Exchange of preciosities is often considered an integral factor in the emergence of Mississippian chiefdoms, and the rise of Cahokia has been linked to such long-distance trade. We know that Cahokia was the center of production for large flint clay figurines and effigy pipes (Emerson and Hughes 2000). Similar Cahokia-style figures have been found in the Trans-Mississippi South and the Southeast. We investigated the material used.to make these figures using a newly developed nondestructive PIMA SP™ spectroscopic technology to identify the stone and to determine their source location. These analyses proved that the figures were made of Missouri flint clay from quarries near St. Louis. We submit that Cahokia was the twelfth-century source for the production of these Cahokia-style figures. Outside of Cahokia the flint clay figures were primarily found in Caddoan mortuaries, reinforcing earlier evidence of a strong Cahokia-Caddoan connection. The available chronological and contextual information indicates the flint clay figures left Cahokia after it began to decline in the late thirteenth-century, through various mechanisms of extra-local exchange rather than as part of any systematic prestige-goods network. The association of these highly symbolic figures with Cahokia allows us to reevaluate the indigenous iconography and propose that many of the themes (e.g., fertility and warfare) that later appear in Eastern Woodlands native cosmology such as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex were first codified here in the twelfth-century.

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Provenance studies of stone artifacts often rely heavily upon chemical techniques such as neutron activation analysis. However, stone specimens with very similar chemical composition can have different mineralogies (distinctive crystalline structures as well as variations within the same mineral) that are not revealed by multielemental techniques. Because mineralogical techniques are often cheap and usually nondestructive, beginning with mineralogy allows the researcher to gain valuable information and then to be selective about how many samples are submitted for expensive and somewhat destructive chemical analysis, thus conserving both valuable samples and funds. Our University of Illinois team of archaeologists and geologists employs Portable Infrared Mineral Analyzer (PIMA) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Sequential acid dissolution/XRD/Inductively coupled plasma (SAD-XRD-ICP) analyses. Two case studies of Hopewellian pipes and Mississippian figurines illustrate this mineralogical approach. The results for both studies identify sources relatively close to the sites where the artifacts were recovered: Sterling, Illinois (rather than Ohio) for the (Hopewell) pipes and Missouri (rather than Arkansas or Oklahoma) for the Cahokia figurines.

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A team of archaeologists and geologists demonstrates how a portable infrared mineral analyzer (PIMA), first used by Australian geologists for mineral exploration, can be applied to provenance and authenticity studies. PIMA spectroscopy can be used to characterize both original materials and restored sections on stone and ceramic artifacts, including coatings such as shellac. The instrument works especially well in museum settings because it is portable and nondestructive. PIMA spectroscopy will become increasingly useful over time as reference databases of archaeological and restoration materials are accumulated.