Mississippian (Other Keyword)
76-100 (256 Records)
In the Middle Ohio Valley, the Early Fort Ancient period (AD 1000 – 1200) saw significant changes to social organization reflected in the built environment. Among the most archaeologically visible of these developments was a new style of settlement – the formal village – typically consisting of spatially differentiated zones arranged in concentric circles. This study selects two Early Fort Ancient village sites from the Cincinnati area, Guard (12D29) and Turpin (33HA19); each site displays...
Five Decades of Public Archaeology at Cahokia Mounds (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology as a Public Good: Why Studying Archaeology Creates Good Careers and Good Citizens" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During nearly five decades of working in public archaeology at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, I have witnessed and experienced the importance of public awareness of archaeology and American Indian cultures and found the need to overcome stereotypes the public has about both.This has been...
Following the Shell: Pxrf Analysis on Engraved Busycon Whelk from Spiro and Cahokia (2016)
Marine shell was ubiquitous in the Mississippian Southeast. In an effort to shed light on where the shell originated, X-Ray Fluorescence analysis was done on a sample of Spiro engraved shell, and on Cahokian engraved shell. As a second line of questioning, results were separated by previously assigned styles, including Braden and Craig. At this point, sourcing with the Pxrf only points to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Coast. However, interesting questions have arisen in the data...
Fort Walton Formations: Examining Geospatial Trends in Artifacts and Architecture at the Lake Jackson Site in Florida (2018)
Located in Northwest Florida, Lake Jackson is a Fort Walton(Mississippian) period site with seven mounds, borrow pits, wall-trench architecture, and mortuary objects suggesting interregional interaction. This work examines geospatial relations between artifact distributions, known structural remains, and mound alignments in relation to the landscape. New excavation data from previously unexplored areas and digital presentations of associated artifact densities allows for new views of occupation...
Fortifications in the Eastern Woodlands of Pre-Columbian North America: An Examination of Organized Warfare during the Mississippian Period (2016)
The prevalence and ubiquity of warfare have long been recognized by scholars studying the Mississippian Era in the Eastern Woodlands. These data point to a culture(s) that often found itself in periods of conflict between competing regional polities, which is reflected in skeletal trauma rates, fortified settlements, and conflagrated villages. Our collective understanding of the geopolitical interactions and causes for this strife is subject to substantial interpretation and debate, rendering...
From Bluffs to Floodplain: A Spatial Approach to Mississippian Communities in the Ozarks of Arkansas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Spatial Archaeometry: A Survey of Recent High-Resolution Survey and Measurement Applications" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mississippian (ca. AD 1000–1500) occupation of the Ozarks in Northwest Arkansas is known through few multiple-mound ceremonial centers in river valleys and from rockshelters along limestone bluff lines. Few permanent habitation sites are recorded, and understanding how sites...
From Cave Mouth To Temple Door (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Art Style as a Communicative Tool in Archaeological Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I suggest that at some point in the development of the Braden art style that the 3D flint-clay statuettes (AD 1100–1175) take the place of the earlier Braden-style paintings (AD 900–1000) found in caves and rockshelters, while temples (BBB Motor Site) that house the flint-clay statuettes substitute for the caves that housed...
Game On: Ceramic Discoidals from the Lamar Site (2018)
Ceramic discoidals represent a commonplace but often overlooked artifact found at many Mississippian sites. Generally, these important cultural objects are classified by archaeologists as gaming pieces. This assumption is based on European descriptions of Native American games. However, uncertainty remains regarding the function and significance of this class of artifact with no conclusive evidence that discoidals were used exclusively for games. Additionally, comparing ceramic discoidals with...
Gauging Style: A Stylistic Analysis of Arkansas and Red River Valley Earspools (2017)
Archaeologists have theorized that earspools functioned as symbolic adornments of high social status. However, earspools may also indicate the localized cultural practices of smaller communities within a larger region and highlight the role of specific individuals. By focusing on the sizes, material types, and decorative elements, I discuss the stylistic variations found within the temporal and spatial distribution of earspools in the Arkansas and Red River Valleys. These variations may indicate...
A Gendered Approach to Assessing Differences in the Hominy Foodway in Central Alabama (2017)
Between A.D. 1000-1120, groups living in the Black Warrior Valley of west-central Alabama adopted maize agriculture and began practicing an ancestral hominy foodway that not only included nixtamalizing culinary steps, but also included the use and production of a new ceramic technology, the Mississippian standard jar, as well as a new cooking technique, hot coal cooking. Curiously, while groups to the east of the valley also adopted maize and began cooking hominy, they forewent other material...
Geophysics and Excavations at a Tribally Owned Heritage Site in the Red Wing Region, Southeastern Minnesota (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A multiyear collaborative process led to the Prairie Island Indian Community acquiring 120 contiguous acres containing two major villages and more than 90 known associated burial mounds on the north side of the Cannon River, near Red Wing, Minnesota. Archeologists have known about the site complex for more than 140 years, but other than partial mound...
GINI and the Indigenous Critique: Dynamics of Equality and Inequality in Eastern North America (2023)
This is an abstract from the "To Have and Have Not: A Progress Report on the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) Project" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we utilize the systemic, empirically driven methodology developed by the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) project in order to evaluate and compare differences in wealth accumulation for Indigenous eastern North American societies. These societies were predominantly...
GIS as Method or Theory: The Settlement Ecology of Middle-Range Societies in Southeastern North America, AD 1000-1600 (2016)
In this paper, I explore the relationship between method and theory in spatial archaeology that employs Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I do this through an examination of the settlement ecology of societies of varying sociopolitical complexity in the Southeastern United States. I use GIS to estimate past environments and landscapes and record attributes of settlement sites, their catchments, and surrounding areas, which I then analyze using spatial statistical methods. Comparisons of...
