Cahokia as a World Renewal Cult Heterarchy

New Perspectives in Mississippian Archaeology

“…Although it has become obvious that the centralized model does not fit some mound centers, and entire regions (e.g., parts of Arkansas, western Kentucky, the Carolina Piedmont, and much of southern Appalachia) have no preeminent sites akin to a Moundville or Etowah, it is far from clear whether all Mississippian societies were ''decentralized.'' Emerging from the centralized versus decentralized dialog is a broadening of perspective, away from an emphasis on chiefs and elites to a greater concern for the segmentary or horizontal organization of corporate groups, usually said to be kinbased (clans, lineages) and/or nonkin associations (sodalities, cults) and how these social groups might be recognized in community plans and artifact distributions (Blitz and Livingood 2004;Blitz and Lorenz 2006;Byers 2006;Cook 2008;Knight 2007b;Wilson 2008). With evidence for elite monopolies or controls over access to basic resources inconclusive, weak, or lacking altogether at many Mississippian sites, there has been a shift in research focus away from economy to ideology as a source of political power.…”

“…Attention is directed to the social contexts of production as structured by kinship, nonkin associations, group identity, and efforts to produce and control ritual knowledge. From this perspective, it is unlikely that materialization of the ideological order was the exclusive prerogative of a noble class because corporate social segments, cults, sodalities, and other such entities created checks and balances on elite actions (Blitz and Lorenz 2006;Byers 2006;Cobb 2000Cobb , 2003Saitta 1994;Wilson 2008). Thus the assignment of value and meaning to production and exchange was likely negotiated, contested, and fluid (Alt 2006).…”

“…The decentralized perspective gained influence with the absence of archaeological evidence for largescale redistribution, full-time craft specialization, pervasive controls over access to material resources, or health distinctions between elites and nonelites, at least in some Mississippian polities both large and small (Blitz 1993;Byers 2006;Cobb 2000Cobb , 2003Milner 2006;Muller 1997;Powell 2007;Saitta 1994). Critical readings of the ethnohistorical sources that influenced the centralized perspective, such as the early Spanish expeditions and French accounts of the Natchez, led to a revisionist argument that these accounts were marred by ethnocentrism, had been applied uncritically, did not depict class societies, and that chiefly power was less autocratic and more constrained by councils and factions than previously depicted (Blitz 1993, pp.…”

“…With evidence for elite monopolies or controls over access to basic resources inconclusive, weak, or lacking altogether at many Mississippian sites, there has been a shift in research focus away from economy to ideology as a source of political power. Consequently, Mississippian researchers who wish to examine the reciprocal negotiation of meanings, values, and power among the social segments of a Mississippian community or polity (Byers 2006;Kelly 2006;Welch 2006) are turning to decentralized models applied by archaeologists working elsewhere in which the economy is seen as embedded in a ritual mode of production (Mills 2004;Spielmann 2002;Wells 2006). Although social rank and hierarchy may be replicated within the heterarchical arrangements of peer segments, in these models power, political controls, and sanctions within communities and polities remain decentralized, based on ideological power, not economic power.…”

“…New site-specific syntheses range in size from the major centers of Cahokia, Illinois (Byers 2006;Milner 2006;, Moundville, Alabama (Blitz 2008;Knight and Steponaitis 2007a;Wilson 2008), and Etowah, Georgia (Cobb and King 2005;King 2003King , 2004a, to the modest-sized center of Shiloh, Tennessee (Welch 2005) and the small settlements of Annis, Kentucky (Hammerstedt 2005), Upper Nodena, Arkansas (Fisher-Carroll and Mainfort 2000;Mainfort et al 2007;Payne 2006), and King, Georgia (Hally 2008). There is wide geographical coverage as well, including settlements at the far edges of the Mississippian world: Aztalan, Wisconsin (Birmingham and Goldstein 2005), SunWatch, Ohio (Cook 2008), Town Creek, North Carolina , and Oak Hill, Texas (Perttula and Rodgers 2007).…”