Given the hierarchical nature and structure of field schools, enrolled students are particularly susceptible to harassment and assault. In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released recommendations to help prevent sexual harassment and assault of women in academia. Although these recommendations are specific to higher education and exclusive to women, some can be modified and applied to the context of archaeological field schools. We review the NASEM's recommendations, with particular attention to those applicable to the field school setting, and provide suggestions for making field schools safer and more inclusive learning environments for all students. Although we present recommendations for practices that can be implemented at field schools, additional research is needed to understand how sexual harassment occurs at field schools and how the implementation of these recommendations can make learning safer.

The Formative Caddo Period (A.D. 850-1100) of eastern Oklahoma was marked by dramatic material and ritual changes, culminating in the construction of aggregated villages and ceremonial centers. Formative Caddo groups are notable for their highly complex and ritually-charged ceramic vessels that were unlike anything archeologists have seen in the American Southeast. Tracing the rapid development and spread of this early fine ware assemblage across a variety of social, ritual, and mortuary contexts is key to understanding the shared religious and ritual traditions of the pre-Columbian Arkansas River valley and surrounding Coastal Plain drainages. Yet despite nearly 60 years of archeological research, insight is still lacking into the organization of Formative Caddo ceramic production and the mechanics of exchange between the northern and southern Caddo areas. While archeologists have shown Formative Caddo fine wares were locally produced in the Red River valley and surrounding Coastal Plain drainages, they have assumed that Caddo people in Arkansas River valley and Ozark Plateau locally produced them. However, they are not recovered from the same contexts across both Caddo areas. Formative Caddo pottery is commonly found in both domestic and ritual contexts at Coastal Plain sites but are restricted to ritual contexts at ceremonial centers on the Ozark Plateau. The ritual contexts in which Formative Caddo ceramics are recovered are also quite different. At Coastal Plain ceremonial centers, such as George C. Davis in Texas and Crenshaw in Arkansas, Formative Caddo ceramics were deposited in off-mound, on-mound, and mortuary contexts. Yet, at ceremonial centers of the Ozark Plateau, such as Spiro, Harlan, and Brackett in Oklahoma, Formative Caddo ceramics were deposited exclusively in mortuary contexts. The marked contrast between Formative Caddo pottery use and deposition between the northern and southern ceremonial centers provides insight into the development of Formative Caddo ritual practices and traditions. It suggests there may be fundamental differences in the ritual programs of the northern and southern Caddo areas. To examine the emergence and spread of these traditions, I am conducting a regional-scale study of the production and distribution of Formative Caddo pottery in the northern and southern Caddo areas. This project has two major components. First, it involves the analysis of clay chemical composition of 264 fine ware sherds from five ceremonial sites in the Arkansas River Basin. I applied for and was granted a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant to pay for Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) on these sherds. Once the INAA is completed, I will compare the Arkansas Basin results with previously generated elemental sourcing data from the Coastal Plain region. Secondly, this project involves a stylistic analysis of the forms and designs on 199 fine ware vessels to understand their overall design grammar and structure. The sites to be studied include Spiro, Harlan, Norman, Reed, and Brackett in the Arkansas River drainage and Crenshaw, Boxed Springs, George C. Davis, and Mounds Plantation in the Gulf Coastal Plain region. I hypothesize that either (1) Formative Caddo fine wares found in the Arkansas River basin were imported from the Red River valley and surrounding Coastal Plain drainages, where they were fabricated, or (2) Formative Caddo vessels were manufactured in the Arkansas River Basin, but intended use was restricted for mortuary purposes. Whether the first or second hypothesis is supported by this research, it will determine whether this is a single or separate communities of practice, and will have major implications for how we view the integration of these communities and the origins of Caddo ritual traditions.

Our introduction provides the background for the subsequent case studies in this edited volume by reviewing the historical development and significance of stylistic and iconographic approaches to Mississippian imagery. It also explores the three topics that organize the larger volume: (1) the use of style in Mississippian iconographic studies, (2) interpreting Mississippian imagery, and (3) situating and historicizing Mississippian symbols. The first section considers how style has been conceptualized in archaeological studies, and the way it has how been employed to develop and infer regional styles in Mississippian imagery. The second section discusses how iconographic analyses can be employed to assess the referents of Mississippian imagery, as well as how the (ethno)historic narratives, beliefs and traditions of Native American peoples can be used to infer their significance. The third section examines the way that historical approaches and assessments of Mississippian symbols’ depositional contexts can enhance archaeological perspectives. In the final portion of this chapter, we discuss the subsequent chapters and how they advance through a series of well-contextualized case studies.

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Recent absorbed residue studies have confirmed that ceramic and shell containers were used for consuming Datura in precolumbian times. Until now, no one has identified what tools precolumbian people used to produce a concentrated hallucinogenic concoction. In this study, we used mass spectrometry to identify Datura residues (a flowering plant with hallucinogenic properties) in two late precolumbian composite bottles from the Central Arkansas River valley. Unlike the construction of most Mississippian bottles, the bottles in this study are unique because ceramic disks with a series of concentric perforations were incorporated in the bottles at the juncture of the bottle neck with the globular portion of the body. The organic residue analysis revealed Datura residues in both bottles. We argue that the internal clay disks served as strainers that allowed Datura producers to separate the hallucinogenic alkaloids from the Datura flower to produce a powerful liquid beverage.