An Ideological Derivative toward the Origins of Territoriality and Early Sedentism in the Northeastern United States

Abstract

Early/Middle Archaic (10,000-6000 B.P.) mortuary practices are very poorly understood in the Northeastern United States. Traditionally, the Late Archaic has been considered a period of dramatic population rises, which coincided with settlement system shifts, increased cultural complexity, and highly ritualized burial ceremonialism. However, recent data indicate that increasingly complex mortuary patterns had already emerged by the Early/Middle Archaic. While the mid-Atlantic and southern New England were characterized by higher residential mobility and simple (expedient) interments, corresponding to Territorial Transhumance, data from northern New England are typified by logistical mobility and more complex formal cemeteries, reflecting Territorial Sedentism. Also, complex mortuary ceremonialism by the Early/Middle Archaic appears to have emerged without evidence for corresponding resource, technological, or social intensification. Therefore, I suggest that pre-Late Archaic ideological intensification resulted in territoriality and early sedentism, and was the “trigger” that led to subsequent increased cultural complexity in the Northeast.