| The Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology
of a Mississippian Society. George
R. Milner. 1998 Washington:
The Smithsonian Institution Press. 216pp.;
69 figs. ISBN 1560988142 UK£31.25/ US$40.00.
William Hampton Adams (Flinders University,
Adelaide, Australia) bill.adams@flinders.edu.au
This book arose from the need to synthesize
and summarize the multitude of rescue archaeology
projects in and around the St. Louis, Missouri
area. Owing to the rescue archaeology
being confined to specific endangered land
parcels, and owing to the lack of a comprehensive
research design for the region, the research
lacks integration or cohesion. Milner
is commended for attempting to make sense
of such disparate material, however one
might quibble with any conclusions he reaches.
This area was the center of the Cahokia
chiefdom, part of the broader Mississippian
culture dating from the 11th to 16th centuries
AD, found across the southern and midwestern
United States. Cahokia contained more
than a hundred earthen mounds, including
Monks Mound, the largest earthen structure
in the world. The preservation of
these mounds was advocated at least by 1835,
but land developers won the battle, leveling
most of the mounds. The area around
Monks Mound was preserved privately and
then as a state park.
Milner describes the meandering of the
Mississippi River in the Cahokia area during
the 19th and 20th centuries as a backdrop
for reconstructing earlier riverine environments.
These meanderings produced oxbow ponds and
wet lands with abundant food resources.
He examines those wild resources based upon
the ethnobotanical and zooarchaeological
evidence, concluding that despite living
in a rich environment, the people of Cahokia
had a tenuous existence (p. 78). Given
the richness of the natural environment
and the fact that they were growing maize
and other crops in a fertile alluvial soil,
I would argue that their existence was no
more tenuous than that of any other people,
unless, of course, their population had
exceeded the carrying capacity of the land.
Yet Milner accepts the lower population
estimates. Milner does a good job
of summarizing various aspects of material
remains, including stone tools, pottery,
beads, structures, burials, and mounds.
Milner reviews the debate on whether Cahokia
should be viewed as a chiefdom, a complex
chiefdom, or a state, ultimately concluding
it was a complex chiefdom. Those who
follow the model for a state level of organization
suggest Cahokia was a ranked society with
human sacrifices of slaves. They portray
Cahokia as the paramount central place in
a hierarchy of villages, possibly with four
levels. Its hinterland for tribute
of food was several hundred kilometres and
its trading network covered the mid-continent.
Milner provides an alternative model, based
on recent work that suggests that earlier
population estimates were grossly exaggerated
and that the control over a large area has
been misinterpreted. In this view,
the Cahokia area is seen as self-sufficient
in food production and its interaction sphere
bringing trade goods was little different
from the dispersal of trade items in earlier
and later periods. To Milner, these
items were traded not tribute. He
sees relatively independent chiefdoms around
Cahokia as allied with it under a paramount
chief at Cahokia. While he does not
completely reject Cahokia having had a state
level of political organization, Milner
argues that such complexity is not required.
A complex chiefdom fits the available evidence
just as well.
The book is a well-written summary of Cahokia
and more generally of the Mississippian
culture. While of great interest to
prehistorians, the book is sufficiently
readable for the general public to enjoy.
This should stimulate debate and provide
a context for developing better research
designs for work in that region.
|
World
Archaeological Bulletin