Cahokian Dispersions (PDF)

Dr. Melissa Baltus is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toledo. She earned her BA from Minnesota State University Moorhead and both her MA and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her area of specialization is North American Archaeology, with a focus on the Indigenous city of Cahokia; research interests include urban dynamics, social movements, and the materiality of relationships. She has been awarded the University of Toledo's Recognition for Outstanding Contributions to University Scholarship and Creative Activity and the College of Arts and Letters Outstanding Teacher Award. She has authored or co-authored articles published in American Antiquity, Journal of Social Archaeology, and Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, as well as chapters in peer-reviewed volumes like the recently published Reconsidering Mississippian Households and Communities (A. Betzenhauser and E.W Malouchos, eds., 2021).
Dr. Sarah E. Baires is an accomplished Associate Professor of anthropological archaeology at Eastern Connecticut State University. Her research focuses on the pre-Columbian (AD 1050-1400) Native American city of Cahokia, which is located near St. Louis, MO and concerns how cities are built, what draws people to cities, and the role religion plays in the organization of political governments. Dr. Baires has published multiple peer-reviewed articles and two books: Land of Water City of the Dead: Religion and Cahokia's Emergence (University of Alabama Press), and The Global Middle Ages: Cahokia and the North American Worlds (Cambridge University Press). Dr. Baires is also featured in two documentary series: Native America (episode 3, PBS), and Ancient Mysteries: Cahokia (Smithsonian Channel). She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropologyfrom the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Elizabeth Watts Malouchos is a Research Archaeologist and Collaborative Research Liaison at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey