The large pre-Columbian red stone sculptures carved by Native people in the eastern United States have long been considered exemplars of Indigenous art. While first recognized nearly two centuries ago by antiquarians, the quarry sources and the place of manufacture were long misunderstood. However, modern archaeological and archaeometric research have demonstrated that these figures were all crafted from Missouri flint clay during the twelfth century at the urban center of Cahokia. The recognition that the spatially disperse and contextually distinctive figures represent a homogeneous corpus allows a more comprehensive understanding of Cahokia iconography. However, the identification of the geological source is critical and requires confirmation from non-destructive SWIR archaeometry and clay minerology. In this article, we report on the mineralogical composition of previously unreported Mississippian sculptural figures thus adding to the diversity of images in Cahokia art. Additionally, we underscore the various technological and taphonomic challenges to ensuring correct mineralogical identifications and stress the need for the involvement of trained analysts.

The process of plant domestication and subsequent adoption of agriculture have long been viewed by archaeologists as key factors in the emergence of social and political complexity. Ongoing research by botanists, archaeobotanists, and archaeologists, with ever-improving methodologies and technologies, reveal that the adoption of agriculture varies significantly in terms of chronologies, dietary intensity, and social impacts. It has become clear that broad-sweeping theories of agricultural adoption obscure meaningful micro-historical variations. Nowhere is this more true than in the Western Hemisphere, where the dates of the adoption of maize may differ in even geographically adjacent regions — thus the importance of focused regional studies of the history of maize consumption. In this review, we examine in detail the various methodological approaches employed in micro- and macro-botanical and isotopic studies and, importantly, appraise ongoing challenges to interpreting the findings of such research. We undertake this evaluation in the context of the northern midcontinent USA where these methodologies have produced regional maize histories that differ by as much as a thousand years in terms of both the presence of maize and the ultimate adoption of maize agriculture. We conclude that incorporating multiple refined methodological approaches is a key to understanding this variability.

The Fisher Mounds and Village site in northern Illinois was the location of numerous burial mounds and cemeteries, as well as dozens of earth-ringed structure depressions. In the late 1920s, avocational archaeologist George Langford investigated the site, briefly joined by University of Chicago student crews in 1927 and 1928. A Works Project Administration (WPA) crew later revisited the site in 1940-1941. The excavations revealed three distinct archaeological cultural groups representing the Late Woodland Des Plaines phase and the Upper Mississippian Langford and Fisher phases-all of which were first observed and described at this site. Archaeologists at the time had difficulty distinguishing the discrete occupations at the site given the complex stratigraphy, unrefined excavation techniques, and mixing of deposits. The available collection and records had never been completely evaluated until 2005 when the authors began collating and analyzing the documents and materials which, through time, had become dispersed across various institutions. This new analysis defines the occurrence of late precontact contemporaneous ethnic differentiation marked by variation in ceramic and domestic structural evidence, documents violent confrontation, and illustrates the fluid nature of population movements in this period. Furthermore, this research has demonstrated the irreplaceable value of these legacy collections in understanding American Indian history.

Previous articleNext article FreeBook reviewUrban Life in the Distant Past: The Prehistory of Energized Crowding, by Michael E. SmithThomas EmersonThomas EmersonPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Ahead of Print The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/730095 Copyright 2024 by Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The acknowledged importance of documenting legacy assemblages led to efforts in the mid-1990s to re-examine such collections from Illinois. In some cases this involved applying traditional methods and emerging techniques to address complex questions of context, chronology, and aspects of identity for American Indian ancestral sites and individuals. These efforts included the Kane Mounds mortuary complex salvaged in the early 1960s and long interpreted as a late Mississippian mortuary area related to Cahokia. Drawing on available data from original field and analysis records, past biomolecular analysis, and combined with an evolving understanding of the people and culture history of the American Bottom, we use results from isotopic analyses and radiocarbon AMS chronologies obtained prior to 2018 to disentangle complex multicomponent mortuary settings. These studies revealed the mortuary importance of Kane spanned 1500 years, from as early as 500 BCE into the 14th century CE, a period that saw a major shift in diet with the increased consumption of maize and a population comprised of individuals local to the American Bottom and as well as immigrants. Available biomolecular information and radiocarbon AMS chronologies demonstrate both temporal and geographic diversity within the Kane mortuary complex, as well as continuity in the importance of this mortuary location.

