A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication This is a detailed reconstruction of the waxing and waning of political fortunes among the chiefly elites at an important center of the prehistoric world. At the time the first Europeans arrived in the New World, thousands of earthen platform mounds dotted the landscape of eastern North America. Only a few of the mound sites have survived the ravages of time and the devastation of pilferers; one of these valuable monuments is Etowah, located near Cartersville in northern Georgia. Over a period of more than