Timothy Pauketat
Encyclopedia
Dr. Timothy R. Pauketat is an “American Bottom
” Mississippian
-era archaeologist and professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He is best known for his investigations at and involving the World Heritage site of Cahokia Mounds near St. Louis, MO.
with B.S. in Anthropology
and Earth Sciences, he gained further field experience as a staff archaeologist with a cultural resource management firm, The Center for American Archaeology, at Kampsville, Illinois
and as an assistant curator and research assistant for SIU-Carbondale from 1983-1984. He continued his higher education at SIU, earning a M.A. in Anthropology in 1986. After working for the Illinois State Museum
and Michigan’s museum of anthropology from 1984-88 he attained his PhD in Anthropology in 1991 from the University of Michigan
. After his post-doctoral work with the University of Illinois as a visiting researcher, he was hired as an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma
at Norman in 1992. During his tenure there he published his first single-authored book The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America. In 1996 was hired as an associate professor at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York
. In 1998 he became an associate professor at the University of Illinois, eventually becoming a full professor in 2005 after publishing numerous professional papers, book chapters, two more books and earning a Distinguished Service award from his department. He regularly teaches classes such as “Introductory World Archaeology” and “Archaeological Theory". He also frequently leads the annual University of Illinois archaeological field school
s surrounding the site He has also worked at outlying sites such as Halliday, Pfeffer, and Emerald in the uplands of the Mississippi valley. He views Cahokia as a major player in the Mississippian world. The finding of similar mundane and ritual implements such as pottery
, chunkey
stones and Mississippian stone statuary
in locations as far afield as sites like Spiro Mounds
in Oklahoma
, and the presence of resources from distant locales such as the Gulf of Mexico
show the extent of Cahokia's connection to the greater Mississippian world. He terms this spread of Cahokian material culture pax Cahokiana due to its far-reaching and sudden impact.
Pauketat does not view Cahokia developing or existing in a vacuum, utilizing contemporaneous archaeological sites to obtain a large-scale picture of the Mississippian world. He is interested in investigating large-scale questions such as the emergence of the civilization, even going outside of his specialty area to find the unique factors that contribute to his "historical processual" analysis. Reexamination to discover new or previously ignored information is another highlight of Dr. Pauketat’s work. Studies such as commoner/elite relations provide more insight into all aspects of the Mississippian complex. In “Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity” he discusses the relocation of agricultural villagers in the American Bottom
near the time of Cahokia’s emergence.
According to his reconstruction, around A.D. 1050 pre-Cahokia settlements had been suddenly transformed into the large, planned community of Cahokia proper, marked by a sudden preponderance of houses and the rapid adoption of wall-trench housing that replaced the previously common post-wall housing. Also during this time a series of farmsteads upland from Cahokia proper, the Richland complex, came into existence. Their walls were set into trenches, but some post-wall and hybrid-wall forms are present, indicating perhaps some cultural resistance especially given that the hybrid and traditional forms were located farther away from Cahokia proper. The number of documented Richland complex farmsteads is estimated to house thousands of individuals, representing a huge population shift. This shift did not originate from local inhabitants, however, as pottery
styles attest. Pauketat noticed a great amount of artifact
diversity between Richland sites, including some non-local pottery styles (“Varney Red Filmed”) and pottery-making methods of the local style (shell-tempered) that differed from the norm (thicker walls, etc.) These villages also have fewer finely crafted items or ritual objects and a high percentage of workshop debris, likely indicating their purpose as support communities for the Cahokian elite. His notion of a transplanted farmer population is further bolstered by the complete abandonment of these upland villages at the same time of Cahokia’s presumed collapse around two centuries later.
