MOUND BUILDING AT LAKE JACKSON (8LE1), TALLAHASSEE,FLORIDA: NEW INSIGHTS FROM GROUND PENETRATING RADAR

Abstract

The Lake Jackson Mounds site (8LE1), located near Tallahassee, Florida, has long been considered to be a frontier Mississippian center. This assertion is primarily based on elaborate burial goods recovered during salvage excavations in the 1970s. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) on the two largest intact mounds at Lake Jackson revealed new information about their morphology and construction histories. These findings demonstrate that mound-building practices at the site were distinct from earlier, local Woodland mound-building traditions, and more similar to those of other Mississippian centers, such as Etowah and Moundville. Lake Jackson revitalized mound building in the Tallahassee area under the influence of external connections with groups in the Mississippian interaction network. These findings show how mound building was an integral practice for expressing and expanding Mississippian ideologies and rituals. This work also shows the utility of GPR in exploring mounds' morphologies and construction histories.     

ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM AND CHEROKEE TOWNHOUSES

Abstract

Public structures known as townhouses were hubs of public life within Cherokee communities in the southern Appalachians before and after European contact. Townhouses themselves were architectural manifestations of Cherokee towns. The architectural symbolism of townhouses was related to the symbolism of late precontact Mississippian platform mounds, mythical connections between earthen mounds and Cherokee townhouses, and color symbolism that was widespread in the Southeast during the eighteenth century. These points are evident from documentary sources, oral tradition, and the sequence of protohistoric Cherokee townhouses at the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern North Carolina.     

THE 1974–75 EXCAVATIONS AT MOUND BOTTOM,A PALISADED MISSISSIPPIAN CENTER IN CHEATHAM COUNTY,TENNESSEE

Abstract

Mound Bottom (40CH8) is a large complex of 14 prehistoric mounds located in a horseshoe-shaped bend of the Harpeth River, a tributary of the Cumberland, in Cheatham County, Tennessee. It, together with another mound group 3 km to the south known as the Pack site (40CH1), received sporadic archaeological attention during the first half of the twentieth century, but it was not until 1974 that systematic work was carried out at either mound center. Over portions of that and the following year, Mound Bottom was mapped in detail and excavations were carried out to document the range in variability of mound construction and community structure. Six mounds were tested and 19 houses were partially or totally excavated. House types included both single-set-post structures and wall-trench structures. Calibrated radiocarbon dates from Mound Bottom span about a 600-year period from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries.     

THE CHRONOLOGY OF MONKS MOUND

Abstract

Monks Mound is the largest single Native American construction in North America. The mound sits at the center of the Cahokia site, and interpretations of its construction and use are fundamental for understanding how Mississippian peoples created mounds and landscapes. In the past, researchers speculated that Monks Mound was both one of the oldest and longest-lived monuments at Cahokia. Using a Bayesian computer model that incorporates both archaeological information and radiocarbon dates, I argue the mound is younger and was built more rapidly than previously thought. The mound likely was built in two very rapid efforts spanning fewer than twenty years. This analysis shows Cahokian society could mobilize vast quantities of labor for short periods, which may have inhibited institutionalized, transgenerational sociopolitical hierarchies.     

Excavations and Survey at Bryn Cysegrfan,Llanfair Clydogau,Dyfed, 1979

THE EARTHWORKS of a group of pillow mounds in association with four buildings were surveyed and partially excavated during 1978 and 1979 in advance of destruction. Below the earthen mounds, on the former ground surface, were alignments of flat stones found to cover a network of artificial burrows for rabbits. A single radiocarbon date from burnt vegetation beneath one mound provided a date of a.d. 1375±60. The buildings were also excavated and found to be of typical Welsh upland form.     

