The study compiles the largest detailed architectural data sets for the Southeast to seek to understand the developmental history of houses and household in the region for the Woodland, Mississippian, and Historic periods (ca. 200 B.C. to A.D. 1800). More than 1,200 domestic and public structures from sixty-five archaeological sites in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and the southern parts of Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois are examined. Much of the data comes from hard to access cultural resources management sources, while other is from published and unpublished reports.
Since houses are a major investment of materials and labor, they are good indicators of major changes in the larger society. Author Benjamin Steere, an archaeologist at Western Carolina University, seeks to apply these findings to a larger theory of society. Despite his impressive assembly of house and household data, Steere sees this study as a first step of an expanding data set that can lead to even better understanding of these cultures. —Mark Michel