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Native North American Art, Pre-Contact (Art History)

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  1. Introduction
  2. The art history of Native North America as a discipline is young, but an art history of pre-contact Native North America scarcely exists. Very few art historians have focused their research upon pre-contact American Indian art, and those that have tend to specialize in particular, fairly narrow topics, resulting in scattershot coverage of the field that does not add up to any comprehensive art history. The matter is complicated by the fact that the larger field of Native American art history is so broad and the arts traditions so diverse that generalizing surveys have grown to seem artificial. It is fruitful in some respects to consider post-contact Native North American art history collectively in light of its situation within a history of continental colonialism and modern nation building. There is no similarly scaled, if tragic, collective experience for the several millennia of pre-contact history. Instead there is great cultural diversity with many dynamically vital histories. The pursuit of Native North American pre-contact art history remains dependent upon the discipline of North American archaeology, with its own dependency on the unique character and developmental history of North American anthropology. Colonialist framing of the “American Indian problem” spawned the discipline of anthropology in the United States. Its 19th- and early 20th-century salvage paradigm studied American Indian communities from the vantage point of social institutions and policies that predicted and in some ways helped implement their destruction. By the mid-20th century, the positivist theorizing of American anthropology as social science saw in the North American archaeological record broad patterns of cultural development grounded in models of materialist social evolution: hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist to incipient civilization or “complexity.” Some archaeologists today refer to this disparagingly as “processual” archaeology. A “post-processual” archaeology is more concerned with the particularities of local culture, resembling a more historical approach. While the older archaeological research is valuable to the art historian for its site reports and data, more recent interpretive archaeological texts are far better for understanding the social contexts of artistic objects.
  3.  
  4. General Overviews
  5. There are two up-to-date art history surveys of North American Indian art that incorporate informed discussions of pre-contact materials within the context of their regional traditions: Berlo and Phillips 1998 and Penney 2004. Penney and Longfish 1994 is a large picture book with a similar scope, featuring large-scale color illustrations of many significant pre-contact objects and brief interpretations. An earlier regional synthesis with a curator’s-eye selection of important pre-contact objects reproduced in larger-scale black-and-white illustrations is offered in the catalogue of the landmark exhibition The Native American Heritage (Maurer 1977). There are several broad introductions to North American archaeology of most use to undergraduate archaeology students, but they can also provide a basic grounding in the current understanding of pre-contact history to art historians having little familiarity with the subject. The best in terms of readability continues to be Jennings 1988, which is in its third edition but is overdue for an update. Gibson 1998 is organized in an encyclopedia format with good bibliographic references and many tables and charts, but relatively few illustrations. Serious students would be better off consulting texts more focused on particular regions. The websites of the National Museum of the American Indian and the Peabody Museum offer the ability to search through their important and comprehensive North American archaeological collections to find good photographic reproductions of objects and basic, yet reliable, provenance information.
  6.  
  7. Berlo, Janet C., and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
  8.  
  9. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  10.  
  11. This introductory text for undergraduates is written by two of the foremost art historians in the field. Organized regionally, and with abundant illustrations, this volume clarifies the many critical issues attendant to Native North American art history.
  12.  
  13. Find this resource:
  14.  
  15. Gibson, Guy E. Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 1998.
  16.  
  17. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  18.  
  19. Its encyclopedia format, thorough bibliographies following each entry, and abundance of sense-making charts and tables make this an excellent and reliable quick-reference guide, although there is little about art here. This is a comprehensive introduction to current archaeological research and interpretation.
  20.  
  21. Find this resource:
  22.  
  23. Jennings, Jesse D. Prehistory of North America. 3d ed. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1988.
  24.  
  25. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  26.  
  27. The clarity of ideas and writing make this still the most accessible undergraduate textbook for North American archaeology, although it is now a little dated. Many of the illustrations are drawings.
  28.  
  29. Find this resource:
  30.  
  31. Maurer, Evan M. The Native American Heritage: A Survey of North American Indian Art. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1977.
  32.  
  33. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  34.  
  35. Catalogue of a landmark exhibition of Native American art in the formative years of the field, during the mid-1970s. Curator Evan Maurer selected important pre-contact works from major institutional lenders. The photography and object selection are superior to the catalogues of other similar projects of this time.
  36.  
  37. Find this resource:
  38.  
  39. National Museum of the American Indian: Collections Search.
  40.  
  41. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  42.  
  43. This database with a user-friendly search engine offers access to a good selection of the pre-contact North American collections at the museum, much of it acquired by George Gustave Heye early in the 20th century. One can find important objects from the Spiro site, the proto-Zuni Pueblo of Hawikku (Hawikuh), Chaco Canyon, Mississippian pottery, and much more.
  44.  
  45. Find this resource:
  46.  
  47. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.
  48.  
  49. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  50.  
  51. This site offers access to images and catalogue information for much of the Peabody’s significant pre-contact holdings. Not all entries are illustrated. The collections from the Turner site, Chaco Canyon, and Mimbres cultural tradition are particularly important.
  52.  
  53. Find this resource:
  54.  
  55. Penney, David W. North American Indian Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
  56.  
  57. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  58.  
  59. This well-illustrated undergraduate text begins each regionally organized chapter with a discussion of pre-contact art.
  60.  
  61. Find this resource:
  62.  
  63. Penney, David W., and George C. Longfish. Native American Art. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin, 1994.
  64.  
  65. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  66.  
  67. A large-format book with enormous color plates, this volume illustrates with excellent photography and offers broad interpretations of many of the great and singular masterworks of pre-contact art as part of regionally organized chapters. For the visually inclined.
  68.  
  69. Find this resource:
  70.  
  71. Eastern Woodlands
  72. The largest potential for pre-contact North American art history resides in the archaeological records of the so-called Eastern Woodlands: North America east of the grassy plains and south of the subarctic coniferous forests. This was the most populous region of pre-contact North America and was home to intricate and complex histories. In keeping with the cultural-materialist bent of North American archaeology, its periodization is based upon broad developments of technological “progress” based variously upon ecological shifts: the end of hunting mastodon or other now-extinct big game animals, marking the transition of Paleo-Indian (13000–9000 BCE) to Archaic; innovations in material culture: the introduction of pottery as the transition between Archaic (9000–1000 BCE) and Woodland; innovations in subsistence technologies: the shift to intensive agriculture as the transition from Woodland (1000 BCE–900 CE) to Mississippian; and a signal historical event: contact (1500 CE). While this periodization endures, the boundaries between these pre-contact periods have proven permeable to nonexistent, even within these categorical shifts and especially when looking at all other dimensions of cultural history. The scheme obscures altogether the broad cultural phenomenon of interregional exchange of symbolic objects and their involvement with a regionally diverse elaboration of mortuary ritual, which begins to emerge as a pattern during the Late Archaic period (3000–1000 BCE) and climaxes during the Middle Woodland period (200 BCE–600 CE). Theorizing about the role of agriculture in generating more centralized, hierarchical societies of the Mississippian period is complicated by the fact that research over the past several decades has confirmed the agricultural/horticultural practices of fairly egalitarian Woodland-period cultures. On the other hand, the Mississippian pattern of town building and chief making was in fact enabled by innovative, intensive, river-bottom cultivation of the three sisters of American Indian agriculture: corn, beans, and squash, which begins in earnest in the years leading up to the Mississippian period. Mississippian cultural practice and social rituals deployed artistic objects intensively, particularly in the realms of leadership, authority, and religious practice.
  73.  