Efforts were initiated in the mid-1990s to resolve complex questions of context, chronology, and identity of American Indian ancestral sites and individuals in the American Bottom, Illinois. A significant focus was on legacy collections from the Kane Mounds mortuary complex, salvaged in the early 1960s and long interpreted as late Mississippian mortuary mounds related to Cahokia. Drawing on available data from original field records and previously collected analytical evidence, we determined that the mortuary interments at the Kane site were placed in natural bluff-top landforms, not mounds, and that the locale served as a burial location for over a millennium. During this time, people gathered in larger permanent villages, their diet shifted from one based on a hunting-and-gathering lifestyle to one supported by maize agriculture, small groups from the Illinois River Valley emigrated to the area, and mortuary practices became increasingly complex – employing in-the-flesh interments, ossuaries, excarnation, postmortem manipulations of the deceased, and extensive use of fires. The mortuary complex reflects both temporal and geographic diversity as well as the continuity of such ancestral burial places. No depictions of ancestral remains are included in the text. Data presented are derived from legacy sources.

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewField Manual for the Archaeology of Ritual, Religion, and Magic C. Riley Augé. New York: Berghahn 2022. Pp. 188. ISBN 978-1-80073-504-0 (ebook) $27.95.Thomas E. EmersonThomas E. EmersonEmeritus Professor, Anthropology. University of Illinois Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreIndividuals steeped in the Western European traditions of the last two centuries of science and secularization are seemingly nonetheless drawn to the worlds of religion, magic, ritual, spiritualism, animism, and non-Western ontologies. Yet due to their secular backgrounds, this diverse array of historians, historical preservationists, archaeologists, historical renovators, and others who encounter material examples of the ritual, religious, or magical past are often ill-prepared to recognize, much less appreciate, their implications. It appears that this is the target audience for Augé’s Field Manual and its compilation of numerous material examples of ritual, religious, and magical behavior gleaned from the archaeological, ethnographic, and historic records, stretching from ancient to modern times—a veritable encyclopedia of potentialities and possibilities. Her task is challenging as she seeks to draw out patterns, for perhaps nothing is so amorphous, culturally embedded, yet idiosyncratic as human beliefs and actions related to the spiritual world. As she notes, this manual is a guide to possibilities, not an all-encompassing enumeration of these phenomena.To even grasp the multiple phenomena grouped under the umbrellas of magic, religion, and ritual as Augé does is the first challenge, and she spends the initial introduction and two chapters situating her topic while acknowledging the impossibilities of discrete definitions. Magic, religion, and ritual are characterized as “systemized practices whose symbolic and/or material forms express an underlying belief in the connection and power between the elements involved … and the efficacy of the desired outcome of the performance” (55). Rituals are “structured performances with explicitly or tacitly agreed upon elements … that create perceptions of or iterate social cohesion; enact cultural, religious, or personal identity; provide a framework and outlet for coping” (55–56). Religion is differentiated as being a formal, group-wide belief system usually involving a sacred essence. Magic presupposes the existence of a cosmic force that that can be supplicated—frequently activated through ritual—thus, critically, magic presupposes some level of human agency, and aspects of this material manifestation of behavior are at times observable in this world. All represent various facets of human interactions with an interdigitated ethereal “other.”But how does an investigator recognize the materiality of these spiritual agents? Augé believes that discovery and recognition are facilitated through systematic classifications of such events by careful documentation of the widest possible contexts. It is only through such an approach that we can become aware of the potential spiritual associations of seemingly mundane objects in what would otherwise be assumed to be a mundane context. For example, it is only by repeated, systematic recording of the frequency and details of the entombment of cats or worn shoes within foundations and walls, that the greater significance of such actions becomes apparent. Obviously, the key to recognition of the ritual agency of such events is the identification of their repetition—as Augé observed, ritual is never a “one-off” action. To assist in the recognition of such patterns, a series of 12 religious, ritual, and magical tropes are presented, ranging from foundation and abandonment sacrifices to actions of binding, masking, reversals, and use of bodily fluids.The Field Manual discusses two possible systems of criteria that can be employed to identify ritual activities in an archaeological context. The first, developed by Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn (Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice, Thames and Hudson, 1st ed. 1991, now in its 8th ed.), captures broad variables including the centering of activities, the identification of a liminal context, the presence of the deity, and group participation and offerings. The other approach, by Augé, emphasizes spatial orientations, materiality, and ideological concepts. While these two sets of criteria are to some extent universal in approach, Augé illustrates their application through the creation of a more detailed set developed for 16th- to 19th-century Anglo-American assemblages. This set of typologies is developed in much more detail than previous ones (to some extent because of our historical knowledge of these items and context), even dipping into aspects of gender. She further develops these typologies by examining in detail three examples of ritual behavior from this time period: witch bottles, concealed cat bodies, and concealed footwear. These examples of classification illustrate the necessity of an investigator developing culturally specific typologies to elicit the