Shell Bead Production at Cahokia

Summary

Cahokia (c. 1050-1400AD) was the largest pre-Columbian city in North America and had far-reaching influence across the Mississippian world. Initially considered a chiefdom, recent reappraisals have cast doubt on the applicability of traditional social evolutionary models to Cahokia, suggesting it is best understood on its own terms as a historical phenomenon. One significant facet of the Cahokian prestige goods economy involved the production, distribution, and circulation of large numbers of shell beads, an important component of mortuary practices. This analysis examined 10,000 of the estimated 60,000 shell beads recovered from the Mound 72 ("birdman") burial at Cahokia. Beads were measured for diameter and thickness, and coded for a number of traits including shape, perforation type, and use-wear. Low standard deviations in bead dimensions are indicative of standardization and batch production, resulting in thousands of disc-shaped shell beads that are nearly identical in size. This suggests that the production of beads at Cahokia and surrounding sites was an ongoing, highly-organized, labor-intensive industry. We conclude by exploring the implications of this process for labor organization, including potentially gendered and age-related aspects of bead production, and more generally for our understanding of cultural complexity at Cahokia and surrounding areas in the American Bottom.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage