Oh this is actually a topic I can speak on from some recent reading I have done, but less naval piracy and more raiding of settlements.

Raiding was a fact of life in pre-Columbian North America. One way we see it in the archaeological record is in human remains. Signs of violent conflict can be seen in injuries like blows to the head, or in evidence of defensive wounds that may indicate someone who was killed in a situation where they themselves were unarmed. We can also see it in who is being buried, and also who seems to not have been buried. If we see signs of violent trauma in women, children, or the elderly, that may be indication of raiding occuring. The reason for this is simple, if you raid a village you will probably cause direct harm to those who are most likely to be in it. It is a bit more complicated than I am making it out to be, and is very much situationally based, but hopefully it gives a general idea on a few ways we identify raids in the archaeological record.

Another means is using the historic record to try and understand how raiding may have been viewed in the past. Some accounts seem to paint raiding as a sort of ritual activity in a way, with counter raids being expected after a succesful raid. There also is a sense of 'honor' to it, a family may seek a raid to get even with a community who may have killed one of their own kin in a previous raid. A raid may also occur to settle a grievence between two communties, espcially when a less powerful one somehow slighted the larger one. A great account of this is in Robert Hall's "Archaeology of the Soul". In it, there is an account of a Native American community allowing French traders to establish a community in the area. The French built up a larger community over the years and eventually this made the local tribes feel a bit upset, the account seems to point to competition for resources with this growing French town. This angered the tribes as they felt the French took advantage of their hospitality and thus they decided to raid the French town. They were successful, and in doing so managed to chase the French out. They ended up later returning, but the account describes how the Native Americans were prepared for a reprisal raid after their initial raid occured. The goal of the raid wasnt to just chase the French away, it was more a reminder of who really was in control of the region.

We can also see evidence of raiding in remains of villages too, specfically in the construction of large wooden palisades around some communities. These would often had positions for archers to fire upon would be attackers, as well as have been covered in certain materials to possibly prevent them from being set ablaze. This is important as many sites seem to have palisades that were not only burnt down, but were later rebuilt and maintained over the years. So why so much work for these palisades? Historic accounts from the British along the east coast in the 1600 and 1700s describe how raids were often carried out and how palisades may have been a means to prevent raids. A raid of a village would often be an ambush style attack, and while ideally you would have warriors charge in and swiftly defeat their foes using weapons like clubs and maces, some favored a tactic that involved inital volleys of arrows being fired into town to create chaos before the warriors charged in. A palisade not only stops this initial charge, but also prevents volleys from finding targets as effectively.

An example of this may be at the Middle Mississippian site of Aztalan. They seen to have been somewhat of a community of outsiders in Southern Wisconsin, and constructed a palisade to defend themselves from threats in the area. It appears that their was quite a bit of tension between the inhabitants of Aztalan and the other communitites in the region, resulting ultimately in the destruction of Aztalan. If we view this through the account of the French community, we can possibly explain the antimosity as a result of a growing community threatening the existing power structure in the region.