maximum interpretability.The midsection of the volume (chs. 3–8) moves from the broad overviews of magic, ritual, and religion to focus on a series of selected topics, coupled with numerous examples. Augé begins by dissecting these wide-ranging behaviors into more specific and discrete parts, such as function (ch. 3, e.g., divination, fertility, healing); ethnic and religious variation (ch. 4, e.g., the ancient world, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism); site types (ch. 5, e.g., ceremonial, secular, sacred temples, underwater); landscapes (ch. 6, e.g., cosmic models, viewsheds, soundscapes); material types (ch. 7, e.g., stone, color, textiles, metals); and sensory attributes (ch. 8, e.g., auditory, olfactory, visual). Each chapter includes extensive lists of associated behaviors, with possible material correlates.The final sections of the book offer suggestions on how to operationalize and contextualize the materialization of magical, ritual, and religious activities. Given that this volume is designed as a field manual, and given the author’s emphasis on the identification of typologies and detailed recording of observations, the logical outcome is the presentation of essential tools to facilitate such a process. Consequently, Augé presents a series of forms and templates (ch. 9) to standardize the investigator’s observations. These forms range across a number of scales, from foundation sacrifices to ritual landscapes, burials, and magical assemblages to battlefields. They are offered as examples, with the understanding that, like methodologies, they will serve best if tailored to specific historic or archaeological contexts. The final chapters (10 and 11) outline technologies, methodologies, and analyses and offer various resources that can be utilized to further reveal and interpret the meaning of recovered materials. A glossary, suggested readings, and a useful index provide closure to the volume.Augé prefaces her volume by noting a lack of general knowledge of the material signatures of magical, religious, and ritual behavior among practicing archaeologists. She intends that this book should serve to alleviate that situation and has designed it to be user-friendly, with a topical organization and a comprehensive index. The introduction and first two chapters provide an easy-to-read narrative that provides background theory and discussion, and, to some extent, situate the difficulties and the complexities involved in the identification and understanding of the behaviors that are often labeled magical, religious, or ritual. The remainder of the volume can be approached topically depending on the reader’s interests or questions. While Augé’s approach seeks to be worldwide in its coverage, many of her examples draw on ancient Mediterranean civilizations, with their array of religious and ritual structures and landscapes, coupled with a rich symbolic and portable art and supplemented by written texts. The juxtapositioning of Mediterranean societies with those from around the world will benefit scholars of antiquity by broadening the range of possibilities employed in their own interpretive research. This book could provide a useful supplementary text to undergraduate and graduate anthropology students—especially because of its wide-ranging geographical and temporal treatment. In that regard, I found the documentation of the continuance of classical ritual practices into early modern European beliefs especially interesting and a welcome caveat to the academic mantra that all westerners live in a world dominated by secular and scientific worldviews. While Augé addresses her volume to archaeologists, it seems to me that it has value also for those involved more tangentially, such as researchers in material culture studies, epigraphers, historic site interpreters, and members of the general public with interests in the spiritual side of the material world.Notes[email protected] Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 127, Number 4October 2023 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 277Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/726407 Views: 277Total views on this site HistoryPublished online July 05, 2023 Copyright © 2023 by the Archaeological Institute of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

In a world increasingly focused on specialization and dominated by intellectual silos, it is unusual to find a scholar who is willing to breach these barriers and explore the essential foundations of human society. However, this is just what Jennings undertakes in this volume, offering a unique synopsis of eight million years of humanity’s biological, psychological, and social evolution through the lens of the embedded concept of fairness. This is no small task, tracing a social norm from Australopithecus to Occupy Wall Street advocates. While situating fairness as culturally constructed and situationally fluid, he asserts that the concept has deep roots and continues to the present day to be informed by five behavioral criteria that include “(1) familial hierarchy; (2) fierce egalitarianism; (3) widespread, frequent collaborations; (4) within-group trust and allegiance; and (5) task-based leadership” (3). Contending that fairness becomes hardwired early in hominid evolution, the volume traces its development and transfiguration through a series of great biosocial transitions—attaining humanity, sedentism, village life, urbanism, imperialism, and global capitalism—in six core chapters. Jennings’ approach of abductive validation brings together a wide range of ethological, ethnographic, archaeological, and social truisms that serve as exemplars in illuminating the impacts of observed socioevolutionary changes that occur in increasingly complex societies. Each of these transitions is illustrated with four case studies (ranging widely through time and space from Natufians to rubber collectors in the Brazilian Amazon) that seek to illustrate the social impact of fairness and its transformation as well as the wide range of diverse options societies have implemented to deal with these challenges. A number of characteristics are said by Jennings to be common to all complex societies, including a strong within-group preference (homophyly); a measured equality that dominated most of human history; increased localization resulting from sedentism; increased Finding Fairness: From Pleistocene Foragers to Contemporary Capitalists

