Cahokia Mounds Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

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Interest in the study of foodways through an archaeological lens, par-ticularly in the American Southeast, is evident in the abundance of literature on thistopic over the past decade. Foodways as a concept includes all of the activities,rules, and meanings that surround the production, harvesting, processing, cooking,serving, and consumption of food. We study foodways and components of foodwaysarchaeol ogically through direct and indirect evidence. The current synthesis isconcerned with research themes in the archaeology of Southeastern foodways,including feasting, gender, social and political status, and food insecurity. In this review, I explore the information that can be learned from material remains of the foodstuffs themselves and the multiple lines of evidence that can help us better understand the meanings, rituals, processes, and cultural meanings and motivations of foodways.

- by Tanya M Peres
- •
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Gender Studies, Historical Archaeology

Relatively few farmers today actively maintain crop biodiversity, but for most of the history of agriculture this was the norm. Archaeobotanical analyses can reveal the processes that led to the evolution of crop biodiversity throughout the Holocene, an issue of critical importance in an era of climate change and agrobiodiversity loss. Indigenous eastern North Americans domesticated several annual seed crops, called the Eastern Agricultural Complex, beginning c. 1800 BC. Using population morphometrics, this paper reports new evidence for the evolution of a domesticated sub-species of one of these crops, erect knotweed (Polyongum erectum L.), and its subsequent diversification under cultivation. Morphometric analyses were conducted on archaeological erect knotweed populations spanning its ancient cultivated range, and these were directly dated to c. 1–1350 AD, anchoring the evolution of this crop in both time and space. Domesticated erect knotweed first appears c. 1 AD in the Middle Ohio Valley. A diachronic series of populations from western Illinois shows that this species was domesticated again c. 150–1000 AD. This study shows how agricultural knowledge and material were maintained and shared (or not) by communities during an important era in eastern North America's history: when small communities were aggregating to form the earliest urban center at Cahokia, in the American Bottom floodplain. A distinctive landrace was developed by farmers in the American Bottom which is significantly different from cultivated populations in other regions. Subsequent Mississippian assemblages (c. 1000–1350 AD) indicate divergent agricultural communities of practice, and possibly the eventual feralization of erect knotweed. Archaeobotanical studies have a vast untapped potential to reveal interaction between J Archaeol Method Theory https://doi. communities, or their isolation, and to investigate the evolution of crops after initial domestication.

- by Natalie Mueller
- •
- Agrarian Studies, Agrobiodiversity, Agriculture, Origins of Agriculture

Throughout time, cultures have manipulated the landscape for a variety of reasons, including the promotion of social control. One approach to facilitating this control is through omnipresent surveillance, known as a Panopticon design. Though the Panopticon is more commonly associated with structural design in industrial societies, the large earthen mounds constructed by prehistoric civilizations could have also played a role in maintaining social order. To explore the applicability of the Panopticon concept in a prehistoric context, visibility of the largest manmade earthen mound in the New World, Monks Mound, was modeled in a geographic information system. Results indicate that the terraces on the mound and the powerful individuals residing there would have been visible to most of the population, even when accounting for subsequent landscape modifications. This level of visibility would have projected an omnipresent threat of surveillance, possibly facilitating social order and cohesion among such a large population.

Cahokia’s cultural influence altered patterns of social organization throughout the Midwest, and this complex historical process warrants further interregional research. Ramey Incised jars were cosmograms through which Cahokians attempted to frame relationships among different social groups and the broader cosmos. The exchange, and subsequent emulation, of these ritually charged vessels provided opportunities for hinterland groups to do the same. But did hinterland
Mississippian peoples adopt a Cahokian understanding of the cosmos wholesale or reinterpret it based on local understandings and histories? To address this question, this paper examines variation in Ramey Incised iconographic motifs and design fields from the Lower Illinois River valley, Central Illinois River valley, Apple River valley, and the Aztalan site (47JE1). The data are then statistically compared with Emerson’s
typology from the American Bottom, highlighting ground-level patterns of material variation which can be used to interpret the ways in which
local peoples negotiated the spread of dominant ideologies and religious practices. Analysis of these patterns suggests regional differences in the perceived composition and structure of the cosmos and reveals the power of local worldviews in culture contact scenarios.

