Mississippian Culture Research Articles

Ancient and historical cooking pots and food: an eternal communion. A topical review

AbstractThis contribution provides a topical view at and review of traditional clay‐based utilitarian cooking pots that were used for millennia to prepare, serve, display, and distribute foodstuff. Key mechanical and thermal properties of ceramic cooking vessels will be discussed and strategies of property optimization outlined. In addition, some important chemical changes food constituents undergo during cooking will be explained. Mass‐produced ancient ceramic cooking pots from Neolithic Mesopotamia have revolutionized the art of cooking by allowing foodstuff to be processed in water. As an example of successfully optimizing the properties of cooking vessels, emphasis is being given to Indigenous prehistoric North American ware of the Mississippian culture (c. 800 to 1600 CE) that show impressively how ancient potters overcame the technological challenges posed by essentially unsuitable smectite‐rich clays with extreme plasticity and high swell–shrink ratio by adding copious amounts of burnt mussel shells as temper material.

Above and below the Green Line: a social history of divergent Mississippian cultures

ABSTRACT A cultural boundary between Late Mississippi period groups has long been observed in the Yazoo Basin corresponding with the mouth of the Arkansas River. However, similarities in mound site structure, settlement location, and processes associated with Mississippianization have sometimes led researchers to downplay these differences, effectively treating the Yazoo Basin as a single physiographic and cultural unit. We examine the idea that subtle differences in physiography within the Yazoo Basin can account for observed differences in material culture. We find that while physiography explains site location and may have influenced how Mississippian people interacted, it does not explain residential patterns, mound site use, or interactions with people from the American Bottom during the “Cahokia horizon.” Instead, we argue that Mississippi period mound sites in the northern and southern Yazoo Basin differed fundamentally in their functions, and that these differences are rooted in Late Woodland Coles Creek and Baytown notions of dwelling and ceremonial practice.

Sourcing Mississippian pottery among the complex maritime cultures of Florida’s peninsular Gulf coast

In eastern North America after ca. AD 1050, the spread of Mississippian cultures sparked widespread transformations to economy, material culture, political structure, and ideology. “Mississippianization” influenced the politically complex maritime polities of Florida’s peninsular Gulf coast, but the lack of maize agriculture indicates changes played out differently than among many inland polities. Mississippian-style pottery sherds deposited widely in mounds and in middens at the largest administrative centers are perhaps the clearest evidence of connections to the Mississippian world. We conducted a provenance study using neutron activation analysis of 303 Mississippi Period pottery vessels from 18 sites on Florida’s peninsular Gulf coast to investigate how and from where coastal communities acquired Mississippian vessel forms, paste recipes, and iconography. The sample includes numerous Mississippian-related pottery types as well as Pinellas Plain, one of the local utilitarian wares. Four chemical groups are defined, three of which are local to the peninsular Gulf coast and one that is associated with the “Deep South,” defined here as the inland Florida panhandle and Chattahoochee River area of southern Georgia. Our results indicate that most Mississippian-style vessels were locally made but used clay sources different from some utilitarian wares such as Pinellas Plain. Using distinctive clays and paste recipes, local production of Mississippian vessels may have been controlled by competing kin-based corporate groups affiliated with each mound center. The widespread low frequency of nonlocal Mississippian sherds from the Deep South shows persistent connections to inland Fort Walton and Rood Phase polities, possibly in relation to training of coastal potters. A greater prevalence of pottery from the Deep South at Shell Creek (8LL8) at the southern edge of the sampling region may reflect a polity with greater success in acquiring prestige goods, perhaps associated with the strong and expansive political power of the Calusa.

Combining Remote Sensing Approaches for Detecting Marks of Archaeological and Demolished Constructions in Cahokia’s Grand Plaza, Southwestern Illinois

Remote sensing data are increasingly being used in digital archaeology for the potential non-invasive detection of archaeological remains. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the capability of standalone (LiDAR and aerial photogrammetry) and integration/fusion remote sensing approaches in improving the prospecting and interpretation of archaeological remains in Cahokia’s Grand Plaza. Cahokia Mounds is an ancient area; it was the largest settlement of the Mississippian culture located in southwestern Illinois, USA. There are a limited number of studies combining LiDAR and aerial photogrammetry to extract archaeological features. This article, therefore, combines LiDAR with photogrammetric data to create new datasets and investigate whether the new data can enhance the detection of archaeological/ demolished structures in comparison to the standalone approaches. The investigations are implemented based on the hillshade, gradient, and sky view factor visual analysis techniques, which have various merits in revealing topographic features. The outcomes of this research illustrate that combining data derived from different sources can not only confirm the detection of remains but can also reveal more remains than standalone approaches. This study demonstrates that the use of combination remote sensing approaches provides archaeologists with another powerful tool for site analysis.

