Late Woodland and Mississippian societies

During the last few decades, archaeological investigations at 11 early Late Woodland Weaver sites in the LaMoine Valley of west-central Illinois have produced a wealth of data regarding Weaver chronology, lithic and ceramic manufacture, settlement and subsistence practices, and external relations. This article summarizes those data, the synthesis of which allows for the proposal here of two new Weaver phases, Camp Creek and Crooked Creek.

This short note from "Contexts: the Annual Report of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology" explores the potential implications of changes in the selection of lithic raw materials across the Narragansett Basin at the start of the Late Woodland period for understanding the role of color as a variable in quarry choice and the production of symbolically meaningful material culture.

This presentation showed a divergent take on Ancient America, looking at African Trans-Atlantic Migrations during antiquity and the long standing struggle for 'Black Indigenous Sovereignty'.

In my book, Moundbuilders of Ancient America: A Legacy Reclaimed, this author traces our family's Muskogee/Creek Heritage back 8 generations to Mississippian Moundbuilders, to tell an untold story of our Ancestor's sovereignty and resistance to membership in the Five Civilized Tribes. The book shows our family's intersectionality to colonial expansion, chronicling the negative impact it had on native communities in the Southeast.

Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Saturday, April 13, 2019

[340] Forum · #METOO IN ARCHAEOLOGY (SPONSORED BY SAA ETHICS COMMITTEE)

110 Galisteo

1:00–3:00 PM

Moderators: Heather Thakar, Jason De Leon and Pamela Geller

Participants:
Susan Chandler—Discussant
Christopher Dore—Discussant
Arlen Chase—Discussant
Lisa Lucero—Discussant
Julie Stein—Discussant
David Carballo—Discussant
Barra ODonnabhain—Discussant
Chelsea Fisher—Discussant
Laura Heath-Stout—Discussant
Valorie Aquino—Discussant
Michael Balter—Discussant - Replaced by Ryan Harrod
Heather Thakar—Discussant


Archaeology has for too long offered safe harbor to perpetrators of sexual misconduct, harassment and violence; this has long been known anecdotally and has been confirmed in recent years by more systematic research. Survivors of sexual violence in archaeology may feel pressure to keep silent about their experiences for many (valid) reasons. #MeToo in Archaeology will provide a platform for people to anonymously share their stories of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and sexual violence directly experienced on archaeological projects and/or within the archaeological community. A panel of archaeologists will read a selection of representative narratives aloud during this open forum. Making space for survivors to share their stories through the #MeToo conversation does more than simply acknowledge and validate their experiences: this conversation is a first step in a much longer path towards structural change. #MeToo in Archaeology pushes our discipline to confront the work we need to do to make archaeology a more intersectional and more feminist field. When done well, as we aspire to do with this forum, the #MeToo movement and its offshoots commit to an intersectional framework that is sensitive to the dynamics of race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic inequality underlying sexual violence.

Bassett, Hayden F. (2021). Book Review: The Archaeology of Virginia’s First Peoples. edited by Elizabeth A. Moore and Bernard K. Means, Richmond, The Archaeological Society of Virginia, 2020, v, 301 pp., ill., maps. $40.00 (paper), ISBN: 979-8696091860

Cahokia’s cultural influence altered patterns of social organization throughout the Midwest, and this complex historical process warrants further interregional research. Ramey Incised jars were cosmograms through which Cahokians attempted to frame relationships among different social groups and the broader cosmos. The exchange, and subsequent emulation, of these ritually charged vessels provided opportunities for hinterland groups to do the same. But did hinterland
Mississippian peoples adopt a Cahokian understanding of the cosmos wholesale or reinterpret it based on local understandings and histories? To address this question, this paper examines variation in Ramey Incised iconographic motifs and design fields from the Lower Illinois River valley, Central Illinois River valley, Apple River valley, and the Aztalan site (47JE1). The data are then statistically compared with Emerson’s
typology from the American Bottom, highlighting ground-level patterns of material variation which can be used to interpret the ways in which
local peoples negotiated the spread of dominant ideologies and religious practices. Analysis of these patterns suggests regional differences in the perceived composition and structure of the cosmos and reveals the power of local worldviews in culture contact scenarios.

