The Sponemann-Collinsville-Loyd Period at Cahokia (750-900 CE) is significant for being a foundational period for later social developments at Cahokia. At this time appears the first signs of warfare, an increase in social complexity and more widespread consumption of farmed crops like maize.
The increase in social complexity was reflected in settlements with houses clustered into court-yard groups.
[1]
While there is little evidence for warfare in the preceding Middle Woodland
[1]
from c800 CE there is evidence of inter-group violence as human bones have been recovered with arrow points embedded into them in individual and group burials.
[1]
Some settlements even gained palisades and ditches
[1]
, although at this time they were present at only a tiny fraction of all sites (0.5% between 800-950 CE
[2]
). After 700-800 CE there was a dramatic intensification of food production, particularly of maize farming, which brought higher yields and enabled more food to be extracted from a smaller territory and would lead to population growth.
[1]
[3]
[4]
The evidence suggests communities experienced increased differentiation of social roles, with individuals dedicated to "community defense, organization of labor, and communal storage of maize in secure central places".
[1]
The Upper Mississippi region was populated by a number of small communities. The population of largest settlement was probably in the region of 500 people - although this population was not resident at the site that later became Cahokia.
[1]: (Blitz and Porth 2013, 89-95) J H Blitz. E S Porth. 2013. Social complexity and the Bow in the Eastern Woodlands. Evolutionary Anthropology. 22:89-95. Wiley.
[2]: (Milner, Chaplin and Zavodny 2013) G R Milner. G Chaplin. E Zavodny. 2013. Conflict and Societal Change in Late Prehistoric Eastern North America. Evolutionary Anthropology. 22:96-102. Wiley.
[3]: (Iseminger 2010, 26) W R Iseminger. 2010. Cahokia Mounds: America’s First City. The History Press. Charleston.
[4]: (Milner 2006, xx) G R Milner. 2006. The Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology of a Mississippian Society. University Press of Florida. Gainesville.
| 15 S |
| Cahokia - Emergent Mississippian I |
| American Bottom | |
| Emergent Mississippian | |
| Sponemann Phase | |
| Collinsville Phase | |
| Loyd Phase |
| none |
| Cahokia - Emergent Mississippian II |
| Merrell-Edlehardt |
| continuity |
| Preceding: Cahokia - Late Woodland III (us_woodland_5) [continuity] | |
| Succeeding: Cahokia - Emergent Mississippian II (us_emergent_mississippian_2) [continuity] |
| none |
| Year Range | Cahokia - Emergent Mississippian I (us_emergent_mississippian_1) was in: |
|---|---|
| (750 CE 899 CE) | Cahokia |
Sponemann-Collinsville-Loyd
Inhabitants.
Population of largest settlement probably in region of 500 people. This is an upper limit estimate. This population was not resident at the site that later became Cahokia. One of the areas with this number of people is called the Range site.
in squared kilometers
Quasi-polities of the American Bottom might cover 100-200 KM2.
People.
Population of largest settlement probably in region of 500 people and this would be the quasi-polity size. This is an upper limit estimate. This population was not resident at the site that later became Cahokia. One of the areas with this number of people is called the Range site.
After 700-800 CE maize cultivation lead to larger populations.
[1]
[1]: (Iseminger 2010, 26) Iseminger, W R. 2010. Cahokia Mounds: America’s First City. The History Press. Charleston.
levels.
Nucleated villages
"From the Late Woodland Patrick phase through Emergent Mississippian times, communities in the floodplain and immediately adjacent uplands tended to consist of groups of structures. Most people lived in these nucleated villages, each of which was occupied by at least a few tens of people, and sometimes several times that number. Only a small proportion of the valley’s inhabitants lived in houses that were widely separated from one another."
[1]
"It has been argued that villages with well over a hundred buildings had developed by the late Emergent Mississippian period." However "it is equally possible that the feature patterns represent nothing more than multiple super-imposed, short-term occupations that cannot be teased apart."
[2]
[3]
Houses organized around a courtyard
In the Emergent Mississippian "The community pattern usually included organized groupings of houses and other structures arranged around a courtyard, often with a central post that was sometimes surrounded by four pits, and larger structures probably communal or ceremonial, to one side or in the courtyard area."
