Earthen Construction Technology presents the papers from Session IV-5 of the 18th UISPP World Congress (Paris, June 2018). The archaeological study of earthen construction has until now focused on typology and conservation, rather than on its anthropological importance. Earth is the permanent building material of humankind, and was used by the world’s earliest civilizations for their first urban programmes. The architectural and engineering know-how required to carry out these monumental achievements can only be obtained through archaeological research: extensive excavations with attention to architectural and structural features, and their collapse, coupled with typological, mineralogical, micromorphological, botanical, chemical, and mechanical studies of building materials. This line of research is recent, starting in the 1980s in Europe, but is rapidly growing and illustrated in this volume.

Iron Age marsh-forts are large, monumental structures located in low-lying waterscapes. Although they share chronological and architectural similarities with their hillfort counterparts, their locations suggest that they may have played a specific and alternative role in Iron Age society. Despite the availability of a rich palaeoenvironmental archive at many sites, little is known about these enigmatic structures, and until recently, the only acknowledged candidate was the unusual, dual-enclosure monument at Sutton Common, near Doncaster. Assessing Iron Age Marsh-Forts considers marsh-forts as a separate phenomenon within Iron Age society through an understanding of their landscape context and palaeoenvironmental development. At the national level, a range of Iron Age wetland monuments has been compared to Sutton Common to generate a gazetteer of potential marsh-forts. At the local level, a multi-disciplinary case-study is presented of the Berth marsh-fort in North Shropshire, incorporating GIS-based landscape modelling and multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental analysis (plant macrofossils, beetles and pollen). The results of both the gazetteer and the Berth case-study challenge the view that marsh-forts are simply a topographical phenomenon. These substantial Iron Age monuments appear to have been deliberately constructed to control areas of marginal wetland and may have played an important role in the ritual landscape.

The reconstruction of the technical systems of ceramic production and of its 'chaine operatoire' is a means of exploring certain social structures in time and space. For many years, methodological procedures based on multidisciplinarity have made it possible to analyse both materials and methods of fabrication for this purpose. Session IV-3 organised at the 18th Congress of the UISPP in 2018 aimed to highlight the contribution of technological approaches to ceramics, both in archaeology and in ethnology, to the analysis of pre- and protohistoric societies. The case studies focus on the Neolithic and the European Bronze Age, but also on the megalithism of our era in Senegal.

Sited at the furthest limits of the Neolithic revolution and standing at the confluence of the two great sea routes of prehistory, Britain and Ireland are distinct from continental Europe for much of the prehistoric sequence. In this landmark study, Richard Bradley offers an interpretation of the unique archaeological record of these islands. Highlighting the achievements of its inhabitants, Bradley surveys the entire archaeological sequence over a 5,000 year period, from the last hunter-gatherers and the adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic period, to the discovery of Britain and Ireland by travellers from the Mediterranean during the later pre-Roman Iron Age. His study places special emphasis on landscapes, settlements, monuments, and ritual practices. This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. The text takes account of recent developments in archaeological science, such as isotopic analyses of human and animal bone, recovery of ancient DNA, and more subtle and precise methods of radiocarbon dating.

This volume surveys the archaeology of Native North Americans from their arrival on the continent 15,000 years ago up to contact with European colonizers. Offering rich descriptions of monumental structures, domestic architecture, vibrant objects, and spiritual forces, Timothy R. Pauketat and Kenneth E. Sassaman show how indigenous people shaped both their history and North America's many varied environments. They place the student in the past as they trace how Native Americans dealt with challenges such as climate change, the rise of social hierarchies and political power, and ethnic conflict. Written in a clear and engaging style with a compelling narrative, The Archaeology of Ancient North America presents the grand historical themes and intimate stories of ancient Americans in full, living color.

