David H. Dye | University of Memphis (original) (raw)

Books by David H. Dye

Popular Series No. 9, Arkansas Archeological Survey, 2024

In Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles, archaeologists analyze evide... more In Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles, archaeologists analyze evidence of the religious beliefs and ritual practices of Mississippian people through the lens of indigenous ontologies and material culture. Employing archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric evidence, the contributors explore the recent emphasis on iconography as an important component for interpreting eastern North America's ancient past. The research in this volume emphasizes the animistic nature of animals and objects, erasing the false divide between people and other-than-human beings. Drawing on an array of empirical approaches, the contributors demonstrate the importance of investigating how people in the past practiced religion and ritual by crafting, circulating, using, and ultimately decommissioning material items and spaces, including ceramic effigies, rock art, sacred bundles, shell gorgets, stone figurines, and symbolic weaponry.

North American archaeology came of age and witnessed major substantive developments in field meth... more North American archaeology came of age and witnessed major substantive developments in field methods, interpretative stances, laboratory techniques, and publication standards during the New Deal period. The basic and fundamental needs and procedures for conducting archaeology were also proposed and implemented during this time. The growth in American archaeology was explosive. Contemporary archaeology owes a great deal to the multiple federal work relief efforts. The chapters in this volume focus on New Deal archaeology in Tennessee.

Archaeologists, ethnohistorians, osteologists, and cultural anthropologists have only recently be... more Archaeologists, ethnohistorians, osteologists, and cultural anthropologists have only recently begun to address seriously the issue of Native American war and peace in the eastern United States. New methods for identifying prehistoric cooperation and conflict in the archaeological record are now helping to advance our knowledge of their existence and importance.

In honor of Dr. Watson and her monumental achievements in the field, twenty-two established schol... more In honor of Dr. Watson and her monumental achievements in the field, twenty-two established scholars present in this volume new and insightful research into prehistoric and historic use of southeastern dark zones.Cave Archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands explores how prehistoric and historic peoples utilized caves as a means to further their economic growth and represent cultural values within their societies. The essays range in topics from early gypsum mining to rare American Indian cave art, from historic saltpeter extraction to current archaeobotanical and paleofecal research. The contributors contend that studies of deep zone caves reveal multiple insights into the values, beliefs, and cultural lifeways of ancient and historic peoples.

The Amerindian practice of taking and displaying various body parts as trophies has long intrigue... more The Amerindian practice of taking and displaying various body parts as trophies has long intrigued both the research community as well as the public. This edited volume focuses on trophy taking behavior in both North and South America. The editors and contributors, which include Native Peoples from both continents, examine the evidence and causes of trophy taking as reflected in osteological, archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic accounts. They present objectively and discuss dispassionately the topic of human proclivity toward ritual violence.

Towns and Temples Along the Mississippi brings together scholars who focus their efforts upon the... more Towns and Temples Along the Mississippi brings together scholars who focus their efforts upon the Lower Mississippi Valley during a 400-year period that witnessed dramatic and absolute changes in a traditional way of life. Specialists from archaeology, ethnohistory, physical anthropology and cultural anthropology bring their varied points of view to this subject in an attempt to answer basic questions about the nature and extent of social change within the Mississippi period.

Native American and European cultural interaction in the Mid-South began with the Hernando de Sot... more Native American and European cultural interaction in the Mid-South began with the Hernando de Soto expedition in the mid-sixteenth century and ended with the sustained documentation by French explorers. During this period population movements and social disruption took place at an unprecedented scale. The chapters in this volume focuses attention on these changes and provide a stimulus for future research.

The 1982 Mid-South Archaeological Conference addressed the Early Woodland "Tchula" period in the ... more The 1982 Mid-South Archaeological Conference addressed the Early Woodland "Tchula" period in the Mid-South and Lower Mississippi Valley.

Mastodon remains dating between 23,000 and 17,000 B.P., found in loess deposits along Nonconnah C... more Mastodon remains dating between 23,000 and 17,000 B.P., found in loess deposits along Nonconnah Creek, near Memphis, Tennessee, are discussed.