[4]
"Site plans gained greater internal complexity as houses clustered into court-yard groups and, toward [1000 CE], the southern pattern of civic-ceremonial centers with large earthen mounds was established in many places.
[5]
[1]: (Milner 2006, 98)
[2]: (Milner 2006, 99 cite: Kelly 1990
[3]: Milner 2006, 99-100)
[4]: (Iseminger 2010, 26) Iseminger, W R. 2010. Cahokia Mounds: America’s First City. The History Press. Charleston.
[5]: (Blitz and Porth 2013, 89-95)
levels.
"At Cahokia there may have been no difference between the religious and political hierarchy. They were interlocked, impossible to disentangle."
[1]
1. Chief / Priest
In the Emergent Mississippian period: "perhaps the appearance of chiefs"
[2]
"Cahokia may have been led by a priesthood or a group of ruler-priests, but a shift to “king” does not appear to have happened at Cahokia."
[3]
2. Elder / Religious functionary
kin group leaders
[4]
[1]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 23)
[2]: (Iseminger 2010, 26)
[3]: (Peregrine 2014, 31)
[4]: (Iseminger 2014, 26)
levels.
1 or 2. More comfortable at 1 level at this point. Not until Mississippian evidence of warrior specialists.
There is no evidence for markets, "nothing that would suggest an integrated economy of any kind." [1] "There were probably no markets at Cahokia. Distribution of food and manufactured goods (e.g. shell beads) were likely “event based”, taking place at feasts and rituals. Barter or reciprocal exchange was likely part of an informal economy that circulated goods on a limited basis. Some redistribution of surplus production may have taken place as well." [2]
[1]: (Peregrine 2014, 31)
[2]: (Trubitt 2014, 18)
"Most of the people at Cahokia were self-sufficient, but granaries are present in Stirling/Moorehead Cahokia." [1] "Fluctuation in agricultural production (especially due to flooding) would have affected specific areas of the American Bottom on an almost annual basis, and may have required provisioning some parts of the population on an irregular basis. Granaries and other storage facilities may have held the surplus required for this provisioning." [2] After 700-800 CE maize cultivation lead to larger populations. [3]
[1]: (Peregrine/Trubitt 2014, 20)
[2]: (Trubitt 2014, 18)
[3]: (Iseminger 2010, 26) Iseminger, W R. 2010. Cahokia Mounds: America’s First City. The History Press. Charleston.
There were no bridges in prehistoric North America.
"Large chert cores were roughed out at quarries, not at valley sites." [1] From earliest times people of American bottom were visiting a number of sources. This is not mentioned in current literature. Two examples: Wyandot, in the Ohio river valley and Mill Creek just south of the American bottom.
[1]: (Milner 2006, 82)
"Mississippian sites often featured curtain walls with frameworks of stout posts accompanied by large bastions, high embankments, and deep ditches." [1] According to the temporal distribution of "131 walled settlements corresponding to Mississippian societies and their immediate predecessors" the breakout point for increasing percent of sites having palisades is around 900-950 CE. 800-950 CE: 0.5% of sites. 1000 CE: 1.5% of sites. 1050 CE: 3% of sites. 1100 CE: 4% of sites. 1200: 7% of sites. [2]
[1]: (Milner, Chaplin and Zavodny 2013, 100)
[2]: (Milner, Chaplin and Zavodny 2013)
"Beginning A.D. 300-400, the bow replaced the atlatl in most regions" [1] However, not regularly used as a weapon: evidence of victims "struck by arrows and clubs" increased only during "last half of the first millennium" [2] First evidence of intergroup violence appears in the archaeological record after 600 CE. "For the first time, there is evidence, in the form of group and individual burials with embedded arrow points, of the bow as the primary weapon of intergroup violence." [1]
[1]: (Blitz and Porth 2013, 89-95)
[2]: (Milner 2006, 174)
Use of "heavy stone axe or mace". "However, whilst often referred to as a "stone axe" this weapon also could be called a mace or a club. It was a bludgeoning weapon. [1]
[1]: (Iseminger 2010: 78) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/G56KRN8Q.