Archaeologists have studied Indigenous iconography in eastern North America since the mid-twentieth century, but only in recent decades has this work coalesced into a distinct subfield. For this reason, Explanations in Iconography: Ancient American Indian Art, Symbol, and Meaning (edited by Carol Diaz-Granados) and Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles (edited by David H. Dye) are important contributions to an otherwise sparsely populated scholarly landscape. Largely focusing on the Mississippian period (roughly AD 1000–1500), these volumes do considerable credit to a growing specialization within North American archaeology.
Inherently multidisciplinary, the iconographic research in these collected works examines material culture and landscapes through the interpretive lens of Native oral traditions, cosmology, and ritual. In precontact contexts, Indigenous iconography must be studied without the aid of contemporaneous texts, making this work methodologically distinct from research centered on iconographic traditions beyond North America. Consequently, these recent volumes not only provide compelling interpretations of Native signs and symbols but also deliver clearly articulated methodological approaches to this unique area of research.
Explanations in Iconography comprises a series of regionally varied analyses of precontact iconography in the American Midwest and Eastern Woodlands. The contributing authors highlight diverse material forms, ranging from rock art and ceramics to earthen mound complexes and stone statuary. Intended as a methodological primer, Diaz-Granados’s introduction is notable for its accessibility. She uses simple, understandable language in place of scholarly jargon, presenting the study of iconography as an approachable, multipart equation. Her concise case studies of common motifs in Mississippian art are at once digestible and edifying.
However, not all chapters in Explanations in Iconography are as accessible as the introduction. In chapter 2, James R. Duncan and Diaz-Granados demonstrate their unmatched expertise in Mississippian rock art, offering convincing arguments that link Omaha and Osage origin stories to recurring petroglyph imagery found throughout present-day Missouri. Despite, or perhaps because of, their impressive breadth and depth of knowledge, the chapter is dense and presupposes considerable familiarity with both Mississippian archaeology and historic Tribal traditions. But for a well-versed reader, this chapter provides another excellent case study of how traditional Indigenous knowledge can guide the interpretation of ancient imagery.
On par with Diaz-Granados’s opening chapter, the remaining works in this volume are remarkably readable, adeptly introducing major characters in Native oral traditions—including the Earth Mother, Great Serpent, and Hero Twins—and discussing their appearance in precontact contexts. In many ways, these chapters echo foundational research on Mississippian iconography, building on the pioneering work of scholars such as the late Robert L. Hall and the late George E. Lankford to draw novel conclusions about cosmology and ceremonialism in ancestral Native communities.
Chapter 8 is a welcome detour from this pattern. Here, Bradley T. Lepper and colleagues combine chronometric evidence with iconographic analysis to arrive at a Fort Ancient origin for Ohio’s famous Serpent Mound. Although this chapter is a reprint of an article published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal in 2018, it demonstrates how assessments of style and theme in ancient imagery can be used to address research questions beyond those concerned primarily with belief, ritual, and socioreligious organization. The chapter’s evaluation of a non-Mississippian earthwork also provides a refreshing break from the Mississippian slant of the rest of the volume (but see chapter 5, an article by Lepper and others on the effigy mounds and rock art of the broader Midcontinent, originally published in North American Archaeologist in 2022).
In Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles, Dye and contributing authors offer a fitting complement to Explanations in Iconography. Whereas Diaz-Granados’s opening chapter in her volume serves as a general guide on how “to do” iconography, Dye’s introduction provides a longer and more complex summary of current approaches to Mississippian iconography, emphasizing the influential framework developed by Vernon James Knight Jr. in his book Iconographic Method in New World Prehistory (Cambridge University Press, 2013). For readers seeking a thorough methodological overview of iconographic research in precontact eastern North America, these two introductory essays together constitute an excellent entry point.
Because these volumes share many of the same contributors, their content occasionally overlaps. However, for the most part, the works are naturally synergistic without being overly redundant. Diaz-Granados’s volume avoids focusing on any one period, though it frequently returns to Mississippian landscapes and materiality. Dye’s volume, by contrast, centers squarely on Mississippian iconography, aligning more directly with the body of scholarship that has emerged from the Mississippian Iconography Conference, spearheaded by the late F. Kent Reilly III at Texas State University. Furthermore, contributors to Dye’s volume generally deliver more ambitious analyses of ancient Native symbolism, rethinking many facets of Mississippian cosmology—or what Dye frames as Indigenous ontology (though the term “ontology” is used here more as shorthand for “worldview” than in its strict anthropological sense).
The chapters in Dye’s volume are organized by topic, highlighting the multifaceted nature of sacred bundles, other-than-human persons, and ritual adornment—themes that have not been so systematically examined in other edited volumes on Mississippian iconography. However, in practice, these topics are nebulously defined and co-occur in many chapters, making the thematic organization of the volume less convincing. That said, this small lapse does not take away from the substance and ideas of the chapters themselves, which are well argued.
One of the strongest contributions to Dye’s volume is chapter 2. Here, Reilly reinterprets Craig-style carved shell gorgets as components of visual bundles. Rather than reading gorgets as elite ritual regalia, Reilly argues that they were meant to be displayed together as iconographic tableaux, bringing new insight into these well-known art objects. In chapter 8, Lynne P. Sullivan evaluates Mississippian shell gorgets from Upper Tennessee Valley mortuary contexts, a study that resonates strongly with Reilly’s analysis. Sullivan further dismantles the outdated “craft-items-as-prestige-goods” framework, demonstrating that gorgets in this region were more often interred with vulnerable individuals—such as infants and the elderly—rather than with adults in the prime of their lives. Drawing on a wide range of ethnohistoric sources, she convincingly concludes that these objects functioned as medicine items that aided souls in their passage to the Realm of the Dead.
Overall, Diaz-Granados’s and Dye’s respective volumes together reflect the continued maturation of iconographic research as a subfield within North American archaeology. This is particularly evident in the regional breadth of the works. Whereas earlier iconographic research tended to focus on craft traditions associated with large Mississippian mound centers such as Moundville, Etowah, Spiro, and Cahokia, contributors to these volumes have branched out significantly. Discussions of material culture and monumental architecture from eastern Missouri, the central Mississippi and Tennessee valleys, the Middle Cumberland, and northwest Florida do much to expand understandings of ancient Native art.
If any joint critique can be made, it is that both volumes are occasionally out of step with growing emphases on decolonizing practice in North American archaeology. In particular, some language choices—including “prehistoric,” “supernatural,” and “myth”—may feel dated, inaccurate, or problematic to some readers. At the same time, several contributors have maintained strong collaborative relationships with Native communities, providing important examples of community-engaged scholarship. Diaz-Granados and Duncan have conducted decades-long research in partnership with the Osage Nation. Duncan himself has Osage and Cherokee heritage, and Diaz-Granados was adopted into the Osage Gentle Sky Clan. Similarly, George Sabo III highlights his work with the Caddo Nation in chapter 10 of Dye’s volume. Therefore, although neither book makes decolonizing practice a central theme, they both nonetheless provide useful starting points for forthcoming work in this area.
Ultimately, whether readers are looking for fresh perspectives on Mississippian symbolism or practical guidance on conducting robust iconographic research, these works are valuable contributions to a growing body of scholarship. They successfully balance interpretive innovation with methodological rigor, presenting new analyses of familiar materials within compelling conceptual frameworks. Together, they point toward a promising future for iconographic studies in North American archaeology, particularly as more researchers begin prioritizing collaboration and community engagement.
