THE MATERIALITY OF SIGNS: ENCHAINMENT AND ANIMACY IN WOODLAND SOUTHEASTERN NORTH AMERICAN POTTERY

Neill J. Wallis

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Archaeological examinations of symbolic meaning often have been hampered by the Saussurean concept of signs as coded messages of preexisting meanings. The arbitrary and imprecise manner by which meaning is represented in material culture according to Saussure tends to stymie archaeological investigations of symbolism. As an alternative, archaeologists recently have drawn on Peirces semiotic to investigate how materiality is bound to the creation of meanings through the process of signification. This study examines how the symbolism expressed in pottery of the Middle Woodland period southeastern United States, Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island effigy vessels, might be better explained as icons and indexes that were enlisted to have particular social effects. Examining the semiotic potentials of these objects helps explain their apparent uses and the significance of alternative representations of the same subjects.

Neill J. Wallis Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 (nwallis@flmnh.ufl.edu) American Antiquity 78(2), 2013, pp. 207226 Copyright 2013 by the Society for American Archaeology
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his article considers how meaning is constituted through material culture by the process of signification. For much of the history of anthropological archaeology, archaeological interpretations of the meaning of material culture, particularly symbolism and ideology, have been hamstrung by a reliance on the model of Saussurean linguistics, which takes signs as coded messages (Preucel and Bauer 2001). If, as a Saussurean perspective suggests, material culture is the instantiation of preexisting immaterial ideas and discourse, then archaeologists are faced with the difficult task of inferring the cognitive processes, underlying structural schema, and immaterial discursive practices (i.e., language) that are somewhat arbitrarily manifested in mate-

En repetidas ocasiones los estudios arqueolgicos sobre el significado de smbolos han sido obstaculizados por el concepto Saussureano que define los signos como mensajes codificados con un significado preexistente. De acuerdo con Saussure, la manera arbitraria e imprecisa por la cual cierto significado se encuentra representado en la cultura material tiende a bloquear las investigaciones arqueolgicas que estudian objetos simblicos. Como alternativa los arquelogos han comenzado a basarse en la semitica de Peirce, con el fin de investigar de qu manera la materialidad est ligada a la creacin de significados a travs del proceso de creacin de signos o significacin. En este estudio se examinaron piezas de alfarera del sur oriente de los Estados Unidos, provenientes del periodo medio Woodland, de los complejos estampados Swift Creek y esfinges representadas en vasijas Weeden Island. El objetivo es demostrar que los smbolos expresados en dichas piezas podran ser interpretados como iconos e ndices que fueron establecidos para efectos sociales particulares. Por medio de la investigacin del potencial semitico de estos especmenes es posible explicar sus presuntos usos, as como la significacin de representaciones alternativas de los mismos objetos.

rial form. This view of material culture not only makes meaning an intractable topic for archaeologists but is also a poor approximation of the ways meaning is made. As an alternative, archaeologists have recently explored the utility of concepts drawn from Charles Sanders Peirces semiotic in understanding how meaning is constituted (Bauer 2002; Joyce 2007, 2008; Knappett 2005; Lele 2006; Preucel 2006; Preucel and Bauer 2001). The Peircean semiotic alternative posits signs as the constitutive matter of meaning rather than the mere expression of meanings previously formed. As Webb Keane (2005) argues through a perspective informed by Peircean semiotics, signs are not the garb of meaning. Indeed, the Peircean perspective embraces the historicity of material

signs as deeply entwined in social and historical processes. Not only are things good to think with, but also they have effects in the world and entailments that shape future possibilities. Rather than focusing on material things as coded messages of the social that can be deciphered by archaeologists, Peirces model of the sign is a productive framework for considering what things do in the world by detailing how they become meaningful and effective through specific qualities and relationships. Nothing in the world stands alone; everything makes reference to something else in an endless succession of associations (Knappett 2002). While material things have manifold qualities that have the potential to become significant, the meanings of things can be revealed by investigating how the semiotic status of things is transformed across historical processes (Keane 2003). For archaeologists, this might best be accomplished by comparing the semiotic potentials of things and the evidence of which qualities of things were enlisted to have effects in the world. The distinctive material qualities of a thing lend proclivities toward particular kinds of signification, but only in engagement through social practice is one or more of these latent potentials realized. Because material qualities are drawn upon and highlighted in historically specific ways that may shift through time and space, and because significance can be evaluated in terms of measurable effects in the material world, archaeology is well positioned to study the process of signification. This work pursues a case study in semiosis that investigates two types of Late Middle Woodland (ca. A.D. 200600) pottery in the Lower Southeast of North America: Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island effigy vessels. These pottery types are partially coterminous and found together on the same sites, but traditionally they are considered divergent in terms of form and function, with the former secular and the latter sacred (e.g., Sears 1973). This dichotomy has led researchers to pursue explanations for why particular subjects were depicted among the sacred Weeden Island effigies and what their symbolic meaning may have been in mortuary and other ceremonial contexts (Milanich et al. 1997:163184). However, many Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels seem to depict the same subjects, but with different techniques of representation.

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Rather than focusing on what subjects are depicted in these earthenware forms and why these particular subjects were important symbolically, this work focuses on how these forms were represented, their consequent semiotic potentials, and the particular qualities of objects that appear to have been highlighted in specific contexts to achieve certain effects. In particular, this study draws on Peirces well-known concepts of icon (resemblance) and index (evidence of contact or proximity) to investigate earthenware vessels as signs. The different methods of manufacture and resultant divergent semiotic potentials of each type of vessel provided alternative opportunities for action. While both vessel types were simultaneously icon and index, Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels were especially effective indexical signs, while Weeden Island effigies emphasized iconic qualities. These semiotic potentials were evidently exploited by people as technologies of enchainment and animacy, respectively. Through a comparison of the styles and contexts of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island effigy vessels, this study considers the agency of these material forms and the considerable tension and tactical challenges evident in their frequent juxtaposition. The study of meaning within disciplines throughout the humanities and social sciences has been profoundly influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. One of Saussures most durable legacies (Irvine 1989:248) is the notion that the sign exists apart from the material world (Keane 2005:183). According to this ontological framework, either ideas are relegated to epiphenomena deemed irrelevant to the real, concrete material world or material forms are reflections and expressions of prior immaterial meanings (Keane 2005:182183). Both perspectives have been entrenched in archaeological research and have proved particularly problematic for a discipline focused on the study of material culture. Following Hawkess (1954) ladder of inference, many materialists and processualists have maintained that ideas and symbolic meanings are significantly more difficult to deduce from archaeological contexts than from the more fundamental realms of The Archaeology of Meaning

