Phased Out: The Distinctive Identities of Late Mississippian Communities in Eastern Tennessee

Summary

An often-made presumption is that an archaeological phase (defined mainly by pottery or projectile point types) represents a social group with shared identity. This perspective can conceal other types of cultural variation and practices that may be more significant for presenting and representing group identity. The broadly–defined Dallas Phase in the Upper Tennessee Valley provides a late Mississippian-period example of this type of presumption. While there are broad similarities in pottery styles throughout this large region, there also are distinct differences among architectural styles, mortuary practices, and community plans, as well as in biological variation, which went unrecognized by previous scholars because collections from large, New Deal-era excavations were not studied for decades. This variation at the community level also is situated in differing histories of Mississippian development between geographic localities within the region. An exploration of variation among late Mississippian communities in eastern Tennessee exposes unique characteristics and facets of group identities that archaeological terminology has concealed. The new, comparative view presented in this paper also reveals a dynamic landscape of distinctive communities rather than a monolithic, normative "culture."

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• See How We Are: Representing Identity in the Ancient Americas

Keywords

Spatial Coverage