The social networks and structural variation of Mississippian sociopolitics in the southeastern SEE COMMENTARY United States Jacob Lulewicza,1 aDepartment of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130 Edited by David G. Anderson, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Elsa M. Redmond January 16, 2019 (receivedfor review October 24, 2018) Network approaches in archaeology offer a promising avenue for and testable and serve to inform our understanding of structural facilitating bottom-up, comparative approaches to sociopolitical or- dynamics that are often difficult to detect through more qualitative ganization. While recent applications have focused primarily on approaches. The purpose of this paper is not to negate, confirm, or migration and demographic trends, identity and identity politics, even critically contemplate the concept of the chiefdom. Nor is it the and the dynamics of geopolitical and regional interaction, little in the purpose of this study to evaluate the use of the chiefdom concept in way of comparative sociopolitical organization has been attempted. navigating the deep indigenous histories of the southeastern United In this study, I present an alternative approach to the use of States. Rather, the purpose is to explore fundamental variability sociotypological models across southern Appalachia. In particular, I among political landscapes and, more specifically, to explore the re- demonstrate the value in employing network analyses as a mode of lational foundations through which sociopolitical institutions were formally and quantitatively comparing the relational structures and inevitably constituted, generated, maintained, and transformed. As organizations of sociopolitical landscapes; in this case, those tradi- such, the major implications of this study include (i) an understanding tionally characterized as constellations of chiefdoms. By approaching that as regional chiefdoms developed, community leaders drew on southern Appalachian histories through the relationships upon preexisting social and political conditions to advance claims to power which social, political, and economic institutions were actually built, and status; (ii) the realization that although networks of chiefly in- ANTHROPOLOGY I move the study of southeastern political systems beyond the use of teraction and engagement—through warfare, trade, and strategic models that emphasize the behaviors of elites and the ruling class as diplomacy—experienced cycles of development and collapse (e.g., inspired by the ethnographic and ethnohistoric records. To these – ends, using a robust regional ceramic dataset, I compare network refs. 6 8), wider networks of intimate relationships were much more histories and political landscapes for the southern Appalachian durable; and (iii) the demonstration that ethnohistoric accounts of region between ca. AD 800 and 1650. The results of these analyses the chiefdom of Coosa encountered by Spanish explorers (which have contribute insights to the study of small-scale political organizations been used intensively to interpret archaeological patterns) articu- by demonstrating that (i) as chiefdoms developed, leaders drew on late well with the archaeological network evidence for the develop- preexisting social and political conditions; (ii) while networks of ment of region-wide networks during this protohistoric period. chiefly interaction were defined by instability, wider networks of Chiefdoms, as commonly defined, are a generalized societal type interaction were much more durable; and (iii) quantitative network that refers primarily to hierarchical political organization based on analyses and qualitative ethnohistoric accounts can articulate with kinship. Such generalized patterns have been well documented one another to shed light on indigenous political organization. Significance social network analysis | sociopolitical organization | archaeology | southeastern United States An alternative approach to the use of sociotypological models in interpreting sociopolitical organization is presented. The devel- n AD 1540, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, traveling opment of analytical and conceptual strategies to compare and Iacross the southernmost stretch of the Appalachian Mountains, describe sociopolitical organizations is a cornerstone of anthro- encountered an indigenous political landscape characterized by a pological inquiry. This study contributes to such disciplinary foci number of autonomous villages loosely bound together under the by presenting a formal, comparative approach to the study of influence of a single powerful chief, then residing at the town of sociopolitics, particularly contributing to discussions of the evo- Coosa in what is today northern Georgia (Fig. 1) (1, 2). Indeed, the lution and development of organizational complexity in small- ethnohistoric record of the southeastern United States is replete scale, nonstate societies. Beyond archaeology however, this study with descriptions of indigenous social and political organization (see demonstrates the value of a deep, historical perspective on the refs. 1 and 3–5) and has been employed extensively in archaeological evolution of human networks more broadly and highlights the contexts as a model for reconstructing political landscapes reaching value of a productive relationship between contemporary social, back centuries before European contact. Of particular import has economic, and political theory and the historical sciences for the been the use of the ethnohistoric record as a model (or at least a investigation of both past and present societies. preliminary basis) for identifying, characterizing, and interpreting the emergence and dynamics of complex social and political orga- Author contributions: J.L. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and nizations in the archaeological record of the Southeast. In this study, wrote the paper. I present an alternative, comparative approach to the use of socio- The author declares no conflict of interest. typological models in the southern Appalachian region. In particu- This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. D.G.A. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board. lar, I demonstrate the value in employing network analyses as a Published under the PNAS license. mode of formally and quantitatively comparing the relational See Commentary on page 6519. structures and organizations of sociopolitical landscapes; in this case, 1Email: [email protected]. those traditionally characterized as constellations of chiefdoms. This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. The quantitative analyses employed here, which shed light on 1073/pnas.1818346116/-/DCSupplemental. the development of complex societies like chiefdoms, are replicable Published online February 19, 2019. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818346116 PNAS | April 2, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 14 | 6707–6712 Downloaded by guest on September 28, 2021 classic Mississippianization that includes increased sociopolitical complexity, institutionalized socioeconomic inequality, new ritual and religious practices, and intensified agricultural economies (29). For the southern Appalachian region, this includes the emer- gence of Etowah, what would have been the largest and most complex community in the region and likely coeval with the early emergence of Mississippian cultural practices at the Macon Plateau site in central Georgia (8, 30, 31). The second transition is charac- terized primarily by the abandonment of the community at Etowah ca. AD 1325 to 1350 and the subsequent reorganization of the southern Appalachian settlement landscape. In contrast to the de- velopmental sequence of Etowah and northern Georgia, such regional hierarchical organizations and intensive community aggregation seem to have been absent from the historical trajectory of communities in eastern Tennessee (32–34). To explore these political landscapes before and after these transitions, I draw on a database of roughly 350,000 ceramics from nearly 100 archaeolog- ical components from across southern Appalachia (Fig. 1). Al- though the political landscapes spanning this 850-y period have been Fig. 1. The southern Appalachian region showing the location of sites described as being dominated by chiefdom (or incipient chiefdom) used in this study. Labels indicate the most well-studied and well-known political organizations, I explore variation in the actual network Mississippian mound sites in the region: Etowah (9Br1), Wilbanks (9Ck5), topologies and structural characteristics of these landscapes. Bell Field (9Mu101), Little Egypt (9Mu102), Sixtoe Field (9Mu100), Hixon (40Ha3), Dallas (40Ha1), Hiwassee Island (40Mg31), DeArmond (40Re12), Results and Discussion Toqua (40Mr6), and Martin Farm (40Mr20). Two different kinds of networks are evaluated and compared. One set of networks is built from information on the highly visible decorative attributes adorning the exterior of ceramic vessels. The across the southeastern United States and especially the southern – other set is built on low-visibility technological choices, particularly Appalachian region (1, 2, 8 11). A product of mid-20th-century temper selection (the aplastic materials added to clay paste to alter neoevolutionism (see refs. 12 and 13), the use of sociopolitical its thermal and mechanical properties). High-visibility attributes types has dominated archaeological interpretations of social and reflect