Blood in the Waters: Violence in the Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Eastern Woodlands

The Late Prehistoric and Mississippian populations of the Eastern Woodlands were deeply interconnected, engaging in long-distance trade and cultural transmission across great swaths of North America. Groups traded for exotic goods and non-local pottery, sharing the iconography that adorned them. They also traded blows; groups like the Oneota, Mississippians, and Fort Ancient engaged in repeated instances of conflict. Archaeological evidence of conflict is represented by the many palisaded villages throughout the region, and iconography depicting warrior figures. Bioarchaeological evidence of conflict tells a more nuanced story. Skeletal evidence of trophy taking, injury recidivism, lethal and non-lethal trauma, and patterned victimization reveal that conflict in the Eastern Woodlands was not just an on-going series of indiscriminate raids designed to kill and capture helpless victims. Instead, some individuals were off-limits and victims fought off attackers. Aggressors performed a multitude of different acts, lethal and non-lethal, on their targets, attempting to injure and kill some, while killing and maiming others. Papers will focus on the nuanced details of conflict in the Mississippian and Late Prehistoric periods of the Eastern Woodlands, and cover a range of topics including victim identity, types of trauma, and conflict practices as seen through the bioarchaeological record.