauma seen at village sites. Small, isolated hamlets and farmsteads saw similarly low frequencies of violent skeletal trauma.

Violent skeletal trauma overall, as well as each type of violent trauma except for blunt force cranial trauma, was more prevalent in males than in females, although the difference was only statistically significant for embedded projectile points. The patterns of violent skeletal trauma did not differ enough between sex groups to suggest that formal battles between young male warriors was the dominant strategy of Late Woodland and

Mississippian period warfare. Violent skeletal trauma overall and cranial blunt force trauma increased significantly with age. Parry fractures were also high in older adults, but the difference was not significant. Other violent trauma types were observed in similar frequencies for all adult age groups. Also, violent skeletal trauma was rare in subadults.

These age and sex results, especially the relatively high frequencies of trauma reported in older adults, suggest that small-scale raids targeting isolated and vulnerable individuals or small work parties was the major warfare strategy practiced in late prehistoric eastern

North America.

Limitations of the Study

This study is affected by limitations in the representativeness of both the defensive and bioarchaeological data, the compatibility of data sets collected by multiple observers compiled in this thesis, and the types of questions that can be reasonably addressed through archaeological research. First, the skeletal samples included here may not be representative of the actual populations living within the region during the Late

Woodland and Mississippian periods. It is well recorded that elite burials are often

185 separated from other segments of the population. Warriors may have also been given special burial treatment that might preclude their discovery alongside the other members of their communities. Additionally, environmental conditions within the study area negatively impact the preservation of skeletal material.

Also, as seen by the large number of indeterminate mounds included in the analysis, centuries of erosion, agricultural plowing, urban development, and other environmental and cultural processes have likely erased nearly all traces of many mounds, embankments, and ditches. Palisades are further impacted by the limitations of archaeological excavation. Unlike other types of defensive architecture, palisades rarely remain visible on the landscape into the present day and may be missed if excavations are not sufficiently thorough or are unable to locate the limits of the site.

The data sets incorporated in this study represent a century of archaeological investigations in eastern North America. Methodologies utilized both in the field and the laboratory have undergone major changes during this time. Also, the varying skill levels of the original researchers likely affected both their ability to identify skeletal trauma and make accurate age and sex estimations. The comparison of multiple data sets attempted here was also complicated by differing techniques and levels of detail in the reporting of osteological analyses. The effects of the availability of complete skeletal descriptions on the results of this thesis were evaluated in Chapters IV and V. The inclusion of reports that did not include complete data on skeletal preservation led to an underestimation of violent skeletal trauma frequencies. However, while the significance of several tests was affected, the presence of preservation data did not reverse the trends of any tests computed for the overall data set.

186

Lastly, the data recovered through archaeological research often limit our interpretations to materialist explanations of cultural processes, such as responses to resource stress, environmental change, or shifts in technology. Rarely does the archaeological evidence allow for a serious consideration of the motivations and intentions of the people we are studying. Also, for studies of prehistoric warfare in particular, archaeologists are frequently left with only the victims of violent conflict.

Seldom can the identities of the perpetrators of prehistoric violence be recovered. Were the people we study fighting with their immediate neighbors, competing local chiefdoms, or foes from further abroad?

Implications and Suggestions for Further Research

Regional studies of prehistoric warfare are important because they shift our focus from sensational cases of excessive violence or imposing fortifications to larger trends that may better inform our understanding of the changing roles and effects of warfare on prehistoric societies. While similar studies of prehistoric violent conflict have been conducted in recent years for several regions in North America (Lambert 1997;

Leblanc 1999; Maschner and Reedy-Maschner 1998; Milner 1998, 1999), the current project represents an initial attempt to directly evaluate the relationship between the lines of evidence for prehistoric warfare.

Two major implications of the current study are the indications that the adoption of new types of defensive architecture may not be indicative of an intensification of warfare and that the presence of defensive architecture at a site may lead to a decreased prevalence of other lines of evidence for prehistoric violence. Similar

187 studies should be conducted in other regions where defensive architecture has been found to assess whether the findings presented here hold outside of eastern North America.

While the results of this study may accurately represent the relationship between defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma, it is equally possible that the outcomes of this research may be the product of specific developments within the study area.

As evidenced in the comparisons made between sub-regions and for sites with both Late Woodland and Mississippian skeletal samples, the broad patterns reported in regional studies are often unable to account for the great deal of variability found in the archaeological record. The research by Smith (2003) on violent conflict at several

Mississippian period sites in eastern Tennessee provided a clear explanation of the patterns observed in the Hiwassee Island sub-region. Further research combining previously published sources and original analyses of new data sets should be conducted within more limited areas to tighten our understanding of the temporal and geographical patterns of violent conflict in prehistoric eastern North America

Finally, efforts should be made to incorporate other lines of evidence for prehistoric warfare into future research. While bioarchaeological studies of violent conflict continue to grow in popularity, few studies of defensive technologies exist for eastern North America, and analyses of weaponry or iconography are even rarer. Studies incorporating data on settlement patterns, disease processes and indicators of overall human health, dietary reconstructions, and climatic variability may further expand our understanding of the causes, roles, and effects of prehistoric warfare.

