Consolidation and Hierarchy: Chiefdom Variability in the Mississippian Southeast

Abstract

Explaining variability among Mississippian period (A.D. 1000-1600) chiefdoms has become a key research aim for archaeologists in the southeastern United States. One type of variability, in which simple and complex chiefdoms are distinguished by the number of levels of regional hierarchy, has dominated chiefdom research in this part of the world. The simple-complex chiefdom model is less applicable to the Mississippian Southeast, however, as there is little empirical evidence that chiefdoms here varied along this quantitative dimension. This article offers a qualitative model in which regional hierarchies are distinguished by the manner in which authority is ceded or delegated between an apical or regional chief and constituent, community-level leaders; chiefly power may be ceded from local-level leaders upward to the regional chief or delegated from the regional chief downward to local leaders. This apical-constituent model addresses variation in the administrative structures of chiefdoms: it is not a chiefdom typology. The model is used to contrast two Mississippian polities, Moundville in west-central Alabama and Powers Fort in southeastern Missouri, and illustrates variability in the process by which local communities were integrated into regional institutions.