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Brings together nine Moundville specialists who trace the site’s evolution and eventual decline
 
Built on a flat terrace overlooking the Black Warrior River in Alabama, the Moundville ceremonial center was at its height a densely occupied town of approximately 1,000 residents, with at least 29 earthen mounds surrounding a central plaza. Today Moundville is not only one of the largest and best-preserved Mississippian sites in the United States but also one of the most intensively studied. This volume brings together nine Moundville specialists who trace the site’s evolution and eventual decline.
 

How social and political power was wielded in order to build Moundville

Exploring the legacy of America’s great mound builders.

In the 13th century, Moundville was one of the largest Native American settlements north of Mexico. Spread over 325 acres were 29 earthen mounds arranged around a great plaza, a mile-long stockade, and dozens of dwellings for thousands of people. Moundville, in size and complexity second only to the Cahokia site in Illinois, was a heavily populated town, as well as a political and religious center.

Moundville was sustained by tribute of food and labor provided by the people who lived in the nearby floodplain as well as other smaller mound centers. The immediate area appears to have been thickly populated, but by about A.D. 1350, Moundville retained only ceremonial and political functions. A decline ensued, and by the 1500s the area was abandoned. By the time the first Europeans reached the Southeast in the 1540s, the precise links between Moundville's inhabitants and what became the historic Native American tribes had become a mystery.

Illustrated with 50 color photos, maps, and figures, Moundville tells the story of the ancient people who lived there, the modern struggle to save the site from destruction, and the scientific saga of the archaeologists who brought the story to life. Moundville is the book to read before, during, or after a visit to Alabama’s prehistoric metropolis.

A fascinating examination of family life and social relationships at this powerful prehistoric community, which at its peak was the largest city north of Mexico
 
Complex Mississippian polities were neither developed nor sustained in a vacuum. A broad range of small-scale social groups played a variety of roles in the emergence of regionally organized political hierarchies that governed large-scale ceremonial centers. Recent research has revealed the extent to which interactions among corporately organized clans led to the development, success, and collapse of Moundville. These insights into Moundville’s social complexity are based primarily on the study of monumental architecture and mortuary ceremonialism. Less is known about how everyday domestic practices produced and were produced by broader networks of power and inequality in the region. 
 
Wilson’s research addresses this gap in our understanding by analyzing and interpreting large-scale architectural and ceramic data sets from domestic contexts. This study has revealed that the early Mississippian Moundville community consisted of numerous spatially discrete multi-household groups, similar to ethnohistorically described kin groups from the southeastern United States. Hosting feasts, dances, and other ceremonial events were important strategies by which elite groups created social debts and legitimized their positions of authority. Non-elite groups, on the other hand, maintained considerable economic and ritual autonomy through diversified production activities, risk sharing, and household ceremonialism. Organizational changes in Moundville’s residential occupation highlight the different ways kin groups defined and redefined their corporate status and identities over the long term.

The Moundville Expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore brings together, in a handsome facsimile edition, two landmark studies documenting the first large-scale archaeological investigations of Alabama's most important prehistoric Native American site. Originally published in 1905 and 1907 and presented here with an introduction by noted archaeologist Vernon James Knight Jr., the volume preserves the pioneering work of Clarence Bloomfield Moore, one of the most influential figures in American archaeology, whose river expeditions helped establish the foundations of Southeastern archaeological research. 

Focusing on Moundville, one of the most important ceremonial centers of the Mississippian world, this richly illustrated work offers readers an unparalleled window into the discovery and interpretation of a site that shapes our understanding of Indigenous history in the American South. 

Produced in an oversized format that showcases Moore's photographs, maps, plates, and field documentation, this volume is both a vital scholarly resource and an impressive keepsake worthy of any personal or institutional library. Of interest to archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, students of Native American history, Alabama history enthusiasts, museum professionals, collectors of regional history, and readers fascinated by the exploration of America's ancient past. 

Other books in this same series include sites in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.