During the Hopewell era, no material was so widely spread or employed across the midcontinent as copper. Large deposits of copper artifacts in the Ohio Scioto Hopewell mounds, in what are usually deemed as status and ritual contexts, have colored subsequent interpretations of copper utilization during this period. Subsequent research documented copper's distribution across the midcontinent in Hopewell mortuary practices, while focusing on its significance as a distant import from the western Great Lakes. Until regional Illinois habitation copper -use studies were undertaken, in the 1980s and 1990s, mortuary copper dominated discussions of Havana Tradition Hopewell connections. However, examinations of avocational collections and metal-detecting surveys of 82 Havana habitation sites have yielded an array of copper tools and scrap revealing the presence of an extensive copper-working industry. It has become clear that regional Havana Tradition people were involved in the active production of utilitarian copper tools and ornaments, suggesting that the industry was based on local drift copper deposits. This harkens back to earlier regional patterns of copper tool production, while emphasizing the exotic character of the few copper mortuary inclusions-such as ear spools, headplates and breastplates, panpipes, and so forth-thus suggesting two very different systems of copper valuation.

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsFinding Fairness: From Pleistocene Foragers to Contemporary Capitalists By Justin Jennings. Gainesville: University Press of Florida 2021. Pp. 332. $90. ISBN 9780813066745 (cloth).Thomas E. EmersonThomas E. EmersonUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Champaign, Illinois; [email protected] Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn a world increasingly focused on specialization and dominated by intellectual silos, it is unusual to find a scholar who is willing to breach these barriers and explore the essential foundations of human society. However, this is just what Jennings undertakes in this volume, offering a unique synopsis of eight million years of humanity’s biological, psychological, and social evolution through the lens of the embedded concept of fairness. This is no small task, tracing a social norm from Australopithecus to Occupy Wall Street advocates. While situating fairness as culturally constructed and situationally fluid, he asserts that the concept has deep roots and continues to the present day to be informed by five behavioral criteria that include “(1) familial hierarchy; (2) fierce egalitarianism; (3) widespread, frequent collaborations; (4) within-group trust and allegiance; and (5) task-based leadership” (3).Contending that fairness becomes hardwired early in hominid evolution, the volume traces its development and transfiguration through a series of great biosocial transitions—attaining humanity, sedentism, village life, urbanism, imperialism, and global capitalism—in six core chapters. Jennings’ approach of abductive validation brings together a wide range of ethological, ethnographic, archaeological, and social truisms that serve as exemplars in illuminating the impacts of observed socioevolutionary changes that occur in increasingly complex societies. Each of these transitions is illustrated with four case studies (ranging widely through time and space from Natufians to rubber collectors in the Brazilian Amazon) that seek to illustrate the social impact of fairness and its transformation as well as the wide range of diverse options societies have implemented to deal with these challenges.A number of characteristics are said by Jennings to be common to all complex societies, including a strong within-group preference (homophyly); a measured equality that dominated most of human history; increased localization resulting from sedentism; increased levels of globalization in exchange systems that served to transform local units in new and unexpected ways; and a tendency to aggregate into larger and larger population clusters while retaining numerous small units that often re-emerged when the clusters (be they state or empire) collapsed.To fully grasp the arguments in this volume, readers need to pay close attention to the semantics that Jennings employs in his argument, especially regarding fairness. “Fairness” is a slippery term because it is wedded to a specific context with origins lying within the nuclear family. Through time, humans will expand and manipulate this context to deal with scalar stress through the creation of extended families, sodalities, or even the state, with decreasing success. Fairness is situationally defined and implemented very much in terms of an Us versus Them context: one has no obligation to be fair to outsiders. Jennings’ case studies detail how this concept can be used in polities that seek to engender in-group cohesion by generating conflicts with outsiders (e.g., the Inca and Roman empires). The various criteria for judging within-group fairness—that is, equality (equal shares for all), need, and equity (shares according to contributions)—can set the stage for generating social change, and their shifting definitions (as in capitalism, discussed below) can be considered as primary indicators in evaluating levels of inequality.The key challenges to fairness in a socioevolutionary scenario harken back to the maintenance of what Jennings defines as a fierce egalitarianism and the