Thomas E Emerson | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (original) (raw)

Book Chapters/Articles by Thomas E Emerson

MCJA, 2022

During the Hopewell era, no material was so widely spread or employed across the midcontinent as ... more During the Hopewell era, no material was so widely spread or employed across the midcontinent as copper. Large deposits of copper artifacts in the Ohio Scioto Hopewell mounds, in what are usually deemed as status and ritual contexts, have colored subsequent interpretations of copper utilization during this period. Subsequent research documented copper's distribution across the midcontinent in Hopewell mortuary practices, while focusing on its significance as a distant import from the western Great Lakes. Until regional Illinois habitation copperuse studies were undertaken, in the 1980s and 1990s, mortuary copper dominated discussions of Havana Tradition Hopewell connections. However, examinations of avocational collections and metal-detecting surveys of 82 Havana habitation sites have yielded an array of copper tools and scrap revealing the presence of an extensive copper-working industry. It has become clear that regional Havana Tradition people were involved in the active production of utilitarian copper tools and ornaments, suggesting that the industry was based on local drift copper deposits. This harkens back to earlier regional patterns of copper tool production, while emphasizing the exotic character of the few copper mortuary inclusions-such as ear spools, headplates and breastplates, panpipes, and so forth-thus suggesting two very different systems of copper valuation.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2024

Thomas E. Emerson a, Kristin M. Hedman b and Matthew A. Fort c aUpper Mississippi Valley Archaeo... more Thomas E. Emerson a, Kristin M. Hedman b and Matthew A. Fort c
aUpper Mississippi Valley Archaeological Research Foundation (UMVARF), Western Illinois Archaeological Research Center, Macomb, IL, USA; bIllinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA; cDepartment of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA

ABSTRACT
Efforts were initiated in the mid-1990s to resolve complex questions of context, chronology, and identity of American Indian ancestral sites and individuals in the American Bottom, Illinois. A significant focus was on legacy collections from the Kane Mounds mortuary complex, salvaged in the early 1960s and long interpreted as late Mississippian mortuary mounds related to Cahokia. Drawing on available data from original field records and previously collected analytical evidence, we determined that the mortuary interments at the Kane site were placed in natural bluff-top landforms, not mounds, and that the locale served as a burial location for over a millennium. During this time, people gathered in larger permanent villages, their diet shifted from one based on a hunting-and-gathering lifestyle to one supported by maize agriculture, small groups from the Illinois River Valley emigrated to the area, and mortuary practices became increasingly complex – employing in-the-flesh interments, ossuaries, excarnation, postmortem manipulations of the deceased, and extensive use of fires. The mortuary complex reflects both temporal and geographic diversity as well as the continuity of such ancestral burial places. No depictions of ancestral remains are included in the text. Data presented are derived from legacy sources.
In the early 1960s construction of Interstate 270 was designed to cut through the eastern bluffs of the Missis- sippi River, 15 km to the northeast of downtown Caho- kia, America’s largest precontact urban polity. Fortunately, the recent passage of federal legislation provided some level of protection for historical resources, and planners recognized that the bluff-top construction would likely affect suspected American Indian burials. Consequently, efforts were undertaken by forensic anthropologist F. Jerome Melbye and the Southern Illinois University Museum in Carbondale to examine the affected area.
Initial surveys had reported four possible mounds at Kane, spaced in a north – south line and ranging in height from a “barely perceptible hump to about three meters” (Melbye 1963:3). While the largest of the mounds lies partiall

Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, 2024

The acknowledged importance of documenting legacy assemblages led to efforts in the mid-1990s to ... more The acknowledged importance of documenting legacy assemblages led to efforts in the mid-1990s to re-examine such collections from Illinois. In some cases this involved applying traditional methods and emerging techniques to address complex questions of context, chronology, and aspects of identity for American Indian ancestral sites and individuals. These efforts included the Kane Mounds mortuary complex salvaged in the early 1960s and long interpreted as a late Mississippian mortuary area related to Cahokia. Drawing on available data from original field and analysis records, past biomolecular analysis, and combined with an evolving understanding of the people and culture history of the American Bottom, we use results from isotopic analyses and radiocarbon AMS chronologies obtained prior to 2018 to disentangle complex multicomponent mortuary settings. These studies revealed the mortuary importance of Kane spanned 1500 years, from as early as 500 BCE into the 14th century CE, a period that saw a major shift in diet with the increased consumption of maize and a population comprised of individuals local to the American Bottom and as well as immigrants. Available biomolecular information and radiocarbon AMS chronologies demonstrate both temporal and geographic diversity within the Kane mortuary complex, as well as continuity in the importance of this mortuary location.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2023

ABSTRACT The development of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) iconography has been posited t... more ABSTRACT
The development of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) iconography has been posited to have had its origins in pre–AD 1200 Greater Cahokia. The recovery of fragments of an engraved shell cup, a few engraved pottery sherds, and copper residue from Mound 34 at Cahokia as well as two regional rock-art sites are said to confirm that the early Braden art style had a Cahokian heritage. Furthermore, on this basis, the origin, production, and distribution of engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates have been attributed to Cahokian artisans. Here the archaeological context and chronology of this evidence is reexamined and found to be problematic—it does not support Cahokia origins for engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates. The small amount of early Braden materials attributed to Cahokia are better explained as byproducts of the demonstrable presence of early Caddo immigrants and influences in the American Bottom. The skewed distribution and early chronology of Mississippian engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates confirm they are likely products of Spiro-influenced ritual practitioners. The production and accumulation of such ritual paraphernalia at Spiro can most reasonably be attributed to the site’s rise as a sacred place and central locus for regional pilgrimages.

