In this book, various scholars explore how stylistic and iconographic analyses of Mississippian imagery provide new perspectives on the beliefs, narratives, public ceremonies, ritual regimes, and expression of power in Mississippian communities. Their work advances through well-contextualized case studies that build on Vernon James Knight’s Iconographic Method in New World Prehistory. It is organized into three sections:(1) the use of style in Mississippian iconographic studies, (2) interpreting Mississippian imagery, and (3) situating and historicizing Mississippian symbols. Semon addresses r ... More

In this book, various scholars explore how stylistic and iconographic analyses of Mississippian imagery provide new perspectives on the beliefs, narratives, public ceremonies, ritual regimes, and expression of power in Mississippian communities. Their work advances through well-contextualized case studies that build on Vernon James Knight’s Iconographic Method in New World Prehistory. It is organized into three sections:(1) the use of style in Mississippian iconographic studies, (2) interpreting Mississippian imagery, and (3) situating and historicizing Mississippian symbols. Semon addresses regional variation in Late Mississippian complicated stamped ceramic assemblages of the filfot-cross motif along the Georgia coast. Stauffer investigates Mississippian spider-themed imagery, which are carved on marine shell, copper, stone, and wood media. Scarry presents a preliminary assessment of Pensacola ceramic vessels from Choctawhatchee Bay, Florida. Lankford examines how comparative mythology and the analysis of historic-geographic patterns can have a recursive relationship with iconographic analyses. Dye delves into how owl effigy vessels are a materialization of witchcraft in Mississippian societies and how elites employed witchcraft accusations for political aggrandizement. Giles considers how the imagery on certain Pecan Point headpots materializes a layered cosmos and might typify (mnemonic) parallelism. Nowak employs a Peircean approach to consider the agential properties of Early Caddo bottles and how they might have functioned as Native American bundles. Lambert traces how Caddo pottery and motifs moved through two diverse areas and how these movements resulted in the transformation of iconographic meanings. Knight provides an extension of his perspective on iconographic analysis and its relationship to Mississippian archaeology.