Pipes and Smoking Research
I was led to pursue intensive study of Native American Indian smoking pipes -
and the ritual milieu of their usage - after recovering hundreds of fragments of elaborately decorated pipes at the Glass Site in southern Georgia. In the quest to make sense of their meaning, I came to realize that almost nowhere in the region had they been a subject of serious consideration. That gap was the impetus for my University of Virginia doctoral dissertation (2012). In particular, my work has been concerned with Mississippian-era (AD 1000 - 1600) smoking ritual as it is expressed at archaeological sites in the so-called Southern Appalachian Mississippian region encompassing parts of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.
Published outcomes of this ongoing research includes the following sources:
Blanton, Dennis B.
2016 The Evolution of a Ritual: Pipes and Smoking in Etowah’s Realm. In Sacred Smoke: Current Perspectives on the Archaeology of Pipes, Tobacco and other Smoked Plants in the Ancient Americas, pp. 93-108, edited by Elizabeth Bollwerk and Shannon Tushingham, Springer Press.
Blanton, Dennis B.
2015 Mississippian Smoking Ritual in the Southern Appalachian Region. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.
Blanton, Dennis B.
2012 The Inalienable Rite: Smoking Ritual During the Mississippian Stage in the South Appalachian Region. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia.
I was led to pursue intensive study of Native American Indian smoking pipes -
and the ritual milieu of their usage - after recovering hundreds of fragments of elaborately decorated pipes at the Glass Site in southern Georgia. In the quest to make sense of their meaning, I came to realize that almost nowhere in the region had they been a subject of serious consideration. That gap was the impetus for my University of Virginia doctoral dissertation (2012). In particular, my work has been concerned with Mississippian-era (AD 1000 - 1600) smoking ritual as it is expressed at archaeological sites in the so-called Southern Appalachian Mississippian region encompassing parts of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.
Published outcomes of this ongoing research includes the following sources:
Blanton, Dennis B.
2016 The Evolution of a Ritual: Pipes and Smoking in Etowah’s Realm. In Sacred Smoke: Current Perspectives on the Archaeology of Pipes, Tobacco and other Smoked Plants in the Ancient Americas, pp. 93-108, edited by Elizabeth Bollwerk and Shannon Tushingham, Springer Press.
Blanton, Dennis B.
2015 Mississippian Smoking Ritual in the Southern Appalachian Region. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.
Blanton, Dennis B.
2012 The Inalienable Rite: Smoking Ritual During the Mississippian Stage in the South Appalachian Region. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia.