Pilgrimage Centers, Infrastructure, and Cahokian Politics

Summary

Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that pilgrimage centers were vital to the infrastructure, politics, and religions of cities and civilizations throughout the ancient world. The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia was no different. In this paper, I argue that the Emerald site, a major pilgrimage center east of Cahokia, was integral to the formation of a new political-religious order circa A.D. 1050. Ceramic, architectural, and botanical data show that large groups periodically gathered there to feast, participate in large-scale construction projects, witness rare lunar events, and renew ties with kin and other-worldly beings and powers. I contend that intermittent public gatherings at Emerald allowed continual negotiations between people of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, which in turn created a communal identity that made this new orthodoxy possible. Emerald, like other pilgrimage centers throughout the world, was an important place where Cahokian politics and religion were simultaneously constructed, enacted, and experienced. Furthermore, this case underscores the problem of examining infrastructural projects, politics, and religion separately.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Technopolitics of Ancient Infrastructures

Keywords

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