In this study I refine Caldwell's model of prehistoric economic patterns for the interior Southea... more In this study I refine Caldwell's model of prehistoric economic patterns for the interior Southeastern United States. He hypothesized that the subsistence skills of the prehistoric folk who inhabited the deciduous forests were so effectively fashioned into a set of foraging strategies that they remained virtually unchanged throughout the Southeast until the expansion of Mississippian societies. This development of a forest efficiency may have slowed down further economic innovation, especially the adoption of horticulture. His model is evaluated, criticized, and then modified with data from historic interior Southeastern Indians and archaeological sites in the Midwest and Midsouth. Specifically, it is modified with recent data excavated from the western Middle Tennessee Valley in terms of a problem oriented research design to outline the broad pattern of hunting, fishing, and gathering in the interior Southeast.
The resulting model indicates that the aboriginal folk of the western Middle Tennessee Valley possibly divided the economic year into two seasons: the warm and the cool. The warm season activities were oriented toward small game hunting, fishing, turtling, and harvesting berries, fruits, and tubers. Seeds, nuts, fruits, and tubers were collected during the cool season, and deer and small game were hunted. Hunting probably focused on a variety of mammals throughout the year with particular emphasis on aquatic or semi-aquatic and crepuscular or nocturnal species. The most important seem to have been white-tailed deer, turkey, raccoon, opossum, beaver, and squirrel and may have been taken with traps and spears. The prehistoric fishing strategy is not well understood, but it seems to have been an important warm season activity. The most desired species appear to have been catfish, freshwater drum, and gar. Fish, in addition to turtles, were probably caught with hooks and traps. Gathering is the least understood procurement activity. It was probably a year round activity, but the available evidence suggests an emphasis on nuts and fruits. In addition to these early autumn species, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and mollusks were also gathered. This economic pattern reflects Caldwell's contention that the historic interior Southeastern Indians practiced an economic orientation that began in eastern woodlands prehistory. As a result of the favorable environmental conditions, there was little necessity for intensive plant cultivation.

Papers by David H. Dye

Sundai Shigaku (Sundai Historical Review), 2024

Archaeologists have had a long-standing interest in the evolution of human conflict and war, as w... more Archaeologists have had a long-standing interest in the evolution of human conflict and war, as well as alliance-building and peace-making. Three modes of aggression and violence, based on the archaeological record, may be identified: self-redress homicides, feuds, and war. Self-redress homicides predominated early in human history and continued among egalitarian hunter-gatherers. Feuds are the typical means of tribal justice for nonegalitarian hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and small-scale farming communities. Warfare employs organized deadly force by agricultural chiefdoms and various states that seek to alter the balance of power between autonomous political communities. The ways in which violent practices and peaceful cooperation are constituted, result in part from the nature and scale of human social organization.

The Commonality of Humans Through Art, edited by Stuart Handler, pp. 284-337, Paul Holberton, London, 2024

The History and Environmental Impacts of Hunting Deities: Supernatural Gamekeepers and Animal Masters, edited by Richard J. Chacon, pp. 241-275, Springer Press, 2023

Three forms or modes of supernatural animal-human relationships may be identified in eastern Nort... more Three forms or modes of supernatural animal-human relationships may be identified in eastern North America: animal masters, guardian animals, and masters of animals. I focus on beliefs in these animal-human relations in terms of supernatural gamekeepers and their associated charter myths, regalia, and ritual sodalities. Animal masters control the availability and behavior of their animal "subjects." They are materialized as animal effigy vessels, which are employed as venerated figurines. Guardian animals, as the object of human supplications for power, bestow health and protection, and are often visualized as artistic motifs and ritual regalia. As protagonists, masters of animals free captive animals for the benefit and welfare of humankind. As antagonists, masters of animals hoard animals, and are often depicted as "other than human persons" in a variety of artistic media, but most commonly as ceramic effigies. These otherworldly agents typically grant health, power, and success to those who establish proper procedures and protocols by performing specific rituals and by adhering to various prescribed practices of supplication and veneration. I outline their material correlates, their representation as cosmic and earthly other-than-human beings, and the social logic of reanimation, reincarnation, and requickening of both animals and humans, which served to counter practices of conservation and sustainability among eastern North American indigenous people. Ritual relations with supernatural gamekeepers, either as animal masters, guardian animals, or masters of animals, did not prevent the overharvesting of targeted game animals.

