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We suggest that the formation and continuance of Cahokia was, at least partially, dependent on the aggregation of socially and politically diverse populations from the surrounding region. Such groups may have formed sub-communities within greater Cahokia that represented divergent ethnic clusters. Similar events have been recognized in the configur...
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... dense, hierarchically organized American Bottom Cahokian populations of the eleventh to fourteenth centuries are some of the most thoroughly documented prehistoric peoples of eastern North America. We have extensive information on their settlements, techno- logies, monumental constructions, subsistence, and mortuary activities and are making significant strides in interpreting their social, political, and symbolic lifeways. This research indicates that the scale of the Cahokian polity may have been unique among its contemporaries. The magnitude of this difference may be seen in a comparison of Cahokia with the next largest Mississippian polity of Moundville, only roughly one- fifth its size (Knight 1997:286). This eminence seems all the greater when one considers that Cahokia, which itself contains over 100 mounds (including Monks Mound, the largest in North America) and encompasses 1.8 km2 of inhabited land, is contiguous with the large East St. Louis Mound group with ca. 45 mounds and associated habitation areas (Pauketat and Lopinot 1997; Figure 1). Immediately across the Mississippi River to the west was the St. Louis Mound group of 26 mounds. This continuum of mound, plaza, and habitation zones has been referred to as the Cahokian "Central Political- Administrative Complex" (Pauketat 1994:77-81). In spa- tial extent and monumental construction it rivals other early centers around the ...
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... initially dynamic period of political and social flux coupled with the relocation of, and perhaps recom- bination of, previously separate groups would have created stress on existing kin-based systems of organi- zation (cf. Pauketat 1994:169). New, less kin-oriented patterns of community formation and interaction would have been developed within the emerging political reality of Cahokia. Such a break up and recon- solidation of disparate populations must have led to the establishment of numerous distinctive subcom- munities. Within the broader Cahokian milieu, such subcommunities may have developed fresh community identities that left recognizable traces in the archaeo- logical record.1 Similar trends were occurring in the adjacent uplands. Pauketat (1996, 1998Alt 1999) has identified the Cahokia-driven reorganization of outlying Late Emergent Mississippian upland popula- tions into an archaeologically definable Missis- sippianized "Richland Complex" (Figure 1). These populations retained characteristics, even during the Lohmann phase, that bespeak their resistance to full integration within the Cahokia pattern, including earlier forms of architectural and organizational behavior. Such subcommunities must have existed throughout Cahokia and may have been important factors in the subsequent trajectory of Cahokia's historical development. Individuals, small groups, or perhaps even whole populations may have been drawn into the Cahokian sphere from extraregional locations during these times. Some such groups brought distinctive pottery styles into the area during late Emergent Mississippian times (e.g., Pauketat 1998:47-49). We know that the "boun- daries" of similar early polities were not stable or firmly fixed but rather were characterized by their permea- bility (cf. Emberling 1997:319). Some have argued that Cahokia was the center for a vast economic network through which both exotic and bulk materials moved (e.g., Dincauze and Hasentaub 1989;Little 1987;Peregrine 1992Peregrine , 1995 within a state-level political system (e.g., Gibbon 1974;Kehoe 1998;O'Brien 1989O'Brien , 1991Porter 1977). In such scenarios these networks, likely involving the movements of people as well as goods, stretched from the Northeast to as far south as Mexico. More cautious interpreters tend to confine the move- ments of peoples and goods to the Midwest and Midsouth (e.g., Kelly 1980, 1991a, 1991b, Pauketat 1994, 1998). When coupled with the possibility that Cahokia also served as a religious magnet for surrounding groups, the center's population and its various subcommu- nities must have been in constant flux and interaction (i.e., Hall 1991;Pauketat and Emerson 1991, 1997a, ...
