The Sand Prairie phase is the name given by archaeologists to the period between around 1275 and 1400 CE in the American Bottom region, the portion of the floodplain of the Mississippi now located in southwestern Illinois.
[1]
[2]
This period is considered the final phase of the Mississippian culture.
[3]
The chronology is not universally agreed upon, however: the dates given by different scholars for the Sand Prairie phase vary.
[2]
Population and political organization
The Sand Prairie phase was one of decreasing social complexity and depopulation at the site of Cahokia and on the surrounding Middle Mississippi floodplain.
[4]
Already by 1150 CE, archaeological evidence indicates that the political and ceremonial ties binding the site of Cahokia and its elite to its hinterland were weakening, and by 1350, there are very few signs of culturally Mississippian populations left in the American Bottom.
[5]
During the Sand Prairie phase, Mississippians seem to have abandoned the old monumental sites and dispersed out of the river valley into the uplands.
[6]
The evidence for political hierarchies and inherited status distinctions is much weaker than for previous periods, and community activity may have revolved around funerary rites at rural cemeteries.
[7]
The population of the site of Cahokia and the surrounding Mississippi floodplain reached its lowest point for several centuries during this period.
[8]
[9]
Concrete population estimates are difficult to find, but archaeologist George Milner has estimated a Sand Prairie-period population density of between one and seven people per square kilometre for a stretch of the Mississippi floodplain just south of Cahokia.
[8]
[1]: (Kelly et al. 1984, 130) Kelly, John E., Steven J. Ozuk, Douglas K. Jackson, Dale L. McElrath, Fred A. Finney, and Duane Esarey. 1984. "Emergent Mississippian Period." In American Bottom Archaeology: A Summary of the FAI-270 Project Contribution to the Culture History of the Mississippi River Valley, edited by Charles L. Bareis and James W. Porter, 128-57. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/2UP556X5.
[2]: (Hall 2000, 13) Hall, Robert L. 2000. "Cahokia Identity and Interaction Models of Cahokia Mississippian." In Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest, edited by Thomas E. Emerson and R. Barry Lewis, 3-34. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WNR98AWH.
[3]: (Milner 1986, 234) Milner, George R. 1986. "Mississippian Period Population Density in a Segment of the Central Mississippi River Valley." American Antiquity 51 (2): 227-38. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/P35FE59S.
[4]: (Emerson 1997, 6, 53) Emerson, Thomas E. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/QH7AMQ74.
[5]: (Pauketat and Bernard 2004, 38-39) Pauketat, Timothy, and Nancy Stone Bernard. 2004. Cahokia Mounds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/MH4W8AV5.
[6]: (Emerson 1997, 53) Emerson, Thomas E. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/QH7AMQ74.
[7]: (Emerson 1997, 180) Emerson, Thomas E. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/QH7AMQ74.
[8]: (Milner 1986, 227) Milner, George R. 1986. "Mississippian Period Population Density in a Segment of the Central Mississippi River Valley." American Antiquity 51 (2): 227-38. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/P35FE59S.
[9]: (Pauketat and Lopinot 1997, 120) Pauketat, Timothy R., and Neal H. Lopinot. 1997. "Cahokian Population Dynamics." In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, 103-23. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
| none |
| Middle Mississippian |
| Oneota |
| [125,000 to 150,000] km2 |
| continuity |
| Succeeding: Oneota (us_oneota) [population replacement] | |
| Preceding: Cahokia - Moorehead (us_cahokia_2) [continuity] |
| loose |
| Year Range | Cahokia - Sand Prairie (us_cahokia_3) was in: |
|---|---|
| (1275 CE 1399 CE) | Cahokia |
km squared. Cultural diffusion. Number refers to the estimated area of the Middle Mississippi region (taken from the map).
"People archaeologists call Oneota arrived in the central Illinois River valley seven hundred years ago. They may have come from Iowa or farther up the Mississippi River" [1] .
[1]: Illinois State Museum, Late Prehistoric, Identity (2000), http://www.museum.state.il.us/muslink/nat_amer/pre/htmls/lp_id.html
"Cahokia was made up of different ethnic groups, perhaps even different linguistic groups." [1] However Cahokia did not exist in this period: "The people that were a part of Cahokia made a conscious decision not to continue after ca. A.D. 1250." [2] "We know that by the mid-300s Cahokia was basically abandoned." [3]
[1]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 13)
[2]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 24)
[3]: (Iseminger 2010, 148)
Inhabitants. Cahokia.
Milner estimates that by the Sand Prairie phase the Cahokia (i.e. city) population had fallen about 66% from the Lohmann peak.
