Chronology and the Demise of Chiefdoms: Eastern Oklahoma in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (2006)

With the decline of Mississippian chiefdoms in many parts of the Southeast by the sixteenth century, a variety of new social formations took shape. In eastern Oklahoma, exchange and other interactions with the East were replaced by a reorientation that emphasized connections with the southern Plains. The chronology that encompasses this transition includes the Spiro phase (A.D. 1250-1450) and the post-chiefdom Fort Coffee phase. Through analysis of 20 new AMS dates from three sites, the Fort Coffee phase can now be extended from the end of the Spiro phase to A.D. 1660 and to an expanding region of eastern Oklahoma. Some 70 years later LaHarpe's expeditions provide the first substantial written descriptions of what was already a dynamic and rapidly changing social environment. One of the enduring questions in the archaeology of the Arkansas basin (Figure 1) concerns the shift from the Mississippian tradition defined most notably for the region at Spiro (Brown 1996) to a dramatically different social and subsistence pattern beginning about A.D. 1450. This is the time associated, on the one hand, with the demise of complex social hierarchies and mound construction; and on the other, with the rise of very different Plains-related adaptations and traditions recognizable as the tribes mentioned in early written sources. The present study contributes to the interpretation of this significant transition by making available 20 new AMS dates relating to the development of a post-Mississippian world. In the case of eastern Oklahoma, as elsewhere in the Midwest and Southeast, the demise of Mississippian chiefdoms was a common phenomenon in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This well-documented series of events is the foundation for the chronological argument presented here. The key ingredients in this transition are connected to the collapse of complex social hierarchies and their intertwined ritual systems, but also economic changes that were almost certainly operating at a different rate of change. The physical aspects of these interrelated systems included specialized sites where mounds, elaborate burials, temples, and other special-purpose buildings were constructed and used over long periods of time. Equally linked was the major decline in long-distance exchange of exotic and more mundane items from eastern sources, generally interpreted as fundamental to the maintenance of prestige goods economies (Bell 1947; Brown 1983; Muller 1997; Rogers 1996). With the demise of the complex chiefdoms, beginning around A.D. 1450, regional interactions were reformulated along very different lines. It is argued here that instead of exchange in prestige goods, the emerging interactions were dominated by the transfer of subsistence goods. These exchanges are likely to have occurred through direct contacts considering the relative proximity of Plains Village groups and the likelihood of extended forays onto the Plains to hunt bison. Considering the decline in evidence for trade in high value items and the shifts in subsistence, it can be argued that the development of post-Mississippian social networks were as much about the transfer of knowledge as about materials. From a regional point of view, the new interactions were primarily engaged with the closest social systems. In southern Kansas, central Oklahoma, western Arkansas, and northern Texas, the major regional complexes of comparable age with which interactions were likely are the Great Bend Aspect (including the Lower Walnut focus), the Neosho phase, Wheeler phase, Red River Caddo, and the Henrietta Complex (Sabo et al. 1990:992; Vehik 1994:246-247). These regional material cultures represent the foundation for interpreting the origins of contemporary tribes and other groups known only by name in early sources (e.g., Smith 1958-59; Wedel 1981). Sites and Dates The focus of this study is primarily sites dated to the Fort Coffee phase, encompassing the time range from the end of the Spiro phase at A. …