Some Comments on Situations in the Midcontinental Middle Woodland

ABSTRACT

This discussion provides commentary on the articles included in this guest-edited issue of the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology on Middle Woodland ceremonial situations in the North American midcontinent. Articles in this issue discuss and navigate how situation theory may be applied to the complex interactions of Middle Woodland societies by examining how diverse historical and social factors influence broader social interactions. These articles move beyond concepts like the interaction sphere perspective first coined in the 1960s (by Joseph Caldwell) to examine the ways Middle Woodland communities—in all their diversity—created and shared similar conditions of being while also maintaining a diversity of materially evident ceremonial practices. Situation theory allows the authors of these articles to examine how such diverse (both geographically and socially) societies became part of, and contributed to, a dynamic and multiscalar Middle Woodland “situation.” By focusing on assemblages, materialities, and processes of becoming, these articles provide novel perspectives on how persons (both human and nonhuman) converge to create particular situations and conditions of diverse relationships that result in shared sociocultural experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Matter
• alternate ontology
• ethical relationality
• decolonization
• Cahokia

Notes on Contributor

Dr. Sarah E. Baires is an associate professor of anthropology at Eastern Connecticut State University. She is the author of the book Land of Water, City of the Dead: Religion and Cahokia’s Emergence (2017) and multiple articles on the intersection of religion, politics, and landscapes at the precolumbian Native American city of Cahokia. Her research focuses on the social processes of the emergence of the city of Cahokia (ca. AD 1050), with a particular interest in how this city was created—both physically and spiritually. In addition to academic research, Baires has also focused her career on presenting archaeology to nonacademic audiences through her appearance in two documentaries (Cities of the Sky, Native America on PBS, and America’s Lost Pyramid City, Smithsonian Channel) and her online editorial for the series What It Means to Be an American, on smithsonianmag.com.