Mind the gap: Modeling Mississippian migration and frontier settlement in southwest Virginia, USA

Abstract

Archaeological narratives of migrations in pre-Colonial North America rely on cultural materials, which often only convey relative temporalities and tempos of these dynamic events. Here, we employ Bayesian chronological modeling to examine a pattern of immigration into a cultural frontier during the 14^th through the 16^th centuries AD in what is today southwest Virginia, USA. Incorporation of prior archaeological knowledge and a compilation of new and old radiocarbon dates reverses the chronological relationship of two Mississippian cultural sites that would have been expected based on the presently accepted regional ceramic chronology. This reversal necessitates a recontextualization of migrant motivations and experiences. Additionally, our new chronology demonstrates that when examined at finer spatial and temporal scales, regional population movements in the Mississippian (ca. 10^th – 17^th centuries AD) period were likely bi-directional and contingent upon historical circumstance as much as macro-regional push and pull factors. Our revised chronology for these two Mississippian cultural sites offers new avenues for investigating and understanding migrant experiences in the past.