ANTH 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Cahokia, Axis Mundi, Collective Effervescence
19 Dec 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Cahokia not only a state but a particular kind the theatre state. Mississippian sites distributed in american southeast and midwest. Southeastern ceremonial complex (secc) or southern cult. Series of polities that participated in broadly shared set of cultural practices. Large scale feasting, cosmology, mound-building and burials. Repertoire of iconographic figures made of bone, sheet metal or shell. Cahokia was not just bigger but socially and politically more complex. Centre of a state-level society vs. chiefdom like the other well-known sites. Taxation in the form of tribute, truly monumental architecture, complex trade, etc. American bottom refers to the floodplain of mississippi river, particularly in southern. 450km squared and has fertile soils for potential agricultural but vulnerable to flooding. 1050 a. d. (lohman phase) sees emergence of cahokia as an important centre. Changes in settlement patterns suggest a reorganization at the regional level moving of entire villages, abandonment of others. Begins to reach its peak in population and size.
