Star Performances and Cosmic Clutter

Abstract

Are there long-term processes invisible over short spans? And if so, how might they relate to the loci of long-term social change, those performative or practical moments wherein agents enact, embody, or otherwise engage traditions, landscapes, or structures? Here, we are particularly concerned with the experience of starry skies as these were historically reckoned through cluttered object fields and cosmic events. These are key to understanding the emergent properties of ethnoastronomies and cultural landscapes that, in certain moments, may be described as leading to historical conjunctures.

Reimagining the Development of Downtown Cahokia Using Remote Sensing Visualizations from the Western Edge of the Grand Plaza

“…As the city of Cahokia grew and shifts in the social fabric that underlay it emerged, this pattern changed to larger and more architecturally elaborate structures that were situated in a north-south arrangement at the western boundary of the Grand Plaza. The L-shape structures that once stood in front of Mound 57 specifically point to the use of the plaza as a place where visually spectacular, and socially powerful, objects were being crafted, used, and potentially stored [23,[128][129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136].…”