Martin Menz | University of Michigan (original) (raw)

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Conference Presentations by Martin Menz

Conceptions of Middle Woodland ceremonial centers focus on monumentality as an act of communal ri... more Conceptions of Middle Woodland ceremonial centers focus on monumentality as an act of communal ritual, though interpretations of the meanings of such ritual practices are often neglected. In contrast, we regard the monumental landscape of Kolomoki, a Woodland mound complex and village in southwestern Georgia, as a physical expression of the community’s mythologized origin, based on parallels between Kolomoki and early Creek villages diagrammed by William Bartram. Despite demographic shifts­ and concomitant alterations to traditions in the centuries following Kolomoki’s decline, we argue persistent features of this site plan supports links between prehistoric and historic populations in the Chattahoochee Valley.

Paper presented at the 2015 annual meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

Kolomoki, in southwestern Georgia, was one of the largest villages of the Middle and Late Woodlan... more Kolomoki, in southwestern Georgia, was one of the largest villages of the Middle and Late Woodland periods in the American Southeast, with a circular village plan nearly a kilometer in diameter centered on a huge open plaza. We introduce the term “hypertrophic village” to describe Kolomoki and, by extension, villages of similarly exaggerated size. The wide spacing between domestic units at Kolomoki, we argue, both enabled and constrained social cohesion. The construction of Kolomoki’s hypertrophic village may have been a deliberate strategy related to settlement shifts that recent work suggests took place throughout the region in the seventh century AD.

Paper presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the Southeastern Archaeology Conference in Athens, Georgia.

Papers by Martin Menz

American Antiquity, 2021

Architectural remains, especially domestic architecture, are essential for understanding the ways... more Architectural remains, especially domestic architecture, are essential for understanding the ways in which households organized themselves socially and economically in the past. Unfortunately, these remains are infrequently identified from Woodland period (1000 BC–AD 1000) archaeological sites along the Gulf Coast, an area home to well-known ceramic and mortuary traditions during this time. As a result, our knowledge of Woodland period households in the region is scant. In this article I present a newly discovered house from Letchworth (8JE337), a large Woodland period ceremonial center in northwest Florida, and compare it to the few published examples of houses from this region. I show that domestic architecture along the Gulf Coast during the Woodland period is diverse, suggesting differences in the organization of households and the historical development of ceremonial centers.

R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w itho ut ... more R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.

Let q be a prime power. We estimate the number of tuples of degree bounded monic polynomials (Q1,... more Let q be a prime power. We estimate the number of tuples of degree bounded monic polynomials (Q1,. .. , Qv) ∈ (Fq[z]) v that satisfy given pairwise coprimality conditions. We show how this generalises from monic polynomials in finite fields to Dedekind domains with a finite norm.

Many thanks to my committee members for their insightful feedback and especially to my advisor, D... more Many thanks to my committee members for their insightful feedback and especially to my advisor, Dr. Thomas J. Pluckhahn, who went above and beyond the requirements of a faculty mentor in providing logistical and financial support for this research. Further thanks are due my colleague, Shaun West, who has helped broaden the scope of our work in Kolomoki's south village tremendously. Finally, the Anthropology Department support staff deserves special recognition for all the help they have provided throughout my time at USF. Finally, I would like to thank the Society for Georgia Archaeology for their generous contribution to this research.

American Antiquity, 2018

We present a revised chronology for the Kolomoki site (9ER1) in Georgia, occupied primarily durin... more We present a revised chronology for the Kolomoki site (9ER1) in Georgia, occupied primarily during the Middle and Late Woodland periods (ca. 200 BC to AD 1050). The considerable extent of the site has been noted for more than a century but came into sharper focus with the archaeological investigations by Sears (1956) and Pluckhahn (2003). The site includes at least nine mounds, a large central plaza, and a discontinuous habitation area nearly a kilometer in diameter. Previous interpretations assumed gradual and incremental changes in the community plan. We present a greatly revised chronology, based on new investigations in some of the lesser-known portions of the site and a doubling of the number of absolute dates. Bayesian modeling of these and previous dates reveals that, far from the gradualist assumption of previous work, the community at Kolomoki was dynamically transformed several times in its history, reaching its greatest spatial extent and formal complexity in two relative...