Revealing Greater Cahokia, North America’s First Native City Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavations of the East St. Louis Precinct, 2018

There’s very little appreciation today that Native Americans actually lived in and built cities. ... more There’s very little appreciation today that Native
Americans actually lived in and built cities. This
is something we often associate with ancient
Mesopotamia or the classical world of Greece.
Yet Greater Cahokia was built as a huge complex
over many, many square miles. There are
mounds, burials, and houses—but most people
don’t appreciate that. They see the big mounds,
and they don’t realize that this was a thriving city
of 20,000–25,000 people. It is quite an eye-opener
for many to discover that Greater Cahokia actually
was one of the largest urban concentrations
of people anywhere in the world at that time.
This was the lesson we learned from digging
Stonehenge—
that it’s a small part of a much bigger
complex. When I came to visit Cahokia it was
very clear that it was the same thing.
Cahokia is a UNESCO World Heritage site
and was actually inscribed as such in 1982.
That is even before Stonehenge was. It has been
recognized for a long time as being of world
importance, and with World Heritage sites there
is a duty by the state to preserve, protect, and
enhance people’s knowledge about them. Every
effort should be made to actually ensure people
understand and learn about these sites. Also, we
must protect these sites to the very best of our
abilities in the twenty-first century. It is really
important to bring teams of archaeologists, conservators,
planners and politicians together to
develop a proper management plan so Cahokia
can continue to be preserved and appreciated in
the centuries to come.
—Michael Parker Pearson
Professor of British Later Prehistory
Institute of Archaeology
University College London

Revealing Greater Cahokia, North America's First Native City: Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavations of the East St. Louis Precinct, 2018

There’s very little appreciation today that Native Americans actually lived in and built cities. ... more There’s very little appreciation today that Native Americans actually lived in and built cities. This is something we often associate with ancient Mesopotamia or the classical world of Greece.
Yet Greater Cahokia was built as a huge complex over many, many square miles. There are mounds, burials, and houses—but most people
don’t appreciate that. They see the big mounds, and they don’t realize that this was a thriving city of 20,000–25,000 people. It is quite an eye-opener for many to discover that Greater Cahokia actually was one of the largest urban concentrations of people anywhere in the world at that time. This was the lesson we learned from digging Stonehenge—that it’s a small part of a much biggercomplex. When I came to visit Cahokia it was very clear that it was the same thing. Cahokia is a UNESCO World Heritage site and was actually inscribed as such in 1982. That is even before Stonehenge was. It has been
recognized for a long time as being of world importance, and with World Heritage sites there is a duty by the state to preserve, protect, and enhance people’s knowledge about them. Every effort should be made to actually ensure people understand and learn about these sites. Also, we must protect these sites to the very best of our abilities in the twenty-first century. It is really important to bring teams of archaeologists, conservators, planners and politicians together to develop a proper management plan so Cahokia can continue to be preserved and appreciated in the centuries to come.
Michael Parker Pearson
Professor of British Later Prehistory
Institute of Archaeology

Landscapes of Ritual Performance in Eastern North America, edited by Cheyrl Claassen, 2023

The origins and rise of Cahokia as an urban polity have increasingly been attributed to religion ... more The origins and rise of Cahokia as an urban polity have increasingly been attributed to religion by those who study the past. For the most part those religious forces have been ascribed to a disparate set of beliefs, rituals, and practices linked to aspects of world renewal, fertility, or warfare. Meanwhile, the role of people, politics, and ritual practice have sometimes become obscured.
Here, the place of human agents is recentered and the emergence of a formal priesthood, a constructed spiritual landscape, and embedded ritual practices are examined. Within this context, it is possible to explore a phenomenon that some scholars have described as ritual failure. Following observations by Koutrafouri and Sanders (2013) that conflicting definitions of religion and ritual have hampered rather than enhanced their recognition and analyses in the archaeological record, such theoretical debates have been set aside. Here ritual is identified as a set of repetitious behaviors directed toward interactions with powers that are outside regular human control for the purpose of influencing the actions of those powers. Multiple rituals may exist and perform in tandem. They are envisioned as operating within a structured universe, often actualized in a societal landscape. It is these characteristics that make ritual amenable to archaeological recognition, description, and interpretation.
But what of ritual failure – can rituals really “fail”? To some extent, we need to recognize that “failure” might be a slightly inapt but still useful, term in this context. What archaeologists identify is the disruption or discontinuance of recognizable patterned behaviors that are interpreted as ritual (e.g. Koutrafouri and Sanders 2013). Such recognition provides insights that may correlate with economic, political, environmental, or social changes or disruptions. Consequently, herein, ritual is examined as patterned action that is a key variable in interpreting early Cahokian organization. That examination reveals the appearance at about 1000–1050 CE of a distinguishing set of religious paraphernalia that is interpreted as representing a Cahokian cult dedicated to the Earth Mother which collapses at the beginning of the 13th century to be overshadowed by iconography seemingly related to a mythic hero, Red Horn, one aspect of the hemispheric-wide mythic Hero Twins accounts.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2022

Long-nosed god (LNG) maskettes and iconography have traditionally been seen as a pre-Southern Cul... more Long-nosed god (LNG) maskettes and iconography have traditionally been seen as a pre-Southern Cult phenomena, placed variously in the tenth to thirteenth centuries. Researchers have suggested they were employed in political and religious interactions or to facilitate trade, but few have looked in detail at their chronology, context, and distribution. Here, an in-depth review of radiocarbon dates and context raises questions about the place of LNGs in midcontinental Native societies. This reassessment illustrates that LNG images do not predate the appearance of Caddo and Cahokian symbolic emergence and can be first securely documented in the late eleventh century. They clearly are objects that signify personal endowments and are inalienable, following that individual to the grave. Their context and distribution indicate that LNG icons are an integral part of the Caddo religious and political networks but are tangential at Cahokia and take on totally different contextual meanings to the north of Cahokia. This study demonstrates that proposing uniform explanations for LNG ideology and implementation does not correlate with the archaeological evidence. Future studies that account for regional variations in LNG chronology, context, and spatial distribution are needed to begin addressing the roles of these unique objects in Native societies.

