Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:54:18.248Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATION ALONG A MISSISSIPPIAN PERIPHERY: A FORT ANCIENT EXAMPLE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2017

Aaron R. Comstock  and
Robert A. Cook
Aaron R. Comstock*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Department of Anthropology, 4034 Smith Laboratory, 174 W. 18th Avenue, Columbus OH, 43210, USA
Robert A. Cook
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Department of Anthropology, 4034 Smith Laboratory 174 W. 18th Avenue, Columbus OH, 43210, USA ([email protected])
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Archaeologists have long recognized an important relationship between climate change and the trajectory of the Mississippian polity at Cahokia, with twelfth- and thirteenth-century droughts playing a key role in transforming social relationships and the pace of monument construction. This environmental transition may have spurred emigration from Cahokia and surrounding farming communities. This raises the questions: What was the nature of environmental change and cultural transformations on the Mississippian peripheries and where did these Mississippian emigrants go? This paper provides a case study from the Middle Ohio Valley that brings together spatiotemporal patterns in moisture availability between AD 1000 and AD 1300 and new archaeological data from Fort Ancient villages located in southeast Indiana and southwest Ohio that were occupied during this same temporal interval. We suggest that droughts in the American Bottom region pushed Mississippians to less drought-stricken areas such as the Middle Ohio Valley, which experienced concurrent periods of wetness. This pattern builds on a growing body of data suggesting that the movement of individuals and communities played a large role in the process of Mississippianization throughout the midcontinental and southeastern United States.

La importante relación entre el cambio climático y la trayectoria política del sitio Misisipiano de Cahokia ha sido reconocida desde hace tiempo. En estudios recientes, las sequías de los siglos XII y XIII d.C. han sido reconocidas por su papel clave en la transformación del ritmo de construcción de los monumentos y de las relaciones sociales en el sitio. Se ha planteado que esta transición ambiental estimuló la emigración desde la metrópoli Misisipiana. Esto nos lleva a plantear las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cuál fue la naturaleza del cambio ambiental y las transformaciones culturales en las periferias Misisipianas? y ¿A dónde se trasladaron los emigrantes Misisipianos? Este artículo ofrece un estudio de caso del valle medio del Río Ohio que considera los patrones espacio-temporales de la disponibilidad de humedad entre 1000 y 1300 d.C. en conjunto con nuevos datos arqueológicos procedentes de sitios de la cultura Fort Ancient en el sureste de Indiana y en el suroeste de Ohio que fueron ocupados durante el mismo intervalo de tiempo. Los resultados nos llevan a sugerir que la escasez de agua en la región de Cahokia impulsó el movimiento de los Misisipianos hacia las zonas menos afectadas por la sequía, como el valle medio del Río Ohio, una región con abundante humedad durante el mismo período.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 91 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by the Society for American Archaeology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Alley, Richard B, Marotzke, Jochem, Nordhaus, William D., Overpeck, Jonathan T., Peteet, Dorothy M., Pielke, Roger A., Pierrehumbert, Raymond T., Rhines, Peter B., Stocker, Thomas F., Talley, Lynne D., and Wallace, John M. 2003 Abrupt Climate Change. Science 299 (5615):200–5010.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alt, Susan 2002 Identities, Traditions, and Diversity in Cahokia's Uplands. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27:21735.Google Scholar
Alt, Susan 2006 The Power of Diversity: The Roles of Migration and Hybridity in Culture Change. In Leadership and Polity in Mississippian Society, Occasional Paper 33, edited by Butler, Brian M. and Welch, Paul D., pp. 289–308. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Alt, Susan M., and Pauketat, Timothy R. 2011 Why Wall Trenches? Southeastern Archaeology 30:108–122.Google Scholar
Anthony, David W. 1990 Migration in Archeology: The Baby and the Bathwater. American Anthropologist 92:895–914.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baerreis, David A., Bryson, Reid A., and Kutzbach, John E. 1976 Climate and Culture in the Western Great Lakes Region. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 1:39–57.Google Scholar
