The Everyday of the Hominy Foodway: Changing Lifeways During Early Moundville

Summary

Between A.D. 1120-1260 in the Black Warrior River valley of west-central Alabama, a Mississippian identity first began to take shape that ultimately led to the materialization of the civic-ceremonial center of Moundville. While traditional models hold that feasting played an important role in this process, in this presentation, I propose that the adoption of an ancestral hominy foodway during this formative period restructured everyday household activities, seasonal procurement strategies, and other lifeways, many of which are hallmarks of the Mississippian expression made manifest throughout Moundville's history. To demonstrate this, I draw principally on the results of an experimental archaeological component designed to articulate the everyday experience of hominy making by utilizing replica materials, as well as the results from a recent ceramic analysis of Late Woodland and Early Mississippian sites within the Black Warrior River valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage