Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T14:56:22.702Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Power and place: Agency, ecology, and history in the American Bottom, Illinois

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Sissel Schroeder
Sissel Schroeder*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, 5240 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Dr Madison, WI 53706, USA (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is ecology or agency the principal imperative of the formation of complex societies? Using new survey data, the author shows how both interest in the development of the riverside settlement area of the American Bottom and how the different modern histories of the northern (industrial) and the southern (agricultural) American Bottom, have affected the survival of evidence and how this in turn has favoured a different emphasis in interpretation for each.

Keywords

MississippianCahokiachiefdomssettlement patternshistorical ecology
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 78 , Issue 302 , December 2004 , pp. 812 - 827
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. MCM. 1949. Archaeological investigations in Jefferson County, Missouri. The Missouri Archaeologist 11(3–4):1–72.Google Scholar
Ahler, S. R. & Depuydt, P. J.. 1987. A report on the 1931 Powell Mound excavations, Madison County, Illinois. Reports of Investigations 43. Springfield: Illinois State Museum.Google Scholar
Alt, S. M. 2002. Identities, traditions, and diversity in Cahokia’s uplands. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27:217–235.Google Scholar
Anderson, D. G. 1994. The Savannah River chiefdoms: political change in the late prehistoric Southeast. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Army Corps of Engineers. 1876–1881. Detail charts of the Mississippi River from Cairo, IL, to Hannibal, MO, 1876–1881, 1:40,000.Google Scholar
Army Corps of Engineers. 1908. 1908 board sheets, Mississippi River, St. Louis, MO, to Cairo, IL, Sheets 1–17, 1:20,000.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W. & Knapp, A. B. (eds.). 1999. Archaeologies of landscape: contemporary approaches. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bareis, C. J. 1964. Meander loops and the Cahokia Site. American Antiquity 30: 89–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bareis, C. J. & Porter, J. W. (eds.). 1984. American Bottom archaeology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Blitz, J. H. 1993. Ancient chiefdoms of the Tombigbee. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Boone, J. L. 1992. Competition, conflict, and development of social hierarchies, in Smith, E. A. & Winterhalder, B. (eds.) Evolutionary ecology and human behavior: 301–337. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice, trans. by Nice, R.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumfiel, E. M. 1994. Factional competition and political development in the New World: an introduction, in Brumfiel, E. M. & Fox, J. W. (eds.) Factional competition and political development in the New World: 3–13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bushnell, D. I. Jr. 1904. The Cahokia and surrounding mound groups. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology 3. Cambridge: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Chapman, C. H. 1980. The archaeology of Missouri, II. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Cobb, C. R. 2001. From quarry to cornfield: the political economy of Mississippian hoe production. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Collins, J. M. & Henning, D. R.. 1996. Big River Phase: Emergent Mississippian cultural expression on Cahokia’s near frontier, the Northeast Ozark Rim, Missouri. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 21:79–104.Google Scholar
Conrad, L. A. 1989. The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in the northern Middle Mississippi frontier: late prehistoric politico-religious systems in the central Illinois River Valley, in Galloway, P. (ed.) The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: artefacts and analysis: 93–113. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Crumley, C. (ed.). 1994. Historical ecology: cultural knowledge and changing landscapes. Santa Fe: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Dalan, R. A., Holley, G. R., Woods, W. I., Watters, H. W. Jr., & Koepke, J. A.. 2003. Envisioning Cahokia: a landscape perspective. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dobres, M-A. & Robb, J. E. (eds.). 2000. Agency in archaeology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Earle, T. K. 1991. The evolution of chiefdoms, in Earle, T. K. (ed.) Chiefdoms: power, economy, and ideology: 1–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Earle, T. K. 1997. How chiefs come to power: the political economy in prehistory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekberg, C. J. & Foley, W. E. (eds.). 1989. An account of Upper Louisiana by Nicolas de Finiels. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Emerson, T. E. 1992. The Mississippian dispersed village as a social and environmental strategy, in Woods, W. I. (ed.) Late prehistoric agriculture: observations from the Midwest, Studies in Illinois Archaeology 8: 198–216. Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.Google Scholar
Emerson, T. E. 1997. Cahokia and the archaeology of power. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Emerson, T. E. 2002. An introduction to Cahokia 2002: diversity, complexity, and history. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27:127–148 Google Scholar
Esarey, D. & Pauketat, T. R.. 1992. The Lohmann Site: an early Mississippian center in the American Bottom. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Flint, T. 1970 (1828). A condensed geography and history of the western United States or the Mississippi Valley. Vol. 1. Gainesville: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints.Google Scholar