A NEW LOOK AT KINCAID: MAGNETIC SURVEY OF A LARGE MISSISSIPPIAN TOWN

Abstract

Despite extensive work by the University of Chicago in 1934–44, Kincaid has remained one of the least understood of the large mid-South Mississippian mound complexes. Between 2003 and 2009, large-scale magnetic gradient survey was done on 33.6 ha of the site, roughly half of the total site area and 65 percent of the larger and more accessible Massac County portion. The survey was highly successful, revealing large numbers of cultural features, including palisades, structures, pit features, and midden areas. This paper presents the preliminary results of the geophysical survey, complemented by small-scale groundtruthing excavations. Together these have significantly expanded and refined our understanding of this large prehistoric town. Kincaid is clearly much larger than once thought, both in terms of total site area and area of habitation. The site also exhibits much greater internal complexity, as evidenced by internal palisades and numerous small mounds and earthen platforms.     

Farm mounds of the harstad area

The farm mounds of coastal North Norway are settlement accumulations produced by long period settlement on the same location. The majority seems to have come during medieval and later periods, but there are a few of early iron age origin.

There has been no total excavation of a farm mound, only minor trenches. This paper summarizes the efforts done on exploring the context and characteristics of farm mounds, based on surveys in one central part of North Norway, the Harstad area.

Questions like economical reconstruction and causes of accumulation are discussed.     

Late third‐millennium elite burials in Bahrain

Studies of old aerial photographs of the Bahrain burial mound fields have revealed that a small number of both Early Type (c. 2200–2050 BC) and Late Type (c. 2050–1750 BC) mounds are encircled by an outer ring wall, apparently marking out the mound as belonging to an elite. Four of these mounds have been excavated, and the results are presented. The geological differences between the Early Type and the Late Type mound landscapes are discussed.     

A Filtered Past: Interpreting Salt Production and Trade Models from Two Remnant Brine-Enrichment Mounds at the Ancient Maya Paynes Creek Salt Works,Belize

The mounds at Witz Naab and Killer Bee are the only known remaining aboveground evidence of a once-thriving salt industry in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, a large saltwater system in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. Over one hundred ancient Maya salt works dated to the Classic period (a.d. 300–900) have been submerged by sea-level rise in the lagoon. We have hypothesized that mounds were once numerous features on the landscape prior to a sea-level rise that occurred in the area during the Terminal Classic period. Lacking at these underwater sites are earthen mounds formed by discarded soil from the leaching process in which the salinity of seawater was enriched by leaching brine through salty soil. Enriching the salinity of seawater by leaching or by solar evaporation is virtually universal in ethnographic case studies. Data from the excavations are evaluated to interpret the ancient activities that produced the earthen mounds, scales of production, and how the coastal Maya of southern Belize participated in the larger Classic Maya economy.     

Survivorship of Earthworks Mapped by T. H. Lewis in Iowa 1884–1894

ABSTRACT

Between 1884 and 1894, Theodore Hayes Lewis mapped 370 prehistoric American Indian mounds and earthworks in Iowa as part of a larger survey of mounds in the upper Midwest. Georeferencing remapped Lewis survey notes allows their comparison with modern GIS data including lidar topographic maps, aerial photos, and land records. Of the 370 mounds, 190 (51.4%) are clearly visible in lidar, 160 (43.2%) are probably destroyed, and 20 (5.4%) are undetermined. Data analyses explore the factors that influenced mound survivorship. By far the strongest correlations for survivorship are modern land use, modern ownership, and local landform, with mounds most likely to survive in wooded areas, on public land, and on islands. Iowa data are compared with Lewis map data from Minnesota, revealing Iowa has a far higher survivorship, 51.4% versus 25.6%, likely attributable to land use in the late nineteenth century. Further comparison with Minnesota data suggests perhaps twice as many mounds stood in modern agricultural fields of Iowa before Lewis made his surveys.     