Barrios, Salvador, Bertinelli, Luisito, and Strobl, Eric 2006 Climatic Change and Rural–Urban Migration: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Urban Economics 60:357–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Robin A. Jr., and Brown, James A. 2011 Political Economy and the Routinization of Religious Movements: A View from the Eastern Woodlands. In Beyond Belief: The Archaeology of Religion and Ritual, edited by Rowan, Yorke M., pp. 72–88. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 21. Wiley Publishing, Hoboken.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, Anna 2006 Climate Change and Human Evolution. Science 311:476–478.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bellwood, Peter 2005 First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Blackwell Publishing, Malden.Google Scholar
Benson, Larry V., and Berry, Michael S. 2009 Climate Change and Cultural Response in the Prehistoric American Southwest. Kiva 75:89–119.Google Scholar
Benson, Larry V., Pauketat, Timothy R., and Cook, Edward R. 2009 Cahokia's Boom and Bust in the Context of Climate Change. American Antiquity 74:467–483.Google Scholar
Benson, Larry V., Smoot, Joseph P., Lund, Steve P., Mensing, Scott A., Foit, Franklin F., and Rye, Robert O. 2013 Insights From a Synthesis of Old and New Climate-Proxy Data From the Pyramid And Winnemucca Lake Basins for the Period 48 To 11.5 cal Ka. Quaternary International 310:62–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Richard, Bennett, Stephen R. G., Thomas, Sandy M., and Beddington, John R. 2011 Climate Change: Migration as Adaptation. Nature 478 (7379):447–449.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blitz, John H., and Lorenz, Karl G. 2002 The Early Mississippian Frontier in the Lower ChattahoocheeApalachicola River Valley. Southeastern Archaeology 21:117–135.Google Scholar
Calvin, William H. 2002 A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Cameron, Catherine M. 2013 How People Moved among Ancient Societies: Broadening the View. American Anthropologist 115:21831.Google Scholar
Childe, V. Gordon 1934 New Light on the Most Ancient East. Kegan, Trench, Trubner and Co., London.Google Scholar
Comstock, Aaron R. 2017 Climate Change, Migration, and the Emergence of Village Life on the Mississippian Periphery: A Middle Ohio Valley Case Study. PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.Google Scholar
Cook, Edward R., Seager, Richard, Heim, Richard R., Vose, Russell S., Herweijer, Celine, and Woodhouse, Connie A. 2010 Megadroughts in North America: Placing IPCC Projections of Hydroclimatic Change in a Long-Term Paleoclimate Context. Journal of Quaternary Science 25:48–61.Google Scholar
Cook, Edward R., Woodhouse, Connie A., Eakin, C. Mark, Meko, David M., and Stahle, David W. 2004 Long-Term Aridity Changes in the Western United States. Science 306 (5698):1015–1018.Google Scholar
Cook, Robert A. 2008 SunWatch: Fort Ancient Development in the Mississippian World. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Cook, Robert A. 2017 Continuity and Change in the Native American Village: Multicultural Origins and Descendants of the Fort Ancient Culture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, in press.Google Scholar
Cook, Robert A., and Genheimer, Robert 2015 Wall Trench Structures in Fort Ancient Villages of Southwestern Ohio and Southeastern Indiana: Temporal and Formal Considerations. In Building the Past: Prehistoric Wooden Post Architecture in the Ohio Valley–Great Lakes, edited by Redmond, Brain G. and Genheimer, Robert A., pp. 21851. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Cook, Robert, and Price, T. Douglas 2015 Maize, Mounds, and the Movement of People: Isotope Analysis of a Mississippian/Fort Ancient Case. Journal of Archaeological Science 61:112–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Robert A., and Schurr, Mark R. 2009 Eating between the Lines: Mississippian Migration and Stable Carbon Isotope Variation in Fort Ancient Populations. American Anthropologist 111:344–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Robert, Comstock, Aaron, Martin, Kristie, and Burks, Jarrod 2015 Early Village Life in Southeast Indiana: Recent Field Investigations at the Guard Site (12D29). Southeastern Archaeology 34:95–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowan, C. Wesley 1987 First Farmers of the Middle Ohio Valley: Fort Ancient Societies, A.D. 1000–1670. Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, Cincinnati, Ohio.Google Scholar
Cowan, C. Wesley, Dunaba, Sandra, Nass, John Jr., and Scott, Susan 1990 The Schomaker Site, A Middle Period Fort Ancient Town on the Great Miami River, Hamilton County, Ohio. West Virginia Archaeologist 42:11–35.Google Scholar