  74. General Texts and Exhibition Catalogues
  75. An excellent reconciliation of the cultural materialism approach and its periodization with a thoughtful and well-illustrated interpretation of Eastern Woodlands ceremonial complexes can be found in Milner 2005. Power 2004, a book-length art-historical treatment, is focused on art and its production. As is often the case with American Indian art history, the broader synthetic overviews tend to be found in exhibitions and their catalogues. The more recent Townsend 2004 is a beautifully illustrated compendium of essays, and its predecessor, Brose, et al. 1985, combines chapters organized by archaeological period with an exploratory art-historical interpretation and abundant, excellent-quality illustrations of important objects. The Ohio Historical Society created an excellent website, Virtual First Ohioans, with collection images and videos of interviews and lectures by the curators in the galleries. For an understanding of historiography it is useful to consult Squier and Davis 1998, notable as the first publication of the venerable Smithsonian Institution and recently reissued. Silverberg 1986 makes sense of the tangled myth-making that accompanied early archaeological research of the Eastern Woodlands region when a fledgling American science first confronted the evidence of ancient civilization in North America.
  76.  
  77. Brose, David S., James A. Brown, and David W. Penney. Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985.
  78.  
  79. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  80.  
  81. This catalogue set a new standard of photography of Eastern Woodland pre-contact art. The essays are organized by archaeological period (Late Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian) and written for the most part by archaeologists. The catalogue includes an essay that attempts an art-historical overview. A checklist for the exhibition offers provenance information and a bibliography of the objects featured in the exhibition.
  82.  
  83. Find this resource:
  84.  
  85. Milner, George R. The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005.
  86.  
  87. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  88.  
  89. This is the best overview of Eastern Woodlands archaeology at present with excellent and adequately illustrated discussions of art-rich ceremonial complexes, from Adena to Mississippian. Includes some illustrations of artful objects, many previously published in Brose, et al. 1985. The text provides valuable archaeological context for art-historical inquiry.
  90.  
  91. Find this resource:
  92.  
  93. Power, Susan C. Early Art of the Southeastern Indians: Feathered Serpents and Winged Beings. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2004.
  94.  
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  96.  
  97. Despite a title that purports to focus on the Southeast, the text offers an art-historical overview of the major Late Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian arts traditions of the East. The text is primarily descriptive in nature and consults many of the significant archaeological theorists with regard to symbolism, iconography, and social contexts for art making, but lacks any coherent argument.
  98.  
  99. Find this resource:
  100.  
  101. Silverberg, Robert. The Mound Builders. 2d ed. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1986.
  102.  
  103. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  104.  
  105. This very readable but sparsely illustrated book reviews early scientific and religious speculation about the origins of Eastern Woodlands mounds and earth works. While the author provides creditable up-to-date correctives in his concluding chapters, most of the text concerns how difficult it was for Americans to believe that the impressive feats of engineering and art making they encountered when expanding westward were in fact made by ancestors of American Indians.
  106.  
  107. Find this resource:
  108.  
  109. Squier, Ephraim G., and Edwin H. Davis. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1998.
  110.  
  111. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  112.  
  113. Originally published as the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, no. 1, in 1848, this publication revealed to the world the monumental earthworks of the Ohio Hopewell. Its field-surveyed plans of the earthworks are still widely reproduced today. The publication also includes engravings of artifacts and descriptions of rudimentary excavations, most notably at Mound City, Ohio.
  114.  
  115. Find this resource:
  116.  
  117. Townsend, Richard F. Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
  118.  
  119. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  120.  
  121. A richly illustrated exhibition catalogue containing a large number of important, thematic essays by many leading scholars. The arrangement of the abundant plates of objects from many important collections follows the essays and can be confusing to browsers or when looking for a particular object.
  122.  
  123. Find this resource:
  124.  
  125. Virtual First Ohioans. Ohio Historical Society.
  126.  
  127. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  128.  
  129. A website created by the archaeology department of the notable Ohio Historical Society, which houses important archaeological collections from Ohio, the heart of the pre-contact Eastern Woodlands region. Much of the content consists of videos filmed in the museum galleries with staff curators lecturing. Well informed, if a little pedantic.
  130.  
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  132.  
  133. Late Archaic, Adena, and Hopewell
  134. Isolating “art” from the material record of pre-contact North America is fraught with philosophical and critical implications, but pragmatically speaking, an art-historical methodology can be applied to those themes of material and visual culture long customary to the discipline: architecture as an expression of cultural values; symbolic design and mimetic representation; objects laden with powerful secondary agency through their entanglement with social relations and religious practice. Objects and evidence of these art-historical considerations emerge in the archaeological record of the Eastern Woodlands among the so-called mortuary complexes of the Late Archaic period, growing in elaboration and complexity in cultural traditions known as Adena and Hopewell during the following Woodland period. The Adena mortuary and trade complex is defined largely by distinctive, highly finished artifact types circulated throughout the central Ohio valley and east to the Chesapeake region and St. Lawrence valley during the early Woodland period. Hopewell, broadly defined, is the context for some of the most elaborate, beautiful, and symbolically rich art ever produced in Native North America but is best known for monumental geometric earthwork sites in southern Ohio. This potential area of study has not attracted art historians, with a few exceptions. Most of what is offered here is a guide to the archaeological literature that any prospective art historian would need to consult.
  135.  
  136. Interpretive Texts
  137. Since the cultural patterns hinted at in the archaeological record of more than two thousand years ago resist direct historical connections with recent American Indian practices, archaeologists have offered a wide range of interpretive schemes to help “explain” Hopewell ceremonialism and that of its predecessors. Byers 2011 offers the latest and most comprehensive interpretation of Hopewell and its broader cultural and historical context, integrating explanations of the mound and earthwork sites with speculations about social organization and subsistence patterns. It is a dense yet provocative read. Romain 2009 evokes shamanism to interpret Hopewell art, but only in the loosest sense. Charles and Buikstra 2006, a collection of essays, looks broadly at Hopewell as a pan-regional phenomenon, while Pacheco 1996 focuses on Ohio Hopewell in particular. The summary essays of Brose and Greber 1979 remain invaluable for their regional and thematic scope. As for the Late Archaic period, Penney 1985, after all this time, is still the best, well-illustrated survey of Late Archaic artistic traditions. Penney 2004 and Seeman 2004 provide art-historical overviews and some perspective on Adena and Hopewell art.
  138.  
  139. Brose, David S., and N’omi Greber. Hopewell Archaeology: The Chillicothe Conference. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1979.
  140.  
  141. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  142.  
  143. This landmark publication of its day is still a great source for orientation to the field of Hopewell archaeological research. It is a collection of essays with some black-and-white illustrations organized thematically and regionally.
  144.  
  145. Find this resource:
  146.  
  147. Byers, A. Martin. Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands: The Ohio Hopewell System of Cult Sodality Heterarchies. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2011.
  148.  
  149. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  150.  
  151. Byers created an intricate argument to explain how Ohio Hopewell communities organized themselves to create massive earthworks, conduct elaborate mortuary rituals, and create remarkable works of art. The text is difficult to follow without broad familiarity with Hopewell archaeology, so it is not recommended for beginners. Any serious graduate-level work on Hopewell art will need to consult it, however.
  152.  
  153. Find this resource:
  154.  
  155. Charles, Douglas K., and Jane E. Buikstra, eds. Recreating Hopewell. Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2006.
  156.  
  157. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  158.  
  159. This volume of essays is the best up-to-date summary of the state of Hopewell archaeology and interpretation. The essays tend to be technical, dry, and not illustrated, for the most part. The collection is particularly strong in its treatment of new thinking about Ohio Hopewell monumental earthworks. The volume provides good archaeological context for potential art-historical research.
  160.  
  161. Find this resource:
  162.  
  163. Pacheco, Paul, ed. A View from the Core: A Synthesis of Ohio Hopewell Archaeology. Columbus: The Ohio Archaeological Council, 1996.
  164.  
  165. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  166.  
  167. Perhaps difficult to find, this collection of essays offers exciting new analyses of Ohio Hopewell sites and their ceremonial practices, as well as a descriptive essay on art with large, black-and-white illustrations. Good for understanding the cultural context for the production of Ohio Hopewell art.
  168.  