Explanations in Iconography: Ancient American Indian Art, Symbol, and Meaning, edited by Carol Diaz-Granados, pp. 105-128, Oxbow Books, Havertown, PA, 2023

Mississippi warfare, while played out in a violent geopolitical world, time was also grounded in ... more Mississippi warfare, while played out in a violent geopolitical world, time was also grounded in the solicitation of creation-era preternaturals. Foremost among these are the Twins, symbolized in Mississippian ritual paraphernalia as sacred bundle elements. In this paper I argue that Lightning Boy and Thunder Boy were materialized in Mississippian cosmology. Both Lightning Boy and Thunder Boy were crucial for the organization and implementation of Mississippian warfare. The surviving material culture in the form of face mask gorgets and the representational imagery of ceramic vessels clearly link nineteenth century foundational myths with the seventeenth century archaeological record.

Landscapes of Ritual Performance in Eastern North America, pp. 53-68. edited by Cheryl Claassen, Oxbow Books, Havertown (PA), 2023

The endurance and resilience of precontact ritual traditions challenge claims of radical collapse... more The endurance and resilience of precontact ritual traditions challenge claims of radical collapse and transformation in the mid-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the American Southeast. Highlighting the conservative nature of religious traditions focuses attention on the endurance of ritual agency and the continuation of regional political, ritual, and social practices. This Choctaw case study demonstrates both the “ever-changing and never-changing” aspects of ritual practice, while also providing insights into the resilience of Mississippian cosmology and religious beliefs. Despite major transformations in the Choctaw belief system, ritual practice based on Mississippian cosmological concepts continues, although it has become increasingly secretive. The Choctaw people, as Mississippian descendants, retain core features of ancient political, ritual, and social practices that continue to present. Rather than the tattered remnants of former chiefly polities suffering from a catastrophic post-contact collapse, Choctaw ritual practice reveals resilience coupled with transformation throughout their lived experiences in the Chahta homeland.

Trade Before Civilization: Long-Distance Exchange and the Rise of Social Complexity, pp. 142-172, edited by Johan Ling, Richard J. Chacon, and Kristian Kristiansen, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2022

In the early seventeenth century eastern North American trade networks underwent a transformation... more In the early seventeenth century eastern North American trade networks underwent a transformation in scale and scope. A reorganization in alliances, cooperation, and warfare during the emerging fur trade resulted in novel, ritual paraphernalia and regalia being exchanged and transported over great distances – from the Chesapeake Bay to Montana and Lake Michigan to Alabama. One regalia item, a new iteration of engraved, marine shell crafting, resulted in “face mask” gorgets, which materialized a widely venerated culture hero extolled in charter narratives as one of the Hero Twins: Lightning Boy. This visualization of the wild twin reflects formal, individual, exchange protocols, including ritual adoption into religious sodalities that limited membership to a restricted, aristocratic, power-holding enclave. Chiefly sodalities provided mechanisms that enhanced economic, political, and ritual controls by elites, including trade partnerships, through sacred charter narratives that legitimized membership in exclusive, secret societies, which formed the basis of critical exchange linkages. Membership in religious societies exhibited and harnessed political power through ceremonial performances, charter narratives, dreams/visions, legerdemain, mimetic dances, ritual regalia, and sacred bundles. By the mid-seventeenth century this far-flung network had transformed into the Calumet ceremony, due in part to changes in regional polities brought about by competition, depopulation, migration, slave raids, and warfare. Trade relationships in the second half of the seventeenth century become more egalitarian due to economic and political transformations.

