The Yanomamö of the Mississippi Valley? Some Reflections on Larson (1972), Gibson (1974), and Mississippian Period Warfare in the Southeastern United States

1981 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 909-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Bruce Dickson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South America ◽  
Sandy Loam ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Basic Material ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Material Conditions

Larson's (1972) hypothesis that warfare during the Mississippian period in the Southeast was primarily a struggle over the fertile silt and sandy loam bottomland soils is summarized. This is then contrasted with Gibson's (1974) thesis that, at least in the Lower Mississippi Valley, warfare was caused by the "asymmetrical" nature of the kinship systems found there. Such systems led to status decline over several generations and forced individuals to attempt to offset the decline by achieving success in warfare. The Larson-Gibson dispute is essentially an ontological argument which pits the materialist's view of reality against that of the idealist. This dispute is compared to a similar one between Harris (1971, 1974, 1977, 1979) and Lizot (1977) concerning the explanation of Yamomamo warfare in South America. Following this, the basic material conditions of Mississippian warfare are suggested. The importance of mechanisms such as Gibson has proposed for understanding Mississippian warfare at the "tactical" level is recognized. Finally, primacy is given to Larson"s materialism at the "strategic" level.

Plazas as Architecture: An Example from the Raffman Site, Northeast Louisiana

2004 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 514-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristram R. Kidder
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
Community Planning ◽  
Spatial Layout ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Open Area ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Planning And Construction

Research at the Raffman site (16MA20), a multi-mound center in the Lower Mississippi Valley of northeast Louisiana, demonstrates that the plaza was purposefully built and extended on its northern end. Construction entailed significant earth-moving and labor effort in addition to the erection of mounds flanking the plaza. At Raffman plaza, building is dated ca. A.D. 700–1000. Like the mounds at the site, the arrangement, shape, and dimensions of the plaza changed through time. The final plan of the plaza was the result of a rapid major reconfiguration of the spatial layout of the site at approximately A.D. 1000. The effort expended on planning and construction of the plaza at Raffman and similar features at contemporary and later sites in the southeastern United States indicates that plazas are not just empty spaces that developed because architecture enclosed an open area; they must be understood as one of the central design elements of community planning and intrasite spatial organization. Further research should be devoted to exploring how southeastern mound-and-plaza groups were constructed with specific efforts devoted to comprehending how plazas were laid out and built.

scholarly journals Evaluation of an Irrigation Scheduling Model for Drip-irrigated Potato in Southeastern United States

HortScience ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Simonne ◽  
Nadia Ouakrim ◽  
Arnold Caylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Sandy Loam ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
Total Yield ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Potato Production ◽  
Irrigation Scheduling ◽  
Marketable Yield ◽  
Planting Dates

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is often produced as a nonirrigated crop in the southeastern United States. This practice makes tuber yields dependent on rainfall pattern and amount. An irrigation scheduling method based on a water balance and daily class A pan evaporation (Ep) was evaluated during 1996 and 1998 on a Hartsells fine sandy loam soil for `Red LaSoda' potatoes. Planting dates were 9 and 7 Apr. in 1996 and 1998, respectively, and standard production practices were followed each year. The model tested was (13 DAH + 191) * 0.5 ASW = D DAH-1 + [Ep * (0.12 + 0.023 DAH - 0.00019 DAH2) - RDAH - IDAH], where DAH was days after hilling, ASW was available soil water (0.13 mm/mm), D was soil water deficit (mm), R was rainfall (mm), and I was irrigation (mm). Controlled levels of water application ranging between 0% and 200% of the model rate were created with drip tapes. Four and seven irrigations were scheduled in 1996 and 1998, respectively. For both years, no interaction between irrigation regime and nitrogen rate was observed. Irrigation rate significantly influenced total yield and marketable yield (R2 > 0.88, P < 0.01). Highest total yields occurred at 99% and 86% of the model rate in 1996 and 1998, respectively. These results show that supplementing rainfall with irrigation and controlling the amount of water applied by adjusting irrigation to actual weather conditions increased potato marketable yield. Over the 2-year period of the study, an average additional profit of $563/ha/year was calculated from costs and returns due to irrigation, suggesting that drip-irrigation may be economical for potato production.

Testing for Mississippian Period Turkey Management in the Archaeological Record of the Southeastern United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Erin Kennedy Thornton ◽  
Tanya Peres ◽  
Kelly Ledford Chase ◽  
Brian M. Kemp ◽  
Ryan Frome ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
Meleagris Gallopavo ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Intensive Management ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Dna Analyses ◽  
Combined Data

People living in Mesoamerica and what is now the eastern and southwestern United States used turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) as sources of meat, eggs, bones, and feathers. Turkey husbandry and domestication are confirmed in two of these regions (Mesoamerica and the American Southwest), but human-turkey interactions in Eastern North American (eastern United States and Canada) are not fully explored. We apply stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) and ancient mitochondrial DNA analyses to archaeofaunal samples from seven sites in the southeastern United States to test whether turkeys were managed or captively reared. These combined data do not support prolonged or intensive captive rearing of turkeys, and evidence for less intensive management is ambiguous. More research is warranted to determine whether people managed turkeys in these areas, and whether this is generalizable. Determining whether turkeys were managed or reared in the southeastern United States helps define cultural and environmental factors related to turkey management or husbandry throughout North America. This inquiry contributes to discussion of the roles of intensified human-animal interactions in animal domestication.

