The Making of Mississippian Tradition

In this volume, Christina Friberg investigates the influence of Cahokia, the largest city of North America’s Mississippian culture between AD 1050 and 1350, on smaller communities throughout the midcontinent. Using evidence from recent excavations at the Audrey-North site in the Lower Illinois River Valley, Friberg examines the cultural give-and-take Audrey inhabitants experienced between new Cahokian customs and old Woodland ways of life. Comparing the architecture, pottery, and lithics uncovered here with data from thirty-five other sites across five different regions, Friberg reveals how the social, economic, and political influence of Cahokia shaped the ways Audrey inhabitants negotiated identities and made new traditions. Friberg’s broad interregional analysis also provides evidence that these diverse groups of people were engaged in a network of interaction and exchange outside Cahokia’s control. The Making of Mississippian Tradition offers a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of cultural exchange in precolonial settlements, and its detailed reconstruction of Audrey society offers a new, more nuanced interpretation of how and why Mississippian lifeways developed.

Remote Sensing Data from Etowah's Mound A: Architecture and the Re-Creation of Mississippian Tradition

This paper presents the results of a gradiometer survey conducted on the summit of Etowah's largest mound, Mound A, which stands some 19 m tall. Those results are compared to limited excavation data from the summit of Mound A as well as information from the wider region on mound summit architecture. The gradiometer results reveal the presence of as many as four buildings and an open-ended portico that are arranged around an open space and obscured from view below in the plaza. We argue that decisions about the kinds of buildings constructed and their arrangement reveal the interplay between agency and structure at a point of ambiguity in the history of Etowah. The buildings located on the summit of Mound A were built after the site had been abandoned and reoccupied. With that reoccupation, agents and their followers both connected to local traditions and attempted to reformulate them.