The Other Large Bifaces: Late Mississippian Woodworking Tools from Southwestern Indiana

Abstract Mississippian cultures left behind two types of large utilitarian bifaces: hoes and so-called woodworking tools. The former have attracted considerable scholarly attention, while the latter have not. We attempt to address this bias by focusing on a substantial number of woodworking tools from three sites in southwestern Indiana. All belong to Caborn-Welborn, a late Mississippian culture that developed at the Ohio-Wabash confluence after the decline of the Angel polity and the establishment of the “Vacant Quarter” across a large portion of the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. In this article, we examine these specimens’ technomorphological characteristics and use-wear traces, as well as the sources of the cherts from which they were made. In addition, our study has two comparative components: First, we investigate similarities and differences between the Caborn-Welborn woodworking tools and those from both the Angel culture and other parts of the Mississippian world; second, we explore the woodworking tools in relation to hoes from both Caborn-Welborn and Angel phase sites.

Against Method

Against Method

Finding a New Illinois History: Connecting with the Revival of Midwestern Regional History

Finding a New Illinois History: Connecting with the Revival of Midwestern Regional History

Functional and Stylistic Considerations of Mixed Grog- and Shell-Tempered Late Mississippian Pottery from the Nashville Basin

Abstract Mississippian period ceramic assemblages in the Nashville Basin region of Tennessee are traditionally viewed as being overwhelmingly shell tempered. Our petrographic analyses of 30 ceramic sherds from three Middle Cumberland sites have revealed, however, the presence of grog, or crushed potsherds, in shell-tempered pastes in over 40% of our specimens. In our study, serving vessels are often tempered with both shell and grog, with one bowl rim containing solely grog. Cooking vessels tend to be tempered with coarse shell and contain only incidental grog. Grog tempering alongside shell has been only occasionally noted elsewhere in the regional literature, but the lack of its widespread recognition may be due to the difficulty of identification without the assistance of a petrographic microscope. It is not clear whether the addition of small grog particles to a shell-tempered paste offers any immediate functional advantages. Other studies suggest that grog temper could improve the workability of the clay, may reduce thermal shock, and may enhance a vessel's resistance to mechanical stress. The strong correlation of fine grog and shell temper with bowls, however, may constitute a low-visibility horizon marker for an extensive swath of the Late Mississippian culture area.

Monument volumes and viewshed analysis at the Carson mounds site (22CO505), Coahoma County, Mississippi

Earthen mound construction is a cultural practice in the American Southeast that has over 5000 years of history. During this time, earthen mounds were variously associated with mortuary rituals, communal practices, social and political leadership, and/or cosmological structures of the universe. After CE 1200 in Mississippi’s Yazoo Basin, a floodplain of the Mississippi River stretching from Memphis to Vicksburg, numerous large, fortified and mounded towns were constructed. At these sites there is significant variation in numbers of mounds and mound volume. Blitz and Livingood and Payne stipulate in earlier studies that most earthen mounds were built slowly by kin groups for community integration and possibly flood relief. They also suggest that large mounds at large sites take on meanings of hierarchy and leadership. Using Peircean semiotics, Jerry Moore’s concept of relative scale, and with data compiled by Blitz and Livingood and Payne, this study evaluates mound volume and monumental viewsheds at the Carson site, a large Mississippian culture settlement that once had over 88 earthen mounds, some of which were small house mounds, and some of which were monumental.

Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, ed., Social Inequality in Early Medieval Europe: Local Societies and Beyond. Collection Haut Moyen Âge, 39. Turnhout, Belgium, 2020. 360 pp.