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APPENDIX A

SOURCES OF DATA FOR SITES INCLUDED IN THE DATA SET

Site Name/Number Bibliographical References 1 1GR2 Caddell et al. 1981; Jenkins and Ensor 1981 2 1PI33 Caddell et al. 1981; Jenkins and Ensor 1981 3 1PI60 Caddell et al. 1981; Jenkins and Ensor 1981 4 22OK902N Hogue 2000, 2007 5 40SU20 Benthall 1987 6 Averbuch Berryman 1981 7 Boytt’s Field Hrdlička 1909; Moore 1909; Rose et al. 1984 8 Cahokia Cobb and Harn 2005; Demel and Hall 1998; Fowler et al. 1999; Iseminger et al. 1990; Lallo 1973; Morgan 1999; Young and Fowler 2000 9 Campbell Chapman and Anderson 1955; Speir 1955 10 Candy Creek Lewis and Lewis 1995 11 Chucalissa Childress and Wharey 1996; Lahren and Berryman 1984; Robinson 1976 12 Dallas Lewis and Lewis 1995; Smith 2003 13 Dickson Mounds Cobb and Harn 2005; Harn 1971; Lallo 1973 14 Discovery Miller et al. 2000 15 East St. Louis Stone Milner 1983 Quarry 16 Elizabeth Charles et al. 1988 17 Fenton Mounds Fuller 2010; Wescott 2008 18 Fisher Jeske and Hart 1988; Strejewski 2006 19 Florence Street Emerson et al. 1983 20 Hazel Brandon 1995; Morse and Morse 1983; Renfro 1999 21 Hiwassee Island Lewis and Kneberg 1946; Schroedl 1998; Smith 2003 22 Hixon Lewis and Lewis 1995; Schroedl 1998; Smith 2003 23 Kane Milner 1982 24 Kellogg Village Atkinson et al. 1980 25 Koster Mounds Perino 1973b 26 Kroger’s Island Bridges 1996; Bridges et al. 2000; Webb and DeJarnette 1942

215 216

Site Name/Number Bibliographical References 27 Lake George Egnatz 1962, Williams and Brain1983 28 Lawhorn Moselage 1962; Nash 1962 29 Ledford Island Lewis and Lewis 1995, Smith 2003 30 Lubbub Creek Peebles 1983 31 Lyon’s Bluff Hogue 2000, 2007 32 Middle Nodena Morse 1989; Powell 1989 33 Moundville Knight 1998; Knight and Steponaitis 1998; Powell 1985; Scarry 1998; Vogel and Allan 1985 34 Mount Nebo Giardino 1977; Neuman 1984 35 Mouse Creek Lewis and Lewis 1995; Smith 2003 36 Neeley’s Ferry Brandon 1995; Phillips et al. 1951; Renfro 1999 37 Norris Farms #36 Milner and Smith 1990a, 1990b; Milner et al. 1991; Santure et al. 1990 38 Ocoee Lewis and Lewis 1995; Smith 2003 39 Orendorf Harn 1978; Steadman 2008 40 Pete Klunk Pernino 1973a 41 Pinson Cave Oakley 1971 42 Range Kelley et al. 1983 43 Rolling Hills Hogue 2007 44 Rymer Lewis and Lewis 1995; Smith 2003 45 Sale Creek Lewis and Lewis 1995; Smith 2003 46 Schild Perino 1971a; Perino 1973c 47 Spencer Mound Rutecki 2009; Ullman 1991 48 Tinsley Hill Phillips et al. 1951; Schwartz 1961 49 Tolu Webb and Funkhouser 1931 50 Toqua Parham 1982; Polhemus 1987; Schroedl 1998 51 Turner/Snodgrass Black 1979; Price 1978; Price and Griffin 1979 52 Upper Nodena Mainfort 2005; Morgan 1999; Morse 1989; Powell 1989 53 Vernon Paul Brandon 1995; Gannon 2002; Phillips et al. 1951; Renfro 1999 54 Ward Place Hrdlička 1909; Moore 1909; Rose et al. 1984 55 Yokem Perino 1971b 56 Zebree Morse and Morse 1975; Powell 1977

Site Data References not Cited in the Text

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Black, Thomas K., III 1979 The Biological and Social Analyses of a Mississippian Cemetery from Southeast Missouri, The Turner Site, 23BU21A. Anthropological Papers, No. 68. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

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Chapman, Carl H. and Leo O. Anderson 1955 A Late Mississippi Town Site and Cemetery in Southeast Missouri. Missouri Archaeologist 17(2-3):10-119.

Charles, Douglas K., Steven R. Leigh, and Jane E. Buikstra 1988 The Archaic and Woodland Cemeteries at the Elizabeth Site in the Lower Illinois Valley. Kampsville Archaeological Center research Series, Vol. 7. Center for American Archaeology, Kampsville, Illinois.

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Egnatz, Dennis G. 1962 Skeletal Study of Materials from Mound C at the Lake George Site, Yazoo County, Mississippi. Unpublished B.A. honors thesis, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge.

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