Goeytepe: Neolithic Excavations in the Middle Kura Valley, Azerbaijan, publishes the first round of fieldwork and research (2008-2013) at this key site for understanding the emergence and development of food-producing communities in the South Caucasus. Situated close to the Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia, where Neolithisation processes occurred earlier, research in the South Caucasus raises intriguing research questions, including issues of diffusion from the latter and interaction with 'incoming' Neolithic communities as well as the possibility of independent local Neolithisation processes. In order to address these issues in the South Caucasus, a joint Azerbaijan-Japan research programme was launched in 2008 to investigate Goeytepe, one of the largest known Neolithic mounds in the South Caucasus. The results of the first phase of the project (2008-2013) presented here provide rich archaeological data from multi-disciplinary perspectives: chronology, architecture, technology, social organisation, and plant and animal exploitation, to name a few. This volume is the first to present these details in a single report of the South Caucasian Neolithic site using a high-resolution chronology based on dozens of radiocarbon dates.

Sessions XXXVIII-1,2 of UISPP 2018 in Paris were dedicated to monumental constructions and to complex exchange networks in the Pacific. Both topics have been extensively commented on and described by indigenous experts, explorers, missionaries, and scholars over the last two centuries, however these have been made famous only for the most impressive examples such as the moai statues of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) or the kula exchange system of the Trobriand Islands. Some of the latest research on these key aspects of Pacific islands societies are made available in this volume to researchers focusing on the region, but also to a more global scientific community and to the general public. The volume reflects the tremendous progress made in Pacific island archaeology in the last 60 years which has considerably advanced our knowledge of early Pacific island societies, the rise of traditional cultural systems, and their later historical developments from European contact onwards. Interdisciplinarity is particularly stimulating in the Pacific region, where the study of the archaeological record and of chronological sequences are often combined with other kinds of information such as ethnohistorical accounts, oral traditions, and linguistic reconstructions, in the French tradition of ethnoarche ologie and the American tradition of historical anthropology.

Between the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BC: Exploring Cultural Diversity and Change in Late Prehistoric Communities is a collection of studies on the cultural reconfigurations that occurred in western Europe between the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. It brings together seven texts focusing on the evidence from the West of the Iberian Peninsula, and one on the South of England. The texts have their origin in a landmark meeting held at the University of Coimbra in November 2018, where scholars explored the grand narratives explaining the differences between what are traditionally considered Chalcolithic (or Late Neolithic) and Bronze Age communities. The contributions look at key aspects of these grand narratives through regional perspectives, asking the following questions: is there clear data to support the idea of an intensification of social complexity towards the emergence of the Bronze Age chiefdoms? What is the role of monumental architecture within this process? How do we best discuss the different levels of architectural visibility during this period? How can we interpret collective and individual burials in relation to the emergence of individual/territorial powers? In answering these questions, the papers explore regional diversity and argue that regional specificities resist a general interpretation of the historical process at stake. In light of this resistance, the book emphasizes that cultural singularities only become visible through contextual, medium, or low-scale approaches. The recognition of singularities challenges grand narratives, but also carries the potential to expand our understanding of the changes that occurred during this key moment of Late Prehistory. The book thus offers readers the opportunity to think about the diversity of archaeological evidence in combination with an exploration of the available range of approaches and narratives. The critical intertwining of multiple points of view is necessary, because it gets us closer to how elusive the cultural differences of prehistoric communities can be. This elusive dimension is precisely what can force us to constantly rethink what we see and what questions we ask.

Due to political pressures, prior to the 1990s little was known about the nature of human foraging adaptations in the deserts, grasslands, and mountains of north western China during the last glacial period. Even less was known about the transition to agriculture that followed. Now open to foreign visitation, there is now an increasing understanding of the foraging strategies which led both to the development of millet agriculture and to the utilization of the extreme environments of the Tibetan Plateau. This text explores the transition from the foraging societies of the Late Paleolithic to the emergence of settled farming societies and the emergent pastoralism of the middle Neolithic striving to help answer the diverse and numerous questions of this critical transitional period.
* Examines the transition from foraging societies of the Late Paleolithic to the emergence of settled farming societies and the emergent pastoralism of the middle Neolithic
* Explores explanatory models for the links between climate change and cultural change that may have influenced the development of millet agriculture
* Reviews the relationship between climate change and population expansions and contraditions during the late Quaternary