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... the bewildering array of Kane mortuary complex attributes is nowhere better exemplified than in a group burial near the middle of the excavated portion of the site. Burial Episode 12, a group grave, contained the remains of five adults (at least three females, one male, and one indeterminate) and one subadult (see Figure 5). The burials were partially cremated or burned in situ. In fact, charcoal from this grave provided the only 14C dates for the Kane mortu- ary complex. Artifacts (Table 2) included in the grave were an unusual mano of fossilized dinosaur bone,8 several shell pendants, three shell spoons, one possible copper artifact, and three whole and one fragmented ceramic vessels. These vessels include a small shell- tempered mortuary jar, a shell-tempered, red-slipped, long-necked water bottle, and a foreign jar with a notched lip and nested arcs design on the shoulder (Vessel 10, Figure 10 bottom). This burial group also included a second foreign jar fragment with a notched lip and a circle-and-line design on the shoulder (Vessel 13, Figure 10 top). Both vessels have the classic northern Starved Rock Collared and Langford Tradition reddish- orange pastes with black mafic grit tempering (cf. Emerson 1999;Emerson and Titelbaum 2000), indica- ting they are not local copies of nonlocal vessels. The lip notching, paste, and crude curvilinear design bear a resemblance to ceramic styles of northern Illinois (the central and upper Illinois River valleys) or western Indiana (Oliver phase), but, as far we are aware, find an exact duplicate in none of those areas. The associations and rituals represented by this burial group epitomize the heterogeneous nature of Kane's mortuary ...
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... the bewildering array of Kane mortuary complex attributes is nowhere better exemplified than in a group burial near the middle of the excavated portion of the site. Burial Episode 12, a group grave, contained the remains of five adults (at least three females, one male, and one indeterminate) and one subadult (see Figure 5). The burials were partially cremated or burned in situ. In fact, charcoal from this grave provided the only 14C dates for the Kane mortu- ary complex. Artifacts (Table 2) included in the grave were an unusual mano of fossilized dinosaur bone,8 several shell pendants, three shell spoons, one possible copper artifact, and three whole and one fragmented ceramic vessels. These vessels include a small shell- tempered mortuary jar, a shell-tempered, red-slipped, long-necked water bottle, and a foreign jar with a notched lip and nested arcs design on the shoulder (Vessel 10, Figure 10 bottom). This burial group also included a second foreign jar fragment with a notched lip and a circle-and-line design on the shoulder (Vessel 13, Figure 10 top). Both vessels have the classic northern Starved Rock Collared and Langford Tradition reddish- orange pastes with black mafic grit tempering (cf. Emerson 1999;Emerson and Titelbaum 2000), indica- ting they are not local copies of nonlocal vessels. The lip notching, paste, and crude curvilinear design bear a resemblance to ceramic styles of northern Illinois (the central and upper Illinois River valleys) or western Indiana (Oliver phase), but, as far we are aware, find an exact duplicate in none of those areas. The associations and rituals represented by this burial group epitomize the heterogeneous nature of Kane's mortuary ...
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... Kane Mounds (11MS104) site includes four low mounds or loessal knolls on the bluffs overlooking the American Bottom at the point where Interstate-270 crosses into the floodplain, about 6.5 km due east of the large multimound Mississippian Mitchell site and 12 km northeast of Cahokia's Monks Mound (Figure 1). The Kane mounds, ranging in height from low rises to the large 3-meter-tall mound in the modern St. Elizabeth's Cemetery, follow the bluff edge in a north- south direction at ca. 40-meter intervals. The two southernmost low mounds were excavated in 1963 un- der the direction of Jerome Melbye, who prepared a preliminary report of the excavation (Melbye 1963). George Milner 's reexamination two decades later focused on the human remains and defined 43 distinct burial episodes containing at least 140 individuals (1982:289; Table 2). The burials were generally distri- buted across the site, both under and outside of the "mounds," and included a large ossuary feature and a cluster of burials representing a possible charnel area that Milner (1982) says is similar to that at the Schild site ( Figure 5). The site played a central role in Milner 's study of American Bottom late Mississippian health and mortuary patterns ...
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... characteristics associated with the Kane Mounds burials do not conform to known local Ameri- can Bottom Moorehead burial programs outlined above. These include the large number and esoteric nature of grave goods accompanying some "non-elite" burials (see Table 2 for details). For example, Burial Episode 15 (four adults and two children) included two discoidals and 42 whelk beads, while Burial Episode 41 (an adult and child) included an extra cranium and a tubular stone pipe (ca. 11 cm long; Figure 11). The most notable grave, however, is Burial Episode 36 (an old male), which contained over 1600 shell and pearl beads, two copper beads, 29 carved shell pendants (Figure 12), a mink skull, several copper-covered wooden items (ear spools?), four bone hairpins, and a quartzite pebble. The inclusion of such goods with some burial episodes suggests the individuals held a special rank or status - calling into question the characterizations of such burials as non-elite and setting them apart from those associated with the ossuaries and stone box cemeteries discussed earlier, where status-marking goods are absent. Figure 10. Potentially foreign cord-impressed and incised mafic grit- tempered vessels from Burial Episode ...
