After years of assimilation and acculturation, many Native Americans have both the means and strength to assert their unique identity among mainstream America. They have devised various channels for accomplishing this, such as language classes and continuing traditional practices, often using resources offered through State, Federal or Tribal Historic Preservation programs. Constructions of contemporary traditional architecture can be another of these tools used to promote this cultural renaissance. As a field that defines itself on the basis of cultural conservation, Historic Preservation principles claim to support these endeavors; however, because they do not meet the age criteria for "historic structures," such buildings are often left out of the preservation matrix. By examining the Achfa-hammi plankhouse of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, this thesis will address the building's impact on cultural revitalization and explore the disconnect that exists between Historic Preservation policies and new constructions of tribal architectures.

Native American societies in the Yazoo Basin during the Mississippian Period (ca. 1000 – 1700 A.D.) extensively built platform mounds often associated with “elite” or “sacred” areas, and exotic or energy expensive artifacts. Excessive energy expenditure, or “waste” behaviors, may be explained with costly signaling and bet-hedging, hypotheses stemming from evolutionary theory. I argue that costly signaling may best explain the waste evident in hierarchical and agricultural Mississippian Period societies of the Mississippi Valley. Consequently, I feel that differing levels of energy expenditure may be evident from the remains of perishable construction excavated from mound summits and off-mound contexts. During that time, wattle and daub was a common method of wall construction in the Yazoo Basin, leaving abundant evidence at Mississippian sites. By studying imprints from preserved daub fragments, the use of specific construction methods can be compared between mound and non-mound contexts and relative energy expenditure assessed.