A History of Convergences: Timescales, Temporalities, and Mississippian Beginnings

Summary

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 convergent phenomena. Focusing on the timing of constructions and closures of ritual-administrative facilities at Emerald, East St. Louis, Cahokia and Trempealeau, our larger goal is a rethinking of the relationship of history and ontology.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The short and the long of it: combining timescales

Keywords

Spatial Coverage