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and Mississippian material culture. Arti¤cial bodies of water at Cahokia and most Mississippian ceremonial centers (e.g., the Arcola, Cramer, and Barton Ranch sites) are by-products of the construction of earthen architecture and earthen mounds. The process of obtaining ¤ll, dug by hand in the village and low-lying areas, left gaping holes in the landscape. Some of these newly created borrow pits were left to ¤ll in naturally.6 On the basis of the limited archaeological investigation conducted so far at Cahokia’s borrow pits, other pits were intentionally ¤lled in with refuse, including human bone7 (Bareis 1975); these were leveled and reused as new foundations for mound construction. These depressions, often water-¤lled, may have been purposefully sculpted into the landscape and placed inside ritual and ceremonial areas. For example, the Natchez and Cherokee had a ceremonial means of overcoming pollution, purifying themselves, and increasing longevity that involved going to water or bathing by plunging into water four times a day (Hudson 1976:324, 414). The water-¤lled borrow pits probably served as features themselves in the cultural landscape and appear to have been associated with several trimound groups (Figure 9.6). They may have also served as aquatic medicinal gardens; as containers of esoteric healing knowledge. Having both utilitarian and medicinal purposes, they likely also served as sources of food (i.e., waterfowl, ¤sh, reptiles) and construction material (bullrushes and reeds) and as sources of drinking water. Early accounts from travelers and writers such as William Bartram (1996) reported that the Creeks on the Tallapoosa River in Georgia and the Missouri Valley native Americans cultivated one of their favorite ®oral remedies, the blue ®ag (Iris versicolor), for medicinal (cathartic or laxative) purposes. According to Bartram, “They hold this root in high estimation, every town cultivates a little plantation of it, having a large arti¤cial pond, just without the town, planted and almost overgrown with it, where they dig clay for pottery, and mortar and plaster for their buildings, and I observed where they had lately been digging up this root” (Bartram 1996:366–67; Vogel 1973:104–5). Other aquatic plants such as ground nut (Apios americana), lotus (Nelumbo lutea), arrowhead (Sagitaria sagittifolia), and duck potato (Saggitaria latifolia) were often cultivated and harvested in wet environments (Densmore 1974:292; Foster and Duke 1990:16, 158), possibly formed by water-¤lled borrow pits that may have acted as aquatic gardens. 222 Demel and Hall At least twenty borrow pits have been identi¤ed at Cahokia (Dalan 1993:42, 135; Fowler 1989:230). Borrow pits at Cahokia were probably located in wet and swampy areas rather than in productive agricultural land, and they were likely ®ooded on a seasonal basis (Smith 1978a:484). Many of these borrow pits were later ¤lled in with refuse and soil and reclaimed for mound construction or habitation (Fowler 1989:188) as part of the expansion and reorganization of the site. In an example of land reclamation or urban renewal, Mound 51 was constructed over part of a borrow pit that had been ¤lled in quickly with refuse (Chmurny 1973; Fowler 1989:124). A pit beneath Mound 34 was¤lled in much the same way (Reed, Bennett, and Porter 1968:145). By contrast , a portion of the central part of Borrow Pit 5-1A was ¤lled in by natural sedimentation.8 The remainder of the pit contained arti¤cial ¤ll and midden ,9 primarily at what appears to be the water edge (about the 38-meter contour) or margin of the pit (Demel 1992). The typological consistency of most potsherds found in Borrow Pit 51A is typical of those found in the Lohmann phase. A small percentage of Stirling phase ceramics were also recovered (Hall 1972), consisting of Powell Plain and Hickory Fine Engraved (Bareis and Porter 1984:168; Fowler and Hall 1975:6). Among the nonceramic artifacts were Mill Creek hoe fragments with visible sickle gloss (Demel 1992), placing the borrow pit within a time when maize was cultivated (also found in the Lohmann phase). Some badly decomposed human skeletal fragments were also recovered from the borrow pit ¤ll (Demel 1992). The ¤lling of borrow pits and the leveling of areas throughout Cahokia appear to have been more common than once thought. Fowler (1989:179) suggests and Dalan (1993:42, 135) demonstrates that some of the central portion of Cahokia had originally contained several borrow pits. As the population expanded during the Emergent Mississippi period, that portion of the site...

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