Mound 72 burials and burial goods - evidence of an elite corporate identity and ownership.
For any number of reasons, a particular household may begin to accumulate wealth: A large family may be able to tend larger fields and grow and harvest more food. The surplus food may then allow the family to give freely in other's time of need, or provide the bulk of food necessary for community feasting. Or, perhaps a household is believed to have certain powers of communication with the supernatural, and therefore they can accumulate favors owed to the household for religious services, ceremonies, and healing. Whatever the reason and however interesting a person's rise in power might be, a person's deeds and charisma are essentially invisible archaeologically. What is important is not the specific context or reasons why a person accumulates wealth and power, but the fact that it is their kin group that helps the chief accumulate and administer wealth and power.
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Mound 72 burials and burial goods - evidence of an elite corporate identity and ownership. |
Nevertheless, there is one aspect of elite power that does leave an archaeological signature, namely the inheritance of power. What is unique about chiefdoms is that unlike "big men" or village leaders of less complex societies, some aspects of political and religious power are passed from one generation to the next. Elite roles are said to be ascribed, that is assigned at birth. Thus, one of the archaeological hallmarks of complex chiefdoms can be the presence of juveniles in elite burials. Juveniles, the reasoning goes, did not have the lifespan or ability to gain status through individual deeds, but were nevertheless assigned great status because of their membership in an elite, chiefly family.
The significance of the presence of juveniles in elite burials is that it indicates the ruling family and elite had become entrenched. The inheritance of power and status indicates that mechanisms of social control had become institutionalized and that the elite was imbued with religious, supernatural qualities.
| The archaeological evidence of power ascription in the Mississippian American Bottom is ambiguous, however. On the one hand, a group of elite from the BBB Motor, a rural site, do contain juveniles (Emerson 1997). On the other hand, there is strong evidence that the elite in the Mound 72 burials were members of some type of kin group or clan assigned the power to hold or own various properties including ritual objects (that is they had a corporate identity), but juveniles are not represented (Milner 1998). Charnel pits and houses at other Mississippian sites have a similar corporate signature, but juveniles are clearly underrepresented. Thus, while membership in a status group is important, so is personal adult achievement. |