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economics, society, and politics, which are seen as more closely related to material culture. According to such a perspective, the culturally embedded (and presumably culturally relative) meanings and significance attached to particular things, places, events, or practices (and behaviors) elude archaeologists because the creation and perpetuation of symbolism constitute a cognitive or discursive process that is only superficially and imperfectly reflected in the material world. Alternatively, archaeologists and anthropologists more directly informed by structuralism follow the premise that material culture reflects cognitive organizational categories, which allow meanings to be understood through the identification of underlying rules, codes, generative grammars, and symmetries (e.g., Washburn 1995; Washburn and Crowe 1988; Wobst 1977). Opposing materialist and structuralist perspectives are practice-centered approaches that take materiality as the mutually constituting dialectic of people and things (e.g., DeMarrais et al. 2004; Meskell 2004, 2005; Miller, ed. 2005; Thomas 1999). At their core drawing on the ideas of Bourdieu (1977, 1984) and Giddens (1984), many poststructuralist and postprocessual archaeologies recognize material culture as implicated in ongoing processes whereby meanings are continually created through the engagement of subjects and objects with one another in specific contexts. Along these lines, some archaeologists consider material culture, drawing on Derrida (1976, 1978), as a text to be read or, following Ricoeur (1971, 1974, 1976), as enmeshed in the production of meaning through discourse (e.g., Hodder 1986, 1988; Tilley 1991). These directions bring into focus the contextual processes by which meaning is constituted, the multiplicity of meaning, and a hermeneutic that acknowledges the fundamental role of the subject in the apprehension and creation of meaning, enabling considerations of material symbols and metaphors (e.g., Tilley 1999). While these approaches have moved toward engaging meaning as a historically and contextually situated process that is perpetually in a state of becoming, Saussures radical separation of the sign from materiality continues to be influential (Bauer 2002:41; Keane 2003, 2005; Miller 2005). Much of this separation in anthropology has paralleled a Durkheimian tyranny of the subject,

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the tendency to reify the social as the real source of meaning that is reflected, but not constituted, in various institutions, practices, or material things (Miller 2005). More generally, this position follows a long-lived depth ontology in which the meaning of things is conceived as hidden behind or underneath the superficial guise of materiality (Miller 2005, 2009). But as long as signs are viewed as coded messages, as the garb of meaning that must be stripped bare (Keane 2005:184) or uncovered by archaeologists (Bauer 2002:41), the historicity and futurity of things cannot be fully considered. Peirces model of the sign presents a much more productive alternative for archaeological investigations of meaning. Rather than seeing them as codes for immaterial meanings, Peirce conceived of signs as constituted through the material world of causation and contingency, where signification in material form often instigates and transforms possibilities for action and interpretation (Keane 2005). Accordingly, there is no meaning outside of material consequences, and the material properties of things are necessarily drawn upon in the process of constituting and transforming systems of meaning. This framework circumvents the tyranny of the subject and the pervasive depth ontology and may allow archaeologists a clearer path toward understanding the process by which meaning is made. Preucel and Bauer (2001:93) argue that a pragmatic archaeology based on Peirces semiotic presents a system of logical reasoning that allows for simultaneous ontological unity and theoretical (interpretive) disunity. Indeed, they argue, semiotics can offer a common language through which to compare the logic of contrasting interpretive approaches in archaeology. As Preucel says, Semiotics does not advocate a particular theoretical perspective beyond pragmatism, the thesis that for ideas to be meaningful they must have effects in the world (2006:248). Putting aside these vast unifying potentials for the purposes of this study, there are several specific aspects of the Peircean model that appear especially important for archaeological considerations of materiality. First, the triadic relation among Sign, Object, and The Peircean Semiotic

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Interpretant suggests that signs are contingent upon our experiences of them and enables a selfreflexive analytical perspective (Preucel and Bauer 2001). Second, signs generate other signs, lending historicity to the process of signification, which involves contingency, sociability, and struggle (Keane 2003:413). Third, Peirces model exhaustively outlines the complex range of possible relationships among signs, interpretants, and objects. Though Peirce described 10 possible classes of signs based on the triadic sign relationship (Preucel 2006:5759), the widely discussed general set of icon, index, and symbol in itself provides a powerful basis for the analysis of material culture. The analytic relationship between sign and object can be characterized as iconic through resemblance, indexical through causal or proximal linkages, or symbolic through arbitrary conventions. Icon and index, in particular, are useful signs to consider in archaeological investigations of meaning, because they are based on logicalcausal relations that are not entirely arbitrary. This is not to say that any object is inherently an icon or an indexthese meanings require a degree of cultural knowledgebut these qualities are directly related to an objects material form. Moreover, in the material world, the iconic and indexical are more common forms of signification than the symbolic, which runs counter to a vast archaeological literature focused on symbolism (Knappett 2002). An icon makes reference through resemblance, a perception of similarity. Familiar examples are painted portraits in the likeness of a person or computer desktop icons that are designed to resemble common functions (e.g., the print icon resembles a printer). An index makes reference through evidence of causation or proximity. Smoke is an index of fire, just as a weather vane is an index of wind. Indexes can also be performative and reference through contiguity rather than cause (Sonesson 1989:53). Demonstrative pronouns and acts of pointing fingers are examples (Knappett 2002:103). Symbols are defined by convention, making them arbitrary in a crosscultural sense. Language is the chief example. A single object or idea is symbolized by different words. It is agreed upon through convention by groups of people speaking the same language, rather than something intrinsic about the animal,

