Melissa Baltus
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Archaeologist
Office: UH 2680 G
Phone: 419.530.4395Email: melissa.baltus@utoledo.edu
Education
Ph.D. in Anthropology, 2014, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A. in Anthropology, 2009, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
B.A. in Anthropology with a concentration in Archaeology, 2002, Minnesota State University
Moorhead
Research Interests
My research focuses on the interconnectedness of daily life, religious-politics, and urbanization in the past. Specifically, this archaeological research centers on the Native American city of Cahokia (ca. 1050 CE - 1375 CE). I’m interested in the ways that individual choices and daily practices impact political and religious history in the creation and disintegration of urban communities. Additionally, I investigate the ways people instigate political and religious change through their adoption or rejection of objects and practices embedded with political-religious significance. For Cahokia specifically, this consists of a rejection of iconographic pottery and unique politico-religious buildings as part of a revitalization movement (an intentional movement to improve social and political life, often using religious ideologies) around 1200 CE. This has led to further interest in urban issues; namely, what leads people to inhabit and abandon cities, and what the aftereffects of that abandonment might be. More broadly, I am interested in why people invest time and energy in “place-making” (i.e., creating a landscape embedded with history, identity, and meaning) in the creation of urban spaces; especially why people would cut ties with places in which time, energy, and identity of multiple generations were invested. This research has expanded to consider the reverberating impact of Cahokia and processes by which Mississippian period artifact types and practices were variously adopted within the Great Lakes region post-11th century. Additionally, I explore the ways in which political alliances and social identities shaped population movements before, during, and after Cahokia’s florescence, including large-scale population movements initiated during the 13th century CE, which likely shaped the historical trajectory of the Midwest.
Current Projects
I’m currently working on a multi-year, NSF-funded project at Cahokia in collaboration with Dr. Sarah Baires (Eastern Connecticut State University). This project, Creating the Ancient City: Social Investment of Peripheral Neighborhoods in the Making of Cahokia, investigates how neighborhoods at the geographical margins of the city may or may not be socially peripheral and how that affects the historical trajectory of that city. Focusing on the lived experiences of people in different neighborhoods in an ancient city, we consider the local investments (e.g., architecture, infrastructure, neighborhood organization) and the potential benefits (e.g., access to certain goods, spaces, or activities) that coincide with actively participating in the city and its goings-on. We are seeking evidence as to how invested people living in peripheral neighborhoods may have been in the ideologies and practices of Cahokia. Were they investing their time and energy into building infrastructure (mounds, borrow pits, and causeways) and public architecture (shrines, council houses) in those locations? Were they participating in activities like ceremonies and feasts or making and using objects associated with the operations of the city (e.g., specific pottery used in feasting, spinning or weaving textiles, shell-bead production) to a similar degree as people living in the core “downtown” area? We are also considering how the degree of investment may have contributed to local, neighborhood social identities or status in comparison with other neighborhoods near the core areas of Cahokia. Did people living in peripheral neighborhoods have access to the same foods, completed objects, or raw materials as people living “downtown”? Finally, we’re interested in whether the degree of investment contributed to length and intensity of neighborhood occupation. Were neighborhoods with indications of high degree of investment in the city occupied for longer periods of time with a higher population than neighborhoods which were perhaps less invested? If people were living in peripheral neighborhoods were less engaged in the practices and ideologies of the city, did they leave Cahokia earlier than people living in other neighborhoods? By considering neighborhood diversity in relation to level of investment in the city, we can understand whether social, economic, and political ties created through intentional engagement lead people to stay and continue to participate in the city or, conversely, whether a lack of such ties may lead to more rapid abandonment of those neighborhoods. This may help people understand the nuanced relationship between social investment and local participation, diversity of neighborhood identities, and the futures of modern cities from a bottom-up, grass-roots perspective which considers ideological engagement and a sense of belonging as much as material benefit. As of 2023, we have completed one large geophysical survey of a peripheral neighborhood at the southern margin of Cahokia. In 2024 we will continue with another geophysical survey, as well as targeted excavations at the western margins of Cahokia. This stage of research will include an IFR (Institute for Field Research) field school (https://ifrglobal.org/program/us-il-cahokia/).
