Abstract:
ABSTRACT
RAISED WALLS AND BROKEN BONES: AN ANALYSIS OF DEFENSIVE
ARCHITECTURE AND VIOLENT SKELETAL TRAUMA IN LATE
PREHISTORIC EASTERN NORTH AMERICA
by
Lance L. Blanchard
Master of Arts in Anthropology
California State University, Chico
Spring 2011
While the causes, practices, and effects of prehistoric warfare have long
been speculated on by archaeologists in eastern North America, only recently has our
understanding of prehistoric violence been informed by a close examination of the evidence.
An intensification of bioarchaeological research on violent conflict has taken
place in the last two decades, while studies relating to defensive architecture, weapons,
and iconography remain rare. This thesis represents an initial attempt to evaluate the
relationship between two of these lines of evidence, defensive architecture and violent
skeletal trauma. The results of this thesis also call into question many of the assumptions
that have driven previous interpretations of prehistoric warfare in eastern North
America.
Data on defensive architecture and violent skeletal trauma were compiled
and reassessed from previously published sources spanning the last century of archaeological
research in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valleys and the eastern Gulf
Coastal Plain. A total of 56 sites containing 8,586 individuals dating to either the Late
Woodland (A.D. 500-1000) or Mississippian (A.D. 1000-1500) periods were included
in this research. Frequencies of violent skeletal trauma were compared between a number
of variables relating to defensive architecture presence, chronology, geographical
location, site size, age and sex groups, and the availability of complete skeletal preservation
data.
A significant decrease in the overall frequency of violent skeletal trauma
was observed through time, questioning the assumption that the widespread construction
of defensive architecture across eastern North America at the onset of the Mississippian
period signaled an intensification of warfare. The prevalence of violent skeletal
trauma also decreased significantly with the presence of palisades, ditches, and platform
mounds. However, a similar pattern in the frequencies of the types of violent skeletal
trauma was observed between sites with and without defensive architecture, suggesting
that new warfare strategies were not required once sites were protected by defensive
architecture. This result, combined with the patterns of trauma observed between age
and sex groups suggests that small-scale raiding against small isolated work parties or
lone individuals was the primary strategy employed in Late Woodland and Mississippian
warfare. Finally, the high variability in the results seen between sub-regions indicates a need for further research to address the multitude of social, political, and environmental
factors affecting the patterns of prehistoric violent conflict.