Pauketat questions established knowledge about ancient North America. For instance, on the basis of his work we now know that Cahokia rose and fell over a much shorter time period, around three hundred years, than had been previously attributed due to improvements in radiometric dating
and new methodologies such as identification of domestic remains. Another reexamined facet of the archaeological understandings of Cahokia is the ubiquity of Cahokian-derived goods across much of then contemporaneous Midwest and Mid-South U.S. While this distribution was most certainly due to an exchange network
, Pauketat posits relations between Cahokians and other Mississippians as not being purely environmentally determined
following previous interpretations. Rather, the motivation is political given that evidence of their natural environment forcing Cahokians to trade to survive is lacking. Cahokia may have been attempting to bring outsiders within their sphere of influence
, evidenced in the sudden large amount of Cahokian material culture
found outside of Cahokia. This incorporative effect most likely happened at a more local scale where the sudden appearance and proliferation of Cahokian artifact forms such as is coupled with housing reorganization of peoples and the incorporation of greater Cahokia.
” or cultural resource management. This archaeology removes and documents cultural material before modern development destroys it. Though often much more limited in scope and time than academic archaeology, Pauketat's book, The Ascent of Chiefs..., details the artifacts in part “salvaged” from the construction of a highway that bisects Cahokia. Dividing up the artifacts by radiometrically dated and ceramic-seriated
phases, he notes an increasing number of foreign goods as time progresses in the Emergent Mississippian phases. He has interpreted this growth as an enlargement of high-ranking peoples able to secure such networks necessary to move such goods as Gulf Coast shell from distant locations
movement in the 1980s and 1990s. These newer theories are the basis of his 2007 book, Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Post-processual theory was a critique of processual archaeology
sometimes lumped by critics with postmodernism
. Today, the distinction is disappearring, as all archaeologists use the scientific method for basic inference construction and, increasingly, theories of identity, landscape phenomenology, and agency
move to center stage in explanations of the past.
Pauketat advocates a more historical approach to theory. Past life ways are more completely described when viewed in their historical context. Though the imperfect nature of the archaeological record
prevents a full historical account of ancient times, he posits the evidence available to Mississippian archaeologists should prevent minimalist interpretations. He argues that Cahokia can not simply be labeled a “chiefdom.” Such a label undermines the multitudes of processes in occurrence and limits the extent of archaeological interpretation. The rise and fall of Cahokia is such a unique event that examining how it fits within an evolutionary model downplays its significance.
. Understanding changes in practice, or essentially people’s habits and actions, provides an explanation for changes in the archaeological record. Pauketat states that “… practices are always novel and creative, in some ways unlike those in other times or places…” when understood within their historical context. One method to ascertain the historical influences on practices is discerning traditions, or practices with a long temporal dimension. Traditions are the forms of practice most visible in the archaeological record; they can range from an arrowhead style to the preponderance of shell-tempered pottery throughout the U.S Mid-South and Midwest during the Mississippian era. Tracking the change of archaeologically defined traditions tracks the changes of the archaeological culture, since tradition is a measure through which change can take place.
Pauketat utilizes practice theory to interpret the proliferation of the chunkey
stone. Pre-Cahokian American Bottom dwellers had an early form of this round disc with two concave sides as early as 600 AD. This artifact is not found outside this region until the height of Cahokia about 400 years later. The sudden popularity and proliferation of the game across the Mid-South and Southeast U.S. at this time suggests mass organization of the game played with it. The massive plazas at Cahokia would have been an ideal setting, and large enough to accommodate all parts of Cahokian society. Thus, the organizers of the games, likely the Cahokian elite, could bring together all levels of society utilizing an old tradition. This tradition retained its prestige even until the 19th century, when it was ethnographically documented to be a competition for the losing side’s worldly possessions.
Pauketat, Timothy R. and Alt, Susan M.
American Bottom
The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about , mostly protected from flooding by a levee and drainage canal...
” Mississippian
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
-era archaeologist and professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He is best known for his investigations at and involving the World Heritage site of Cahokia Mounds near St. Louis, MO.
