Bone Chemistry, Body Parts, and Growth Marks: Evaluating Ohio Hopewell and Cahokia Mississippian Seasonality, Subsistence, Ritual, and Feasting

Abstract

Human stable isotope values and deer utility indices have been used to reconstruct Hopewell and Mississippian diets and subsistence practices, but seasonality studies are also needed to resolve debates about feasting and elite provisioning. Dispersed Hopewell tribes foraged for food and harvested native cultigens. Seasonal feasts at earthworks helped integrate the dispersed populations. Mississippian subsistence cycles are reflected in the seasonal abundance of deposited floral and faunal remains. Pits filled in spring/summer have many fish, but few deer bones. Deer remains are abundant, but fish are rare, in pits filled during the fall/winter. Finding few deer remains in some pits at Cahokia may not mean that deer were scarce but may mean that few deer were hunted during the seasons when those trash pits were filled. Stable isotope values in human burials, analyses of floral and faunal remains from pits and middens filled throughout the year, and diachronic studies of deer size and herd stability indicate that the Cahokia elite consumed a variety of foods including substantial amounts of fish and venison. Patterns in deer element distributions in “elite“” and “non-elite” contexts suggest that venison may have been part of the tribute that was presented to high-status Cahokians.