Book ID: CBB140638779

Cahokia's Complexities: Ceremonies and Politics of the First Mississippian Farmers (2018)

unapi

Alt, Susan M. (Author)


University of Alabama Press


Publication Date: 2018
Physical Details: 176
Language: English

Critical new discoveries and archaeological patterns increase understanding of early Mississippian culture and society. The reasons for the rise and fall of early cities and ceremonial centers around the world have been sought for centuries. In the United States, Cahokia has been the focus of intense archaeological work to explain its mysteries. Cahokia was the first and exponentially the largest of the Mississippian centers that appeared across the Midwest and Southeast after AD 1000. Located near present-day East St. Louis, Illinois, the central complex of Cahokia spanned more than 12 square kilometers and encompassed more than 120 earthen mounds. As one of the foremost experts on Cahokia, Susan M. Alt addresses long-standing considerations of eastern Woodlands archaeology—the beginnings, character, and ending of Mississippian culture (AD 1050–1600)—from a novel theoretical and empirical vantage point. Through this case study on farmers’ immigration and resettling, Alt’s narrative reanalyzes the relationship between administration and diversity, incorporating critical new discoveries and archaeological patterns from outside of Cahokia. Alt examines the cultural landscape of the Cahokia flood plain and the layout of one extraordinary upland site, Grossman, as an administrative settlement where local farmers might have seen or participated in Cahokian rituals and ceremonies involving a web of ancestors, powers, and places. Alt argues that a farming district outside the center provides definitive evidences of the attempted centralized administration of a rural hinterland.

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Reviewed By

Review Brian Hosmer (2019) Review of "Cahokia's Complexities: Ceremonies and Politics of the First Mississippian Farmers". Agricultural History (pp. 761-762). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB140638779/

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Authors & Contributors
Damiata, Brian N.
Adam Mandelman
Sinensky, R. J.
Smalley, Andrea L.
John Reda
Lennox, Jeffers
Concepts
Land settlement
Archaeology
American Indians; Native Americans; First Nations of the Americas
Environmental history
Animals
Anthropology, prehistoric
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century
Prehistory
Ancient
17th century
Places
North America
Mississippi River (North America)
United States
Middle and Near East
Europe
Illinois (U.S.)
Institutions
United States. Department of Agriculture
United States. Geological Survey
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