Biological Affinities and the Construction of Cultural Identity

230 Pages·2017·3.31 MB·English

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Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School
5-2010
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Michaelyn S. Harle
[email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss
Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, and the Biological and Physical Anthropology
Commons
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Harle, Michaelyn S., "Biological Affinities and the Construction of Cultural Identity for the Proposed Coosa
Chiefdom. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2010.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/698
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To the Graduate Council:
I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Michaelyn S. Harle entitled "Biological
Affinities and the Construction of Cultural Identity for the Proposed Coosa Chiefdom." I have
examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend
that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, with a major in Anthropology.
Lynne P. Sullivan, Gerald F. Schroedl, Major Professor
We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance:
Lyle W. Konigsberg, Benjamin M. Fitzpatrick
Accepted for the Council:
Carolyn R. Hodges
Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
(Original signatures are on file with official student records.)
To the Graduate Council:

I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Michaelyn S. Harle entitled “Biological
Affinities and the Construction of Cultural Identity for the Proposed Coosa Chiefdom.” I have
examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that
it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
with a major in Anthropology.

Lynne P. Sullivan
Major Professor

Gerald F. Schroedl
Major Professor

We have read this dissertation
and recommend its acceptance:

Lyle W. Konigsberg

Benjamin M. Fitzpatrick

Accepted for the Council:

Carolyn R. Hodges

Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
BIOLOGICAL AFFINITIES AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL
IDENTITY WITHIN THE PROPOSED COOSA CHIEFDOM

A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Michaelyn Suzanne Harle
April 2010
Acknowledgements
The research presented here is the culmination of years of work and would not have been
possible without the assistance of the individuals listed. First and foremost, I would like to thank
my committee members: Dr. Lynne Sullivan, Dr. Gerald Schroedl, Dr. Lyle Konigsberg, and Dr.
Benjamin Fitzpatrick. Throughout my academic career, I have benefited greatly from Dr.
Sullivan’s mentorship and friendship, which has provided me with funding, research and
professional opportunities, and invaluable advice. She has endured countless early drafts of this
document, and this research has greatly benefitted from her editorial advice and comments. The
foundation for much of this research has been influenced by her decades of scholarship in East
Tennessee and by our recent collaborative work. Much of the credit for the analysis goes to Dr.
Konigsberg for not only providing me with the Fortran and R code for several of the analyses,
but also his advice on how to use and interpret these statistics correctly. Recently while
lamenting my own statistical inadequacies, I said to someone that I could never dream of coming
close to Dr. Konigsberg’s statistical brilliance. The person replied, “Well, few people could.”
Never have truer words been spoken. Dr. Schroedl’s discerning eye and thought provoking
questions vastly improved this dissertation. His scholarship and his work in the classroom is a
source of inspiration. No other individual has shaped my thinking on what it means to be a great
teacher more than Dr. Schroedl. Thanks to Dr. Fitzpatrick who offered invaluable advice as an
“outsider” and made me think harder about the technical jargon I had taken for granted.
A big thanks goes to the institutions and individuals that granted me access to the
collections used in this study: Dr. Jefferson Chapman and Dr. Sullivan at the Frank H. McClung
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Museum, Lawrence Alexander and Associates, and Dr. David Hally and Jared Wood at the
University of Georgia. I extend a debt of gratitude to Dr. Hally for providing me maps and
information on the Georgia sites. The company of Bob Pennington, who was always there for a
quick joke or a Barry White song when I needed it, made countless hours of data collection at the
McClung Museum endurable.
Many individuals at the University of Tennessee greatly assisted me throughout my
academic career. Dr. David Anderson has been a great mentor, neighbor, and friend. I have
learned a great deal from the countless hours spent discussing Mississippian archaeology with
Bobby Braly and Shannon Koerner. Dr. Kanya Goode and Dr. Nicholas Herrmann patiently
answered my panicked questions and emails regarding biodistance analysis. The individuals
who really make our department run (Pam Poe, Donna Patton, Pam Bailey, and Charlene
Weaver) have saved my hide more times than I can count. To my other professors and
colleagues not specifically mentioned here, I thank you all.
I also would like to thank my colleagues at TVA (Eric Howard, Erin Pritchard, Pat
Ezzell, Richard Yarnell, Marianne Shuler, Erin Broyles, Scott Meeks, Ted Wells, Dr. Thomas
Maher, and Matthew Gage). These individuals work in the frontlines of preserving our cultural
heritage and I am a better archaeologist (and driver) for knowing them.
My family, in-laws, my friends in Knoxville whom I collectively refer to as “Newman”
(Dr. Kathryn King, Sandra Cridlin, Rachel Black, Chad Caswell, Amanda and Bob Jarrett,
Cameron Howell, and Dan Marcel) and my friends back home (too many to name here, but
especially Dan and Nicole McClure and John Mills) have emotionally sustained me throughout
this process. My parents, Vickie and Michael Harle, have always been my biggest cheerleaders
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and for this, I will always be grateful. Perhaps no one is more relieved that this dissertation is
complete more so than my husband. He has suffered much neglect and has shown much
patience throughout this long and at times arduous process. Because of him, my life (and my
home) is much tidier.
Finally, to the individuals whose remains were the centerpiece of this research and to
their descendents - I hope I have done them justice by telling just a small part of their story.

