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The Role of Cahokia In David Anderson David G. Anderson tionally similar societies (e.g., compare the views of Milner 1990, 1991, and Pauketat 1994a, and the various authors in this volume, who hold that Ca- hokia was a paramount chiefdom, with those of Fowler 1974 or O'Brien 12 1989, who see it as a proto-state or state). Analyses of mortuary, settlement, and artifactual data (e.g., as summarized in Milner 1990 and Pauketat The Role of Cahokia in the 1994a), however, clearly indicate that it is the scale of Cahokia that is differ- ent, not the basic political structure, which conforms to that of chiefdom so- Evolutionof Southeastern ciety, in which leadership positions were kin-based and hereditary, with rul- ing elites drawn from ranked clans and lineages (Knight 1990). Just as Mississippian Society chiefdoms in other parts of the world, such as in Polynesia and Africa, ranged markedly in size and organizational complexity, so, too, did they within the Mississippian world, which had its own equivalents of the simple and complex chiefdoms represented ethnographically by societies like During the half millennium or so before European contact, agricultural Tikopia and Hawaii, or the Plateau Tonga and the Swazi (e.g., Colson and chiefdoms of varying levels of complexity were present across much of the Gluckman 1951; Goldman 1970; Sahlins 1958). The Lohmann-phase popula- southeastern United States, an area that has been variously defined but in tion estimates for Cahokia provided by Pauketat and Lopinot in this volume, most accounts is taken to mean the states south of the Ohio River and from at ten thousand to fifteen thousand, fall within the range expected of chief- just west of the Mississippi valley eastward to the Atlantic Ocean (B. Smith doms, albeit toward the upper end of the scale (Feinman and Neitzel 1984). 1986, 1-2).1 By almost any definition, the American Bottom lies at or just beyond the margins of the Southeast. In spite of this, the events that tran- The Nature and Evolution of the Cahokia Chiefdom spired in this area during the interval from roughly A.D. 900 to 1300 influ- enced developments in societies across the Southeast at this time and after- The emergence and evolution of chiefdom political organization in the ward by pl~ying a major role in the emergence, character, spread, and American Bottom followed a course similar to that of many other Mississip- evolution of Mississippian culture. 2Such a view, while appreciably at odds pian societies, as Knight has persuasively argued in chapter II (see also Hol- with prevailing interpretations about the development of Mississippian cul- ley n.d.; Milner 1990); that is, the chiefdom centered at Cahokia went ture, provides a better fit with available evidence than do positions that mini- through a process of emergence, expansion, and then collapse such as that mize the role of the American Bottom area. observed in chiefdoms across the Southeast and indeed worldwide, a process During its heyday from about A.D. 1050 to 1200, during the Lohmann and that at the regional scale can be described as cycling (Anderson 1990a, Stirling phases, Cahokia appears to have been the center of a paramount 1994a, 1-11; Earle 1991a, 13-14). It is at a regional scale of analysis, in fact, chiefdom dominating the American Bottom, with other simple and complex that we can best appreciate the size, complexity, and impact of Cahokia. At chiefdoms under its direct or indirect control. In this regard it is like many the same time, as Stoltman (1991, 352) has rightly cautioned, we must be .other such societies that were present in the Southeast during the Mississip- careful to avoid adopting a strict minimalist stance, downplaying Cahokia pian era (Milner 1990). Most of the Mississippian towns and centers that and equating it to merely one Mississippian chiefdom among many, since its have been found elsewhere in the Southeast could fit comfortably in the area hirge size, early emergence, and obvious impact on surrounding societies, circumscribed by Monk's Mound, just one of more than one hundred particularly those to the north and northwest, clearly set it apart. mounds making up the core of Cahokia; however, some investigators have Although the amount of construction undertaken in the immediate Ca- found it difficult to accept that Monk's Mound and Cahokia were organiza- hokia area is unprecedented in the Mississippian world, the actual scale or 248 249 ~------ ------------- EVOLUTION OF SOUTHEASTERN MISSISSIPPIAN SOCIETY David Anderson geographic extent of the polity, or at least its central core, does not appear rate or even rival polities, may instead have been part of a greater Cahokia, very atypical. The spatial extent and duration of Mississippian polities have what Pauketat has called the "Central Political-Administrative Complex" been the subject of appreciable work in recent years, and it appears