Archaeologies of Cosmoscapes in the Americas, edited by J. Grant Stauffer, Bretton T. Giles, and Shawn P. Lambert, pp. 85-105, Oxbow Books, Haverton (PA), 2022

Mississippian and Oneota entanglements were often violent, typically resulting in intercommunity ... more Mississippian and Oneota entanglements were often violent, typically resulting in intercommunity conflict, loss of life, and population displacement. However, Mississippians in the northern Lower Mississippi Valley may have comprised a sufficiently large territorial bloc to have successfully thwarted Oneota aggression. We suggest Mississippian-Oneota interactions during the Late Mississippian period were sedimented in rituals resembling early contact period Calumet ceremonies. Oneota motifs on ceramic bottles and the presence of Siouan disk-style pipes, offer compelling evidence for ritual protocols and shared visions of cosmoscapes, which engendered mutually beneficial interactions between neighboring Mississippian and Oneota polities.

Up Close and From Afar: New World Anthropology From Russian and American Perspectives, edited by Dmitri M. Bondarenko, Richard J. Chacon, and Roman N. Ignatiev, pp. 73-119, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2022

Mississippian potters crafted a small number of “beaver-holding-a-stick” bowls dating to the late... more Mississippian potters crafted a small number of “beaver-holding-a-stick” bowls dating to the late thirteenth to fourteenth centuries: the earliest in west central Illinois and the latest in west central Alabama. Intermediate ones are known from the Middle Cumberland Region and Missouri’s Cairo Lowland. Archaeological, ethnohistoric, and iconographic analyses focus our attention on the bowls' ritual functions as well as their social context. In this paper, I suggest beaver effigy bowls were crafted and perceived as transcendental beings, which were supplicated and venerated for their connections with watery realm powers. Beaver effigy bowls appear to reflect a short-lived religious sodality, which was ritually purchased by a cohort of aristocratic social houses, but when the rituals proved ineffective, the sodality ended.

Popular Series No. 9, Arkansas Archeological Survey, 2024

Sundai Shigaku (Sundai Historical Review), 2024

The Commonality of Humans Through Art, edited by Stuart Handler, pp. 284-337, Paul Holberton, London, 2024

The History and Environmental Impacts of Hunting Deities: Supernatural Gamekeepers and Animal Masters, edited by Richard J. Chacon, pp. 241-275, Springer Press, 2023

Explanations in Iconography: Ancient American Indian Art, Symbol, and Meaning, edited by Carol Diaz-Granados, pp. 105-128, Oxbow Books, Havertown, PA, 2023

Landscapes of Ritual Performance in Eastern North America, pp. 53-68. edited by Cheryl Claassen, Oxbow Books, Havertown (PA), 2023

Archaeologies of Cosmoscapes in the Americas, edited by J. Grant Stauffer, Bretton T. Giles, and Shawn P. Lambert, pp. 85-105, Oxbow Books, Haverton (PA), 2022

Time, Space, & Object: Life in the Field by Ian W. Brown, 2022

The Mississippian Spread: Climate Change and Migration in the Eastern US (ca. AD 1000-1600), edited by Robert A. Cook and Aaron R. Comstock, pp. 323-356. Springer Press, New York, 2022

Tree-ring reconstructions of cool- and warm-season moisture reveal several multi-decadal droughts... more Tree-ring reconstructions of cool- and warm-season moisture reveal several multi-decadal droughts, which precipitated major impacts on Mississippian polities between 1250 and 1450 CE in the northern Lower Mississippi Valley. These chronic droughts contributed to the regional abandonments and population migrations from the Cairo Lowland of southeastern Missouri into extreme southeastern Missouri, northeastern Arkansas, and western Tennessee. Climatic events constituted a major factor in the collapse of local political economies, resulting in subsequent downriver migrations of Mississippian polities. While incremental and transformational adaptations took place in political, religious, and social practices, it is also apparent that long-term continuities existed in thematic ritual practice based on a large corpus of whole ceramic vessels from the region.

