Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817350853 ISBN 13: 9780817350857

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 2004

Synopsis

Traces the sources of power and large-scale organization of prehistoric peoples among Archaic societies.

By focusing on the first instances of mound building, pottery making, fancy polished stone and bone, as well as specialized chipped stone, artifacts, and their widespread exchange, this book explores the sources of power and organization among Archaic societies. It investigates the origins of these technologies and their effects on long-term (evolutionary) and short-term (historical) change.

The characteristics of first origins in social complexity belong to 5,000- to 6,000-year-old Archaic groups who inhabited the southeastern United States. In Signs of Power, regional specialists identify the conditions, causes, and consequences that define organization and social complexity in societies. Often termed "big mound power," these considerations include the role of demography, kinship, and ecology in sociocultural change; the meaning of geometry and design in sacred groupings; the degree of advancement in stone tool technologies; and differentials in shell ring sizes that reflect social inequality.

About this title

About the Author

Jon L. Gibson is Professor (Retired) of Anthropology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and author of The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point.  


Philip J. Carr is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Alabama and editor of The Organization of North American Prehistoric Chipped Stone Tool Technologies.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817350853
• ISBN 13: 9780817350857
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 399
• Editor: Gibson Jon L.