Social and Temporal Implications of Variation among American Bottom Mississippian Cemeteries

Abstract

Mississippian period cemeteries in the American Bottom, Illinois, were divided into three categories representing two distinct social strata. Burial areas for an elite stratum occurred in large, regionally important town-and-mound centers. Locational, organizational, and artifactual criteria distinguish these burial areas from those of a non-elite social stratum. Members of the non-elite social stratum were buried either in cemeteries located within regional centers or in peripherally located cemeteries associated with outlying communities. Mortuary practices in the American Bottom changed somewhat during the several hundred year duration of the Mississippian period. These changes were particularly apparent at peripheral cemeteries. The size and distribution of these cemeteries were related to levels of regional social segmentation and settlement autonomy, which changed throughout the Mississippian period.

The Wickliffe Mounds Project: Implications for Late Mississippi Period Chronology, Settlement, and Mortuary Patterns in Western Kentucky

“…The Wickliffe cemetery resembles Milner's (1984) peripheral American Bottom cemeteries, and Mound D may tentatively be identified as an elite burial mound. Mound D's conch shell effigy vessels are reminiscent of middle stratum elite grave associations at Moundville (Peebles & Kus 1977) and the American Bottom (Milner 1984) and also of the smaller-scale chiefdom elite of the Dallas phase (Hatch 1976).…”

“…Mound D's conch shell effigy vessels are reminiscent of middle stratum elite grave associations at Moundville (Peebles & Kus 1977) and the American Bottom (Milner 1984) and also of the smaller-scale chiefdom elite of the Dallas phase (Hatch 1976). The Wickliffe mortuary patterns, although problematic because of lack of detailed provenience data on grave associations recovered in the 1930s, provide some support for inferring a ranked society of smaller scale than Cahokia or Moundville, a country cousin resembling the middle levels of the Cahokia or Moundville hierarchies.…”

Eventful Archaeology

“…At approximately AD 1050, the site of Cahokia, in the American Bottom of the Mississippi River valley, rapidly grew in size and scale to become a leading center of the Mississippian cultural expression (Alt 2006;Beck 2006;Dalan et al 2003;Emerson and Pauketat 2002;Hall 2007;Milner 2006;Pauketat 1997Pauketat , 1998Pauketat , 2004Saitta 1994;Schroeder 2004). In 50 years, its mound and plaza arrangement (marked by truncated, pyramidal mounds), shell-tempered pottery, and wall trench house construction-to list several important material features of this broader culture pattern-became recognizable as a cultural entity across the American Southeast.…”

Refiguring the archaeology of greater Cahokia

“…There is no mortuary evidence of status differentiation in the American Bottom before A.D. 1050 (Milner, 1984b(Milner, , 1990. A possible two-tiered settlement hierarchy, special buildings in central courtyards, and centrally manufactured seed jars and bowls suggest, at most, small-scale Emergent Mississippian polities in the American Bottom (J.…”

“…Other elite mortuary facilities around greater Cahokia include other single-episode multiple-body interments along with accumulations of bodies from charnel houses (J. Kelly, 1994;Milner, 1984b;Pauketat, 1997a).…”