  169. Find this resource:
  170.  
  171. Penney, David W. “The Late Archaic Period.” In Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians. Edited by David S. Brose, James A. Brown, and David W. Penney, 15–42. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985.
  172.  
  173. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  174.  
  175. This chapter in the exhibition catalogue surveys the ceremonial contexts for the remarkable banner stones, birdstones, old copper blades, and other sumptuary goods of the Late Archaic period, accompanied by great photography of superb objects. The illustrations are accompanied by a checklist with bibliographic references.
  176.  
  177. Find this resource:
  178.  
  179. Penney, David W. “The Archaeology of Aesthetics.” In Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South. Edited by Richard F. Townsend, 43–55. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
  180.  
  181. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  182.  
  183. While dealing with Adena and Hopewell art, the essay identifies critical issues attendant to art-historical scholarship of ancient American Indian artifacts and the problems and ethics of interpretation. Accompanied by excellent color plates of important objects, as is the case throughout this publication; see also Seeman 2004.
  184.  
  185. Find this resource:
  186.  
  187. Romain, William F. Shamans of the Lost World: A Cognitive Approach to the Prehistoric Religion of the Ohio Hopewell. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2009.
  188.  
  189. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  190.  
  191. Less rigorous than Byers 2011, but much easier to read and abundantly illustrated. The author invokes shamanism to interpret symbols on much of Hopewell art. To be consulted with caution about the bigger picture, but contains a great deal of intelligent discussion and analysis of Hopewell archaeology and art.
  192.  
  193. Find this resource:
  194.  
  195. Seeman, Mark F. “Hopewell Art in Hopewell Places.” In Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South. Edited by Richard F. Townsend, 57–72. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
  196.  
  197. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  198.  
  199. The best short summary of Hopewell art and the context of Hopewell site archaeology. Seeman is the foremost expert on Hopewell archaeology and offers here a well-organized discussion of what we know and what we do not. The essay, like the rest of the catalogue, is illustrated with some of the greatest examples of Hopewell art reproduced in excellent color plates.
  200.  
  201. Find this resource:
  202.  
  203. Site Reports
  204. The raw data of Late Archaic, Adena, and Hopewell can be consulted in the original site reports, even though many of the sites were excavated early in the history of American archaeology with primitive techniques. The site reports published in the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly—Mills 1901–1902, Mills 1916, Mills 1922, and Shetrone 1926 most notable among them—have all been digitized and are available online at the Internet Archive. No such luck yet for the Field Museum of Natural History report of excavations at the Hopewell group in Moorehead 1922 and the site report for the Turner site sponsored by the Peabody Museum, Harvard Group, in Willoughby and Hooton 1922. Greber and Ruhl 1989 reassesses and annotates Charles C. Willoughby’s excavation report for the spectacular Hopewell site.
  205.  
  206. Greber, N’omi B., and Katherine C. Ruhl. The Hopewell Site: A Contemporary Analysis Based on the Work of Charles C. Willoughby. Investigations in American Archaeology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989.
  207.  
  208. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  209.  
  210. This is the best one-volume description and analysis of the Hopewell burial mound site and the many objects found there, based upon the study by a team of archaeologists of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History of the original field notes and collections excavated by Charles Willoughby for the Field Museum of Natural History more than a century ago. The illustrations are reproductions of the original engravings that illustrated the Moorehead 1922 site report.
  211.  
  212. Find this resource:
  213.  
  214. Mills, William C. “Excavations of the Adena Mound.” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 10 (1901–1902): 451–497.
  215.  
  216. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  217.  
  218. The Adena Mound is the type site for the Adena burial complex, excavated more than a century ago by one of the originators of American archaeological practice. The individual buried in the central tomb held in his hand the famous Adena effigy pipe, one of the most significant of ancient American art works.
  219.  
  220. Find this resource:
  221.  
  222. Mills, William C. “Exploration of the Tremper Mound.” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 25 (1916): 262–321.
  223.  
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  225.  
  226. This single mound site located near Portsmouth, Ohio, is remarkable for the number of artistic artifacts recovered there, notably a large cache of effigy platform pipes which are marvelous miniature sculptures of animals. Most all are pictured here, along with other fascinating objects, in black-and-white photographic illustrations.
  227.  
  228. Find this resource:
  229.  
  230. Mills, William C. “Excavation of the Mound City Group.” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 31 (1922): 423–584.
  231.  
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  233.  
  234. Mound City, now a national archaeological park with a small museum, is one of the most important Ohio Hopewell burial mounds sites. Mills describes his excavations of several mounds and illustrates with black-and-white plates many of the more artistic objects he found accompanying burials and collected together in caches: hammered copper effigies, effigy platform pipes, and thousands of other artifacts.
  235.  
  236. Find this resource:
  237.  
  238. Moorehead, Warren. “The Hopewell Mound Group of Ohio.” Field Museum of Natural History Anthropological Series 6 (1922): 73–184.
  239.  
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  241.  
  242. Warren Moorehead and Charles C. Willoughby excavated at the Hopewell site, particularly the massive Hopewell Mound 25, to assemble displays for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. This report was published long after and illustrated with engravings. An important report analyzed with contemporary interpretation in Greber and Ruhl 1989.
  243.  
  244. Find this resource:
  245.  
  246. Shetrone, Henry C. “Exploration of the Hopewell Group of Prehistoric Earthworks.” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly. 35 (1926): 1–227.
  247.  
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  249.  
  250. Hopewell is the largest and most complex of the Ohio Hopewell burial mounds sites. These excavations were undertaken after the Field Museum and Willoughby studies (Moorehead 1922; Greber and Ruhl 1989), and the report describes several additional mounds and the remains of the mortuary ceremonies they covered, characterized by elaborate material offerings, some fashioned into remarkable artistic images. Illustrated with black-and-white photographic plates.
  251.  
  252. Find this resource:
  253.  
  254. Willoughby, Charles C., and Earnest A. Hooton. The Turner Group of Earthworks, Hamilton County, Ohio. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 8.3. Cambridge, MA: The Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 1922.
  255.  
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  257.  
  258. Objects buried in caches at the Turner site excavated by Charles Willoughby include some of the most significant art works of the Ohio Hopewell: a set of human figurines made of clay, a remarkable sculpture made of black cannel coal, and muscovite mica effigy “cut outs.” These are illustrated in the report with descriptions of their archaeological contexts.
  259.  
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  261.  
  262. Mississippian
  263. Cahokia, pre-contact North America’s largest and most complex community, dominates discussion of Mississippian polities, and its scholars stress art in service of hereditary chiefs and leading families. Its institutions of sacred chieftainship, platform-mound architecture, and distinctive, material expressions and iconography are characterized collectively by archaeologists as the “Mississippian” cultural pattern. The Mississippian inventory of cultural practices, distinctive ritual objects, and iconography is referred to as the “Southeastern Ceremonial Cult” (SECC), a rather hoary concept with its roots in the material culture inventories characteristic of American archaeology and anthropology of the mid-20th century. The heart of the problem can be framed as an art-historical question: What is the nature of the relationship between ideological thought and its material expression, abundant and exquisitely carved, modeled, painted, and engraved objects? The Mississippian complex spread through southeast North America, not by conquest but through ritual exchange, migration, and emulation. To what extent Mississippian institutions and symbolism adapted to local practice and belief remains a point of debate among scholars, with more dynamic local variation of the SECC evidenced now by the far more detailed archaeological evidence developed more recently. The situation is assisted immeasurably by now intensive investigation of oral traditions and cultural histories of descendent Native nations, such as Muscogee, Ho-Chunk, Osage, Caddo, and Cherokee, just to name a few.
  264.  
