Shaman, Priest, Practice, Belief

Stephen B. Carmody is assistant professor in the department of social science at Troy University.Casey R. Barrier is assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Bryn Mawr College.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: The Materials of Ritual and Religion in Eastern North AmericaCasey R. Barrier and Stephen B. Carmody1. Early Ritual in the American Southeast: Evidence from the Paleoindian PeriodThomas A. Jennings, Ashley M. Smallwood, and Charlotte D. Pevny2. Caches and Burials: Ritual Use of Dust Cave during the Paleoindian and Archaic PeriodsRenee B. Walker3. Tattoo Bundles as Archaeological Correlates for Ancient Body Ritual in Eastern North AmericaAaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres4. Planting Ritual: Woodland Gardens and Imbued LandscapesStephen B. Carmody and Kandace D. Hollenbach5. The Emergence and Importance of Falconoid Imagery during the Middle Woodland PeriodBretton T. Giles6. Ritual Knowledge and Composition: Rethinking 'Hopewellian' Assemblages in the Middle Woodland SoutheastAlice P. Wright and Cameron Gokee7. Bears as Both Family and Food: Tracing the Changing Contexts of Bear Ceremonialism at the Feltus MoundsMegan C. Kassabaum and Ashley Peles8. Identifying Religious Activity in the Archaeological Record: The Case of the Griffin Shelter (40FR151)Sierra M. Bow, James F. Bates, Meagan E. Dennison, Connie M. Randall, and Jan F. Simek9. Psychotropic Plants and Sacred Animals at the Washausen Mound-Town: Religious Ritual and the Early Mississippian EraCasey R. Barrier10. Religious Partners: Material and Human Actors in the Creation of Early CahokiaSarah E. Baires and Melissa R. Baltus11. The Allure of Cahokia as a Sacred Place in the Eleventh CenturyJames A. Brown and John E. Kelly12. Head Pots and Religious Sodalities in the Lower Mississippi ValleyDavid H. DyeWorks CitedContributorsIndex

Shaman, Priest, Practice, Belief contributes important new insights into often overlooked aspects of past human behavior-those of religion and ritual. Using many different components of the archaeological record to investigate ancient religion and ritual, the contributors demonstrate that even relatively mundane cultural materials have the potential to illuminate the most ephemeral aspects of past human cultures." - Richard W. Jefferies, author of Holocene Hunter-Gatherers of the Lower Ohio River Valley"The study of ritual and religion in archaeology is at a major turning point following the 'ontological turn' and materiality/New Materialisms. What used to be considered a realm of paleo-psychological epiphenomena that was archaeologically unknowable is now commonly viewed as structuring the archaeological record in significant ways. This book is the first to assemble an array of archaeological studies in the American Southeast that gives primacy to 'religion' as ongoing material practice." - Neill J. Wallis, coeditor of New Histories of Pre-Columbian Florida