Legacy, 2021

A copper-covered object is discussed that was found at a site in the Wateree Valley in South Caro... more A copper-covered object is discussed that was found at a site in the Wateree Valley in South Carolina. The stretched scalp-motif suggests it originated in the western part of the Mississippian world. The ritual object likely came to the Wateree Valley as part of a bundle of objects used in the performance of a ritual or as regalia marking an individual as a powerful ritual practitioner.

New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery, edited by Bretton T. Giles and Shawn P. Lambert, pp. 131-161, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, 2021

Witchcraft had deep roots in Mississippian social logic, benefiting power holders and the wealthy... more Witchcraft had deep roots in Mississippian social logic, benefiting power holders and the wealthy through the agency of revenge accusations and magical spells. Sorcery shaped and under-girded factional competition and displayed the spiritual power of the witch as well as the witch hunter. Witchcraft is materialized through various forms, but especially owl effigy ceramic vessels and pendants. Witchcraft perpetrators created medicinal concoctions and crafted visual forms of culturally accepted and identifiable imagery that incorporated shape-shifting and transformation. I argue that the agency of the witch was greatly feared, providing an important source of spiritual power manipulated by Mississippian political aggrandizers, who crafted owl imagery as one component of witchcraft rituals and social efficacy.

Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles, edited by David H. Dye, pp. 1-25, Lexington Books, New York, 2021

Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles, edited by David H. Dye, pp. 161-210, Lexington Books, New York, 2021

The fourteenth century Link Farm site reveals the largest and one of the few intact caches of cur... more The fourteenth century Link Farm site reveals the largest and one of the few intact caches of curated Mississippian ancestor statues and ritual regalia recovered in eastern North America. Despite its recovery in 1895, there has been a lack of attention to its ritual significance, nor have attempts been made to contextualize the Duck River cache in terms of the Mississippian ritual thought and social logic. In this chapter I contend that the Duck River cache is a relational assemblage employed in the performance of ritual theatrics for honoring the ancestors and supplicating culture heroes during a time of increased political and social unrest, precipitated in part through elevated intercommunity conflict and extreme weather, especially severe droughts. Changes are evident in the ritual efficacy of political leaders who ramped up appeals and supplications to ancestors and other-than-human persons in order to ameliorate stress and uncertainty.

JAS:Reports, 2021

Organic residue analysis was applied to two Mississippian Period human effigy pipes from the sout... more Organic residue analysis was applied to two Mississippian Period human effigy pipes from the southeastern North America using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Both pipes, one recovered from a site in Osceola, Arkansas (USA) and the second from a barrier island near McIntosh County, Georgia (USA), contained trace concentrations of nicotine, indicating the pipes were used to smoke tobacco. The second pipe also contained high concentrations of the monoterpene carvone, the compound that gives spearmint its characteristic aroma. The abundance of carvone along with a mixture of other terpenes and numerous saturated and unsaturated fatty acid methyl esters suggests that an aromatic plant such as spearmint (Mentha sp.), or possibly a plant extract, was included in the smoking complex.

Recovering Ancient Spiro: Native American Art, Ritual, and Cosmic Renewal, edited by Eric D. Singleton and F. Kent Reilly III, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2020

Recent climate studies based on tree ring analysis reveal the onset of long-lasting and severe dr... more Recent climate studies based on tree ring analysis reveal the onset of long-lasting and severe droughts in the Lower Arkansas Valley during the late fourteenth century. These multi-decadal climatic conditions contributed to transformations in political and ritual practice, which have been documented through archaeological studies. Environmental impacts in the Spiro region prompted a reorientation in ritual efforts resulting in the construction of the spirit lodge around AD 1400, but a continuation of long-standing practices that focused on apotropaic rituals. Climatic conditions appear to have been one factor in the collapse of the Spiro political economy and a widespread downturn in regional cultural developments.

