Avian Iconography at Spiro Mounds

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Much of the research and scholarship in Southeastern iconography focused on birds and avian or avian anthropomorphic imagery emphasizes connections to warfare, especially raptors and woodpeckers. While some research has discussed how birds relate to broader patterns in iconography, notable gaps in literature exist pertaining to how birds are integrated into the wider corpus of engraved shell iconography. In this paper, I discuss how birds and avian-related iconography intersect with other zoomorphic images on the engraved shell from Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma, when faunal materials and the interactive network of sites connected to Spiro are considered. In particular, I interrogate how positionality of birds, stylistic variance, and additional iconographic elements can provide a usefully nuanced understanding of how birds and avian imagery depicted on engraved shell from Spiro impact archaeological interpretations of the Spiroan community.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33453