Jenna Hamlin:
Pots and Politics at Cahokia

LEFT:East Plaza area from the top of Monks Mound (looking east).

I am currently a 4th year graduate student specializing in archaeology. My research interest focuses on Mississippian societies (~C.E. 900-1600 in the Southeast), specifically Cahokia, the largest and most socio-politically complex prehistoric polity in North America. I work primarily with ceramics.

My Masters' thesis is an analysis of ceramic material from the first terrace (the lowest terrace) of Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthwork north of Mexico. A small, secondary mound was constructed on the southwest corner of the first terrace. I concluded that the north and northeast slopes of the secondary mound were probably constructed with secondary refuse such as material from a midden or occupation area.
Monks Mound from the East Plaza area (specifically, from Mound 34 looking west).
Some evidence for primary refuse deposition during the Sand Prairie phase (~C.E. 1275-1350) was present, however.

My dissertation research will involve investigating ceramic correlates of high status at Cahokia with particular emphasis upon Late Mississippian activities (Moorehead phase ~C.E. 1200-1275) in the area east of Monks Mound (East Plaza area). I will examine the proposition that the area east of Monks Mound was a focal point of high status activity during the Moorehead phase. I am very interested in how these activities may fit into a new political-economic view of Cahokia proposed by Mary Beth Trubitt and Peter Peregrine than being a time of significant decline, was the peak period of operation of a prestige goods system at Cahokia.