The DaVincis of dirt: Geoarchaeological perspectives on Native American mound building in the Mississippi River basin

The complexity of mound construction, as revealed through geoarchaeological analyses, indicates the cultural significance of mounds may be as well reflected in the earthen construction materials and their arrangement, as it is in the artifacts abandoned on their summits. We use geoarchaeological examples from three sites in the Mississippi River basin, Shiloh Mounds, Cahokia, and Poverty Point, to advocate a geoarchaeological approach that considers multiple scales from the regional soils and geomorphology, field observation of lithostratigraphic units, to the micro-scale identification of the mineralogy and soil development in order to decipher the source and processing of the soils and sediments. We focus on the use of five types of construction referred to here as: sod blocks, soil blocks, loaded fills, zoned fills and veneers. Also we address the selection and transportation of soils and sediments used in mound building and what these types of deposits reveal about the methods used to build mounds. These data can be used to evaluate and understand organization of labor, pace of construction, and mound appearance. We hold there is a considerable (although unquantified) difference between earth moving and mound building and that the construction of these important monuments required considerable knowledge, skill, planning, hard work, and attention to symbolic and ritual meaning.     

POPULATION DISPERSAL AND HUMAN HEALTH AT MOUNDVILLE

Abstract

This article assesses the health of a sample of the Moundville population before and after population dispersal and resettlement from the paramount site of Moundville (1TU500). Patterns of chronic and acute infections, trauma, degenerative conditions, and generalized health stress are explored. As gauged by these paleopathological indicators, it seems that dispersal had little, if any, effect on health. These results throw doubt on the applicability of a generalizing model which predicted improved health and nutrition in the wake of population dispersal due to improved access to a more diverse diet and reduced exposure to pathogens and parasites. Instead, the conditions of material, social, and political negotiations regarding authority and action within and among the subgroups of the Moundville constituency appear to have mitigated modeled expectations.     

Pits,mounds, and vernal ponds in a Tasmanian subalpine grassland

Falling trees commonly turbate soils in primary forest, creating characteristic edaphic patterns related to pit and mound topography. Vernal ponds with associated mounds were observed in mineral soils on a treeless plain in subalpine Tasmania, Australia. The hypothesis that paired ponds and mounds on the plain originated as pit and mound features in forests that were later destroyed by fire was tested by comparing the soils and landforms caused by recent tree falls in adjacent forest with those on the plain. The soil characteristics, orientations, and dimensions of the ponds and mounds were consistent with a tree fall origin, although rare secondary ponds on the tops of mounds may derive from the burrowing activities of the medium‐sized marsupial, Vombatus ursinus (common wombat). The characteristics of pond and mound soils suggested that most were hundreds to thousands of years old, with the ponds persisting because of differences in deflation, deposition, and organic matter formation between themselves and adjacent persistently dry land.     

REVISITING PLATFORM MOUNDS AND TOWNHOUSES IN THE CHEROKEE HEARTLAND: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH

Abstract

This article describes the development and initial results of the Western North Carolina Mounds and Towns Project, a collaborative endeavor initiated by the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Eastern Band of Cherokee and the Coweeta Long Term Ecological Research Program at the University of Georgia. The goal of this project is to generate new information about the distribution of late prehistoric mounds and historic period townhouses in western North Carolina. This ongoing research has produced updated location and chronological data for 15 Mississippian period mounds and historic Cherokee townhouses, and led to the discovery of a possible location for the Jasper Allen mound. Using these new data, I suggest that David Hally's model for the territorial size of Mississippian polities provides a useful framework for generating new research questions about social and political change in western North Carolina. I also posit that the cultural practice of rebuilding townhouses in place and on top of Mississippian period platform mounds, a process that Christopher Rodning describes as “emplacement,” was common across western North Carolina. In terms of broader impacts, this project contributes positively to the development of indigenous archaeology in the Cherokee heartland.     

