Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Community Identity in the Late Prehistoric Northern Yazoo Basin

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Vincas P. Steponaitis, Ms Erin Stevens will gather and analyze data from Parchman Place, a late Mississippi period site located in the northern Yazoo Basin of northwest Mississippi. The Parchman site dates to the middle of the 15th century and consists of four mounds and at least three discrete residential neighborhoods. These neighborhoods have been identified using geophysical survey techniques (notably magnetic gradiometry) and consist of grouped domestic structures and associated pit features and activity areas. Mound excavations at Parchman reveal evidence of community-building ritual activity associated with the building of mounds, as well as destructive events that may signal competition between groups at the sub-community level. This evidence suggests that mound building traditions at Parchman were malleable and that individuals or groups of people were able to manipulate or adapt their construction practices in order to emphasize particular identities. Stevens will investigate whether similar patterns of social cohesion or differentiation at the community level can be seen in the material remains of practices other than mound building. These include: (1) the organization of public and domestic space; (2) the production and use of pottery for storage, cooking, and serving of food in domestic and ritual contexts; and (3) the types, quantities, and combinations of foods produced and consumed by those living at Parchman. Broadly speaking, the archaeological study of communities is important because communities are the primary locus of social interaction between neighbors, relatives and strangers. Ms Stevens's study will contribute to our understanding of the interactions of people and groups in the late prehistoric Yazoo Basin by situating the study of communities and communal identities firmly within current discussions of Mississippian sociopolitical formations, which have largely focused on the nature of regional polities. Investigations at the local level will enrich interpretations of Mississippian lifeways by focusing on the practices that structure daily life. The arrangement of community space can address questions about the social nature of daily activities such as pottery production and meal preparation. Food practices serve as a means through which people emphasize sameness or difference. Both foodways and the organization of space speak to issues of social inequality and identity formation within communities, and can additionally suggest ways in which local communities articulate with larger (regional) political formations. In addition to its intellectual merits, the present study has a number of broader impacts, including contributing to the training of Ms Stevens and a number of undergraduate research assistants and volunteers in traditional and technologically innovative field and laboratory methods. More broadly, the dissemination of archaeological findings through publications and professional meetings, as well as local papers and regional historical societies, leads to deeper and broader understandings of local histories. The history of the South, and particularly of the Mississippi Delta, is too often depicted as a history of blacks and whites. Archaeology is powerful in that it makes alternative histories visible on the landscape. This increased visibility ultimately results in the preservation of that history and its record in the form of archaeological sites, which are currently threatened by development projects and modern agricultural practices.