Recovering Ancient Spiro: Native American Art, Ritual, and Cosmic Renewal, edited by Eric D. Singleton and F. Kent Reilly III, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2020

The remarkable assemblage of symbolic weaponry found at the Craig Mound at Spiro is proposed as a... more The remarkable assemblage of symbolic weaponry found at the Craig Mound at Spiro is proposed as a set of ritual paraphernalia employed in dramatic theatrics, which dramatized and portrayed cosmological chartering narratives. As ritual assemblages employed by human actors portraying other-than-human beings, such exaggerated and exotic performative items materialized a working set of theatrical implements deployed for conjuring and supplicating various deities, especially the Hero Twins. Through such impersonations and legerdemain, these theatrical performances provided chiefly elites with vital entanglements and linkages between the contemporary and mythic worlds.

The Evolution of Social Institutions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Dmitri M. Bondarenko, Stephen A. Kowalewski, and David B. Small, Springer Press, 2020

Corporate institutions, transformed in the American Southeast over some 14,000 years, include soc... more Corporate institutions, transformed in the American Southeast over some 14,000 years, include social heterarchies and hierarchies that arose within the institutional contexts of descent groups, ritual sodalities, and social houses. The strategic and tactical actions of competitive and cooperative agents contributed to differing expressions of organizational changes through a variety of forms, including feasting, feuding/warfare, inalienable goods circulation, indebtedness, monumental constructions, mortuary events, processions/rogations, strategic marriages, and additional ritual and social practices. The nexus of social institutions that arose along these pathways served as a catalyst for social changes, including the ways through which social institutions became transformed. Such social processes inform archaeologists of the agency, organization, and practice of people who not only invented and manipulated cosmologies, ideologies, institutions, and resources to achieve varying degrees of inequality, power, and wealth, but also those who resisted the efforts of aggrandizers. My arguments in this chapter focus on aristocratic social actions and actors, and the practices that enabled them to gain power and wealth through exclusive and restrictive corporate institutions.

Horizon & Tradition, 2020

Cognitive Archaeology: Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond, edited by David S. Whitley, Johannes H.N. Loubser, and Gavin Whitelaw, Routledge, New York, 2020

Mississippian anthropomorphic effigy ceramics are found in the Lower Mississippi Valley between a... more Mississippian anthropomorphic effigy ceramics are found in the Lower Mississippi Valley between approximately A.D. 1250 and 1650. Based on ethnohistoric counts from the seventeenth century, as well as ethnographic research conducted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a close fit is recognized between the specifics of eastern North American ethnographic accounts and details of Lower Mississippi Valley ceramic imagery during the Early Contact period (ca. A.D. 1600-1650). Archaeologists have traditionally ignored aspects of the archaeological record that reflect belief systems and ritual organization in the Lower Mississippi Valley Tunican Homeland, arguing that ceramic effigies and representational motifs are beyond the reach of decipherment and interpretation. More recent efforts emphasize ethnographic studies and stylistic analysis as key to interpreting and understanding Mississippian representational imagery. This latter perspective embraces the notion that archaeologists must acknowledge the subject matter of Mississippian figural art as being founded on cosmological beliefs associated with indigenous conceptions of chartering narratives and celestial realm culture heroes and preternatural deities. Thus, identifying anthropomorphic ceramic effigies as other than human persons opens the door for interpretive perspectives that embrace the role of religious figurines as objects of ritual supplication and veneration by human agents. From this perspective Tunican anthropomorphic effigies materialized and personified celestial guardian spirits who, when ritually feasted and solicited, would provide fertility, health, and longevity for the suppliant and their household. In this sense indigenous ideas of guardian spirits became hypostatized as ceramic imagery, which then functioned as a vehicle for conjuring spiritual forces within the religious context of ritual sodalities, especially medicine societies and shamanic lodges.

Ritual weaponry assumed a central role in Spiro society throughout the duration of the Great Mort... more Ritual weaponry assumed a central role in Spiro society throughout the duration of the Great Mortuary at the Craig Mound. While weaponry styles changed over time, the employment of highly crafted clubs and knives from exotic materials were instrumental in ritual performances and practice for over two hundred years. Specific types of cherts and igneous rocks were obtained from far-flung realms of the Mississippian world based on sourcing studies. In this chapter we address the ritual practices associated with symbolic weaponry at the Craig Mound between approximately A.D. 1200 and 1400.