In Stone Tools in Human Evolution, John J. Shea argues that over the last three million years hominins' technological strategies shifted from occasional tool use, much like that seen among living non-human primates, to a uniquely human pattern of obligatory tool use. Examining how the lithic archaeological record changed over the course of human evolution, he compares tool use by living humans and non-human primates and predicts how the archaeological stone tool evidence should have changed as distinctively human behaviors evolved. Those behaviors include using cutting tools, logistical mobility (carrying things), language and symbolic artifacts, geographic dispersal and diaspora, and residential sedentism (living in the same place for prolonged periods). Shea then tests those predictions by analyzing the archaeological lithic record from 6,500 years ago to 3.5 million years ago.

This is the only volume to present significant results of research into the Pleistocene of the Western Desert of Egypt. Research on Pleistocene prehistoric remains in Dakhleh Oasis began during survey in the 1978 Dakhleh Oasis Project (DOP) season, with discovery of the ubiquity of stone artefacts. Dedicated work by both prehistorians and environmentalists continued until 2011. Comparative DOP reconnaissance and geological work in Kharga Oasis began in 1987, which morphed into the Kharga Oasis Prehistory Project (KOPP) in 2001. Papers on the Pleistocene research are focused on geoarchaeological and palaeo-environmental data, reporting on different aspects of the off-site fieldwork conducted in the oases. Pleistocene finds and sequence are included. Detailed analyses of palaeolakes, the meteoritic Dakhleh Event, chronometric dating, and the 'empty desert hypothesis' employ state of the art research strategies and techniques to provide important information on Pleistocene human uses and habitability in the Western Desert. A summary paper and a Catalogue of Pleistocene localities recorded in the Dakhleh Oasis survey are provided. The volume will be a major contribution to the publication of the results of several decades of work in a region where fieldwork is now increasingly difficult. This will be the only volume in which the significant results of the research into the Pleistocene of the Western Desert of Egypt appear. This has been undertaken under the auspices of the Dakhleh Oasis Project and its off-shoot The Kharga Oasis Prehistory Project. The preliminary results have been presented at various conferences and in articles that have all been well received. They incorporate state of the art research strategies and dating techniques. The volume will be a major contribution to the publication of the results of several decades of work in a region where fieldwork is now increasingly difficult.

Late Prehistoric Fortifications in Europe: Defensive, Symbolic and Territorial Aspects from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age presents the contributions to the International Colloquium ‘FortMetalAges’ (10th–12th November 2017, Guimarães, Portugal), The Colloquium was organised by the Scientific Commission ‘Metal Ages in Europe’ of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP/ IUSPP) and by the Martin Sarmento Society of Guimarães. Nineteen papers discuss different interpretive ideas for defensive structures whose construction had necessitated large investment, present new case studies, and conduct comparative analysis between different regions and chronological periods from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age.

An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family-all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction. Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the "barbarians" who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples.

This significant contribution to scholarship on the Middle Paleolithic, now reissued with a new preface, traces the controversy that revolves around the bio-cultural relationships of Archaic (Neanderthal) and Modern humans at global and regional, Levantine scales. The focus of the book is on understanding the degree to which the behavioral organization of Archaic groups differed from Moderns. To this end, a case study is presented for a 44-70,000 year old, Middle Paleolithic occupation of a Jordanian rockshelter. The research, centering on the spatial analysis of artifacts, hearths and related data, reveals how the Archaic occupants of the shelter structured their activities and placed certain conceptual labels on different parts of the site. The structure of Tor Faraj is compared to site structures defined for modern foragers, in both ethnographic and archaeological contexts, to measure any differences in behavioral organization. The comparisons show very similar structures for Tor Faraj and its modern cohorts, and the implications of this finding challenge prevailing views that Archaic groups had inferior cognition and less complex behavioral-social organization than modern foragers. The study also calls into question the contention that such behaviors only emerged after the appearance of the Upper Paleolithic, dated some 10-20,000 years later than the occupation of Tor Faraj.