Ethnohistorical and archeological data, including
historical descriptions of warclubs and warclub use,
ethnographic reports, Southeastern myths, Mississippian
iconography, skeletal fractures of Mississippian burials,
and archaeological specimens of warclubs are analyzed in
order to determine the significance of warclubs in
Mississippian and early historic Southeastern Indian
societies. Warclub types and techniques of use are
examined, and evidence of their use as a symbol of the
status of Mississippian military elites and chiefs is
presented. The warclub is also analyzed as a symbol in
Southeastern cosmology, especially of the Thunder deity,
which was used to symbolize the status and cosmological
authority of warriors and chiefs. Persistence into the
historic period of the symbolic use of warclubs in the Green
Corn Ceremony, the ball game, and the Redstick uprising, as
well as their use in warfare, is examined. A synthesis of
this data supports the view that Mississippian warfare was
fueled by competition for status within societies, that
warclubs were the primary symbol of warfare and the
cosmologically sanctioned status of the warrior, and that
they symbolized the cosmologically charted role of the
warrior to compete for status and participate in warfare.

This dissertation examines prehistoric activity at the Feltus site (22Je500) in Jefferson County, Mississippi, to elucidate how Coles Creek (AD 700–1200) platform mound sites were used. Data from excavations undertaken by the Feltus Archaeological Project from 2006 to 2012 support the conclusion that Coles Creek people utilized Feltus episodically for some 400 years, with little evidence of permanent habitation. More specifically, the ceramic, floral, and faunal data suggest that Feltus provided a location for periodic ritual events focused around food consumption, post-setting, and mound building. The rapidity with which the middens at Feltus were deposited and the large size of the ceramic vessels implies that the events occurring there brought together large groups of people for massive feasting episodes. The vessel form assemblage is dominated by open bowls and thus suggests an emphasis on food consumption, with less evidence for food preparation and virtually none for food storage. Overall, the ceramic assemblage emphasizes a great deal of continuity in the use of the Feltus landscape from the earliest occupation, during the Hamilton Ridge phase, through the latest, during the Balmoral phase. Evidence from the food remains further supports these conclusions. Faunal remains indicate that the Feltus diet consisted mainly of large mammals and fish, and botanical remains suggest a focus on nuts and wild seeds, with limited evidence for domesticated chenopod. An emphasis on exceptionally large animals (including bear) and easily amassable plant resources further implies large, communal eating events. The presence of ritually important plants, smoking pipes, and bear remains in the Feltus deposits suggest that the meals that occurred during these events were ceremonial. The final chapter offers a general scheme for identifying, describing, and comparing feasting events in the archaeological record. Based on this comparative framework, I argue that the feasts and communal rituals taking place at Coles Creek sites need not have been competitive, but rather may have emphasized community building and highlighted the shared identity of the participants.

Archaeologists assessed eight Native American sites on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast for the effects of the MC252 Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. Crude oil and dispersant used during the cleanup response were detected in redeposited shoreline midden and intact archaeological contexts. The proximate impacts on the archaeological record include contamination of artifacts, ecofacts, and samples, with the potential for long-term impacts on radiocarbon dating and archaeometry. Pretreatment can mitigate the effects of contaminants on radiocarbon dating and elemental analyses. Other analytical methods, such as absorbed pottery residue analysis, are more adversely effected by a combination of crude oil and dispersant. Integrated cultural resources management planning should take into account the potential effects of an oil spill on archaeological sites, and the increased time and cost expenditures for field and lab research in hazardous conditions and with contaminated collections.

This research presents a synthesis of the zooarchaeology and site seasonality data for the northern Gulf of Mexico from the Late Archaic through Woodland periods (ca. 5000 B.C. to A.D. 1100). Three questions are addressed: (1) Was the coast occupied on a seasonal basis? (2) Were there one or many coastal subsistence strategies? (3) Were coastal economies and ecosystems stable over the scale of millennia? Archaeological data suggest the coastal zone was not wholly abandoned during any season of the year, although sites varied throughout the year in terms of population density, intensity of site use, or intensity of fishing and shellfishing efforts. There were at least three patterns of animal exploitation on the Gulf Coast: specialized estuarine shellfishing, generalized estuarine fishing, and generalized marine shellfishing. Specialized estuarine shellfishing, a pattern focused on intensive exploitation of oysters, was an early and long-lived adaptation to highly productive salt marsh habitats. Subsistence strategies diversified during the Woodland period, shifting from intensive exploitation of salt marshes to extensive exploitation of an array of estuarine and marine habitats. Marked variability among contemporaneous sites over small geographic scales suggests that coastal dwellers had access to different resources by virtue of their proximity to habitats and resource patches.