Abstract This collection of articles grew out of a 2016 symposium, “Archaeology of Social In­equality in Early Medieval Europe,” that honored the interdisciplinary work of historian Chris Wickham, who also provides the conclusion to this publication while J. A. Quirós Castillo wrote the introduction. The topic of social inequality in this context refers to the creation of the state, followed by the development of class systems, the basis of social inequality. Here the historian and the archaeologist join in a common effort to examine the beginnings and evolution of social inequality through both documentary evidence, and material evidence, ranging from pottery fragments to funeral practices. This collection focuses on the Iberian Peninsula with the occasional foray into Italy, one article on France, one on Portugal, and one on Mississippian culture.

Native American Log Cabins in the Southeast ed. by Gregory A. Waselkov

Reviewed by: Native American Log Cabins in the Southeast ed. by Gregory A. Waselkov Benjamin J. Hoksbergen Native American Log Cabins in the Southeast. Edited by Gregory A. Waselkov. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2019. 236 pp. $45.00. ISBN 978-1-6219-0504-2. In March of 2017, I had the privilege of joining Greg Waselkov, his longtime collaborator, Craig Sheldon, and several other colleagues for a day of excavation on site 1Lo210, the historic location of Ikanachaki, or "Holy Ground," the town established by the Creek prophet Josiah Francis in 1813 as a place of defensive aggregation of Redstick Creeks. The town is perhaps best known as the staging ground for the attack on Fort Mims in August of 1813. The site had only been discovered five years prior and was remarkably intact. To the trained eye, the footprints of Creek cabins could be discerned right on the forested surface of the site. Excavations revealed a midden of early nineteenth-century Creek artifacts and architectural features associated with the cabins. Many of these were features only an archaeologist could---little more than stains in the soil marking prepared clay hearths, bases of stick-and-mud chimneys, shallow trenches for wall sills, and pits dug as sources for clay chinking. Nonetheless, careful excavation and analysis of these well-preserved features that could have easily been eradicated by a single swipe of a plow blade or through indiscriminate digging by artifact collectors (as has been the case on so many similar sites), revealed unprecedented details of early nineteenth-century Creek architecture. These discoveries were the impetus for a 2016 symposium at the 73rd annual meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Athens, Georgia, which became the basis for this edited volume. The book draws together contributors from across the region and covers numerous topics, including chapters on the architecture of [End Page 256] the Upper Creeks of central Alabama and Georgia, the Catawba of southwestern North Carolina, the Cherokee of northern Georgia and western North Carolina, and the Choctaw of east-central Mississippi. The common thread is the seemingly radical shift in residential architecture among these various Native American communities from traditional wattle-and-daub thatched-roof houses rooted in Pre-Columbian Mississippian culture to Euro-American style log cabins beginning in the late eighteenth century. In all the myriad aspects of material culture, the buildings in which we shelter and nourish our families are among the most personal reflections of our relationship to our broader community and our cultural norms and traditions. Yet a simple glance at house styles within our own culture---not to mention across cultures globally-attests to the infinite diversity possible within domestic architecture. Selection of a house style is strictly governed by a number of variables ranging from the material (the cost or availability of raw materials), to the social (the impression on our neighbors), to the psychological (comfort and familiarity). Thus, the overarching question explored in the book: Why did Native American groups across the Southeast adopt foreign modes of house construction during a period of rapid change and uncertainty when the predicted tendency would be to embrace the familiar and traditional? As with most anthropological questions, a reader looking for a simple answer will be disappointed. The contributors all draw on an impressive multidisciplinary corpus of evidence which demonstrates that the shift in house style was not as radical and universal as it first appears. Through careful analysis of archaeological data, along with historical sources including contemporary eyewitness accounts, census reports and property assessments, and even artwork, the authors develop careful timelines for the changes in domestic architecture. In so doing, they document intermediate and hybrid styles and the contemporaneity of various styles within individual communities. They also identify vestiges of traditional elements in many Native American log houses including central hearths without chimneys and cellars dug below the floors of some Cherokee cabins that appear to have served similar functions [End Page 257] as the o:si, or winter houses, which were foci for Cherokee traditional and ritual practices. In general, however, the studies document a very real trend away from traditional Native American house styles toward log cabins...