The influx of European goods into the Lower Mississippi Valley between 1550 and 1650 challenged a... more The influx of European goods into the Lower Mississippi Valley between 1550 and 1650 challenged an entrenched aristocracy who endeavored to strengthen their hold over access to critical exchange nodes through religious institutions, especially medicine societies. The Protohistoric period witnessed a florescence in ceramic art, as well as the importation of well-crafted foreign goods, especially copper and shell regalia. Ceramic production achieved a level of crafting unknown prior to the mid-sixteenth century. I argue that power-holders increased their grip on trade linkages through expensive rituals, obligatory feasts, and restrictive membership in religious sodalities.

American frontiersmen in the nineteenth century donned raccoon skin caps to delineate themselves ... more American frontiersmen in the nineteenth century donned raccoon skin caps to delineate themselves as a novel social group. Contemporary accounts note the cap's origins as being derived from indigenous people, with whom these explorers and hunters interacted on many levels. Based on Mississippian iconography and nineteenth-century ethnohistory and ethnography, I argue that animal skin caps underwent a fundamental disjunction in meaning from Mississippian ritual regalia to Euro American social markers.

The seventeenth-century Tunican-speaking people of the Lower Mississippi Valley crafted political... more The seventeenth-century Tunican-speaking people of the Lower Mississippi Valley crafted political connections throughout the greater Midsouth through the Calumet ceremony, in addition to carrying out internecine warfare as a result of the incipient fur trade, which prompted novel rituals that engendered peace and fomented intense intercommunity conflict. Archaeological data, ethnographic documentation, and ethnohistoric accounts reveal how political and religious links among Lower Mississippi Valley polities were crucial for cementing, maintaining, negotiating, and structuring newly emerging exchange relations and aristocratic positions of power and wealth.

Mississippian Earth Mother effigies functioned not only as ritual utilitarian wares that held liq... more Mississippian Earth Mother effigies functioned not only as ritual utilitarian wares that held liquids, but that they also served as religious statuary. The object of religious veneration, these effigy forms would have personified Earth Mother guardian spirits who, when ritually solicited, provided fertility, health, and longevity. However, these guardian spirits might also mete out punishment in the form of death or sickness for those who violated cult codes of conduct. Thus, women’s guardian spirits became hypostatized and materialized as ceramic cult icons, which functioned to conjure or implore Earth Mother spiritual forces within the religious context of female medicine societies.

Warfare existed in two articulated worlds for Mississippian people: the realm of interpolity conf... more Warfare existed in two articulated worlds for Mississippian people: the realm of interpolity conflict and human experience, and the celestial realm with its culture heroes. Mississippian iconography offers a rare glimpse into these two worlds and how they were intertwined. In this paper I offer an interpretation of how Mississippian elites defined their relationship with violence and warfare in the quotidian world and how they perceived that relationship with other than human beings in the celestial realm. Sacred narratives recorded in the nineteenth century provide convincing evidence for the role dramatic performance and stories played in chartering warrior behavior. A consistent theme of “trophy-taking” runs through Mississippian iconography, with emphasis on decapitation and dismemberment. Trophy-taking is interpreted here as one way in which life forces were granted by Siouan culture heroes such as He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-As-Earrings, Morning Star, and Storms-As-He-Walks.

The Duck River Cache is a unique Tennessee treasure that has virtually no parallels in the archae... more The Duck River Cache is a unique Tennessee treasure that has virtually no parallels in the archaeological record of the eastern North America. Unfortunately, interpretation of the cache’s function has been noticeably absent in discussions of Mississippian religion and ritual. In this paper I propose that elements of the cache functioned as components of a temporary altar and that other elements were associated with ritual performance. Together, the altar arrangement and religious drama were central to the basic Mississippian belief system that stressed the recreation of sacred space, the reenactment of mythic dramas, and the solicitation of divine aid.