continuance of cohesion through in-group trust. The main culprits threatening the maintenance of fairness come via the impact of scalar stress resulting from the decreased mobility and increased population density of large aggregations that accompany the advent of sedentism. Increased population density of course puts stress on maintaining internal family autonomy, and societies have often reacted by establishing larger fictive family groups and sodalities that crosscut the larger village context. Such aggregations should, in terms of effectiveness, generate hierarchical leadership from earlier forms of task-based hunter-gatherer leadership. Jennings argues, however, that for much of human history the development of community-wide rituals involving feasting and religious rites and suprafamily social groups, combined with leadership practices focused on asserting the community’s welfare vis-a-vis other groups, served to dampen the emergence of internal hierarchies and elites.Running through the story of humanity’s historically shifting patterns of social structures are the critical roles of political, social, and economic institutions (defined as the acknowledged rules of behavior). Social change is said to be generated by the peoples’ rational recognition of the failure of existing institutions and their search for modifications that are fairer. This process is laid out to explain, for example, the emergence of global capitalism. Earlier social and economic changes had mostly dismantled the face-to-face interactions of kin and sodalities that supported existing economic transactions. Recognizable difference in power and wealth were increasingly appearing in state-level societies along with a shifting social awareness that “equality of outcome” was moving toward notions favoring the “equality of opportunity.” Jennings proposes the increasing importance of the marketplace in facilitating important cross-community economic interaction and suggests that the failure of governmental agency to assure the equality and equity of the socioeconomic process led the populace to realize that, for them, the invisible hand of the marketplace was the fairest available option. In other words, capitalism emerged by default rather than design.Finding Fairness is a provocative account of the evolution of human society framed in concepts of fairness as detailed at the beginning of this review and oft repeated in the volume’s text. Jennings’ approach is fundamentally adjunctive, presenting a series of observed and documented archaeological, ethnological, and biological events that require an explanative hypothesis. That explanative validation is drawn from primate and hominid behavioral and biological studies. It lays out a hypothetical model of how humans may react to the scalar stress induced by such factors as population aggregation, increased density, energized crowding, and interactions with nongroup members. For Jennings, those responses are couched in a system of rationality and fairness. However, he often acknowledges social change as the potential result of the “unexpected consequences” of presumably rational decision-making by human agents. This inherent contradiction between rational agency and unintended results seems to be an unresolved issue in many of his explanations of social change and might be seen as a challenge to the use of rational explanations to identify the causality of such change.There also seems to be a behavioral discontinuity in the actions of the top-down versus bottom-up impact of fairness. While the general populace is given an evolved operational agency in promoting the rules of fairness, the elite (or the potential oppressors) seem to be somewhat free of that inbred fairness behavior and, in fact, when left on their own seem set on a path to self-aggrandizement. One would expect a universal, biologically evolved behavior with thousands of years of reinforcement to have a greater impact on the behavior of the leaders. Throughout the reading of this volume, it often occurred to me that it could have been as aptly titled Seeking Self-Interest—a mode of behavior that seems to me to fulfill the behavioral attributes of within-group preference and reciprocal interactions with others to ensure their future cooperation that Jennings attributes to fairness.First and foremost, Finding Fairness is an all-encompassing narrative seeking to weave together and account for the immense diversity, uniformity, ambiguity, contradiction, continuity, and patterning observed in human history. This effort reaches far beyond the mere accumulation of facts (for which there are often few available); it requires its creator to be imaginative, to delve into the realm of often elusive plausibility, and, moreover, to explore avenues that are often on the fringe of current mainstream scholarship. Jennings accomplishes all of this and tells a gripping story of the biological and social evolution of our ancestors. For scholars and general readers who are fascinated with grand histories, Jennings’ tale is a worthwhile and thought-provoking read. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 126, Number 1January 2022 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 835Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/718064 Views: 835Total views on this site HistoryPublished online November 11, 2021 Copyright © 2022 by the Archaeological Institute of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