This report details the results of the 1971, 72, and 74 investigations at the multicomponent Kuester site. The most significant of these occupations is a Mann phase habitation component, dating to the late Middle Woodland / early Late Woodland transition. The upper component contains late Late Woodland Yankeetown and Mississippian Angel phase materials.

This work is all about things. It is about the role that those things play in the human experience, and what they offer to us as archaeologists, whose job is to provide a glimpse into the lives of past peoples. I discuss the things of the past from the theoretical stance of materiality, which assures us that the past is accessible despite the fragmentary nature of its physical remains. This is so because the physical world – objects, landscapes, and space – are imbued with meaning through our interactions with and experiences of them, be they overt and intentional or subconscious and in the background of our active lives. Repeated engagement with the physical world creates habits, memories, and histories and inscribes the social processes that created them upon the tangible world in ways that allow us to interpret the lives of the people with whom we have no direct interaction or accounts.
    I use this theory to explore the southern Illinois site of Kincaid Mounds during the latter portion of its Mississippian period occupation, with a focus on how community was constructed and maintained within and through time. I do so using evidence from the non-discursive aspects of ceramic and architectural manufacture under the assumption that the methods of producing these items are habituated and thus reveal communities of learning. I consider contextual evidence to determine what other factors may have been at play in the production of these goods.
    With statistical analyses, I explore the variation in the way things were made between several spatially discrete neighborhoods at Kincaid Mounds, and discuss those results in terms of the making and manipulation or maintenance of community at this pre-Columbian center, followed by a narrative history of the Middle and Late Kincaid phases. I contrast these finds with those of communities within two other Middle Mississippian regions, Greater Cahokia and the Central Illinois River Valley, in order to discuss the variable processes that led diverse and unique communities to participate in a much broader, imagined Mississippian community.

By the start of the 12th century A.D., the Aztalan site in southeastern Wisconsin was home to Middle Mississippian immigrants from the south and local Late Woodland residents. The amalgamated population coexisted, maintained defensive works, and constructed earthen monuments in the spirit of Middle Mississippian mound construction. One mound, located within the domestic complex of the site in the northeast corner of the palisaded area, was the focus of Wisconsin Historical Society excavations during the 1960s. This thesis utilizes the unreported results of these investigations to highlight the social implication resulting from the prehistoric construction of Aztalan’s northeast platform mound. Results demonstrate the Late Woodland sub-mound space was transformed into a Middle Mississippian monument not by means of coercion or cooptation, but rather through socially integrative practices creating a space that symbolized a new pluralistic community unique to Aztalan and the multiple social groups involved.

Report on test excavations of a multicomponent site in north central Alabama.  Carbonized plant remains associated with a Terminal Woodland component yielded two ams dates: cal. A.D. 1020 +/-30 with a two sigma range of A.D. 980 to 1040, and cal. 1050 +/- 30 with a two sigma range of 1040 to 1210. Ethnobotanical analysis was done on samples from three features. Remains of corn, sunflower, chenopod, maygrass, purslane, acorn, hickory, walnut, persimmon, and other species were identified.

An outline of the culture history of the middle Cahaba River drainage from the end of the Pleistocene to A.D. 1800 is presented based on archaeological data. There is an emphasis of material culture used to identify societies within intervals of time. The distribution of each temporal/cultural unit is mapped within the study area.

This paper documents a Mississippian chipped stone mace, found by Lyle Edger, an amateur collector, in an agricultural field in Nichols, NY along the Susquehanna River. This crown-form mace is made out of Dover chert and was probably produced by Mississippian people who lived in Middle Tennessee, circa AD 1200-1400. We argue that the Nichols Mace could have been acquired by Iroquoian people as the result of either a gift or diplomatic negotiations. We conclude that the meanings the mace held for Iroquoian people were likely tied to how they acquired it.

