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

This dissertation investigates the role of pilgrimage and pilgrimage centers in the development of the pre-Columbian city of Cahokia (A.D. 1050-1350) by examining archaeological data from the Emerald site, a large multi-mound center 24 km... more

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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)

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.

- by Timothy Pauketat and +1
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- Pottery (Archaeology), Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), New Materialisms, American Bottoms archaeology
- by Timothy Pauketat and +1
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- Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Native American Anthropology, Cities, Cahokia Mounds

Since the publication of Warren DeBoer's 1993 study on chunkey stones, it has been generally accepted that the chunkey game in Late Woodland and Mississippian societies was more than a recreational activity. Yet today researchers are still working to unearth the specific meanings of this community event. In this article, we document a second whole example of an engraved Cahokia-style discoidal and compare it to the only other whole example of an engraved Cahokia-style discoidal from the American Bottom region. Inferences about the specific meaning that the chunkey game had to Mississippians in the region are then made based on recent research, the engraved iconography on chunkey stones, and the sources of the lithic raw materials from which chunkey stones were manufactured.

- by Brad Koldehoff
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- Ritual, 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

The purpose of this book is to bring together researchers gence, florescence, and decline of Mississippian societies concerned with Cahokia and the development of Mississippian culture in the Upper Mississippi River Valley. This goal has been achieved and a wealth of information, ideas, and models presented. These papers have illuminated major advances in our understanding of the emer-in the American Bottom and Upper Mississippi River Valley. In this chapter, I build on previous research, note the data gaps, and propose a new model for Cahokia and the northern Mississippian expansion.

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.

- by Timothy Pauketat and +2
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- Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Late Woodland and Mississippian societies, Cahokia Mounds

chapter 1 from Medieval Mississippians

- by Susan Alt and +1
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- Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Cahokia Mounds
- by Jacob Skousen
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- Cahokia, Relational Ontology, Cahokia Mounds

- by Elizabeth Watts Malouchos and +1
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology, North American archaeology
- by Brad Koldehoff and +1
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- Ritual, Cahokia Mounds, Terminal Late Woodland

Early models linking migration to culture change were dismissed as emerging data provided evidence that local traditions were behind the Mis-sissippianization of the American Bottom. Analyses of recent data from the Cahokia region, specifically the Richland complex, lead me to suggest that it is time to reexplore the roles of immigrant populations and cultural diversity in the development of Cahokian Mississippian culture. In this chapter I present preliminary data that suggest immigrant groups were part of the Mississippianization of the American Bottom region, but, more important, I will provide a theoretical framework that integrates in situ development and migration as critical components of the same process.

- by Susan Alt
- •
- Hybridity, Cahokia Mounds

In this chapter I propose that Monks Mound was an axis mundi for the Cahokian world. By ‘Cahokian world’ I mean not only the immediate site of Cahokia, but also the general region over which Cahokia exerted political and religious hegemony. As I will discuss below, I am not the first person to suggest that Monks Mound was an axis mundi. In what
follows, however, new data are presented that further that narrative. These data include recently obtained LiDAR imagery and archaeoastronomic analyses.

- by Gregory Wilson and +1
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- Lithic Technology, Stone axes (Archaeology), Cahokia Mounds

Copper, Brown and Dark Nations & People Are Indigenous To North America & Weren't Brought Here As Slaves.

- by Norman McCreary
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- Mesopotamian Archaeology, Mesoamerican Archaeology, Melanin, Mesoamerica

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

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

- by Susan Alt and +1
- •
- Shrines, Cahokia Mounds, Mississippian Religion

In February and March 2008, an unusual Mississippian building was identified and excavated on an isolated hilltop at the edge of the Richland Complex in the uplands 11 km east-southeast of the well-known Cahokia site. Based on its architectural attributes, mode of abandonment, artifact assemblage, and plant remains, we infer that it was a special residence, or medicine lodge, connected to a nearby Stirling phase settlement and, ultimately, to Cahokia. This T-shaped building possessed a unique interior alcove that, along with a second rectangular building, was aligned with the winter solstice sunrise. Sometime during the Stirling phase, both buildings were burned and the remains left exposed to the elements until the structural basins silted shut.

- by Timothy Pauketat and +1
- •
- Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Cahokia Mounds

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.

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

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
- by John Kelly
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- Cahokia Mounds

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
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- Military History, Military History, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology
- by Brad Koldehoff and +1
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- Public Archaeology, Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), American Bottoms archaeology, Cahokia Mounds

Ceramic materials from the Lamb site (11SC24) consist of a combination of Bauer Branch Late Woodland and early Mississippian wares. The co-occurrence of Mississippian and Late Woodland ceramic types at the site reveals considerable interaction between these groups. Clearly, Bauer Branch groups persisted longer in the central Illnois River valley than previously anticipated and were strongly influenced by their Mississippian neighbors to the south. Pottery remains recovered from excavations at the Lamb site (11SC24) consist of a combination of Bauer Branch Late Woodland and early Mississippian wares. The latter correspond stylistically with early twelfth-century pottery from the northern American Bottom region to the south. An important goal of the current analysis of these remains is to present a dataset that is consistent with and directly comparable to those generated in the American Bottom, as American Bottom data can provide a baseline for understanding Mississippian influence in the central Illinois River valley (CIRV). Thus, the analytical terms and methods employed here correspond to those used in the greater Cahokia area (Holley 1989; Kelly 1995; Pauketat 1998). The ceramic analysis consists of two parts. The first part is a ceramic seriation performed to define the chronological position of the Lamb site relative to Late Woodland and Mississippian sites in the CIRV and American Bottom. This section also entails the consideration of two new AMS dates from the site. The second part is a functional analysis conducted to gain insight into the types of cooking, serving, and storage activities that took place at the Lamb site.

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
- •
- Experimental Archaeology, Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Mississippian societies, Cahokia Mounds

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

The paper describes the research activities of The Cahokia Project, organized by the Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna (Italy), and the Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis (MO, USA). The archaeological project focuses on the West Plaza of Cahokia, the Mississippian site that between the 11th and 14th century was
the center of the most complex Native American polity ever developed in pre-colonial North America. Fieldwork in the West Plaza is aimed at clarifying the settlement dynamics that – over a period of roughly four centuries – led to the creation, transformation, and demise of a centrally located public space and its associated public buildings. The study of their function and use will hopefully provide new insights into the religious and political practices at the core of the Cahokian polity.

- by Davide Domenici
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- Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Cahokia Mounds

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... more