An analysis of historic period Chickasaw settlement patterns
The purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate issues of culture change and continuity resulting from the contact between Europeans and the aboriginal people of the southesatern United States during the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries. Specifically, my thesis examines the Chickasaw Indian settlement patterns in northeast Mississippi from late prehistory through Indian removal in the early nineteenth century. It is suggested that the changes and social reorganization prompted by the contact between European and aboriginal cultures is observable archaeologically: some of the changes that developed in the wake of European exploration and settlement are evident in the way the Chickasaw Indians distributed themselves across the landscape of Lee County, Mississippi (Figure 1 ). I also wish to introduce the suggestion that the increasing use of the horse among the Chickasaw in the post-contact period was a contributing factor in the observed settlement pattern.
Chickasaw Indians--European influences, Indians of North America--Mississippi--European influences, Land settlement patterns
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