Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Social Functions of Monumentality

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

Monuments have played an important role in human societies for at least the last ten millennia by structuring relationships between people, histories, and landscapes. Archaeologists explore these relationships through the framework of "monumentality." Historically, monuments were associated a priori with complex societies following a notion that the necessary labor for their construction must inherently be organized by hierarchically-empowered leaders and supported by agricultural surplus. This project adds to an emerging global record of contrary examples by exploring the role of monuments in small-scale societies. The near absence of ethnographic or ethnohistoric records of monument construction among small-scale societies leaves archaeology as the sole domain for inquiry. The Eastern Woodlands of North America have recently assumed a prominent place in this discussion, but the region's most enigmatic monuments "the large geometric earthworks of the Scioto Hopewell" have yet to enter this consideration in a meaningful way. This research centers Scioto Hopewell monumentality and provides a comparative framework through which to understand monumentality in other small-scale societies. That monuments still play a large and active role in society has been made apparent as Civil War monuments have dominated recent headlines. This project will bring attention to Native American monuments, which have been destroyed at an alarming rate over the last two centuries, in an effort to facilitate appreciation, knowledge, and conservation of these places. University of Michigan doctoral candidate Timothy Everhart will investigate Middle Woodland (AD 1-400) monumentality in the Central Scioto River Valley. Scioto Hopewell societies of this period constructed monuments of a greater density and of a greater diversity than any other known monuments of small-scale societies. By conducting new excavations at the Steel Group site (33Ro62) - a site with at least 13 earthen monuments of many designs - in Ross County, Ohio, and subjecting recovered materials to a host of laboratory-based analyses, this research will investigate the unique processes and practices of monumentality that led to the construction of different monument forms at the same location. Specifically, it will document the historical trajectory of monument construction, the use of monuments, and the composition of laboring parties at this site. This project will seek to address the range of variation among Hopewell earthworks in the Central Scioto River Valley of southern Ohio, and thus to offer insight into the various roles monuments played in small-scale societies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.