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... characteristics associated with the Kane Mounds burials do not conform to known local Ameri- can Bottom Moorehead burial programs outlined above. These include the large number and esoteric nature of grave goods accompanying some "non-elite" burials (see Table 2 for details). For example, Burial Episode 15 (four adults and two children) included two discoidals and 42 whelk beads, while Burial Episode 41 (an adult and child) included an extra cranium and a tubular stone pipe (ca. 11 cm long; Figure 11). The most notable grave, however, is Burial Episode 36 (an old male), which contained over 1600 shell and pearl beads, two copper beads, 29 carved shell pendants (Figure 12), a mink skull, several copper-covered wooden items (ear spools?), four bone hairpins, and a quartzite pebble. The inclusion of such goods with some burial episodes suggests the individuals held a special rank or status - calling into question the characterizations of such burials as non-elite and setting them apart from those associated with the ossuaries and stone box cemeteries discussed earlier, where status-marking goods are absent. Figure 10. Potentially foreign cord-impressed and incised mafic grit- tempered vessels from Burial Episode ...
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... characteristics associated with the Kane Mounds burials do not conform to known local Ameri- can Bottom Moorehead burial programs outlined above. These include the large number and esoteric nature of grave goods accompanying some "non-elite" burials (see Table 2 for details). For example, Burial Episode 15 (four adults and two children) included two discoidals and 42 whelk beads, while Burial Episode 41 (an adult and child) included an extra cranium and a tubular stone pipe (ca. 11 cm long; Figure 11). The most notable grave, however, is Burial Episode 36 (an old male), which contained over 1600 shell and pearl beads, two copper beads, 29 carved shell pendants (Figure 12), a mink skull, several copper-covered wooden items (ear spools?), four bone hairpins, and a quartzite pebble. The inclusion of such goods with some burial episodes suggests the individuals held a special rank or status - calling into question the characterizations of such burials as non-elite and setting them apart from those associated with the ossuaries and stone box cemeteries discussed earlier, where status-marking goods are absent. Figure 10. Potentially foreign cord-impressed and incised mafic grit- tempered vessels from Burial Episode ...
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... in our study was a need to establish the chronological synchrony of the various mortuary com- plexes we were studying. Typically regional and ceramic comparisons have been used to date these sites. Both techniques have proven only of general use. For example, stone box graves have been presumed to postdate AD 1300 based on cross dating with other areas (Brown 1981;Griffin 1977;Milner and Schroeder 1992). While ceramic chronologies have been helpful for relative dating of habitation sites, the cemetery ceramic assemblages are dominated by specialized mortuary jars, effigy bowls, and water bottles that do not correlate well with the established habitation ceramic chrono- logies ( Emerson et al. 1996). Ultimately we must rely on 14C determinations to establish the chronological place- ment of most of these sites. Réévaluation of the data from these late mortuary complexes, when combined with a large number of new 14C determinations, has been very revealing (Table 1, Figure 2). This reanalysis indicated that the charnel structures and circumscribed cemeteries (often containing stone box graves) at the East St. Louis Stone Quarry (Milner 1983) and Florence Street ( Emerson et al. 1983) mor- tuary facilities, typically identified with the entire Sand Prairie phase, are, in fact, restricted to the terminal Moorehead period ( Emerson et al. 1996; Figure 1). The presumed Sand Prairie affiliation of these cemeteries was based on the assumption that stone box graves diffused into the American Bottom from the earlier stone box grave tradition of the Middle Cumberland of Tennessee sometime after AD 1300. Evidence now sug- gests that American Bottom stone box graves appear nearly as early as those in the Midsouth and southern Illinois (cf. Collins and Henning 1996;Farnsworth and Emerson 1989;Hedman 1997;Brian Butler, personal communication 1999). Eight calibrated radiocarbon dates on bone from the East St. Louis mortuary complex cluster tightly between cal AD 1253 and cal AD 1295. A single calibrated date of cal AD 1288 was obtained from the Florence Street ...
