Emplacement and path dependence in the American Midsouth

Abstract

The origins and histories of mounds are perennial topics of investigation in the American Southeast, underscoring the centrality of these monuments to the social lives and cosmologies of Indigenous southeastern peoples. Drawing upon theories of persistent place and path dependence, we argue that a focus on the pre-mound histories of mound sites can elucidate emplacement at these monumental locales. Our focus is the Johnston site (40MD3) in what is now known as West Tennessee, one of three sites along the South Fork of the Forked Deer River that witnessed unprecedented monumentalization in the early centuries AD. Geophysical survey, targeted excavations, and AMS dating at Johnston have revealed a 6000-year history that predates Middle Woodland mound building. By contextualizing this evidence against the cultural and environmental backdrop of the Middle Archaic through Middle Woodland Midsouth, we propose that formal emplacement – the creation and reinforcement of connections between people and place – transpired nearly four millennia after Johnston was first occupied, but possibly centuries before mounds were erected there. These findings underscore the complexity of processes of emplacement, and the importance of considering mounds within the larger spatial and temporal extents of monumental sites, and monumental sites within wider regional landscapes and histories.