The real mound builders of North America : a critical realist prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands, 200 BC-1450 AD / Albert Martin Byers.

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"The Real Mound Builders of North America contrasts the dominant evolutionary view that emphasizes abrupt discontinuities with the Hopewellian ceremonial assemblage and mounds. Byers argues that these communities persisted unchanged in terms of their essential social structures and cultural traditio...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Byers, A. Martin, 1937- (Author)
Language:English
Published: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2018]
Subjects:
Mound-builders > East (U.S.)
Mound-builders > Canada, Eastern.
Woodland people > History.
Woodland people > Antiquities.
Mound-builders.
Woodland Indians.
Woodland Indians > Antiquities.
Eastern Canada.
East United States.
History.
Genre:
History.
Physical Description:xii, 460 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Format: Book
Contents:
  • Introduction : continuist and discontinuist histories
  • The incomplete debunking of the mound builder mythology
  • Unitary polities and dual heterarchies : the archaeological record from alternative social systems perspectives
  • The dual complementary heterarchical community/cult sodality heterarchy model
  • The symbolic pragmatic model of style and the custodial franchising of sacred bundles
  • The mourning/world renewal mortuary model : the postmortem human sacrificial chaîne opératoire mortuary trajectory
  • Settlement, subsistence, and ceremonialism : the deontic ecology of the prehistoric Eastern Woodlands
  • The dissolution of a transregional second-order Hopewellian ceremonial sphere
  • Community polities or dual heterarchies : extreme displaced mortuary depositions and demonstrating the "best fit" truth
  • The emergence of the complementary heterarchical chiefdom community : singular-selective candidature practice
  • The emergence of vacant quarters and the late prehistoric period
  • post-late prehistoric period transition
  • The Lower Chattahoochee River Valley : a primary Southeastern Mississippian ceremonial sphere
  • The late prehistoric period Savannah River Valley : a first-order Southern Appalachian complicated-stamped ceremonial sphere
  • The Etowah site of the Etowah River Valley late prehistoric period : paramount chiefdom polity or dispersed third-order cult sodality heterarchy?
  • The formation and transformation of mound C of the Etowah site
  • Conclusion : the real mound builder social world.