This paper presents material and spatial evidence on skilled crafting from a series of archaeological investigations at the Fingerhut Tract, located in the western portion of the Mississippian period (AD 1050-1400) Cahokia site in southwestern Illinois. Specifically, skilled crafters at the Fingerhut Tract throughout the Mississippian period resided in distinct household clusters and neighborhoods, were part or members of elite families, and assembled multiple exotic materials into accoutrements used in religious ceremonies. Moreover, the special knowledge of these skilled crafters was likely obtained during journeys to distant locations and was passed down through time within particular family, kin, or social groups. Perhaps most important, the evidence indicates that crafting these items was entangled with religious practice and not solely an economic or political pursuit as suggested in earlier prestige good models.

A ceramic vessel found at a Mill Creek culture (eastern Initial Middle Missouri variant) site in northwest Iowa exhibits features characteristic of both the Southern Caddo Holly Fine Engraved type and the Fine Engraved Carving type of the American Bottom Fine Grog series. Knowing the vessel’s likely manufacturing locale is important in understanding relationships between Middle Missouri tradition people and distant groups to the south. To determine whether the vessel was made in the Caddo area or the Cahokia region, we employ stylistic analysis and three forms of compositional analysis: petrographic, X-ray fluorescence, and neutron activation. We conclude that the vessel was neither made locally in northwest Iowa nor in the Caddo area. It might have been made in the Cahokia region by a potter versed in the Caddo ceramic vocabulary, but further analysis of potential American Bottom source clays is needed.

- by William Green and +2
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- Ceramic Analysis (Archaeology), Plains Archaeology, Ceramic Petrography, Cahokia Mounds

The occupation history of the Cahokia archaeological complex (ca. AD 1050-1400) has received significant academic attention for decades, but the subsequent repopulation of the region by indigenous peoples is poorly understood. This study presents demographic trends from a fecal stanol population reconstruction of Horseshoe Lake, Illinois, along with information from archaeological, historical, and environmental sources to provide an interpretation of post-Mississippian population change in the Cahokia region. Fecal stanol data indicate that the Cahokia region reached a population minimum by ca. AD 1400, regional population had rebounded by AD 1500, a population maximum was reached by AD 1650, and population declined again by AD 1700. The indigenous repopulation of the area coincides with environmental changes conducive to maize-based agriculture and bison hunting subsistence practices of the Illinois Confederation. The subsequent regional depopulation corresponds to a complicated period of warfare, epidemic disease, Christianization, population movement, and environmental change in the eighteenth century. The recognition of a post-Mississippian indigenous population helps shape a narrative of Native American persistence over Native American disappearance.

- by AJ White and +1
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- Historical Archaeology, Resilience, Cahokia Mounds, Illinois Archaeology

Population growth in the American Bottom after A.D. 1050 may have outstripped agricultural productivity. It has been suggested that farmers expanded agricultural practices into previously unused upland prairies to expand production. Historic accounts describe the difficulty that early settlers
had with prairie, making this supposition questionable. However, experiments with replica Mill Creek hoes suggest that these tools were capable of converting prairie into farmland.

- by Scott W Hammerstedt and +1
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- Experimental Archaeology, Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Mississippian societies, Cahokia Mounds

Pilgrimage instigates relationships between phenomena that produce hierophanies, or sacred, enchanting experiences. In this paper I argue that pilgrimage scholars should focus on the relational qualities of pilgrimage in order to rethink and produce more detailed, sensuous descriptions and analyses of this practice. This can be done by employing ''relational approaches,'' seen here as perspectives that recognize and prioritize the interconnections among persons, places, things, and substances. I further suggest that focusing on movement, the vitality of places and materials, and the senses is useful in thinking about the relational aspects of pilgrimage. Moreover, archaeologists are well-situated to investigate these phenomena and thus can and should push pilgrimage studies in new directions. I provide a case study of the Emerald Acropolis, an 11th-century Cahokian pilgrimage center. Cahokians traveled to Emerald on certain occasions and, while there, manipulated particular substances—earth and water—in ways that gathered otherworldly powers in affective ways.