[1]
which was:
"At its height (ca. A.D. 1100) the central administrative complex at Cahokia contained at least 15,000 residents though this high population was very short lived (probably less than 100 years)."
[2]
[1]: (Milner 2006, 124)
[2]: (Pauketat 2014, 15)
in squared kilometers
"We know that by the mid-300s Cahokia was basically abandoned."
[1]
"Eric Rupley, however, calculated the catchment needed to feed 15,000 people would be 625 square kilometers, which is well within the possible land area available in the American Bottom."
[2]
"The Cahokia heartland is about 2000 to 3000 square kilometers"
[3]
"“central administrative complex” (CAG) and was roughly 14 square kilometers inarea."
[4]
[1]: (Iseminger 2010, 148)
[2]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 15)
[3]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 13)
[4]: (Emerson 2014, 12)
People.
Milner estimates the American Bottom population ("population figures for Cahokia were doubled to approximate the inhabitants of all mound centers and added to valley-wide estimates for small settlements") in the Sand Prairie phase had fallen about 75% from the Stirling peak.
[1]
Which was:
"It is likely that at least 50,000 people lived within the 2000 square kilometer “greater Cahokia” region at its height (ca. A.D. 1100)."
[2]
"George Milner estimates that there were roughly 8000 people in the Cahokia central administrative complex and up to 50,000 in the greater Cahokia region after AD 1050. Before that the neither had large populations—perhaps less than 1000 people in the entire greater Cahokia region." However: "With new excavations at East St. Louis the estimate for the central administrative complex needs to be increased to something like 15,000."
[3]
[1]: (Milner 2006, 124)
[2]: (Pauketat 2014, 15)
[3]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 15)
levels.
Down to 3 levels of settlement.
1. Hamlets (5 houses at most)
2. Hamlet integration site (single mound site).
3. Multi-mound centers (3 of these left in this period)
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
"Members of the highest social strata probably included chiefs, sub-chiefs, elders, priests, and other religious functionaries."
[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]
"The central administrative complex represents the core of the Cahokian polity. The location of ridgetop mounds within this area may equate with kin groupings or other administrative units. East St. Louis, being newer, may have been a higher status community of isolated elites."
[4]
At Mound 72 "Analysis of the skeletal remains shows that certain burial groups were of higher status than others and that some may have come prom places other than Cahokia."
[5]
"Ridge top mounds may also reflect ritual performances or “tableaus” associated with these mound and plaza complexes. In this control of ritual activity there may have also have been specialists in maintaining and performing specific rituals at various community levels."
[6]
2. Sub-chief / Sub-priest?
"Members of the highest social strata probably included chiefs, sub-chiefs, elders, priests, and other religious functionaries."
[2]
"The answers provided by the working group seem to point to Cahokia being an urban settlement that was the center of a regional government, but the picture is not entirely clear."
[3]
"Regional political integration appears to have been an essentially ritual one; that is, the site hierarchy that is present appears to be more of a hierarchy of ritual spaces than of political jurisdictions."
[3]
"Cahokia was also the center of a regional government of some kind, at least for a short period of time."
[3]
"mound complexes may have been organized around sodalities rather than around kin groups. Perhaps these sodalities were secret societies"
[2]
"Mound and plaza groups may represent corporate (perhaps kin-based) political and
ritual complexes, each of which would have been maintained by their own administrativespecialists or generalized leader."
[6]
"priests, and other religious functionaries."
[2]
3. Elder / Religious functionary
"Members of the highest social strata probably included chiefs, sub-chiefs, elders, priests, and other religious functionaries."
[2]
kin group leaders
[2]
"lower-level religious functionaries"
[2]
[1]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 23)
[2]: (Iseminger 2014, 26)
[3]: (Peregrine 2014, 31)
[4]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14)
[5]: (Iseminger 2010, 82)
[6]: (Kelly 2014, 22)
levels.
1. Chief / Priest
"Members of the highest social strata probably included chiefs, sub-chiefs, elders, priests, and other religious functionaries."
[1]
"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."
[2]
"The central administrative complex represents the core of the Cahokian polity. The location of ridgetop mounds within this area may equate with kin groupings or other administrative units. East St. Louis, being newer, may have been a higher status community of isolated elites."
[3]
At Mound 72 "Analysis of the skeletal remains shows that certain burial groups were of higher status than others and that some may have come prom places other than Cahokia."
[4]
2. Sub-chief / Sub-priest?
"Members of the highest social strata probably included chiefs, sub-chiefs, elders, priests, and other religious functionaries."
[1]
"The answers provided by the working group seem to point to Cahokia being an urban settlement that was the center of a regional government, but the picture is not entirely clear."
