Networks of Exchange in the Late Archaic Southeast: Copper and Crematory Practices

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Societal complexity, once a stalwart of archaeological research, has become increasingly difficult to define as archaeologists increasingly look at its various aspects, including entrenched authority, monumental architecture, and economic specialization as rising independently of one another. To date, long-distance exchange among hunter-gatherer communities has not received the same level of attention as other aspects of complexity. This paper examines the movement of copper across vast distances during the Archaic period (8,000-3,000 B.P.) and considers the implications of this exchange. Found in a mortuary context in a site created, in part, through ritual events, this paper investigates the connection between cosmological belief systems and far-flung trade networks. We also provide evidence that the trade linking the Great Lakes and coastal Georgia was not a simple, down-the-line network in which objects moved through innumerable hands over vast amounts of time, but rather a more direct line of exchange that transferred both objects and information, including mortuary traditions. Alongside other exchange networks through which hypertrophic blades, zoomorphic beads, and other items moved across the Eastern Woodlands, the exchange of copper between the Great Lakes and the Southeast United States suggests a massive reconfiguration of social networks during the Archaic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24612