- by Jacob Skousen
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- Pilgrimage, Jane Bennett, Archaeology of pilgrimage, Cahokia Mounds

Objectives: Mound 72 at Cahokia figures prominently into interpretations of early Mississippian sociopolitical development. A previous study utilizing dental morphology concluded that the groups of mostly young adult females interred in four mass graves in Mound 72 were likely not from Cahokia and possibly reflect sacrificial offerings from outside communities. The purpose of this study is to reevaluate these findings using multiple indicators of biological relatedness and place of origin/migration. Materials and Methods: Biological relatedness in Mound 72 was examined using dental metrics and morphology. Four additional archaeological samples from nearby sites were included to better assess biological variation within Mound 72. Strontium isotope analysis ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) was also conducted on individuals from several burial features in Mound 72 to determine heterogeneity in place of origin.

- by Philip A. Slater and +1
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- Strontium Isotope Analysis, Cahokia Mounds

This paper employs concepts from Bourdieu’s theory of social fields and contemporary research on transnationalism to explore the complicated history of population movement, culture contact, and interaction that fueled the origins of Mississippian society in the greater Cahokia area and closely related socio-political developments in the Central
Illinois River Valley (CIRV) of west-central Illinois.We offer a new take on Mississippian origins and the history of culture contact in the CIRV, arguing that interregional simultaneity and inter-group collaboration played an important part of the early processes of Mississippianization in the North American Midwest. By decentering Cahokia in our
explanation of Mississippian origins in the greater Midwest, we argue for a long-term persistence of traditional pre-Mississippian practices in the CIRV region, beginning with the first documented engagement among Cahokians and Illinois Valley groups in the early eleventh century until the beginning of the thirteenth century AD.

Much of what is known about the Indigenous city of Cahokia, located in and influential on the North American midcontinent during the eleventh through fourteenth centuries AD, derives from decades of salvage, research, and CRM excavations in the surrounding American Bottom region. We use this robust dataset to explore patterns of building conflagration that suggest these practices of burning were part of pre-Mississippian traditions that were bundled into new Cahokian landscapes during the early consolidation of the city. These bundled practices entangled sources of power that were at once political and religious, thus transforming the practices and meanings associated with terminating building use via fire. Mucho de lo que se conoce sobre la ciudad indígena de Cahokia, ubicada en el medio continente norteamericano durante los siglos XI al XIV dC, deriva de décadas de excavaciones de rescate, investigación y CRM en la región circundante de América. Utilizamos este sólido conjunto de datos para explorar patrones de conflagración de edificios, lo que sugiere que estas prác-ticas de quema fueron parte de las tradiciones pre-Mississippian que se incluyeron en los nuevos paisajes de Cahokian durante la consolidación temprana de la ciudad. Estas prácticas agrupadas enmarañaron fuentes de poder que eran a la vez políticas y religiosas, transformando así las prácticas y los significados asociados con la terminación del uso del edificio a través del fuego.

Cahokia 0 km 1000 N In the mid eleventh century AD, Cahokia emerged as a substantial Mississippian urban centre. To the east, a shrine-complex known as the Emerald Acropolis, marking the beginning of a processional route to the city, also flourished. Excavations and geophysical survey of the monumental landscape around this site suggest that lunar cycles were important in the orientation of structures and settlement layout. They further indicate that water played a significant role in the ritual activities associated with the closure and abandonment of individual structures. The contemporary development of these sites suggests an intrinsic connection between them, and provides early evidence of the importance that the moon and water came to assume in Mississippian culture.