While large red stone figurines and pipes were occasionally discovered by early investigators, on... more While large red stone figurines and pipes were occasionally discovered by early investigators, only recently were they recovered in secure archaeological context demonstrating them to be twelfthcentury Cahokian productions geologically sourced to unique flint clay sources near St. Louis. A subset of these are female figures associated with fertility and renewal motifs. Examination of these female figures demonstrates that while they reference similar mythic beings, the figures hold very different positions in local religious and social infrastructure. At Cahokia they are part of a formalized religious cult that is key to that polity's assent while outside of Greater Cahokia, e.g., in the Caddo region, they appear as mortuary inclusions indicating they were inalienable possessions of certain individuals. Furthermore it can be proposed that these outlying figures, transformed to pipes, might have been part of medicine bundles maintained by female bundle keepers involved in curing. The archaeological evidence makes apparent that such religious objects cannot be simply glossed over in terms of their iconic homogeneity or ethnohistoric analogies but must be interpreted in terms of their roles in which they were embedded within the religious, social, and political life of local societies.

American Antiquity, 2021

This study documents the contexts of platform pipe creation, distribution, and disposition at Ill... more This study documents the contexts of platform pipe creation, distribution, and disposition at Illinois Havana Hopewell Tradition (50 BC to AD 200-250) sites to identify regional variation in Hopewell ceremonialism and exchange. We observe that the large deposits of stone pipes buried during communal rituals in the Scioto Valley and the continued influence of the Hopewell Sphere of Interaction have skewed archaeological interpretation. Aside from the several large deposits, pipes are limited in the Scioto Tradition and seldom found in habitation areas. In Illinois, pipe fabrication debris commonly occurs in habitation areas along with numerous examples of pipe repair and maintenance. Local pipestones-often from northern Illinois Sterling deposits-predominate, and exotic imported pipestones are unusual. Pipes are rare inclusions with individual burials as indicators of status, spiritual prowess, achievement, or group membership. The high value placed on pipes as communal sacra in Ohio and their value in Illinois as items of personal influence parallels their common occurrence in Illinois and their unique context in Ohio Hopewell. This study of the contexts of pipe manufacture and deposition reinforces current discussions of such artifact assemblages as important in documenting local variations in political, social, and religious mortuary ceremonialism across the "Hopewellian sphere."

North American Archaeologist, 2020

This paper assesses our current understanding of the native use of the major mid-continental Unit... more This paper assesses our current understanding of the native use of the major mid-continental United States pipestone quarries based on over two decades of research. Our studies indicate that combining chemical and mineralogical techniques such as shortwave infrared spectroscopy (SWIS), thin-section petrography, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) have identified pipestones with similar chemical compositions containing distinctive mineralogical suites (often including berthierine, kaolinite, dia-spore, muscovite, and pyrophyllite). This research has identified unique mineral compositions at known quarries such as catlinite, Ohio Feurt Hill, Baraboo, and Barron pipestones, as well as identifying previously unknown quarries of Sterling Illinois pipestone, Cahokia Missouri flint clay, and Portsmouth Ohio Claystone. These discoveries have led to a major shift in interpretations of Cahokian and Hopewell pipe exchange. Further examination of native ethnographic quarry use

Possible Futures For the recent Past A Chronological and Resource-Based Framework for Historic Site Research Design in Illinois, 2020

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 2017

While we have readily admitted that successive waves of people or ideas could also penetrate to t... more While we have readily admitted that successive waves of people or ideas could also penetrate to the New World, we have been slow to give up the idea that some pilgrim band of elephant hunters laid the foundation of aboriginal American culture.

2015 Presentation given as Recipient of Shanghai Archaeological Forum Field Discovery Award for R... more 2015 Presentation given as Recipient of Shanghai Archaeological Forum Field Discovery Award for Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavation of Cahokia’s East St. Louis Precinct. Award presented by the Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing in recognition of being one of the top ten most important archaeological field discovery in the world, 2015.

Southeastern Archaeology, Dec 1, 2006

MCJA, 2022

During the Hopewell era, no material was so widely spread or employed across the midcontinent as ... more During the Hopewell era, no material was so widely spread or employed across the midcontinent as copper. Large deposits of copper artifacts in the Ohio Scioto Hopewell mounds, in what are usually deemed as status and ritual contexts, have colored subsequent interpretations of copper utilization during this period. Subsequent research documented copper's distribution across the midcontinent in Hopewell mortuary practices, while focusing on its significance as a distant import from the western Great Lakes. Until regional Illinois habitation copperuse studies were undertaken, in the 1980s and 1990s, mortuary copper dominated discussions of Havana Tradition Hopewell connections. However, examinations of avocational collections and metal-detecting surveys of 82 Havana habitation sites have yielded an array of copper tools and scrap revealing the presence of an extensive copper-working industry. It has become clear that regional Havana Tradition people were involved in the active production of utilitarian copper tools and ornaments, suggesting that the industry was based on local drift copper deposits. This harkens back to earlier regional patterns of copper tool production, while emphasizing the exotic character of the few copper mortuary inclusions-such as ear spools, headplates and breastplates, panpipes, and so forth-thus suggesting two very different systems of copper valuation.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2024

Thomas E. Emerson a, Kristin M. Hedman b and Matthew A. Fort c aUpper Mississippi Valley Archaeo... more Thomas E. Emerson a, Kristin M. Hedman b and Matthew A. Fort c
aUpper Mississippi Valley Archaeological Research Foundation (UMVARF), Western Illinois Archaeological Research Center, Macomb, IL, USA; bIllinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA; cDepartment of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA

