Langford tradition and the process of tribalization on the middle Mississippian borders, The

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Spring 1999 by Emerson, Thomas E

ABSTRACT

The influence of Cahokia on its northern neighbors has long been of interest to regional scholars. In this essay I suggest that the Apple River and central Illinois River Mississippian chiefdoms exerted perhaps greater influence in their respective areas. This premise is based on a re-examination of existing data combined with new information from excavations of terminal Late Woodland and Langford tradition sites. The evidence implies that the Late Woodland-Upper Mississippian transition is best understood as a continuous process involving social, political, and economic changes that I have labeled tribalization. Furthermore, it appears that this process was generated by, and was a direct reaction to, asymmetrical power relations. A contributing factor may have been the intensification of conflict between the indigenous Late Woodland-Upper Mississippian groups and the Mississippian chiefdoms.

"Homo homini lupus. "

Introduction

There is no question that Cahokia was the most complexly organized political and social entity in the late prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands. However, the implications of this complexity for nearby societies have been difficult to ascertain. This is especially true for the Upper Mississippian groups who lived along Cahokia's northern fringe and were the focus of seminal work by James B. Griffin in the 1960s (e.g., Griffin 1960, 1966). Unhappily at that time, both for those concerned with the development of Cahokia and for those who saw that polity as a source of Upper Mississippian (here I include that phenomenon known as "Oneota") cultural evolution, the availability of archaeological data was severely limited. Early scholars such as Griffin had little beyond broad ceramic chronologies with which to assess the impact of Cahokia throughout the Midwest. The absence of good context-based archaeology at Cahokia and the northern sites directed archaeologists toward broad distributional studies with interpretations subsumed under the rubrics of trade, diffusion of cultural influences, migrations, or, more recently, prestige economies. While these studies demonstrated the spatial movement of Cahokia-related materials or local imitations throughout a restricted area of the midcontinent, they provided little understanding of the social, political, ideological, or even economic forces that generated this movement, or more importantly, the effect it had on indigenous peoples (cf. Champion 1989a: 12).

Several markedly different perspectives appear in the archaeological literature on the "Cahokia effect" (e.g., Emerson 1991a, 199 lb; Hall 1991; Stoltman 1986, 1991a,1991b). The view generally espoused by Cahokia-centered Middle Mississippian archaeologists sees northern peoples as somewhat undifferentiated and nonhierarchically organized masses into which Cahokia intruded through such mechanisms as trade or migration. This view focuses on the origin and development of Middle Mississippian groups within this northern zone (e.g., Conrad 1991 on the central Illinois River, and Emerson 1991a on the Apple River Mississippian cultures). The local indigenous peoples play a small part in such models although it is assumed that they were probably incorporated into the newly formed northern Middle Mississippian polities.

On the other hand, scenarios constructed by archaeologists who study Oneota or Late Woodland developments often perceive Cahokia either as a hard-todefine but extremely powerful force that was the sine qua non of northern cultural transformation, or, conversely, as having an insignificant role in regional cultural change (e.g., Berres 1998). For those who see Cahokia-driven cultural change, trade is often the compelling force (e.g., Finney and Stoltman 1991; Gibbon 1974; Kelly 1991). Some periphery models are so Cahokia-focused that they do not take into account the transformational potential of the numerous local Middle Mississippian and non-Mississippian groups occupying the Cahokia hinterlands. These approaches may not give sufficient consideration to the capacity of local group interaction as a vital force in cultural transformation and continuity, and may, unintentionally, convey an impression of Cahokia as deus ex machina.

Modeling the interaction of spatially distinct social groups has a number of proponents in archaeology, leading to the development of such competing and overlapping paradigms as, for example, world systems (Wallerstein 1974), prestige goods economies (cf. Peregrine 1992), peer polities (Renfrew and Cherry 1987), and centers and peripheries (Champion 1989b), or of broader coevolutionary models (e.g., Braun and Plog 1982; O'Brien 1987; Spencer 1991). While all of these theories carry with them basic assumptions that restrict their use in this discussion (e.g., see Jeske 1999a; Kowalewski 1996; McGuire 1996), all emphasize intergroup communication as an essential component of cultural stimulation, emulation, continuity, and transformation. In my estimation the most potent set of primary concepts for thinking about Cahokia and the north lies in the "center-periphery" paradigm. Champion (1989a:1) proposes that a major force for cultural transformation emanates from asymmetrical relationships that develop between societies with markedly different patterns of social and/or economic organization. Such asymmetry and its potential to effect culture change is especially pronounced where nonhierarchical societies abut more complex polities. Additionally, such nonhierarchical societies are subject to manipulation by the "semiperipheral" centers that may develop in complex societies and act as effective intermediaries between the principal center and the peripheries, often for their own ends (Champion 1989a: 16). Such a situation may have existed in late prehistoric times in northern Illinois. Consequently, in examining the influence of Cahokia in the upper Midwest it is necessary that we first understand the transformational potential of the intermediary Apple River and central Illinois River Middle Mississippian groups.