Fowler, M. L. 1978. Cahokia and the American Bottom: settlement archaeology, in Smith, B. D. (ed.) Mississippian settlement patterns: 455–478. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fowler, M. L. 1997. The Cahokia atlas: a historical atlas of Cahokia archaeology. Revised edition. Urbana: Illinois Transportation Archaeology Program, University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Fried, M. 1967. The evolution of political society. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Fritz, G. J. 2001. Native farming systems and ecosystems in the Mississippi River valley, in Lentz, D. L. (ed.) Imperfect balance: landscape transformations in the Precolumbian Americas: 225–249. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
General Land Office. c. 1800–1850. Maps and surveyors notes for Illinois and Missouri.Google Scholar
Gibbon, G. E. 1991. The Middle Mississippian presence in Minnesota, in Emerson, T. E. & Lewis, R. B. (eds.) Cahokia and the hinterlands: Middle Mississippian cultures of the Midwest: 207–220. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1979. Central problems in social theory: action, structure, and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, A. 1984. The constitution of society: outline of a theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. B. 1977. The University of Michigan excavations at the Pulcher Site in 1950. American Antiquity 42: 462–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, J. B. & Spaulding, A. C.. 1951. The central Mississippi Valley archaeological survey, season 1950 – a preliminary report. Illinois State Archaeological Society (n.s.) 1:75–81, 84.Google Scholar
Haas, J. 1982. The evolution of the prehistoric state. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajic, E. R. 1992. Holocene fluvial geomorphic change in the central Mississippi Valley. Geological Society of America, abstracts with programs 24:101.Google Scholar
Hall, R. L. 1991. Cahokia identity and interaction models of Cahokia Mississippian, in Emerson, T. E. & Lewis, R. B. (eds.) Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest: 3–34. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Halstead, P. & O’shea, J.. 1989. Introduction: cultural responses to risk and uncertainty, in Halstead, P. & O’Shea, J. (eds.) Bad year economics: cultural responses to risk and uncertainty: 1–7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holley, G. R., Dalan, R. A. & Smith, P. A.. 1993. Investigations in the Cahokia Site Grand Plaza. American Antiquity 58: 306–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, C. M. 1997. Knights of Spain, warriors of the sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s ancient chiefdoms. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Hunt, E. D. 1992. Up-grading site-catchment analyses with the use of GIS: investigating the settlement patterns of horticulturalists. World Archaeology 24: 283–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hus, H. 1908. An ecological cross section of the Mississippi River in the region of St. Louis, Missouri. 19th Annual report of the Missouri Botanical Garden: 127–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johannessen, S. 1984. Paleoethnobotany, in Bareis, & Porter, : 197–214.Google Scholar
Kehoe, A. B. 1998. The land of prehistory: a critical history of American archaeology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kelly, J. E. 1993. The Pulcher Site: an archaeological and historical overview. Illinois Archaeology 5: 434–480.Google Scholar
Kelly, J. E. 1994. The archaeology of the East St. Louis Mound center: past and present. Illinois Archaeology 6: 1–57.Google Scholar
Kelly, L. 2000. Social implications of faunal provisioning for the Cahokia Site: initial Mississippian, Lohmann Phase (Illinois). Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.Google Scholar
Kelly, L. & Cross, P.. 1984. Zooarchaeology, in Bareis, & Porter, : 215–232.Google Scholar
King, A. 2003. Etowah: the political history of a chiefdom capital. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Kirch, P. V. 1984. The evolution of Polynesian chiefdoms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Knight, V. J. & Steponaitis, V. P. (eds.). 1998. Studies in Moundville archaeology. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Limp, W. F. & Reidhead, V. A.. 1979. An economic evaluation of the potential of fish utilization in riverine environments. American Antiquity 44: 70–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lopinot, N. H. & Woods, W. I.. 1993. Wood overexploitation and the collapse of Cahokia, in Scarry, C. M. (ed.) Foraging and farming in the Eastern Woodlands: 206–231. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Mann, M. 1986. The sources of social power, volume 1: a history of power from the beginning to AD 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milner, G. R. 1986. Mississippian period population density in a segment of the central Mississippi River valley. American Antiquity 51: 468–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milner, G. R. 1993. Settlements amidst swamps. Illinois Archaeology 5: 374–380.Google Scholar
Milner, G. R. 1998. The Cahokia chiefdom. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Milner, G. R., & Oliver, J. S.. 1999. Late prehistoric settlements and wetlands in the central Mississippi valley, in Billman, B. R. & Feinman, G. M. (eds.) Settlement pattern studies in the Americas: fifty years since Virú: 79–95. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Milner, G. R., Emerson, T. E., Mehrer, M. W., Williams, J. A. & Esarey, D.. 1984. Mississippian and Oneota periods, in Bareis, & Porter, : 158–186.Google Scholar