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that it is called Canis lupus familiaris, dog, chien, or perro. Onomatopoeias are exceptions (e.g., the buzz of a bee). Material things can be symbolic also, as a wedding ring symbolizes marriage or a red octagon symbolizes stop. No material thing is ever purely icon, index, or symbol. In fact, many material things act simultaneously in multiple modes of signification. Knappett (2002) has clearly outlined the contours of common intersections of iconicity and indexicality in material things. He notes that the photograph is the key example discussed by Peirce (1955:106): it is at once iconic in its perceived similarity to its object of representation and indexical in the transformation of a light-sensitive surface by wavelengths that are reflected from the object or scene. This fusion of icon and index is fairly common in the production of objects but also in their consumption as well. So it is, in Knappetts (2002) example, that a coffee mug can become associated with an individual through repeated use. The visible traces of stains are indexes of many repeated cups of coffee that could indicate a long period of use linked to seniority. The frequent proximity of the mug to an individual (another form of index) could, in some instances, lead to the mug being seen as an icon of the person who uses it. Clear resemblance is not a requirement of iconicity. Indeed, the image of a coffee cup is often used as an icon of coffee itself. Although things produce manifold signs, one aspect of a thing, one quality that emphasizes a particular relationship, can predominate in a given context or situation (Lele 2006). A painted handprint on a cave wall is simultaneously an icon of a hand and an index of the hand (and perhaps person) that left the mark and could be a symbol of any number of things (e.g., artistic ingenuity, aboriginal Australia, or humanity). Which of these relationships pertains is dependent on context and convention. Most importantly, things always contain qualities in excess of those that are employed in a given context of signification, but these latent aspects are nonetheless there, ready to be drawn upon in a different situation. Webb Keane (2003, 2005) has focused on the importance of copresence in the qualities in things, what he terms bundling. Qualities of things are necessarily bound to other qualities in their material instantiation. For instance, redness (a Peircean first)

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must be manifested in some form, such as an apple (a Peircean second), which also necessarily comes with other available qualities (roundness or sweetness). Any of numerous qualities are potentially available to become important factors in social life, but only in some contexts will any of them become relevant (Keane 2005:188). Archaeologists can therefore get at meaning by examining how the semiotic status of things is transformed across contexts and through historical processes: in other words, how the qualities of things are employed in practice and how particular qualities of things can move from the unmarked background of human experience to the marked foreground of significance (Keane 2010). Such an approach holds similarities to genealogies of objects and genealogies of practice explored by archaeologists in some recent studies (e.g., Gosden 2005; Pauketat and Alt 2005). Swift Creek Vessels as Indexes

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Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery was produced from about A.D. 100 to A.D. 800 or later, primarily throughout Georgia, northern Florida, and eastern Alabama (Stephenson et al. 2002; Williams and Elliot 1998; Figure 1). The stamped designs that define the pottery type were produced by impressing carved wooden paddles into the wet clay before drying and firing the vessels. The complicated designs, which include curvilinear and rectilinear elements, follow a longlived tradition in the Eastern Woodlands of North America of impressing wooden paddle carvings into the surface of unfired vessels, but these were previously simple parallel or crosshatched lines or checks (Chase 1998:49). In fact, in many areas complicated stamping seems to have simply replaced Deptford check stamping on the same vessel forms (Sears 1952:103). The impressions of carvings on Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels seem to depict zoomorphic, anthropomorphic, and cosmological themes and other more abstract and stylized images (Snow 1998). The skill evident in these carvings is likely indicative of a robust tradition of woodworking that went well beyond the manufacture of small paddles (Williams and Elliott 1998). The technique for impressing designs into vessels was variable. While overstamping and

smoothing of designs are common, other vessels exhibit nearly complete impressions of paddles that are unadulterated (Broyles 1968:54; Snow 1998:72). Several shapes and sizes of vessels have been defined, but generally most Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels were fairly ubiquitous everyday cooking wares (Hally et al. 2009; Wallis 2011; Williams and Elliot 1998). The distribution of the pottery type is unremarkableit is not restricted to particular contexts but, rather, is found almost everywhere, from burial mounds to village trash heaps. Yet there is abundant evidence that the vessels, or the wooden paddles that were used to manufacture them, were frequently transported between sites, sometimes significant distances (Snow 1998; Snow and Stephenson 1998; Stoltman and Snow 1998). More than just evidence of peoples travels and interaction, in some places the transport of complicated stamped cooking vessels was an important part of mortuary-related ceremony (Wallis 2011). These vessels were intentionally broken and placed in mounds individually or scattered across mound surfaces. On the Atlantic coast, vessels from villages on the Altamaha River, Georgia, were delivered to burial mounds on the St. Johns River, Florida, more than 100 km to the south. Although several pottery types have been subjected to materials analysis, vessels identified as nonlocal are overwhelmingly complicated stamped, indicating that the stamped designs held special significance. I have argued that the significance of the paddle stamps was in their capacity as indexes, connecting each wooden paddle to earthenware vessels through direct and unmistakable evidence of contact (Wallis 2011). Complicated stamped vessels quite clearly indexed the wooden paddles that created their surface treatments, so clearly, in fact, that archaeologists can identify the impression of a unique wooden paddle shared among disparate assemblages of complicated stamped vessels. This physical connection was a makers mark that linked multiple vessels stamped with the same wooden paddle and potentially with the person who used the paddle in vessel manufacture, the person who carved the paddle, and the subject that was made manifest in the carving. There are more subtle indexes at work as well, such as histories of possession and use that accu-