D'Andrea, William J., Huanga, Yongsong, Fritz, Sherilyn C., and Anderson, N. John 2011 Abrupt Holocene Climate Change as an Important Factor for Human Migration in West Greenland. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (24):9765–9769.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delaney-Rivera, Colleen 2004 From Edge to Frontier: Early Mississippian Occupation of the Lower Illinois River Valley. Southeastern Archaeology 23:41–56.Google Scholar
Drooker, Penelope 1997 The View from Madisonville: Protohistoric Western Fort Ancient Interaction Patterns. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 31. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Fagan, Brian M. 2000 The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300–1850. Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Fagan, Brian M. 2008 The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. Bloomsbury Press, New York.Google Scholar
Gleick, Peter H. 2014 Water, Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria. Weather, Climate, and Society 6:331–340.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Lynne G., and Richards, John D. 1991 Ancient Aztalan: The Cultural and Ecological Context of a Late Prehistoric Site in the Midwest. In Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest, edited by Emerson, Thomas E. and Lewis, R. Barry, pp. 19306. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1943 The Fort Ancient Aspect: Its Cultural and Chronological Position in Mississippi Valley Archaeology. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Griffin, James B. 1961 Some Correlations of Climate and Cultural Change in Eastern North American Prehistory. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 95:710–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, A. Gwynn (editor) 1992 Fort Ancient Cultural Dynamics in the Middle Ohio Valley. Prehistory Press, Madison, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Hodell, David A., Brenner, Mark, Curtis, Jason H., and Guilderson, Thomas 2001 Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands. Science 292 (5520):1367–1370.Google Scholar
Kelley, Colin P., Mohtadi, Shahrzad, Cane, Mark A., Seager, Richard, and Kushnir, Yochanan 2015 Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent and Implications of the Recent Syrian Drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112:3241–3246.Google Scholar
Kennett, Douglas J., Breitenbach, Sebastian F. M., Aquino, Valorie V., Asmerom, Yemane, Awe, Jaime, Baldini, James U.L., Bartlein, Patrick, Culleton, Brendan J., Ebert, Claire, Jazwa, Christopher, Macri, Martha J., Marwan, Norbert, Polyak, Victor, Prufer, Keith M., Ridley, Harriet E., Sodemann, Harald, Winterhalder, Bruce, and Gerald, H. Haug 2012 Development and Disintegration of Maya Political Systems in Response to Climate Change. Science 338:788–791.Google Scholar
Kohler, Timothy A., and Varien, Mark D. (editors) 2012 Emergence and Collapse of Early Villages: Models of Central Mesa Verde Archaeology. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Kohler, Timothy. A., Varien, Mark D., and Wright, Aaron M. (editors) 2013 Leaving Mesa Verde: Peril and Change in the Thirteenth-Century Southwest. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Lopinot, Neal H. 1997 Cahokian Food Production Reconsidered. In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Pauketat, Timothy R. and Emerson, Thomas E., pp. 52–68. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Metz, Charles L. 1885 Explorations, Phil Turpin's Farm (Various Parts) Sept.–Nov. 1885, near Newtown, Anderson Township, Ohio. Field notes on file, Harvard University Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Munson, Cheryl Ann, and McCullough, Robert 2004 Archaeological Investigations at the Prather Site, Clark County, Indiana: The 2003 Baseline Archaeological Survey. Prepared for the National Park Service and Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. Manuscript on file at Indiana University, Department of Anthropology.Google Scholar
Newland, Kathleen 2011 Climate Change and Migration Dynamics. Migration Policy Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Nolan, Kevin C., and Cook, Robert A. 2010a An Evolutionary Model of Social Change in the Middle Ohio Valley: Was Social Complexity Impossible during the Late Woodland but Mandatory during the Late Prehistoric? Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29:62–79.Google Scholar
Nolan, Kevin C., and Cook, Robert A. 2010b Volatile Climate Conditions and Cahokia: Comment on Benson, Pauketat, and Cook 2009. American Antiquity 75:978–983.Google Scholar