- by Timothy Pauketat and +2
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- Archaeology, Archaeology of Religion, Archaeoastronomy, Mississippian Societies (Archaeology)

Flotation-recovered plant remains from a series of 11 sod block samples, 7 features,
a limestone concentration, and a mass of organic debris provide
insights into the construction of Monks Mound. The presence of uncarbonized
seeds exclusively of annuals (other than those of perennial elderberry
and wild grape, which probably represent food remains) indicates that the construction
of Monks Mound was relatively continuous. The presence of quillwort
megaspores and other indicators of wetlands provide additional data
on how Monks Mound was constructed and where some borrow and/or
sod blocks were likely obtained to construct at least part of this monument.

- by Timothy Schilling and +1
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- Paleoethnobotany (Anthropology), Archeobotany, Cahokia Mounds

Provenance studies of stone artifacts often rely heavily upon chemical techniques such as neutron activation analysis. However, stone specimens with very similar chemical composition can have different mineralogies (distinctive crystalline structures as well as variations within the same mineral) that are not revealed by multielemental techniques. Because mineralogical techniques are often cheap and usually nondestructive, beginning with mineralogy allows the researcher to gain valuable information and then to be selective about how many samples are submitted for expensive and somewhat destructive chemical analysis, thus conserving both valuable samples and funds. Our University of Illinois team of archaeologists and geologists employs Portable Infrared Mineral Analyzer (PIMA) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Sequential acid dissolution/XRD/Inductively coupled plasma (SAD-XRD-ICP) analyses. Two case studies of Hopewellian pipes and Mississippian figurines illustrate this mineralogical approach. The results for both studies identify sources relatively close to the sites where the artifacts were recovered: Sterling, Illinois (rather than Ohio) for the (Hopewell) pipes and Missouri (rather than Arkansas or Oklahoma) for the Cahokia figurines.

A number of competing hypotheses, including hydroclimatic variations, environmental degradation and disturbance, and sociopolitical disintegration, have emerged to explain the dissolution of Cahokia, the largest prehistoric population center in the United States. Because it is likely that Cahokia’s decline was precipitated by multiple factors, some environmental and some societal, a robust understanding of this phenomenon will require multiple lines of evidence along with a refined chronology. Here, we use fecal stanol data from Horseshoe Lake, Illinois, as a population proxy for Cahokia and the broader Horseshoe Lake watershed. We directly compare the fecal stanol data with oxygen stable-isotope and paleoenvironmental data from the same sediment cores to evaluate the role of flooding, drought, and environmental degradation in Cahokia’s demographic decline and sociopolitical reorganization. We find that Mississippi River flooding and warm season droughts detrimental to agriculture occurred circa (ca.) 1150 CE and possibly generated significant stress for Cahokia’s inhabitants. Our findings implicate climate change during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly to Little Ice Age transition as an important component of population and sociopolitical transformations at Cahokia, and demonstrate how climate transitions can simultaneously influence multiple environmental processes to produce significant challenges to society.

- by AJ White
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- Geoarchaeology, Paleoclimatology, Cahokia Mounds

Resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization spectroscopy (REMPI) generates simultaneous vibronic spectroscopy and fragment free mass spectrometry to identify molecules within a complex matrix. We combined laser desorption with REMPI spectroscopy to study organic residues within pottery sherds from Maya vessels (600−900 CE) and Mississippian vessels (1100−1200 CE), successfully detecting three molecular markers, caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline, associated with the use of cacao. This analytical approach provides a high molecular specificity, based on both wavelength and mass identification. At the same time, the high detection limit allows for direct laser desorption from sherd scrapings, avoiding the need for extracting organic constituents from the sherd matrix.

- by Gregory Wilson and +2
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- Archaeology, Chemistry, Pottery (Archaeology), Mississippian Societies (Archaeology)

