The Materiality of Signs: Enchainment and Animacy in Woodland Southeastern North American Pottery

Abstract

Abstract Archaeological examinations of symbolic meaning often have been hampered by the Saussurean concept of signs as coded messages of preexisting meanings. The arbitrary and imprecise manner by which meaning is represented in material culture according to Saussure tends to stymie archaeological investigations of symbolism. As an alternative, archaeologists recently have drawn on Peirce’s semiotic to investigate how materiality is bound to the creation of meanings through the process of signification. This study examines how the symbolism expressed in pottery of the Middle Woodland period southeastern United States, Swift Creek Complicated Stamped and Weeden Island effigy vessels, might be better explained as icons and indexes that were enlisted to have particular social effects. Examining the semiotic potentials of these objects helps explain their apparent uses and the significance of alternative representations of the same subjects.