In this book, Julia Guernsey examines the relationship between human figuration, fragmentation, bodily divisibility, personhood, and community in ancient Mesoamerica. Contending that representation of the human body in the pre-classic period gradually became a privileged act, she argues that human figuration as well as the fragmentation of both human representations and human bodies reveals ancient conceptualizations of personhood and the relationship of individual to the community. Considering ceramic figurines and stone sculpture together with archaeological data, Guernsey weaves together evidence and ideas drawn from art history, archaeology, and anthropology to construct a rich, cultural history of Mesoamerican practices of figuration and fragmentation. A methodologically innovative study, her book has ramifications for scholars working in Mesoamerica and, more generally, those interested in the significance of human representation.

Ireland is home to some of the world's oldest astronomically-aligned structures, giant stone monuments erected over 5,000 years ago. Despite their apparent simplicity, these megalithic edifices were crafted by a scientifically knowledgeable community of farmers who endeavoured to enshrine their beliefs in a stellar afterlife within the very fabric of their cleverly-designed stone temples. Finally back in print, this reissued edition presents evidence suggesting the builders of monuments such as Newgrange and its Boyne Valley counterparts were adept astronomers, cunning engineers and capable surveyors. Their huge monuments are memorials in stone and earth, commemorating their creators' perceived unity with the cosmos and enshrining a belief system which resulted from a crossover between science and spirituality. As investigation of this awe-inspiring civilisation of people continues on many levels, evidence is emerging that significant archaeological sites dating from deep in prehistory are linked - not just through mythology, archaeology and cosmology - but through an arrangement of complex, and in some cases astonishing, alignments. Some of these alignments of ancient sites stretch from one side of Ireland to another. While the accounts of the lives of some prominent Irish saints appear to be steeped in folklore and mystery, it seems from new interpretations of the literature that the cosmic world view which existed in Neolithic Ireland experienced a continuity right into the Early Christian period. Join us on this fascinating exploration of stones, stars and stories. "The sheer amount of information contained within the book is mind-boggling. It is well thought out and structured... The more you read the evidence the more convinced you become." - Astronomy& Space magazine "Refreshing and fascinating . . . a wonderful magical book, sumptuously illustrated and a must for anyone who loves to delve deep into our past." - Kenny's Irish Bookshop "A fascinating insight into Ireland's ancient burial sites" - Irish Independent "A monument" - Drogheda Independent "It is a beautiful book and very well written. The information that you collected is outstanding." - Barbara Carter, co-author, The Myth of the Year and The Goddess and the Bull "The authors... reach interesting and challenging conclusions about the significance of ancient astronomical knowledge. The book is jammed with colour illustrations, maps and photographs. A thoroughly interesting read!" - Archaeology Ireland "An essential book that demonstrates just how much the beliefs and practices of our ancestors were influenced by the movement of the stars, in particular those of the constellation Cygnus - the celestial swan and Northern Cross - once seen as a source of life and the destination of the soul in death. A must have tome for all those passionate about what remains of our fast disappearing ritual monuments of the prehistoric age." - Andrew Collins, author of The Cygnus Mystery

This volume covers the Prehistory of Ukraine from the Lower Palaeolithic through to the end of the Neolithic periods. This is the first comprehensive synthesis of Ukrainian Prehistory from earliest times through until the Neolithic Period undertaken by researchers who are currently investigating the Prehistory of Ukraine. At present there are no other English language books on this subject that provide a current synthesis for these periods. The chapters in this volume provide up-to-date overviews of all aspects of prehistoric culture development in Ukraine and present details of the key sites and finds for the periods studied. The book includes the most recent research from all areas of prehistory up to the Neolithic period, and, in addition, areas such as recent radiocarbon dating and its implications for culture chronology are considered; as is a consideration of aDNA and the new insights into culture history this area of research affords; alongside recent macrofossil studies of plant use, and anthropological and stable isotope studies of diet, which all combine to allow greater insights into the nature of human subsistence and cultural developments across the Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods in Ukraine. It is anticipated that this book will be an invaluable resource for students of prehistory throughout Europe in providing an English-language text that is written by researchers who are active in their respective fields and who possess an intimate knowledge of Ukrainian prehistory.

