Monumentality in Eastern North America during the Mississippian Period. David G. Anderson. 2012. In Early New World Monumentality, edited by Richard L. Burger and Robert M. Rosenwig, pp. 78–108. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, Florida. (original) (raw)

2012, Early New World Monumentality, edited by Richard L. Burger and Robert M. Rosenwig, pp. 78–108. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, Florida.

In this chapter what is meant by monumentality during the Mississippian period is explored, with a particular emphasis on its origins and on the ways the subject is currently being examined by local archaeologists. Mound and plaza arrangements have great time depth in eastern North America. The existence of an architectural grammar, or an appropriate way to design communities, has long been assumed to exist within Mississippian culture. Indeed, some have argued that such a grammar was cosmologically grounded, ritually proscribed, and precisely determined and had great time depth in the region and perhaps across the Americas. In particular, dispersed populations appear to have periodically come together at specific and perhaps special (resource-rich, sacred) locations throughout much of prehistory, perhaps seasonally, annually, or less frequently, to engage in information exchange, ritual and ceremony, and the maintenance of populations through the regulation of kin and mating networks, activities that all served to promote group and cultural identity. Indeed, such patterns appear to date back to the earliest readily identifiable occupation of the region.