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Cahokia is a major archaeological site of the prehistoric Mississippian period in the American Bottom region of the central Mississippi Valley. It is also impressively large, but it is only the largest of several other large and contemporaneous multiple-mound groupings nearby. The American Bottom is a large east-bank floodplain of the Mississippi River opposite the confluence of the Missouri River. The chronology of the American Bottom is described. The chapter also addresses the precursors of Cahokia. The first modern archaeological account of the presented Mississippian period archaeological record is Melvin Fowler's four-tiered settlement model. While each of the interpretations characterizes the Middle Mississippian social system of the American Bottom slightly differently, the differences are largely quantitative and not qualitative. The hierarchical monistic modular polity account and the heterarchical polyistic locale-centric account are then discussed. These two accounts constitute complementary opposites of the same archaeological record of the American Bottom.

This chapter provides an overall summary of the history of the factional competition that strongly influenced the development and, finally, the abandonment of Cahokia. It first introduces the speculative possibilities of the post-Cahokian era. It is noted that the late Mississippian period social system of the American Bottom not only was manifesting strong trends toward reestablishing an integrated settlement articulation mode of villages, but also that this was occurring in a milieu characterized by growing intercult hostility promoting the joint and specialized leadership of the senior and junior age-grades, the former focusing largely on the religious role and the latter on the military role. It also demonstrates how the theoretical scheme presented can be used to address and resolve a set of puzzles that a major scholarly proponent of the hierarchical monistic modular polity account has noted and analyzed in detail. It then reviews the anomalous data, critique the account, and presents the alternatives. Several important empirical anomalies of the hierarchical monistic modular polity account of the American Bottom archaeological record are covered and the theoretical infelicities that generate them are critiqued. In addition, the demise of Cahokia is described.

This chapter aims to use both the new data and the interpretations made for American Bottom archaeology in order to reassess earlier mortuary discussions, which were primarily based on the mortuary data available prior to these new materials. While Donald Booth, Thomas Emerson, Eva Hargrave, and Kristin Hedman interpret these materials to bolster the hierarchical monistic modular polity account, in radical contrast, this chapter uses these same data to confirm the view that Cahokia was a world renewal cult heterarchy model—as postulated under the heterarchical polyistic locale-centric account. Starting with the early Mississippian period record and then the later Mississippian period record, it applies the hermeneutic spiral method by first outlining these new data and their hierarchical monistic modular polity account interpretations. It follows this with a critique of the latter. Then, while making the necessary modification in the earlier interpretation that these new data allow and require—particularly the changes in dating—it demonstrates that these same data can be more coherently understood when viewed in terms of the set of models.

This chapter uses the mortuary data of the Mississippian period of the American Bottom as evidence in support of the heterarchical polyistic locale-centric account, in general, and of the World Renewal Cult Heterarchy model, in particular. It is noted that under a hierarchical monistic modular polity system based on proprietary corporate clans, a unitary CBL system should exist, with a strong emphasis on primary burial and with variation in artifact and burial facilities correlated with the presence or absence of ranked clans and specialization. It is also clear that the nature of the clan-cult relation in a polyistic-type social system is a function of the relative degree of polluting that everyday settlement and subsistence practices are perceived to be generating. An analysis is initiated by concentrating on four American Bottom mortuary sites that have been excavated and/or analyzed using modern archaeological standards: the East St. Louis Stone Quarry site, the Kane Mounds site, the Wilson Mound, and Mound 72. The Wilson Mound is interpreted by George Milner as an elite cemetery, although a distinctly “lesser elite” cemetery.

This chapter argues that, from the beginning, the same-gender/same-age cults have been autonomous communal cults. The evolution of the American Bottom, therefore, is largely the evolution of the arm's-length relations between the relatively autonomous cults and clans. The chapter also elaborates on the required mortuary and cult models to complete the theoretical framework required to interpret critically Cahokia and the American Bottom in these terms. It considers the theoretical perspective underwriting the Cemetery model as the funerary paradigm. It argues that the American Bottom mortuary data can be best treated as the expression of a complex mortuary sphere constituted by an integrated system of mortuary behaviors incorporating both clan-based funerary and cult-based world renewal rituals. However, a theory that can be used to interpret the mortuary data in these terms must be first elucidated. The chapter then postulates that the American Bottom mortuary record was the ritual outcome and medium by which both human and world renewal were accomplished simultaneously. The Mourning/World Renewal Mortuary model and the Autonomous Cult model are specifically reviewed. Moreover, a critical discussion of cults and social systems is provided.

