Cahokia (Site Name Keyword)

1-12 (12 Records)

The American Bottoms Pollen Chronology (1971)
DOCUMENT Full-Text James Schoenwetter.

Paper prepared for the 1971 Cahokia Ceramic Conference. This conference resulted in the chronological scheme of phases for American Bottoms and other Mississippian Culture sites that has remained in use to the present time. That scheme was published as Fowler, Melvin L. and R. H. Hall, 1972, Archaeological Phases at Cahokia. Illinois State Museum Research Series Papers in Anthropology No. 1. Springfield. The relationship of the pollen chronology to the ceramic phase sequence was not explored by...


Ancestors in Cosmologies (2010)
DOCUMENT Full-Text Linda Cordell. David Freidel. Kelley Hays-Gilpin. Tim Pauketat. Christine VanPool.

This article discusses the role of ancestors in New World cosmologies. Specifically, it gives examples of how ancestors mediate cosmologies through sensory experiences, things, and places. In Eastern North America, ancestors were engaged in posts, bundles, stars, mounds, and temples. In the American Southwest, “conceptual packages” of wind, water, and breath represented the cosmological force shared by humans, ancestors, and places. Mesoamericans transformed the dead into ancestors by...


Big Boy pipe (2010)
IMAGE Timothy Pauketat.

This is a pipe figurine dubbed "Big Boy." It was made at Cahokia around AD 1100-1150, but found at Spiro, Oklahoma, in a context dating to around AD 1400. Interpreted as Red Horn or Morning Star by James Brown. Note the long nose god mask earrings.


Birdman image on pottery (2010)
IMAGE Timothy Pauketat.

This is a pottery sherd from Cahokia's Tract 15B with an etched image of the birdman. Dates to about AD 1300. Photo courtesy of Tim Pauketat.


Birdman tablet (2010)
IMAGE Uploaded by: Jacob Skousen

This is the famous birdman tablet found at Cahokia. Dates to around AD 1200. Image from www.lithiccastinglab.com


Cosmic Order and Change in Pre-columbian Eastern North America (2006)
DOCUMENT Full-Text Timothy Pauketat. Christopher Carr. Robert Hall. George Lankford.

The authors attempt to understand pan-continental cultural relationships as well as explain how cosmologies developed through time in the eastern Woodlands and Great Plains of North America. To do this, the authors deal with both the overall traditions of entire populations or time periods and specific, local expressions of these overall traditions.


Cosmology in the New World
PROJECT Santa Fe Institute.

This project consists of articles written by members of Santa Fe Institute’s cosmology research group. Overall, the goal of this group is to understand the larger relationships between cosmology and society through a theoretically open-ended, comparative examination of the ancient American Southwest, Southeast, and Mesoamerica.


James Schoenwetter Pollen Research Papers
PROJECT Uploaded by: Mary Whelan

James Schoenwetter (Ph.D. Southern Illinois 1967) was a Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University. His research interests included prehistoric cultural ecology, applications of pollen analysis in archaeology and research methodology. Before his retirement in 2000 he directed the ASU Anthropology Department’s palynology lab. Pollen research by Schoenwetter and his students involved a variety of sites in Mesoamerica, North America and Europe. He directed archaeological and botanical...


A Late-Postglacial Pollen Chronology From the Central Mississippi Valley (1962)
DOCUMENT Full-Text James Schoenwetter.

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists, 1962. Discusses pollen sequence from Cahokia Creek slough profiles. Pollen diagrams missing.


Mound 72 beaded burial (2010)
IMAGE Timothy Pauketat.

This is a plan map of the beaded burial and associated sacrificial victims in Mound 72, Cahokia, Illinois. Dates between AD 1050 and 1100. The individual is lying on a falcon cape made out of beads and is interpreted by some as a possible Morning Star impersonator. Others interpret the sacrifices as Corn Mother/Evening Star (Venus). Image from Fowler et al., 1999, The Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia, Illinois State Museum, Springfield.


Pollen Studies in Southern Illinois (1967)
DOCUMENT Full-Text James Schoenwetter.

Report intended for inclusion in a volume on the archaeological salvage program undertaken in the Cahokia area of the American Bottoms under University of Illinois direction (Charles Baeris) in 1960-63. Said volume was never produced. This report identified an American Bottoms pollen sequence for Mississippian Culture occupation horizons, it offered absolute date estimates for those horizons on the basis of radiocarbon and pollen cross-dating for segments of the sequence, and it advanced...


Shaping Space: Built Space, Landscape, and Cosmology in Four Regions (2010)
DOCUMENT Full-Text Ben Nelson. Stephen Lekson. Ivan Sprajc. Kenneth Sassaman.

In this article, the authors seek to understand cosmological expressions in architecture and the built landscape in Mesoamerica, Northern Mexico, the US Southwest, and the US Southeast.