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Mississippian Smoking Ritual in the Southern Appalachian Region. DENNIS B. BLANTON. 2015. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. xii + 274 pp. $65.00 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-62190-189-1.

Pluckhahn and Thompson’s contribution (Chapter 12), in which they paradoxically provide an expansion of scale by looking at three broadly contemporaneous sites—Kolomoki, Crystal River, and Fort Center, spread across almost 1,000 km—even while shrinking the experiential scale to that of an individual visiting and engaging with each of these sites in similar and dissimilar ways. Dekle (Chapter 13) similarly offers a paradoxical yet ultimately productive view of interregional trade across broad landscapes when she suggests such practices were less about broad-scale political manifestations and more about the development of individual identities derived from the ownership and display of “exotic” objects obtained from great distances. Wallis (Chapter 14) likewise promotes an understanding of interregional exchange as reflecting the wills and desires of individuals when he compares how Swift Creek and laterWeeden Island groups deployed local and nonlocal pottery in mound contexts. Shifting from a tradition that included vessels from diverse areas and times to only using pottery produced by a select group of people, Wallis describes the ritual and social performances associated with mound activities as becoming increasingly limited and exclusionary over time, possibly reflecting changing power relations. Henry (Chapter 15) is one of the few to explicitly discuss the political organization of Early and Middle Woodland groups in the Southeast, specifically in northern Kentucky. Contrary to traditional interpretations of mounds and interregional trade as evidence of power centralization, Henry argues that these groups were far more heterarchical, in part because communities were highly mobile and operated within a broader ritual landscape that they were constantly refashioning based on their relations with one another. In sum, Early and Middle Woodland Landscapes of the Southeast provides an opportunity for archaeologists not working in this region and time to appreciate both the current work being conducted as well as the potential for future studies. The book has been an important contribution to the literature since it was first published in hardcover in 2013, and it well deserves its release as a paperback in 2019.