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... vessels as grave inclusions occur in moderate numbers in late Mississippian American Bottom cemeter- ies and at northern Mississippian sites. Pottery vessels are present in modest amounts at Kane Mounds (14 vessels, with 10 of the 43 burial episodes). These vessels include three long-necked water bottles, two effigy- head bowls (one with a duck effigy head, Vessel 11), eight jars (including one pumpkin effigy, Vessel 5), and one miniature jar (see Table 5; Figures 6-7, 10). Mortuary jars follow the general theme of Moorehead ceramics with outcurved shoulders, long extruded and everted lips, and plain and smudged exterior surfaces. Unusual vessels in this assemblage include a smoothed-over, cord-roughened jar (Vessel 7) with four peaked lugs on the rim and a red slipped interior (with Burial Episode 9);7 two mafic grit-tempered, cord-roughened, cord- impressed and incised jars (Vessels 10 and 13, with Burial Episode 12); a heavily red slipped water bottle (Vessel 8, with Burial Episode 8); and a miniature vessel with a peaked rim and cord-roughened exterior (Vessel 14, Burial Episode 22). As noted above, the inclusion of vessels (or anything else for that matter) is not part of the burial ritual in the local Moorehead ossuaries at Corbin, Hill Prairie, or Kane Mounds. Mortuary vessels are customary inclusions with the burials in the floodplain cemeteries at East St. Louis Stone Quarry and Florence Street, at which small plain mortuary jars are common, along with some figurai effigy jars and bowls, water bottles, and occasional plates and beakers. Key: nh -neck height; DS -black/brown slipped; RS -red slipped; est. ...
Citations
... Subsequently, Emerson and Hargrave (2000) reviewed the burial patterns at Kane in the broader context of late Mississippian mortuary practices and suggested some of the interred individuals might be immigrants to the region, especially from the Illinois River valley. Furthermore, their overview determined that additional information on chronology, dietary patterns, and artifact evaluation would be needed to significantly expand our understanding of the site's context and regional significance. ...
... Buikstra and Milner subsequently sampled and included Kane individuals in early isotopic studies of Mississippian diet in the central Mississippi River valley (Buikstra and Milner, 1991;Buikstra et al., 1994). Emerson and Hargrave (2000) reviewed the burial patterns at Kane in the broader context of late Mississippian mortuary practices. Their overview demonstrated that additional information on chronology, dietary patterns, and artifact evaluation would be needed to significantly expand our understanding of the site's context and regional significance. ...
... The challenge for understanding the place of Kane in terms of Cahokian regional mortuary practices was the inability of past researchers to control detailed context and chronology. While researchers (Emerson and Hargrave, 2000;Melbye, 1963:23;Milner, 1982:295) suspected earlier components at Kane, they observed that at the time of analysis there were no reasonable ways to distinguish them-consequently, they were forced to treat the population as exemplifying homogeneous late Mississippian mortuary practices, morbidity, and mortality. As discussed here, this means that, by interpreting Kane as solely representative of late Mississippian mortuary patterns, archaeologists have skewed their understanding of regional mortuary practices. ...
The acknowleged importance of documenting legacy assemblages led to efforts in the mid-1990s to re-examine such collections from Illinois. In some cases this involved applying traditional methods and emerging techniques to address complex questions of context, chronology, and aspects of identity for American Indian ancestral sites and individuals. These efforts included the Kane Mounds mortuary complex salvaged in the early 1960s and long interpreted as a late Mississippian mortuary area related to Cahokia. Drawing on available data from original field and analysis records, past biomolecular analysis, and combined with an evolving understanding of the people and culture history of the American Bottom, we use results from isotopic analyses and radiocarbon AMS chronologies obtained prior to 2018 to disentangle complex multicomponent mortuary settings. These studies revealed the mortuary importance of Kane spanned 1500 years, from as early as 500 BCE into the 14th century CE, a period that saw a major shift in diet with the increased consumption of maize and a population comprised of individuals local to the American Bottom and as well as immigrants. Available biomolecular information and radiocarbon AMS chronologies demonstrate both temporal and geographic diversity within the Kane mortuary complex, as well as continuity in the importance of this mortuary location.
