Residential burial, gender roles, and political development in late prehistoric and early Cherokee cultures of the Southern Appalachians

Native people in the southern Appalachians began placing graves in and around residences in the 13th century C.E. Burials previously were placed in specialized burial mounds that likely belonged to individual kin groups. For several centuries, the practice of residential burial was contemporaneous with burial in or near public buildings that sometimes were built on platform mounds. During this time, residential versus 'public' burial became related to spatial symbolism of gender and leadership roles. These changes suggest a developmental trajectory that distinguishes southern Appalachian societies from their contemporaries elsewhere in the southeastern U.S. Reprinted by permission of the American Anthropological Association and the University of California Press