The Real Mound Builders of North America

A Critical Realist Prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands, 200 BC–1450 AD

A. Martin Byers

The Real Mound Builders of North America takes the standard position that the cultural communities of the Late Woodland period hiatus—when little or no transregional monumental mound building and ceremonialism existed—were the linear cultural and social ancestors of the communities responsible for the monumental earthworks of the unique Mississippian ceremonial assemblage, and further, these Late Woodland communities were the direct linear cultural and social descendants of those communities responsible for the great Hopewellian earthwork mounds and embankments and its associated unique ceremonial assemblage. Byers argues that these communities persisted largely unchanged in terms of their essential social structures and cultural traditions while varying only in terms of their ceremonial practices and their associated sodality organizations that manifested these deep structures. This continuist historical trajectory view stands in contrast to the current dominant evolutionary view that emphasizes abrupt social and cultural discontinuities with the Hopewellian ceremonial assemblage and earthworks, mounds and embankments.

Lexington Books

Pages: 472 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-7062-6 • Hardback • February 2018 • $130.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7063-3 • eBook • February 2018 • $123.50 • (£80.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Archaeology, History / General, Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Sociology / General

The Real Mound Builders of North America

A Critical Realist Prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands, 200 BC–1450 AD

Hardback

eBook

Summary

The Real Mound Builders of North America takes the standard position that the cultural communities of the Late Woodland period hiatus—when little or no transregional monumental mound building and ceremonialism existed—were the linear cultural and social ancestors of the communities responsible for the monumental earthworks of the unique Mississippian ceremonial assemblage, and further, these Late Woodland communities were the direct linear cultural and social descendants of those communities responsible for the great Hopewellian earthwork mounds and embankments and its associated unique ceremonial assemblage. Byers argues that these communities persisted largely unchanged in terms of their essential social structures and cultural traditions while varying only in terms of their ceremonial practices and their associated sodality organizations that manifested these deep structures. This continuist historical trajectory view stands in contrast to the current dominant evolutionary view that emphasizes abrupt social and cultural discontinuities with the Hopewellian ceremonial assemblage and earthworks, mounds and embankments.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 472 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-7062-6 • Hardback • February 2018 • $130.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7063-3 • eBook • February 2018 • $123.50 • (£80.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Archaeology, History / General, Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Sociology / General

Author

A. Martin Byers was CEGEP professor at Vanier College and research associate at McGill University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Continuist and Discontinuist Histories
Chapter 1: The Incomplete Debunking of the Mound Builder Mythology
Chapter 2: Unitary Polities and Dual Heterarchies: Apprehending Social Systems from Alternative Perspectives
Chapter 3: The Dual Complementary Heterarchical Community/Cult Sodality Heterarchy Model
Chapter 4: The Symbolic Pragmatic Model of Style and the Custodial Franchising of Sacred Bundles
Chapter 5: The World Renewal Mortuary Model: The Postmortem Human Sacrificial Chaîne
Opératoire Mortuary Trajectory
Chapter 6: Settlement, Subsistence, and Ceremonialism: The Deontic Ecology of the Prehistoric Eastern Woodlands
Chapter 7: The Dissolution of a Transregional Second-Order Hopewellian Ceremonial Sphere
Chapter 8: Community Polities or Dual Heterarchies: Extreme Displaced Mortuary Depositions
and Demonstrating the “Best Fit” Truth
Chapter 9: The Emergence of the Complementary Heterarchical Chiefdom Community: Singular-Selective Candidature Practice
Chapter 10: The Emergence of Vacant Quarters and the Late Prehistoric Period→Post-Late Prehistoric Period Transition
Chapter 11: The Lower Chattahoochee River Valley: A Primary Southeastern Mississippian
Ceremonial Sphere

Chapter 12: The Late Prehistoric Period Savannah River Valley: A First-Order Southern
Appalachian Complicated-Stamped Ceremonial Sphere

Chapter 13: The Etowah Site of the Etowah River Valley Late Prehistoric Period:
Paramount Chiefdom Polity or Dispersed Third-Order Cult Sodality Heterarchy?

Chapter 14: The Formation and Transformation of Mound C of the Etowah Site

Conclusion: The Real Mound Builder Social World

Reviews

Byers is the most innovative and audacious scholar of eastern North American prehistory, and in this volume, he proposes the archaeological equivalent of a Grand Unified Theory of the Hopewellian and Mississippian ceremonial spheres. It’s a radical idea that may open the door to a new understanding of these ancient cultures.
— Bradley T. Lepper, Ohio History Connection

Martin Byers’s new book is an excellent compilation of his previous work with new, refined interpretations that will be of great interest to a diverse audience for many years to come. His explanations for the development of Hopewell and Mississippian societies are changing the way archaeologist investigate these ancient North American cultures.
— Brian G. Redmond, Cleveland Museum of Natural History

The Real Mound Builders of North America

A Critical Realist Prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands, 200 BC–1450 AD

A. Martin Byers

The Real Mound Builders of North America

A Critical Realist Prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands, 200 BC–1450 AD

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