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Figure 1. Traditional extent of Swift Creek (dotted line) and Weeden Island (solid line) archaeological cultures (adapted from Milanich 2002; Stephenson et al. 2002) and locations of sites mentioned in the text: (1) Block-Sterns; (2) Bristol; (3) Burnt Mill Creek; (4) Carrabelle; (5) Fairchilds Landing; (6) Green Point; (7) Hall; (8) Hare Hammock; (9) Hartsfield; (10) Kolomoki; (11) Laughtons Bayou; (12) Marsh Island; (13) McKeithen; (14) Mound Field; (15) Palmetto Island; (16) Pierce; (17) Swift Creek; (18) Tucker; (19) Warrior River; (20) Weeden Island.

mulated on wooden paddles and earthenware vessels. As the surface of a wooden paddle was worn down and developed cracks through repeated impact on vessel surfaces, these telltale signs were indelibly recorded in the fired clay of vessels. In addition, vessels accumulated soot, cracks, mend holes, and abrasions through repeated use and transport. This accumulative effect that tends to gather associations with events, persons, and places, termed enchainment by Marilyn Strathern (1988), often serves to create particular rela-

tionships through the calculated movement and positioning of people and things (Chapman 2000). In fact, objects with extensive biographies that carry wide-ranging indexical links often become part of strategies to distribute personhood, as in the classic examples of the Melanesian kula ring (e.g., Gell 1998; Malinowski 1922; Mauss 1970). Exchanged kula arm shells and necklaces are not conventional symbols that represent a renowned person; rather, these objects are indexes that embody the age, influence, and power of a per-

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son through the accumulation of networks of connections with persons and places (Gell 1998:231). In particular, a distributed object, defined by Alfred Gell (1998:221) as an image with many spatially separated manifestations across the landscape, each with a unique microhistory, is an extremely effective tool for distributing personhood. Gell (1998) applies this concept to various sets of objects that seem to reference one another through their physical connection, from those as tightly bound as a set of dinnerware china to those as loosely integrated and multiauthored as the entire corpus of Marquesan art. But the best-defined distributed objects are most impor-

Figure 2. A paddle matchvessels stamped with the same carved paddle: (a) design reconstruction by Amanda ODell; sherds from (b) Carrabelle, (c) Block-Sterns, and (d) Hartsfield.

tant as particular kinds of indexes that facilitate spatial and temporal extensions of personhood (e.g., Joyce 2008). Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels sharing a unique paddle design constituted a distributed object as they broadcast a single image that was able to accumulate divergent biographies simultaneously in multiple places (Figure 2). Just as a paddle stamp today gives archaeologists a reference to other sites where the same carved paddle was used to impress vessels, so too in the past did a complicated stamped vessel give presence to an expansive network of connections. These indexical potentials evidently became marked with significance, at

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least in some regions, as the vessels were circulated and deposited in very particular places, such as burial mounds. The indexical qualities of complicated stamped vessels as distributed objects can explain their patterns of movement, rather than their being merely the de facto refuse of people engaged in various social practices such as exchange, marriage, or mortuary ceremony. The transport of complicated stamped vessels to burial mounds was a particularly salient act that distributed personhood and constituted social fields in the context of mortuary ceremony, at least on the Atlantic coast (Wallis 2011). This model is being tested further by a materials analysis of assemblages from sites across much of the Lower Southeast. Swift Creek Semiosis

Figure 3. Examples of split representation in Tsimshian (center) and Haida designs (Boas 1955:Figures 222223, 226).

The style of Swift Creek carvings may support the notion that stamped vessels distributed personhood. The designs seem to be rendered by split representation, similar to the famous examples recorded by Boas (1955) and Lvi-Strauss (1963) on the Northwest Coast of North America and among the Maori (Figure 3). Split representation renders three-dimensional objects in two dimensions by figuratively cutting them into parts and spreading them onto a flat surface. The effect is to display all parts of an object at once, which often results in what appear to be two conjoining profiles or multiple copies of an image, though there are much more complicated configurations. The intent is to create a backless imageno side of the subject need be imagined because every aspect is made eminently present. Ethnographically, this technique is only used when a design is not representational but, rather, constitutive (Gell 1998:191). For the Kwakiutl, for example,

the use of split representation in decorating a container can be viewed as the imposition on a receptacle or container of the whole animal or creature depicted, as though the artist had stretched the skin of the animal over the object (Pollock 1995:589). Thus, the use of split representation often denotes that a particular image is not merely a picture of an animal; rather, the image lends an identity to an object to become the animal with the appropriate agentive qualities. Masks, in particular, are very commonly depicted in ethnographic split representation, as they are strongly linked to identity and personhood. Importantly, though masks may nominally represent various animals, more specifically they are often signs of transformation that take the human head as a point of departure (Gell 1975:301; Pollock 1995:585). That is to say, animal masks frequently do not reference animals per se but, rather, a human who has become an animal or spirit. In semiotic terms, masks are at once iconic, in that they resemble their object, and indexical, in that they are evidence of the same transformative process that they imbue upon the wearer. The designs on Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery are usefully viewed from the perspective of split representation, which also corresponds to what we know of the manufacture and distribution of vessels. Many of the designs seem to depict creatures and often, the faces of creatures (Figure 4). The so-called masks, in particular, appear to be stylized to the extent that they are not easily identified (by archaeologists) as referencing a particular species, perhaps indicating that they depict transformational figures rather than actual animals. In all cases, whether it was the body or face of a creature or a so-called cosmological figure that was rendered by split representation, earthenware vessels seem to have

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been given the skin of the animal or entity through stamping the carved designs on surfaces (Pollock 1995:589). Through this skin, a vessel was transformed into an agentive subject or actant (Latour 2005), its ability to have effects enhanced by the transformation evident in the stylized masks that are so common in Swift Creek designs and the widespread movement of vessels (or at least the designs) across the Lower Southeast and beyond. Paddles created indexes of transformation, potentially converting common domestic cooking vessels into agentive beings. Simultaneously, many designs were icons of transformation, depicting the process of shifting animal-like and human-like forms. Weeden Island period pottery assemblages contain late Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery as well as punctated, incised, and plain types that include stylized designs and animal effigy vessels (Milanich 2002:354). The distribution of the Weeden Island series overlaps with the distribution of complicated stamping but extends farther south (Figure 1). Except in northwest Florida, the punctated and incised vessels were reserved primarily for ceremony and mound burialtheir frequency is low in habitation contexts (Milanich Weeden Island Vessels as Icons

Figure 4. Faces or mask design reconstructions based on pottery from Florida and Georgia sites (all images by Frankie Snow [1998], except bottom right, by Amanda ODell).