[2]
"Regional political integration appears to have been an essentially ritual one; that is, the site hierarchy that is present appears to be more of a hierarchy of ritual spaces than of political jurisdictions."
[2]
"Cahokia was also the center of a regional government of some kind, at least for a short period of time."
[2]
"mound complexes may have been organized around sodalities rather than around kin groups. Perhaps these sodalities were secret societies"
[1]
"Mound and plaza groups may represent corporate (perhaps kin-based) political and
ritual complexes, each of which would have been maintained by their own administrativespecialists or generalized leader."
[5]
3. Elder / Religious functionary
"Members of the highest social strata probably included chiefs, sub-chiefs, elders, priests, and other religious functionaries."
[1]
kin group leaders
[1]
[1]: (Iseminger 2014, 26)
[2]: (Peregrine 2014, 31)
[3]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14)
[4]: (Iseminger 2010, 82)
[5]: (Kelly 2014, 22)
’The break with the complex, rural Stirling phase [c. 1050-1150 CE] bureaucratic structure was total and complete - in an archaeological instance all the specialized facilities and elites disappeared’. [1] Moreover, ’Current data suggest that this was a period of minimal activity at the site of Cahokia. Mantles may have been added to some of the mounds, but there is little evidence of elite activity at the site.’ [2] The Sand Prairie phase was one of disintegration and decline at Cahokia. Emerson describes the results of archaeological excavations of Sand Prairie sites in the American Bottom region: ’Sand Prairie phase sites showed no evidence for political activities of either a community-centered or elite nature; instead, the focus was on community-centered mortuary ceremonialism’. [3] The overall pattern is one of ’social segmentation and community autonomy’. [4]
[1]: (Emerson 1997, 260) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
[2]: (Emerson 1997, 53) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
[3]: (Emerson 1997, 148) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
[4]: (Milner 1983, 298 in Emerson 1997, 53) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
’The break with the complex, rural Stirling phase [c. 1050-1150 CE] bureaucratic structure was total and complete - in an archaeological instance all the specialized facilities and elites disappeared’. [1] Moreover, ’Current data suggest that this was a period of minimal activity at the site of Cahokia. Mantles may have been added to some of the mounds, but there is little evidence of elite activity at the site.’ [2] The Sand Prairie phase was one of disintegration and decline at Cahokia. Emerson describes the results of archaeological excavations of Sand Prairie sites in the American Bottom region: ’Sand Prairie phase sites showed no evidence for political activities of either a community-centered or elite nature; instead, the focus was on community-centered mortuary ceremonialism’. [3] The overall pattern is one of ’social segmentation and community autonomy’. [4]
[1]: (Emerson 1997, 260) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
[2]: (Emerson 1997, 53) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
[3]: (Emerson 1997, 148) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
[4]: (Milner 1983, 298 in Emerson 1997, 53) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
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]
[1]: (Peregrine/Trubitt 2014, 20)
[2]: (Trubitt 2014, 18)
[1] "Roadways link external centers to Cahokia providing a physical connection between them." [2] "LiDAR helped to identify a causeway 25m wide from Monks Mound to Rattlesnake Mound." [3] "trail networks also are important, and some of the historic east-west ones cross near Cahokia." [4] "Emerald, for example, was out on the prairie, and may have been a pilgrimage site, as roadways connected it to Cahokia and to the Southeast." [5]
[1]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 28)
[2]: (Pauketat 2014, 28)
[3]: (Peregrine/Kelly 2014, 23)
[4]: (Peregrine/Trubitt 2014, 21)
[5]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 13)
"There was geographically widespread trade between Cahokia and other communities (and between those other communities themselves) especially along the Mississippi. However, this trade appears to have been low volume, with only small amounts being exchanged at any given time. Canoes identified so far are small, unable to carry high volumes of commodities. There is no evidence for centralized control of this exchange, except perhaps for high-status goods and exceptional ritual objects." [1] [1]
[1]: (Trubitt 2014, 18)
"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)
"The main mound and plaza region of Cahokia was palisaded after ca. A.D. 1200, also indicating a high level of violence." [1] "After about A.D. 1100 there is an increase in numbers of palisaded sites (they were present earlier at Toltec)." [2]
[1]: (Kelly 2014, 22)
[2]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 16)
Arrow points from at least c600 CE. [1] "Projectile points thought to be from arrows were common by the Patrick phase, having been introduced earlier in Late Woodland times. The timing of their appearance coincides roughly with the earliest widespread use of the bow-and-arrow throughout eastern North America." [2] "bow and arrow introduced sometime around AD 400" [3]
[1]: (Peregrine/Pauketat 2014, 16)
[2]: (Milner 2006, 83)
[3]: (Iseminger 2010, 26)