Mohlenbrock, R. H. 1986. Guide to the vascular flora of Illinois. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Mohlenbrock, R. H. 1992. Forest trees of Illinois. 6 th ed. Springfield: Illinois Department of Conservation.Google Scholar
Muller, J. 1997. Mississippian political economy. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, J. & Stephens, J. E.. 1991. Mississippian sociocultural adaptation, in Emerson, T. E. & Lewis, R. B. (eds.) Cahokia and the hinterlands: Middle Mississippian cultures of the Midwest: 297–310. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Munson, P. J. & Harn, A. D.. 1971. Archaeological surveys of the American Bottoms and adjacent bluffs, Illinois. Reports of Investigations, Vol. 21. Springfield: Illinois State Museum.Google Scholar
Nelson, P. W. 1985. The terrestrial natural communities of Missouri. Jefferson City: Missouri Department of Natural Resources and Missouri Department of Conservation.Google Scholar
Nocete, F. 1994. Space as coercion: the transition to the state in the social formations of La Campiña, Upper Guadilquivir Valley, Spain, ca. 1900–1600 B. C. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 13:171–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, P. J. 1991. Early state economics: Cahokia, capital of the Ramey State, in Claessen, H. J. M. & Van de Velde, P. (eds.) Early State Economics: 143–175. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Ortner, S. B. 1984. Theory in anthropology since the sixties. Comparative Studies in Society and History 26: 126–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. 1994. The ascent of chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian politics in Native North America. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. 1998. Refiguring the archaeology of greater Cahokia. Journal of Archaeological Research 6:45–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. 2000. The tragedy of the commoners, in Dobres, and Robb, (eds.): 113–129.Google Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. 2001. Practice and history in archaeology: an emerging paradigm. Anthropological Theory 1:73–98.Google Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. 2003. Resettled farmers and the making of a Mississippian polity. American Antiquity 68:39–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. & Alt, S. M.. 2003. Mounds, memories, and contested Mississippian history, in Van Dyke, R. M. & Alcock, S. E. (eds.) Archaeologies of memory: 151–179. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. & Emerson, T. E. (eds.). 1997. Cahokia: domination and ideology in the Mississippian world. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Pauketat, T. R. & Lopinot, N. H.. 1997. Cahokian population dynamics, in Pauketat, & Emerson, : 103–123.Google Scholar
Pauketat, T. R., Rees, M. A. & Pauketat, S. L.. 1998. An archaeological survey of Horseshoe Lake State Park, Madison County, Illinois. Reports of Investigations, Vol. 55. Springfield: Illinois State Museum.Google Scholar
Reed, N. A., Bennett, J. W. & Porter, J. W.. 1968. Solid core drilling of Monks Mound: technique and findings. American Antiquity 33: 137–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roper, D. C. 1979. The method and theory of site catchment analysis: a review. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 2: 119–140.Google Scholar
Rountree, H. C. 1988. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: their traditional culture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, S. 1997. Place, productivity, and politics: the evolution of cultural complexity in the Cahokia area. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Penn State University.Google Scholar
Schroeder, S. 1999. Maize productivity in the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains of North America. American Antiquity 64: 499–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwegman, J. E. 1973. The natural divisions of Illinois, comprehensive plan, part 2. Springfield: Illinois Nature Preserve System.Google Scholar
Sears, W. 1968. The state and settlement patterns in the New World, in Chang, K. C. (ed.) Settlement archaeology: 134–153. Palo Alto: National Press Books.Google Scholar
Service, E. R. 1962. Primitive social organization: an evolutionary perspective. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Skele, M. 1988. The great knob: interpretations of Monks Mound. Studies in Illinois Archaeology 4. Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.Google Scholar
Smith, M. T. 2000. Coosa: the rise and fall of a southeastern Mississippian chiefdom. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Ucko, P. & Layton, R. (eds.). 1999. The anthropology and archaeology of landscapes: shaping your landscape. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vita-Finzi, C. & Higgs, E.S. 1970. Prehistoric economy in the Mount Carmel area of Palestine. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 36: 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welch, P. D. 1991. Moundville’s economy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
White, W. P., Johannessen, S., Cross, P. G. & Kelly, L. S.. 1984. Environmental setting, in Bareis, & Porter, : 15–33.Google Scholar
Whitehead, N. L. 1998. Ecological history and historical ecology: diachronic modeling versus historical explanation, in Balée, W. (ed.) Advances in historical ecology: 30–41. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. R. 1999. Envisioning power. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, W. I. & Holley, G. R.. 1991. Upland Mississippian settlement in the American Bottom region, in Emerson, T. E. & Lewis, R. B. (eds.) Cahokia and the hinterlands: Middle Mississippian cultures of the Midwest: 46–60. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar