Cahokians and the Circulation of Ritual Goods in the Middle Cumberland Region

This chapter addresses the influence of human migration into the Middle Cumberland Region by examining the circulation of ritual goods as represented by four groups of objects: ceramics, shell cups and gorgets, stone tablets, and symbolic weaponry. While the presence of Ramey Incised and Cahokia Cordmarked ceramics in the MCR demonstrates the arrival of a community from the American Bottom in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the manufacture, use, and deposition of negative-painted ceramics in the MCR between A.D. 1250 and 1400 represents the adoption of motifs in contemporary use at Cahokia and the sustained interaction between a group of polities, including those in the American Bottom. The adoption of Braden-style imagery on marine shell and its association with female effigy vessels in an MCR mortuary practice centered on the graves of children reveals a pronounced ritual dedication to an Earth Mother deity in the MCR that is an important focus of our research. Furthermore, the sharing of iconography intimately associated with the Hero Twins in ceramics, marine shell, and stone tablets, and their association with symbolic weaponry, links these culture heroes with the female deity as the central figures in the religious practices of the MCR devoted to reincarnation and rebirth.

Cahokian Exports to Spiro

In the twelfth century the Spiro site emerged as a substantial northern Caddoan ritual center. The Craig Mound at Spiro reveals a long history of ritual regalia inputs from the east, especially the Mississippian urban center at Cahokia. The ritual paraphernalia indicate that the Cahokian belief system played a significant role in the religious activities associated with the great mortuary and later with the spirit lodge. Inalienable goods that reached Spiro include copper plates, flint clay sculptures, shell cups and gorgets, and symbolic weaponry. The contemporaneity of Cahokia and Spiro suggests an intrinsic ritual connection and sustained interaction over several centuries through the agency of ritual sodalities and social houses.

Cahokia Connections in Northeastern Arkansas

This chapter discusses the distribution and context of Cahokian and Spiroan related artifact finds from northeast Arkansas and adjacent regions. Arguably, the best evidence for Cahokia influence in northeastern Arkansas is the presence of shell items at four sites: two Eddyville-style gorgets from the McDuffee site; the birdman gorget from Old Town Ridge, the Greenbrier gorget and the Akron Cup. Modern dated contexts include a Cahokia Notched point find at the Kochtitzky Ditch site (ca. a.d. 1150 to 1400), and a Ramey Incised vessel with forked-eye motif from the Perry Dixon Site (a.d. 1041 to 1162). In general, the archaeological evidence for Cahokia influence or trade at its climax within northeastern Arkansas is present, but limited.

Aztalan and the Northern Tier of a Cahokia Hinterland

Cahokia’s northern hinterland can be conceptualized as extending north from the central Illinois River valley into the western and upper Great Lakes region. The northern tier of this hinterland can be thought of as a region north of the Apple River area of northwest Illinois and south of a line extending east from the mouth of the St. Croix River to the western shore of Lake Michigan. This area includes a wide range of landscapes, biotas, and cultures and this diversity is mirrored in the Cahokia-related manifestations found throughout the region. This chapter provides a brief comparison of three northern tier sites/complexes including Trempealeau, Fred Edwards, and Aztalan in order to highlight the diversity of Mississippian-related occupations in the area.

Tracking Cahokians through Material Culture

Discussions on the rise and fall of great cities or nations typically entails a list of contributing factors leading to and from florescence. What is often lacking in broad discussions is the tracking of people to and from such cultural centers. In this article, I focus on Cahokia, the largest prehistoric city north of Mexico, and explore the various types of recognizable Cahokia artifacts found scattered in all directions from the site. While I weigh the pros and cons of using these items, I argue that flint clay figurines and pipes were likely associated with the migration of Cahokian religious leaders. This notion counters the oft-cited trade network or exchange of elite goods theories assumed to account for the disbursal of such items outside greater Cahokia.

Introduction

Cahokia’s role in “Mississippianization”—or the rapid advent of monumental architecture; maize-based subsistence practices; a rich iconography; and social, political, and economic complexity—and its spread or adoption throughout the Midwest and Southeast is intriguing. The question of whether what we see in the archaeological record can be described as an “event” or a “process” drives research into examining cultural change and forces us to critically evaluate what exactly is Mississippian. Recent studies are first recognizing that what we call Mississippian culture is incredibly complex, from individual communities to broad regions whose localized development cannot be overshadowed. Second, researchers acknowledge that change is marked by historic figures, events, places, objects, landscapes, memories, traditions, beliefs, and people. The tangled web of change observed in the archaeological record is further obscured by the temporal and spatial scales of the data. However, creative models and collaborative research are elucidating the variability of Mississippianization from inception, spread, and adoption. The Cahokia site, its rise and fall as an early regional influencer of people both locally and abroad, is an important framework within which to study the development of place, memory, events, cultural traditions, and the last millennia of precontact North America.

Mississippian Origins as Viewed from the Shiloh Indian Mound Group, Western Tennessee

The Shiloh Indian Mound Group has produced a number of artifacts that appear to derive from the American Bottom area. Radiocarbon and TL dating indicates the site was occupied from the late tenth through early 14th centuries AD, with construction activity at Mound A occurring between approximately AD 1100 and 1340, with major stages erected during the early and mid-13th century. The Shiloh center was thus emerging during Cahokia’s Stirling phase, from ca. AD 1100–1200, and reached its peak during the subsequent Morehead Phase, from AD 1200–1300. Shiloh, like Cahokia itself, was abandoned sometime around AD 1300. Shiloh’s Mississippian center apparently emerged amid local Late Woodland peoples who apparently made little prior use of the location, suggesting an amalgamation of differing populations or social groups, much as Cahokia itself was likely formed.

Carson and Cahokia

The Carson Mounds Group, a large mound center located near the Mississippi River in northwestern Mississippi, has produced a complex suite of traits which suggest direct Cahokia contact. These traits include raw material, lithic technology, projectile point styles, ceramics, and architecture. This chapter describes these artifacts and their place within the Carson sequence.

The Implications of the Religious Foundations at Cahokia

In this chapter I suggest reasons why nonlocal people may have come to Cahokia on pilgrimage and why some Cahokians may have sought contact with distant peoples. My arguments are based on evidence from excavations in the greater Cahokia region, especially those at the Emerald shrine center east of Cahokia (Alt and Pauketat 2016; Pauketat and Alt 2016). As I will describe, new evidence from the Emerald shrine center leads me to suggest that religion was fundamental, if not causal, for Cahokia’s urbanism, as well as its rise as North America’s only Pre-Columbian city.

Vestiges of the Braden Corridor

The widespread exchange of masterful artworks in the Mississippian period has long been a topic of interest among North American archaeologists. The Braden Style, an artistic tradition whose origin has been placed at Cahokia, is recognizable on objects unearthed from locales that are remarkably distant from the American Bottom. In the Tallahassee Red Hills of Florida, the Lake Jackson site hosted burials in Mound 3 that contained a variety of these examples. While the contents of Mound 3’s burials have been investigated to explore ties to other major ceremonial centers in the Greater Southeast, the nature of those ties and their timing have not been fully investigated, especially in consideration of Cahokia. This chapter offers an assemblage based exploration of exchange between these two different and distant sites.