One of the most important sites for the early history of dyeing ever found in Minoan Crete was discovered in 2007. A Middle Bronze Age (Middle Minoan IIB) workshop for making natural dyes and using them to color fabrics included several basins carved into the soft limestone bedrock. Excavations uncovered pottery and stone vessels, stone tools, animal bones, and botanical remains among other types of artifacts. Pefka is of great importance for the history of Bronze Age technology as well as for the light it sheds on what was clearly a major Minoan industry. The evidence provides information both for the manufacture of dyes and for the broader issue of the economic foundation for Minoan trade in textiles during the period of the Old Palaces.

Lutz Klassen (ed.), The Pitted Ware Culture On Djursland. Supra-regional significance and contacts in the Middle Neolithic of southern Scandinavia. Between ca. 3000 and 2800 BC, the Pitted Ware Culture of northeast European descent spread to the northeastern parts of Denmark. Here, by far the best archaeological evidence is known from the Djursland peninsula in eastern Jutland. This volume presents 12 individual papers that present the available finds from the key site of Kainsbakke as well as number of other excavated and not excavates sites. Besides artefacts, the faunal and botanical remains are dealt with in a comprehensive matter. Several papers are devoted to scientific analyses of chronology as well as the provenance of artefacts and selected faunal remains. On this basis, the Pitted Ware culture in Djursland is interpreted as a group that emerged locally from Funnel Beaker culture predecessors. This group choose to distinguish itself from its Funnel Beaker neighbours by giving itself a unique identity. This identity can be understood as a combination of Pitted Ware traits in material culture and ritual conduct obtained through close contact with Neolithic groups on the west coast of Sweden with elements derived from contemporaneous Funnel Beaker groups in other parts of Denmark.

Architectures of Fire attempts to present the entanglement between the physical phenomenon of fire, the pyro-technological instrument that it is, its material supports, and the human being. In this perspective, the physical process of combustion, material culture, as well as the development of human action in space, are addressed together. Fire is located at the centre of all pre-modern architecture. It creates the living or technological space. Fire creates architectures since it imposes geometry, from the simple circles of stone or clay, which control its spread (and which are the geometrical figures of its optimal efficiency), to cone trunks, cylinders, half-spheres, half-cylinders or parallelepipeds, circular geometric figures that efficiently control the air-draught process required for combustion. All these forms involving the circle are determined by the control and conservation of thermal energy. We should not imagine that the term 'architecture' evokes only constructed objects that delimit human action. Architecture means not only the built space, but also the experienced space, in the present case around the pyro-instruments. Pyro-instruments involve an ergonomic, kinesthetic and visual relationship, as well as the rhythmic actions of feeding or maintaining fire at a certain technological tempo. The technological agency is structured both by the physics of the combustion phenomenon, and by the type of operation to be performed.

This second volume on Early Cycladic (and Cycladicising) sculptures found in the Aegean, examines finds from mainland Greece, along with the rarer items from the north and east Aegean, with the exception of those discovered in the Cyclades (covered in the preceding volume), and of those found in Crete. The significance of these finds is that these are the principal testimonies of the influence of the Early Bronze Age Cycladic cultures in the wider Aegean. This influence is shown both by the export of sculptures produced in the Cyclades (and made of Cycladic marble), and of their imitations, produced elsewhere in the Aegean, usually of local marble. They hold the key, therefore, to the cultural interactions developing at this time, the so-called 'international spirit' manifest particularly during the Aegean Early Bronze II period.This was the time when the foundations of early Aegean civilisation were being laid, and the material documented is thus of considerable significance. The volume is divided into sections wherein contributions examine finds and their archaeological, social, and economic contexts from specific regions. It concludes with an overview of the significance and role of these objects in Early Bronze Age societies of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean region. This will be the first time that this material has been systematically gathered together. Highly illustrated, it follows and builds on the successful preceding volume, Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context (Oxbow 2016).

