Interview with Dr. Melissa Baltus

Dr. Baltus is an associate professor of anthropology and archaeology at the University of Toledo. Dr. Baltus has a Ph.D. and M.A. in anthropology from Minnesota State Universut and the University of Illinois respectively. She specializes in North American Archaeology as it relates the to City of Cahokia. The Cahokia Mounds as they are in present day are pictured below.

· Can you briefly explain your area of interest in anthropology/archaeology?

“My research focus is on the native American City of Cahokia. This was a city occupied around 1050 to about 1350 AD near what is now modern Saint Louis. Which is the Illinois side of the river and the city itself extended across the river (There was a kind of precinct where St. Louis is now where the Arch is) back to what is now the State Park for Cahokia Mounds. My research in on the later years, after about 1200 AD. Right around 1200 we see some major changes in the city in terms of population, political and religious architecture, tools used that were embedded in the political religious nature of the city. I like to think of it as a big revitalization movement that looked to the past for inspiration. So, thinking about why people are leaving the city, what are some of the effects of that revitalization movement may have been, how it changed relationships within the city and other groups nearby, and how it is connected to conflicts in the region. We do see a sort of uptick in warfare around that time as well though there is no indication that Cahokia was ever under attack. Overall, just thinking about a revitalization within the context of a potential regional threat.”

· In what ways was astronomy important to Indigenous Americans?

“We know for Cahokia specifically it is aligned to both the movement of the sun and moon. So, one of the projects that my graduate advisor had been working on about 5–6 years ago, they were doing a shrine site outside of Cahokia. This is a site that had a major mound and about 13 smaller mounds associated with it. The mounds correspond to the lunar months, there are technically thirteen lunar months. The alignment of those including the major mound is to the lunar maximum stand still which is something that happens every 18.6 years. So, the fact that this is being marked on the landscape demonstrates that they clearly recognized the movements of the moon in that way, and it had been documented. The moon itself must have been important in terms of the broader Cahokia religious political movement that comes out of that. They did additional work at Cahokia looking at some of the alignments of the city because its grid aligned but the north is just slightly off from true north. Which people always question whether it was a minor variation during the city’s lay out or if there is something significant to it. So, the work that my colleague and friend Sarah had done, was looking at some of the architecture and infrastructure of the city and considering it in relation for its potential to relate to the movement of the moon. She along with another colleague who does work here in Ohio came to recognize that this is also marking that lunar maximum stand still but in a weird way. So, there is this really cool, taking what’s above and reflecting it on the ground as though replicating it in that mirrored fashion. Also, at Cahokia there is a structure called the Wood Henge that is a series of wooden posts made of red cedar which is a cultural significant and powerful material for Cahokia’s. The posts are arranged in a circle with one at the center which is a marker post and from that there are alignments to the solstices and the equinoxes. There’s this cool pairing in the city of solar movement and lunar movement in relation to how people are building the city. They are essentially drawing in the cosmos tp threat location, thus making it really powerful and important landscape. And that is probably what drew a lot of people to it and the activities that were taking place there. Of course, they weren’t the first, we see this at Middle Woodland Hopewell sites here in Ohio. The earthen enclosers down in southern Ohio that have been documented to be aligned to the lunar maximum standstill, the solstices, and equinoxes as well. Each one has its own alignments to clearly the movements of these bodies were important. They date back to about 200 BC to 200 A.D., which is the core time in which they were being built. Those are some of the good indications of the major celestial bodies that were being documented. There is another site in southern Indiana that have mounds that may have been aligned with the Milky Way. In indigenous ontology and recorded in oral tradition the Milky Way itself is considered the path of souls. So, this is how the soul when it leaves the body at death will travel to the next realm. There is an increase in importance as horticulture becomes more common to document the seasons and to know when the best time is to start planting and harvesting. But we also see this significance of alignments earlier between about 1000 BC and 200 BC with earthen enclosures and wooden posts.”

· How are Indigenous American cave painting interpreted/how should they be?

“In the past, often archaeologists have taken a sort of an iconography or art history take on things like rock art and cave art. More recently, and this is important to understand, they have engaged with indigenous voices including indigenous collaborators who have their own history of these sites and art and have a deeper recognition of what they symbols means within their own cultural context. A lot of those symbols, even if they have been generalized or put into other media or other contexts, still has that thread of the narrative that draws through. So, in a number of cases there have been really successful collaborations that help interpret and understand these spaces. Some archaeologists also recognize that we may never know what something might mean and interpret it form an experiential standpoint. Clearly something was important, and it was materialized in that specific space for a reason using specific colors and materials. It could be documenting an actual event, part of a broader cultural narrative. We can’t always come to that conclusion, but we can acknowledge that it was a very powerful place from an ontological standpoint. Looking at the ways of the world and the nature of being and also recognizing that some of the art may have been communications not only between humans but between humans and other non-human beings. Backing off from a more literal interpretation to engaging with those native voices.”

· Is there anything else significant you think I should include about Native American astronomy in my blog?

“In general, for the Americas, it is notable that there is this pattern because we see this not just in north America but we see it in South and Central America. Alignments of central placements to the cosmological bodies and we are seeing more and more as archaeologists have gotten better at engaging with archeoastronomy that there are also other celestial bodies that are being marked and documented.”

· Is there any astronomical event that you know of that Indigenous Americans may have seen?

“It is likely that they did see the 1054 supernova. My grad advisor had this bigger theory that part of the impetus for Cahokia becoming the central place that it was, that some of the religious leaders were drawing off the power of that event. Some have suggested that pottery that is associated with Cahokia at its biggest extent and it’s called Ramey Incised and there is a theory that some of the decorations on the Ramey Incised that has a swirl motif may have been tied to that supernova. And who knows, maybe someone reinterpreted it in the context of that and it may have had those indirect effects. And here is the hard part of archaeology it could have been recorded on something that didn’t survive on the archaeologic record. We have great examples of historic events that are recorded on buffalo skin robes these are place where we have essentially historic documents in pictographs form but these are materials that don’t survive in an archaeologic context. Humans are so creative that we interpret and add meaning to things in such a diverse fashion it is hard to come to one meaning.”