Publications
Books
2023 Baltus, Melissa R., Sarah E. Baires, Elizabeth Watts-Malouchos, and Jayur Mehta (editors),
Cahokian Dispersions: Diasporic Connections in the Mississippian Southeast. Springer Nature.
2017 Baltus, Melissa R., Sarah E. Baires (editors), Relational Engagements of the Indigenous Americas: Alterity, Ontology, and Shifting Paradigms. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD.
Book Chapters
2021 Baltus, Melissa R. and Sarah E. Baires, Agentive Ash and Dispersed Power in the Cahokia
Mississippian World. In Agents of Change: The Deposition and Manipulation of Ash in the Past, edited by Barbara Roth and Chuck Adams. Berghahn Books.
2021 Buchanan, Meghan E., and Melissa R. Baltus, Communities in Conflict. In Reconsidering Mississippian Households and Communities, edited by Alleen Betzenhauser and Elizabeth Watts Malouchos, pp. 120-134. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
2020 Baires, Sarah E., and Melissa R. Baltus, Religious Partners: Material and Human Actors in the Creation of Early Cahokia. In Shamans, Priests, Practice, Belief: Archaeological Examination of Religion and Ritual in the Eastern Woodlands, edited by Stephen Carmody and Casey Barrier. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
2018 Baltus, Melissa R., From Caches to Gatherings, the Relationality of Intentionally Deposited Objects in Mississippian Buildings. In Archaeology and Ancient Religion in the American Midcontinent, edited by B. Koldehoff and T. Pauketat, pp. 81 – 116. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
2017 Baltus, Melissa R., Vessels of Change: Everyday Relationality in the Rise and Fall of Cahokia. In Relational Engagements of the Indigenous Americas: Alterity, Ontology, and Shifting Paradigms, edited by M.R. Baltus and S.E. Baires, pp. 63-85. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD.
Articles
2023 Baltus, Melissa R., Introduction and Regional Context for the Joe Louis Site (11CK284):
A Late Fisher Tradition Village on the Little Calumet River. Illinois Archaeology 33:58-76.
2023 Baltus, Melissa R., Ceramic Assemblage from Joe Louis. Illinois Archaeology 33:124-149.
2023 Baltus, Melissa R., Summarizing Joe Louis: 11CK284 in the Late Fisher Tradition. Illinois Archaeology 33: 201-213.
2023 Baires, Sarah E., Melissa R. Baltus, Kathryn Parker, and Steve Kuehn, The Role of Plants and Animals in the Termination of Three Buildings at the Spring Lake Tract Neighborhood, Cahokia. American Antiquity 88(1): 20-40.
2023 Baltus, Melissa R., and Sarah E. Baires, Creating and Abandoning ‘Homeland’: Cahokia as Place-of-Origin. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 27(1): 111-127.
2019 Baltus, Melissa R., and Gregory D. Wilson, The Cahokian Crucible: Burning Ritual and the Emergence of Cahokian Power in the Mississippian Midwest. American Antiquity 84(3):438-470.
2017 Baires, Sarah E., Melissa R. Baltus, and Elizabeth Watts-Malouchos, Exploring New Cahokian Neighborhoods: Structure Density Estimates from the Spring Lake Tract Cahokia. American Antiquity 82(4): 742-760.
2017 Baires, Sarah E., and Melissa R. Baltus, Matter, Places, and Persons in Cahokian Depositional Acts. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24(3):974-997.
Courses Taught
ANTH 1020 – Introduction to Anthropology
ANTH 2020 – Introduction to Archaeology
ANTH 2750 – World Archaeology
ANTH 2800 – Cultural Anthropology
ANTH 3020 – Ohio Prehistory
ANTH 3900 – North American Archaeology
ANTH 4510 – Field Methods in Archaeology
ANTH 4200 – History and Theory in Anthropology
ANTH 4520 – Laboratory Methods in Archaeology
ANTH 4980 – Problems in Anthropology: Archaeological Theory
ANTH 4980 – Problems in Anthropology: Archaeology of Central and South America
SOC 6930 – Graduate Seminar: Cross-cultural Exploration of Sex, Gender, and Age