This volume examines how pre-Columbian societies in the Americas envisioned their cosmos and iteratively modelled it through the creation of particular objects and places. It emphasizes that American societies did this to materialize overarching models and templates for the shape and scope of the cosmos, the working definition of cosmoscape. Noting a tendency to gloss over the ways in which ancestral Americans envisioned the cosmos as intertwined and animated, the authors examine how cosmoscapes are manifested archaeologically, in the forms of objects and physically altered landscapes. This book’s chapters, therefore, offer case studies of cosmoscapes that present themselves as forms of architecture, portable artifacts, and transformed aspects of the natural world. In doing so, it emphasizes that the creation of cosmoscapes offered a means of reconciling peoples experiences of the world with their understandings of them.

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Chapter 1. Conceptualizing cosmoscapes
• J. Grant Stauffer, Bretton T. Giles, and Shawn P. Lambert
• Part 1: Objects as Cosmoscapes
  • Chapter 2. Modeling the cosmos: Rim-effigy bowl iconography in the Central Mississippi Valley
  • Madelaine C. Azar and Vincas P. Steponaitis
  • Chapter 3. Cahokia’s wandering supernaturals: What does it mean when the Earth Mother leaves town?
  • Steven L. Boles
  • Chapter 4. Altered states and cosmoscapes: The production and consumption of Datura in the central Arkansas River Valley
  • Shawn P. Lambert
  • Chapter 5. Oneota and Tunican cosmoscapes in the Lower Mississippi Valley
  • David H. Dye and Toney Aid
  • Chapter 6. Of snakes and masks: Retrospective clues to understand the meaning of Classic Maya (AD 250–900) greenstone mosaic masks
  • Juan C. Melendez, David A. Freidel, and Daniel E. Aquino
  • Chapter 7. Sacrifice and the Sun: The Aztec Calendar Stone, its origins, and the symbolism of autosacrifice
  • Annabeth Headrick
• Part 2: Place-making and cultivating cosmoscapes
  • Chapter 8. Center posts, thunder symbolism, and community organization at Cahokia Mounds, Illinois
  • Joy Mersmann and J. Grant Stauffer
  • Chapter 9. Picture Cave and the birth of the Braden Art Style
  • James R. Duncan and Carol Diaz-Granados
  • Chapter 10. A whirlwind of a woman: An iconographic interpretation of the Mississippian Earth Mother
  • Melinda A. Martin
  • Chapter 11. Mound 2 at the Hopewell Site as cosmoscape
  • Bretton T. Giles, Brian M. Rowe, and Ryan M. Parish
  • Chapter 12. Eternal performance: Mesoamerican and Mississippian tableaux in comparative perspective
  • David A. Freidel
• Part 3: Cosmoscapes in perspective
  • Chapter 13. Final thoughts on the archaeologies of cosmoscapes
  • Shawn P. Lambert, J. Grant Stauffer, and Bretton T. Giles