Skip to main content
Log in

Agency in a Postmold? Physicality and the Archaeology of Culture-Making

  • Published:
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Architecture embodies human agency in all of its dimensions and effective scales. Specifically, the wooden posts of Mississippian peoples in the American mid-continent were simultaneously spatial, material, and corporeal dimensions of the process of cultural construction and contestation. Our reconsideration of the lowly postmold is based on the principle of physicality that, in turn, alters the ways in which we pose research questions and interpret archaeological data. A historical-processual methodology involves three procedural fundamentals: identifying practical variability, comparing genealogies of practices, and tacking between lines of evidence at multiple scales of analysis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alt, S. M. (2001). Cahokian change and the authority of tradition. In Pauketat, T. R. (ed.), The Archaeology of Traditions: Agency and History Before and After Columbus, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 141–156.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alt, S. M. (2002a). Identities, traditions, and diversity in Cahokia’s uplands. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27: 217–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alt, S. M. (2002b). The Knoebel Site: Tradition and Change in the Cahokian Suburbs. Unpublished Masters thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana.

  • Archer, M. S. (1996). Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashmore, W. (2002). Decisions and dispositions: Socializing spatial archaeology. American Anthropologist 104: 1172–1183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ashmore, W., and Knapp, A. B. (1999). Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bareis, C. J., and Porter, J. W. (eds.) (1984). American Bottom Archaeology: A Summary of the FAI-270 Project Contribution to the Culture History of the Mississippi River Valley, University of Illinois Press, Urbana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, R. (1998). The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, R. (2000). An Archaeology of Natural Places, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, R. (2003). A life less ordinary: The ritualization of the domestic sphere in later prehistoric Europe. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13: 5–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brumfiel, E. M. (2000). On the archaeology of choice: Agency studies as a research strategem. In Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (eds.), Agency in Archaeology, Routledge, London, pp. 249–255.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chappell, S. A. K. (2002). Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowgill, G. L. (2000). “Rationality” and contexts in agency theory. In Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (eds.), Agency in Archaeology, Routledge, London, pp. 51–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, J. M. (1990). The Archaeology of the Cahokia Mounds ICT-II: Site Structure, Illinois Cultural Resources Study 10, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Springfield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, J. M. (1997). Cahokia settlement and social structures as viewed from the ICT-II. In Pauketat, T. R., and Emerson, T. E. (eds.), Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, pp. 124–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalan, R. A., Holley, G. R., Woods, W. I., Watters, H., Jr., and Koepke, J. A. (2003). Envisioning Cahokia: A Landscape Perspective, Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobres, M.-A. (2000). Technology and Social Agency, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (2000). Agency in archaeology: Paradigm or platitude. In Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (eds.), Agency in Archaeology, Routledge, London, pp. 3–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, G., and Loren, D. D. (2003). Introduction: embodying identity in archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13: 225–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fletcher, A. C., and La Flesche, F. (1992). The Omaha Tribe (2 vols.), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: An Outline of the Theory of Structuration, University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie, S. D. (2001). Personhood, agency, and mortuary ritual: A case study from the ancient Maya. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20: 73–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hester, T. R., Shafer, H. J., and Feder, K. L. (1997). Field Methods in Archaeology, (7th edn.) Mayfield, Mountain View, California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodder, I., and Cessford, C. (2004). Daily practice and social memory at çatalhöyük. American Antiquity 69: 17–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, R. A. (1998). Performing the body in pre-Hispanic Central America. Res 33: 147–165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, R. A. (2000). Heirlooms and houses: Materiality and social memory. In Joyce, R. A., and Gillespie, S. D. (eds.), Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 189–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, R. A. (2003). Concrete memories: Fragments of the past in the Classic Maya present (500–1000 AD). In Van Dyke, R., and Alcock, S. (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory, Blackwell Press, Oxford, pp. 104–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, R. A. (2004). Unintended consequences? monumentality as a novel experience in Formative Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 11: 5–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, R. A., and Hendon, J. A. (2000). Heterarchy, history, and material reality: “Communities” in Late Classic Honduras. In Canuto, M. A., and Yaeger, J. (eds.), The Archaeology of Communities: A New World Perspective, Routledge, London, pp. 143–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, J. E. (1997). Stirling-phase sociopolitical activity at East St. Louis and Cahokia. In Pauketat, T. R., and Emerson, T. E. (eds.), Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, pp. 141–166.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kus, S. M. (1983). The social representation of space: Dimensioning the cosmological and the quotidian. In Moore, J. A., and Keene, A. S. (eds.), Archaeological Hammers and Theories, Academic Press, New York, pp. 277–298.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, T. M. N., and Kneberg, M. (1946). Hiwassee Island: An Archaeological Account of Four Tennessee Indian Peoples, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002). Phenomenology of Perception (Smith, C., transl.), Routledge, London.