La callaïs désigne les pierres vertes dont sont faites les remarquables parures découvertes dans plusieurs sites néolithiques d’Europe occidentale. Terme utilisé au début de notre ère par Pline l’Ancien et repris par les premiers archéologues du début du XXème siècle lors des premières fouilles des grands tumulus de la région de Carnac (Morbihan), la callaïs regroupe plusieurs espèces minérales, surtout la variscite et la turquoise, tous deux des phosphates d’aluminium hydratés de couleur verte à bleue. Les perles et pendeloques en cette matière précieuse, associées à d’autres objets tels que haches en jade alpin, en fibrolite, perles en ambre ou en jais, provenant de sources parfois très éloignées, étaient déposés auprès des défunts, témoignant de leur haut rang au sein des premières sociétés agropastorales, ou « sacrifiées » sous forme de dépôts. La question de la nature et de l’origine de ces perles et pendeloques en callaïs a été maintes fois abordée durant le siècle dernier par les minéralogistes et les préhistoriens. Depuis les premières découvertes sur cette gemme, de nombreuses recherches ont été menées tant sur le terrain qu’en laboratoire afin d’élucider ce que certains avaient baptisé « les mystères de la callaïs ». Ce volume, préfacé par Yves Coppens, Professeur honoraire du Collège de France, regroupe les contributions des meilleurs spécialistes européens de la callaïs, variscite et turquoise, qui sont intervenus lors d’un colloque consacré à cette gemme ancienne qui s’est tenu en avril 2015 à Carnac. L’objectif de cet ouvrage est de divulguer le fruit des dernières recherches relatives à ces bijoux en balayant de multiples domaines : géologie de la variscite, gemmologie, exploitations néolithiques mais aussi romaines, caractérisation chimique, production des objets et leur diffusion, inventaire, datation, place de ces bijoux au sein de sociétés agropastorales qui occupaient une partie de l’Europe du 5ème au 3ème millénaire.

The Chalcolithic period in Cyprus has been known since Porphyrios Dikaios' excavations at Erimi in the 1930s and through the appearance in the antiquities market of illicitly acquired anthropomorphic cruciform figures, often manufactured from picrolite, a soft blue-green stone. The excavations of the settlement and cemetery at Souskiou Laona reported on in this volume paint a very different picture of life on the island during the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. Burial practices at other known sites are generally single inhumations in intramural pit graves, only rarely equipped with artefacts. At Souskiou, multiple inhumations were interred in deep rock-cut tombs clustered in extra-mural cemeteries. Although the sites were also subjected to extensive looting, excavations have revealed complex multi-stage burial practices with arrangements of disarticulated and articulated burials accompanied by a rich variety of grave goods. Chief among these are a multitude of cruciform figurines and pendants. This unusual treatment of the dead, which has not been recorded elsewhere in Cyprus, shifts the focus from the individual to the communal, and provides evidence for significant changes involving kinship group links to common ancestors. Excavations at the Laona settlement have furnished evidence suggesting that it functioned as a specialised centre for the procurement and manufacture of picrolite during its early phase. The subsequent decline of picrolite production and the earliest known occurrence of new types of ornaments, such as faience beads and copper spiral pendants, attest to important changes involving the transformation of personal and social identities during the first centuries of the 3rd millennium BC, a topic that forms a central theme of this final report on the site.

The prehistoric native peoples of the Mississippi River Valley and other areas of the Eastern Woodlands of the United States shared a complex set of symbols and motifs that constituted one of the greatest artistic traditions of the pre-Columbian Americas. Traditionally known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, these artifacts of copper, shell, stone, clay, and wood were the subject of the groundbreaking 2007 book Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, which presented a major reconstruction of the rituals, cosmology, ideology, and political structures of the Mississippian peoples. Visualizing the Sacred advances the study of Mississippian iconography by delving into the regional variations within what is now known as the Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere (MIIS). Bringing archaeological, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and iconographic perspectives to the analysis of Mississippian art, contributors from several disciplines discuss variations in symbols and motifs among major sites and regions across a wide span of time and also consider what visual symbols reveal about elite status in diverse political environments. These findings represent the first formal identification of style regions within the Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere and call for a new understanding of the MIIS as a network of localized, yet interrelated religious systems that experienced both continuity and change over time.