Craft, commerce, and community at Kolomoki: domestic craft producers in the Woodland period of the American Southeast

Summary

Archaeological considerations of craft production and specialization in the American Southeast has often focused on elaborate prestige goods crafted from exotic materials. Less frequently studied is the potential for specialized production of mundane household goods. Recent research from the Southeast suggests that intensive production of such items was occasionally practiced at the household level among Middle and Late Woodland period (ca. 200 B.C. – A.D. 1000) societies, which generally lacked centralized political authority and hereditary inequality, features typically associated with economic specialization.

Investigations at Kolomoki, a large Middle-to-Late Woodland mound and village complex in southwest Georgia, have produced evidence for intensive crafting within domestic contexts at a scale implying production for distribution and use beyond the household. Here I review the evidence for craft specialization and exchange from Kolomoki and attempt to situate it within an exchange network predicated upon periodic ritual gatherings associated with Swift Creek and Weeden Island interaction. I argue that periodic convergence at Kolomoki and other mound centers temporarily brought together individuals from various ecological and geological zones, providing an outlet for craft producers and visitors to exchange raw materials and finished goods.

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): 16636