ABSTRACT
Efforts were initiated in the mid-1990s to resolve complex questions of context, chronology, and identity of American Indian ancestral sites and individuals in the American Bottom, Illinois. A significant focus was on legacy collections from the Kane Mounds mortuary complex, salvaged in the early 1960s and long interpreted as late Mississippian mortuary mounds related to Cahokia. Drawing on available data from original field records and previously collected analytical evidence, we determined that the mortuary interments at the Kane site were placed in natural bluff-top landforms, not mounds, and that the locale served as a burial location for over a millennium. During this time, people gathered in larger permanent villages, their diet shifted from one based on a hunting-and-gathering lifestyle to one supported by maize agriculture, small groups from the Illinois River Valley emigrated to the area, and mortuary practices became increasingly complex – employing in-the-flesh interments, ossuaries, excarnation, postmortem manipulations of the deceased, and extensive use of fires. The mortuary complex reflects both temporal and geographic diversity as well as the continuity of such ancestral burial places. No depictions of ancestral remains are included in the text. Data presented are derived from legacy sources.
In the early 1960s construction of Interstate 270 was designed to cut through the eastern bluffs of the Missis- sippi River, 15 km to the northeast of downtown Caho- kia, America’s largest precontact urban polity. Fortunately, the recent passage of federal legislation provided some level of protection for historical resources, and planners recognized that the bluff-top construction would likely affect suspected American Indian burials. Consequently, efforts were undertaken by forensic anthropologist F. Jerome Melbye and the Southern Illinois University Museum in Carbondale to examine the affected area.
Initial surveys had reported four possible mounds at Kane, spaced in a north – south line and ranging in height from a “barely perceptible hump to about three meters” (Melbye 1963:3). While the largest of the mounds lies partiall

Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, 2024

The acknowledged importance of documenting legacy assemblages led to efforts in the mid-1990s to ... more The acknowledged importance of documenting legacy assemblages led to efforts in the mid-1990s to re-examine such collections from Illinois. In some cases this involved applying traditional methods and emerging techniques to address complex questions of context, chronology, and aspects of identity for American Indian ancestral sites and individuals. These efforts included the Kane Mounds mortuary complex salvaged in the early 1960s and long interpreted as a late Mississippian mortuary area related to Cahokia. Drawing on available data from original field and analysis records, past biomolecular analysis, and combined with an evolving understanding of the people and culture history of the American Bottom, we use results from isotopic analyses and radiocarbon AMS chronologies obtained prior to 2018 to disentangle complex multicomponent mortuary settings. These studies revealed the mortuary importance of Kane spanned 1500 years, from as early as 500 BCE into the 14th century CE, a period that saw a major shift in diet with the increased consumption of maize and a population comprised of individuals local to the American Bottom and as well as immigrants. Available biomolecular information and radiocarbon AMS chronologies demonstrate both temporal and geographic diversity within the Kane mortuary complex, as well as continuity in the importance of this mortuary location.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2023

ABSTRACT The development of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) iconography has been posited t... more ABSTRACT
The development of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) iconography has been posited to have had its origins in pre–AD 1200 Greater Cahokia. The recovery of fragments of an engraved shell cup, a few engraved pottery sherds, and copper residue from Mound 34 at Cahokia as well as two regional rock-art sites are said to confirm that the early Braden art style had a Cahokian heritage. Furthermore, on this basis, the origin, production, and distribution of engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates have been attributed to Cahokian artisans. Here the archaeological context and chronology of this evidence is reexamined and found to be problematic—it does not support Cahokia origins for engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates. The small amount of early Braden materials attributed to Cahokia are better explained as byproducts of the demonstrable presence of early Caddo immigrants and influences in the American Bottom. The skewed distribution and early chronology of Mississippian engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates confirm they are likely products of Spiro-influenced ritual practitioners. The production and accumulation of such ritual paraphernalia at Spiro can most reasonably be attributed to the site’s rise as a sacred place and central locus for regional pilgrimages.

Revealing Greater Cahokia, North America’s First Native City Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavations of the East St. Louis Precinct, 2018

There’s very little appreciation today that Native Americans actually lived in and built cities. ... more There’s very little appreciation today that Native
Americans actually lived in and built cities. This
is something we often associate with ancient
Mesopotamia or the classical world of Greece.
Yet Greater Cahokia was built as a huge complex
over many, many square miles. There are
mounds, burials, and houses—but most people
don’t appreciate that. They see the big mounds,
and they don’t realize that this was a thriving city
of 20,000–25,000 people. It is quite an eye-opener
for many to discover that Greater Cahokia actually
was one of the largest urban concentrations
of people anywhere in the world at that time.
This was the lesson we learned from digging
Stonehenge—
that it’s a small part of a much bigger
complex. When I came to visit Cahokia it was
very clear that it was the same thing.
Cahokia is a UNESCO World Heritage site
and was actually inscribed as such in 1982.
That is even before Stonehenge was. It has been
recognized for a long time as being of world
importance, and with World Heritage sites there
is a duty by the state to preserve, protect, and
enhance people’s knowledge about them. Every
effort should be made to actually ensure people
understand and learn about these sites. Also, we
must protect these sites to the very best of our
abilities in the twenty-first century. It is really
important to bring teams of archaeologists, conservators,
planners and politicians together to
develop a proper management plan so Cahokia
can continue to be preserved and appreciated in
the centuries to come.
—Michael Parker Pearson
Professor of British Later Prehistory
Institute of Archaeology
University College London

Revealing Greater Cahokia, North America's First Native City: Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavations of the East St. Louis Precinct, 2018

There’s very little appreciation today that Native Americans actually lived in and built cities. ... more There’s very little appreciation today that Native Americans actually lived in and built cities. This is something we often associate with ancient Mesopotamia or the classical world of Greece.
Yet Greater Cahokia was built as a huge complex over many, many square miles. There are mounds, burials, and houses—but most people
don’t appreciate that. They see the big mounds, and they don’t realize that this was a thriving city of 20,000–25,000 people. It is quite an eye-opener for many to discover that Greater Cahokia actually was one of the largest urban concentrations of people anywhere in the world at that time. This was the lesson we learned from digging Stonehenge—that it’s a small part of a much biggercomplex. When I came to visit Cahokia it was very clear that it was the same thing. Cahokia is a UNESCO World Heritage site and was actually inscribed as such in 1982. That is even before Stonehenge was. It has been
recognized for a long time as being of world importance, and with World Heritage sites there is a duty by the state to preserve, protect, and enhance people’s knowledge about them. Every effort should be made to actually ensure people understand and learn about these sites. Also, we must protect these sites to the very best of our abilities in the twenty-first century. It is really important to bring teams of archaeologists, conservators, planners and politicians together to develop a proper management plan so Cahokia can continue to be preserved and appreciated in the centuries to come.
Michael Parker Pearson
Professor of British Later Prehistory
Institute of Archaeology

