Mississippianization, Religious Conversion and Identity Formation in Pre-Columbian Wisconsin

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。在国家科学基金会的支持下，蒂莫西Pauketat博士，罗伯特Boszhardt和Danielle Benden将带领一个专家和学生团队，在威斯康星州长曲棍球附近的密西西比河上游山谷的一个950年历史的文化综合体进行为期三年的考古调查。该团队包括考古学家，地球物理和地貌科学家，一名动物考古学家，一名古民族植物学家，以及土著和非土著美国研究生和本科生。该项目的目标是解释与美国印第安人城市卡霍基亚（位于伊利诺斯州南部）有关的古代殖民，和平建设和宗教改宗的一个插曲。已经确定的是这些基线事实：在公元1050年或之前，卡霍基亚人或一些相关的外籍人士/皈依者群体在北方各地建立了使团或殖民前哨。在项目地区，殖民入侵似乎改变了许多人的身份、宗教信仰和日常习俗，其中一些人可能与南方人保持一致。这样，使命/前哨定居点似乎是在密西西比河谷建立一个半世纪“和平”的基础。将根据对三个已知地点的调查，对这一现象的时间、身份、性质和后果进行衡量，项目人员将利用这些衡量标准，推断“雕像丘文化”当地人维斯于侵入的南方人和平共处或皈依宗教的程度。该项目将确定（1）新来者的真实身份，（2）他们如何通过谈判进入北方（宗教、政治或暴力？），以及（3）这种关系如何可能已经连接到在北方的雕像丘文化的结束和卡霍基亚的迅速崛起，在南方的权力。地球物理勘探（使用磁和电阻率地面穿透设备）将确定费舍尔、Trempealeau和47-TR-6地点地下的古房屋、家庭设施、宗教寺庙和仪式碎片的遗迹。随后将进行有针对性的挖掘，使用人工制品组合和建筑遗迹来产生上述措施。在区域一级，该项目的知识价值包括确定世纪中部大陆普遍文化变化的原因或后果。长期以来对卡霍基亚古城和北方雕像丘文化的解释可能会被推翻。在全球范围内，这项研究将提供一个新的起点，从这个起点来审查世界各地的和平建设、宗教改宗和文明的扩张。了解这一过程是如何以及为何发生的--也就是说，确定本地和非本地群体是否以及如何通过宗教、联盟或暴力相互接触--将阐明政治和宗教与文化变革的一般关系，这对于理解古代或现代世界的地缘政治至关重要。 该项目更广泛的影响包括改进医疗技术应用，扩大社会科学家和公共利益相关者的合作网络。新一代的土著和非土著美国考古学家将接受培训，与威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的美国印第安人研究计划合作。将扩大公共宣传工作，部分是通过一个互动网站，作为学生、记者和外行人的门户。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).With the support of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Timothy Pauketat, Robert Boszhardt, and Danielle Benden will lead a team of specialists and students in a three-year archaeological investigation of a 950-year-old cultural complex in the upper Mississippi valley near LaCrosse, Wisconsin. The team includes archaeologists, geophysical and geomorphological scientists, a zooarchaeologist, a paleoethnobotanist, and Native and non-native American graduate and undergraduate students. The project goal is to explain an episode of ancient colonization, peace-making, and religious proselytization associated with the founding American Indian city of Cahokia (in southern Illinois). Already established are these baseline facts: at or just before the year AD 1050, Cahokians or some related group of expatriots/converts established missions or colonial outposts in various northern locales. In the project area, the colonial intrusion appears to have transformed the identities, religious beliefs, and daily practices of many people, some of whom may have fallen in line with the southerners. In such ways, the mission/outpost settlements seem foundational to the establishment of a century-and-a-half "peace" in the Mississippi valley. Measures of the timing, identity, character, and consequences of this phenomenon will be generated based on investigations of three known sites and, using those measures, project personnel will infer the degree of peaceful cohabitation or religious conversion of the "Effigy Mound Culture" locals vis-à-vis the intrusive southerners. The project will determine (1) who the newcomers really were, (2) how they negotiated their way into the northlands (religion, politics, or violence?), and (3) how such relations might have been connected to the end of the Effigy Mound Culture in the north and to Cahokia's rapid rise to power in the south. Geophysical surveys (using magnetic and electrical resistivity ground-penetrating devices) will identify the remains of ancient houses, domestic facilities, religious temples, and ritual debris beneath the ground at the Fisher, Trempealeau, and 47-TR-6 sites. Targeted excavations will follow, using artifact assemblages and architectural remains to generate the measures noted above. At the regional level, the project's intellectual merits include determining the cause or consequence of the pervasive cultural changes in the eleventh century midcontinent. Long-held explanations of both the ancient city of Cahokia and the northern Effigy Mound Culture may be overturned. At a global scale, the research will provide a new starting point from which to examine peace-making, religious proselytization, and the expansion of civilizations around the world. Knowing how and why this happened - which is to say determining if and how the local and nonlocal groups engaged each other through religion, alliance, or violence - will elucidate the general relationships of politics and religion to cultural change, central to any geopolitical understanding of either the ancient or modern worlds. The broader impacts of the project include refining geophysical-technology applications and expanding the collaborative network of social scientists and public stakeholders. A new generation of indigenous and non-native American archaeologists will be trained, in collaboration with the American Indian Studies program at UW-Madison. Public outreach efforts will be expanded, partly through an interactive web site that will serve as a gateway for students, journalists, and laypersons alike.