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Abstract
This study couples biological data with aspects of material culture and mortuary ritual for
several sites within the proposed Coosa chiefdom described by sixteenth-century Spanish
accounts to explore how cultural identities were actively constructed and maintained within the
region. The primary goal is to examine regional interactions between these communities and
their constructions of social identity and sociopolitical dynamics vis à vis their biological
affinities. Questions regarding regional interactions between these groups have been a stimulus
for archaeological debate. These interactions may have played a crucial role in the construction
of separate cultural identities. What is not clear is to what extent differences in cultural identity
reflect or are related to differences in biological relationships.
The skeletal samples used in this study represent six Late Mississippian archaeological
sites assigned to three archaeological phases: the Dallas Phase, Fains Island (40JE1), Cox
(40AN19), and David Davis (40HA301) sites; the Mouse Creek Phase, Ledford Island (40BY13)
site; and the Barnett Phase, King (9FL5) and Little Egypt (9MU102) sites. Twenty-seven dental
and 22 cranial nonmetric traits were recorded for 923 individuals. Biological affinities were
calculated using the Mahalanobis D2 statistic for the cranial and dental non-metric traits.
Biological Distance measures were compared to a geographic matrix to examine isolation by
distance between the sites. Further analysis was conducted by constructing an R matrix to
examine levels of heterogeneity.
Comparisons between biological distance and geographical distances suggest that the
samples used in this analysis do not conform to the expected isolation-by-distance model.
Furthermore, East Tennessee groups appear distinct from their North Georgia neighbors
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suggesting little biological interaction between these groups. The results of the biological
distance analysis conforms to differences in material culture and mortuary ritual between these
groups. The results suggests that if there was a political alliance within the region for this period
it is not associated with biological relatedness nor did it act as a unifying force for individual
communities’ cultural identity.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION......................................................................................1
Regional Importance of the Study..............................................................................................................................5
Temporal Importance of the Study..........................................................................................................................10
Goals of the Study......................................................................................................................................................12
Organization of the Chapters...................................................................................................................................15
CHAPTER II: ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ETHNOHISTORICAL SETTING.................17
Defining the Chiefdom Model...................................................................................................................................18
Defining the Mississippian Period............................................................................................................................20
The Mississippian Period in East Tennessee...........................................................................................................30
The Mississippian Period in North Georgia............................................................................................................36
Ethnohistorical Accounts of Coosa..........................................................................................................................39
Archaeological Evidence of Coosa............................................................................................................................44
Afterwards: Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Historic Native Americans in the Region.................................53
Summary and Discussion..........................................................................................................................................58
CHAPTER III: INDIVIDUAL SITE DESCRIPTIONS AND MORTUARY DATA............61
Site Descriptions........................................................................................................................................................61
Fains Island (40JE1)...............................................................................................................................................61
Ledford Island (40BY13)........................................................................................................................................65
Cox (40AN19)........................................................................................................................................................71
David Davis Farm Site (40HA301)........................................................................................................................76
King Site (9FL5).....................................................................................................................................................77
Little Egypt (9MU102)...........................................................................................................................................81
Summary and Discussion of Mortuary Site Patterning.........................................................................................84
Theoretical Underpinnings for Mortuary Analysis.................................................................................................84
Mortuary Spatial Arrangement and Funerary Artifact Distribution........................................................................86
Body Positioning....................................................................................................................................................91
Bioarchaeological Data...........................................................................................................................................92
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................................................93
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