In what may be the most accessible introduction to his thinking, this posthumous volume from Martin Byers summarizes his views on the nature of the social systems behind the earthwork and mound centers of eastern North America. Addressing the same archaeologically-revealed Middle Woodland and Mississippian landscapes as those who view them as the product of competitive and territorial hierarchically-organized societies, he tells us in a brilliant exposition why he believes those same groups were communal and custodial heterarchies.

Robert Riordan, Wright State University

This final edition of The Real Mound Builders of North America presents the clearest and most comprehensive overview of Martin Byers’ unique understanding of the last two millennia of Native American history in the Eastern Woodlands of North America prior to the arrival of Europeans. Rather than a linear, evolutionary trajectory, Byers sees a spiraling, repeating pattern of interactions within heterarchical societies based on clans and sodalities inhabiting a world shared with immanent deities. The book is a fundamental challenge to the core assumptions of most North American archaeologists.

Douglas K. Charles, Wesleyan University