An Isotopic Assessment of Late Prehistoric Interregional Warfare in the Southcentral US

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

There is a great need to develop better methods to identify and quantify warfare when it occurs without accompanying written documentation, and to consider alternative explanations of data. This study tests if late-prehistoric Caddo communities in southwest Arkansas were committing large-scale acts of violence against neighboring regions. Concurrent archaeological evidence of increased violence in the Southern Plains and the Eastern Woodlands may reflect increasing tensions between regions. Alternatively, unusual burial treatments often attributed to warfare might indicate alternative practices involving transport of partial skeletal remains for special burial at important regional centers. Previous research has suggested that deposits of skulls and mandibles at the Crenshaw site in southwest Arkansas were victims of warfare from other regions, but research based on Sr isotopes suggested they were local burials. This study recognizes the weakness of using Sr isotope data alone and uses Pb isotopes in combination to evaluate the geographic origin of the remains. In order for this to be accomplished, a clearly developed method for constructing an isotopic background for Pb isotopes was needed. This study used ancient human and animal teeth to construct a background for southwest Arkansas and other regions in surrounding states to assess the humans' geographic origins.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33151