Reconsidering Mississippian Communal Food Consumption: A Case for Feasting at Moundville

Summary

Consuming food as a large group in a ritual context generates and reaffirms the social obligations of the participants and the sponsors of the ceremony. This paper evaluates models for feasting from the Mississippian center of Moundville, located in west-central Alabama. Feasting has not been documented in midden assemblages from the site because a wide range of ceramic vessel sizes and a diverse range of faunal species have been recovered. This indicated that the consumption of symbolic species and materials by influential individuals in a mound context was emphasized over communal aspects of social organization. This paper evaluates these models by synthesizing vessel morphological and functional analyses with faunal analysis from newly excavated mound midden assemblages dating from A.D. 1400-1550. Around A.D. 1450, the settlement pattern in the region shifted and certain ritual practices were emphasized as others fell out of favor, suggesting there was a change in social organization. This paper demonstrates that there was a greater range of mound-top food consumption activities occurring during this time than previously documented. This newly observed pattern of food consumption in a ritual context at a large ceremonial center has implications for the communal nature of social organization in prehistoric Southeastern societies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16895