Under the direction of Dr. Cameron Wesson, Mr. Mark Rees will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will conduct archaeological excavation at the sites of Fosters Landing and Hills Gin landing, both located in the Black Warrior Valley of Alabama. The goal of the research is to understand the processes which lead to the devolution of social complexity. Both sites date to the early second millennium AD and are associated with Moundville, one of the largest and most impressive prehistoric occurrences in North America. Moundville, as its name implies contains large mounds or earthworks which required the mobilization of large amounts of labor to produce. Elaborate burials with finely crafted grave goods attest to a centralized form of social organization with a high degree of social differentiation. After 1,400 AD however the central site was abandoned and mound construction ceased. While a collapse is clearly documented, secondary villages located in adjacent areas of the Valley continued to thrive and Mr. Rees will focus his attention on these. He wishes to learn whether power shifted from Moundville to such secondary sites and, if such is the case, to understand the processes involved. To accomplish this goal he will conduct an auger survey of the sites and make controlled surface collection to determine areas of densest materials. Extensive lateral excavations shall then be conducted. With the ceramics and other remains obtained, he will be able to examine the degree to which elite functions shifted to these secondary sites, the extent to which they competed with each other and the subsistence strategies employed. While much archaeological attention has focused on the rise of social complexity, relatively little has been directed to the opposite or devolutionary process. In North America, most aboriginal peoples reached a height of political centralization well before the appearance of Europeans in the New World and in many regions devolution occurred in pre-Columbus times. Mr. Rees has proposed a general model which involves increases in factionalism and changed patterns in subsistence and social organization. This project will provide data to test these ideas. It will yield data of interest to many archaeologists and assist in training a promising young scientist.
