Explore the vast range of titles available.

Much of what is known about the Indigenous city of Cahokia, located in and influential on the North American midcontinent during the eleventh through fourteenth centuries AD, derives from decades of salvage, research, and CRM excavations in the surrounding American Bottom region. We use this robust dataset to explore patterns of building conflagration that suggest these practices of burning were part of pre-Mississippian traditions that were bundled into new Cahokian landscapes during the early consolidation of the city. These bundled practices entangled sources of power that were at once political and religious, thus transforming the practices and meanings associated with terminating building use via fire. Mucho de lo que se conoce sobre la ciudad indígena de Cahokia, ubicada en el medio continente norteamericano durante los siglos XI al XIV dC, deriva de décadas de excavaciones de rescate, investigación y CRM en la región circundante de América. Utilizamos este sólido conjunto de datos para explorar patrones de conflagración de edificios, lo que sugiere que estas prácticas de quema fueron parte de las tradiciones pre-Mississippian que se incluyeron en los nuevos paisajes de Cahokian durante la consolidación temprana de la ciudad. Estas prácticas agrupadas enmarañaron fuentes de poder que eran a la vez políticas y religiosas, transformando así las prácticas y los significados asociados con la terminación del uso del edificio a través del fuego.

Plants and animals play a vital role in the human experience, from providing basic sustenance to creating unique social practices that may govern familial, political, or religious experiences; reconstitute identities; or forge social relationships. In this article, we present analyses on the ethnobotanical and zoological remains recently recovered from the Spring Lake Tract, Cahokia, a neighborhood populated from approximately AD 900 to 1275. The assemblage represents a variety of plants and animals that demonstrate the diverse utility of the biota from the region. We conclude that this assemblage indicates that this neighborhood community participated in an array of practices not easily dichotomized into “ritual” or “domestic.” From the perspectives of “Place-Thought” and locality, we emphasize the agency of these entities (plant/animal/human) in the process of creating and sustaining this Cahokian neighborhood.

In Relational Engagements of the Indigenous Americas, Melissa R.Baltus and Sarah E.Baires critically examine the current understanding of relationality in the Americas, covering a diverse range of topics from Indigenous cosmologies to the life-world of the Inuit dog.

“Diaspora” is typically used in reference to large-scale population dispersals across borders of modern nation-states. This concept has particular connotations with regard to political dynamics and the creation of social identities of difference; however, similar movements of people who retain an identity of a collective “homeland” may be useful for understanding some aspects of cultural influence and complexity in the Mississippian Southeast. Here, we consider the debate over concepts of “diaspora” and “homeland,” identifying aspects of diaspora theory that provide a useful lens through which to understand Cahokia’s impact in the greater Southeast, specifically in the construction of a physical, ancestral, and/or metaphorical Place of Origin as referential “homeland.” We then consider the implications of this Central Place in the context of abandonment and small-scale out-migrations within the Greater Cahokia region. While certain non-human bodies and material practices are “carried away,” others are abandoned altogether. We consider what these choices can tell us about the process of dissolution of this once-created Place of Origin, Cahokia.

Artifact caching, soil layering, and other intentional depositional practices— archaeologically defined \"ritual deposits\" of the past—are especially prevalent during the Mississippian period. Employing a perspective of relational ontology, however, we interrogate the validity of a past partitioned into religious, political, and daily spheres. Rather, this perspective emphasizes the multi-experiential and multi-dimensional aspects of social life. Meaning, intentional depositional acts can no longer be usefully described as simply \"sacred\" or \"ritual\" practices. Rather, these deposits should be explored as experiences tied to multiple layers of social life, investigating the relationships constructed through such deposits between humans, nonhuman agents, and the landscape.

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. Presentamos los resultados de una reciente prospección magnetométrica del sector Spring Lake, realizada durante el verano de 2015 en el sitio de Cahokia, localizado en la llanura aluvial del río Mississippi en el sur de Illinois. Ubicado al sureste de Woodhenge y al oeste de la Gran Plaza, este sector se encuentra al norte de dos conocidas canteras para extracción de tierra e incluye otra cantera no identificada previamente. Con base en la comparación de los resultados del gradiómetro con las posteriores excavaciones de prueba, argumentamos que esta zona de Cahokia potencialmente muestra un aumento en la densidad de construcción durante la transición entre la fase Silvícola tardía terminal y la fase Lohmann. Además, los resultados de la prospección y de las excavaciones demuestran que esta zona fue densamente ocupada entre las fases Lohmann y Stirling. Durante la fase Moorehead identificamos un posible incremento habitacional basado en la densidad estructural especulada con base en análisis estadísticos de las proporciones entre longitud y anchura y del área de las estructuras. Nuestros resultados preliminares sugieren que el sector Spring Lake vio un aumento residencial durante la fase Moorehead, lo cual es una nueva perspectiva sobre la densidad y el uso del espacio doméstico durante las fases finales de la ocupación de Cahokia.

Explores the archaeology of Mississippian communities and households using new data and advances in method and theory   Published in 1995, Mississippian Communities and Households , edited by J.Daniel Rogers and Bruce D.