Katie Zejdlik WASRA

Katie Zejdlik, a Ph.D Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University examined dentition of Late Woodland and Mississippian peoples:

WASRA funding helped support my dissertation research, which is an investigation of biological relatedness between Cahokia and individuals at the northern limits of the Mississippian landscape. The processes behind the Mississippianization of the Midwest are unknown and often assumed to be the result of interaction with individuals from the Mississippian center, Cahokia. These assumptions are based on material culture and site organization but it is unknown to what level direct contact occurred. Biological relationships can be derived from the size and shape of teeth as these traits are genetically inherited. Individuals from 8 Wisconsin Effigy Mound sites and 2 Wisconsin Mississippian sites are being compared to individuals from Late Woodland and Mississippian sites in the Central Illinois River Valley and southern Indiana as well as Langford sites in northeastern Illinois. WASRA funding provided me the resources for travel, room, and board so that I could examine the Wisconsin component of this project.