6 Political Economy and the Routinization of Religious Movements: A View from the Eastern Woodlands.

ABSTRACT Max Weber's concept of routinization offers a useful framework for understanding the relationship between political economy and the organization of religious movements. Here, we apply this concept to a comparison of Hopewell and Mississippian, two of the most important religious movements in the precolonial Eastern Woodlands. We focus on two archaeological contexts in particular-Mound 25 at the Hopewell site and Mound C at Etowah-to illustrate how Weber's concept allows for a more nuanced comparison than concepts associated with a more traditional neoevolutionary logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]