Academic career
Pauketat began his career gaining formal experience as an intern with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers while attending Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville as an undergraduate from 1980-1983. After graduating from SIUSouthern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...
with B.S. in Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and Earth Sciences, he gained further field experience as a staff archaeologist with a cultural resource management firm, The Center for American Archaeology, at Kampsville, Illinois
Kampsville, Illinois
Kampsville is a village in Calhoun County, Illinois, United States, located on the west bank of the Illinois River. The population was 350 at the 2000 census.-General information:...
and as an assistant curator and research assistant for SIU-Carbondale from 1983-1984. He continued his higher education at SIU, earning a M.A. in Anthropology in 1986. After working for the Illinois State Museum
Illinois State Museum
The Illinois State Museum is the official museum of the natural history of the U.S. state of Illinois. The headquarters museum is located on Spring and Edwards Streets, one block southwest of the Illinois State Capitol, in Springfield, the state capital...
and Michigan’s museum of anthropology from 1984-88 he attained his PhD in Anthropology in 1991 from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. After his post-doctoral work with the University of Illinois as a visiting researcher, he was hired as an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
at Norman in 1992. During his tenure there he published his first single-authored book The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America. In 1996 was hired as an associate professor at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
. In 1998 he became an associate professor at the University of Illinois, eventually becoming a full professor in 2005 after publishing numerous professional papers, book chapters, two more books and earning a Distinguished Service award from his department. He regularly teaches classes such as “Introductory World Archaeology” and “Archaeological Theory". He also frequently leads the annual University of Illinois archaeological field school
Cahokia
Throughout the entirety of his career, Dr. Pauketat has focused on a substantial Mississippian culture center: Cahokia. He has excavated at its grand plaza and the platform moundPlatform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
s surrounding the site He has also worked at outlying sites such as Halliday, Pfeffer, and Emerald in the uplands of the Mississippi valley. He views Cahokia as a major player in the Mississippian world. The finding of similar mundane and ritual implements such as pottery
Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of...
, chunkey
Chunkey
Chunkey is a game of Native American origin. It was played by rolling disc shaped stones across the ground and throwing spears at them in an attempt to place the spear as close to the stopped stone as possible...
stones and Mississippian stone statuary
Mississippian stone statuary
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
in locations as far afield as sites like Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds
Spiro Mounds is an important pre-Columbian Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma in the United States. The site is located seven miles north of Spiro, and is the only prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public...
in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, and the presence of resources from distant locales such as the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
show the extent of Cahokia's connection to the greater Mississippian world. He terms this spread of Cahokian material culture pax Cahokiana due to its far-reaching and sudden impact.
Pauketat does not view Cahokia developing or existing in a vacuum, utilizing contemporaneous archaeological sites to obtain a large-scale picture of the Mississippian world. He is interested in investigating large-scale questions such as the emergence of the civilization, even going outside of his specialty area to find the unique factors that contribute to his "historical processual" analysis. Reexamination to discover new or previously ignored information is another highlight of Dr. Pauketat’s work. Studies such as commoner/elite relations provide more insight into all aspects of the Mississippian complex. In “Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity” he discusses the relocation of agricultural villagers in the American Bottom
American Bottom
The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about , mostly protected from flooding by a levee and drainage canal...
near the time of Cahokia’s emergence.
According to his reconstruction, around A.D. 1050 pre-Cahokia settlements had been suddenly transformed into the large, planned community of Cahokia proper, marked by a sudden preponderance of houses and the rapid adoption of wall-trench housing that replaced the previously common post-wall housing. Also during this time a series of farmsteads upland from Cahokia proper, the Richland complex, came into existence. Their walls were set into trenches, but some post-wall and hybrid-wall forms are present, indicating perhaps some cultural resistance especially given that the hybrid and traditional forms were located farther away from Cahokia proper. The number of documented Richland complex farmsteads is estimated to house thousands of individuals, representing a huge population shift. This shift did not originate from local inhabitants, however, as pottery
Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of...
styles attest. Pauketat noticed a great amount of artifact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
diversity between Richland sites, including some non-local pottery styles (“Varney Red Filmed”) and pottery-making methods of the local style (shell-tempered) that differed from the norm (thicker walls, etc.) These villages also have fewer finely crafted items or ritual objects and a high percentage of workshop debris, likely indicating their purpose as support communities for the Cahokian elite. His notion of a transplanted farmer population is further bolstered by the complete abandonment of these upland villages at the same time of Cahokia’s presumed collapse around two centuries later.