  265. Interpretive Texts
  266. Unlike early contact periods, there is relatively abundant literature about Mississippian art and culture. Excellent collections of essays produced over the last few decades—such as Galloway 1989, Reilly and Garber 2007, and Lankford, et al. 2011—offer short, focused, and often authoritative treatments of many of the iconographic themes and object categories of the SECC. Many of these essays accomplish the initial task of assembling a discrete corpus for a methodical study. A similar approach can be found in the much better illustrated exhibition catalogue Townsend 2004, where the majority of the essays address Mississippian themes and issues. Brown 2007 offers the best example of the direction of this new work in his analysis of the birdman motif, which synthesizes archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence with oral tradition. Cherry 2009 pursues a more descriptive study of ceramic head effigy jars, illustrating almost all the head pots known to date. Drawings of the shell engravings curated for several generations before their deposit in the Craig Mound at the Spiro site presented in Brown and Phillips 2004 led to the identification of the Braden engraving style associated with Cahokia and the Craig style of Spiro.
  267.  
  268. Brown, James A. “On the Identity of the Birdman within Mississippian Period Iconography.” In Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretation of Mississippian Iconography. Edited by F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Gerber, 56–106. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.
  269.  
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  271.  
  272. In this essay, published in an important collection of essays, Brown demonstrates a methodology combining archaeological and ethnographic sources with a sound visual analysis, making plausible connections between this central and often-represented Mississippian figure, the Birdman, and historic ritual traditions concerning the Morning Star. A breakthrough study.
  273.  
  274. Find this resource:
  275.  
  276. Brown, James A., and Philip Phillips. Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press, 2004.
  277.  
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  279.  
  280. Hundreds of engraved shell artifacts that had been interred in the Craig Mound of the Spiro site, destroyed by commercial excavation in the 1930s, are discussed here and illustrated with line drawings. This two-volume set is far easier to find than the original six-volume hardcover edition, originally published between 1978 and 1984.
  281.  
  282. Find this resource:
  283.  
  284. Cherry, James F. The Headpots of Northeast Arkansas and Southern Pemiscot County, Missouri. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2009.
  285.  
  286. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  287.  
  288. Cherry, a physician and not an archaeologist by training, represents the best of the peculiar variety of the American archaeological amateur. This is conceived as a reference book, a compendium of all the headpots Cherry could find in both public and private collections, all illustrated, often with details, with a fairly reliable assessment of provenance information and description of condition (and restorations).
  289.  
  290. Find this resource:
  291.  
  292. Galloway, Patricia, ed. The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and Analysis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
  293.  
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295.  
  296. These are the collected papers of the Cottonlandia Conference, a privately funded symposium and small exhibition that gathered both professional and “lay” archaeologists/collectors. The occasion prompted readable, informative essays from the archaeologists at a pregnant moment of Mississippian research and interpretation. Essays provide excellent and often detailed discussions of the major Mississippian sites and regions.
  297.  
  298. Find this resource:
  299.  
  300. Lankford, George E., F. Kent Reilly III, and James F. Garber, eds. Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011.
  301.  
  302. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303.  
  304. This is the most recent volume offered by the workshops convened by F. Kent Reilly at the University of Texas, San Marcos (see also Brown 2007). The essays are organized by region and focus almost exclusively on specific Mississippian iconographic problems and themes.
  305.  
  306. Find this resource:
  307.  
  308. Reilly, F. Kent, and James F. Garber, eds. Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretation of Mississippian Iconography. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.
  309.  
  310. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311.  
  312. The essays published here, which stemmed from a set of seminars conducted at the University of Texas during the 1990s, concern themselves primarily with making connections between Mississippian art and later historic period oral traditions. While still speculative, this represents the most promising approach to the interpretation of Mississippian art.
  313.  
  314. Find this resource:
  315.  
  316. Townsend, Richard F., ed. Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
  317.  
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319.  
  320. This exhibition catalogue produced by the Art Institute of Chicago is remarkable for the importance of the objects assembled for the exhibition and the quality of their illustrations in the catalogue. The essays by Mississippian archaeologists grapple with broad iconographic themes or the artistic and symbolic traditions of major sites like Cahokia, Moundville, and Etowah, and include discussions of rock art, art and warfare, art and cosmological representation, and ceramics.
  321.  
  322. Find this resource:
  323.  
  324. Archaeological Context
  325. The corpus of Mississippian art available for study is tied, to the most part, to the major centers of Mississippian culture: large platform-mound towns and their cultural elite. Cahokia, Spiro, Moundville, Etowah, and others have been studied intensively over the past few decades, and the most recent findings are well summarized in recent publications such as Brown, et al. 1996, Knight 2010, King 2002, and Pauketat 2004. The Cahokia Mounds Historic Park created an intriguing interactive website, Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, where the user can explore the archaeological park, download instructive videos, and benefit from abundant, up-to-date information. The literature of Mississippian archaeology is complex, but a good orientation of current thinking and problems is offered by Bliz 2010. Fogelson 2004 situates Mississippian archaeology within the larger context of southeastern American Indian studies and ethnography.
  326.  
  327. Bliz, John. “New Perspectives in Mississippian Archaeology.” Journal for Archaeological Research 18 (2010): 1–39.
  328.  
  329. DOI: 10.1007/s10814-009-9033-ySave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  330.  
  331. A helpful overview of the present state of Mississippian archaeology and interpretation and a good guide to the abundant literature. Written for the specialist, however.
  332.  
  333. Find this resource:
  334.  
  335. Brown, James A., et al. The Spiro Ceremonial Center: The Archaeology of Arkansas Valley Caddoan Culture in Eastern Oklahoma. 2 vols. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, 1996.
  336.  
  337. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  338.  
  339. Arguably the most important archaeological site in North America, the Spiro site had been looted for commercial gain during the 1930s and its materials scattered. This work masterfully reconstructs what we know. Volume 1 concerns the site and its setting; Volume 2 is organized by chapters concerning different categories of material object from the site, most from the “great mortuary,” such as lithics, pottery, pipes, copper, wood sculpture, pendants and gorgets, and abundant others.
  340.  
  341. Find this resource:
  342.  
  343. Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.
  344.  
  345. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  346.  
  347. An excellent interactive website created by the state historic park. This is one of the best archaeological parks and interpretive centers in the United States, which is appropriate to the expansive nature of the site and its importance in pre-contact North America.
  348.  
  349. Find this resource:
  350.  
  351. Fogelson, R. D., ed. Handbook of the North American Indian. Vol. 14, Southeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2004.
  352.  
  353. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  354.  
  355. This volume of the vaunted series offers chapters on the different periods of southeastern archaeology with some focus on the Mississippian period, but more importantly, excellent chapters about the history and ethnography of the southeastern tribes that descended from Mississippian cultures.
  356.  
  357. Find this resource:
  358.  
  359. King, Adam. Etowah: The Political History of a Chiefdom Capital. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
  360.  
  361. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  362.  
  363. Etowah, located in what is now northern Georgia, was an important Mississippian temple mound center. Many of the best-known examples of Mississippian sculpture, copper, and shell art came from excavations of Mound C.
  364.  
  365. Find this resource:
  366.  
  367. Knight, Vernon J., Jr. Mound Excavations at Moundville: Architecture, Elites and Social Order. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010.
  368.  
  369. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  370.  
  371. Moundville is an extensive temple mound site in Alabama with a complex history where important Mississippian stone and pottery objects were recovered. Knight is the undisputed authority on the site, and this is his most recent synthesis.
  372.  
  373. Find this resource:
  374.  
  375. Pauketat, Timothy R. Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  376.  
  377. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  378.  
  379. Many of the cultural and artistic traits now characterized as Mississippian originated in this largest pre-contact community in North America. Pauketat argues for the primacy of Cahokia in the creation of the Mississippian pattern and its origins in the development of a hierarchical social structure of sacred chiefs linked to platform mounds with their chiefly residences and mortuary temples.
  380.  
  381. Find this resource:
  382.  