2 The Development of Archaeological Knowledge in the Lower Mississippi Valley

1964 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 3-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Greengo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Archaeological Knowledge ◽  
Plausible Argument

Observations having some bearing on the archaeology of the Lower Mississippi Valley are to be found in the writings of the early travelers. As the country became settled, accounts of local and regional historical interest often included remarks or occasional papers devoted to the local antiquities. My purpose here is to sketch the conceptualization of prehistory as it was developed through the most significant writings.A plausible argument may be submitted in support of the contention that Thomas Jefferson was the first scientific archaeologist in the United States. Curiously enough, his archaeological influence extended to the Lower Mississippi Valley. This was through H. M. Brackenridge, who went into the Louisiana Territory soon after it was purchased and wrote a number of descriptive accounts of the country.

A Mississippian Period Ritual Cave in Tennessee

1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles H. Faulkner ◽  
Bill Deane ◽  
Howard H. Earnest
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
East Tennessee

Trailed and incised drawings on the mud-covered walls of an East Tennessee cave have been identified as the artwork of Mississippian Indians who visited this sanctuary about 800 years ago. These unique drawings, called “mud glyphs” because of their similarity to certain petroglyphs found in the southeastern United States, include abstract designs, symbols, zoomorphic forms and anthropomorphic figures. Symbols such as the forked eye and the “bird-man” anthropomorphic representation correlate with six radiocarbon dates on torch charcoal that range between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries A.D. The occurrence of thousands of superimposed elements on the walls indicates that Mud Glyph cave was a Mississippian period sanctuary and further suggests that certain southeastern caves during this period were used for ritual activities rather than for mining as they were during earlier Woodland and Archaic times.

Weed, Tuber, and Maize Farming in the Americas

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South America ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Central America ◽  
Coniferous Forests ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
The South ◽  
Tropical Environments ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Central United States

The American continent extends over 12,000 kilometres from Alaska to Cape Horn, and encompasses an enormous variety of environments from arctic to tropical. For the purposes of this discussion, such a huge variety has to be simplified into a few major geographical units within the three regions of North, Central, and South America (Fig. 7.1). Large tracts of Alaska and modern Canada north of the 58th parallel consist of tundra, which extends further south down the eastern coast of Labrador. To the south, boreal coniferous forests stretch eastwards from Lake Winnipeg and the Red River past the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, and westwards from the slopes of the Rockies to the Pacific. The vast prairies in between extend southwards through the central United States between the Mississippi valley and the Rockies, becoming less forested and more open as aridity increases further south. South of the Great Lakes the Appalachian mountains dominate the eastern United States, making a temperate landscape of parallel ranges and fertile valleys, with sub-tropical environments developing in the south-east. The two together are commonly referred to as the ‘eastern Woodlands’ in the archaeological literature. On the Pacific side are more mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevada, separated from the Rockies by arid basins including the infamous Death Valley. These drylands extend southwards into the northern part of Central America, to what is now northern Mexico, a region of pronounced winter and summer seasonality in temperature, with dryland geology and geomorphology and xerophytic vegetation. The highlands of Central America, from Mexico to Nicaragua, are cool tropical environments with mixed deciduous and coniferous forests. The latter develop into oak-laurel-myrtle rainforest further south in Costa Rica and Panama. The lowlands on either side sustain a variety of tropical vegetation adapted to high temperatures and frost-free climates, including rainforest, deciduous woodland, savannah, and scrub. South America can be divided into a number of major environmental zones (Pearsall, 1992). The first is the Pacific littoral, which changes dramatically from tropical forest in Colombia and Ecuador to desert from northern Peru to central Chile. This coastal plain is transected by rivers flowing from the Andes, and in places patches of seasonal vegetation (lomas) are able to survive in rainless desert sustained by sea fog.

Astronomy and U.S. Expansion in the Lower Mississippi Valley

2018 ◽  
pp. 129-161
Author(s):  
Cameron B. Strang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
William Dunbar

U.S. expansion into the lower Mississippi Valley from 1795 to 1810 evinced and inspired many of the ways that officials and experts in the early United States used astronomy to promote territorial growth. Yet Anglo-Americans did not simply export scientific practices to the United States’ new territories. Peaceful and violent encounters among Spaniards and Anglos, masters and slaves, inhabitants and administrators, and whites and Indians all shaped the practice of astronomy in the Gulf South and, moreover, influenced how astronomy and imperialism overlapped in the United States on the whole. Geopolitical competition motivated the work of the Spanish and U.S. commissions of the Florida boundary survey (1798–1800), violence against slaves enabled astronomers like William Dunbar to perform disciplined observations, and interimperial exchanges of data made José Joaquín de Ferrer y Cafranga a prominent figure in the United States’ scientific community.

Personal Empires: Mapping, Local Networks, and the Control of Land in the Lower Mississippi Valley

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. e021
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Franco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial Representations ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Local Networks ◽  
Property Ownership ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley

The Louisiana and Florida territories sat at the intersection of empires in the late eighteenth century. Between 1750 and 1820 the area was controlled by the French and Spanish empires, the emerging United States of America, as well as the Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations. While political surveys produced images of the moving borders between sovereign powers, cadastral surveys show the constancy of local landowners. Landowners superseded national distinction and were a constant in an area in the midst of great change. As control of the region shifted, landowning families continued their way of life. The continued circulation of Spanish cadastral surveys after the transfer of the region to the United States of America shows how Spanish spatial representations of property ownership shaped the image of the Lower Mississippi Valley.

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