De-mything the Cahokia catlinite trade

Western-derived formalistic economic models continue to pervade much of the discussion relating to the political and economic history of noncapitalist societies. The rise of complex societies across the world has been intimat ely tied to such economic variables. In North America, the emergence of Cah okia and other Mississippian chiefdoms is also often linked to these factor s. Such models rely on the large-scale movement of materials between distan t locales. Critical to these approaches is the demonstration that items ide ntified as "exotic" are nonlocal. Only archaeomerric analysis can make this determination. This paper continues our research in geologic sourcing thro ugh X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic analysis (Emerson and Hughes 2000). We examine red stone from the American Bottom that was identified macrosco pically as catlinite and as part of the panregional Cahokia trade network. We prove that the Cahokian "catlinite, " in fact, is not catlinite and is f rom one or more other possible sources. This proof demonstrates catlinite, at the earliest, entered the American Bottom with Oneota peoples in the fou rteenth century, and more likely, with protohistoric or historic groups in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. This geologic sourcing research con tinues to cast doubt on the role and importance of large-scale, long-distan ce economic transactions in Cahokian history.