Date of Award

12-2025

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

School

Social Science and Global Studies

Committee Chair

Dr. Marie Danforth

Committee Chair School

Social Science and Global Studies

Committee Member 2

Dr. Joseph Peterson

Committee Member 2 School

Humanities

Committee Member 3

Dr. Max Grivno

Committee Member 3 School

Humanities

Committee Member 4

Dr. Daniel LaDu

Committee Member 4 School

Social Science and Global Studies

Abstract

Watercraft remains an overlooked aspect of Southeastern historical and archaeological scholarship. A more complete understanding has the potential to illuminate aspects of the human social process in anthropology and a more accurate construction of historical events. Recent Developments in Southeastern Archaeology, published in 2012, mentions the importance of the connections that water travel facilitated, but the work does not mention any serious investigation. While history has investigated the role native trails played in the development of the region, and while Andrew Lippmann has illustrated the agency that boat skills and watercraft gave Natives in the coastal North American region during the contact period, Native watercraft in the South remains an under-researched aspect.

The Great Lakes Region has a well-documented trend of increased size and frequency of birchbark canoes after French contact in response to market pressures. Frenchmen depended on native birchbark canoes to the extent that Natives began building canoes to supply the market for this demand. This thesis investigated southeastern ethnohistoric accounts and the archeological canoe repository in the state of Mississippi to see if this same trend characterized the dugouts of the Southeast. My results suggest that, in addition to incorporating a range of European forms and attributes, dugout canoes increased in width and reduced in depth but did not increase in length or volume. This work also updates the Mississippi dugout compendium for the first time since 1986. This thesis demonstrates morphological changes to dugouts in Mississippi that may be reflected in other Southeastern dugout archaeological repositories.

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