Fort Walton Women

Though conclusive archaeological evidence is still meager for identifying women’s gender roles, identities, and activities in the late prehistoric Southeast, archaeological, ethnographic, and historical data do indicate complementary political and social power and labor for Mississippian women, men, and additional-gender individuals in matrilineal native societies. Within the Fort Walton region of northwest Florida/southeast Alabama/southwest Georgia, there are high-status burials of women and other hints of ritual, rank, and work. Fort Walton ceramics are Mississippian-like but not shell-tempered, implying that potters were manifesting distinctive group identities. Lithic assemblages are meager, though increasing use of bow-and-arrow technology is inferred. But the absence of palisaded villages or other signs of warfare suggest relative peace in the region. Understanding matrilineality in ethnographically recorded communities worldwide is crucial for our interpretations.