EXPLORING NEW CAHOKIAN NEIGHBORHOODS: STRUCTURE DENSITY ESTIMATES FROM THE SPRING LAKE TRACT, CAHOKIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 742-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Baires ◽  
Melissa R. Baltus ◽  
Elizabeth Watts Malouchos
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
Density Estimates ◽  
Subsequent Test ◽  
Spring Lake ◽  
Structure Density ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Cahokia Mounds ◽  
Moorehead Phase

We present the recent results of a magnetometry survey of the Spring Lake Tract conducted during the summer of 2015 at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site located along the Mississippi River Floodplain in southern Illinois. This tract, located southeast of Woodhenge and west of the Grand Plaza, is situated north of two known borrow pits and includes an additional, previously unidentified borrow pit. Through comparing our gradiometer results with our subsequent test excavations, we argue that this area of Cahokia potentially demonstrates an increase in building density at the Spring Lake Tract during the transition between the Terminal Late Woodland and Lohmann phases. In addition, our survey and exaction results demonstrate that this area was densely occupied between the Lohmann and Stirling phases. During the Moorehead phase, we identify a possible increase in habitation based on hypothesized structure density using statistical analyses of length and width ratios (m) and structure area (m2). Our preliminary results suggest that the Spring Lake Tract saw an increase in habitation during the Moorehead phase, a new perspective on the density and use of domestic space during Cahokia's late occupational history.

Mound Building and Prestige Goods Exchange: Changing Strategies in the Cahokia Chiefdom

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 669-690 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth D. Trubitt
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Craft Production ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
Leadership Strategy ◽  
The Status ◽  
Moorehead Phase ◽  
Late Phenomenon

I examine the shift, at about A.D. 1200 in the Mississippi River Valley Cahokia polity, from emphasizing the status and prestige of communal groups through monumental constructions to displaying and maintaining the status and prestige of individual elites using prestige goods. I interpret this transformation as a change from a “corporate” to a “network” leadership strategy. Archaeologically, these alternative strategies show up as differences in monumental construction, wealth differentiation, craft production, and exchange networks. The Moorehead phase (A.D. 1200-1275) is typically characterized as the time of Cahokia’s decline because of decreased mound building and population levels. My examination of archaeological indicators of household status and craft production reveals maximal differences between household units in status and marine shell working after A.D. 1200, with increased centralization of shell working and more intensive production by higher-status households. I argue that elite control of craft production, if present, was a late phenomenon. Rather than a decline at A.D. 1200, changes in the archaeological indicators of complexity reflect changes in the ways that power was expressed and maintained by elites in Cahokian society.

Defining archaeological features with electromagnetic surveys at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

Geophysics ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 56 (8) ◽  
pp. 1280-1287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rinita A. Dalan
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
Central Portion ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
Landscape Modification ◽  
Flat Area ◽  
Promising Area ◽  
Cahokia Mounds ◽  
A Site ◽  
Archaeological Excavations ◽  
Area Of Application

Electromagnetic (EM) surveys have been used at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in southwestern Illinois to locate and define a number of buried archaeological features. Two instruments, Geonics EM31-D and EM38 conductivity meters, were employed to locate portions of a wooden stockade known as the Central Palisade; delineate a number of leveled earthen mounds; and explore a broad, flat area in the central portion of the site known as the Grand Plaza. EM surveys, together with limited excavation, provide a cost effective and nondestructive means of exploring a site as large and complex as Cahokia. Archaeological excavations confirmed that EM surveys were able to locate the Central Palisade, and more importantly, that they provided information on anthropogenically modified terrain within the Grand Plaza. The EM survey documented buried ridge and swale topography and borrow pits within this area. This evidence of landscape modification challenges previous conceptions about the extent of earthmoving at this important Mississippian center and suggests a promising area of application for EM surveys in archaeology.

The Effect of Exogenous Fluoride on the Calcium PUMP, Ciliary Activity, and Shell Formation of the Fingernail Clam, Musculium Transversum

1982 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 58-59
Author(s):  
Anthony Paparo ◽  
Judy A. Murphy ◽  
Robert Dean
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Calcium Pump ◽  
Bottom Fauna ◽  
Ciliary Activity ◽  
Shell Formation ◽  
Middle Reach ◽  
Shell Matrix ◽  
Fingernail Clams ◽  
Ca Carbonate

In the mid-1950's, fingernail clams virtually disappeared from a 100-mile section of the IL River, a tributary of the Mississippi River, due to unknown causes. A survey of the bottom fauna of the IL River in 1979, revealed that the clams were still absent from the middle reach of the River, where they had been abundant prior to the die-off in the 1950's. Some factor(s) in the River currently prevent the clams from recolonizing areas where they were formerly abundant. Recently, clams exposed to fluoride developed abnormal grooves in the shell matrix. Fluorides are known to be protoplasmic poisons removing essential body calcium by precipitation. Since the shell consists primarily of Ca carbonate, this investigation examines the possible role of fluoride on shell formation and the poisoning of the Ca pump which can directly inhibit lateral ciliary activity on the gill.

SREM observation of the interaction between the in-situ deposited Pd small particles and MgO cleavage surface

1986 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 382-383
Author(s):  
H.-J. Ou
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Small Particle ◽  
Small Particles ◽  
Cleavage Surface ◽  
Metallic Particles ◽  
Microscopy Technique ◽  
Ceramic Surfaces ◽  
Reflection Electron Microscopy ◽  
New Perspective

The understanding of the interactions between the small metallic particles and ceramic surfaces has been studied by many catalyst scientists. We had developed Scanning Reflection Electron Microscopy technique to study surface structure of MgO hulk cleaved surface and the interaction with the small particle of metals. Resolutions of 10Å has shown the periodic array of surface atomic steps on MgO. The SREM observation of the interaction between the metallic particles and the surface may provide a new perspective on such processes.

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