2002). While punctated and incised surface treatments often seem to depict birds, and perhaps cosmological designs, the most striking representations, and the ones that have received the most attention by archaeologists and antiquarians, are the effigy vessels. Effigies are found nearly exclusively in burial mounds. Rendered in three dimensions are entire vessels that approximate the shape of animals and bowls or jars that take more customary shapes but have modeled adorno heads. In Milanich and colleagues (1997) tabulation of effigy vessels from McKeithen, Kolomoki, and other sites, 72 of 100 are birds, with unidentified crested birds, owls, roseate spoonbills, and vultures figuring most prominently. Other animals are far less numerous but include dogs, deer, opossums, mountain lions, bobcats, rattlesnakes, fish, and, most commonly, humans. Weeden Island effigy vessels were often buried together in mounds in east-side caches in what may have been spectacular ceremonial displays (Sears 1973). The high level of craftsmanship evident in Weeden Island sacred wares recovered from mortuary contexts led Sears (1956) to infer a class of artisans who specialized in pottery production. In fact, effigy vessels from various sites across the Lower Southeast are similar enough to suggest that they could have been made by the same group

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of artisans, perhaps based at large ceremonial centers such as Kolomoki in southwestern Georgia. A recent petrographic analysis of Weeden Island series vessels indicates that many of the sacred wares in north Florida mounds, including effigy vessels, may indeed have been made from clay resources available near Kolomoki; however, others have local pastes (Pluckhahn and Cordell 2011). Many Weeden Island effigy vessels buried in mounds across the Lower Southeast therefore indexed the places and persons of their manufacture at Kolomoki. However, compared with Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels, Weeden Island effigy vessels lacked the semiotic potential to effectively enchain multiple objects, places, and people through clear evidence of contact. Compared with their Swift Creek counterparts, effigies were (and are) primarily icons that made reference through mimesis, looking similar to animals or persons. This study traces the divergent potentials and uses of these two pottery types to argue that the contrast was of great consequence and constituted competing social tactics for sacred authority and power. In effect, both types of vessels were signs for the same objects (in semiotic terms) and were viewed as comprising similar beings, but through alternative relations between sign and object that acted in very different ways.

Figure 5. Weeden Island series vessels as birds: (a) Weeden Island Incised vessel and drawing of incising, mound near Crooked Island (Moore 1918:551552); (b) Weeden Island bowl with two bird heads, mound at Bristol (Moore 1903:478); (c) Weeden Island bowl effigy with partial bird body, mound near Mound Field (Moore 1902:312); (d) bird effigy, Tucker Mound (Moore 1902:260).

A comparison of Swift Creek and Weeden Island iconography supports this argument in two respects. First, there are transitional forms in the production of iconography that reveal some of the shared logic of signification in both complicated stamping and three-dimensional effigy vessels. Second, the comparison shows quite clearly that many of the same subjects are depicted in both types of pottery. Thus, the forms are iconically equivalent in many cases. These comparisons demonstrate that while both complicated stamping and effigies were signs for the same objects (in semiotic terms) and viewed as constituting some of the same subjects, meaning was achieved by very different means and had divergent effects. Regarding the logic of signification, a continuum in the relationship of Weeden Island imagery and earthenware vessels links them to Swift Creek Complicated Stamped designs (Figure 5). From a two-dimensional perspective, some Weeden Island conventionally shaped bowls and jars have incised and punctated designs or flattened molded faces that mimic the principles of split representation seen in Swift Creek designs. Other vessels

Similarities in Swift Creek and Weeden Island Forms

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have three-dimensional effigy heads that are affixed to otherwise conventional vessel forms. Finally, there are three-dimensional effigies in which the entire vessel takes the form of an animal rather than conforming to the usual shape of a bowl and jar. These categories are merely arbitrary points along a continuum. For instance, some vessels show only partial alteration of traditional jar forms to vaguely approximate the shape of an animal or human body (Figure 6). This continuum reveals the logic of Weeden Island iconography and its connection to Swift Creek Complicated Stamped designs. We see in this continuum the process by which earthenware vessels become agentive subjectsin this case animals and personsthrough a limited repertoire of iconic imagery. In the first instance, heads and other body parts are figuratively wrapped around the vessel through split representation; in the second instance, a three-dimensional head or body is affixed onto a vessel; and in the third case, a fully three-dimensional anatomically correct body emerges. In all cases, these signs constituted beings rather than merely representing pictures of them. Taking the most common theme of birds, the icons on the vessels signify a bird regardless of whether the vessel takes the form of a bird or merely has a bird head affixed or incised on it. They are all equivalent in terms of constituting birds through synecdoche, indexing a whole being with just one part. Taking account of the continuum of representation in Weeden Island art described above, there are perhaps more similarities to Swift Creek Complicated Stamped designs than is commonly

Figure 6. Weeden Island Incised jar, mound near Shoemaker Landing: left, low-relief face and incised body; right, drawing of incising (Moore 1907:439441).

