Center Posts, Thunder Symbolism, and Community Organization at Cahokia Mounds, Illinois

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

North American and Mesoamerican material cultures exhibit similarities that were mistakenly seen by early diffusionists as evidence for northward migrations that catalyzed social complexity among Mississippian period (AD 1050–1500) cultures. Iconographically, assemblages from both geographic areas highlight thunder deities wielding celtiform objects as symbols of politico-religious offices, but Mississippian examples frequently include “striped pole” motifs that resemble historic and archaeological features in the middle of community spaces. These iconographic subjects reveal that arrangements of central pole features in relation to the mounds and plazas of North American sites require greater attention. In this study, we examine the arrangement of Emergent Mississippian (AD 850–1050) and Mississippian period central pole features at the Cahokia site over time to identify shifts in community spaces and interpret the distribution of authority among their inhabitants, using viewsheds modeled in a geographic information system. We hypothesize a shift occurring circa AD 1150, and run a viewshed analysis on both a modern DEM and on a re-creation of a pre-1150 DEM. Using this data, we address the changing structure of politico-religious authority at Cahokia as mediated through highly visible center poles.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33258