... This is contemporaneous with what Brown and Kelly (2000) call the "Copper-Dominated Horizon" at sites such as Etowah, Moundville, and Spiro-consequently, Cahokia has no claim to either the production of or priority in copper repoussé plates. In fact, despite the common presence of copper-foil stains on artifacts and in the soil indicating the presence of copper, no such plates have ever been recovered from Cahokia, in spite of extensive excavations of mounds, Moorehead and Sand Prairie phase cemeteries, and ceremonial and residential structures (see Emerson and Hargrave 2000;Emerson et al. 2018;Fowler 1997;Pauketat 1998Pauketat , 2013aSampson and Esarey 1993;Woods 1993). The mortuary inclusions in late Moorehead cemeteries are predominantly effigy ceramic vessels, typically images of animals with liminal qualities possessing the ability to cross between worlds (e.g., beavers, ducks, turtles, and so forth; Emerson 2003). ...
The development of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) iconography has been posited to have had its origins in pre–AD 1200 Greater Cahokia. The recovery of fragments of an engraved shell cup, a few engraved pottery sherds, and copper residue from Mound 34 at Cahokia as well as two regional rock-art sites are said to confirm that the early Braden art style had a Cahokian heritage. Furthermore, on this basis, the origin, production, and distribution of engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates have been attributed to Cahokian artisans. Here the archaeological context and chronology of this evidence is reexamined and found to be problematic—it does not support Cahokia origins for engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates. The small amount of early Braden materials attributed to Cahokia are better explained as byproducts of the demonstrable presence of early Caddo immigrants and influences in the American Bottom. The skewed distribution and early chronology of Mississippian engraved shell cups and copper repoussé plates confirm they are likely products of Spiro-influenced ritual practitioners. The production and accumulation of such ritual paraphernalia at Spiro can most reasonably be attributed to the site's rise as a sacred place and central locus for regional pilgrimages.
... If the identification is correct of these mythic female pipes as being part of medicine bundles and that these medicine bundles are under the care of female bundle keepers, it would seem that such keepers held a unique and elevated status within the Caddo society and other locations outside of Cahokia (e.g., the Schild and Richland sites; e.g., also see Dye [2020b] on Caddo secret societies). I am not aware of any such female burials with what might be considered bundles within the Greater Cahokia realm (Emerson and Hargrave 2000;Emerson et al. 2016;Emerson, et al. 2003aEmerson, et al. , 2003bHedman and Hargrave 2018;Milner 1984). If such bundles were solely and intimately linked to only agricultural fertility, one might expect that they would be corporately held, have a wider distribution, and would not be interred at the death of their keeper. ...
While large red stone figurines and pipes were occasionally discovered by early investigators, only recently were they recovered in secure archaeological context demonstrating them to be twelfth-century Cahokian productions geologically sourced to unique flint clay sources near St. Louis. A subset of these are female figures associated with fertility and renewal motifs. Examination of these female figures demonstrates that while they reference similar mythic beings, the figures hold very different positions in local religious and social infrastructure. At Cahokia they are part of a formalized religious cult that is key to that polity's assent while outside of Greater Cahokia, e.g., in the Caddo region, they appear as mortuary inclusions indicating they were inalienable possessions of certain individuals. Furthermore it can be proposed that these outlying figures, transformed to pipes, might have been part of medicine bundles maintained by female bundle keepers involved in curing. The archaeological evidence makes apparent that such religious objects cannot be simply glossed over in terms of their iconic homogeneity or ethnohistoric analogies but must be interpreted in terms of their roles in which they were embedded within the religious, social, and political life of local societies.
... The material residues of these behaviors potentially reveal information relating to the social structure of archaeological societies. Spatial patterning of burials can be reflective of differing social groups (Binford 1971;Blackmore 2011;Emerson and Hargrave 2000;Goldstein 1980Goldstein , 1981Jensen and Nielsen 1997;Shennan 1978;Tainter 1975Tainter , 1978. ...
Mayapan archaeology - chapters on art, architecture, dwellings, archaeological survey, artifact analysis, human osteology and mortuary patterns.