assumed. Comparison of the three most common representations shared by both traditions should suffice to demonstrate the common themes and explore their semiotic divergences. These three themes are the so-called cosmological designs (Snow 1998), whole bodies or heads of animals or humans, and animal or human faces. Beginning with the simplest and most obvious parallel, one type of Weeden Island series vessel not normally considered an effigy includes multiple compartment trays that frequently contain a central compartment and four lobes or conjoined bowls (Figure 7). Paralleling the symmetry of these vessels are Swift Creek carvings that show four nearly identical elements, often ovals, which surround a central element that is usually circular. These cosmological designs, which Snow (1998) argues may denote the four directions of native cosmologies, are arguably two-dimensional versions of three-dimensional Weeden Island multicompartment vessels and vice versa. The Swift Creek renditions can be seen essentially as plan views of the three-dimensional Weeden Island vessels. Supporting this idea are Weeden Island Incised and the closely related Crystal River Zoned Red vessels that show the same technique, but in incising (Figure 8). The second common theme includes animal and human bodies or heads. As noted previously, the spectrum of continuity among Weeden Island effigy vessels, between heads affixed to otherwise simple bowls and vessels whose form is entirely dictated by the shape of those organisms, seems to show that they are all equivalent. In fact, a simple head adorno is a synecdoche. No matter the number of body parts depicted, each vessel was transformed into that animal or person rather than merely representing a picture of one. Representations of whole bodies and only the heads of organisms both have their counterparts in Swift Creek designs (Figure 9). For example, there are several instances of whole bodies of birds found in the impressions of Swift Creek carvings and frequent depictions of bird heads. Notably, bird heads (and in some cases, bodies) nearly always appear paired, likely because they are rendered by split representation, in which both sides of the head are displayed at once. Paired bird heads also seem to represent the eyes of Swift Creek mask designs, implicating them in complex metonymic

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Figure 7. Weeden Island multicompartment vessels: (a) mound near West Bay Post Office (Moore 1902:138); (b) Hall Mound (Moore 1902:298); (c) mound at Marsh Island (Moore 1902:279). Cosmological designs in Swift Creek design reconstructions: (d) Palmetto Island (Wallis and ODell 2011); (ef) southern Georgia (Snow 1998:76).

relationships that should be expected to characterize transformational forms. Again, there are forms rendered in incising that parallel the structure of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped designs. When birds appear in twodimensional incised designs, they routinely appear in pairs, sometimes with the same rotational symmetry that we see in Swift Creek renditions (Figure 10). Moreover, the same play of tropes, in which bird heads seem to represent the eyes of faces, is also found in Crystal River incised examples. These correspondences indicate not just a

similarity of subject but uniformity in the logic of representation. More precisely, these images render earthenware vessels as subjects through the same device, split representation, by draping a cultural skin onto them. The molded animal heads and whole effigy vessels, which are primarily birds, constitute the three dimensions that are implied by split representation in the Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island Incised forms. Intermediate forms between two and three dimensions also show the pervasiveness of split representation.

Figure 8. Cosmological designs in Weeden Island Incised vessels: (a) Hall Mound (Moore 1902:286); (b) Pierce Mound A (Moore 1902:226).

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Figure 9. Bird imagery in Swift Creek design reconstructions: (a) bird heads as the eyes of a mask, southern Georgia (Snow 1998:68); (b) two woodpeckers, southern Georgia (Snow 1998:94); (c) bird heads, Fairchilds Landing (Broyles 1968:Plate 5); (d) bird in flight, southern Georgia (Broyles 1968:Plate 5; also see Snow 1998:64).

When bird heads are not fully three-dimensional but, instead, flattened onto the surface of vessels, they are nearly always paired, just like the incised and complicated stamped designs. As Gell (1998:192) has shown in Marquesan art, this semblance of duplication is actually a method of lowrelief carving that renders the subject backless, so that both sides are represented at once. Two bird heads on a single Weeden Island vessel achieve this effect, and they occur most often in low relief. Fully three-dimensional forms, in which the vessel shape mimics the form of an animal, almost always have a clearly defined head and tail. One rare exception, two bird heads sharing a single body, may prove the rulethis remains a backless design in which both sides of the bird may be viewed at once (Figure 11). Finally, the third major common category includes the faces of animals and humans. In Weeden Island effigies we may be able to distinguish between faces and heads. Heads tend to be fully three-dimensional and typically more generic than faces, which are comparatively low-relief but exhibit more details of expression and identity. Interestingly, detailed faces are fairly rare in Weeden Island iconography and mostly occur in human form (Figure 12). More common in Wee-

den Island effigies are whole bodies of animals or humans that do not emphasize the particular character of faces. In keeping with the iconic emphasis of Weeden Island effigies, detailed faces can be positively identified as humans and are almost always attached to a human body, unlike the very common Swift Creek mask designs that depict animallike and humanlike faces that may be transitional forms. In sum, many Weeden Island effigy vessels seem to be the three-dimensional versions of many of the same subjects depicted in two-dimensional Swift Creek designs. The Swift Creek renditions of all of these themes are more stylized than their Weeden Island counterparts, but similarities in the structures of transitional forms indicate their general equivalence. The play of tropes evident in Swift Creek forms may depict transformations not shown in most Weeden Island vessels, and this is part of their power as signs, as icons of transformation. Discussion

Figure 10. Split representation and bird head tropes. Bird heads as eyes of masks: (a) Swift Creek, Lower Ocmulgee Valley (Snow 1998:63); (b) Weeden Island Incised, mound near Green Point (Moore 1902:255). Bird heads: (c) Weeden Island Incised, mound near Crooked Island (Moore 1918:551); (de) Swift Creek, Lower Ocmulgee Valley (Snow 1998:68).

Swift Creek complicated stamping emphasized indexical qualities through clear evidence of contact with persons and places. Weeden Island effi-

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gies emphasized the iconic by creating realistic versions of human and animal figures. Both types of object were powerful as signs that were constitutive of various beings, but in different and distinctive ways. As Keane notes, one of the most important differences between an icon and an index is the sort of inference they will support: An icon tells us something about the qualities of its object but not whether that object actually exists. An index affirms the actual existence of its object, but not what, exactly, that object is (2005:190). That is, an icon can resemble an object that does not exist (such as a painting of a dragon), while an index confirms a cause but not the identity of the object (such as the footprint of an unidentified animal). Without inherent instructions, making sense of an index therefore often involves ad hoc hypotheses, called abductions (Gell 1998:222231). Abduction involves postulating causes or intentions that are most likely to explain a given effect such that what we actually do perceive has the character it does (Keane 2006:200). In this way, natural events such as a torn cloth or poor harvest can be interpreted as

