Redrawing the Arrows of Mississippianization to and from the Central Illinois River Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Seeing Migrant and Diaspora Communities Archaeologically: Beyond the Cultural Fixity/Fluidity Binary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The rise of Cahokia, the largest precolumbian Native American city north of Mexico, and the rapid spread of Mississippian culture across the midcontinental and southeastern United States after 1000 CE have long been a focus of archaeological inquiry. From early theories of cultural diffusion to more recent scholarship on diaspora and migration, scholars have continued to debate the complexity, historicity, and directionality of the centrifugal and centripetal movements tied to this unique and monumental place. Using the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) as a case study, we offer a unique take on Mississippian origins and the history of culture contact in Cahokia’s northern hinterlands. We present data from our recent excavations at Fandel Mounds, the earliest Mississippian mound center in the Peoria Lake area, which was founded simultaneously with Cahokia ca. 1050 CE. Transcending an older “arrows out of Cahokia” narrative that conjured up notions of high-status Cahokians heading off to distant lands with fully formed Mississippian ideas and practices that were then emulated by hinterland groups, we argue that the social and political interactions at Fandel Mounds, including religious ceremonialism, helped constitute the means through which Mississippian culture emerged in the greater Cahokia area and beyond.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Seeing Migrant and Diaspora Communities Archaeologically: Beyond the Cultural Fixity/Fluidity Binary   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36831.0