Doctoral Dissertation Research: Innovating Iconographic Analysis to Improve Understanding of the Relationship between Social Organization and Ritual in Indigenous American Culture

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines the role of ancient material objects in past American Indian communities. Previous archaeological scholarship has often attempted to understand Native artifacts and their significance using frameworks informed by Western traditions. In contrast, this project interprets ancient American Indian ceramics within the context of philosophical tenets espoused by contemporary Native North American cultures. This approach generates novel insights into the significance of Indigenous art, namely how such objects may have contributed to the sacred and secular underpinnings of Native communities. Importantly, this approach, which also includes frequent communication with modern American Indian nations and their tribal historic preservation offices, demonstrates how North American archaeological research focusing on Indigenous topics can be conducted ethically and respectfully. This project ultimately strives to produce results that can be used by descendant communities in ways that they deem most valuable to their own people and tribal objectives. A virtual museum exhibit displaying vessel photos, 3D models, and interpretive details produced and shared with Native collaborators as well as other scholars and the general public as the tribes wish. The doctoral student specifically assesses the political and cosmological significance of decorated ceramics produced by American Indians in the Mississippi Valley of Arkansas and Missouri during the fifteenth century AD. Here, potters living within a densely populated and highly contentious political landscape created a large quantity of painted and engraved ceramic vessels that depicted the Native cosmos, spirit beings, and culture heroes. An examination of this art offers new perspectives on the relationships between politics and religion among past Indigenous communities living in the American South. Using an innovative combination of iconographic analysis, 3D modeling, and geographic information systems, this project (1) describes fundamental aspects of production, function, and imagery among these pottery vessels and then (2) interprets the sacred and secular significance of this art corpus within the context of American Indian philosophical tenets. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.