Landscapes of Ritual Performance in Eastern North America, edited by Cheyrl Claassen, 2023

The origins and rise of Cahokia as an urban polity have increasingly been attributed to religion ... more The origins and rise of Cahokia as an urban polity have increasingly been attributed to religion by those who study the past. For the most part those religious forces have been ascribed to a disparate set of beliefs, rituals, and practices linked to aspects of world renewal, fertility, or warfare. Meanwhile, the role of people, politics, and ritual practice have sometimes become obscured.
Here, the place of human agents is recentered and the emergence of a formal priesthood, a constructed spiritual landscape, and embedded ritual practices are examined. Within this context, it is possible to explore a phenomenon that some scholars have described as ritual failure. Following observations by Koutrafouri and Sanders (2013) that conflicting definitions of religion and ritual have hampered rather than enhanced their recognition and analyses in the archaeological record, such theoretical debates have been set aside. Here ritual is identified as a set of repetitious behaviors directed toward interactions with powers that are outside regular human control for the purpose of influencing the actions of those powers. Multiple rituals may exist and perform in tandem. They are envisioned as operating within a structured universe, often actualized in a societal landscape. It is these characteristics that make ritual amenable to archaeological recognition, description, and interpretation.
But what of ritual failure – can rituals really “fail”? To some extent, we need to recognize that “failure” might be a slightly inapt but still useful, term in this context. What archaeologists identify is the disruption or discontinuance of recognizable patterned behaviors that are interpreted as ritual (e.g. Koutrafouri and Sanders 2013). Such recognition provides insights that may correlate with economic, political, environmental, or social changes or disruptions. Consequently, herein, ritual is examined as patterned action that is a key variable in interpreting early Cahokian organization. That examination reveals the appearance at about 1000–1050 CE of a distinguishing set of religious paraphernalia that is interpreted as representing a Cahokian cult dedicated to the Earth Mother which collapses at the beginning of the 13th century to be overshadowed by iconography seemingly related to a mythic hero, Red Horn, one aspect of the hemispheric-wide mythic Hero Twins accounts.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2022

Long-nosed god (LNG) maskettes and iconography have traditionally been seen as a pre-Southern Cul... more Long-nosed god (LNG) maskettes and iconography have traditionally been seen as a pre-Southern Cult phenomena, placed variously in the tenth to thirteenth centuries. Researchers have suggested they were employed in political and religious interactions or to facilitate trade, but few have looked in detail at their chronology, context, and distribution. Here, an in-depth review of radiocarbon dates and context raises questions about the place of LNGs in midcontinental Native societies. This reassessment illustrates that LNG images do not predate the appearance of Caddo and Cahokian symbolic emergence and can be first securely documented in the late eleventh century. They clearly are objects that signify personal endowments and are inalienable, following that individual to the grave. Their context and distribution indicate that LNG icons are an integral part of the Caddo religious and political networks but are tangential at Cahokia and take on totally different contextual meanings to the north of Cahokia. This study demonstrates that proposing uniform explanations for LNG ideology and implementation does not correlate with the archaeological evidence. Future studies that account for regional variations in LNG chronology, context, and spatial distribution are needed to begin addressing the roles of these unique objects in Native societies.

While large red stone figurines and pipes were occasionally discovered by early investigators, on... more While large red stone figurines and pipes were occasionally discovered by early investigators, only recently were they recovered in secure archaeological context demonstrating them to be twelfthcentury Cahokian productions geologically sourced to unique flint clay sources near St. Louis. A subset of these are female figures associated with fertility and renewal motifs. Examination of these female figures demonstrates that while they reference similar mythic beings, the figures hold very different positions in local religious and social infrastructure. At Cahokia they are part of a formalized religious cult that is key to that polity's assent while outside of Greater Cahokia, e.g., in the Caddo region, they appear as mortuary inclusions indicating they were inalienable possessions of certain individuals. Furthermore it can be proposed that these outlying figures, transformed to pipes, might have been part of medicine bundles maintained by female bundle keepers involved in curing. The archaeological evidence makes apparent that such religious objects cannot be simply glossed over in terms of their iconic homogeneity or ethnohistoric analogies but must be interpreted in terms of their roles in which they were embedded within the religious, social, and political life of local societies.

American Antiquity, 2021

This study documents the contexts of platform pipe creation, distribution, and disposition at Ill... more This study documents the contexts of platform pipe creation, distribution, and disposition at Illinois Havana Hopewell Tradition (50 BC to AD 200-250) sites to identify regional variation in Hopewell ceremonialism and exchange. We observe that the large deposits of stone pipes buried during communal rituals in the Scioto Valley and the continued influence of the Hopewell Sphere of Interaction have skewed archaeological interpretation. Aside from the several large deposits, pipes are limited in the Scioto Tradition and seldom found in habitation areas. In Illinois, pipe fabrication debris commonly occurs in habitation areas along with numerous examples of pipe repair and maintenance. Local pipestones-often from northern Illinois Sterling deposits-predominate, and exotic imported pipestones are unusual. Pipes are rare inclusions with individual burials as indicators of status, spiritual prowess, achievement, or group membership. The high value placed on pipes as communal sacra in Ohio and their value in Illinois as items of personal influence parallels their common occurrence in Illinois and their unique context in Ohio Hopewell. This study of the contexts of pipe manufacture and deposition reinforces current discussions of such artifact assemblages as important in documenting local variations in political, social, and religious mortuary ceremonialism across the "Hopewellian sphere."

