ABSTRACT
Osteoarchaeologically derived information about the nature and pattern of American Indian warfare-related perimortem violent trauma is essentially confined to the late prehistoric and protohistoric time periods. Much of this paleopathological literature focuses on osteological collections from the North American Plains or the Southwest. The Archaic period human osteological sample from the Kentucky Lake Reservoir of western Tennessee is large and geographically discrete. Its informative potential for warfare-associated paleopathology can be demonstrated by observing that the cemetery samples yielded the first documented Archaic period occurrences of scalping, an antiquity corroborated in the Bahm site in the northern Plains. In the Cordell Hull Reservoir of adjacent middle Tennessee, the earliest example of decapitation and forearm trophy-taking was identified. The Kentucky Lake Reservoir human osteological remains are therefore potentially well-suited to providing baseline information about patterns or endemicity of intergroup violence. Warfare-associated perimortem violent trauma such as scalping and dismemberment trophy taking are identifiable by a specific pattern of macroscopic cutmarks.
