Authority, Autonomy, and the Archaeology of a Mississippian Community

Abstract

This book explores Mississippian communities in the 14th–15th century northern Yazoo Basin through an archaeological case study of Parchman Place, located in present day Coahoma County, Mississippi. Drawing on archaeological evidence for foodways, mound building, and the organization of community space, the book takes the position that community-building by Mississippian people was a process of placemaking that involved repeated re-creations of a distinct worldview in a particular place (or places). Much evidence points toward the tendency for Mississippian social relations to be strongly hierarchical. And yet, archaeological data from Parchman Place and elsewhere suggest that different Mississippian people practiced placemaking and world creation in different ways, through different media, and to achieve different goals. Despite the very visible outcomes of actions taken by powerful people (mound-top residences, palisades, community spatial organization, feasting refuse), community-building was decidedly not the exclusive purview of elite members of Mississippian communities. Rather, spatial and depositional practices indicate that leadership was routinely checked by those who wished to emphasize kin group autonomy and those who valued the maintenance of balance among distinct social groups.