Mary Spanos - Anthropological Textiles

An Introduction to the Anthropology of Textiles in Southeastern North America

The research and consultation offered by Mary Spanos focuses on the prehistoric and early historic textiles of the Southeastern region of North America. Her research begins with the earliest Native American occupants and continues through the settlement of the Europeans. The textile life of this geographic region over this time period offers a complex and fascinating story that is unique among prehistoric cultures and had a dramatic affect on world economies during the early historic period. The basic milestones are presented below.

The textile story of the Southeastern region of North America began with the Native Americans. The Europeans who came to this area brought their social standards and their technology with them. From the moment the two cultures met, they affected each other, for better and for worse, and their textiles and their cultures reflect the accultration of every group involved.

Referenes Cited

Carson, James T.
1999 Searching for the Bright Path: The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to Removal. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Drooker, Penelope B.
1992 Mississippian Village Textiles at Wickliffe. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Dunlevy, Marion L.
1948 Pottery Study. In Little Bear Creek Site CTo8, Colbert County Alabama, by William S. Webb and David L. DeJarnette, pp. 55-64. Alabama Museum of Natural History, University.

Farnie, Douglas A., and David J. Jeremy
2004 The Role of Cotton as a World Power, 1780-1990. In The Fibre That Changed the World: The Cotton Industry in International Perspective, 1600-1990s, edited by Douglas A. Farnie and David J. Jeremy, pp. 3-14. Pasold Research Fund, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Knight, Vernon J., Jr.
1990 Excavation of the Truncated Mound at the Walling Site: Middle Woodland Culture and Copena in the Tennessee Valley. Alabama State Museum of Natural History, Division of Archaeology, Report of Investigations 56. University of Alabama.

Kuttruff, Jenna T., and Carl Kuttruff
1996 Mississippian Textile Evidence on Fabric-Impressed Ceramics from Mound Bottom, Tennessee. In A Most Indispensable Art: Native Fiber Industries from Eastern North America, edited by James B. Petersen, pp. 160-173. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Lakwete, Angela
2003 Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

Schreffler, Virginia L.
1988 Burial Status Differentiation as Evidenced by Fabrics from Etowah Mound C. Georgia. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Textiles and Clothing, Ohio State University, Columbus. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

Sherwood, Sarah C.
2001 The Geoarchaeology of Dust Cave: A Late Paleoindian Through Middle Archaic Site in the Western Middle Tennessee River Valley. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Spanos, Mary
2006 Mississippian Textiles at Beckum Village (1Ck24), Clarke County, Alabama. M.A. thesis, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

Wickman, Patricia R.
1991 Osceola’s Legacy. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.