Located in Southeast Wisconsin on the west bank of the Crawfish River, the  Aztalan site was first settled by horticultural Late Woodland peoples. By the mid-eleventh century A.D., Middle Mississippian migrants arrived from the south. The site was eventually transformed into a fortified village with three platform mounds. During the later component, Middle Mississippian and Late Woodland peoples appear to have coexisted. This thesis consists of a diachronic comparison of floral subsistence remains
and maize race at the site. The results of the analysis indicate that while the Late Woodland inhabitants grew maize, food production involving maize and native cultigens was intensified following the appearance of Mississippian traits. The transformation of
the site into a fortified agricultural village may have related to intergroup hostility within the region and territorial circumscription. The analysis also identified a possible early Mississippian feasting context. Maize race data indicate both an Eastern Great Lakes
connection tied to collared Late Woodland pottery, and a southern, likely American Bottom, connection. This thesis also explores environmental and social explanations for  differences between the Aztalan floral assemblage and Late Woodland and Oneota subsistence within the region.

The recovery of anomalous (red-slipped, shell/grog/sandstone-tempered) pottery from three sites in the Upper Mississippi
Valley (UMV) prompted a petrographic analysis of thin sections of 21 vessels from these sites. The goal was to evaluate
their possible derivation from the American Bottom, the nearest locality where such pottery commonly occurs. Among the 12 UMV vessels tempered with shell (nine red slipped), ten were determined, based on comparisons to thin sections of styl
istically similar pottery from the American Bottom, to have essentially identical physical compositions. Additionally, four
vessels suspected of being limestone-tempered were determined to have been tempered with a type of sandstone that outcrops only farther south in Illinois and Iowa. Of the three UMV sites, only the Fisher Mounds Site Complex (FMSC) produced the presumed exotic pottery in undisturbed, dated contexts. The petrographic evidence is consistent with the C-14 age and lithic assemblage at FMSC in suggesting an actual influx of people from the American Bottom into the UMV. The time of this influx, the Edelhardt phase of the Emergent Mississippian/Terminal Late Woodland period, ca. cal A.D. 1000-1050, is earlier than previously believed, i.e., precedes the main Mississippian period in the American Bottom.

The St. Lawrence River valley was home to the northernmost case of plant cultivation in Northeastern North America prior to the arrival of the first Europeans. Recent analyses of phytoliths recovered from ancient pottery vessels in this area were dated to the third century BC, possibly representing the oldest evidence for maize cultivation in this area. These and other similar data from Ontario and New York State, along with ethnohistorical descriptions from the 15th and 16th centuries, allow for a better understanding of the origins of plant cultivation on the edge of North America’s temperate zone.

(2017) Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 11:523-535. 

The American Bottom portion of the Central Mississippi River Valley is a region where urban transformations occurred in the pre-Columbian era. During the 11th century AD, Cahokia experienced significant population increases through immigration of non-local migrants to the site and, assumedly, the aggregation of extant local groups. This article considers the latter phenomenon and the extent to which urbanization involved demographic reorganizations on a regional scale. A suite of AMS radiocarbon dates are presented for the Washausen site, a place where residents built one of the earliest mound-and-plaza towns outside of Cahokia. Knowledge of the site from broad-scale geophysical survey, surface collections, excavations, and artifact analyses, provides information utilized for Bayesian chronological modeling. A new site chronology places major occupations in the late 11th-early 12th centuries, and suggests the site occupations spanned a brief period of potentially 30 years or less. The data also support a scenario wherein town abandonment was rapid and begun by AD 1100 or shortly thereafter, possibly undertaken as a single event. Washausen’s site chronology demonstrates that some early regional centers were abandoned as Cahokia and other large settlements were approaching their maximum population sizes. This study provides evidence for models of urban development that consider the movements of local populations and communities as part of the urbanization process.

Around A.D. 1050 Late Woodland peoples living near the Mississippi River and its tributaries experienced vast changes in material culture, site organization, and ideology. These changes are often attributed to trade, religion, or migration from the center of Mississippian cultural expansion, the Cahokia site, near St. Louis, Missouri. Previous biological distance analyses examining skeletal assemblages in and around the Cahokia site area have found biological continuity between Late Woodland and Mississippian individuals. Minimal biological distance research has been done investigating biological relationships between groups at the northern periphery of the Mississippian cultural landscape; therefore, this project looked at the movement of people in the central Illinois River valley, southeast Wisconsin, and south central Indiana. The Archaic Indian Knoll group was examined as a comparative control group. The wide scope of this dissertation presents a unique examination of Late Woodland and Mississippian interaction in the Midwest.