that few (1994a, 5, 81). I suggest that a greater Cahokia is literally what is represented centers were occupied continuously for more than a century or so, or exer- by these sites or groupings of mounds. cised direct control over areas much more than 4° kilometers in extent (Hally That is, I assume that the Cahokia, East St. Louis, and St. Louis mound 1992, 1993). Mississippian chiefdoms, in fact, appear to have been organi- complexes, which are all within 8 kilometers of one another, were linked to- zationally incapable of exerting direct control' over societies much more than gether. The reason for this, quite simply, would be to demarcate and control 20 or 3° kilometers away, although thi.scertainly did not preclude the emer- access to the sacred landscape that was the core of Cahokia proper with its gence of patterns of less direct control-the acknowledgment of power rela- numerous mounds, woodhenges, and plazas, as well as to serve the more tionships characteristic of complex or paramount chiefdoms-encompass- secular role of controlling traffic along the Mississippi waterway. While the ing much larger areas. The existence of a critical distance or zone of direct mound groups along the river would have been points of entry for religious control equivalent to one or, at the most, two days round-trip travel time has travelers, having population centers with canoes on opposing banks would been widely observed in early complex societies (Johnson 1982; Renfrew also have made it all but impossible for anyone to pass through the area with- 1975). Interestingly, such an area around Cahokia closely corresponds to the out coming under challenge.3 That Mississippian populations could have ef- northern part of the American Bottom, encompassing centers from fectively controlled movement along the river can be seen from the accounts Lunsford-Pulcher in the south to Grassy Lake in the north, and including the of the de Soto expedition, which was harassed and nearly overwhelmed by Mitchell, East St. Louis, and St. Louis centers. This was likely the core area fleets of war canoes in their final retreat down the Mississippi River in 1543. of the Cahokia polity, something that is, in fact, widely accepted in the liter- The Spanish, in fact, lost more men in this battle than in any other they ature (e.g., Milner 199°; R. Hall 1991; Pauketat 1994a). fought on land, including at Mauvila (Vega in Shelby 1993,504-18; Lafferty The number of large centers occurring in close proximity to one another 1994,201). Of course, the positioning of settlements and centers in the Cen- in the northern American Bottom-of which the Cahokia, East St. Louis, tral Political-Administrative Complex, while having the potential to control and St. Louis mound groups are merely the largest, however-immediately trade through the use of force, may have achieved the same effect more be- raises questions about their relationship to one another. Although the occu- nignly, by dramatically highlighting the location and prominence of Cahokia pational histories of these sites are not fully worked out (and for some of (see also R. Hall 1991, 21). There is some suggestion, in fact, that direct ex- them this may no longer be possible), it is likely that many were contem- change during the early years of Cahokia's ascendancy may have been poraneous. If so, the question is whether each distinctive center or group of largely one way, toward the center, which may have proven an irresistible at- mounds was a subsidiary chiefdom in a complex or paramount chiefdom or- traction for peoples over large areas (Fowler 1991, 25; J. Kelly 1991a, 72). ganizational structure. Such an arrangement does not seem at all probable, Whatever the organization of the central core, the outlying centers in the since the northern Amelican Bottom appears to be much too small and cir- northern American Bottom, like Mitchell and Lunsford-Pulcher, were likely cumscribed an area to support several independent or distinct political enti- more typical subsidiary chiefly centers, whose elites, while subordinate to ties. Mounds occur almost continuously from St. Louis to Cahokia with few those in the central precincts, still controlled activities in their individual breaks, suggesting instead the presence of a number of wealthy, outlying areas. communities or neighborhoods whose 'elites, while overseeing events in The duration of Cahokia as a political center also does not appear atypical their immediate areas, were closely related and played primary roles in Ca- in the Mississippian world or among chiefdom societies in general. The hey- hokian society and ceremony. Although the Mississippi itself would have day of the site, at least as the apex of a complex and powerful chiefdom, was been an appreciable barrier to east-west interaction, the presence of the St. during the Lohmann and Stirling phases, a span of approximately 15° years.
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