Cahokia Flashcards
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| 2438688937 | Pauketat 2008 | -Clovis culture not first americans -extinction of megafauna as humans go east -Holocene begins, warmer, higher sea levels, extinction etc. | 0 | |
| 2438690957 | Pauketat 2004 | -Cahokia largest North American site -Monks Mound -large pyramids, sacrifice victims -theatre state? -ceremonies very important, Goertz model -big community bang, 1050 AD -state itself, or capital of a state -other sites as centres of complex chiefdoms -hereditary rulers, taxation and tribute and monumental architectrue | 1 | |
| 2438817017 | An overlooked site | -AD 800-1400 -racism makes us ignore this site for a long time -must rethink world prehistory -Southern Illinois, across river from St. Louis -peak 1050-1200, BIG BANG -8 km squared, bigger than Tiwanaku -10-15 thousand permanent residents -some argue closer to 20,000 at peak -also monumental architecture, 120 earthwork mounds, 80 survive -largest is Monks Mound -now UNESCO world heritage site -Monks Mound named for French Trappist monks who settled here. Taken back in American Revolution -30 m high, 200 m long, 235 m wide -3rd largest structure in pre-Columbian Americas -entirely human made, supported wooden building -near Mississippi river | 2 | |
| 2438828669 | Mississippi Culture | -mound building culture from 800-1600 AD -sites in southern Midwest, especially Illinois and Missouri, also southeast states and up as far north as Ohio -Mississippi river valley and tributaries -hundreds of sites -other monumental sites: Etowah (Georgia), Moundville (Alabama), Natchez (Mississippi), Spiro (Oklahoma) -most but not all abandoned by 15th c -described by Mando de Soto when visiting -Natchez occupied well into 18th C, met by French in the 1600s, but destroyed in 1730s. Leader called Great Son, King and high priest, carried on litters | 3 | |
| 2438836859 | Cahokia was the MOST POWERFUL of the Mississippi culture | -abandoned by 1400, never seen in life by Europeans -pivotal site, shapes American archaeology -also an important story about erasure of indigenous history, social history -questions: chiefdom or state? | 4 | |
| 2438840408 | Eastern North American Chronology | -paleo-indian, archaic, woodland periods -very different from old world chronology, terminology needs to be different -Late Woodland period is our focus -Paleo-Indian, late Pleistocene, humans just got here -Archaic is 8000 BC-500 BC, ends earlier in south, non-sedentary hunter-gatherers | 5 | |
| 2438843940 | Woodland Period | -early, middle and late -1000/500 BC- European Contact -begins at emergence of ceramics (typology made before radiocarbon dating) -increased reliance on plant agriculture for subsistence -domestication in late archaic -early woodland still had hunter gatherers and horticulture -by late woodland, sedentary villages and larger settlements -Mississippian culture in latter part of Late Woodland -800-1400 AD, peak 1050-1200 -1400-European Contact is late mississippian, some abandonment | 6 | |
| 2438853673 | Early Mounds Builders | -Poverty Point, ca 2200-700 BC -Eastern US has many large earthworks, sacred landscapes -built over generations -some of them 4000 years old, build by nomadic groups -Poverty Pt. Louisiana is type site -centre of site, concentric earthworks -dates back to Archaic period -serpent mound, cool earthwork, part of Adena culture or Hopewell tradition -this period marks time when disparate groups share customs e.g. mound building -serpent mound 1 m high, 400 m long, southern Ohio, built over time | 7 | |
| 2438862833 | mound burials | -Hopewell and Adena cultures -multiple burials in mounds with grave goods -pottery, effigy pipes, mica objects | 8 | |
| 2438866931 | southeastern ceremonial complex | -share ritual practice and objects -engraved shell objects, sheet copper -distinct pottery style with spirals -serving vessels for feasts -ceramic and stone human effigies -show bodily practices like facial tattoos, pierced ears -chunkey stones found all over southeast -unknown se, speculation, some think its a sport or game, others say form of gambling, others say part of ritual activity -items move by extensive river travel -communication, travel, exchange | 9 | |
| 2438914602 | American Bottom | -floodplain of Mississipi, bottomlands -rich large area -would have been swampy, forested and agricultural land in Mississippi period -Cahokia grew beans, corn, squash -also oil-rich seeds, sunflowers, wild game, fish -large scale farming, surplus -extension of Cahokia by villages and farmsteads | 10 | |
| 2438918066 | mounds and early american archaeology | -moundbuilder complexes, thousands of mounds -by 18th c, long-abandoned with no connections and explanations -colonial accounts, de Soto etc., forgotten until 20th c -interest after Revolution in 1790's while settling west of the Appalachians -Europeans see mounds as inconvenient but interesting -by 19th century, much debate among Antiquarians -interest in excavation, slaves digging, white people drawing layout. considered a social event -Thomas Jefferson 1781 does first stratigraphic excavation, finds burials -says mound made by several ritual events -1820, Caleb Atwater writers of earthworks -says most mounds made not by Native Americans, but by Europeans or someone else: Toltecs, Mesopotamians or Egyptians -maybe built by 10 lost tribes of Israel -maybe Vikings or Atlantis people -either way, people think built by a lost race driven from their land by current Native Americans | 11 | |
