Initial Northern Iroquoian Coalescence

Northern Iroquoian societies experienced two phases of community coalescence, one in the thirteenth century, which brought semi-sedentary populations together into the first true villages, and a second phase two centuries later that created large palisaded settlements. This chapter is primarily concerned with the first wave of village formation and the changes in social organization and gender and power relations that accompanied the transition to sedentism. This included more formalized decision-making at the village level as well as the development of recursive entanglements between regional networks defined by kin- and clan-based relations and materialized through ritual and mortuary programs. We argue that transformations in the social and physical labor performed by males and females at the village and regional levels is key to understanding this transition.