Indians of North America--Southern States

If the state is that complex of institutions which integrates a
culture on a non-kinship basis so as to maintain some order of
class stratification, can prehistoric examples of the state,
particularly in its nascent stages, be archaeologically demonstrated?
Using the historic Indian cultures of the Natchez of Mississippi and
the Timucua of northeast Florida as examples of such nascent states,
archaeological implications are drawn from them. The hypothesis
that prehistoric cultures with ceremonial centers at the Etowah and
Kolomoki sites; both in Georgia, were also examples of nascent
states is then tested against these implications, and found to meet
them. It is very probable, then, that Etowah and Kolomoki were
prehistoric states, and desirable that the attempt be made to further elucidate their particulars.