Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Use Of Material Exchange In Long Distance Social Organization

University Of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman OK

Investigators

Abstract

Shawn Lambert, of the University of Oklahoma, examines prehistoric Native American Caddo pottery at mound centers in the Arkansas River Basin to investigate the ritual mode of production and distribution. The goal is to understand early social interactions between two diverse areas of the Caddo region. Archaeology is well positioned to research the relationships between emerging social complexity in small communities and their capacity to develop long-distance exchange networks that can persist for hundreds of years. In much of the developing world today small communities are knit into larger regional entities by exchange of goods which serve to forge social relations. Thus understanding underlying principles of linkage and how they are reflected in physical objects provides a valuable tool for discerning social organization. Recent archaeological studies have emphasized that communities with an emerging organizational complexity were engaged in large-scale production and distribution of highly valued pottery. The interaction fostered by communities who produced and distributed them created new social networks and long-term relationships, and influenced the historical trajectories of an entire region. From A.D. 800 - 1150, the inhabitants of the Arkansas River Basin built earthen mound centers that became important places on the Caddo landscape for ritual and mortuary activities. Formative Caddo pottery that had powerful symbolic meanings was brought to these mound centers and used strictly for mortuary purposes. However, their southern Caddo neighbors produced them in larger numbers and were used for a variety of domestic and ceremonial purposes. This suggests an extensive history of centralized production and long distance distribution of some of the most distinctive pottery known in North America. This study will have major implications for how we understand the origins and spread of pottery in prehistoric communities. This research is designed to identify the geographic locales and intensity of Formative Caddo pottery production and distribution and whether or not it led to meet the demands for long-distance exchange and mortuary use at Arkansas Basin mound centers. To better understand the ritual and social importance of the production and distribution of this pottery, this project employs two types of analysis. First, Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) will be conducted at the University of Missouri Research Reactor laboratory (MURR) to characterize the chemical makeup of Formative Caddo pottery in the Arkansas River Basin. INAA will also be used on locally made ceramics from the Arkansas River Basin to create clay reference groups. Comparing these results with previously generated INAA data of the southern Caddo region will allow the researchers to determine the geographic origins of pottery recovered at Arkansas Basin ceremonial sites. Second, in order to turn this project into a historical narrative, it is necessary to have better chronological sensitivity through AMS dating techniques. Annual plants and charcoal samples will be sent to the University of Arizona AMS Laboratory. These samples will be chosen when their contexts are directly associated with the pottery that are used for INAA in order to explore the direct relationships of these communities for historical continuity or change within the Formative Caddo period.