North American Archaeologist, 2020

This paper assesses our current understanding of the native use of the major mid-continental Unit... more This paper assesses our current understanding of the native use of the major mid-continental United States pipestone quarries based on over two decades of research. Our studies indicate that combining chemical and mineralogical techniques such as shortwave infrared spectroscopy (SWIS), thin-section petrography, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) have identified pipestones with similar chemical compositions containing distinctive mineralogical suites (often including berthierine, kaolinite, dia-spore, muscovite, and pyrophyllite). This research has identified unique mineral compositions at known quarries such as catlinite, Ohio Feurt Hill, Baraboo, and Barron pipestones, as well as identifying previously unknown quarries of Sterling Illinois pipestone, Cahokia Missouri flint clay, and Portsmouth Ohio Claystone. These discoveries have led to a major shift in interpretations of Cahokian and Hopewell pipe exchange. Further examination of native ethnographic quarry use

Possible Futures For the recent Past A Chronological and Resource-Based Framework for Historic Site Research Design in Illinois, 2020

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 2017

While we have readily admitted that successive waves of people or ideas could also penetrate to t... more While we have readily admitted that successive waves of people or ideas could also penetrate to the New World, we have been slow to give up the idea that some pilgrim band of elephant hunters laid the foundation of aboriginal American culture.

2015 Presentation given as Recipient of Shanghai Archaeological Forum Field Discovery Award for R... more 2015 Presentation given as Recipient of Shanghai Archaeological Forum Field Discovery Award for Rediscovery and Large-Scale Excavation of Cahokia’s East St. Louis Precinct. Award presented by the Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing in recognition of being one of the top ten most important archaeological field discovery in the world, 2015.

Southeastern Archaeology, Dec 1, 2006

Thesis, 1995

This study examines the question of cultural complexity within the hierarchically-organized, heg... more This study examines the question of cultural complexity within the hierarchically-organized, hegemonic Cahokian Middle Mississippian society of the American Bottom during the 11th to 13th centuries. Specifically it provides insights into prehistoric Cahokian political and ideological complexity by scrutinizing the available archaeological settlement and symbolic evidence.
The settlement data utilized includes many small rural sites previously identified as farmsteads. This reanalysis demonstrates that many of these sites were nodal centers with specialized political, religious, and economic functions and were integrated into a centralized Cahokian administrative organization. These nodal sites were centers for rural dispersed villages. The distribution of these villages across the landscape is shown to be influenced by changing floodplain hydrologic and physiographic factors.
Cahokian political control is manifested in the countryside by specialized sites characterized by civic-ceremonial nodes, large storage units, ritual sweat lodges, communal men's and council houses, while ideological power is reflected in temple- mortuary complexes containing burials, temples, priest houses and communal cemeteries. These settlements are accompanied by "artifacts of power" such as figurines, ritual vessels, and sacred plants that are part of a Cahokian fertility cult containing fertility-related symbolism similar to the historic Busk. The consolidation of this symbolism into a rural cult marks the expropriation of the cosmos as part of the increasing power of the Cahokia rulers.
This research shows that functional and chronological variation among small rural settlements correlates with the rise and fall of Cahokian power. During the height of Cahokian centralized power, i.e., the Lohmann and Stirling phases, the countryside was organized under elite officials responsible for the production and mobilization of food staples to support the central elite. When Cahokian power declines this rural organizational structure disappears.
This study emphasizes the importance of both political and ideological control by emerging Cahokian elites. Furthermore it demonstrates, for the first time, that the elite creation of an organized rural support population practicing an intensified form of agriculture was necessary for the maintenance of that society. This research indicates Cahokian complexity differs significantly from previously studied Eastern Woodlands chiefdoms.

Studies in Archaeology No. 12, 2018

Page 1. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9:2 (1999), 249-75 Review Feature The days are long gone... more Page 1. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9:2 (1999), 249-75 Review Feature The days are long gone when archaeologists would automatically interpret any major prehistoric monument as evidence of a hierarchically organized society. Faced with a ...

Page 1. MIDDLE MISSISSIPPIAN Hinterlands CULTURES OF THE MIDWEST i , EDITED BY Thomas E. Emerson ... more Page 1. MIDDLE MISSISSIPPIAN Hinterlands CULTURES OF THE MIDWEST i , EDITED BY Thomas E. Emerson and R. Barry Lewis Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. Page 5. MIDDLE MISSISSIPPIAN Hinterlands CULTURES OF THE ...

American Bottom Archaeology, FAI-270 Site Report, Jan 1, 1984

... The Des Plaines Complex and the Late Woodland Stage of Northern Illinois, TTiomas E. Emerson ... more ... The Des Plaines Complex and the Late Woodland Stage of Northern Illinois, TTiomas E. Emerson and Anne ... phase Late Woodland sites at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers 264 12.2. Patrick phase Late Woodland sites along the lower Missouri River valley, St ...

The Apple River Mississippian culture …, Jan 1, 1991

Covering topics as diverse as economic modeling, craft specialization, settlement patterns, agric... more Covering topics as diverse as economic modeling, craft specialization, settlement patterns, agricultural and subsistence systems, and the development of social ranking, Cahokia and the Hinterlands explores cultural interactions among Cahokians and the inhabitants of other population ...

An academic directory and search engine.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, Jan 1, 1984

by J. Heath Anderson, Ronald "Sonny" Faulseit, Gary Feinman, Tristram Kidder, Nicola Sharratt, Julie A Hoggarth, Christina Conlee, Jakob Sedig, Andrea Torvinen, Scott Hutson, Kari A. Zobler, Thomas E Emerson, Kristin Hedman, Maureen E Meyers, Chris Rodning, Jayur Mehta, Rebecca Storey, Matthew Peeples, Christopher Pool, Victor Thompson, and Richard Sutter