We present the recent results of a magnetometry survey of the Spring Lake Tract conducted during the summer of 2015 at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site located along the Mississippi River Floodplain in southern Illinois. This tract, located southeast of Woodhenge and west of the Grand Plaza, is situated north of two known borrow pits and includes an additional, previously unidentified borrow pit. Through comparing our gradiometer results with our subsequent test excavations, we argue that this area of Cahokia potentially demonstrates an increase in building density at the Spring Lake Tract during the transition between the Terminal Late Woodland and Lohmann phases. In addition, our survey and exaction results demonstrate that this area was densely occupied between the Lohmann and Stirling phases. During the Moorehead phase, we identify a possible increase in habitation based on hypothesized structure density using statistical analyses of length and width ratios (m) and structure area (m 2). Our preliminary results suggest that the Spring Lake Tract saw an increase in habitation during the Moorehead phase, a new perspective on the density and use of domestic space during Cahokia's late occupational history. Presentamos los resultados de una reciente prospección magnetométrica del sector Spring Lake, realizada durante el verano de 2015 en el sitio de Cahokia, localizado en la llanura aluvial del río Mississippi en el sur de Illinois. Ubicado al sureste de Woodhenge y al oeste de la Gran Plaza, este sector se encuentra al norte de dos conocidas canteras para extracción de tierra e incluye otra cantera no identificada previamente. Con base en la comparación de los resultados del gradiómetro con las posteriores excavaciones de prueba, argumentamos que esta zona de Cahokia potencialmente muestra un aumento en la densidad de construcción durante la transición entre la fase Silvícola tardía terminal y la fase Lohmann. Además, los resultados de la prospección y de las excavaciones demuestran que esta zona fue densamente ocupada entre las fases Lohmann y Stirling. Durante la fase Moorehead identificamos un posible incremento habitacional basado en la densidad estructural especulada con base en análisis estadísticos de las proporciones entre longitud y anchura y del área de las estructuras. Nuestros resultados preliminares sugieren que el sector Spring Lake vio un aumento residencial durante la fase Moorehead, lo cual es una nueva perspectiva sobre la densidad y el uso del espacio doméstico durante las fases finales de la ocupación de Cahokia.

The number of posts in the initial and subsequent construction of Cahokia’s Central Palisade was recalculated using new measurements of the postholes, bastions, and changes in the perimeter of the palisade that resulted from its reconstructions. Application of this recalculation indicates that constructions of the palisade may have used fewer posts than previously estimated. These data also suggest that both the number of posts needed for construction and the number of person-hours needed for construction decreased between 22.5 to 27.5 percent from its second to its final construction episodes, and that the Central Palisade always used wood more efficiently after it was reconstructed. This may reflect a conscious attempt by Cahokians to conserve wood resources through changing the Central Palisade’s architecture.

- by Tony Krus
- •
- Military History, Military History, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology

The rise of Cahokia, the largest pre-Columbian Native American city north of Mexico, and the rapid spread of Mississippian culture across the midcontinental and southeastern USA after AD 1000 has long been a focus of archaeological inquiry. Trade, political control, and emulation constitute some of the theories used to examine the wide distribution of Cahokian artifacts and architecture. Early cultural historical interpretations focused on migration and diffusion as the mechanism by which Cahokian objects and practices spread, a position heavily critiqued by processualists. Mounting archaeological evidence, now supported by technological advancements in materials-sourcing and isotope analyses (see Emerson and Hedman 2016; Slater et al. 2014), has brought back theories of migration, with attendant processes of hybridity and creolization (see Alt 2006, 2018; Millhouse 2012), to characterize Mississippian interactions and movements. These movements highlight the diverse cultural interactions that worked to, in part, create this Native American city—one that informed the spread of Mississippianism beyond the American Bottom. For this special issue, we invited our colleagues to consider the possibility and role of a Cahokian diaspora to understand cultural influence, complexity, historicity, and movements in the Mississippian Southeast. Collectively, we trace how the movements of Cahokian and American Bottom materials, substances, persons, and non-human bodies converged in the creation of Cahokian identities both within and outside of the Cahokia homeland. Drawing initial inspiration from theories of diaspora, our goal in organizing this collection of papers was to explore the dynamic movements of human populations by critically engaging with the ways people materially construct or deconstruct their social identities in relation to others within the context of physical movement.