  383. Southwest
  384. The greater Southwest, from the Colorado Plateau south to the Sonoran desert, is an important North American region for the study of pre-contact American Indian art. The archaeological record includes architecture, highly decorated pottery, and ornaments made of exotic materials such as shell, turquoise, and red coral imported from the Gulf of California. The southwestern cultural traditions can be interpreted as distantly connected to the cultural developments of Mesoamerica, but the local provinciality of these communities resulted in unique, regional traditions. They can be categorized broadly as Ancestral Pueblo of the Colorado Plateau (often referred to as “Anasazi” in the older literature); Mogollon/Mimbres to the south, a cultural pattern that, although distinct in the archaeological record, merges with Ancestral Pueblo during the historic period; and Hohokom and Casa Grandes, the latter two with the closest links to Mesoamerica.
  385.  
  386. Regional Overviews
  387. Cordell 2012, in its latest edition, remains a sound, well-written, and comprehensively conceived overview of Southwest archaeology including Ancestral Pueblo, Mogollon/Mimbres, Hohokam, and Casa Grandes, although it is not well illustrated. Ortiz 1979, of the Handbook of American Indians series, is also excellent, if a little dated, for grounding in archaeological and cultural issues and has the benefit of chapters dealing with not only regional archaeology but also ethnography and ethnohistory. The Learning Center of the American Southwest Virtual Museum website has the benefit of excellent illustrations and comprehensive coverage of Southwest archaeology, easily accessible in an interactive format. Chaco Canyon, the site of the “Chaco phenomenon,” is the location of some of the most intriguing archaeological issues with its Great Houses and Great Kivas, but is also the subject of some of the most contentious and confusingly conflicted interpretation. Vivian 2002 is the best illustrated and perhaps most accessible guide to Chaco, while Lekson 2006 is the most up to date and authoritative, while picking through the many points of view by letting their advocates make their arguments. The volume lacks adequate illustrations, however. Brody 1990 offers abundant visuals in a large, coffee-table-book format, with an authoritative text that does not become too entangled in the weeds of contending archaeological arguments.
  388.  
  389. Brody, J. J. The Anasazi: Ancient Indian People of the American Southwest. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.
  390.  
  391. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  392.  
  393. This is a larger-scale, coffee-table-style book with abundant illustrations of pottery, architectural ruins, and a variety of artful objects. The organization is sensible and the writing is clear and to the point. The text reviews conventional views of Anasazi, also known as Ancestral Pueblo, archaeology. Color plates are gathered together, and it is often difficult for the reader to relate these illustrations to the text. A good place to start for a visual overview, however.
  394.  
  395. Find this resource:
  396.  
  397. Cordell, Linda S. Archaeology of the Southwest. 3d ed. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2012.
  398.  
  399. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  400.  
  401. Cordell provides a well-organized survey of Southwest archaeology, and the chapters and short sections are easy to navigate. Her chapter regarding the archaeological “frameworks” for interpretation is particularly helpful as an introduction to the problems of periodization, cultural patterning, and schema developed by archaeologists of the Southwest. The text tends to be dense, and there are only black-and-white photographs with diagrams.
  402.  
  403. Find this resource:
  404.  
  405. Learning Center of the American Southwest Virtual Museum.
  406.  
  407. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  408.  
  409. This comprehensive and well-organized website offers interactive content and links to artifact collections and archaeological parks administrated by the National Park Service. It is particularly useful for its abundant photographs of archaeological objects, particularly pottery, organized by type and accompanied by facsimiles of their catalogue cards. The site overviews remain confined to those now administrated by the National Park Service and provide links to the park websites.
  410.  
  411. Find this resource:
  412.  
  413. Lekson, Stephen H., ed. The Archaeology of Chaco Canyon: An Eleventh-Century Pueblo Regional Center. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Advanced Press, 2006.
  414.  
  415. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  416.  
  417. This volume was conceived as the synthesis of the best archaeological thinking about Chaco Canyon as a culmination of the long-term research program sponsored by the National Park Service called “the Chaco Project.” Chapters by different authors present what is known or thought about cultural activity in Chaco Canyon in a thematic yet comprehensive format. Few illustrations.
  418.  
  419. Find this resource:
  420.  
  421. Ortiz, Alfonso. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 9, Southwest. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979.
  422.  
  423. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  424.  
  425. This early volume in the Handbook series has become an indispensable resource for Southwest cultural studies, although it is now over thirty years old. A full third of the book offers chapters on Southwest prehistory organized regionally. The remainder consists of chapters focused on individual Pueblo communities from an ethnohistoric and ethnographic perspective. Peppered with black-and-white illustrations, maps, and diagrams, but not much focus on art.
  426.  
  427. Find this resource:
  428.  
  429. Vivian, R. Gwynn. The Chaco Handbook: An Encyclopedia Guide. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2002.
  430.  
  431. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  432.  
  433. Organized in an encyclopedia format, this is an excellent, fairly up-to-date treatment of all things pertaining to Chaco Canyon culture designed for ease of accessibility to information. There are abundant illustrations and a balanced treatment of contending issues. Gywnn is one of the great authorities on Chaco Canyon archaeology, and her detailed knowledge is abundantly evidenced in this compendium.
  434.  
  435. Find this resource:
  436.  
  437. Ancestral Pueblo Arts: Pottery and Painting
  438. The art histories of Ancestral Pueblo cultures, also referred to as “Anasazi,” are concerned principally with adobe or masonry architecture, painted pottery, and paintings in kivas and cave or rock-shelter shrines. Brody 1991 is the best overview of the continuum between rock-shelter shrines and kiva paintings. Peckham 1990 is the best introduction to the painted pottery traditions, while Lister and Lister 1978 offers abundant illustrations of important works while describing the climate of collecting and site looting that characterizes the provenance of early 20th-century collections. Since pottery is one of the most abundant and important categories of artifacts for cultural interpretation in the Southwest, recent scholars have modeled a number of innovative approaches to its study, collected as essays in Mills and Crown 1995 and developed in some detail in Hegemon 1996. Detailed studies of particular wares, their development, and their diffusion can be found in Habicht-Mauche, et al. 2006 and Wright 2005. The author of Adams 1991 prepared an important study of shifting trends in Pueblo ceremonialism by combining studies of pottery design, wall painting, and architecture, modeling a fruitful approach for future studies.
  439.  
  440. Adams, E. C. Origin and Development of the Pueblo Kacina Cult. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991.
  441.  
  442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443.  
  444. Adams used visual and architectural evidence to posit a developmental history of historic Kacina (also spelled Kachina) rituals among later Ancestral Pueblo (Pueblo IV) communities. His study depends on the interpretation of wall paintings and painted pots, among other strands of evidence, making the work of great interest to art historians. Many line drawings illustrate his points.
  445.  
  446. Find this resource:
  447.  
  448. Brody, J. J. Anasazi and Pueblo Painting. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.
  449.  
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451.  
  452. Brody synthesizes the developmental history of Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) painting from the Archaic period before 900 CE through 1900 CE, by combining rock art, mural painting, pottery, and other painted objects. Well illustrated with many intriguing and important objects and in situ paintings. The chapters follow broad periodization based upon archaeological chronologies.
  453.  
  454. Find this resource:
  455.  
  456. Habicht-Mauche, Judith A., Suzanne L. Eckert, Deborah L. Huntley. The Social Life of Pots: Glaze Wares and Cultural Dynamics in the Southwest, A.D. 1250–1680. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006.
  457.  
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459.  
  460. A study of pottery design and meaning concerning the same dynamic cultural episodes treated in Adams 1991: later Ancestral Pueblo or Pueblo IV through the early historic periods prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The “glaze wares” of concern here were traded widely and were deeply implicated in ritual practice and iconography. Fifteen authors offer a range of technical, stylistic, and iconographic analyses.
  461.  
  462. Find this resource:
  463.  
  464. Hegemon, Michelle. The Social Dynamics of Pottery Style in the Early Puebloan Southwest. Cortez, CO: Crow Canyon Archaeology Center, 1996.
