Book Review: Megadrought in the Carolinas. The Archaeology of Mississippian Collapse, Abandonment, and Coalescence by John S Cable

Abstract

The author of this work, John S. Cable, and this reviewer share a common professional background: both of us began our archaeological careers in the American Southwest where we were exposed to the “Big Science Question” of what caused the Hohokam and other major Southwestern cultures to disappear in the 1400s? In the latter part of our careers, we both found ourselves in the Southeastern United States considering another “Big” question: what happened to make Mississippian groups relocate from and/or abandon large areas of this region during that same time period? The overall intent of Cable’s work is to understand why such large areas of the southern half the United States were abandoned or showed a major relocation of seemingly viable cultures during the mid-fifteenth century. Cable presents his findings on what happened in this time period during which two major cultural societies either disappeared (Hohokam) or experienced major relocation and down-sizing of settlements (Mississippian). Cable’s initial conclusions are based on several years of Cultural Resources Management work at the Francis Marion National Forest along the coast of South Carolina in which he identified and evaluated for National Register eligibility (the Section 106 process) numerous sites under the jurisdiction of the United States Forest Service, Department of Agriculture. From the totality of this work, Cable demonstrated “this region had... experienced societal collapse and regional abandonment” (2020: xii) in the mid-fifteenth century. Looking further afield, Cable notes that archaeologists had found a similar situation in the Savannah River to the south and coastal areas to the north. These changes coincided with the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), a period of warmer temperatures and extended droughts, which would have caused serious problems for Native American food production all along the Southeastern Coastal environment from Cape Fear in North Carolina to the Ogeeche River Basin in Georgia (2020: xii, 1–2). Building on this information, the Book Review