Mississippian Culture and Cahokian Identities as Considered Through Household Archaeology at Carson, a Monumental Center in North Mississippi

The Carson site in northwest Mississippi is a monumental Mississippian center with evidence of large and small earthen mounds, an extensive palisaded village, and a bundle-burial mortuary complex. Over 70 houses have been uncovered from over a decade of salvage excavations at the site; these households bear evidence of local populations in the form of ceramics and stone tools, often belonging to the Parchman phase. In addition, numerous household structures that bear resemblance to Mississippian buildings from Cahokia and the American Bottom and that date to the Lohmann, Stirling, and Moorehead phases have also been discovered. The presence of these non-local structures and their material culture has provoked continued discussion on the nature of interactions between these two important centers. Herein, we offer a discussion on the nature of trade, diaspora, and Mississippian culture at Carson based on the analysis of material culture and architecture bearing Cahokian influences.

Late Quaternary vegetation, climate, and fire history of the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Plain based on a 30,000-yr multi-proxy record from White Pond, South Carolina, USA

AbstractThe patterns and drivers of late Quaternary vegetation dynamics in the southeastern United States are poorly understood due to low site density, problematic chronologies, and a paucity of independent paleoclimate proxy records. We present a well-dated (15 accelerator mass spectrometry14C dates) 30,000-yr record from White Pond, South Carolina that consists of high-resolution analyses of fossil pollen, macroscopic charcoal, andSporormiellaspores, and an independent paleotemperature reconstruction based on branched glycerol dialkyl tetraethers. Between 30,000 and 20,000 cal yr BP, openPinus-Piceaforest grew under cold and dry conditions; elevatedQuercusbefore 26,000 cal yr BP, however, suggest warmer conditions in the Southeast before the last glacial maximum, possibly corresponding to regionally warmer conditions associated with Heinrich event H2. Warming between 19,700 and 10,400 cal yr BP was accompanied by a transition from conifer-dominated to mesic hardwood forest.Sporormiellaspores were not detected and charcoal was low during the late glacial period, suggesting megaherbivore grazers and fire were not locally important agents of vegetation change.Pinusreturned to dominance during the Holocene, with step-like increases inPinusat 10,400 and 6400 cal yr BP, while charcoal abundance increased tenfold, likely due to increased biomass burning associated with warmer conditions. Low-intensity surface fires increased after 1200 cal yr BP, possibly related to the establishment of the Mississippian culture in the Southeast.

The structure of the Mississippian world: A social network approach to the organization of sociopolitical interactions

The structure and organization of macroregional networks have long captured the attention of archaeologists working in eastern North America, especially in regard to the overall character and spread of Mississippian culture across the midwestern and southeastern United States. In this paper, we use distributions of marine shell gorgets to evaluate the organization of relationships across the Mississippian world and to understand how social capital was accumulated and reciprocal relationships were established in the context of emerging organizational complexity. We use data on 1980 shell gorgets from 165 sites across eastern North America to investigate the social networks related to the distribution of these materials and, indirectly, to the types of social capital that were produced through regional social relationships. We employ a framework that articulates social network topologies with different forms of social capital to explicate the relational structure of Mississippian sociopolitics and to identify the sociospatial scales at which different forms of social capital, reciprocity, and relationships underwrote these structures. We conclude that resources (both material and immaterial) were likely drawn from community, local, regional, macroregional, and continental-scale networks while multiple types of networks were maintained across these multiscalar relational fields.

Enduring the violence: Four centuries of Kirikir'i·s warfare

Between AD 1200 and 1400, the Kirikir'i·s (Wichita and Affiliated Tribes) lived in small hamlets and villages scattered across the central and southern Plains and within the western Mississippian centers in the Arkansas River Basin. This relatively peaceful life changed about AD 1400 when the decline of Mississippian culture led to a reorganization of Plains communities. People aggregating into larger towns, participated in a continental wide exchange system, and increased inter-group conflict. Using Frank Secoy's three patterns of warfare on the Plains insights into the evolving strategies of the Kirikir'i·s from AD 1500 to 1850 may be obtained. Kirikir'i·s first responded by building fortified towns. By the eighteenth century, new patterns in Kirikir'i·s conflict developed as population loss led to new strategies of population replacement. The new strategies included the capture of women and children to compensate for those people who were lost to disease and warfare. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Wichita scouts began a new tradition of fighting on the side of American forces, a tradition that continued into the twenty-first century.

