Susan M. Alt is Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, Bloomington, with research interests in the ontological relationships of water, earth, gender, ritual, and human society and how we can decolonize archaeological research. Her archaeology focuses on the lower Ohio and central Mississippi valleys, particularly the American Indian city of Cahokia and its upland shrines and settlement complexes.
This article emerged as the human species collectively have been experiencing the worst global pa... more This article emerged as the human species collectively have been experiencing the worst global pandemic in a century. With a long view of the ecological, economic, social, and political factors that promote the emergence and spread of infectious disease, archaeologists are well positioned to examine the antecedents of the present crisis. In this article, we bring together a variety of perspectives on the issues surrounding the emergence, spread, and effects of disease in both the Americas and Afro-Eurasian contexts. Recognizing that human populations most severely impacted by COVID-19 are typically descendants of marginalized groups, we investigate pre- and postcontact disease vectors among Indigenous and Black communities in North America, outlining the systemic impacts of diseases and the conditions that exacerbate their spread. We look at how material culture both reflects and changes as a result of social transformations brought about by disease, the insights that paleopathology...
In this chapter I suggest reasons why nonlocal people may have come to Cahokia on pilgrimage and ... more In this chapter I suggest reasons why nonlocal people may have come to Cahokia on pilgrimage and why some Cahokians may have sought contact with distant peoples. My arguments are based on evidence from excavations in the greater Cahokia region, especially those at the Emerald shrine center east of Cahokia (Alt and Pauketat 2016; Pauketat and Alt 2016). As I will describe, new evidence from the Emerald shrine center leads me to suggest that religion was fundamental, if not causal, for Cahokia’s urbanism, as well as its rise as North America’s only Pre-Columbian city.
The Historical Turn in Southeastern Archaeology, 2020
Uncovering ancient Native American histories requires more than considering people, places, and e... more Uncovering ancient Native American histories requires more than considering people, places, and events. It entails recognizing the full assemblage of human and nonhuman agents, forces, powers, affects and atmospheres—and how such were entangled with each other. Uncovering these histories requires considering the processes that drove them, but more, it requires recognizing places and things that particularly resonated because of special powers and vibrancies, that evoked powerful human responses. This requires paying attention to what the people we study believed and recognized, information accessible through material assemblages and oral histories. Alt considers Cahokian assemblages—mounds, caves, water, fire, stone, clay, human and nonhuman persons—to explore how history can be enriched and altered by historicizing an expanded assemblage.
This article emerged as the human species collectively have been experiencing the worst global pa... more This article emerged as the human species collectively have been experiencing the worst global pandemic in a century. With a long view of the ecological, economic, social, and political factors that promote the emergence and spread of infectious disease, archaeologists are well positioned to examine the antecedents of the present crisis. In this article, we bring together a variety of perspectives on the issues surrounding the emergence, spread, and effects of disease in both the Americas and Afro-Eurasian contexts. Recognizing that human populations most severely impacted by COVID-19 are typically descendants of marginalized groups, we investigate pre- and postcontact disease vectors among Indigenous and Black communities in North America, outlining the systemic impacts of diseases and the conditions that exacerbate their spread. We look at how material culture both reflects and changes as a result of social transformations brought about by disease, the insights that paleopathology...
In this chapter I suggest reasons why nonlocal people may have come to Cahokia on pilgrimage and ... more In this chapter I suggest reasons why nonlocal people may have come to Cahokia on pilgrimage and why some Cahokians may have sought contact with distant peoples. My arguments are based on evidence from excavations in the greater Cahokia region, especially those at the Emerald shrine center east of Cahokia (Alt and Pauketat 2016; Pauketat and Alt 2016). As I will describe, new evidence from the Emerald shrine center leads me to suggest that religion was fundamental, if not causal, for Cahokia’s urbanism, as well as its rise as North America’s only Pre-Columbian city.
The Historical Turn in Southeastern Archaeology, 2020
Uncovering ancient Native American histories requires more than considering people, places, and e... more Uncovering ancient Native American histories requires more than considering people, places, and events. It entails recognizing the full assemblage of human and nonhuman agents, forces, powers, affects and atmospheres—and how such were entangled with each other. Uncovering these histories requires considering the processes that drove them, but more, it requires recognizing places and things that particularly resonated because of special powers and vibrancies, that evoked powerful human responses. This requires paying attention to what the people we study believed and recognized, information accessible through material assemblages and oral histories. Alt considers Cahokian assemblages—mounds, caves, water, fire, stone, clay, human and nonhuman persons—to explore how history can be enriched and altered by historicizing an expanded assemblage.
Medieval Mississippians, the eighth volume in the award-winning Popular Archaeology Series, intro... more Medieval Mississippians, the eighth volume in the award-winning Popular Archaeology Series, introduces a key historical period in pre-Columbian eastern North America—the “Mississippian” era—via a series of colorful chapters on places, practices, and peoples written from Native American and non-Native perspectives on the past. The volume lays out the basic contours of the early centuries of this era (AD 1000–1300) in the Mississippian heartland, making connections to later centuries and contemporary peoples. Cahokia the place and Cahokian social history undergird the book, but Mississippian material culture, landscapes, and descendants are highlighted, presenting a balanced view of the Mississippian world.
Assemblage theory, as a way of thinking, has taken hold across the social sciences (following De ... more Assemblage theory, as a way of thinking, has taken hold across the social sciences (following De Landa 2006; Deleuze and Guattari 1987) as social scientists (and others) seek to decenter humans and better account for the emergent and relational qualities of things that populate the world along with human persons. Among other things, assemblages, which are the processes whereby entities "mattered" or came into being, are contributing to a general rethinking of human history, especially when considered alongside the "vibrancy" of materials and the agencies of various other-than-human things, places, and persons, as common to many Native American ontologies (Barad 2007; Bennett 2010). Following the kind of thinking prompted by assemblage theory, I suggest that ancient histories can be enriched, if not also radically altered, when we broaden and reprioritize our views of human history to include other-than-human persons, powers, and forces (Alberti
Uploads
Papers by Susan Alt