Archaeobotanical Analyses of the Winterville Mounds Site (22ws500) and Other Southeastern Ceremonial Complexes

<p>The prehistoric Southeast region of the United States has had very limited archaeobotanical research focused on botanicals’ medicinal or ritualistic characteristics. An analysis of reported botanical remains recovered from Winterville Mounds (22WS500) and seventy- two other Late Woodland and Mississippian sites, from seven states, was conducted to identify their potential medicinal and ritual use of seventy-five botanicals based on reported ethnobotanical evidence. By classifying botanicals into four classes, modeled after the dissertation of Dr. Michele Williams in 2000, taxon frequency and feature ubiquity is configured and utilized to identify the possible ceremonial and medicinal use plants. At Winterville Mounds Site a Chi Square statistical analysis utilizing maize and purslane inclusions from four features identified a negative correlation between the two, suggesting a distinction between food consumption (feasting) and deposits associated with medicine-ritual activities, possibly medicine or sweat lodges, specifically in contexts associated with the site’s largest mound, Mound A. The results suggest the need for more research focusing on less commonly studied botanical inclusions.</p> <p>Broadening the analysis to the remainder of the sample, the collateral effects of agriculture in the form of disease, land clearing, workload, and increased access to farmed subsistence products is shown to have both indirect and direct connections to changes in these botanical inclusions. Finally, this research acknowledges a need to broaden the analytical perspective of archaeobotany beyond simply economic and environmental interpretations by considering other plants’ associations with ceremonial and medicinal uses; and calls for professionals to include the Indigenous voice in their research.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2019

Author dc:creator

• Hauffe, Dana

Contributors dc:contributor

• Marie Danforth
• Bridgette Hayden
• Edwin Jackson

• Medicinal and Ceremonial Use of Plants
• Southeastern Archaeology
• Winterville Mounds Site
• Ethnobotanical
• Mississippian Period Botanical Use
• Archaeological Anthropology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/689

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1751