Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland

Moundville, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is one of the largest pre-Columbian mound sites in North America. Comprising twenty-nine earthen mounds that were once platforms for chiefly residences and public buildings, Moundville was a major political and religious center for the people living in its region and for the wider Mississippian world. A much-needed synthesis of the rapidly expanding archaeological work that has taken place in the region over the past two decades, this volume presents the results of multifaceted research and new excavations. Using models deeply rooted in local ethnohistory, it ties Moundville and its people more closely than before to the ethnography of native southerners and emphasizes the role of social memory, iconography, and ritual practices both at the mound center and in the rural hinterland, providing an up-to-date and refreshingly nuanced interpretation of Mississippian culture. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Author: Vincas P. Steponaitis
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Published: 10/29/2019
Pages: 342
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.72d
ISBN: 9780813068039

About the Author
Vincas P. Steponaitis, William E. Leuchtenburg Distinguished Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology and secretary of the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is coeditor of Archaeology of the Moundville Chiefdom. C. Margaret Scarry, professor of anthropology and director of the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the editor of Foraging and Farming in the Eastern Woodlands.