SUBSISTENCE AND SOCIAL-CHANGE IN THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY - THE RENO-BRAKE AND OSCEOLA SITES, LOUISIANA

There are few systematic analyses of late prehistoric subsistence prac tices in the Lower Mississippi. Valley. Nonetheless, traditional scena rios attribute the advent of large-scale social and political complexi ty during the Coles Creek (ca. A.C. 700-1200) and early Mississippi (c a. A.C. 1200-1500) periods to maize agriculture and a consequent food surplus. Subsistence studies, however, do not substantiate claims or i ntensive maize cultivation prior to A.C. 1000. The goal of the Osceola Project is to characterize subsistence practices and changes through time and to relate these patterns to innovations in social and politic al organization during the nearly 1500 years leading up to and includi ng the Mississippi period. Information from several sites in the Tensa s Basin of Louisiana points to a late Middle Woodland and early Late W oodland pattern of reliance on wild local foods, possibly supplemented by limited plant food production. Corn is found first in Late Coles C reek period context (ca. A.C. 1000-1200) but was not necessarily an im portant dietary staple. Data from the Osceola Project suggest that the initial construction of planned sites with large earthen mounds durin g the Coles Creek period predates the appearance of an intensified foo d production economy by at least several hundred years.