  • Meskell, L. (1996). The somatisation of archaeology: Institutions, discourses, corporeality. Norwegian Archaeological Review 29: 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meskell, L. (1999). Archaeologies of Social Life, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meskell, L. (2004). Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt: Material Biographies Past and Present, Berg, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meskell, L., and Joyce, R. A. (2003). Embodied Lives: Figuring Ancient Maya and Egyptian Experience, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mills, B. (2004). The establishment and defeat of hierarchy: Inalienable possessions and the history of collective prestige structures in the Pueblo Southwest. American Anthropologist 106: 238–251.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morse, D. F., and Morse, P. A. (1983). Archaeology of the Central Mississippi Valley, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (1993). Temples for Cahokia Lords: Preston Holder’s 1955–1956 Excavations of Kunnemann Mound, Museum of Anthropology, Memoir No. 26, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (1994). The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (1997). Cahokian political economy. In Pauketat, T. R., and Emerson, T. E. (eds.), Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, pp. 30–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (1998a). The Archaeology of Downtown Cahokia: The Tract 15A and Dunham Tract Excavations, Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, Studies in Archaeology 1, University of Illinois, Urbana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (1998b). Refiguring the archaeology of greater Cahokia. Journal of Archaeological Research 6: 45–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2000). The tragedy of the commoners. In Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (eds.), Agency in Archaeology, Routledge, London, pp. 113–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2001). Practice and history in archaeology: An emerging paradigm. Anthropological Theory 1: 73–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2003a). Materiality and the immaterial in historical-processual archaeology. In VanPool, T. L., and VanPool, C. S. (eds.), Essential Tensions in Archaeological Method and Theory, The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 41–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2003b). Resettled farmers and the making of a Mississippian polity. American Antiquity 68: 39–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2004a). Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2004b). The economy of the moment: Cultural practices and Mississippian chiefdoms. In Feinman, G. M., and Nicholas, L. M. (eds.), Archaeological Perspectives on Political Economies, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 25–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (ed.) (2005a). The Archaeology of the East St. Louis Mound Center: The Southside Excavations, Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, Research Reports No. 85, University of Illinois, Urbana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2005b). The forgotten history of the Mississippians. In Pauketat, T. R., and Loren, D. D. (eds.), North American Archaeology, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 187–211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R., and Alt, S. M. (2003). Mounds, memory, and contested Mississippian history. In Van Dyke, R., and Alcock, S. (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory, Blackwell Press, Oxford, pp. 151–179.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R., and Alt, S. M. (2005). The making and meaning of a Mississippian axehead cache. Antiquity 78:779–797.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R., and Emerson, T. E. (1999). The representation of hegemony as community at Cahokia. In Robb, J. (ed.), Material Symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, Occasional Paper No. 26, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, pp. 302–317.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R., Kelly, L. S., Fritz, G. J., Lopinot, N. H., Elias, S., and Hargrave, E. (2002). The residues of feasting and public ritual at early Cahokia. American Antiquity 67: 257–279.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R., and Woods, W. I. (1986). Middle Mississippian structure analysis: The Lawrence Primas site in the American Bottom. Wisconsin Archeologist 67: 104–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paynter, R., and McGuire, R. H. (1991). The archaeology of inequality: Material culture, domination, and resistance. In McGuire, R. H., and Paynter, R. (eds.), The Archaeology of Inequality, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 1–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, P., and Brown, J. A. (1978). Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma, Peabody Museum Press, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, J. W. (1974). Cahokia Archaeology as Viewed from the Mitchell Site: A Satellite Community at A.D. 1150–1200. Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, PhD dissertation, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

  • Sassaman, K. E. (2000). Agents of change in hunter-gatherer technology. In Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (eds.), Agency in Archaeology, Routledge, London, pp. 148–168.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiffer, M. B., and Skibo, J. M. (1997). The explanation of artifact variability. American Antiquity 62: 27–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shennan, S. J. (1993). After social evolution: A new archaeological agenda? In Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. (eds.), Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 53–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skibo, J. M., and Schiffer, M. B. (2001). Understanding artifact variability and change: A behavioral framework. In Schiffer, M. B. (ed.), Anthropological Perspectives on Technology, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, pp. 139–149.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soja, E. W. (1989). Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, Verso, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spielmann, K. A. (2002). Feasting, craft specialization, and the ritual mode of production in small-scale societies. American Anthropologist 104: 195–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J. (1996). Time, Culture and Identity: An Interpretive Archaeology, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J. (2001). Archaeologies of place and landscape. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Archaeological Theory Today, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp. 165–186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trouillot, M.-R. (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Beacon Press, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Dyke, R., and Alcock, S. (eds.) (2003). Archaeologies of Memory, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, W. H. (2002). Stratigraphy and practical reason. American Anthropologist 104: 159–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, W. H., and Lucero, L. J. (2000). The depositional history of ritual and power. In Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (eds.), Agency in Archaeology, Routledge, London, pp. 130–147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walthall, J., Farnsworth, K., and Emerson, T. E. (1997). Constructing (on) the past. Common Ground 2: 26–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wesselmann, J. (2000). The politics of family: Implications of courtyard construction and group movement in the uplands. Paper presented at the 57th Annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Macon, Georgia.

  • Wilson, G. D. (1998). An Investigation of Early Mississippian Resistance in the American Bottom. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, Norman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wylie, A. (1989). Archaeological cables and tacking: The implications of practice for Bernstein’s “Options Beyond Objectivism and Relativism.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 19: 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Timothy R. Pauketat.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pauketat, T.R., Alt, S.M. Agency in a Postmold? Physicality and the Archaeology of Culture-Making. J Archaeol Method Theory 12, 213–237 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-005-6929-9

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-005-6929-9

Keywords

Navigation