Mortuary Behavior and Social Organization at Indian Knoll and Dickson Mounds

Abstract

Two prehistoric mortuary sites, one from the Archaic and one from the Mississippian period, are compared with regard to the importance of age and sex as status-bearing variables. Statements about social organization in the two societies are examined using mortuary data, specifically, grave-good inclusions with burials. Cluster analyses at Indian Knoll in Kentucky and Dickson Mounds in Illinois show significant differences in cluster formation which can be interpreted in social organizational terms. These interpretations pertain both to the importance of age and sex and to wider principles of organization. Indian Knoll is found to be less egalitarian in organization than expected; Dickson Mounds, less hierarchical than expected.

Human Paleopathology: Current Syntheses and Future Options

“…Furthermore, the greatest difference between stressed and nonstressed group mean ages at death occurs in the MM period. Since this is also the horizon in which status differences are likely to be greatest (Rothschild 1979), these data suggest that lifelong differences in social status, and therefore differential cultural buffering from stress, may be important. Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess cultural buffering in archeological populations.…”

Pathways to Power

“…Other archaeolOgical examples that I would propose include the Natufian in the Levant with rich child burials (Henry 1985), Early and Middle Jomon communities in Japan, the Indian Knoll community with wealthy child burials (Rothschild 1979), the Late period Chumash with their abundance of regionally exchanged beads and still-elevated levels of violent death (King 1978(King , 1990Lambert 1992;Lambert and Walker 1991), the late prehistoric Iroquois, some Basketmaker and early Pueblo villages (lightfoot and Feinman 1982), some European Upper Paleolithic groups, and the European Neolithic causewayed enclosure communities where feasting, ritual, and sometimes violent conflict were prominent (Clarke et al 1985:134). Also of importance is the explicit link between these developments and an increase in resource production (Clarke et al 1985:134;King 1990:117-118).…”

Foundations of Social Inequality

“…Much of my archaeolOgical data did not seem to fit traditional characterizations of power and status distinctions. The most bothersome discrepancy was the expectation that high-status burial goods in children's graves should only occur in chiefdom types of communities, whereas there seemed to be a number of archaeolOgical and ethnographic instances of high-status burial goods accompanying children in communities that lacked clear chieftainships (e.g., Mainfort 1985:576;O'Shea 1984:251;Rothschild 1979;Shennan 1982:30).…”

“…Standard archaeological interpretations of ascribed status lead archaeologists to expect lavish grave goods accompanying children to occur only in stratified class societies, that is, chiefdoms and states. However, on the basis of archaeolOgical and ethnographic examples, it seems clear that this practice of ascribing status to children begins in many typical transegalitarian societies without socioeconomic stratification or settlement hierarchies (Mainfort 1985:576;O'Shea 1984:251;Rothschild 1979;Schulting 1994:62;Shennan 1982:30).…”

“…Other archaeolOgical examples that I would propose include the Natufian in the Levant with rich child burials (Henry 1985), Early and Middle Jomon communities in Japan, the Indian Knoll community with wealthy child burials (Rothschild 1979), the Late period Chumash with their abundance of regionally exchanged beads and still-elevated levels of violent death (King 1978(King , 1990Lambert 1992; Lambert and Walker 1991), the late prehistoric Iroquois, some Basketmaker and early Pueblo villages (lightfoot , some European Upper Paleolithic groups, and the European Neolithic causewayed enclosure communities where feasting, ritual, and sometimes violent conflict were prominent (Clarke et al 1985:134). Also of importance is the explicit link between these developments and an increase in resource production (Clarke et al 1985:134;King 1990:117-118).…”