  465.  
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467.  
  468. The sheer quantity of pottery produced in the Southwest, the culturally sensitive styles of decoration, and the broad trafficking of finished wares between disparate locations allow intriguing insights into the role of decorated pottery and its design among the Ancestral Pueblo. This stylistic study, with virtually no illustrations, compares pottery styles from the Kayenta (northern Arizona) and Mesa Verde (southern Colorado/northern New Mexico) regions.
  469.  
  470. Find this resource:
  471.  
  472. Lister, Robert, and Florence Lister. Anasazi Pottery. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978.
  473.  
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475.  
  476. This slim volume illustrates a wide variety of Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) painted ceramic vessels from the Earl Morris collection. Morris, a dedicated pot hunter, provides notes about the provenances of illustrated pieces and offers a vivid picture of site looting and potting at the turn of the century. Robert and Florence Lister, respected archaeologists, offer some commentary and frame the collection within the old “Pecos Classificatory system.”
  477.  
  478. Find this resource:
  479.  
  480. Mills, Barbara J., and Patricia C. Crown. Ceramic Production in the American Southwest. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.
  481.  
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483.  
  484. This collection of essays highlights a variety of issues and methodologies for the study of pottery production in the Southwest as a window of insight into social organization and history. Some of the essays are burdened by the specialist’s language and most require a working knowledge of Southwest cultural and ceramic history. This overview of recent research trends is indispensable, however, for the serious student of Southwest pre-contact art.
  485.  
  486. Find this resource:
  487.  
  488. Peckham, Stewart. From This Earth: The Ancient Art of Pueblo Pottery. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1990.
  489.  
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491.  
  492. This well-illustrated book is the best visual guide to the many provinces and periods of Southwest pre-contact pottery. Contains abundant black-and-white and some color photography of excellent examples in the collections of the Museum of American Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe.
  493.  
  494. Find this resource:
  495.  
  496. Wright, Richard B. “Southwest Style, Meaning, and the Individual Artist in Western Pueblo Polychrome Ceramics after Chaco.” Journal of the Southwest 47.2 (Summer 2005): 259–325.
  497.  
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499.  
  500. Wright speculates broadly on the relationships between the creation of White Mountain red-wares and the social and ritual developments of the 13th- and 14th-century Pueblo world. The essay makes well-grounded observations about pottery design as a communicative media from the perspective of both producers and consumers. An important study in the melding of several lines of evidence but encumbered by the density of the author’s specialist’s language.
  501.  
  502. Find this resource:
  503.  
  504. Mimbres, Hohokam, and Casas Grandes
  505. The Mogollon, Hohokam, and Casas Grandes cultural traditions lie to the south of the Ancestral Pueblo heartland on the Colorado Plateau. The Hohokam and Casas Grandes traditions exhibit more direct ties to Mesoamerica and may have been the conduit for the introduction of Mesoamerican ideology and symbolism into the North American Southwest. The largest Hohokam site, Snaketown, in what is now southern Arizona, was the lifelong project of the archaeologist Emil Haury, whose large site report, Haury 1976, posed as many questions as it answered. Abbott 2000 provides a more recent analysis of Hohokam regional exchange using pottery as core analytical data. The Casas Grandes tradition has long been misunderstood as a northern outpost of Mesoamerican civilization. Whalen 2001 offers a more nuanced interpretation of the archaeological record based upon the analysis of over 300 sites. Casas Grandes pottery and other forms of art are treated amply with abundant illustrations by Powell 2006 in its catalogue of the exhibition mounted for the Museum of American Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. The Mogollon cultural tradition borders Ancestral Pueblo (or Anasazi) to the south and is best known for Mimbres painted pottery, arguably one of the most important pictorial traditions of pre-contact North America. LeBlanc 2005 updates our thinking about the meaning and significance of Mimbres painted pottery in its well-illustrated treatment of the important and familiar collections at Harvard, while Brody 1996 updates LeBlanc’s views with a largely unfamiliar but also significant collection, now in Minnesota. The essays assembled in Fewkes 1989 introduced Mimbres pottery to the world a century ago, but its insights do not seem dated. The essays collected in Whittlesey 1999 place Mimbres painted pottery within the larger context of Mogollon-tradition archaeological study.
  506.  
  507. Abbott, David R. Ceramics and Community Organization among the Hohokam. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000.
  508.  
  509. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  510.  
  511. This study focuses on the ceramics recovered from the Hohokam site of Casas Grandes near Phoenix, Arizona, and employs source-analysis techniques to trace the outlines of ceramics trade or exchange in the greater Phoenix Basin. Although technical, Abbott writes clearly, and the book is instructive about both the state of Hohokam research and how it can be advanced by new analytical technologies.
  512.  
  513. Find this resource:
  514.  
  515. Brody, J. J. To Touch the Past: The Painted Pottery of the Mimbres People. New York: Hudson Hills, 1996.
  516.  
  517. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  518.  
  519. This is the most recent of two well-illustrated publications by Brody about Mimbres painted pottery. This volume presents the collections at The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, mostly from the Galaz site in the Mimbres Valley. Abundant, excellent photography of this important and understudied collection.
  520.  
  521. Find this resource:
  522.  
  523. Fewkes, Jesse Walter. The Mimbres: Art and Archaeology. Albuquerque, NM: Avanyu Publishing, 1989.
  524.  
  525. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  526.  
  527. This is a reprint of three early essays on Mimbres archaeology and design published by the Smithsonian Institution between 1914 and 1924, under the titles “Archaeology of the Lower Mimbres Valley, New Mexico,” “Designs on Prehistoric Pottery from the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico,” and “Additional Designs on Prehistoric Mimbres Pottery.” These are seminal works about Mimbres painted pottery, difficult to find, but gathered here in one volume.
  528.  
  529. Find this resource:
  530.  
  531. Haury, Emil W. The Hohokam: Desert Farmers and Craftsmen— Excavations at Snaketown, 1964–1965. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976.
  532.  
  533. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  534.  
  535. Excavations at Snaketown during the 1930s introduced the earliest chronological framework for Hohokam occupation of southern Arizona. Haury revisited the site with a substantial excavation team. This volume is a semipopular but well-illustrated review of his discoveries at the site and its architecture. His interpretive conclusions are early, tentative, and have been updated substantially by subsequent research, but this remains a valuable analysis of this large and important site.
  536.  
  537. Find this resource:
  538.  
  539. LeBlanc, Steven A. Painted by a Distant Hand: Mimbres Pottery of the American Southwest. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press, 2005.
  540.  
  541. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  542.  
  543. A well-illustrated catalogue of the Mimbres painted pottery collections at the Peabody Museum, Harvard. The collection stems from important excavations in the 1920s of the “Swarts Ranch Ruin,” and several of the painted bowls from this expedition have become well-known icons of Mimbres painted pottery. LeBlanc offers an up-to-date review of these important collections and excellent photography.
  544.  
  545. Find this resource:
  546.  
  547. Powell, Melissa S., ed. Secrets of Casas Grandes: Precolumbian Art & Archaeology of Northern Mexico. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006.
  548.  
  549. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  550.  
  551. This well-illustrated catalogue for an exhibition organized by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology was written by archaeologists for nonspecialists. An introductory essay describes the history of archaeological research for Casas Grandes. Subsequent essays by specialists speculate about the meanings and symbolism of Casas Grandes pottery, its ties to shamanism, and representations of social elites.
  552.  
  553. Find this resource:
  554.  
  555. Whalen, Michael E. Casas Grandes and Its Hinterland: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001.
  556.  
  557. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  558.  
  559. This meticulous archaeological study is among the first to look at Casas Grandes in Northern Chihuahua state l, taking into account small sites and field surveys in addition to larger settlements. The authors draw parallels to Chaco Canyon to the north and make a case for Casas Grandes as part of the larger Puebloan world.
