A Microhistory of Human and Gastropod Bodies and Souls During Cahokia's Emergence

Abstract

This article examines the role of mortuary practice in the emergence (c. ad 1050–1100) of Cahokia, the largest pre-Columbian Native American city north of Mexico. The parallel partitioning of human and gastropod bodies in ridge-top mortuary mounds is examined and I argue that the presence of gastropods buried alongside human bodies served to connect the living world of humans with the watery underworld of the dead. From a microhistorical perspective, this paper focuses on the processing and deposition of bodies and their subsequent interment in ridge-top burials to parse the potential relationships between such mortuary practice and Cahokia's emergence as a complex polity. The paper presents data on the association of shell materials with human bodies from six previously excavated ridge-tops for comparison with new data on shell materials and human burials from Wilson Mound, a small ridge-top located on the western edge of Cahokia. Together, these data suggest the emergence of Cahokia was embedded in newly articulated relationships with persons enacted through the process of disarticulating the dead for burial mediated with mollusc shell.