The last several decades have seen the publication of a considerable amount of scholarly and popu... more The last several decades have seen the publication of a considerable amount of scholarly and popular literature concerning the collapse of complex societies, yielding a fair amount of comparative data and hypotheses regarding this phenomenon. More recently, scholars have begun to challenge these works, rejecting the notion of collapse altogether in favor of focusing on concepts such as resilience and transformation. Driven by these developments, archaeologists have turned their attention to what occurs in the aftermath of sociopolitical decline, attempting to identify factors that contribute to the regeneration, transformation, or reorganization of complex sociopolitical institutions. Subsequent research has provided important data shedding light on political environments that were once characterized as “dark ages.” In that time, general theoretical approaches have transformed as well, and recent frameworks reconsider collapse and reorganization not as unrelated or sequential phenomena but as integral components in a cyclical understanding of the evolution of complex societies. The most recent of these approaches incorporates the tenets of Resilience Theory, as developed by environmental scientists.
In March 2013, an international conference held at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale brought together scholars with diverse theoretical perspectives to present and synthesize new data and approaches to understanding the collapse and reorganization of complex societies. No restrictions were imposed regarding chronological periods, geographical regions or material specialties, resulting in a wide-ranging potential for comparative analysis. This publication is the outcome of that meeting. It is not organized merely as a collection of diverse case studies, but rather a collaborative effort incorporating various data sets to evaluate and expand on theoretical approaches to this important subject. The works contained within this volume are organized into five sections: the first sets the stage with introductory papers by the editor and distinguished contributor, Joseph Tainter; the second contains works by distinguished scholars approaching collapse and reorganization from new theoretical perspectives; the third presents critical archaeological analyses of the effectiveness of Resilience Theory as a heuristic tool for modeling these phenomena; the fourth section presents long-term adaptive strategies employed by prehistoric societies to cope with stresses and avoid collapse; the final section highlights new research on post-decline contexts in a variety of temporal and geographic ranges and relates these data to the more comprehensive works on the subject.

Cultural evolution is awash in social classifications ranging, for example, from bands to states,... more Cultural evolution is awash in social classifications ranging, for example, from bands to states, exclusionary to corporate, group­oriented to individualizing, or apical to constituent societies. Promoted as ways to describe societies, they have become reified into types more likely to obfuscate than illuminate our understanding of social forms. While most decry the sterility of social typologies, they continue to persist. Birch suggests we can break through these limiting taxonomies. To do so, she produced a volume centered on exploring a diverse array of societies through a conceptual framework centered on the strategy of coalescence. The recognition of coalescent societies stems from observations that disintegrated, fragmented, or collapsing societies often aggregate into new, innovative societal forms. These new forms include the presence of large population centers, often multilingual and multiethnic; employ strategies to promote community integration through architecture, myth, and rituals; see the intensification of production; and a number of other activities that facilitate the continuance of a diverse society. The volume's contributors are tasked with examining strategies that allowed aggregations to be successful. Birch leads off the volume with a comprehensive review of social types and their shortcomings and introduces the concept of coalescence, the cultural correlates of aggregation, and the value of examining cross­cultural variation within a historical context. Making up the core of the volume are eight case studies ranging from seventh­millennium Neolithic Çatalhöyük in Turkey to 18th­century Cherokee townhouses in southern Appalachia in the United States. As is typical in many edited volumes, the selection of studies is eclectic and of varying pertinence. Topically they range from broad spatial studies of large regions, such as the Great Hungarian Plain (e.g., Duffy et al.), to villages and houses (most of the examples in the volume), and to monumental architecture (e.g., Beck, Rodning). The chapters that examine households and sites are the most instructive, with their grounding in contextually detailed data sets. The case studies lead off with Düring's rethinking of Çatalhöyük, which he contends is most productively thought of as " an agglomeration of neighborhood communities without any institutions that serve the community as a whole " (38). This surprising conclusion is the result of his bottom­up analysis of sets of nested social structures that begins at the household level and recognizes that these households were clustered in numerous segregated, walled—yet abutting—neighborhoods. The lack of communal integrative structures at Çatalhöyük challenges a main bulwark of aggregation modeling. Haggis' study of Azoria, an Archaic­period Greek site in Crete, takes the same ground­up approach and recognizes that the first aggregations at Azoria resembled those of Çatalhöyük in being discrete household clusters likely representing kin residential groups. In this case, however, later significant architectural remodeling of Azoria reflected an image of collective integration while creating a core of elite households that actually restricted commoners' access to monumental buildings, cult activities, and feasting, while promoting an image of social order. Two studies from the southwestern United States bring new insights into a region where coalescent societies are epitomized in the highly structured pueblos of historic times, with their clustered dwellings, multiethnic composition, and communal plazas and kivas. Rautman examines community development in the post­1100 C.E. period in the Salinas Basin of New Mexico. Both communal architecture and stress factors appear to be missing— yet Rautman documents a process of slow aggregation. She contends that widely separated villages created and reinforced a sense of shared community through standardized and repetitious built environments. As local populations clustered into larger aggregations around classic communal kivas and plazas, they did so as village units (similar to Çatalhöyük). As pueblos aggregated, they became increasingly uniform and fostered an environment in which social conformity could be monitored and enforced (à la Foucault). In the Tucson Basin, Wallace and Lindeman attribute aggregation around communal ritual areas to regional violence that brought together previously cooperating villages. As in Çatalhöyük and the Salinas Basin, aggregations are attributed to a clustering of independent villages that remain cohesive even in the face of aggregation. Beck pushes the discussion of community further than most authors in his reconstruction of the rise to prominence of Chiripa in the fifth century B.C.E. Based on temple excavations, he hypothesizes that Bolivian elites manipulated the prominence of social houses, religious ideology, and imagined community to gain power during a period of environmental stress on Lake Titicaca. Birch and Williamson's chapter on historic­era Wendat villages in southern Ontario reinforce the view that aggregations generate increasing complexity and innovation in production, consumption, and distribution and in new political and social forms of leadership. In analyzing Cherokee townhouses, Rodning traces the transition and expansion of such communal structures from a prehistoric village to a multivillage communal role in the historic period. At the other end of the scale, Duffy and his coauthors analyze spatially extensive, multiscalar settlement data from Neolithic to Bronze Age sites across the Great

