Files
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the intersection of migration and warfare by examining the conditions leading to peaceful or violent interactions between migrant and local populations sharing the same landscapes. It focuses on two regions of the Missouri River Trench of the North American Plains, where archaeological evidence indicates that migration and warfare occurred between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries AD. A high-resolution radiocarbon chronology is constructed to identify the timing and locations where migration and warfare overlap. The analysis reveals two distinct cases: one in which migration occurs without concurrent warfare and one where migration coincides with warfare. Multiple internal (intragroup) and external (intergroup) conditions contributing to migrant-local interactions and occurring at multiple socio-spatial scales are identified and tested across the two cases to understand how various conditions may produce violent or peaceful outcomes. It is found that commonly identified factors, such as social distance and incongruent ideologies, can contribute to violent migrant-local relations. However, group-specific conditions, particularly practices and traditions that integrate collective violence into social identity by sanctioning and incentivizing warfare, also play a critical role in shaping these relationships. Ultimately, this research argues that a multiscalar approach, grounded in historical narratives and attentive to conditions throughout and between societies, is essential for fully understanding migrant-local relationships in a given social and cultural context.