Documenting Ceremonial Situations and Institutional Change at Middle Woodland Geometric Enclosures in Central Kentucky

ABSTRACT

The construction of earthen enclosures changed how the Middle Woodland landscape was monumentalized in central Kentucky. Archaeologists have long associated these monuments with important social changes, leading to modern interpretations of these mounds as material evidence for cooperative labor, large kin-based coalitions, and pan-regional ritual practices and cosmological beliefs. We conducted research at nine enclosures in central Kentucky that allowed us to examine the evidence for their potential correlation with astronomical phenomena and identify variability in how enclosures were constructed. In this article we present archaeoastronomical and geoarchaeological data from these nine sites to explore how local groups built and used geometric enclosures. Our data led us to consider the diverse ceremonial situations under which these monuments were constructed. We suggest that the variability present in, and the spread of, small enclosures reflects both the simultaneous reinterpretation and adoption of pan-regional institutions during local manifestations of a Middle Woodland situation.

KEYWORDS:

• situations
• assemblages
• enclosures
• archaeoastronomy
• Adena and Hopewell
• Middle Woodland
• eastern North America

Acknowledgments

This article was initially prepared for the sponsored symposium Ceremonial Situations in the North American Midcontinent: Perspectives from the Middle Woodland Era at the 63rd annual meeting of the Midwest Archaeological Conference at Mankato, Minnesota, in 2019. We would like to thank Dr. Sarah Baires and Dr. James Brown for comments during that symposium that helped refine the ideas presented here. Comments from two anonymous reviewers also provided very helpful ways for us to refine our ideas, and for that, we are grateful. We also thank Dr. Logan Miller for his conversations about and comments on earlier versions of the manuscript that improved our final article. Professors and staff at the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, the Program for Archaeological Research, and the Webb Museum of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky provided the ALP with equipment, their time, and helpful insights; we thank them for all their support. Finally, we thank all the landowners of the sites we worked on across central Kentucky during the ALP. Funding for the ALP came from the Waitt Foundation through the National Geographic Society (no. 3261-4), the National Science Foundation (no. 1545577), and the American Philosophical Society’s Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research, as well as the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the George R. Throop Endowment at Washington University in St. Louis.

Notes on the Contributors

Edward R. Henry is an assistant professor of anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. He earned a PhD from Washington University in St. Louis and MA degrees from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Mississippi in University, MS. Henry’s research has focused on the landscapes and organization of small-scale societies from central Asia to eastern North America. However, most of his research explores the context of religious, economic, and political institutions in Middle Woodland (ca. 200 BC–AD 500) societies and the landscapes they inhabited across the eastern United States.

Andrew M. Mickelson is an associate professor of archaeology in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Memphis in Memphis, TN. He earned a PhD and an MA in anthropology from Ohio State University, Columbus, and his BA from Beloit College. Mickelson’s research focuses on prehistoric settlement patterns in eastern North America (1000 BC–AD 1500).

Michael E. Mickelson is a retired professor of physics and astronomy from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Denison University in Granville, OH. He earned his bachelor of science and doctoral degrees in physics from Ohio State University, Columbus. His research areas have included laboratory and observational spectroscopy relating to the atmospheres of the giant gas planets and archaeoastronomy of ancient built structures both in Ohio and Greece.