“I Have Been to the Country Above”: Indigenous Revitalizations in Late Sixteenth-Century Southeastern North America Available to Purchase

Multiple lines of archaeological evidence reveal a previously undocumented cluster of interrelated Indigenous revitalization movements that occurred across southeastern North America late in the tumultuous sixteenth century, around AD 1590. Near synchronous appearances of novel forms of public architecture, personal adornment, and utilitarian pottery reflect dramatic shifts in Native worldviews throughout the region. In particular, the revival and reassortment of cosmologically significant symbols in use at Mississippian Cahokia by AD 1100 reflect household efforts to strengthen newly coalescent communities by restoring balance between cosmological realms. With or without complementary documentary records, this kind of archaeological analysis of material evidence can reveal the occurrence of revitalization movements, one avenue to transformative societal change.