Was Yankeetown an Angel Mounds Progenitor? A thesis submitted to the Division of Graduate Studies and Advanced Research of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Anthropology of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences 2012 by Phoebe G. Pritchett B. Arts, Indiana University, 2011 Committee: Kenneth B. Tankersley (Chair) Heather Norton Abstract A significant and lingering question in Ohio Valley archaeology is the genetic ancestry and cultural origin of Mississippian peoples. Most archaeologists assume that Mississippian peoples migrated into the Mississippi River valley from an undefined cultural homeland. A plethora of recent archaeological data, however, challenges the cultural homeland hypothesis. An alternative hypothesis suggests that Mississippian culture developed from a pre-existing in situ population in the Ohio River valley, such as Yankeetown. Evidence in support of this hypothesis is the appearance of Mississippian-like artifacts and features that predate developed Mississippian populations. Presently, these diametrically opposed hypotheses remain untested. The development of Mississippian sites seems to happen simultaneously over a large area with a multitude of potential causes. Migration may have played a role in some areas, but not everywhere. Mississippianization of the area may be a result of a combination of human population growth, changes in subsistence strategy, and/or sociopolitical organization. The Yankeetown site, which dates from ca. A.D. 700 to A.D. 1100, has been defined as both a Late Woodland and Emergent Mississippian site depending upon cultural traits and inferred subsistence strategy. It is located in Warren County, Indiana, less than ten miles from the Mississippian Angel Mounds site located in adjacent Vanderburgh County, Indiana. Angel Mounds was occupied between ca. A.D. 1050 and A.D. 1400 and is a classic example of a Mississippian ceremonial center, village and mortuary site with platform mounds and a central plaza. The possible relationship between Yankeetown and Angel Mounds has long been debated. Because of the chronological overlap and geographic proximity of these two sites, it seems likely that goods, services, or people were exchanged. Alternatively, it may be possible that the people of Yankeetown were the founding population of Angel Mounds. ii If the Yankeetown people were the progenitors of Angel Mounds, then we should expect to see a closely related pattern of cultural traits (i.e., artifacts and archaeological features). In order to test the relationship of the cultural traits of Yankeetown and Angel Mounds, I performed hierarchical cluster analysis on 364 distinctive cultural traits from sixteen penecontemporary archaeological assemblages in the Midwestern United States using Euclidean distances and maximum linkages (i.e., complete linkage clustering). The resulting dendrogram, or cluster tree, shows varying degrees of similarity between Yankeetown and other Late Woodland/Emergent Mississippian sites such as Raymond, Dillinger, and the Lewis Phase, as well as Kincaid, a Mississippian site. Angel Mounds is more similar to Aztalan, a Mississippian site in Wisconsin than it is to Yankeetown. Hierarchical cluster analysis is a good indicator of the similarities between material cultures, and provides a clearer picture of the distinctions between different ancient Native American cultures than does genetic analysis. The mtDNA of prehistoric human populations in this study has too small a resolution to correlate with modern North American Indian tribal groups. Artifacts and archaeological features provide the best indicator of cultural affiliation. If studies utilizing expanded regions of the genome exhibit a similar pattern to those observed here, it could have important implications for the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). iii iv Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Kenneth Tankersley for helping make this research possible. I would also like to thank Dr. Heather Norton for being on my committee and being my second reader. I would also like to thank the Court Family Foundation. I owe all my fellow graduate students a debt of gratitude for their endless support and for making the department a cheerful place to work. I would like to thank my family for supporting my interests and pushing me to succeed, especially my mom, Holly Pritchett, who took time out of her own graduate career to proofread this work, and my dad, Charlie Pritchett, who eagerly supplied copies of my proposals to anyone who asked. Finally, I would like to thank Joseph Migliano for keeping me focused and reminding me that the glass is half-full. v Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ xi Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Hypotheses .......................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 2: Background ............................................................................................................... 4 History of the Yankeetown Type Site ................................................................................. 4 Mississippian Culture.......................................................................................................... 7 Description of Angel Mounds ............................................................................................. 8 Geochronology .................................................................................................................. 11 Interactions between Yankeetown and Angel Mounds .................................................... 15 Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................... 17 Origin of Ancient Ohio Valley Cultures ........................................................................... 17 The Late Woodland Period ............................................................................................... 18 Emergent Mississippian Hypotheses ................................................................................ 19 Hierarchical Cluster Analysis ............................................................................................ 22 A History of Cluster Analysis in Archaeology ................................................................. 22 Chapter 4: Methods ................................................................................................................... 24 Statistical Methods ............................................................................................................ 24 Chapter 5: Data ......................................................................................................................... 26 vi Late Archaic (Glacial Kame) ............................................................................................ 26 Early Woodland (Adena) .................................................................................................. 27 Middle Woodland (Hopewellian Tradition) ..................................................................... 29 Middle Woodland (Laurel Focus) ..................................................................................... 31 Late Woodland (Dillinger Phase) ..................................................................................... 33 Late Woodland (Lewis Phase) .......................................................................................... 34 Late Woodland (Newtown Phase) .................................................................................... 35 Late Woodland (Raymond Phase) .................................................................................... 36 Late Woodland (Yankeetown Phase) ............................................................................... 37 Late Woodland (Whittlesey) ............................................................................................ 42 Mississippian (Angel Mounds) ........................................................................................ 43 Mississippian (Kincaid) ................................................................................................... 45 Mississippian (Aztalan) ................................................................................................... 46 Fort Ancient .................................................................................................................... 48 Oneota ............................................................................................................................. 50 Prehistoric Neutral .........................................................................................................