rulers, while considering themselves Roman, were more likely
to be Gothic or Germanic in ethnicity and culture. For ordi-
nary people, the Roman Empire was no longer the organizing
institution, upholder of laws, or guarantor of security. Ecclesi-
astical institutions (churches and monasteries) and ecclesias-
tical offi cers (priests, monks, abbots, and bishops) were more
likely to take over local government and play central roles in
local economies.
So, for example, Apollinaris Sidonius (ca. 430–487 or
488 c.e.), from Lugdunum in Gaul, grew up in an aristo-
cratic Roman family and married a Roman woman whose
father, Avitus (r. 455–456 c.e.), would eventually become a
Roman emperor. But his political career ended when Avi-
tus was killed and Apollinaris Sidonius became bishop of
Auvergne. Th ere he dedicated his life to writing histories
of Roman emperors. His numerous letters reveal, however,that he was not, in fact, preserving a corner of Rome (as he
believed) but governing a small, independent fragment of a
collapsed empire.THE AMERICAS
BY KEITH JORDAN
Several episodes of cultural and political change in the an-
cient Americas fi t modern defi nitions of social collapse—the
breaking down of a complex (by modern Western standards)
sociopolitical arrangement into what look like simpler or
more chaotic systems. We must be careful, however. Collapse
carries a negative connotation, but ancient peoples may not
necessarily have experienced these changes as negative or as
forced upon them. Nor can we cling to discredited theories
of cultural evolution, claiming that societies develop toward
greater complexity (oft en defi ned in Western terms) and
that a change in the opposite direction constitutes disaster.
Finally, since we lack written records for any of these devel-
opments in the ancient Americas, our reconstructions from
archaeological data are always speculative and tentative and
may be invalidated when the next major fi nd is unearthed.
In the North American Midwest the Hopewell culture
(200 b.c.e.–400 c.e.)—more accurately described as a ritual
and burial complex linked by trade networks—seems to have
vanished by 400 c.e. No more Hopewell burial mounds or
ceremonial centers were constructed, and the trade net-
works linking areas as distant as the Rocky Mountains and
the Gulf Coast ceased to bring exotic materials to Ohio and
Illinois sites. Pottery decoration became less elaborate and
objects included in graves simpler and scantier. Societies
seem to have become more egalitarian: No longer do burials
include a very few with especially rich items, suggesting the
existence of an elite.
Some archaeologists once believed that a shift toward
cooler weather in the Midwest around 300 c.e. spurred the
decline of the Hopewell phenomenon by making it diffi cult
to grow the corn on which the culture supposedly relied for
food. However, we now know that Native Americans in the
Hopewell areas did not start growing corn on a large scale
until fi ve centuries aft er Hopewell culture disappeared, and
there is no fi rm evidence for the alleged climate shift. On the
contrary, in the centuries following the Hopewell “collapse”
the peoples of eastern North America became more depen-
dent on corn agriculture, leading to growing populations,
bigger settlements, and ultimately the rise of the complex
Mississippian cultures (900–1600 c.e.) with their huge towns,
massive mounds, and powerful chiefs.
Other proposed reasons for the disappearance of the
Hopewell include economic factors. In one theory trade net-
works collapsed because Native Americans in the southeast
started to work local copper deposits instead of relying on
copper mined in the Lake Superior region. But the archaeo-
logical evidence indicates that Lake Superior copper was
mined and widely traded up to the European invasion in theAugustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E.) and Jerome (ca.
347–419 or 420 C.E.) were the last two masters of the
classical Roman literary tradition. Both of these writ-
ers, while writing on Christian topics, were steeped
in the Latin of Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.), Virgil (70–19
B.C.E.), and other writers of classical Latin. As early as
the fi fth century C.E., however, the Latin language had
begun to split apart. In some quarters people tried to
preserve the classical language by continuing to write
in an elaborate style; works such as those of Mar-
tianus Capella (fourth to fi fth century C.E.), a Vandal
writing in Carthage around 470, are full of allusions
to classical literature. In other quarters, local dialects
became more pronounced, beginning as early as the
fourth century C.E. Egeria, a woman who made a pil-
grimage from Spain to Jerusalem in 384 C.E., left a
diary that shows a version of Latin that would have
been hard for a classical Roman to understand.
The elaborate system of Latin grammar became
simplifi ed, and its verbs became more regular. By the
seventh century the language of Italy resembled me-
dieval Italian more than classical Latin. In the eighth
century in formerly Roman parts of France, the defi -
nite article (the) fi rst appears as lo, la, lis, moving to-
ward modern French’s le, la, les.
In the western part of the former empire Latin
survived as a tool that allowed scholars and church
offi cials to communicate with each other. As a means
for communicating with the common people, it died
by the ninth century when, in 813 C.E., a decree from
the bishop of Tours forbade sermons in Latin, which
the common people could no longer understand.THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF THE
LATIN LANGUAGE1008 social collapse and abandonment: The Americas0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1008 1008 10/10/07 2:30:44 PM