Free download pdf here (Open Access): https://sites.pitt.edu/~ccapubs/books/m027.html
... Variability in diet observed both within and across sites during the Terminal Late Woodland and Early Mississippian periods has been attributed by some to differences in status (Ambrose et al., 2003;Bender et al., 1981) or gendered food practices and preferences (Buikstra & Milner, 1991;Hedman et al., 2002). The larger more comprehensive isotopic dataset now available suggests that these differences in diet may also reflect previously unrecognized temporal differences within sites, and differences in place of origin or ethnicity between individuals within an increasingly diverse population (Emerson & Hargrave, 2000;Emerson, 2018b;Emerson & Hedman, 2016;Nash et al., 2018; see also Buikstra & Milner, 1991). ...
... These groups continue, to some degree, to maintain those bonds even in the face of any unifying efforts or effects of centralized governance. While recognizing such groups in the archaeological record remains challenging, at Cahokia examples of this diversity have been identified in mortuary practices (Emerson & Hargrave, 2000), dietary variation (Hedman, 2006;Hedman et al., 2002), ceramic and other material culture (Alt, 2006(Alt, , 2010(Alt, , 2018, and in the identification of potential places of origin for immigrants (Hedman et al., 2018: 502-504;Slater et al., 2014). It is this pattern of social clustering within the greater whole that led to the suggestion that Cahokia might better be conceived of as a conglomeration of house societies (Emerson, 2018b: 502-504). ...
At its peak, the urban complex of Greater Cahokia likely had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people, with a social, political, and religious influence that covered the midcontinent. New excavations at Cahokia’s East St. Louis Precinct, paired with existing isotopic studies and climatic data afford us previously unavailable insights into factors which contributed to the rise and dissolution of the city between ca. AD 1000 and 1300. We argue that migration into Greater Cahokia played a causal role in the rapid intensification of maize agriculture and associated processing technology. Isotopic evidence indicates immigrants from a variety of backgrounds likely contributed significantly to both the creation and demise of the new city. In this chapter, we review the evidence in light of regional climatic changes and conclude that while climatic shifts facilitated both the formation and dissolution of Cahokia it was the human social, political and religious variables that hold the key to these processes.
... Migration to early Cahokia is inferred from exceptional demographic growth and nucleation, immense monumental projects, and feasts and other ceremonial events on a colossal scale (Barrier 2017;Kelly 2001;Pauketat 2013;Pauketat et al. 2002). Early Cahokia has a distinctive mixture of raw materials from far-flung points of origin, different styles of mortuary, construction techniques, and ceramics, and stable isotope evidence shows a high frequency and diversity of immigrants within the burial population (Emerson and Hargrave 2000;Emerson and Hedman 2016;Slater et al. 2014). According to Pauketat (2013), the attracting force for immigrants was at least in part a religious movement founded upon harnessing cosmic powers, and the cosmopolitan result inculcated hybridized and invented traditions that transcended each immigrant community's parochial customs (Alt 2006;Pauketat 2003Pauketat , 2004. ...
Migration was embraced as a general phenomenon by cultural historical archaeologists in the Eastern Woodlands, subsequently rejected by processualists, and recently invoked again with greater frequency due to advances in both method and theory. However, challenges remain in regard to establishing temporal correlations between source and host regions and identifying the specific mechanisms of migration and their archaeological correlates. Bayesian modeling, in combination with insights from recent modeling of migration processes, supports the inference that migration was a causal factor for shifts in settlement observed in the archaeology of the Woodland period (ca. 1000 BC to AD 1050) cultures of the eastern Gulf Coast subregion.
... For example, immediately prior to the Moorehead phase construction of Mound 34 (a modest platform mound on the western side of the Ramey Plaza), Cahokians held feasts, crafted copper objects, and made votive offerings of marine shell; later, after the mound was built, crafting and depositing exotic religious accoutrements, such as copper objects, engraved shell cups, shell bead necklaces, shark teeth pendants, pigments, and bird bone necklaces, took place during mound-top temple ceremonies (Kelly, Brown, Hamlin, et al. 2007;Kelly, Brown, and Kelly 2008). Interestingly, the Late Mississippian Kane Mound contained burials with religious items like shell cups and spoons, reminiscent of the Lohmann and Stirling phase contexts; however, the individuals buried there were probably nonlocals from the north and not Cahokians (Emerson and Hargrave 2000). ...