The Emerald Acropolis: elevating the moon and water in the rise of Cahokia

Abstract

Mississippian monumentality in the Yazoo Basin: recent investigations at the Carson site (22CO505), northwestern Mississippi

ABSTRACTInvestigations at the Carson site (22CO505), located in Coahoma County, Mississippi, have uncovered data on the development of a large Mississippian mound center dating to the period from A.D. 1200 through European contact. Recent sediment coring, excavation, artifact analyses, and radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating shed light on earthworks and household structures at Carson, and on Mississippian culture in the Yazoo Basin more generally. Sediment coring demonstrates a laterally transgressing Mississippi River system deposited coarse sandy ridges and clay-filled swales underneath a surface horizon comprised of variously coarse to medium-fine sediment originating from generalized overbank flooding. In some instances, flood-borne sediments were found on mound flanks, indicating that at times river-based flooding may have interrupted mound construction. Sediment coring and trench excavation also demonstrate that Carson’s Mound D was built in four stages, with Stages II and III comprising the major stages of earth moving. Excavations on the mound summit reveal evidence of several superimposed structures that were burned in place and likely used for the production of stone, shell, and wooden craft items, perhaps related to Mississippi Ideational Interaction Sphere (MIIS) paraphernalia. Here we describe recent investigations at Carson and present preliminary findings; forthcoming publications will emphasize strategies of power, monumentality, craft production, and Mississippian exchange systems.

Evaluating Cahokian Contact and Mississippian Identity Politics in the Late Prehistoric Central Illinois River Valley

AbstractThis paper employs a practice-based framework for investigating early Mississippian period culture contact and identity negotiation in the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) through the lens offoodways. The Evelandphase (A.D. 1100–1200) was a setting of significant cultural change as a result of the movement of Cahokian people, objects, and ideas into the region. Recent analysis of excavated materials from the Lamb site in the southern portion of the CIRV affords a closer look at this historical process. Using ceramic and pit feature data, I assess Cahokian influence on traditional Late Woodlandera culinary practices. I conclude that although local residents were actively adopting some aspects of Mississippian culture (including Cahokia potting traditions), they retained traditional Late Woodland organizational practices of cooking, serving, and storing food. By placing the organization offoodways at the center of this study, this paper illuminates another dimension of Cahokian contact in the region.

Refining the identification of native American pipestone quarries in the midcontinental United States

Midcontinental pipestone quarries in Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Kansas were utilized by a number of native cultures from 5000 YRBP through historic times. Except for Gunderson’s pioneering work on catlinite, the mineralogy of these sources was poorly understood until recently. For fifteen years, a University of Illinois team of archaeologists and geologists has used well-established mineralogical methods (X-ray diffraction [XRD] and reflectance near-infrared spectroscopy [NIS]) to identify and characterize nine pipestone quarries and match sources with archaeological artifacts from major Hopewell and Mississippian culture sites. NIS analyses of raw materials from nine major pipestone quarries show distinct mineralogical differences between sources but relatively uniform composition within each source. The major distinguishing minerals estimated from NIS spectra match very well with earlier results from XRD and inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) analyses. Results demonstrate that NIS is a reliable non-destructive technique for discriminating between midcontinental pipestones and for sourcing pipestone artifacts.

A REASSESSMENT OF THE CHRONOLOGY OF MOUND A AT TOQUA

The Toqua site (40MR6) is one of the most thoroughly excavated Late Mississippian mound sites in East Tennessee. The site has been a focal point of research on late prehistory in southern Appalachia, but there are issues surrounding its chronological placement. The radiometric dates obtained for the site in the 1970s and the archaeomagnetic dates reported in 1999 have large standard deviations. These dates are too imprecise to be useful for a temporal placement of the site that is clear enough for current discussions of the development of Mississippian culture. A newly obtained Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) date from the large platform mound (Mound A) allows a reevaluation of the occupation sequence of the Toqua site. This date provides an anchor for a refined chronology for Mound A. In addition to the new AMS date, this refined chronology is based on complementary lines of evidence, including architectural evidence, mortuary practices, pottery traditions, and shell gorget styles.