The Emergence of the Moundbuilders

Native American societies, often viewed as unchanging, in fact experienced a rich process of cultural innovation in the millennia prior to recorded history. Societies of the Hocking River Valley in southeastern Ohio created a tribal organization beginning about 2000 BC and provide and apt example of such a process.

The Emergence of the Moundbuilders is an in-depth study of those societies that enlists all available archaeological data from the Hocking River Valley to document the process of tribal formation and change in the region. Editors Elliot M. Abrams and AnnCorinne Freter include the work of scholars in archeology, anthropology, geography, geology, and botany to address tribal formation through exploration of such topics as the first pottery made in the valley, aggregate feasting by nomadic groups, the social context for burying the dead in earthen mounds, the formation of religious ceremonial centers, and the earliest adoption of corn.

Incorporating the most current research on indigenous societies in the Hocking Valley, The Emergence of the Moundbuilder's distinguished by its broad, comparative overview of tribal life.