Maize, Womanhood, and Matrilineality: A Study from the Mississippian Site of Moundville, Alabama

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Kin, Clan, and House: Social Relatedness in the Archaeology of North American Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence demonstrates that various factors can influence kinship patterns, but among the most influential are those related to subsistence. However, such findings are rarely applied to the prehistoric American South, where researchers largely project the matrilineal descent of historic Native groups into the pre-Columbian past. While the widespread practice of this matrilineal descent does suggest prehistoric origins, the notable shift from small-scale horticulturalists and agriculturalists of largely endemic plants during the Woodland period to large-scale agriculturalists of the introduced maize plant in the Mississippian period deserves closer attention. Here, I use complementary lines of archaeological evidence to suggest the practice of matrilineality in the Mississippian Black Warrior River Valley of west-central Alabama replaced an endemic Late Woodland system of patrilineality. I suggest that this change was triggered by the widespread adoption of a number of practices related to maize agriculture that can broadly be summarized as "Mississippian womanhood."

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Kin, Clan, and House: Social Relatedness in the Archaeology of North American Societies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25469