ADENAThe Adena culture of Ohio is documented at about 500
sites in the Central Woodlands. An Adena pipe (FIG. 14-28) in the
shape of a man, carved between 500 BCEand the end of the millen-
nium, is related in form and costume (note the prominent ear spools)
to some Mesoamerican sculptures. The Adena buried their elite in
great earthen mounds and often placed ceremonial pipes such as this
one in the graves. Smoking was an important social and religious ritual
in many Native American cultures, and pipes were treasured status
symbols that men took with them into the afterlife. The standing figure
on the pipe in FIG. 14-28has naturalistic joint articulations and muscu-
lature, a lively flexed-leg pose, and an alert facial expression—all com-
bining to suggest movement.
MISSISSIPPIAN The Adena were the first great mound builders
of North America, but the Mississippian culture, which emerged
around 800 CEand eventually encompassed much of the eastern
United States, surpassed all earlier Woodlands peoples in the size and
complexity of their communities. One Mississippian mound site,
Cahokia in southern Illinois, was the largest city in North America in
the early second millennium CE, with a population of at least 20,000
and an area of more than six square miles. There were approximately
120 mounds at Cahokia. The grandest, 100 feet tall and built in stages
between about 900 and 1200 CE, was Monk’s Mound. It is aligned
with the position of the sun at the equinoxes and may have served as
an astronomical observatory as well as the site of agricultural cere-
monies. Each stage was topped by wooden structures that then were
destroyed in preparation for the building of a new layer.The Mississippians also constructed effigy mounds (mounds
built in the form of animals or birds). One of the best preserved is
Serpent Mound (FIG. 14-29), a twisting earthwork on a bluff over-
looking a creek in Ohio. It measures nearly a quarter mile from its
open jaw (FIG. 14-29,top right), which seems to clasp an oval-shaped
mound in its mouth, to its tightly coiled tail (far left). Both its date
and meaning are controversial (see “Serpent Mound,” page 389).
The Mississippian peoples, like their predecessors in North Amer-
ica, also manufactured small portable art objects. The shell gorget,or
neck pendant, was a favorite item. One example (FIG. 14-30), found
at a site in Tennessee, dates from about 1250 to 1300 CEand depicts a
running warrior, shown in the same kind of composite profile and
frontal view with bent arms and legs used to suggest motion in other
ancient cultures (FIG. 5-17). The Tennessee warrior wears an elabo-
rate headdress incorporating an arrow. He carries a mace in his left
hand and a severed human head in his right. On his face is the
painted forked eye of a falcon. Most Mississippian gorgets come from
burial and temple mounds, and archaeologists believe they were gifts
to the dead to ensure their safe arrival and prosperity in the land of
the spirits. Other art objects found in similar contexts include fine
mica cutouts and embossed copper cutouts of hands, bodies, snakes,
birds, and other presumably symbolic forms.388 Chapter 14 NATIVE ARTS OF THE AMERICAS BEFORE 130014-28Pipe, Adena,
from a mound in Ohio,
ca. 500–1 BCE. Stone,
8 high. Ohio Historical
Society, Columbus.
Smoking was an important
ritual in ancient North
America, and the Adena
often buried pipes with
men for use in the afterlife.
This example resembles
some Mesoamerican
sculptures in form and
costume.14-27Burial mask, Ipiutak, from Point Hope, Alaska, ca. 100 CE.Ivory,
greatest width 9^1 – 2 . American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Carved out of walrus ivory, this mask consists of nine parts that can be
combined to produce several faces, both human and animal, echoing
the transformation theme common in ancient American art.1 in.1 in.14-29A
Monk’s
Mound,
Cahokia,
ca. 1050–1200 CE.