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CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATION ALONG A MISSISSIPPIAN PERIPHERY: A FORT ANCIENT EXAMPLE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2017

Aaron R. Comstock  and
Robert A. Cook
Aaron R. Comstock*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Department of Anthropology, 4034 Smith Laboratory, 174 W. 18th Avenue, Columbus OH, 43210, USA
Robert A. Cook
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Department of Anthropology, 4034 Smith Laboratory 174 W. 18th Avenue, Columbus OH, 43210, USA (cook.426@osu.edu)
*
(comstock.43@osu.edu, corresponding author)
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Abstract

Archaeologists have long recognized an important relationship between climate change and the trajectory of the Mississippian polity at Cahokia, with twelfth- and thirteenth-century droughts playing a key role in transforming social relationships and the pace of monument construction. This environmental transition may have spurred emigration from Cahokia and surrounding farming communities. This raises the questions: What was the nature of environmental change and cultural transformations on the Mississippian peripheries and where did these Mississippian emigrants go? This paper provides a case study from the Middle Ohio Valley that brings together spatiotemporal patterns in moisture availability between AD 1000 and AD 1300 and new archaeological data from Fort Ancient villages located in southeast Indiana and southwest Ohio that were occupied during this same temporal interval. We suggest that droughts in the American Bottom region pushed Mississippians to less drought-stricken areas such as the Middle Ohio Valley, which experienced concurrent periods of wetness. This pattern builds on a growing body of data suggesting that the movement of individuals and communities played a large role in the process of Mississippianization throughout the midcontinental and southeastern United States.

La importante relación entre el cambio climático y la trayectoria política del sitio Misisipiano de Cahokia ha sido reconocida desde hace tiempo. En estudios recientes, las sequías de los siglos XII y XIII d.C. han sido reconocidas por su papel clave en la transformación del ritmo de construcción de los monumentos y de las relaciones sociales en el sitio. Se ha planteado que esta transición ambiental estimuló la emigración desde la metrópoli Misisipiana. Esto nos lleva a plantear las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cuál fue la naturaleza del cambio ambiental y las transformaciones culturales en las periferias Misisipianas? y ¿A dónde se trasladaron los emigrantes Misisipianos? Este artículo ofrece un estudio de caso del valle medio del Río Ohio que considera los patrones espacio-temporales de la disponibilidad de humedad entre 1000 y 1300 d.C. en conjunto con nuevos datos arqueológicos procedentes de sitios de la cultura Fort Ancient en el sureste de Indiana y en el suroeste de Ohio que fueron ocupados durante el mismo intervalo de tiempo. Los resultados nos llevan a sugerir que la escasez de agua en la región de Cahokia impulsó el movimiento de los Misisipianos hacia las zonas menos afectadas por la sequía, como el valle medio del Río Ohio, una región con abundante humedad durante el mismo período.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 91 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by the Society for American Archaeology 

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