Archaeology of the Moundville Chiefdom

Built on a flat terrace overlooking the Black Warrior River in Alabama, the Moundville ceremonial center was at its height a densely occupied town of approximately a thousand residents, with at least 29 earthen mounds surrounding a central plaza. Today Moundville is not only one of the largest and best-preserved Mississippian sites in the southeastern United States, but also one of the most intensively studied. Rejecting the suggestion of previous models that Moundville suffered an abrupt collapse after a period of steady development, Vernon James Knight, Jr. and Vincas P. Steponaitis, along with the six contributors, contend that the peak occupation of Moundville occurred early in its history and was followed by a protracted decline. They analyze ceramic, human skeletal, faunal, and botanical evidence from central and outlying sites to trace the town's evolution from a settlement to a ceremonial center to a regional necropolis. Bringing together research on population history, domestic life, human health and subsistence, economic organization, spatial organization, and regional settlement patterns, Archaeology of the Moundville Chiefdom presents a broad, well-documented, chronological view of a site central to the study of chiefdom societies worldwide.