A Multi-Site Analysis of Intergroup Violence in East Tennessee of 1300-1600 C.E.: Temporal and Regional Patterns

Summary

A meta-analysis of deliberate violent trauma (i.e., inflicted projectile points, antemortem blunt force cranial trauma, scalping, body element dismemberment and retrieval) in the human skeletal assemblages of twenty late prehistoric sites (N = 1300+ individuals) was undertaken to determine temporal (Dallas phase [1300-1540 C.E.], Mouse Creek phase [1400-1600 C.E.]) and/or regional patterns within the Ridge-and Valley physiographic province of East Tennessee. The site samples were retrieved from what are now six reservoirs that impound either the main channel of the upper Tennessee River (Chickamauga and Watts Bar Reservoirs) or its tributaries (the rivers of Clinch-Powell [Norris and Melton Hill Reservoirs], Little Tennessee [Tellico Reservoir], Hiwassee [Chickamauga Reservoir], and French Broad [Douglas Reservoir]). The results indicate distinct regional differences in pattern and prevalence of violent trauma that co-associate with population density. Additionally, lower East Tennessee, despite evidence of sociopolitical change (Dallas phase to Mouse Creek phase), has the highest prevalence of intergroup (i.e., lethal) and interpersonal (i.e., non-lethal) deliberate trauma. The inter-regional differences parallel previous archaeological assessment of mortuary patterning that identified ‘ethnic’ differences in east Tennessee and, are apparently coincident to the descriptions by the Hernando de Soto Entrada of 1540 for the (elusive) boundary of the Coosa polity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Blood in the Waters: Violence in the Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Eastern Woodlands

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14989