Archaeological Investigations on the Emerald Avenue, a Potential Mississippian Period Roadway in Southwestern Illinois

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 372-393
Author(s):  
B. Jacob Skousen ◽  
Timothy H. Larson ◽  
Elizabeth Watts Malouchos ◽  
Jeffery D. Kruchten ◽  
Rebecca M. Barzilai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mississippian Period

1st Unnamed Cave: a Mississippian period cave art site in east Tennessee, USA

Antiquity ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 70 (270) ◽  
pp. 774-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles H. Faulkner ◽  
Jan F. Simek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soft Materials ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Special Group ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
East Tennessee ◽  
Cave Art

The well-protected walls and floors of deep caves are some of the few places where human markings on soft materials — sands, muds, clays — survive archaeologically. Since 1979, a special group of caves in the eastern United States has been reported with ‘mud-glyphs’ or prehistoric drawings etched in wet mud. Here, the seventh of these mud-glyph caves is described; once again, its iconography connects it to the ‘Southern Cult’ or ‘Southeast Ceremonial Complex’ of the Mississippian period.

An Ethnoarchaeological Interpretation of the Salt Life, A.D. 1200

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley A. Dumas
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Salt Production ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Cultural Ideals ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethnographic Data

This chapter narratively reconstructs the salt-making process in the Mississippian period using archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data and information. The author proposes that salt was an everyday substance for many prehistoric southeastern peoples. Her claim is grounded in biological, archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic evidence from cultures around the world who maintain that salt was important to many ancient peoples for their physical, spiritual, and social well-being. The author argues that her narrative approach, as with any useful interpretive tool, is based on data from excavations and analysis of artifacts, and that it unites cultural ideals about family, religion, housing, subsistence, reproduction, and other elements of daily life that are embedded within not only salt production and consumption but also many other practices.

Reconfiguring Regional Interactions in the Face of Cahokian Decline

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan E. Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Interaction Model ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Common ◽  
Third Dimension ◽  
Common Field

The early Mississippian Period in the midwestern United States was a time of great religious, social, economic, and political change. Several models and theories have been proposed for understanding changes in regional interactions associated with the rise of Cahokia, the largest Mississippian city. However, the later dissolution of Cahokia and other Mississippian centers during the twelfth through fourteenth centuries and their impacts on regional interactions are poorly understood. This chapter assesses the utility of the Cross-Cultural Interaction Model for Mississippian Period during the late twelfth through fourteenth centuries in the Midwest. Additionally, this chapter proposes the addition of a third dimension to the model in order to account for indigenous ontological perspectives with regard to entanglements between political reorganization and cosmological realms. Particular attention is given to the Common Field site, a political and religious center located in a region that had been sparsely populated prior to AD 1200.

Mississippian Period Status Differentiation through Textile Analysis: A Caddoan Example

1993 ◽  
Vol 58 (01) ◽  
pp. 125-145
Author(s):  
Jenna Tedrick Kuttruff
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Recognition ◽  
Contingency Tables ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Status Differentiation ◽  
Textile Analysis ◽  
Status Differences ◽  
Ordinal Index ◽  
Color Patterning

Specific attributes were recorded for 119 textiles recovered from burial contexts from Craig Mound at the Spiro site and eight southern Ozark bluff shelters. Textile attributes that varied according to status designations of the burial contexts were identified using the following three avenues of investigation. The textiles were rated using an ordinal index of production complexity, and more complex textiles were found to be associated with burial contexts of presumed higher status. Use of a series of contingency tables identified edge finishes, color, patterning, design motif, fiber, and scale as attributes that are individually associated with status differences. When selected attributes were considered together using a classification and pattern-recognition program, color description, scale, fiber, and number of yarn components were identified as the best predictors of status association.