Palmer, Wayne C. 1965 Meteorological Drought. Research Paper Number 45. US Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 1994 The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 1997 Cahokian Political Economy. In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Pauketat, Timothy R. and Emerson, Thomas E., pp. 30–51. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 2003 Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity. American Antiquity 68:39–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 2007 Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Altamira Press, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R., and Emerson, Thomas E. (editors) 1997 Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R., Boszhardt, Robert F., and Benden, Danielle M. 2015 Trempealeau Entanglements: An Ancient Colony's Causes and Effects. American Antiquity 80:26089.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollack, David, and Henderson, Gywnn A. 2000 Insights into Fort Ancient Culture Change: A View from South of the Ohio River. In Cultures before Contact: The Late Prehistory of Ohio and Surrounding Regions, edited by Genheimer, Robert A., pp. 19427. Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus.Google Scholar
Pollack, David, Henderson, Gywnn A., and Begley, Christopher T. 2002 Fort Ancient/Mississippian Interaction on the Northeastern Periphery. Southeastern Archaeology 21:20621.Google Scholar
Price, T. Douglas, Burton, James H., and Stoltman, James B. 2007 Place of Origin of Prehistoric Inhabitants of Aztalan, Jefferson Co., Wisconsin. American Antiquity 72:524–538.Google Scholar
Richerson, Peter J., Boyd, Robert, and Bettinger, Robert L. 2001 Was Agriculture Impossible during the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis. American Antiquity 66:387–411.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1958 The Inference of Migrations from Anthropological Evidence. In Migrations in New World Culture History, edited by Thompson, Raymond, pp. 63–68. University of Arizona Bulletin 29. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1986 Migrations in Prehistory: Inferring Population Movement from Cultural Remains. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1993 The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Sedler, Mike 1990 Plan for Archaeological Investigation of the Guard Site, 12D29, Dearborn County. Manuscript on file, Department of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indianapolis, Indiana.Google Scholar
Seeman, Mark F., and Dancey, William S. 2000 The Late Woodland Period in Southern Ohio: Basic Issues and Prospects. In Late Woodland Societies: Tradition and Transformation across the Midcontinent, edited by Emerson, Thomas E, McElrath, Dale L., and Fortier, Andrew C., pp. 583–612. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Smith, Bruce D. 1978 Variation in Mississippian Settlement Patterns. In Mississippian Settlement Patterns, edited by Smith, Bruce D., pp. 479–504. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Smith, Bruce D. 1984 Mississippi Expansion: Tracing the Historical Development of an Explanatory Model. Southeastern Archaeology 3:13–32.Google Scholar
Solomon, Susan, Qin, Dahe, Manning, Martin, Chen, Zhenlin, Marquis, Martin, Averyt, Kristen, Tignor, Melinda, and Miller, Henry LeRoy Jr., (editors) 2007 Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Thompson, Lonnie G. 2000 Ice Core Evidence for Climate Change in the Tropics: Implications for Our Future. Quaternary Science Reviews 19:19–35.Google Scholar
Thompson, Raymond H. (editor) 1958 Migrations in New World Culture History. No. 27. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Trigger, Bruce G. 2006 A History of Archaeological Thought. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Vickery, Kent D., Sunderhaus, Theodore S., and Genheimer, Robert A. 2000 Preliminary Report on Excavations at the Fort Ancient State Line Site, 33Ha58, in the Central Ohio Valley. In Cultures Before Contact: The Late Prehistory of Ohio and Surrounding Regions, edited by Genheimer, Robert A., pp. 272–328. Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus.Google Scholar
Wurster, Christopher M., and Patterson, William P. 2001 Late Holocene Climate Change for the Eastern Interior United States: Evidence From High-resolution δ 18O Values of Sagittal Otoliths. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 170:81–100.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, Marek 2000 The Social Context of the Agricultural Transition in Europe. In Archaeogenetics: DNA and the Population Prehistory of Europe, edited by Renfrew, Colin and Boyle, K, pp. 57–79. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, Marek 2001 The Agricultural Transition and the Origins of Neolithic Society in Europe. Documenta Praehistorica 15 (4):16.Google Scholar