Disseratation Research: Time, Settlement and Ceramic Variation at Mississippian Sites

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The archaeological record pertaining to various regional Mississippian culture sequences (A.D. 900-1540) is a laboratory for developing and testing models of change and stability in chiefdom-level societies. Recently, the major thrust of Mississippian research has been to understand the culture as an adaptive system and account for the dramatic organizational changes evident over several hundred years. In order to do this more effectly, tighter chronologies are needed. This project has two specific objectives: to develop a theoretical model to explain site variability in Kent phase, Mississippian culture sites in the southeastern United States; and to develop and calibrate a regional ceramic chronology which will permit more sophisticated measuring of population trends and settlement pattern changes during the Mississippian period. The student will excavate two stratified middens, Clay Hill and the Kent Site, in eastern Arkansas. Determining the development of late Mississippian society is an important question in archaeology, one addressed most effectively at a regional level.