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New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery

Name: New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery
Author: Bretton T. Giles
ISBN: 9781683402121

Edited by Bretton T. Giles and Shawn P. Lambert

Published by: University of Florida Press

Series: Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Exploring various methodological and theoretical approaches to pre-Columbian visual culture, the essays in this volume reconstruct dynamic accounts of Native American history across the U.S. Southeast.

282 Pages6.00 × 9.0042 b/w illus., 6 tables

Hardcover
9781683402121
Published: October 19, 2021

$90.00

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PDF
9781683402466
Published: October 19, 2021

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Description
Authors
Praise
Table of Contents

In this volume, contributors show how stylistic and iconographic analyses of Mississippian imagery provide new perspectives on the beliefs, narratives, public ceremonies, ritual regimes, and expressions of power in the communities that created the artwork. Exploring various methodological and theoretical approaches to pre-Columbian visual culture, these essays reconstruct dynamic accounts of Native American history across the U.S. Southeast.

These case studies offer innovative examples of how to use style to identify and compare artifacts, how symbols can be interpreted in the absence of writing, and how to situate and historicize Mississippian imagery. They examine designs carved into shell, copper, stone, and wood or incised into ceramic vessels, from spider iconography to owl effigies and depictions of the cosmos. They discuss how these symbols intersect with memory, myths, social hierarchies, religious traditions, and other spheres of Native American life in the past and present. The tools modeled in this volume will open new horizons for learning about the culture and worldviews of past peoples.

Bretton T. Giles is assistant research professor in sociology, anthropology, and social work at Kansas State University. Shawn P. Lambert is assistant professor of anthropology and senior research associate with the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University.

“In chapters ranging from the Georgia coast to the Caddo area, readers will engage with detailed analyses of motifs and designs, move back and forth between archaeological artifacts and Native American narratives, and gain new perspectives about the use and meanings of objects.”—Mary Beth Trubitt, University of Arkansas
“This volume takes Mississippian imagery studies to the next step, going beyond the important concerns of defining methodology and identifying styles and referents to ask topical questions and explore alternative theoretical frames.”—Adam King, editor of Archaeology in South Carolina: Exploring the Hidden Heritage of the Palmetto State

List of Figures

List of Tables

Chapter 1. Introduction: New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery
Bretton T. Giles and Shawn P. Lambert

Part 1. Variation in Design and Style

Chapter 2. Tracking Design Variation within Late Mississippian Complicated Stamped Pottery Assemblages from the Georgia Coast
Anna M. Semon

Chapter 3. The McAdams Style Revisited: Matching Spider Iconography with Material Culture
J. Grant Stauffer

Chapter 4. A Preliminary Stylistic Assessment of the Ceramic Imagery of the Late Prehistoric Peoples of Choctawhatchee Bay, Florida, and Its Implications
John F. Scarry

Part 2. Interpreting Mississippian Iconography

Chapter 5. Local Eyes: Recognizing Cosmological Motifs
George E. Lankford

Chapter 6. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble: Mississippian Witchcraft Agency, Animism, and Materiality
David H. Dye

Part 3. Situating and Historicizing Mississippian Symbols

Chapter 7. Mnemonic Parallelism and the Cosmologies Materialized in Late Mississippian Pecan Point Headpots
Bretton T. Giles

Chapter 8. From Enwrapped Worlds: A Peircean Semiotic Approach to Early Caddo Ceramics
Jesse C. Nowak

Chapter 9. Imagery in Motion: Object Itineraries of Spiro Engraved Vessels
Shawn P. Lambert

Part 4. Concluding Remarks

Chapter 10. Merging Art Historical and Anthropological Approaches in Pre-Columbian Iconography
Vernon James Knight

List of Contributors

Index

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery

New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery

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