Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power

Examines the authority a ruling elite exercised over the surrounding countryside through a complex of social, political, and religious symbolism This study uses the theoretical concepts of agency, power, and ideology to explore the development of cultural complexity within the hierarchically organized Cahokia Middle Mississippian society of the American Bottom from the 11th to the 13th centuries. By scrutinizing the available archaeological settlement and symbolic evidence, Emerson demonstrates