Conceptions of Middle Woodland ceremonial centers focus on monumentality as an act of communal ri... more Conceptions of Middle Woodland ceremonial centers focus on monumentality as an act of communal ritual, though interpretations of the meanings of such ritual practices are often neglected. In contrast, we regard the monumental landscape of Kolomoki, a Woodland mound complex and village in southwestern Georgia, as a physical expression of the community’s mythologized origin, based on parallels between Kolomoki and early Creek villages diagrammed by William Bartram. Despite demographic shifts­ and concomitant alterations to traditions in the centuries following Kolomoki’s decline, we argue persistent features of this site plan supports links between prehistoric and historic populations in the Chattahoochee Valley.

Paper presented at the 2015 annual meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

Kolomoki, in southwestern Georgia, was one of the largest villages of the Middle and Late Woodlan... more Kolomoki, in southwestern Georgia, was one of the largest villages of the Middle and Late Woodland periods in the American Southeast, with a circular village plan nearly a kilometer in diameter centered on a huge open plaza. We introduce the term “hypertrophic village” to describe Kolomoki and, by extension, villages of similarly exaggerated size. The wide spacing between domestic units at Kolomoki, we argue, both enabled and constrained social cohesion. The construction of Kolomoki’s hypertrophic village may have been a deliberate strategy related to settlement shifts that recent work suggests took place throughout the region in the seventh century AD.

Paper presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the Southeastern Archaeology Conference in Athens, Georgia.

American Antiquity, 2021

Architectural remains, especially domestic architecture, are essential for understanding the ways... more Architectural remains, especially domestic architecture, are essential for understanding the ways in which households organized themselves socially and economically in the past. Unfortunately, these remains are infrequently identified from Woodland period (1000 BC–AD 1000) archaeological sites along the Gulf Coast, an area home to well-known ceramic and mortuary traditions during this time. As a result, our knowledge of Woodland period households in the region is scant. In this article I present a newly discovered house from Letchworth (8JE337), a large Woodland period ceremonial center in northwest Florida, and compare it to the few published examples of houses from this region. I show that domestic architecture along the Gulf Coast during the Woodland period is diverse, suggesting differences in the organization of households and the historical development of ceremonial centers.

R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w itho ut ... more R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.

Let q be a prime power. We estimate the number of tuples of degree bounded monic polynomials (Q1,... more Let q be a prime power. We estimate the number of tuples of degree bounded monic polynomials (Q1,. .. , Qv) ∈ (Fq[z]) v that satisfy given pairwise coprimality conditions. We show how this generalises from monic polynomials in finite fields to Dedekind domains with a finite norm.

Many thanks to my committee members for their insightful feedback and especially to my advisor, D... more Many thanks to my committee members for their insightful feedback and especially to my advisor, Dr. Thomas J. Pluckhahn, who went above and beyond the requirements of a faculty mentor in providing logistical and financial support for this research. Further thanks are due my colleague, Shaun West, who has helped broaden the scope of our work in Kolomoki's south village tremendously. Finally, the Anthropology Department support staff deserves special recognition for all the help they have provided throughout my time at USF. Finally, I would like to thank the Society for Georgia Archaeology for their generous contribution to this research.

American Antiquity, 2018

We present a revised chronology for the Kolomoki site (9ER1) in Georgia, occupied primarily durin... more We present a revised chronology for the Kolomoki site (9ER1) in Georgia, occupied primarily during the Middle and Late Woodland periods (ca. 200 BC to AD 1050). The considerable extent of the site has been noted for more than a century but came into sharper focus with the archaeological investigations by Sears (1956) and Pluckhahn (2003). The site includes at least nine mounds, a large central plaza, and a discontinuous habitation area nearly a kilometer in diameter. Previous interpretations assumed gradual and incremental changes in the community plan. We present a greatly revised chronology, based on new investigations in some of the lesser-known portions of the site and a doubling of the number of absolute dates. Bayesian modeling of these and previous dates reveals that, far from the gradualist assumption of previous work, the community at Kolomoki was dynamically transformed several times in its history, reaching its greatest spatial extent and formal complexity in two relative...