Pauketat questions established knowledge about ancient North America. For instance, on the basis of his work we now know that Cahokia rose and fell over a much shorter time period, around three hundred years, than had been previously attributed due to improvements in radiometric dating
Radiometric dating
Radiometric dating is a technique used to date materials such as rocks, usually based on a comparison between the observed abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope and its decay products, using known decay rates...
and new methodologies such as identification of domestic remains. Another reexamined facet of the archaeological understandings of Cahokia is the ubiquity of Cahokian-derived goods across much of then contemporaneous Midwest and Mid-South U.S. While this distribution was most certainly due to an exchange network
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
, Pauketat posits relations between Cahokians and other Mississippians as not being purely environmentally determined
Environmental determinism
Environmental determinism, also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism, is the view that the physical environment, rather than social conditions, determines culture...
following previous interpretations. Rather, the motivation is political given that evidence of their natural environment forcing Cahokians to trade to survive is lacking. Cahokia may have been attempting to bring outsiders within their sphere of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
, evidenced in the sudden large amount of Cahokian material culture
Material culture
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations. Studying a culture's relationship to materiality is a lens through which social and cultural attitudes can be discussed...
found outside of Cahokia. This incorporative effect most likely happened at a more local scale where the sudden appearance and proliferation of Cahokian artifact forms such as is coupled with housing reorganization of peoples and the incorporation of greater Cahokia.
Cultural Resource Management
Due to the nature of American archaeology, Pauketat has also participated in “salvageRescue archaeology
Rescue archaeology, sometimes called "preventive" or "salvage" archaeology, is archaeological survey and excavation carried out in areas threatened by, or revealed by, construction or other development...
” or cultural resource management. This archaeology removes and documents cultural material before modern development destroys it. Though often much more limited in scope and time than academic archaeology, Pauketat's book, The Ascent of Chiefs..., details the artifacts in part “salvaged” from the construction of a highway that bisects Cahokia. Dividing up the artifacts by radiometrically dated and ceramic-seriated
Seriation (archaeology)
In archaeology, seriation is a relative dating method in which assemblages or artifacts from numerous sites, in the same culture, are placed in chronological order. Where absolute dating methods, such as carbon dating, cannot be applied, archaeologists have to use relative dating methods to date...
phases, he notes an increasing number of foreign goods as time progresses in the Emergent Mississippian phases. He has interpreted this growth as an enlargement of high-ranking peoples able to secure such networks necessary to move such goods as Gulf Coast shell from distant locations
Processualisms
Pauketat champions practice-based, agency-focused, and phenomenological theories in archaeology, initiated as part of the post-processualPost-processual archaeology
Post-processual archaeology, which is sometimes alternately referred to as the interpretative archaeologies by its adherents, is a movement in archaeological theory that emphasizes the subjectivity of archaeological interpretations...
movement in the 1980s and 1990s. These newer theories are the basis of his 2007 book, Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Post-processual theory was a critique of processual archaeology
Processual archaeology
Processual archaeology is a form of archaeological theory that had its genesis in 1958 with Willey and Phillips' work Method and Theory in American Archeology, in which the pair stated that "American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing" , a rephrasing of Frederic William Maitland's...
sometimes lumped by critics with postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
. Today, the distinction is disappearring, as all archaeologists use the scientific method for basic inference construction and, increasingly, theories of identity, landscape phenomenology, and agency
Agency (sociology)
In the social sciences, agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. By contrast, "Structure" refers to the factors of influence that determine or limit an agent and his or her decisions...
move to center stage in explanations of the past.