- by Elizabeth Watts Malouchos
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Diasporas, Diaspora

Skousen and Aiuvalasit critique our article on the post-Mississippian occupation of the Horseshoe Lake watershed (White et al. 2020) along two lines: (1) that our findings are not supported due to a lack of archaeological evidence, and (2) that we do not consider alternative hypotheses in explaining the lake's fecal stanol record. We first respond to the matter of fecal stanol deposition in Horseshoe Lake and then address the larger issue, the primacy of archaeological data in interpreting the past.

- by AJ White and +1
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- Geoarchaeology, Cahokia Mounds, Illinois Archaeology, Illinois

- by Susan Alt
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- Cahokia Mounds

Prehistoric architectureis -a perennial topic of archaeological investigations throughout the Americas. Interest generally focuses on the large, spectacular, and sacred aspects of ionumental architecture. Lesse_r attention is given to the mundane aspects of common, everyd.ay residential architecture. With a few exceptions, studies of North American architecturejotfi sacred and secular-are found within site reports. These exceptions have emphasized the residential nature of dwellings and their potential for interpretatibn of intrasite social relations Finney 1993; Lightfoot and Feiriman 19g2; Mefuer 19gg; price 1959; Price and Cri{in 1979). .T"l'e following discuision is restricted to selected rural Emergent Mississipprln and Mississippian sites in the Cahokia locality.

Investigations at the Morrison (11MS1548) site during the 1990s revealed a previously unknown mound center dating to the early Edelhardt phase of the Terminal Late Woodland period (ca. A.D. 1000–1030). Located only 3 km from Monks Mound, the site is significant because it provides evidence suggesting mound and plaza construction occurred immediately preceding the rise of Cahokia as a sociopolitical and religious center. Excavations in 1994 confirmed the presence of one rectangular platform mound and a related residential occupation in close proximity. A hint of a later Lohmann phase (A.D. 1050–1100) revisit to the site, perhaps for commemorative purposes, is suggested by the presence of a white-on-red seed jar fragment.

- by Elizabeth Watts Malouchos and +1
- •
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology, North American archaeology

In this chapter I discuss Cahokian material culture and briefly review the various theories that have been proposed to account for the recovery of such material in far-flung places. Trade or some form of elite exchange has often been the default explanation. In this chapter, I explore the likelihood that some of these items, especially religious items, traveled with Cahokians as they departed Cahokia during its decline.

In this paper, we present our investigations on the Emerald Avenue, a potential Mississippian period (A.D. 1050-1400) roadway in southwestern Illinois. It is hypothesized that this road connected the pre-Columbian city of Cahokia to the Emerald Acropolis, a shrine complex 24 km to the east. To confirm the presence of the Emerald Avenue and document its physical characteristics and chronology, we performed an electrical resistivity tomography survey, magnetometer survey, and excavations on portions of the Avenue near the Acropolis. These investigations revealed that the Avenue is an early 19th century road that was used by early Euro-American settlers in the area. We present evidence that suggests that this historic road was actually a reused pre-Columbian route, possibly the Mississippian period Emerald Avenue. The presence of a Mississippian period road connecting the Emerald Acropolis to other important places throughout the region indicates that religious journeys were conducted throughout Cahokia's history.

- by Jacob Skousen and +3
- •
- Archaeology, North American archaeology, Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Archaeology of Roads

Cahokia is the largest pre-Columbian archaeological site north of central Mexico. In the past decade, it has been described as one of several autochthonous cases of urbanism, recently described as a city in the popular journalistic pages of Science (Lawler 2011) and National Geographic (Hodges 2011) and, similarly, in peer-reviewed volumes collecting global examples of the pre-modern city (Kelly and Brown 2014; Pauketat et al. 2015). Several scholars have commented on Cahokia's relatively brief period of maximal occupation (around 150 years, from about AD 1050 to AD 1200) and its similarly short Mississippian occupation (around 300 years) before its near or complete abandonment (e.g., Yoffee 2014). Here, however, I consider the earlier and initial period of settlement growth near Cahokia. As intriguing as Cahokia's ultimate size is to us, it is no less significant that only 200 years separate the appearance of the first sedentary villages in the American Bottom region of Illinois and what is thought of as the start of Cahokia's great transformation-its urban moment. This chapter continues a historical-materialist analysis that considers how changing agricultural production schemes and new social demands might relate to the institution of the early Mississippian kin group in the American Bottom region and vice versa. Historical materialism, "for which the primacy of the historical situation is central" (Jameson 2007:6), positions the material activities of humans (what they actually do) as relevant to their social existence (Eagleton 2016:8): "history is the production and reproduction of real life" (Engels 1978:760). Material changes in the late prehistoric American Bottom can be traced archaeologically through time via things like structure, courtyard, and neighborhood group features as well as with information about changing farming practices in the region. Humans have always, most certainly, altered the physical and social worlds through which they live. In the American Bottom near the end of the first millennium AD (circa AD 900), this began involving robustly

