Reviews Crafting History in the Northern Plains: A Political Economy of the Heart River Region 1400-1750 By Mark D. Mitchell (University of Arizona Press, 2013; 288 pgs., illus., $60 cloth; www.uapress.arizona.edu)
Near the present day city of Bismarck, North Dakota, at the confluence of the Heart and Missouri rivers, was the homeland of the Mandan people. From about a.d. 1400 to 1750 they occupied six large villages along the rivers that consisted of substantial earthen lodges enclosed by a protective ditch. The Mandan, like their northern Plains relatives, developed an economy that combined bison hunting and maize agriculture, producing an era of prosperity. By about 1700, European traders had reached the Mandan villages and trade goods were abundant in the ruins of these villages. When Lewis and Clark arrived in 1804, the Mandan villages were abandoned, decimated by smallpox. In this fascinating study, Mark Mitchell uses archaeology to reconstruct a history of the Mandans during the critical period before and after European contact. Combining archaeological data on pottery and stone-tool making with ethnographic and historical data, Mitchell seeks to bridge the gap between pre-history and history. In so doing, we getter a clearer view of Mandan history as well as European colonization and its impact on native peoples.
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Mound Sites of the Ancient South: A Guide to the Mississippian Chiefdoms By Eric E. Bowne (University of Georgia Press, 2013; 272 pgs., illus., $30 paper, $30 ebook; www.ugapress.org)
The great prehistoric mounds of the American South remain today as impressive monuments of a complex culture that thrived between about a.d. 900 and 1600. While this Mississippian period was the most impressive and most complex, mound building in the south has its origins as early as 3500 b.c. A succession of mound-building cultures followed one after another, until the European invasion brought it all to a tragic end. Archaeologist Eric Bowne of Arkansas Tech University has produced this wonderful guide to the Mississippian mound sites that will be of immeasurable assistance to lay people, archaeologists, and undergraduate classes. Bowne provides readers with a general introduction to the Mississippians, explaining their subsistence and settlement patterns, political and social organization, warfare, and belief systems. This is related to the sites that remain, most of which are accessible to the general public. Some 24 of the most important Mississippian sites and museums are explained in detail and many more are mentioned to fill in the many gaps that result from massive site destruction that has taken place in the past hundred years or so due to modern agriculture, looting, and urban development. The featured centers include sites ranging from Aztalan in Wisconsin to Etowah in Georgia. Spiro in Oklahoma, Cahokia in Illinois, and Moundville in Alabama are also covered. Lavishly illustrated with detailed drawings of structures and reconstructions of daily life as well as maps and almost 100 color photographs, this is both an excellent guide book and an outstanding introduction to the Mississippian culture. Everyone with an interest in the mound-builder sites of the American South will make good use of it to steer them through this fascinating part of America’s heritage.
summer • 2013
