Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700 –1300

directly with a community, has a number of potential
shortcomings. While the village itself might be recognized
by the members of a community as being of central
importance to maintaining the community and
giving it an identity (Butt 1977:9; Fletcher and La
Flesche 1911:198-217), not all members of a community
necessarily reside within the village at any given time.
In groups practicing a seasonal round, most members
of the community would be expected to disperse part
of the year to exploit seasonally available resources.
However, some members might remain behind in the
village due to infirmary, age, choice, or as guards
(Bushnell 1922:103; Fletcher and La Flesche 1911:99).
Thus, one can equate a village with a community only
if the former is viewed in a very dynamic sense.
Given this, the layout of a village reflects the maximum
ideal congregation of a community’s members,
and one which might only occasionally be realized.
For small-scale groups such as those inhabiting Late
Prehistoric southwestern Pennsylvania, most members
of a community would likely inhabit a village
consisting of several contiguous and contemporary
dwellings arranged according to a preconceived plan
(Chang 1958:303-305, 1962:33), though cases of singledwelling
villages are not unknown (Rivière 1995:189;
Turner 1979:175). Chang’s (1958:303) cross-cultural
study of pre-urban agricultural villages in the New
World indicates that villages with multiple dwellings
also frequently have a chief’s lodge and a communal
locality, such as a plaza or a men’s house. The presence
of a communal locality or structure can prove
useful in distinguishing a large hamlet (a residential
settlement occupied by one or two families) from a
small village (a residential site occupied by several
families) (Butt 1977:6). The presence of a communal
locality or structure indicates the need for the kinds of
socially integrative institutions above the individual
family level one would expect in a local group forming
a self-conscious community. For a nucleated village
community, the communal locality or structure
will be coterminous with the village itself and, as will
be shown later, can be a major factor influencing the
planning and arrangement of the village.
BUILDING MODELS OF VILLAGE
SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS BASED ON
VILLAGE SPATIAL ORGANIZATIONS
The modeling of community organization from the
remains of village sites follows from the premise that,
in some circumstances, the layout of a village reflects
certain aspects of the social organization of the people
who built and lived in it (Chang 1958, 1962:37; Fraser
1968:8; James 1949:109; Lea 1995:208; Lévi-Strauss
1953:533-534; Mindeleff 1902; Pearson and Richards
1994:3; Rapoport 1980a:289). This is particularly evident
when the layout of a village shows regularity
and patterning that was not created due to, or was
created in spite of, topographic and other environmental
constraints. In this paper, it is further argued
that the layout of a village does not passively reflect
social organizations, but actually plays an active role
in their maintenance, perpetuation, and even creation
(see Fabian 1992:46; Gregor 1977:35; Fletcher and La
Fleshe 1911:198). The configuration, or layout, of a village
represents a strategy designed to integrate individuals
into a social group or community (see Gross
1979:329; Hegmon 1989:5), while at the same time
minimizing intragroup tensions that might disrupt
the community (Gross 1979:337). As will be discussed
later in this paper, ethnographically and ethnohistorically
known ring-shaped villages were and are
planned according to explicit and conscious geometric
models—not infrequently with a cosmological
basis—designed in reference to and intended to
foster a village’s social organizations (Fabian 1992:37;
Fletcher and La Fleshe 1911:138; Gregor 1977:35;
Gross 1979:337; Guidoni 1975:36; James 1949:98;
Lowie 1946a:389; Pearson and Richards 1994:12;
Siegel 1996:313-324). In the definition of a “typical”
Monongahela village (i.e., an occupation zone around
an open central plaza), researchers have at least intuitively
recognized that geometric models were used
by Natives to plan villages.
Of course, various factors operating during the
occupational history of a village may result in a layout
that deviates from and obscures the Native models
used in its initial planning, that is, the layout of a
village may be modified in response to changes in
group dynamics caused by new intra- or intergroup
alliances, internal feuding, hostilities with neighboring
villages, illness, accusations of adultery or witchcraft,
increases or decreases in population, and so on
(Bramberger 1979; Chagnon 1968; Dole 1966:74; Gross
1979:329-331, 1983:436-437; Maybury-Lewis 1979:312,
1989:107; Wüst and Barreto 1999:11). In addition to
affecting the internal configuration of a village, these
factors could cause a village to fission into two or
more new settlements or, in extreme cases, lead its
inhabitants to disperse and disband their community
(Bramberger 1979; Gross 1983:435). Support for the
assertion that a village’s layout plays an active role in
the maintenance, perpetuation, and even creation of
46 Means