| 2438928556 | Squier and Davis 1848 | -first smithsonian publication -good maps, problematic interpretation -lack of appreciation, destroy mounds -railroad cuts through Cahokia -then KKK used it as a meeting place -suffers in 30s urban sprawl -later, drive-in theatre put here -archaeological research starts anew 60's | 12 | |
| 2438950786 | chiefdom, state or what? | -just because its the biggest site, it's not the capital of all of them -it is unique, exceptional and central tho -sites unrelated politically but share economic, cultural, and religious phenomena -mound building, large scale feasting, burials and cosmology -seen in iconography and ritual objects -service and sahlins evolutionary typology, savagery/barbarism/civilization -new schema: band/tribe/chiefdom/state -chiefdom: between egalitarian society and state -have inequality, possibly hereditary rulers -economy built on tribute and redistribution -political power versus personal, lack of formal institutions and bureaucracy: power as extension of body -Tim Pauketat and Julie Hoult see that Cahokia doesn't fit Eurocentric models of statehood: ranked kinship groups -Hoult compares it to Balinese theatre state, 19th c (wheatley) -Hoult and Pauketat think it IS a state but they are not in the majority: people can't accept that native american society was complex -range of forms that do not fit greek/roman models -chiefdom sometimes just an almost-state | 13 | |
| 2438964275 | tribute | -pay taxes in form of gifts etc -must be redistributed, a king must be generous -often in form of feasts | 14 | |
| 2438967439 | Cahokia Chronology | -sub-phases of the peak -Lohman phase 1050-1100 AD -Big Bang, emergence as important centre, transformation -political and regional consolidation -changes in settlement patterns suggest reorganization at regional level, migration into the city -moving of entire villages -height influence, sudden increase of size/pop -new monumental architecture -food surplus to feed Cahokia and surrounding area | 15 | |
| 2438972837 | Food production | -full-time farmers, corns, squash, starchy grains, oily seeds -supplemented with wild plant and animal resources -no evidence of intensive agriculture -more corncobs in rural, kernels in the city -no direct evidence of storage structures | 16 | |
| 2438975891 | new spatiality | -increase in area and population of city, but also re-imagined -monks mound expanded, 120 major earthworks -huge recruitment and management -building mounds and plaza -new urban identity with monumental architecture, Cahokia as destination -location not ad hoc, sacred geography, cardinal directions, and cultural geography too -palisade around central core, plaza, wood not found, only decomposition stains -separates classes, ceremonial boundary, cosmological and not defensive | 17 | |
| 2438986924 | great plaza | -large open space, ceremony and public events for thousands -massive feasts to show kings charisma and generosity -archaeological evidence shown by Pauketat -many garbage pits of food remains -shows social solidarity -feasting associated with construction, persuasive -work parties! -visitors bring ceramics home from Cahokia | 18 | |
| 2438992000 | monks mound | -huge thing with structure on summit -probably residence of a king -flat mounds as residences, cone ones as burials -axis mundi, sacred centre of world, communication between spheres (Hoult, Wheatley) -intended to invoke sacred mountains, but where? | 19 | |
| 2438996329 | woodhenge | -found by remains of round production, wood poles -astronomical calendrical property -poles in plazas around Cahokia | 20 | |
| 2438998765 | residential space | -300 houses, perishable materials -domestic change in Big Bang -house form becomes standardized -conform to cardinal directions -Pauketat says hierarchy and heterarchy -organized by kinship, etc, affiliations -urban gardens -craft production increases, 1050 -raw materials, more cosmopolitan -shell, stone, copper -certain types of knowledge for different groups | 21 | |
| 2439004139 | Mound 72 | -martin fowler, 1970s -road built by fowler, small mortuary structure, 100 people -2 death pits of 40-50 females -8 different clusters of burials -also object caches, arrowheads and chunkey stones -perhaps sacrifices with dead ruler or those who went willingly to death -maybe a kinship practice -many sacrifices long postdate the main dead guy -maybe it's about lineage and clan, corporate versus elite burials | 22 | |
| 2439011083 | Julie Hoult on Geertz's "Theatre State" | -in Bali, religion and politics connected -not about economic control but ceremony, honour, dignity and charisma: Geertz -power served pomp, not pomp power -Paul Wheatley's concept of Exemplary Ceremonial Centre -purpose was to launch spectacles, reinforcing Balinese kings right to rule (competitive) -maintain ones face, etiquette -be cautious with this model! | 23 |