As North America's first urban polity, Cahokia at its peak was home to perhaps as many as 20,000 people living around the juncture of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Its rise and decline has been the subject of research for decades. In this new book, Gayle Fritz uses her expertise in the archaeology of the region, her extensive knowledge of prehistoric native crops, and research and datasets from others to explain how agriculture, based largely on native crop plants, provided the food necessary to sustain this large Mississippian city. She also argues that plant production was controlled by women farmers rather than by small numbers of elites exercising political and economic control. In describing how Cahokians were fed, Fritz emphasizes how Cahokian farmers cultivated plants native to eastern North America and later added in maize and other tropical cultigens. Her discussion is arranged temporally to best present the evolutionary processes involved.
The book is divided into two parts. Part 1, which includes Chapters 1–4, reviews extensive archaeobotanical datasets recovered from many sites in the Midwest, especially in the American Bottom and caves in Kentucky. Based on years of systematic recovery and extensive analyses, Fritz provides excellent context for the quantities of seeds recovered, demonstrating histories of cultivation of native plants and building an appreciation for their contribution to subsistence and diet. Beginning with gourd and squash, Fritz describes the use of these plants by Archaic period groups. By Late Archaic times, the oily seeds of sunflower and marshelder were cultivated, followed by the starchy grains of chenopod, erect knotweed, and maygrass, as discussed in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, Fritz discusses the selection of little barley and the use of tobacco as a ritual plant. Many native plants were domesticated, part of what is often known as the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC), and they were significant components of the diet. Native American women grew crops and exchanged seeds during episodic gatherings of diverse groups—practices that led to the spread of EAC crops and knowledge about how to grow them. Fritz differentiates horticulture and farming, and she notes differences between extensive and intensive cropping systems while demonstrating that hunting, fishing, and wild plant gathering continued to contribute significantly to the diet, alongside cultivated plants.
Chapters 5–10 constitute Part 2 of the book, with initial focus on Late Woodland to Emergent Mississippian occupations in the American Bottom region of Illinois (ca. AD 450–1050). Fritz describes evidence of increased population densities during this period, increased reliance on eastern complex crops, and incorporation of small amounts of maize into the diet by the end of the Emergent Mississippian period. Late Woodland and Emergent Mississippian farmers occupied the uplands, where they successfully farmed the undulating ridges or bluff base fans while maintaining easy access to upland forests and bottomland lakes, marshes, and streams for a variety of resources. In Chapter 5, using data from the Fish Lake site as an example of Late Woodland settlement, Fritz introduces mobility and sedentism, and she outlines how repeated occupations could have occurred for years—or even generations—until resources were depleted. Evidence from this and other Late Woodland period Patrick phase sites suggests that people were clearing trees for agricultural fields, which demonstrates that the complexity involved in the development of agriculture included extensive environmental modification and labor expenditure. This revelation bolsters archaeobotanical evidence for agriculture based on EAC crops. Maize has often been cited as critical to the emergence of Cahokia, but Fritz argues that maize was not the prime mover in this process and was not responsible for dramatic population increases, increased sedentism, village arrangement, or capacity for food storage. For both periods, starchy seeds continue to be present in large amounts, especially maygrass, chenopod, little barley, and erect knotweed, whereas evidence for increased usage of tobacco suggests heightened importance of ceremonial activities. By AD 1050, archaeological data documents the creation of a grand civic-ceremonial design with cosmological symbolism, increased deer hunting, and surplus crop production. This was the “Big Bang” in Cahokia's history.
Chapters 6–8 cover several main themes. Fritz discusses the role of feasting at Cahokia by describing contexts of archaeobotanical remains recovered from two Lohmann phase sites: Sub-Mound 51 and ICT-II, a residential zone. Deeply rooted traditional practices that focused on native cultigens are evident here rather than on corn as the newcomer crop. Maygrass in particular appears to have been very significant. With the emergence of social differentiation and ranking of lineages, differential access to and control of agricultural fields became critical. As Fritz argues, however, emphasizing divisions between elites and commoners misrepresents the status of farmers. As farmers, women became valued for knowledge of plants and skills in managing fields, which provided them advantages for making decisions concerning land-use rights. The importance of women is manifest in red stone figurines, adorned with images of native plants, some recovered from the BBB Motor and Sponeman sites. Rather than viewing them as evidence for an elite-dominated priestly cult ruling the rural populace, Fritz presents a compelling argument that the central theme of all the figurines is Old Woman Who Never Dies—a powerful female inhabitant of the spiritual world of Siouan-speaking peoples. Old Woman is known as the guardian of all vegetation, and in Fritz's argument, she would have watched over the farming production in the Mississippian American Bottom. Rather than positing that power and control resided in priests and chiefs, Fritz views women farmers as key figures in fertility-related activities, much like those of historic Hidatsa and Mandan societies.
Cahokia was sustained by agriculture, which included careful planning, intercropping, select fields, and direct involvement of farmers in decision making and land management. In Chapters 9 and 10, Fritz discusses yield estimates and dietary intake, evaluating the consumption of corn for the latter. Fritz proposes a farmer-centered perspective to explain the Cahokian subsistence economy, with women making decisions on a regular basis. This perspective resulted in Cahokia's ability to thrive for hundreds of years, and it allowed for communities to reorient themselves during the course of the Cahokian collapse beginning in the thirteenth century AD.
I highly recommend Feeding Cahokia for several reasons. First, histories of the native cultivated plants are wonderfully presented in a concise and readable narrative. Anyone interested in native plant cultivation will find this book enlightening. Second, Fritz offers new interpretations of how farming and farmers were part of Cahokian social and political structures—with an emphasis on the roles of women as the farmers—and an interesting alternative to understanding the role of elites in a socially stratified society. A fun addition to the book are the recipes involving the EAC crops. Several of these plants are beautifully illustrated or photographed, as are significant artifacts, such as the female figurines. The extensive list of references cited is a bonus to anyone interested in more details about specific study areas and sites.