This chapter provides an elucidation of the World Renewal Cult Heterarchy model. This model is specifically designed to articulate the type of social system manifested in Cahokia and the other mound locales that would be consistent with the principles of immanent sacredness, squatter ethos, inclusive territorialism, custodial domain, agentive autonomy, enabling hierarchy, and so on, these being the basic concepts underwriting the heterarchical polyistic locale-centric account of Cahokia and its associated mound locales. It also treats Cahokia as a cooperative and very active religious center of a complex mutualistic world renewal cult heterarchy. In addition, an overview of the American Bottom Mississippian period system is given.

This chapter determines the patterns that require the evaluation of the Terminal Late Woodland settlement data following the Sponemann phase by exploring the Range site. It specifically outlines the current interpretations of that site's community plans, critiques them, and then provides the alternative, thereby establishing the interpretive background framework for addressing the Mississippian period, with special attention on the role of Cahokia within the regional system of the American Bottom. It also offers short descriptions of the community plans along with a critical comparative presentation of the hierarchical and heterarchical interpretive accounts for the later Terminal Late Woodland George Reeves phase and Lindeman phase occupations. It first introduces the peripheral-integrated settlement articulation mode period of the Range site. It turns to summarizing the Dohack phase data, representing the earliest phase of the Terminal Late Woodland period, and Kelly's interpretation of these data. This is followed by a critique and alternative interpretation.

The Shiloh Indian Mound Group has produced a number of artifacts that appear to derive from the American Bottom area. Radiocarbon and TL dating indicates the site was occupied from the late tenth through early 14th centuries AD, with construction activity at Mound A occurring between approximately AD 1100 and 1340, with major stages erected during the early and mid-13th century. The Shiloh center was thus emerging during Cahokia’s Stirling phase, from ca. AD 1100–1200, and reached its peak during the subsequent Morehead Phase, from AD 1200–1300. Shiloh, like Cahokia itself, was abandoned sometime around AD 1300. Shiloh’s Mississippian center apparently emerged amid local Late Woodland peoples who apparently made little prior use of the location, suggesting an amalgamation of differing populations or social groups, much as Cahokia itself was likely formed.

The Sacred Maize model as applied to the American Bottom postulates that a series of related ideological innovations was successfully implemented and marked the Terminal Late Woodland period and that, largely unwittingly, this implementation instigated a population expansion and further innovation tied into world renewal ritual, culminating in the emergence of Cahokia. The Z-twist/S-twist cordmarking duality manifests an important constitutive contrast generating two objectively similar but emically contrasting ceramic-usage spheres. The testing of the Sacred Maize Model is demonstrated by ceramic evidence and the mixing-prohibition hypothesis.

The widespread exchange of masterful artworks in the Mississippian period has long been a topic of interest among North American archaeologists. The Braden Style, an artistic tradition whose origin has been placed at Cahokia, is recognizable on objects unearthed from locales that are remarkably distant from the American Bottom. In the Tallahassee Red Hills of Florida, the Lake Jackson site hosted burials in Mound 3 that contained a variety of these examples. While the contents of Mound 3’s burials have been investigated to explore ties to other major ceremonial centers in the Greater Southeast, the nature of those ties and their timing have not been fully investigated, especially in consideration of Cahokia. This chapter offers an assemblage based exploration of exchange between these two different and distant sites.

This chapter introduces the book with a discussion of culture contact dynamics and the need to investigate these questions in complex non-state societies. The spread of Cahokia’s influence through both direct and indirect interaction across the Midcontinent, had diverse outcomes in different regions. Mississippianization was a historical process whereby Woodland peoples had the agency to resist or participate in Cahokian practices and did so with reference to their own identities and traditions. Within this framework, the chapter lays out the following research questions: 1) did the Lower Illinois River Valley’s (LIRV) proximity to Cahokia enable certain social, political, and economic interactions with American Bottom groups that did not transpire with more distant groups; and 2) how did these interactions impact the social organization and daily practices of groups in the LIRV?

This chapter deals with the types of social systems that would occupy a world that people might experience as immanently sacred. It specifically gives a theoretical explanation of the type of social system articulation that would be consistent with the outline of deontic ecology and the integrated notion of cultural traditions. This synthesis is of central importance because it forms the foundation of the critical assessment of the hierarchical monistic modular polity and heterarchical polyistic locale-centric accounts of Cahokia and the American Bottom archaeological record. This also correlates the proprietorial domain and custodial domain with transcendentalist and immanentist cosmologies, respectively. The chapter begins by exploring the differential settlement and subsistence pattern articulations. Bifurcated and integrated settlement articulation modes are covered. The chapter also shows the bifurcated Nyakyusa community settlement.