Middle and Late Woodland settlement at Great Neck, site 44VB7 in Virginia Beach, Virginia

This thesis examines Middle and Late Woodland archaeological components at the Great Neck site (44VB7) located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Middle Woodland remains are examined to determine what function Great Neck served within regional settlement systems. The types of features at the site, their spatial relationships, and variation among ceramic assemblages are analyzed to establish the number of occupations represented by the archaeological deposits and the size and duration of the settlements associated with each. It is concluded that two distinct regional populations utilized Great Neck during the Middle Woodland. The site contains the remains of multiple occupations by a population associated primarily with the estuarine zone of southeastern Virginia who established base camps, comprised of perhaps a few small kin groups, which were abandoned for only short periods during the annual cycle. A population associated primarily with the interior freshwater zones of northeastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia used the site on a more transient basis.

Late Woodland remains are examined for information on sociopolitical structure and cultural variation among coastal Algonquian populations. These two aspects are considered relevant to understanding the development and evolution of the paramount chiefdom of the Powhatans during the 16th and early 17th centuries in the Coastal Plain of Virginia. It is concluded that structural and mortuary features provide evidence for positions of ascribed status among the population which resided at Great Neck ca. A.D. 1330-1510. Archaeological data have yet provided no unequivocal proof that populations vi in southeastern Virginia comprised an ethnic group distinct from districts of the Powhatan chiefdom located elsewhere within the James River drainage.