Mississippian female effigy bottles are found throughout much of the Central Mississippi Valley o... more Mississippian female effigy bottles are found throughout much of the Central Mississippi Valley over a considerable time span. This paper argues that female effigy vessels constitute a utilitarian ritual ware associated with religious sodalities that center on the Earth mother deity. The extensive evidence of vessel use and their mortuary context argues for functions not only in the daily life of Mississippian people, but also in the afterlife as well. Although temporal and spatial differences are noted, an overall conservative artistic expression is evident.

During November 2007 approximately 60,000 m2 were surveyed at the Mound Bottom site using a fluxg... more During November 2007 approximately 60,000 m2 were surveyed at the Mound Bottom site using a fluxgate gradiometer. Results from the magnetometer data are complex, but several patterns of anomalies are evident. We interpret these geophysical patterns as prehistoric structures, mound bases, and previous excavation units. Data is being collected in order to assess the potential of using magnetometers to survey the entire prehistoric landscape present within the Mound Bottom Archaeological Complex.

The Duck River Cache, found at the Link Farm site in Humphreys County, is one of Tennessee's most... more The Duck River Cache, found at the Link Farm site in Humphreys County, is one of Tennessee's most significant archaeological discoveries. In this paper I place the ritual cache in temporal context based on analysis of symbolic Mississippian combat weaponry and recent radiocarbon dates from the Link Farm site. Symbolic combat weaponry, such as that found in the Duck River cache, has a long tradition in the Southeast and Midwest. The evolution of Mississippian symbolic weaponry is presented here in order to evaluate the varied forms found in the famous cache.

A survey of Mississippian settlement patterns along the Tennessee Valley reveals a distinct arran... more A survey of Mississippian settlement patterns along the Tennessee Valley reveals a distinct arrangement in settlement choices. The location of administrative centers and their subsidiary towns suggests that chiefly polities were spatially arranged, in part, to create buffer zones against hostile neighboring polities. In this paper I use a model formulated by David Hally to assess regularity in polity arrangement in the Tennessee Valley during the Middle Mississippian period.

Symbolic weaponry was exchanged throughout much of the Mississippian world during the thirteenth ... more Symbolic weaponry was exchanged throughout much of the Mississippian world during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The portrayal of exaggerated weaponry as one component of human representational art suggests a close association of symbolic weaponry with funerary practices and trophy taking behavior. Mythic narratives that describe the exploits of culture heroes chartered warfare and the acquisition of trophies as part of the desire to earn war honors and to carry out prescribed ritual performances associated with the Path of Souls.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2020

Journal of Anthropological Research, 2020

Reviews in Anthropology, 2019

The five books under review here explicitly call for archaeologists to place greater emphasis on ... more The five books under review here explicitly call for archaeologists to place greater emphasis on agency and practice in understanding the role of religion and ritual in the ancient world. Four volumes, principally investigating Mississippian polities, draw our attention to the American midcontinent and its earthen monuments, magical plants, rock art, sacra, and sacred shrines. Although spanning a diversity of approaches and perspectives, the authors demonstrate how cosmograms, exotic objects, sacred landscapes, and transcendental beings articulate with people's daily lives and lived experiences. Each work offers an awareness of religion as expressed through materiality and the ways past belief systems were bundled, constituted, entangled, and intermeshed with agentive things, built landscapes, humans, natural environments, and otherthan-human-persons. The fifth book, by Brian Hayden, contributes a significant approach to these ongoing discussions by stressing the importance of secret societies for interpreting and understanding the power of ritual in the ancient world.

Southeastern Archaeology, 2006

Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 2003

The Journal of Southern History, 1996

The society that developed in this ecological niche was, and to some extent still is, distinctive... more The society that developed in this ecological niche was, and to some extent still is, distinctive. Its most marked characteristics revolved around use of the Thicket as a common, or open, range. This view remained virtually unchanged until the stock laws of Texas were written in the 1950s. The legisla

American Antiquity, 1984

This volume incorporates a photographic essay, capturing the awesome majesty of the ruins of the ... more This volume incorporates a photographic essay, capturing the awesome majesty of the ruins of the Inca monuments, with a complementary text providing historical, cultural, and geographical commentary on the Incas' architectural achievements. The intent of the

American Anthropologist, 1977