This project considers the development of the cultural landscape of Native American chiefdoms in the Yazoo Basin of northwestern Mississippi. Chronicles written by certain members of the Hernando de Soto expedition offer exciting glimpses into the landscape and lifeways of Native American societies in 1541, but they do not shed light on how the landscape of chiefdoms in the Lower Mississippi Valley developed during the period before Spanish contact. This dissertation research focuses on the time period just before Spanish contact, the Mississippi Period (AD 1200-1540), and on Mississippian culture, and it investigates how monuments were built and used in a rapidly changing and dynamic landscape, one in which the meandering and flooding Mississippi river affected the long-term formation of social and political networks. This research relies on environmental, ethnohistoric, and archaeological data to provide a historically contingent description of the processes leading to the development of one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in the region. Sediment cores excavated in mound and off-mound contexts suggest the site was constructed over a crevasse splay, a high-elevation landform. Both coring data and trench excavation demonstrate that Mound D, the largest mound at Carson, was built in four stages and that stages II and III were the largest stages. Excavations on Mound D demonstrate that a moderately large-sized structure was once constructed on the southwest corner of the mound summit and that the structure was used to produce craft goods such as shell beads, shell gorgets, and statuary. Data from mound construction and craft production, as well as ethnohistoric and geomorphic research, are used to describe social organization, hierarchy, and leadership at Carson. / 1 / Jayur Madhusudan Mehta
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_45922 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Contributors | Mehta, Jayur (author), Rodning, Christopher (Thesis advisor), School of Liberal Arts Anthropology (Degree granting institution) |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | No embargo |
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