The Ideology of Authority and the Power of the Pot

Ramey Incised pots appear to have been manufactured at and dispersed from centers of chiefly authority during the 11th‐12th centuries A.D. in a portion of the Mississippi Valley. Based on an analysis of motif design, meaning, and the archeological context of vessels, an elite ideology appears indicated in which chiefly lords were the mediators of the cosmos. This archeological perspective in political ideology begins to address the larger questions of the long‐term dynamics of pre‐state polities.