  560.  
  561. Find this resource:
  562.  
  563. Whittlesey, Stephanie M., ed. Sixty Years of Mogollon Archaeology: Papers from the Ninth Mogollon Conference, 1996. Tucson, AZ: SRI Press, 1999.
  564.  
  565. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  566.  
  567. This is a volume of technical papers about Mogollon archaeology providing a larger cultural context for the special developments in the Mimbres Valley. The essays range from regional analyses of settlement patterns and mortuary patterns to stylistic and motif analyses of designs on painted pottery, as well as a wide range of additional topics. Some chapters add new and valuable insights to the interpretation of Mimbres painted pottery.
  568.  
  569. Find this resource:
  570.  
  571. Rock Art
  572. The study of petroglyphs and pictographs, otherwise known as “rock art,” found throughout North America, has often attracted speculative and specious scholarship in the past, but important work by recent scholars has proven North American rock art to be an important category for art-historical inquiry. The best treatments are regionally focused since the regional context offers the best opportunities for historical connections with later cultures. James Keyser has revolutionized our understanding of rock art of the Plains and Plateau regions and his publications Keyser 2003 and Keyser 2004, among others not cited here, provide the best overviews of his work. The same can be said of Schaafsma 1986 and Schaafsma 2002 for rock art of the Southwest region. Castleton 1984 offers a fairly comprehensive survey of rock art sites from the southern Plateau and Great Basin. Building upon past scholarship, Rajnovich 1994 summarizes up-to-date interpretations of Anishinaabe rock art from the Great Lakes region while surveying many of the most important sites. Diaz-Granados and Duncan 2006 includes a number of essays by archaeologists that address little-known rock art sites of eastern North America and ties them to eastern archaeological periodization and cultural patterns: Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian. While dated, Grant 1965 is still the best introduction to the cave painting sites created by Chumash shamans in southern California.
  573.  
  574. Castleton, Kenneth B. Petroglyphs & Pictographs of Utah. 2 vols. Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Natural History, 1984.
  575.  
  576. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  577.  
  578. These volumes, intended for a general reader and written by a “lay” archaeologist, are valuable chiefly for their broad coverage of rock-art sites in Utah, notably those attributed to the intriguing and early Fremont cultural tradition. Many of the sites are not documented elsewhere, and the publication is abundantly illustrated with drawings and photographs. Castleton’s periodization of Fremont rock art is not entirely trustworthy, however. Schaafsma 2002 is far more reliable.
  579.  
  580. Find this resource:
  581.  
  582. Diaz-Granados, Carlos, and James R. Duncan, eds. The Rock-Art of Eastern North America: Capturing Images and Insight. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006.
  583.  
  584. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  585.  
  586. The twenty chapters of this edited volume are organized thematically to cover much of eastern North America—both the United States and Canada. The chapters address most of the interpretive issues of rock-art study: dating, ethnographic continuities, and conservation issues. The sites range from Late Woodland and Mississippian in date to more recent Anishinaabe petroglyphs in the Lake of the Woods region. The book includes 145 illustrations.
  587.  
  588. Find this resource:
  589.  
  590. Grant, Campbell. The Rock Paintings of the Chumash: A Study of a California Indian Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
  591.  
  592. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  593.  
  594. This beautifully designed book features exquisite color drawings of several Chumash cave paintings, images created during shamanic seclusion in southern California. The text briefly describes the ethnographic context based upon scant historical records and resorts to broad and occasionally ill-informed speculation. It is recommended here primarily for its illustrations.
  595.  
  596. Find this resource:
  597.  
  598. Keyser, James D. Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003.
  599.  
  600. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  601.  
  602. Over the past few decades, James Keyser has revolutionized our understanding of petroglyphs of the northwest Plains and Plateau regions. He introduced durable “traditions” tied to style and ritual function and pulled together many different sites into a comprehensive scheme. Keyser provides a model for rock-art research and a valuable guide for scholars interested in this growing field.
  603.  
  604. Find this resource:
  605.  
  606. Keyser, James D. Art of the Warriors: Rock Art of the American Plains. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2004.
  607.  
  608. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  609.  
  610. In this broad overview, Keyser writes for a general reader and provides abundant drawings and photographs. Keyser’s work is strongest when pictographs can be tied to traditions of biographical painting and drawing on portable historical objects, such as shirts and robes. Keyser’s method of dating by period and the plausibility of his interpretations become increasingly speculative for what he characterizes as earlier “traditions.”
  611.  
  612. Find this resource:
  613.  
  614. Rajnovich, Grace. Reading Rock Art: Interpreting the Indian Rock Paintings of the Canadian Shield. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History, 1994.
  615.  
  616. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  617.  
  618. Rajnovich’s book focuses on rock-art sites largely stemming from the Anishinaabe or Ojibwa occupation of the larger Great Lakes region. It is particularly valuable in the way it links Anishinaabe ethnography to the interpretation of rock-art motifs, drawing relationships between Anishinaabe rock art and sacred pictographs etched on wood and birch bark. Most of the illustrations are drawings, along with a dozen photographs.
  619.  
  620. Find this resource:
  621.  
  622. Schaafsma, Polly. Indian Rock Art of the Southwest. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research, 1986.
  623.  
  624. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  625.  
  626. Schaafsma is the acknowledged dean of Southwest rock-art studies, and this book is the undisputed authority on the subject. The text includes a discussion of rock art in the context of Southwest archaeology, an excellent analysis of dating techniques and issues, and over three hundred illustrations. Schaafsma’s scheme for the classification and periodization of Southwest rock art has proven remarkably durable in the several decades since this publication was introduced.
  627.  
  628. Find this resource:
  629.  
  630. Schaafsma, Polly. Rock Art of Utah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2002.
  631.  
  632. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  633.  
  634. A slightly revised edition of Schaafsma’s 1971 publication of the same title as Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, no. 65. The illustrations are not as good as those found in Castleton 1984 and not as many rock-art sites are covered, but Schaafsma’s organization and classification of the material are more reliable, even though Castleton 1984 benefits from it. Utah is the location for some of the most important Fremont tradition petroglyph sites.
  635.  
  636. Find this resource:
  637.  
  638. Northwest Coast
  639. While the Northwest Coast of British Columbia and southeastern Alaska is the source of some of the most astounding sculptural art of North America, there is very little literature about pre-contact artistic traditions. One of the difficulties stems from an environment that does not permit good preservation of an archaeological record and the preponderance of coastal sites now deeply buried under sediment or now inaccessible owing to rising sea levels. While archaeologists have managed to construct a fairly detailed history for the region, they have recovered little material culture suitable for art-historical analysis. Two older publications, Carlson 1983 and Duff 1975, are still the best sources for becoming acquainted with sculptural objects of pre-contact cultural traditions. The archaeology is complicated and best summarized in Ames and Maschner 2000, and by the technical overview—admittedly with a strong materialist, social-evolutionary bias—offered in Ames 1994. Students looking for the big picture might best start with Suttles 1990, an important volume of the Smithsonian Handbook series. Ozette, an important pre-contact site buried like Pompeii, but by a mudslide, preserved important and fascinating pre-contact wood sculpture, described in Gleeson 1980. Two much older objects recovered accidentally from underwater contexts that have demonstrated the antiquity of the distinctive Northwest Coast sculptural style are described and dated in Fladmark, et al. 1987.
  640.  
  641. Ames, Kenneth M. “The Northwest Coast: Complex Hunter-Gatherers, Ecology, and Social Evolution.” Annual Review of Anthropology 23 (1994): 209–229.
  642.  
  643. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.an.23.100194.001233Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  644.  
  645. Ames, once the director of the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, offered this overview of the state of Northwest Coast archaeology in the mid-1990s and it remains fairly current now. There is very little about art here, but it contains instead a detailed discussion of the state of archaeological interpretation of Northwest Coast early history very much couched in the concerns of positivist, processual archaeology of the day. Written for specialists.