Biological distances were investigated through examination of human permanent dentition using odontometric and non-metric trait analyses. Results show that there is no evidence for a group of biologically different Mississippian people moving into the areas examined. Results also indicated a general reduction of within-site biological variation occurring during the Mississippian period. This is consistent with previous biological distance research in the Midwest. Small differences present between dental size and dental shape data results may indicate increased biological homogenization of groups as a result of Mississippianization of the area. Furthermore, large biological distances between groups in Wisconsin as well as the larger region suggest that Wisconsin groups were participating in different social and biological networks than those analyzed in this project.

Finally, the Archaic Indian Knoll skeletal assemblage was examined as a comparative control group based on the hypothesis that their geographic and temporal distance would also result in biological distance, primarily as a result of dental reduction through time. Results show that the Indian Knoll group had small biological distances to all other groups in the project with no evidence of dental reduction and therefore could not be used as a comparative control.

Relatively little is known about the archaeology of the upland area situated between the Lower Illinois River Valley and Northern American Bottom of western Illinois. However, several recent IDOT-sponsored projects have afforded the opportunity to gather baseline information about local Late Woodland cultures. As part of one modest-scale road-widening project, a portion of the Wedding site was excavated, producing over 70 pit facilities. This paper focuses on a preliminary analysis of the two structures excavated at the site, which appear to differ somewhat from roughly contemporaneous residential buildings in the American Bottom. Our research suggests that the character of the Wedding site structures, as well as variation in the point and pottery styles, denote the presence of a distinctive social group within the greater terminal Late Woodland Bluff tradition from the Illinois/Mississippi/Missouri River confluence area.

This paper provides an investigation of Cahokia's East plaza and its associated architectural remains. Defined here as the area bounded by Mounds 31, 36, 38 (Monk's Mound), and 51, the plaza was initially distinguished by an absence of surface debris, noted during controlled surface collection efforts in the Ramey Tract by Elizabeth D. Benchley and Barbara J. Vander Leest. Based largely on ceramics that were acquired by these investigators, the proposed time of construction has been placed between the Lohman and early Stirling phases, around the same time as the West, North, and Grand (South) plazas are believed to have been completed. As a relatively early construct that was overshadowed by the rise of Cahokia's other forms of monumental architecture, the area in which the East plaza was established became a palimpsest for the site's pioneering architects. Nevertheless, it comprised an essential component of the site's cosmologically oriented layout. As such, it retained its own architectural nuances and metaphors, some of which are celebrated in our fragmentary understanding of Native oral histories.

Paper for the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver (2017).

The goal of this research is to investigate the nature of Upper Mississippian subsistence systems (circa AD 1050-1450), to evaluate the role of agriculture, and to understand how these dietary choices are related to risk management systems and the development of cultural complexity in the Midcontinent. The research uses the Koshkonong Locality of southeastern Wisconsin as a case study and compares it to other Upper Mississippian groups throughout Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois, Middle Mississippian groups in Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin, and contemporaneous Late Woodland groups in southeastern Wisconsin.
This study uses two primary lines of evidence; macrobotanical remains and dietary isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) from dogs. The dog values are interpreted as proxies for human food consumption though the lens of the canine surrogacy approach (CSA). Regionally, the data indicate maize was foundational to all examined Upper and Middle Mississippian populations, Upper Mississippians distributed food more equitably than Middle Mississippians, and each Upper Mississippian locality buffered maize in a unique manner. Locally, the data indicate that the Koshkonong residents were under stress from structural violence and that intralocality cooperation would have been essential for the subsistence system to have functioned effectively.

Between 2001 and 2006, field investigations were conducted in five major locales in the 47VE825 Fisher Mounds site complex on the Stoddard terrace, Vernon County, Wisconsin, at the confluence of Coon Creek with the Mississippi River. Work extended from the woods south of a boat ramp to the southern end of the peninsula. A total of 50 units were excavated and 18 features identified. Cultural components include Woodland, Oneota, and proto-Mississippian. A full range of phases documented from southwestern Wisconsin is represented including Early Woodland Indian Isle and Prairie phases; Middle Woodland Trempealeau, Havana, and Millville phases; and Late Woodland Mill and Lewis phases. Oneota ceramics suggest both Pammel Creek phase and a possible early Oneota represented by cordmarked shell-tempered ceramics. A proto-Mississippian occupation related to the late Edelhardt or early Lohmann phase produced six features, a burial, and evidence of ceramics and lithic raw materials imported from the American Bottom.
Intact precontact archaeological deposits were found in all locales, though there was some evidence for localized disturbances in stratigraphic relationships. This site complex has both mounds and habitation areas. Excavations were conducted among the mounds but did not investigate the mounds themselves. Occupation within the vicinity of the mounds was predominantly Early Woodland, with much smaller Middle and Late Woodland occupations. The proto-Mississippian occupation was confined to the North Locale.