The Middle Holocene Shell Mound of El Gouna on the Red Sea (Egypt)

Abstract

In the El Gouna (Hurghada) area on the Red Sea of Egypt, a Middle Holocene shell mound from around 5800 B.P. (uncalibrated radiocarbon years before A.D. 1950) has been tested by a restricted excavation. Collection of shellfish on the Red Sea shore provided subsistence opportunities for Middle Holocene groups coeval with the Early Predynastic Tasian of the Nile Valley. The El Gouna site demonstrates for the first time that prehistoric shell mounds exist near the Egyptian Red Sea shore.     

The Possible Advantage of Living in Turf Houses on Settlement Mounds

Abstract

Before timber and stone houses were introduced to northern regions, varieties of turf houses were the most commonly used architecture. These houses had a wooden structure encapsulated in a shell constructed of grass turf. The different ethnic groups of the north built their houses in different styles and constructions, but the general principle was the same. The Norse of North Norway and also on the North Atlantic islands had a tendency to build their houses on top of the ruins of previous houses. After a few centuries this arrangement produced a settlement mound of highly organic soil. In the research literature, both the turf architecture and the settlement mounds have been described as adaptations to and a function of marginality and lack of timber. This paper reports an effort to test the idea that turf houses on top of settlement mounds may have been a finely tuned ecological system that made use of the capacity of organic soil to produce heat.     

日本列岛封土石室墓的展开与连云港石室墓

4世纪后半叶,封土石室墓开始在日本列岛出现。日本列岛的横穴石室受到了朝鲜半岛的影响。九州地区的古坟是最早导入的。5世纪后半叶,与此不同的新型石室在近畿地方出现,并在此后的日本列岛得到了广泛普及。7世纪,由于薄葬化的推进,小型的横口式石椁墓出现,这代表着古坟文化走向了尾声。江苏连云港的封土石室墓的构造,虽与朝鲜半岛和日本列岛两地皆有类似之处,但其与中国的砖结构墓葬和朝鲜古坟的关系也是必须要考虑的。而与日本列岛石室墓的类似,笔者认为是以朝鲜半岛为中介的间接的关联。     

Automated mound detection using lidar and object-based image analysis in Beaufort County,South Carolina

The study of precontact anthropogenic mounded features—earthen mounds, shell heaps, and shell rings—in the American Southeast is stymied by the spotty distribution of systematic surveys across the region. Many extant, yet unidentified, archaeological mound features continue to evade detection due to the heavily forested canopies that occupy large areas of the region, making pedestrian surveys difficult and preventing aerial observation. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) is a tool for analyzing light and radar (lidar) data and offers an inexpensive opportunity to address this challenge. Using publicly available lidar data from Beaufort County, South Carolina, and an OBIA approach that incorporates morphometric classification and statistical template matching, we systematically identify over 160 previously undetected mound features. This result improves our overall knowledge of settlement patterns by providing systematic knowledge about past landscapes.     

Assessing the contribution of integrated geoarchaeological approaches to understand the formation and function of burnt mounds: the example of Hoppenwood Bank,North Northumberland

Burnt mounds are detrital mounds of fire-cracked rock and charcoal, deposited as the result of a prehistoric process for heating water. They are the most numerous prehistoric monument found across Britain and Ireland and have traditionally been difficult to study due to their apparent homogeneity and lack of distinguishing features. This study seeks to change the discussion surrounding burnt mounds and evaluates a large early- to mid-Bronze Age burnt mound at Hoppenwood Bank in Northumberland using an integrated microarchaeological methodology, the contribution of which is assessed. A combination of micromorphology and silicic microfossil analyses indicates that these deposits are complex and multifaceted, showing variability in their depositional sequences, microcomponents, and taphonomy. The identification of hiatuses in deposition and desiccation of surfaces beneath the burnt mound indicate that the accumulation of material may have been periodic or seasonal, and dating suggests that sequential deposition may have spanned 500–700 years. Taphonomic issues identified at the microscale highlight concerns for the interpretation of microfossils. This paper considers the implications of these observations and argues that burnt mounds should be viewed as caches of environmental and sediment-based data, indicative of sequences within landscape use-patterns and human-environment interactions.