David H. Dye is professor of archaeology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Memphis.

• Introduction: An Archaeology of Mississippian Ritual PracticesPart I Sacred BundlesChapter 1: Dressing and Caring for the Spirits: The Role of Sacred Bundles in Siouan SocietyChapter 2: Ritual Languages of the Southeast: Sacred Bundles in the Memory Theaters of Mississippian Period RitualismChapter 3: Nested Bundles Within Etowah’s Mound CChapter 4: “Cradleboard Figurines” Or Icons of Sacred Bundles?Chapter 5: Regalia and Sacred Bundles from Mound 1 at the Castalian Spring Mounds, TennesseePart II Other-Than-Human Persons and Ritual CachesChapter 6: The Link Farm Cache: Invoking the Ancestors and Supplicating the Hero TwinsChapter 7: Earth Mother in the Middle Cumberland, Beneath World Powers, and a Portal to the OtherworldChapter 8: Medicine for the Dead: Shell Gorgets as Accompaniments for Rites of PassagePart III Elite RegaliaChapter 9: Hair, Hats, and Headdresses as Symbolic Regalia in Missouri Rock ArtChapter 10: Caddo Regalia in Context: Historic and Ethnographic ExamplesCh

Mississippian Culture Heroes, Ritual Regalia, and Sacred Bundles is an essential read for archaeologists researching and thinking about Mississippian symbols. It addresses important and timely issues, such as the use and depiction of ceremonial bundles and ritual regalia, as well as the significance of culture heroes and other-than-human persons in Mississippian belief systems and cosmologies. Certain chapters also focus on under-discussed mound centers, such as the Castalian Springs, Link Farm, and Lake Jackson sites, in ways that alter our understanding of these Mississippian communities. Additionally, its chapters engage in pertinent discussions about how Mississippian symbols were intertwined with ceremonial practices and memory in ways that are sure to influence future archaeological analyses.