The Real Mound Builders of North America: A Critical Realist Prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands, 200 BC1450 AD

(Hardback)

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The Real Mound Builders of North America takes the standard position that the cultural communities of the Late Woodland period hiatuswhen little or no transregional monumental mound building and ceremonialism existedwere the linear cultural and social ancestors of the communities responsible for the monumental earthworks of the unique Mississippian ceremonial assemblage, and further, these Late Woodland communities were the direct linear cultural and social descendants of those communities responsible for the great Hopewellian earthwork mounds and embankments and its associated unique ceremonial assemblage. Byers argues that these communities persisted largely unchanged in terms of their essential social structures and cultural traditions while varying only in terms of their ceremonial practices and their associated sodality organizations that manifested these deep structures. This continuist historical trajectory view stands in contrast to the current dominant evolutionary view that emphasizes abrupt social and cultural discontinuities with the Hopewellian ceremonial assemblage and earthworks, mounds and embankments.

Reviews

Byers is the most innovative and audacious scholar of eastern North American prehistory, and in this volume, he proposes the archaeological equivalent of a Grand Unified Theory of the Hopewellian and Mississippian ceremonial spheres. Its a radical idea that may open the door to a new understanding of these ancient cultures. -- Bradley T. Lepper, Ohio History Connection
Martin Byerss new book is an excellent compilation of his previous work with new, refined interpretations that will be of great interest to a diverse audience for many years to come. His explanations for the development of Hopewell and Mississippian societies are changing the way archaeologist investigate these ancient North American cultures. -- Brian G. Redmond, Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Author Bio

A. Martin Byers was CEGEP professor at Vanier College and research associate at McGill University.