Pauketat advocates a more historical approach to theory. Past life ways are more completely described when viewed in their historical context. Though the imperfect nature of the archaeological record
Archaeological record
The archaeological record is the body of physical evidence about the past. It is one of the most basic concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record....
prevents a full historical account of ancient times, he posits the evidence available to Mississippian archaeologists should prevent minimalist interpretations. He argues that Cahokia can not simply be labeled a “chiefdom.” Such a label undermines the multitudes of processes in occurrence and limits the extent of archaeological interpretation. The rise and fall of Cahokia is such a unique event that examining how it fits within an evolutionary model downplays its significance.
Practice Theory
Another component of his theoretical viewpoint is practice theoryPractice theory
Practice theory refers to a theoretical approach to social phenomena which sought to resolve the antinomy between traditional structuralist approaches and approaches such as methodological individualism which attempted to explain all social phenomena in terms of individual actions.Practice theory...
. Understanding changes in practice, or essentially people’s habits and actions, provides an explanation for changes in the archaeological record. Pauketat states that “… practices are always novel and creative, in some ways unlike those in other times or places…” when understood within their historical context. One method to ascertain the historical influences on practices is discerning traditions, or practices with a long temporal dimension. Traditions are the forms of practice most visible in the archaeological record; they can range from an arrowhead style to the preponderance of shell-tempered pottery throughout the U.S Mid-South and Midwest during the Mississippian era. Tracking the change of archaeologically defined traditions tracks the changes of the archaeological culture, since tradition is a measure through which change can take place.
Pauketat utilizes practice theory to interpret the proliferation of the chunkey
Chunkey
Chunkey is a game of Native American origin. It was played by rolling disc shaped stones across the ground and throwing spears at them in an attempt to place the spear as close to the stopped stone as possible...
stone. Pre-Cahokian American Bottom dwellers had an early form of this round disc with two concave sides as early as 600 AD. This artifact is not found outside this region until the height of Cahokia about 400 years later. The sudden popularity and proliferation of the game across the Mid-South and Southeast U.S. at this time suggests mass organization of the game played with it. The massive plazas at Cahokia would have been an ideal setting, and large enough to accommodate all parts of Cahokian society. Thus, the organizers of the games, likely the Cahokian elite, could bring together all levels of society utilizing an old tradition. This tradition retained its prestige even until the 19th century, when it was ethnographically documented to be a competition for the losing side’s worldly possessions.
Future Prospects
Recently, Pauketat has been working with Danielle Benden (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and Robert Boszhardt (independent) as part of "The Mississippian Initiative" (funded by the National Science Foundation). Their work takes place in western Wisconsin at sites such as Trempealeau, where they now argue for the existence of a short-term Cahokian mission or colony. Presumably, the effects of Cahokians missionizing the ancient north country led to profound long-term change in the ancient American Indian world. Their work in Wisconsin, and future work at and around Cahokia, will attempt to ascertain the relationship of religion to ancient politics more generally. Like most pre-modern religions, those of pre-Columbian America were not simply believed in the minds of people, but were performed, and Pauketat is looking to understand the larger historical implications of this kind of religion. Some of this is reviewed in his 2009 book with Viking-Penguin Press, "Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi." More of it is part of his soon-to-be completed "An Archaeology of the Cosmos: Rethinking Agency and Religion in Ancient America." Also, soon to be in press is his edited "The Oxford Handbook on North American Archaeology" (2012).Selected works
Pauketat, Timothy R.- (2007) Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions Alta Mira Press.
- (2004) Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians Cambridge University Press.
- (2001) “Practice and History in Archaeology: an Emerging Paradigm” Anthropological Theory Vol. 1, No. 73
- (1998) “Refiguring the Archaeology of Greater Cahokia” Journal of Archaeological Research Vol. 6 No. 1
Pauketat, Timothy R. and Alt, Susan M.
- (1994) The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America University of Alabama Press.
- (2005) “Agency in a Postmold? Physicality and the Archaeology of Culture-Making” in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Vol. 12 No. 3