Theories of urbanization and early state formation have a long tradition in archaeology, geograph... more Theories of urbanization and early state formation have a long tradition in archaeology, geography, and history, and, being heavily vested in the social sciences, often prominently feature social, political, religious, and economic causality. Such studies have rightly been critiqued as decontextualizing (often unwittingly) early polities from their cultural and natural environments. Falconer and Redman challenge the contributors to Polities and Power, whose research ranges across the New World, the Near East, eastern Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, to think outside those traditional boxes and to recontextualize early polities through the medium of landscapes, a concept that the editors conceive of as an "analytically formative context" (3) for seeking meaning. The contributors seek to integrate the interplay, dynamism, and recursive nature of the cultural and natural landscapes into the analyses of early polities. How successful these efforts are is the focus of this review. After a brief introduction reprising the academic usages of landscape, the editors organize 12 chapters into sections, each containing a primary contribution or two followed by a commentary. These commentaries range from eulogy to critique, expanding on the contributions, placing them in a broader regional perspective, or elaborating on a particular theoretical stance. The volume's use of autocritique is unique in my experience, and it adds to the work's overall interest. Conceptually, the volume's thematic focus—landscape—has a checkered past, one ranging from environmental determinism to postmodernism. The nature-culture duality, of course, has a long history in western thought. Until recently, the physicality of the landscape has dominated through the environmental archaeologies of the mid 20th century and the strident New Archaeology that neatly eliminated humans from the equation by subsuming them into the broader ecosystem. Recent postmodern contributions have counterbalanced this drift toward environmentalism by theorizing landscape in the lens of cultural perception. Despite claims to the contrary, I have yet to see the emergence of a viable centrist position capable of theoretically reintegrating the physical and cultural conceptual landscape. The contributions in this volume confirm that view. The tension within landscape studies is nowhere better captured than in Joyce's critique of Fisher's "human ecodynamics" approach to Tarascan (Mesoamerican) land use through time—an approach specifically formulated as a response to social-process studies. Rather than forming an integrative landscape approach, Fisher's analysis clings to the nature-culture dichotomy and is in the tradition of earlier adaptationist studies. While Fisher perceptively documents changing land use through time, he does not succeed in reintegrating the Tarascans with their land. Aspects of historical ecology and the longue durée are embodied in Sinopoli, Johansen, and Morrison's discussion of Vijayanagara's historical and ecological place in the Tungahadra Valley of southern India. Tracking cultural landscape manipulations from ritual Neolithic dung heaps to the 14th-century transformation of this forbidding locale into a 30 km 2 urban core closely links landscape to social and political infrastructure.

American Journal of Archaeology, 2013

Controversies, as Alice Kehoe contends, is not so much about " controversy " as about how researc... more Controversies, as Alice Kehoe contends, is not so much about " controversy " as about how researchers arrive at conclusions, specifically in the discipline of archaeology. It is a treatise on the place of scientific methodology in interpreting the material remains of past societies, couched in a series of case studies that range across tens of thousands of years and multiple continents—an ambitious undertaking for a scholar who often positions herself on the edges of the discipline but always self-identifies herself as squarely in the scientific mainstream. Observation, categorization, and interpretation of the material world represent the essence of scientific methodology, and the author positions archaeology first and foremost as " scientific. " But while archaeology is a science, it is performed within a social context that strongly affects both its practice and its interpretations. Here Ke-hoe diverges from conventional discussions by laying out the reality of archaeology as practiced. All too often the acceptance of a researcher's pronouncements is premised more on their force of personality, status, number of disciples, and adherence to existing dogma than on an evaluation of the factual strength of the presentation. As historians of

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Jan 28, 2012

Chemical analyses of organic residues in fragments of pottery from the large site of Cahokia and ... more Chemical analyses of organic residues in fragments of pottery from the large site of Cahokia and surrounding smaller sites in Illinois reveal theobromine, caffeine, and ursolic acid, biomarkers for species of Ilex (holly) used to prepare the ritually important Black Drink. As recorded during the historic period, men consumed Black Drink in portions of the American Southeast for ritual purification. This first demonstrated discovery of biomarkers for Ilex occurs in beaker vessels dating between A.D. 1050 and 1250 from Cahokia, located far north of the known range of the holly species used to prepare Black Drink during historic times. The association of Ilex and beaker vessels indicates a sustained ritual consumption of a caffeine-laced drink made from the leaves of plants grown in the southern United States.

Proceedings of the 37th International Symposium on Archaeometry, 13th - 16th May 2008, Siena, Italy, 2010

Landscapes Under Pressure, edited by L. R. Lozny, pp. 163-185. Springer, New York., 2007

Journal of Field Archaeology, 2013

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology

American Journal of Archaeology

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology

Radiocarbon, 2010

The Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the University of Illinois has been using the pyrolysis-comb... more The Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the University of Illinois has been using the pyrolysis-combustion technique to separate pyrolysis-volatile (Py-V) or low molecular weight and pyrolysis-residue (Py-R) or high molecular weight compounds for14C dating of organic remains since 2003. We have applied this method to human collagen dating to examine the14C age difference between low and high molecular weight organic compounds. Results show that both fractions of late prehistoric period human bones from Illinois archaeological sites yield identical14C dates but that Py-V or low molecular weight fractions of Archaic period human bones appear to be slightly contaminated. In this case, Py-V components or low molecular weight collagen fraction yield older14C dates, which could result from contamination from old organic-rich sediments. The pyrolysis-combustion technique provides an economical alternative method to date bones that have not been satisfactorily dated using conventional purifica...

Mcja Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 1999

American Antiquity, Apr 1, 2003

Plains Anthropologist, Feb 1, 2003

Plains Anthropologist, 2003

Southeastern Archaeology, Jul 1, 2004

Mcja Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 2000

SHA Paper, 2018

For nearly half-a-century Illinois historical archaeologists have been buffeted by changing disci... more For nearly half-a-century Illinois historical archaeologists have been buffeted by changing disciplinary goals, compliance directives, and academic fluxes. Early efforts in the 1920-50s at Lincoln's New Salem, French Colonial sites, and pioneer sites were classic "handmaidens to history" designed to materialize significant historic events. The focus shifted dramatically with the NHPA and processualist historic emphasis in Criteria D on significance resting solely on material remains. Given the nature of compliance work these practitioners have almost exclusively dealt with 19 th century rural sites. Conversely, recent academic trends have often emphasized materials as essentially nostalgic exemplars to historical narratives (sensu Hume). The attempted conflation of compliance archaeology with the archaeology of nostalgia by some practitioners create an irresolvable conundrum unless we recognize archaeology in the service of compliance and the archaeology of nostalgia are both valid pursuits but rather than being congruent they are divergent and parallel approaches.