Assessing the Nature and Pace of Platform Mound Construction in Cahokia's Ramey Field

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Geoarchaeology and Environmental Archaeology Perspectives on Earthen-Built Constructions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

First detected by Charles Bareis in 1969 in Cahokia’s Ramey Field tract, Mound 17 (the Bareis Mound) was partially exposed beneath artificially mixed plaza fills, immediately west of the palisade wall that bounds the eastern extremity of the site core. Following an analysis of Bareis’s collections from the 1969 field season in 2019, two consecutive field seasons were undertaken to understand the nature, timing, and spatial extent of Mound 17’s construction. Using multiple geophysical prospection methods, soil probing, targeted excavations that expanded from Bareis’s original trenches, micromorphological sampling, Bayesian modeling of sampled AMS dates, and the analysis of contextually associated artifacts, Mound 17’s construction sequence was determined with attention to micromorphological clues and Bayesian modeled AMS dates, in order to accurately assess the cultural context and pace of mound construction between the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE. Bayesian modeled AMS dates indicate a 19-year construction span for Mound 17, and micromorphological thin sections that lack evidence of construction surface weathering indicate that construction occurred within a few weeks. Considering experimental labor estimates and local meteorology in west-central Illinois, Mound 17’s construction is evaluated as a punctuated event in Cahokia’s history, repeated at varying scales during Cahokia’s overall occupation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances in Geoarchaeology and Environmental Archaeology Perspectives on Earthen-Built Constructions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39247.0