Glenn A. Black and the Lessons of Big Site/Big Science Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Sins of Our Ancestors (and of Ourselves): Confronting Archaeological Legacies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Large-scale excavations in the first half of the 20th century, like those conducted by Glenn Black at Angel Mounds, were a means to deliver archaeology from its antiquarian roots to legitimate scientific practice. Though this transformation led to innovative methods, amassed collections of unprecedented size...
GPR Survey of the Brown Mound at Spiro (2017)
This poster presents the results of GPR survey at the Brown Mound, an earthen platform mound at the Spiro site in eastern Oklahoma. The mound was targeted by looters in the 1930s and was subsequently tested in the 1930s and 1980s by professional archaeologists. However, Brown Mound remains poorly understood because, for the most part, these excavations did not extend deeply enough to provide good information on mound stratigraphy or internal features. Our survey obtained nearly 100% coverage of...
Greeting the Dawn: Investigations of Cahokia's East Plaza (2017)
This paper provides an investigation of Cahokia’s East plaza and its associated architectural remains. Defined here as the area bounded by Mounds 31, 36, 38 (Monk’s Mound), and 51, the plaza was initially distinguished by an absence of surface debris, noted during controlled surface collection efforts in the Ramey Tract by Elizabeth D. Benchley and Barbara J. Vander Leest. Based largely on ceramics that were acquired by these investigators, the proposed time of construction has been placed...
Ground truthing Cahokia's Feature X anomaly (2017)
A huge resistivity anomaly discovered several hundred meters NE of Monks Mound was subjected to coring and test excavations in 2012. This testing revealed a series of major prehistoric landscape uses/modifications through time, some quite unexpected. The prehistoric sequence of events at this location, though still in need of further clarification, appear to infer significant shifts in communal priorities through time.
Have Chert Will Travel: Anisotropic Transportation Cost Models of the Valuable Mill Creek Chert Hoe (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mill Creek hoe industry was integral to the political consolidation of Greater Cahokia. Manufactured at the chert quarries in southern Illinois and distributed throughout the Mississippi valley, previous research examined the relationship between Mill Creek hoe abundance and straight-line distance between source and site to produce characteristic fall-off...
Heading for the Hills: The Middle Cumberland Region to Upper Tennessee Valley Migration (2018)
By 1300 CE, the people of the Middle Cumberland region were on the move, a migration related at least in part to climatic instability including multiple drought episodes. Numerous types of evidence suggest that some of these migrants went to East Tennessee. We discuss possible material culture evidence for this migration from several East Tennessee sites, but with an emphasis on the Long Island site, now located in the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar reservoir and near the base of the...
Heavens on Earth: Cave Imagery and the Legacies of Mississippian Ceremonialism (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Art Style as a Communicative Tool in Archaeological Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cave art is amongst the earliest evidence of art in the North American Southeast, and was instrumental in establishing Early Mississippian period iconographic styles. Exploring the imagery found in caves across different cultural regions provides alternative contexts to understand distinct belief systems and ritual practices....
Hidden in Plain Sight: Mississippi Plain Pottery as an Indicator of Movement on the Mississippian Periphery (2018)
Shell tempered pottery with smoothed surfaces, widely referred to as Mississippi Plain Pottery, is a ubiquitous but understudied element of Mississippian assemblages throughout the Midwest and Southeast. Along the northeastern Mississippian periphery, shell tempered plain pots and body sherds are present but have not been formally considered. Through analysis and direct dating of early Fort Ancient (c. AD 1000-1300) ceramic assemblages, we suggest that Mississippi Plain pottery appears early at...
A History of Convergences: Timescales, Temporalities, and Mississippian Beginnings (2015)
An early Mississippian world came about at and around Cahokia in the eleventh century CE owing to the convergences of people with other organisms, celestial objects, atmospheric conditions, landforms, and elements, each with their own distinctive temporalities and affects. Understanding those convergences historically entails grappling with timing and duration, and we offer a Bayesian reading of the latest radiocarbon datasets considered against the backdrop of the suspected periodicities of the...
The Hoecake Site:Marking the Woodland-Mississippian Transition in Southeast Missouri. (2015)
The Hoecake site is a Late Woodland to Early Mississippian (A.D. 500-1100) site, located in the Cairo Lowland in southeast Missouri. This mound site contained as many as thirty to fifty mounds at one time, some of which contained burials. Multiple excavations were done at the site in the 1960s as part of the land leveling salvage archaeological work done in the area at the time. Other than an initial report of the excavations, no major analysis has been done on the site until now. The...
Household-level production and consumption at South-Cape, a Mississippian hinterland site in southeast Missouri (2017)
Mississippian archaeology displays a longstanding bias towards the study of large, mound-bearing sites. Studies of small, "hinterland" sites that lack mounds are relatively uncommon. Our research addresses this problem through a study of flaked stone tool technological organization at South Cape, a Mississippian hinterland site (23CG8) that is located in southeast Missouri and does not contain mounds. We compare flaked stone artifacts from two house features, including one that may have been the...
Households, Communities, and the History of Etowah (2016)
Etowah was the home of Mississippian period communities for 550 years. During that time, three distinct communities were created: an initial founding followed by two reoccupations after periods of abandonment. Because abandonment creates points in the life of a community where local traditions can be questioned and modified, they can lead to novel ways of casting identity, social relations, and history. With each new community created at Etowah, households and the larger built environment were...