Figure 11. Weeden Island effigy vessel from the larger mound near Burnt Mill Creek (Moore 1902:144).

resulting from the intentions of agents, both persons and nonpersons (Keane 2003:417). But indexes do not only presume some prior cause; they can also have entailments that connect to possible futures or pasts that may be imagined to already exist. As described above, the extraordinary indexical capacities of complicated stamping allowed vessels to simultaneously instantiate an image in multiple places, and this process of enchainment allowed vessels to be experienced as much more than cooking containers. The extensive networks of persons and histories that were constituted by widespread movement and physical signs of distant connection made complicated stamped vessels potent material for mortuary ceremonies, and they were carried long distances for this purpose. But this was not the complicated stamped vessels only source of significance. Through overstamping and smoothing, the designs imparted onto complicated stamped vessels were partially obscured and when combined with the intricacy of many of the registered carvings, were potential apotropaic devices. Apotropaic patterns are

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demon-traps that can compel spirits to become fascinated by intricacy or sheer multiplicity (Gell 1998:84). Spirits become so engrossed in studying a design, such as a maze, that they are distracted from their sinister plans. Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels certainly exhibit these mystifying qualities, as anyone attempting to reconstruct the designs knows well. What may have been a protective device in the spirit world, appropriate for protection in mortuary contexts, would also have had social effects among living persons. Just as the intricate carvings on the prowboards of kula canoes may be designed to spellbind exchange partners in order to gain favorable exchanges (Gell 1992), Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels may have mystified through intricacy and a degree of concealment of the referenced object. They were thus powerful social

Figure 12. Examples of detailed faces in Weeden Island iconography: (a) Hall Mound (Moore 1902:303); (b) Hall Mound (Moore 1902:295); (c) Mound B, Laughtons Bayou (Moore 1902:191); (d) larger mound near Hare Hammock (Moore 1902:201); (e) smaller mound near Burnt Mill Creek (Moore 1902:148); (f) Mound A Warrior River (Moore 1902:332).

tools in negotiating the complexities of gatherings at mortuary mounds. In contrast, Weeden Island effigies gave up some of the indexical capacities of complicated stamping for three-dimensional forms, which may have been experienced as more corporally realistic, and more clearly emphasized the phenomenological potential for personhood, recently termed object animacy (Brown and Walker 2008; Zedeo 2009). Indeed, the abduction of personhood (Gell 1998:222231) that was developed through interactions with these objects may have been enhanced by emphasizing realism and the iconic, thus leaving less to the imagination. Using artwork that looked as though it could come to life, as in a wax museum, may have helped to more easily create experiences where these objects were seen to act. As a consequence, however, Wee-

den Island effigies may have lost the enchanting qualities of mystification that pertained to Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels, compelling the observer to discern what it is, exactly, that left observable evidence of contact. The contexts of these apparent differences in the manufacture and use of signs are significant. The differences may relate to contemporaneous and competing social and political tactics related to mortuary ceremonialism, rather than a chronological shift. Although the earliest adoption of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery is unquestionably earlier than the first effigy vessels, perhaps by more than two centuries (Milanich 2002; Stephenson et al. 2002), widespread use of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic forms in Swift Creek designs is more likely contemporaneous they appear most common in Late Swift Creek, ca. after A.D. 400 (Wallis 2011). We have seen that Swift Creek designs, while depicting the same general themes, are more stylized and may portray transformational figures as opposed to the naturalistic forms of Weeden Island iconography. What is more, the manufacture and function of the two pottery types were quite different. Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery was made domestically by large portions of the population and used widely as cooking vessels in domestic contexts. Weeden Island effigies may have been made by specialists and were used only in ceremonial contexts (Milanich et al. 1997; Pluckhahn and Cordell 2011). This study has outlined how both types of pottery were conceived as constituting some of the same subjects, but through alternative relations between sign and object. These alternative relations are not subtle, and we may view them as embedded within contested fields of knowledge and social power. On the one hand, Swift Creek designs were subject to continual symbolic play. Distributed Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels made indexical links to various villages and persons that allowed mundane cookware to be transformed into ceremonial material. These vessels may have become tools of negotiation meant to intimidate and mystify (Wallis 2011). While particular designs may have been guarded, clearly the production of carvings and stamped vessels was decentralized, which allowed for regular competition among those who employed them as social tools/

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weapons. On the other hand, Weeden Island effigies were confined to the sacred realm, made indexical links only to major political centers like Kolomoki, were apparently made by a small segment of the population (e.g., specialists), and were thereby distanced from the cosmopolitan and quotidian roots of mortuary ceremonial materials that were manifested in Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery. In other words, complicated stamped vessels bridged quotidian and sacred realms and brought together disparate villages (or their representatives) in ceremonial interactions, while effigies helped construct a sacred realm that was clearly divorced from village life and probably large portions of the population. Thus, the differences in semiotic possibilities evident in these pottery types parallel changes in their accessibility and potential power. While the process of enchainment that was facilitated by domestic-made Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels could have been affected and leveraged by many potential political players, Weeden Island effigies were the domain of specialized ritual knowledge controlled by a smaller segment of the population. It is perhaps no coincidence that archaeologists have noted more attributes of rank (e.g., accoutrements and extended burials) among Swift Creek burials compared with Weeden Island burials (Brose and Percy 1974; Willey 1949). While this may describe a temporal trend, chronological refinements may also show contemporaneous differences in rank related to the differential abundance of complicated stamped pottery and effigy vessels in burial mounds. Mounds containing abundant Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery tend to be constructed by continuous use, gradually gaining size through many decades or centuries of adding human remains, artifacts, and new mantles of earth (Sears 1962, 1973; Willey 1949). In contrast, mounds containing a higher proportion of other Weeden Island wares (such as Weeden Island Incised, Weeden Island Punctated, and Weeden Island Zoned Red), effigy vessels, and less complicated stamped pottery tend to be patterned (Sears 1962:13). These mounds were constructed more quickly, often in a single event, and frequently contain pottery caches on their peripheries (often on the east side), sometimes with pathways lit-