O wls have captured the imaginations of hUman beings for millennia. Owls have often been perceived as otherworldly due fo tneir (typically) nocturnal and solitary habits, their large, watchful eyes, their virtually soundless flight, and their haunting, ventriloquial calls. The ancient'Greeks associated 6wls with Athe=. na, the goddess of wi$.dom (and warfare),. and Athenian coinage exhibited perhaps the best-known artistic r~presentations of owls' frqm the ancient world, The• association of owls with wisdom 'is. occasion" ally found in. other world ~ultures and • persists to this day in some • Western societies: Mr. Owl represented death i(\ a number of ways: as qmens. of d~a. tp. as bringers of death,. as human ghosts or souls, arid as guardians of the path to the aft~rlife. In fact, the connel=tion petween owl$ and de~tt) and the' afterlife is. so common that if may be considered the primarY-symbolic association of owls in native North America. . Stemming fro~\his association with the afterlife; owls were also sometimes linked to r~birth, renewal, and fertility. The use of owl feathers was observed in the Ghost Dance as performed by the Lakota, Ar:ikara, and Arapaho. The purpose of the Ghost.

The Mississippian Mace, currently classified as a ceremonial war club, is a common theme in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), more recently described as the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere (MIIS), and seems to be a favored accoutrement of the Morning Star deity. Countless representations exist in shell carvings, petroglyphs, and as three-dimensional stone forms. Despite the proliferation of this motif, scholars
have struggled to assign it ideological meaning. Now, investigations into the relationship between maces and birds, along with examinations of surviving folklore and the historical record, provide insight into this enigmatic symbol of power. Iconographic associations, substitutions, and transformations combine with legend to relate the visual imagery of the
Mississippian mace to the spirit birds.

- by Caitlin Rankin
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- Archaeology, Geoarchaeology, Cahokia Mounds
- by Caitlin Rankin
- •
- Archaeology, GeoArcheology, Moundbuilding, Cahokia Mounds

The widespread exchange of masterful artworks in the Mississippian period has long been a topic of interest among North American archaeologists. In particular, the Braden style, an artistic tradition whose origin has been placed at Cahokia, is recognizable on objects unearthed from locales that are remarkably distant from the American Bottom. On the opposite side of the Eastern Woodlands, the Lake Jackson site hosted burials in Mound 3 that contained a variety of these objects whose creation conformed to traditional Cahokian craftsmanship. While the contents of Mound 3's burials have been investigated to explore ties to other major ceremonial centers in the Greater Southeast, the nature of those ties and their timing have not been fully investigated, especially in consideration of Cahokia. This paper offers an assemblage based exploration of exchange between these two different and distant sites.

The discovery of a previously unknown ridge-top mound during the Illinois State Archaeological Survey’s recent excavations at the East St. Louis Mound Complex reveals that landscape modification, interment of human remains, and carefully engineered layers of soil were integral not only to the mound-building process, but to the making of East St. Louis’ community. Each mound-making act, at East St. Louis and throughout the Mississippian world, represented action imbued with meaning that was intended to make and maintain community at these centers. This paper overviews the events surrounding the construction of Main Street Mound and discusses them in the context of the ridge-top monuments and their use in the Greater Cahokia region.

- by Tamira Brennan
- •
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Ritual, Culture