WHAT DOES MORTUARY VARIABILITY IN THE OHIO VALLEY MIDDLE WOODLAND MEAN? AGENCY, ITS PROJECTS, AND INTERPRETIVE AMBIGUITY

Abstract

Building on what I view as the inability of archaeologists to distinguish patterning in the treatment of the dead in the central Ohio Valley Middle Woodland (Adena and Hopewell combined), I suggest an interpretive shift to focus instead upon agency; that is, upon mortuary events as the products of individuals and teams performing ritual acts using relics of their dead. That said, the remains we interpret as persona become, in effect, the “abandoned projects” of that agency, and their interpretation in the archaeological contexts we excavate (accretional mounds and other forms of mortuary features) is hedged around with what I call interpretive ambiguity. This approach embraces what we see as the extreme mortuary variability characteristic of the time and place without denying that underlying mortuary beliefs were real and conservative. Rather, it focuses upon the interpretation of place and how historical events occurring in places reflect larger social interactions.