New Dates and Carbon Isotope Assays of Purported Middle Woodland Maize from the Icehouse Bottom and Edwin Harness Sites

Accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) and carbon isotope analyses provide strong tandem methodologies used by archaeologists to evaluate and reevaluate the histories of maize use in the Midwest. In this article, we present newly obtained AMS dates and carbon isotope assays of alleged maize samples from the Icehouse Bottom (40MR23) and Edwin Harness sites (22RO33). Based on original studies, samples were thought to date to the Middle Woodland period (ca. 300 BC–AD 400). The results show that samples either were not maize or date to post-AD 900. As of this finding, there are no longer any securely dated Middle Woodland macrobotanical remains of maize from the Eastern Woodlands of North America.

From Vacant Center to Early Village (Phase 1)

Radiocarbon dates from the lowermost levels in midden excavations suggest that people began to live at Crystal River sometime in the first century AD, during the Middle Woodland period. Phase 1 was relatively short, probably lasting only a century or two. Evidence from features and GPR suggest that the village was comprised of a scatter of small houses. Isotopic analysis of the shells of oysters suggest that the settlement was impermanent. Ceramics (including Deptford pottery) from this interval show disparity in temper suggestive of two communities of practice. It would thus seem that the dispersed groups that had congregated at the site to participate in ceremonies for hundreds of years began residing for longer intervals.

Crafting Everyday Matters in the Middle and Late Woodland Periods

A defining characteristic of the Middle Woodland period is the prevalence of craft goods of stone, bone, shell, and metal, which originated frequently from exotic sources and were often fashioned into non-utilitarian, symbolically-charged products. In the processual heyday, archaeologists devoted considerable attention on the perceived control of the production and exchange of these exotic goods and what it may say about the political and economic power of elites, and, by extension, their societies. In this chapter, the authors suggest that this emphasis on the political- and ritual-economic contexts for craft production may obscure an important point: specifically, that crafting was rooted in the everyday rhythms of domestic life, by which the authors mean the networks of relationships with other people and other objects. Reviewing the archaeological record for two large Middle Woodland populations and ceremonial centers – Kolomoki in southwestern Georgia and Crystal River in west-central Florida (Figure 9.1) – the authors argue that a low level of craft production was common to domestic contexts.

Phytolith Evidence for the Early Presence of Maize in Southern Quebec

It has long been believed that maize (Zea maysspp.mays) was introduced in Quebec at around A.D. 1000, at the very beginning of the Late Woodland period. The identification and dating of maize phytoliths extracted from the carbonized encrustations on the interior surfaces of Native American ceramic vessels from three sites located in the St. Lawrence River valley, namely the Hector-Trudel, Station-4, and Place-Royale sites, indicate that this cultigen was rather introduced in that area during the Early Middle Woodland period, ca.400 to 200 B.C. These sites provide the northernmost and possibly the oldest evidence of maize consumption in northeastern North America. More samples of maize phytoliths from the same two sites were dated to the late Middle Woodland period, between A.D. 600 and 800, suggesting an increase in the ubiquity and importance of this new crop in the subsistence strategies. Moreover, the identification of an unknown variety of maize points toward the possibility that a new local variety of maize appeared during the process. This process might have been accompanied by a more intensive and complementary collecting of wild rice. Finally, the results support the hypothesis of an in situ origin of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.

History, Monumentality, and Interaction in the Appalachian Summit Middle Woodland

The Middle Woodland period in eastern North America witnessed a florescence of monumental architecture and material exchange linked to widespread networks of ritual interaction. Although these networks encompassed large geographic areas and persisted for several centuries, extant archaeological models have tended to characterize Middle Woodland interaction as an historically unitary process. Using new data from the Garden Creek site in North Carolina, I argue that these frameworks obscure important historical shifts in Middle Woodland interaction. Recent collections-based research, geophysical survey, targeted excavation, and14C dating (including Bayesian modeling) of this site reveal two coeval diachronic changes: a shift from geometric earthwork construction to platform mound construction; and a shift from the production of special artifacts {mica, crystal quartz) to the consumption of exotic artifacts in association with platform mound ceremonialism. These data hint at important changes in interregional relationships between the Appalachian Summit, the Hopewellian Midwest, and the greater Southeast during the Middle Woodland period, and provide a springboard for considering how processes of culture contact contributed to precolumbian cultural change.

The Materiality of Signs: Enchainment and Animacy in Woodland Southeastern North American Pottery

Archaeological examinations of symbolic meaning often have been hampered by the Saussurean concept of signs as coded messages of preexisting meanings. The arbitrary and imprecise manner by which meaning is represented in material culture according to Saussure tends to stymie archaeological investigations of symbolism. As an alternative, archaeologists recently have drawn on Peirce’s semiotic to investigate how materiality is bound to the creation of meanings through the process of signification. This study examines how the symbolism expressed in pottery of the Middle Woodland period southeastern United States, Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island effigy vessels, might be better explained as icons and indexes that were enlisted to have particular social effects. Examining the semiotic potentials of these objects helps explain their apparent uses and the significance of alternative representations of the same subjects.

Time and Archaeological Traditions in the Lower Illinois Valley

The issue of time remains a crucial one in Lower Illinois Valley archaeology, and key problems remain unresolved. In this paper, new radiocarbon assays and published dates are used to test hypotheses concerning intra-site bluff top mound chronologies, timing and structure of valley settlement, and the emergence of regional symbolic communities during the Middle Woodland period (ca. 50 cal B.C.-cal A.D. 400). We show that within sites Middle Woodland mounds were constructed first on prominent, distal bluff ridges and subsequently in less-visible spaces, though additional dates are needed to fully understand intra-site chronology. Our analyses generally support previous studies suggesting a north-to-south settlement trajectory of the valley, though habitation site dates indicate a more complicated pattern of regional occupation that has yet to be fully explicated. In addition, floodplain regional symbolic communities also emerged along a north-to-south pattern, though not as rapidly as bluff crest mounds. Importantly, results indicate future areas of research necessary to elucidate regional chronology, resettlement of the valley, and community interactions.