Settlement dispersal, economic disintensification, and human health at Moundville (Alabama).

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This research proposes a model of economic disintensification, applied to the Mississippi period chiefdom of Moundville, in Alabama. I hypothesized the post-A.D. 1300 population dispersal from Moundville to outlying sites would have resulted in economic disintensification. To evaluate this model, I proposed subsistence, settlement pattern, and health correlates of disintensification, and tested these correlates against data from the Moundville site. I reviewed the existing literature on Moundville subsistence, and found that the published data were insufficient for determining if disintensification had occurred. Next, I performed a settlement pattern analysis of the number, mean size, distribution and density of Moundville phase sites, and found that although population dispersal occurred, there was no firm evidence of disintensification. I also collected primary demographic and paleopathological data from Moundville phase human skeletal remains, and made a diachronic comparison of skeletal samples before and after population dispersal, to see if there were any differences in health or nutrition that would signal disintensification. I found no statistically significant differences in rates of disease, trauma, degenerative joint disease, dental pathology or dental wear between pre-dispersal and post-dispersal populations, indicating that disintensification did not take place.
The model of disintensification is upheld, and most of the archaeological correlates I proposed for disintensification are valid tests of the model. However, disintensification did not occur within the Moundville chiefdom. Instead, Moundville and the outlying communities in the chiefdom appear to have maintained close ties, and continued to act as a single entity in terms of subsistence and social connections, thereby leaving open the vectors of disease at consistent low levels throughout the Moundville era. I believe this low-level exposure partially accounts for the lack of clear distinctions in health between the subphases. Overall, people appear to have maintained good health and an adequate diet across time, regardless of population movements and political change. The dispersal of Moundville's population after A.D. 1300 in no way represents "the beginning of the end" of the chiefdom, but rather an organizational improvement that maintained the social and salutary status quo to the benefit of outlying communities and the residents of Moundville alike.