This thesis presents the results of the zooarchaeological analysis of a mound-flank midden from the Smith Creek site. The inhabitants of this site belonged to the Coles Creek culture (AD 700 to 1200), which existed during the transition from the Late Woodland to the Early Mississippian period. Therefore, this analysis aims to tie faunal remains from the midden both to cultural practices (e.g., food acquisition preferences and technologies) and to incipient sociopolitical change in the region. By doing so, I am also able to discuss mound summit utilization.

The former goal, elucidating cultural practices regarding food acquisition, centers around fish and fishing. Fish was the most abundant taxon in the midden — a pattern which deviates from that found at many other Coles Creek sites. Nonetheless, analyses of the proportions of different fish families (and of their habitat preferences) led to the conclusion that the inhabitants of Smith Creek likely fished nearby oxbow lakes and seasonal pools. Further, analysis of three screen size fractions — 1/2”, 1/4”, and 1/16” — indicated that fish of all sizes were collected and utilized at the site.

Though mammal remains were less numerous than fish remains, studying their remains at the site served my second goal. Feasting and elite provisioning are implicated in sociopolitical change and leave behind archaeological signatures in the form of zooarchaeological, ceramic, and paleobotanical remains. I investigated the evidence for each of these practices on Smith Creek’s Mound A. Though support for feasting was lacking, elite provisioning was potentially supported by relatively high proportions of meaty deer elements and the presence of the remains of symbolically-charged animals. However, more data from a variety of sources will be needed to support this conclusion further.

Spiro Mounds was a ceremonial complex located on the Arkansas River, situated in a natural corridor be- tween the Southeast, the Plains, and the Southwestern United States. Considered a quintessential Mississip- pian site (AD 1000–AD 1450), Spiro was strategically placed as a cultural gateway. Here, dental evidence is presented to aid in the determination of dietary regime and overall population health. The hypothesis regard- ing the delayed transition to maize agriculture in the Arkansas River Valley will be tested through population comparisons of dental remains. This study will expand the bioarchaeological investigation of a region that has had limited systematic examination.

Statistical analysis showed a significant difference between Alluvial, Upland, and Plains environmental zones, and the pattern of dental pathology. Assaults on the dentition at Spiro are moderate. Caries and hypo- plasia rates fall just under but approaching those expected for agricultural populations (57% and 49%, re- spectively). The high number of occlusal caries indicates slower cariogenic destruction and a slower attrition rate. Ante mortem tooth loss was low (18%), with moderate dental attrition (61%). The dental analysis of Spiro Mounds reveals a population with little generalised stress resulting from environmental or sociocul- tural influences.

Comparisons of Spiro to other larger sites in the Mississippian sphere is revealing regarding widespread cultural traditions and their affect on population health; Spiro’s unique circumstances give evidence of a pop- ulation in transition to maize agriculture, but not fully committed to it. Higher status individuals were slower to change from the subsistence strategies that had made them biologically successful. Recent isotope data support this conclusion. The delayed role of maize agriculture at Spiro Mounds, as well as its ideal location within the Mississippian sphere, indicates a different social evolution than other influential Mississippian centres. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Key words: agriculture; biocultural; dental pathology; isotope analysis; microenvironment; Mississippian; population health; status

This essay was sparked by the recognition of previously unobserved avian heads on the McKensie tablet. This led to the identification of both analogous and novel features on other engraved Adena tablets, which represent some of the most complex works of early-to-middle Woodland iconography. These observations reveal unsuspected links between tablets while documenting ways that influences apparently flowed in the Adena world. They also provide a case study in how imagery can grow so allusive that it can embody, encrypt, and sustain a complex ideology—in this case, one that set the template for Woodland beliefs in the middle Ohio Valley until contact with Europeans.