Reading between the Lines: A Contextual and Processual Approach to Social Interactions in the Woodland Period of the American Southeast through Integrated Analyses of Complicated Stamped Pottery

Summary

Archaeologists have turned increasingly to Social Network Analysis (SNA) to visualize and understand the structure of regional social networks, but their analyses frequently sacrifice context and process for synchronic, macro-scale patterning. We compare SNA with a more contextual and processual network approach to the case of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery, a ubiquitous class of material culture In the Deep South of the American Southeast during the Middle and Late Woodland periods (ca. AD 100 to 800). The impressions of wooden paddles carved with an array of unique designs serve like maker’s marks in documenting Swift Creek vessels finished with an individual identifiable tool. By combining design data, patterns of vessel form and use, determinations of vessel provenance through NAA and petrography, and absolute dating, this research ascertains types of social interaction (migration, residential mobility, post-marital residence, and exchange) and their predominant directions and levels of intensity over time and across multiple ecological, social, and cultural contexts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Chaco and Hopewell: Rethinking "Interaction Spheres" Through Multiscalar Network Analyses

Keywords

Spatial Coverage