Households and the Emergence of the Moundville Polity (Margaret Scarry and John Scarry)

    This project seeks to examine the ways individual households articulated with larger social formations before and after the emergence of the Moundville chiefdom in Alabama, an event that took place in the 12th century AD. The initial focus has been a study of community patterning in the West Jefferson phase, which immediately preceded the emergence of the chiefdom. Subsequent research will examine households at both the paramount political center and rural farmsteads after the emergence. Eventually, we hope to learn more about the ways social networks changed as the political structure of the society changed and how individual decisions and actions created new social identities and established new sentiments of affinity and estrangement that structured the chiefdom.

    In 1999 and 2000, the UNC archaeological field school was held at the Grady Bobo site near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Margaret Scarry, John Scarry, Mintcy Maxham, and Greg Wilson directed the excavations, with students from UNC and NCSU. We concentrated our excavations in two areas of the site that contained materials dating to this period. Over the course of the two summers, we excavated trash-filled pits dating to both the West Jefferson (pre-chiefdom) and Moundville I phases (early chiefdom). While we failed to find the remains of houses that we had hoped were preserved at the site, we did recover important data regarding both occupations. In particular, we recovered valuable information about activities in the rural communities of the Moundville chiefdom.

    We have not yet completed our analyses of the excavated materials, but our preliminary studies do suggest that the Grady Bobo site was an important place during the early history of the Moundville chiefdom. A large Moundville phase pit contained abundant faunal and floral remains and items of material culture such as broken pottery vessels, stone tools, and debris associated with the manufacturing of stone tools. Because of the mussel shell in the pit, even delicate bird and fish bones were well preserved. The faunal remains included birds such as crows, flickers, and cardinals that may have been used for their colored feathers rather than as food items. Among the sherds from the pit there were fragments of several elaborately decorated serving vessels. Based on the remains from this feature, Mintcy Maxham has suggested that the materials we recovered from the pit may represent trash from communal rituals that involved some feasting. Her work has altered our picture of the local structure of the Moundville chiefdom and has shed new light on the creation of community and community identity.