Beyond palisades: The nature and frequency of late prehistoric deliberate violent trauma in the Chickamauga Reservoir of East Tennessee

Abstract

Based on the presence of palisades and an iconography suggesting a warrior elite, warfare is presumed to be endemic in the Late Mississippian period (AD 1200-1600) of the southeastern United States. Warfare is theorized to play a vital role in the cycling of chiefdoms. However, apart from a few exemplary cases that display double-digit frequencies, very little direct (i.e., skeletal) evidence of violent trauma has dovetailed with the archaeological presumptions of warfare. Eight sites from the Chickamauga Reservoir of east Tennessee were examined for skeletal evidence of deliberate violent trauma. Violent trauma was anticipated because these sites are in close proximity and consist of two adjacent, sociopolitically distinct, and temporally overlapping phases: Dallas (AD 1300-1600) and Mouse Creek (AD 1400-1600). In addition to small, round, nonlethal ectocranial blunt-force trauma (BFT) on the frontal and upper parietal bones, inflicted projectile points and scalping were identified. The low total trauma frequency in the Dallas sample (3.86%, n = 259) is consistent with emerging evidence from east and west Tennessee Late Mississippian data, but significantly different from Mouse Creek (8.06%, n = 273). The proportion of nonlethal cranial BFT in the collective Chickamauga sample is large and at odds with the Tennessee River Valley comparative literature. Based on other bioarchaeological literature, this pattern suggests intragroup violence, but not face-to-face ritual contests. It is better explained as interpersonal conflict resolution along codified lines. This is consistent with southeastern ethnohistoric data and may explain the more frequent cranial BFT in the less stratified Mouse Creek phase, which likely would not have had an overarching civil authority.

An ectocranial lesion on the middle Pleistocene human cranium from Hulu Cave, Nanjing, China

“…The completely healed bone surface is characteristically depressed and relatively smooth (Ortner and Putschar, 1981;Smith, 2003). Documented cases in which the individual survived for some period of time (Hamperl and Laughlin, 1959;Ortner and Putschar, 1981;Aufderheide and Rodríquez-Martin, 1998;Smith, 2003) result in both necrotic bone resorption of portions of the external table and the subsequent partial regrowth of the exocranial bone in the affected area. The lesion on Hulu 1 conforms to this general pattern in that it has a well-demarcated, generally smooth but unevenly remodeled surface with coarsely pitted or nodular bone.…”

“…With the removal of a portion of the scalp, in the absence of cutmarks into the external table, the localized exocranial surface should have a series of pathological changes, including bone necrosis and the presence of inflammatory granulation tissue in the diploë which isolates the necrosis from the underlying normal skull tissue. When new bone regenerates from the remaining diploë, the necrotic outer table is shed (Hamperl and Laughlin, 1959;Smith, 2003). The completely healed bone surface is characteristically depressed and relatively smooth (Ortner and Putschar, 1981;Smith, 2003).…”

“…When new bone regenerates from the remaining diploë, the necrotic outer table is shed (Hamperl and Laughlin, 1959;Smith, 2003). The completely healed bone surface is characteristically depressed and relatively smooth (Ortner and Putschar, 1981;Smith, 2003). Documented cases in which the individual survived for some period of time (Hamperl and Laughlin, 1959;Ortner and Putschar, 1981;Aufderheide and Rodríquez-Martin, 1998;Smith, 2003) result in both necrotic bone resorption of portions of the external table and the subsequent partial regrowth of the exocranial bone in the affected area.…”

Warfare related trauma at Orendorf, a middle Mississippian site in west‐central Illinois

“…The Orendorf site is of special interest because it is considered the first large town in the region and a minimum of two of the five sequentially built settlements were palisaded (also the earliest in the region), suggesting that the threat of external aggression was felt during at least the last half of the century-long occupation (Santure, 1981;Conrad, 1991). The archaeological evidence of palisades creates an expectation of violent external relations (Milner, 1999), though the presence of palisades should not be the only criteria for inferring warfare (Ferguson, 1997;Smith, 2003). Additional archaeological evidence of warfare at Orendorf includes two pipes recovered from the habitation site that were decorated with warrior portraits containing falconoid eye decoration and interpreted as a symbol of war (Conrad, 2005).…”

“…This study examines the Orendorf skeletal remains and mortuary contexts to determine whether evidence of interpersonal trauma is present and, if it is, assesses whether the violence is consistent with intergroup warfare or intragroup violence, such as codified or ritualized conflict resolution, both of which have been documented at other Mississippian sites (e.g. Bridges, 1996;Smith, 2003;Strezewski, 2006). If the expectation of intergroup violence at Orendorf is realized then social relations in the region were already strained prior to the arrival of the Oneota.…”