The Mississippian Emergence (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780817354527)

This collection, addressing a topic of ongoing interest and debate in American archaeology, examines the evolution of ranked chiefdoms in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States during the period A.D. 700-1200. The volume brings together a broad range of professionals engaged in the fieldwork that has vitalized the theoretical debates on the development of Mississippi Valley cultures. The initial chapter provides a general discussion of various explanations for the rise of these distinctive ranked societies in the eastern United States (A.D. 750-1050) and sets the stage for the interdisciplinary analysis from multiple viewpoints that follows. The first section discusses a cluster of individual sites in the Midwest and Southeast and reveals the parallel--and occasionally divergent--paths followed by the inhabitants as they transitioned from Late Woodland into Mississippian lifeways. The chapters in the second half discuss by region the emergence of ranked agricultural societies and examine how these networks played a role in the large-scale and roughly contemporaneous socio-political development.

Contributors: C. Clifford Boyd Jr.James A. BrownR. P. Stephen Davis Jr.John HouseJohn E. KellyRichard A. KerberDan F. MorsePhyllis MorseMartha Ann RolingsonGerald F. SchroedlBruce D. SmithPaul D. WelchHoward D. Winters

Author: Bruce D. Smith
ISBN-10: 0817354522
ISBN-13: 9780817354527
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Language: English
Published: 10/07/2007
Pages: 312
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.99lbs
Size: 10.98h x 8.59w x 0.81d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2008 pg. 58