Customer Reviews

Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians (Case Studies in Early Societies)

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The author has both excavated and written profusely on the Missippian Culture, centered in Cahokia to the East of Saint Louis, and the builders of the largest pyramids in North America. The culture flourished in the later Medieval times, just before the white men came to North America. Cahokia should be a famous as Chichen Itza and Tikal--this book is a superb introduction to the culture and to the scholarly discputes about its origins and acheivements.
Every well educated American should be familiar with Missippian culture. Read this book!

What a fascinating subject, but what a disappointing book. The author, though obviously an expert in the field, should stick to writing for archaeological journals and stay away from books for the general public. Simple, declarative sentences, engaging graphics, fascinating photographs would make this little-known subject come to life, but unfortunately not one of these is to be found in this book. Instead you'll be subjected to such dreadful prose as "When compared with the material evidence of orthodoxy at Lohmann phase Cahokia, these lines of evidence indicate cultural diversity, persistence, hybridity, and creolization." Unless your idea of fun is reading 177 pages like this, stay away from this book.

Pauketat is a bit of a bomb thrower and he lobsquite a few well directed missiles in this work, but they all land to good effect and he gives a very good account of the fluorescence of the Mississippian culture at Cahokia. His argument holds together very well and his genuine passion for the subject keeps it quite engaging. My only real complaint is that the book basically ends with Cahokia, and does not really discuss the Mississippian in the Southeast at all, nor does it have much to say on Cahokia's precursors. I would love to see a volume on either subject that was as passionately, thoroughly, and engagingly written.

In a way this is almost a mirror of Kantner's work on the Anasazi, which is part of the same series, suffers from almost the reverse flaw Ancient Puebloan Southwest (Case Studies in Early Societies), barely discussing the Chacoan period, but illuminates what happened after the end of Chaco.

Highly recommended for those interested in the largest center in the Precolumbian US.

Includes a Lot of information, had to buy it for an anthropology class. If you need to know any information on these groups of people, this book will have it.