  646.  
  647. Find this resource:
  648.  
  649. Ames, Kenneth M., and Herbert D. G. Maschner. Peoples of the Northwest Coast: Their Archaeology and Prehistory. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
  650.  
  651. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  652.  
  653. This work is intended for a more general readership. Issued as one of a series of archaeology texts by Thames & Hudson, it benefits from many illustrations and sensible organization. Art is touched upon only occasionally.
  654.  
  655. Find this resource:
  656.  
  657. Carlson, Roy L., ed. Indian Art Traditions of the Northwest Coast. Burnaby, BC: Archaeology Press, Simon Fraser University, 1983.
  658.  
  659. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  660.  
  661. There is no other volume like this, combining essays by archaeologists with essays by art historians and synthesizing pre-contact with historical artistic traditions. Now more than a quarter-century old, it is still indispensable to the serious student of pre-contact art from the Northwest Coast.
  662.  
  663. Find this resource:
  664.  
  665. Duff, Wilson. Images, Stone, B.C.: Thirty Centuries of Northwest Coast Indian Sculpture. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975.
  666.  
  667. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  668.  
  669. Light on interpretation, but filled with abundant black-and-white photographs of important pre-contact objects, this was a catalogue for a ground-breaking exhibition. No other publication to date offers the range of illustrations of these important pre-contact stone objects.
  670.  
  671. Find this resource:
  672.  
  673. Fladmark, K. R., D. E. Nelson, T. A. Brown, J. S. Vogel, and J. R. Southon. “AMS Dating of Two Wooden Artifacts from the Northwest Coast.” Canadian Journal of Archaeology 11 (1987): 1–12.
  674.  
  675. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  676.  
  677. The antiquity of the wood-carving traditions of the Northwest Coast and their particular style of representation was confirmed in part by the accidental recovery of two beautifully sculpted woodcarvings. The authors of this essay provide illustrations, detailed descriptions, and the results of radio-carbon tests, which date these two objects to 1000 BP and 1750 BP.
  678.  
  679. Find this resource:
  680.  
  681. Gleeson, Paul F. Ozette Woodworking Technology: Project Reports. Pullman: Laboratory of Archaeology and History, Washington State University, 1980.
  682.  
  683. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  684.  
  685. The Makah village located on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State was buried by a mudslide in approximately 1750 CE. Excavations of the site recovered well-preserved wood sculpture telling us a great deal about early 18th-century wood-carving traditions of the southern Northwest Coast. This difficult-to-find project report focuses on the wood carvings in particular.
  686.  
  687. Find this resource:
  688.  
  689. Suttles, Wayne. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 7, Northwest Coast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1990.
  690.  
  691. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  692.  
  693. The Smithsonian Handbook series is unparalleled in its detailed treatments of Native American ethnography and archaeology. This volume includes essays organized regionally dealing with Northwest Coast archaeology as well as substantial essays following up with ethnographic descriptions of all the major cultural traditions. There is even an excellent introduction to Northwest Coast art by Bill Holm, the most knowledgeable artist/art historian of the field.
  694.  
  695. Find this resource:
  696.  
  697. Arctic
  698. The permafrost of the Arctic region permits excellent preservation of archaeological materials, although severe conditions are challenging to archaeological excavation. Archaeologists have traced waves of population movement, largely west to east, across Canada to Greenland. There has been a great deal of emphasis in research on the Bering Straits era and on the so-called Old Bering Sea sequences, followed by Punuk whale hunters and Thule, the ancestors of present-day Inuit. Archaeologically recovered artistic objects from the Arctic region consist for the most part of small sculptures and implements carved of walrus ivory. These objects have been the subject of several significant exhibitions and their catalogues, notably Fitzhugh, et al. 2009 and Wardwell 1986. Excavations at the Ipiutak site of the Norton tradition resulted in important and unique collections of ivory carvings, now at the American Museum of Natural History and first reported in Larsen and Rainey 1948. The cross-continental, circumpolar dimensions of Arctic art and culture were the subject of an exhibition and extensive catalogue, Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988, which includes several chapters on pre-contact subjects. The larger context of Arctic archaeology and its relation to Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut ethnography is well summarized in Dumond 1987, while Damas 1985 goes into more detail with chapters by the most knowledgeable specialists. The University of Waterloo has created an excellent website (Arctic Archaeology) for the summary of Arctic archaeology, with a good guide for further reading and study.
  699.  
  700. Damas, David. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 5, Arctic. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1985.
  701.  
  702. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  703.  
  704. Like other volumes of the Smithsonian’s excellent Handbook series, this comprises chapters addressing North American Arctic archaeology organized by region combined with ethnographic chapters, all by the foremost experts of the field. The authors do not address pre-contact art in any comprehensive way, but provide the necessary archaeological and ethnographic context for art-historical inquiry in the Arctic region.
  705.  
  706. Find this resource:
  707.  
  708. Dumond, Don E. The Eskimos and Aleuts. London: Thames & Hudson, 1987.
  709.  
  710. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  711.  
  712. First published in 1977 and conceived for a well-educated but general reader, this volume provides clear descriptive writing, excellent organization, and abundant illustrations, including significant art objects, for the North American Arctic region. Like Damas 1985, archaeology and ethnography are combined to create a more comprehensive picture of Arctic cultural history.
  713.  
  714. Find this resource:
  715.  
  716. Fitzhugh, William, and Aron L. Crowell. Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1988.
  717.  
  718. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  719.  
  720. This is the catalogue of a large, comprehensive exhibition organized by the National Museum of Natural History that examined the cultural relationships and continuities between the Arctic and sub-Arctic cultures of eastern Siberia and western North America across the Bering Sea. The catalogue consists of essays by experts with important discussions of pre-contact art and many seldom-seen objects from both North American and Russian collections. Beautifully illustrated with abundant color images.
  721.  
  722. Find this resource:
  723.  
  724. Fitzhugh, William, Julie Holowell, and Aron L. Crowell. Gifts from the Ancestors: Ancient Ivories of Bering Strait. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
  725.  
  726. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  727.  
  728. This exhibition featured collections brought out of the Bering Straits region, many from St. Lawrence Island, by the antiquities trade over the past three decades. Although the authors critique the lack of archaeological context, they provide the most up-to-date cultural interpretation of Bering Straits ivories. The volume is designed around beautiful images of many important ivory objects.
  729.  
  730. Find this resource:
  731.  
  732. Larsen, Helge, and Froelich Rainey. Ipiutak and the Arctic Whale Hunting Culture. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 42. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1948.
  733.  
  734. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  735.  
  736. Some of the most complex and intriguing carved ivory artifacts from the Bering Straits region were excavated at the Ipiutak site, a large Norton tradition village site in western Alaska. These have been illustrated often and featured in several exhibitions, but this is the original site report that describes the scale and intricacy of this unusual coastal site.
  737.  
  738. Find this resource:
  739.  
  740. Arctic Archaeology. University of Waterloo.
  741.  
  742. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  743.  
  744. Faculty anthropologist Robert W. Park put together this excellent website organized for the inquiring student. It includes short, clear descriptions of the cultural traditions, more in-depth treatments of individual sites and excavations, and an excellent bibliography for further research. The site is user friendly with lots of illustrations but intended as an introduction rather than an in-depth treatment.
  745.  
  746. Find this resource:
  747.  
  748. Wardwell, Alan. Ancient Eskimo Ivories of the Bering Strait. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1986.
  749.  
  750. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  751.  
  752. This is the catalogue of a landmark exhibition, the first featuring Bering Straits ivory carvings in a comprehensive way. Containing many illustrations of significant objects from public and private collections but not offering deep scholarship, the essays are fairly basic and descriptive. A good survey of the material, however, illustrated with excellent photographs.
  753.  
  754. Find this resource:
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