The Vacant Quarter Revisited: Late Mississippian Abandonment of the Lower Ohio Valley

2002 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Cobb ◽  
Brian M. Butler
Keyword(s):  
Ohio River ◽  
Ohio Valley ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Eastern Woodlands ◽  
Hill Country ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
The North ◽  
Unique Event ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon

The idea that a substantial portion of the North American midcontinent centered on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers confluence was largely depopulated around A.D. 1450–1550—Stephen Williams's “Vacant Quarter” hypothesis—has been generally accepted by archaeologists. There has been, however, some disagreement over the timing and extent of the abandonment. Our long-term research along the Ohio River in southern Illinois's interior hill country has yielded a substantial corpus of late Mississippian period radiocarbon dates, indicating that depopulation of the lower Ohio Valley occurred at the early end of Williams's estimate. Furthermore, the abandonment was a widespread phenomenon that involved Mississippian groups living in remote settings, as well as along major drainages. Although causes for the Vacant Quarter are still debated, evidence from other regions indicates that regional abandonment by agricultural groups was not a unique event in the Eastern Woodlands.

Place of Origin of Prehistoric Inhabitants of Aztalan, Jefferson Co., Wisconsin

2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 524-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Douglas Price ◽  
James H. Burton ◽  
James B. Stoltman
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Jefferson County ◽  
Human Teeth ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mississippian Culture ◽  
Isotopic Signal

The archaeological site of Aztalan in southeastern Wisconsin is a large, palisaded complex of mounds and other structures along the banks of the Crawfish River in Jefferson County. The unusual nature of this settlement has been noted for many years and the origin of the inhabitants has been the subject of considerable debate. The similarities between the materials at Aztalan and other Mississippian period sites to the south in Illinois have long been noted. The largest center of the Mississippian culture at Cahokia near East St. Louis, Illinois, has often been cited as the likely home of the founders of Aztalan. Using strontium isotopes in human teeth and bone we examine the question of migration and the possibility of nonlocal individuals among the skeletal remains from Aztalan. Our results suggest that there were a number of foreign individuals among the locals. The isotopic signal for some of the foreigners matches values from Cahokia, but does not prove that this was their place of origin.

Evidence for Stepped Pyramids of Shell in the Woodland Period of Eastern North America

2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Pluckhahn ◽  
Victor D. Thompson ◽  
W. Jack Rink
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Construction Material ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Woodland Period ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Mississippian Period

AbstractAntiquarians of the nineteenth century referred to the largest monumental constructions in eastern North America as pyramids, but this usage faded among archaeologists by the mid-twentieth century. Pauketat (2007) has reintroduced the term pyramid to describe the larger, Mississippian-period (A.D. 1050 to 1550) mounds of the interior of the continent, recognizing recent studies that demonstrate the complexity of their construction. Such recognition is lacking for earlier mounds and for those constructed of shell. We describe the recent identification of stepped pyramids of shell from the Roberts Island Complex, located on the central Gulf Coast of Florida and dating to the terminal Late Woodland period, A.D. 800 to 1050, thus recognizing the sophistication of monument construction in an earlier time frame, using a different construction material, and taking an alternative form.

Investigations in the Cahokia Site Grand Plaza

1993 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
George R. Holley ◽  
Rinita A. Dalan ◽  
Philip A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Initial Growth ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Significant Information ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Deep Pit ◽  
Cahokia Mounds

Research designed to explore the Grand Plaza at the Cahokia Mounds site, the largest Mississippian-period mound center in the eastern United States, documents that plazas may yield significant information regarding Mississippian manipulation of the landscape and the initial growth of mound centers. Probing and excavation within the Grand Plaza revealed that buried ridge-swale topography, identified through an electromagnetic-conductivity survey, was stripped and then filled by the Cahokians. Excavation also corroborated the presence of deep-pit borrows identified by remote sensing. Based on the ceramics recovered from our excavations, we argue that these earth-moving events were initiated prior to the onset of the Mississippian period (ca. A.D. 1000). Reclamation of the borrowed areas resulted in the formation of the mound-plaza configuration early during the Mississippian period.

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