This paper presents material and spatial evidence on skilled crafting from a series of archaeological investigations at the Fingerhut Tract, located in the western portion of the Mississippian period (AD 1050–1400) Cahokia site in southwestern Illinois. Specifically, skilled crafters at the Fingerhut Tract throughout the Mississippian period resided in distinct household clusters and neighborhoods, were part or members of elite families, and assembled multiple exotic materials into accoutrements used in religious ceremonies. Moreover, the special knowledge of these skilled crafters was likely obtained during journeys to distant locations and was passed down through time within particular family, kin, or social groups. Perhaps most important, the evidence indicates that crafting these items was entangled with religious practice and not solely an economic or political pursuit as suggested in earlier prestige good models.
... Evidence at Cahokia and surrounding Moorehead phase sites indicates an increase in commensal activities using the new plate forms (Pauketat 2013a) as well as limited mound building in Cahokia's East Plaza (Kelly and Brown 2010) and in the uplands to the east (Baltus 2014;Emerson and Hargrave 2000). Notably, there continues to be evidence for non-local people engaging in mound-related activities in the region. ...
... Notably, there continues to be evidence for non-local people engaging in mound-related activities in the region. New connections were honed and in-migration continued with populations from Northern Illinois, Ohio River Valley, and potentially the Mid-South (Emerson and Hargrave 2000). Many of these later sites were either mortuary focused or had major mortuary components to them. ...
... Many of these later sites were either mortuary focused or had major mortuary components to them. For example, the East St. Louis Stone Quarry and Florence Street sites consisted of charnel structures and surrounding burials (Emerson et al. 1983;Milner 1983), stone box graves and pit burials were part of the Copper site occupation alongside new mound construction (Baltus 2014), and Kane Mounds held the remains of a number of individuals from or culturally influenced by Northern Illinois Langford peoples (Emerson and Hargrave 2000). While some (perhaps many) groups cut ties with the city and seemingly all it stood for, fully abandoning the region, Cahokia and the surrounding area were maintained as an active-though transformed-homeland for others. ...
“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.
... Before Common Field became a large village on the Mississippi River, the religious and sociopolitical centrifugal forces of Cahokia, the large Mississippian city in the American Bottom, drew in people from throughout the Midwest. The early Lohmann Phase (A.D. 1050-1100) history of Cahokia was characterized by an influx of migrants into the American Bottom floodplain and its surrounding uplands (e.g., Alt 2018; Emerson and Hargrave 2000;Pauketat 2003;Slater et al. 2014), as well as a concerted effort at establishing religious missions (Pauketat et al. 2015). Pauketat (2004) has argued that the creation of Cahokia and the spread of new religious practices also resulted in a regional Pax Cahokiana, widespread peace throughout the Midwest. ...
As Cahokia experienced its prolonged abandonment and violence spread throughout the Midwest and Southeast, thousands of people left the American Bottom region and either established new communities or integrated into others. Tracing where Cahokians went has been difficult to discern archaeologically, begging the questions: How do we distinguish between diasporic and other kinds of population movements? And what might a diasporic community born of thirteenth and fourteenth century violence look like? This article discusses the Common Field site in southeast Missouri and explores the possibility and utility of considering Common Field a diasporic community by highlighting the role of nostalgia in diasporic movements.
... The resulting diversity of this and other suspected rural and central residential areas may have lasted throughout Cahokian history. Evidence of this tentative inference derives from a mortuary analysis by Emerson and Eve Hargrave (Emerson and Hargrave 2000), who demonstrated that burial practices at the thirteenth-century (Moorehead phase) Kane Mound site were distinct from typical Cahokian burial traditions. The mortuary contained idiosyncratic burial goods, extensive use of fire in burial ceremonies, the occasional presence of foreign ceramics, and significant variance in burial orientations. ...
Archaeological and isotopic evidence from Greater Cahokia and several prominent outlier sites argues against simple diaspora models either for the rise or fall of this pre-Columbian urban phenomenon. Besides indications that a culturally diverse population was associated with the city throughout its history, we argue that a spiritual vitality undergirded its origins such that many movements of people would have been two-way affairs. Some Cahokians who ultimately left the city may have been members of foreign lineages in the beginning.
