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Trends in Cooperation and Conflict in Native Eastern North America

David H. Dye

in War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views

While conflict was entwined, if not entrenched, in indigenous eastern North America, so too was the ability to limit the scope of conflict and to engender alliances, coalitions, and cooperation. This ... More

While conflict was entwined, if not entrenched, in indigenous eastern North America, so too was the ability to limit the scope of conflict and to engender alliances, coalitions, and cooperation. This chapter presents a model of evolving trends in violence and cooperation that incorporates changes in sociopolitical organization. The model accounts for temporal variations in indigenous conflict and cooperation as well as social and political issues. Three broad cultural trends may be posited for dominant institutions associated with peacemaking and lethal aggression in eastern North America: non-segmented foragers, segmented hunter-gatherer-gardeners, and village agriculturalists. These trends, each considered in turn, are not mutually exclusive, but appear to be dominating modes of behavior associated with varying degrees of sociopolitical integration.Less

The Mortuary Assemblage from the Holliston Mills Site, a Mississippian Town in Upper East Tennessee

Jay D. Franklin, Elizabeth K. Price, and Lucinda M. Langstqn

in Mississippian Mortuary Practices: Beyond Hierarchy and the Representationist Perspective

This essay examines the archaeology of the nearby Holliston Mills site, a Mississippian town in Upper East Tennessee, with particular focus on mortuary patterning. The Holliston Mills site is located ... More

This essay examines the archaeology of the nearby Holliston Mills site, a Mississippian town in Upper East Tennessee, with particular focus on mortuary patterning. The Holliston Mills site is located on the north bank of the Holston River south of Kingsport in Hawkins County, Tennessee. The site was excavated by members of the Tennessee Archaeological Society between 1968 and 1972. It was excavated in ten-foot blocks using six-inch levels, revealing a large late prehistoric (and perhaps protohistoric) town represented by at least two palisades, more than 660 burials, a large public structure, and several smaller domestic structures. The excavators initially reported the recovery of what they believed to be Cobb Island pottery in the plow zone and much Dallas material from the level excavations, but they also noted that the site had been looted prior to their excavations. There is little, if any, Cobb Island pottery, but there are some Pisgah ceramics. This essay also describes the sociopolitical organization at Holliston Mills and in Upper East Tennessee.Less

The Ideal of Civilization: Its Origins, Meanings, and Implications

in The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea

This chapter, which analyzes the normative dimension of civilization or civilization as ideal, explores the term's etymological origins and eighteenth-century French and British Enlightenment origins ... More

This chapter, which analyzes the normative dimension of civilization or civilization as ideal, explores the term's etymological origins and eighteenth-century French and British Enlightenment origins and meanings. It outlines how some measure of social cooperation and a capacity for sociopolitical organization or self-government among any given people have long been considered key characteristics or requirements of civilization.Less

Introduction

Lisa Sousa

in The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, and Other Narratives of Native Women in Archives of Colonial Mexico

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to major themes of the study and to the historical background of the indigenous groups of central Mexico and Oaxaca--the Nahua, Ñudzahui (Mixtec), Bènizàa ... More

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to major themes of the study and to the historical background of the indigenous groups of central Mexico and Oaxaca--the Nahua, Ñudzahui (Mixtec), Bènizàa (Zapotec), and Ayuk (Mixe) peoples--that are the focus of the book. The chapter lays out the dramatic changes that took place in native communities in the decades following the Spanish conquest (1519-21), including depopulation, sociopolitical reorganization, imposition of Christianity, and economic reorientation. Chapter 1 provides a general overview of social structure and gender relations in the post-classic and colonial periods. The Introduction places the work and its contributions in the context of the scholarship on colonial Mexican ethnohistory and Latin American women’s history, and discusses the sources and methods used in the study.Less

Emergence of Malayu

Leonard Y. Andaya

in Leaves of the Same Tree: Trade and Ethnicity in the Straits of Melaka

This chapter provides an analysis of the Malayu culture that developed in the early southeast Sumatran polities of Sriwijaya and Malayu, between the seventh and fourteenth centuries. While ... More

This chapter provides an analysis of the Malayu culture that developed in the early southeast Sumatran polities of Sriwijaya and Malayu, between the seventh and fourteenth centuries. While inscriptions and external sources are limited, there is sufficient linguistic and archaeological evidence to form the basis for a tentative reconstruction of the sociopolitical organization of these polities. Certain features of the society can be detected, including the role of family in government, a reliance on sea and forest peoples in assuring the collection of products and protection of routes for international trade, the maritime and riverine environment, the sacral quality of kingship, and the use of oaths as an important political and economic tool.Less