Etowah Burial 6
Tallassee Burial 113
Tallassee Burial 116
| Previous slide | Next slide | Back to first slide | View graphic version |
Notes:
These cases illustrate the simple fact that styles are usually consistent in grave lots in general, as well as showing the consistency of the Hightower-Hixon association of "spiders" and "turkeys" in this particular iconographic tradition.
True grave lot associations do NOT show the kind of mixtures characteristic of Brain's artificial "Homogenous Burial Associations" or of his even less controlled site-wide comparisons.
In fact, if only actual grave lots are considered, it is rarely necessary to invoke the idea of heirlooms.
Brain, to the contrary, proposes that there were many contemporary styles all across the Southeast. For example, at the Etowah site alone, he defines something like 10 so-called"styles", most of which are claimed to be contemporary. Of course, even given that many of his styles are actually themes, it is striking that there are no clear grave lot associations of most of these.
If the late dating of all of these styles were correct, one would expect more grave lot associations containing different styles, but this is not the case. However, those types that genuinely are contemporary do occur together, and these grave lot associations were fundamental to both Kneberg's (1959) and my own dating and sequencing of these styles (e.g., Muller 1966, 1989).
The use of a technique ad absurdum, to echo Brain's comment about heirlooms (p. 396), lies in his failure to question the unity of his "homogeneous burial associations" --not to mention ignoring the long occupations of complex sites like Etowah or Moundville. That this should be done is surprising given the evidence for long duration at sites familiar to Brain,such as at Lake George (Williams and Brain 1983).