New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery offers a comprehensive and diverse compendium of discussions about Mississippian imagery and symbolism. Contributions by numerous specialists in Mississippian and Caddo archaeology analyze stylistic components expressed on a variety of material forms, and contributors evaluate theoretical and historical frameworks that inform iconographic interpretations related to cosmology, narrative, ceremony, communication, memory, and power. Each chapter is an informative study that explores various approaches to stylistic analysis and intertwined applications of theory, method, analysis, and interpretation. Chapters of the book are organized into three themes: “Variation in Design and Style,” “Interpreting Mississippian Iconography,” and “Situating and Historicizing Mississippian Symbols.” Vernon James Knight, author of Iconographic Method in New World Prehistory (Cambridge University Press, 2013), provides the concluding chapter.
Chapter 1, by Bretton T. Giles and Shawn P. Lambert, reviews scholarship on Mesoamerican iconography, interests in which led to the development of the Texas State University Iconographic Workshop in the early 1990s, and its focus on interdisciplinary and collaborative studies of Mississippian imagery in the US Southeast.
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 focus on the theme of variation in design and style. In Chapter 2, Anna M. Semon considers variation of the filfot-cross motif at sites along the Georgia coast as indicators of active exchange networks tied to economy, ceremony, and social interactions throughout the region. In Chapter 3, J. Grant Stauffer examines McAdams-style spider gorgets within the Central Mississippi Valley (CMV), considers how common themes in spider-bearing motifs reveal a stylistic grammar associated with a shared intrinsic meaning, and identifies areas where variation suggests the production and circulation of hybridized forms perhaps associated with women and their role in the transfer of knowledge. Chapter 4, by John F. Scarry, considers stylistic variation in pottery from sites around Choctawhatchee Bay, Florida. Variation suggests separate communities of practice in which people and groups in this Gulf Coast region were socially and culturally distinct from Mississippian groups located farther inland.
Chapters 5 and 6 emphasize interpretations of Mississippian iconography. George E. Lankford discusses in Chapter 5 the role of comparative mythology, historic patterns of movement, and the way these can be utilized to guide various interpretations of Mississippian imagery and cultural change. In Chapter 6, David H. Dye explores the fascinating topic of witchcraft, its referents associated with owl and human–owl effigy bottles found largely within the Cairo Lowlands of southeastern Missouri, and how these represent material forms tied to social power, logic, and visual representation of magic and ritual.
Chapters 7, 8, and 9 situate and historicize Mississippian symbols, as well as the objects that contain symbols. In Chapter 7, Giles applies the concept of mnemonic parallelism in an analysis of Pecan Point headpots found in the CMV. Linkages are proposed regarding headpot imagery to tattooing traditions of historic Prairie-Plains groups, where tattoo symbols defined specific types of social roles, suggesting that precolumbian headpots served as memory systems during renewal ceremonies. Chapters 8 (Jesse C. Nowak) and 9 (Lambert) discuss imagery found on Early Caddo pottery, dating to the period between approximately AD 900/1000 and 1200. The Caddo are an important and influential group that is often not included in studies of Mississippian iconography (apart from those focused on the Craig Mound at Spiro, in eastern Oklahoma), so these contributions are welcomed. Chapter 8 considers the role of Early Caddo bottles and their function as ceremonial bundles, filled with fluid and connected to ritual use at important Early Caddo ceremonial sites. Chapter 9 also explores Early Caddo bottles, specifically Spiro Engraved, and the application of object itineraries, where the movement of objects (and their imagery) embodies an active process tied to changes in meaning across space and through time. Important to this discussion is the realization that object itineraries, and changes in meaning, are renewed or restarted after objects have been excavated. For the Caddo, these new itineraries have led to a revitalization of traditional Caddo ceramic making that serves to reinforce and reconnect the present with the past, and a continuation and evolution of Caddo heritage and tradition into the future.
Taken together, the contributions in New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery are innovative approaches that apply new methodological tools and theoretical perspectives to the study of Mississippian iconography. Examples are drawn from areas across the US Southeast and across multiple media forms. Chapters consider a diverse range of archaeological materials, theoretical positions, ethnographic data, oral traditions, and contemporary considerations toward developing insights into the use and meanings of Mississippian (and Caddo) objects, imagery, and belief systems.