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erally paved with potsherds leading toward the mound center (Willey 1949:405). These patterned mounds seem only to have become common near Kolomoki within northwest Florida, southeast Alabama, and southwest Georgia, rather than in all areas where Weeden Island pottery is found. Through their indexical capabilities, Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels could be used to negotiate and legitimate political power, and, indeed, the ritual exchange of these vessels may have been part of reciprocal obligations that were developed among allied lineages. In fact, Swift Creek vessels were often deposited in mounds through repeated events that allowed many opportunities for action. Apparently, the political plays of certain individuals resulted in a degree of achieved status. In contrast, Weeden Island effigies may have been part of a strategy to divorce sacred authority from social and political practices. A communal ethic is evident in the greater number of disarticulated bundle burials and cremations, as well as singular events in which caches of vessels, including effigies, were deposited together, not directly associated with human remains. Monumental construction projects at sites like Kolomoki provided distinctive ceremonial spaces that were partitioned from village life. As Pluckhahn (2010) has argued, this compartmentalization of sacred and secular realms may have served to restrain status and authority and thereby ease social tensions. More specifically, we can see that Weeden Island effigies were part of practices that accentuated ostentatious spectacle and performance and simultaneously removed possibilities of political maneuvering by constricting the scale of material indexes. Behind the guise of religion, this move toward sacred/secular divisions may have actually bolstered a few individuals political power by sequestering it in the sacred realm, following Dwyers (1996) observation that segregation of the invisible world of spirits and the visible world of the living tends to be accentuated as social complexity increases. Weeden Island effigy vessels were an important part of this religious segregation, whereby a group of religious specialists seems to have conscripted the production and distribution of sacred paraphernalia toward the advancement of their own interests. An important distinction must be made between the symbolism of the iconography preserved on

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pottery and the icons and indexes that were enlisted to achieve particular social and political effects. As described above, there is little to indicate that the conventions of symbolic meaning in Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island effigy vessels were divergentthese pottery types simply employ alternative techniques for rendering many of the same concepts and beings. The symbolic meanings of these images, perhaps invoking cosmological models, liminal animals such as water birds, humans, or nonhuman persons, were conventions that could be preserved across changes in the production, use, and distribution of vessels that altered the process of signification. In this sense, the producers of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery and Weeden Island effigies were working with the same repertoire of symbolic meanings but employing their semiotic potentials in contradictory ways. In particular, the centralized and specialized production of Weeden Island effigies could have been an abjuration by a small group of religious specialists of the political maneuvering made possible by the indexical capacities of renderings on Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels. By inventing a new manifestation of these symbols with alternative modes of signification, emergent spiritual leaders could shift and circumscribe the politics of representation in mortuary contexts. In places where effigies were displayed and buried, complicated stamped vessels continued to be enlisted as important indexes, but their effects may have been diminished by the new dimension of significance introduced by effigies. Drawing on concepts from Peircean semiotics, this study has explored how a practice-centered approach to meaning can move effectively beyond previous investigations of Swift Creek and Weeden Island iconography as symbols. Such a perspective brings focus not only to the potential capacities of objects as signs but also to the way objects were used, which is critical to understanding how they were active as signs. In the case of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels and Weeden Island effigies, the objects of signs seem to have been fairly similar, but the relations between sign and object were clearly different. Conclusion

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Swift Creek Complicated Stamped vessels were village wares that were sometimes conscripted into mortuary ceremonies, and their power derived from their ability to make tangible connections between villages (and villagers) and mortuary loci. In contrast, Weeden Island effigies elided these organic village connections and circumscribed indexical connections so that they were limited to pottery specialists and major ceremonial centers. Furthermore, effigies emphasized the iconic as part of dramatic religious performances that were clearly divorced from daily life. This segregation of sacred and secular realms may correspond with other attempts to ease the growing tensions of increasing social complexity (Pluckhahn 2010). This analysis has not addressed directly the question of why particular animals or persons were chosen as the objects of signsfor example, why did vultures or ducks become symbols in mortuary contexts? Such questions often have been tackled in archaeology by drawing on structural, symbolic, and cognitive anthropologies that are founded upon Saussurean semiology. In taking on the codes and rules of symbolic (i.e., conventional) meaning that are seen as inherent to material culture, these approaches have failed to address social practice (Preucel 2006:3). While we should not ignore symbol and metaphor, an alternative to the investigation of meaning begins with the premise that signs are created through peoples engagement with each other and the object world. Using Peirces concepts of icon, index, and symbol, we can investigate the historical processes by which meaning is continually created. A semiotic approach therefore succeeds where purely symbolic approaches fail, by interrogating the performative contexts in which the meaning of iconography is constituted. Ideology and symbolism undoubtedly were implicated in major changes in Woodland period Southeastern North America, such as increasingly large and aggregated villages, the proliferation of burial mound ceremonialism and long-distance exchange, and escalating social and political inequality (Anderson and Mainfort 2002). By interrogating the semiotic potentials of material objects and associated social practices, this study moves toward a more precise understanding of what things were enlisted to do and how they became significant.

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Acknowledgments. A portion of this article was presented in the symposium Ceremonial Spheres of the Eastern Woodlands, organized by Scot Keith and Martin Byers at the 2012 Society for American Archaeology meeting in Memphis. I thank the organizers, contributors, and discussants for stimulating some of the thoughts that led to this article. This article benefited also from the thoughtful comments of Chris Rodning and anonymous reviewers. Sincere thanks go to Paula Andrea Viveros Bedoya for translating the abstract into Spanish. Frankie Snow graciously gave permission to publish his Swift Creek design reconstructions. I am also indebted to Amanda ODell for her diligence in reconstructing hundreds of designs from the Gulf Coast and beyond, thereby providing significantly more material to ponder. ODells Swift Creek design reconstructions were supported in part by National Science Foundation grant #BCS-1111397. Any errors are my own.

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