ABSTRACT Identifying ancient patterns of trade, exchange, and social relations through the tracking of the origin point and final place of deposition of objects is an integral part of archaeological research. Using such information, scholars have constructed elaborate interpretive models to explain the interactions of past societies. The key to success is the correct identification of the original material. In this project, we have undertaken the sourcing of the pipestones utilized by native people living in the Mississippian era in the region between Greater Cahokia and Aztalan in southern Wisconsin to make ear spools. For this research we employed near-infrared spectroscopy, x-ray florescence, and color measurement technology. Our research revealed that the primary source for regional Mississippian ear spools were two distinct variants of Baraboo pipestone from quarries in west-central Wisconsin. The analysis of the Aztalan ear spools and the recent discovery of an ear spool workshop area at the East St. Louis Mound Precinct have expanded our understanding of regional pipestone ear spool manufacture, distribution, and context. Our findings suggest that while Aztalan was enmeshed in a regional network of Baraboo pipestone exchange, Cahokia employed practices that focused on selective targeting for the acquisition of distant exotics.

This paper assesses our current understanding of the native use of the major midcontinental United States pipestone quarries based on over two decades of research. Our studies indicate that combining chemical and mineralogical techniques such as shortwave infrared spectroscopy (SWIS), thin-section petrography, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) have identified pipestones with similar chemical compositions containing distinctive mineralogical suites (often including berthierine, kaolinite, diaspore, muscovite, and pyrophyllite). This research has identified unique mineral compositions at known quarries such as catlinite, Ohio Feurt Hill, Baraboo, and Barron pipestones, as well as identifying previously unknown quarries of Sterling Illinois pipestone, Cahokia Missouri flint clay, and Portsmouth Ohio Claystone. These discoveries have led to a major shift in interpretations of Cahokian and Hopewell pipe exchange. Further examination of native ethnographic quarry use identified the primary attraction of pipestone quarries lay in the perceived ritual and spiritual power of the stone rather than in its economic utility.

Pipestones of the midcontinental U.S. have a long history of use by native peoples to craft high status and religious objects, especially pipes, that were often widely exchanged. In this research we describe native use of west central Wisconsin Baraboo Range pipestone as well as identify chemical and mineralogical variation within that formation. The pipestone variants are Baraboo A (dominated by kaolinite, muscovite, and pyrophyllite) and Baraboo B (dominated by pyrophyllite with minor quartz). The recognition of Baraboo pipestone variation allows us to identify previously unsourced pipestone objects. This sourcing project modifies assumptions of Cahokia-centric patterns of earspool manufacture and exchange during the Mississippian period (CE 1000-1400). It demonstrates that Baraboo pipestone Mississippian earspools were quarried, produced, and circulated among a small group of contemporaneous Mississippian societies located in the northern Upper Mississippi River valley — quite outside the Cahokia exchange network. This work establishes that employing rigorous, scientifically sound, and reproducible methodologies to identify the geological source of objects is essential to the interpretation of native interactions.

In the following response to Hart and colleagues (2021) we clarify our interpretations of the archaeological record for maize use from western Illinois. The robust archaeological record, newly obtained AMS dates, and evaluations of enamel apatite combine to support a late date for maize cultivation in this region. We reiterate that maize histories in the Eastern Woodlands may vary among different regions.

This study documents the contexts of platform pipe creation, distribution, and disposition at Illinois Havana Hopewell Tradition (50 BC to AD 200–250) sites to identify regional variation in Hopewell ceremonialism and exchange. We observe that the large deposits of stone pipes buried during communal rituals in the Scioto Valley and the continued influence of the Hopewell Sphere of Interaction have skewed archaeological interpretation. Aside from the several large deposits, pipes are limited in the Scioto Tradition and seldom found in habitation areas. In Illinois, pipe fabrication debris commonly occurs in habitation areas along with numerous examples of pipe repair and maintenance. Local pipestones—often from northern Illinois Sterling deposits—predominate, and exotic imported pipestones are unusual. Pipes are rare inclusions with individual burials as indicators of status, spiritual prowess, achievement, or group membership. The high value placed on pipes as communal sacra in Ohio and their value in Illinois as items of personal influence parallels their common occurrence in Illinois and their unique context in Ohio Hopewell. This study of the contexts of pipe manufacture and deposition reinforces current discussions of such artifact assemblages as important in documenting local variations in political, social, and religious mortuary ceremonialism across the “Hopewellian sphere.”