A FRESH LOOK AT A LITTLE-KNOWN SOUTHEASTERN COPPER PLATE

Abstract

Chauga (38OC47) is a mound site now under Lake Hartwell at the head of the Savannah River in Oconee County, South Carolina. Excavations in 1958–1959 by the University of Georgia recovered a Mississippian copper plate. Upon comparison to others of its kind, it is clear that this lesser-known plate encompasses some interesting design features, most notably the presence of the only known depiction of a chunkey stone on copper. We have recently created a more accurate representation of its design. The plate appears to portray many similarities to depictions of Birdman dancers: kilted dancers and dancing elders within the “Stack” style. Birdman themes are common in Mississippian iconography. Given the importance that copper plates have for interpreting Mississippian art and belief systems, this updated examination provides useful new information for researchers studying Mississippian iconography.     

A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF MISSISSIPPIAN CERAMIC VESSELS FROM TOWN CREEK

Abstract

Vessel shape, size, and use-alterations are used to identify vessel types and vessel functions among Mississippian ceramics from the Town Creek site in central North Carolina. Possible functions are discussed for vessel types, and broad distinctions are made regarding vessels that possibly were used for cooking, serving and eating, or storage. The composition of the overall vessel assemblage at Town Creek indicates that it is generally comparable with other Mississippian assemblages. A consideration of the distribution of vessel types by context allows some insights into the association of different activities with different parts of the Mississippian community at Town Creek, namely, that the mound area was associated with distinctive vessel assemblages.     

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.     

Fort Ancient-Mississippian Interaction and Shell-Tempered Pottery at SunWatch Village,Ohio

Abstract

The use of mussel shell for tempering pottery vessels by Fort Ancient societies is poorly understood. Suggestions have included both diffusion from neighboring Mississippian social groups and local developments, although no studies have investigated whether shell-tempered pottery is non-local or associated with Mississippian features and artifact types within Fort Ancient sites. This study begins to remedy this deficiency by examining the social and temporal contexts and petrographic composition of shell-tempered pottery at the Sun Watch site, a Fort Ancient village located in sw Ohio that was occupied during the height of neighboring Mississippian developments (ca.A.D. 1150–1450). Our findings indicate that shell tempered pottery was not produced locally and is linked with a village leader and Mississippian-inspired architecture.     

A TOWN AT THE CROSSROADS: SITE-WIDE GRADIOMETRY SURVEYING AND MAPPING AT OLD TOWN RIDGE SITE (3CG41) IN NORTHEASTERN ARKANSAS

Abstract

Gradiometry survey at the Old Town Ridge (3CG41) site, a stockaded Middle Mississippian period town in the central Mississippi River Valley of Arkansas, demonstrates the efficacy of a broad-coverage, site-encompassing remote sensing methodology for initial interpretation of intrasite organization and complexity. Site access, time constraints, deep plow furrows, and cotton plant “stubble” associated with ongoing agriculture at the site defer the efficient use of a site-wide multisensor prospection methodology. However, a gradiometry survey identified multiple anomalies consistent with prehistoric structures, earthworks, earthquake liquefaction, and other interpreted features encompassed within the remains of a 7-ha, rectangular enclosure. Aerial photography, topography, and preliminary archaeological ground truthing provided additional information for analysis and interpretation.     

WHY WALL TRENCHES?

Abstract

Discussions of Mississippian architectural modes have dwelled too much on differentiating flexed-pole and rigidpost buildings, both of which were probably constructed throughout the Mississippian period (A.D. 1050–1350) in the greater Cahokia region. New evidence from recently excavated Richland Complex settlements suggests the innovation of a “curtain-wall construction technique” that, on the one hand, was based on a traditional interior truss structure and, on the other, permitted the prefabrication of exterior walls. Such a hybrid construction mode might have solved the immediate problem of new housing at late-eleventh-century Cahokia while adapting techniques familiar to local builders. Besides highlighting the importance of interior roof-support posts, our conclusion also means that greater attention to post-mold details is required using crosssectioning rather than post-scooping methods of excavation.     

CHALLENGES IN APPROACHES TO SKELETAL STATURE ESTIMATION: AN EXAMPLE FROM PREHISTORIC EASTERN MISSISSIPPI AND WESTERN ALABAMA

Abstract

Although stature is used widely as a bioarchaeological health indicator, its determination and subsequent interpretation are not always straightforward. A study of 77 individuals from eight prehistoric populations from the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway illustrates this issue. Application of three common stature estimation formulae to five Middle/Late Woodland and four Mississippian groups strongly suggests that use of partial versus whole bone, choice of element, and stature estimation method can create disparate patterns in health interpretation, not only for the direction of differences but particularly regarding the degree of differences among groups.     

Questioning Craft Production at Angel Mounds Analysis of the 2006–2009 Angel Mounds Field-Schools

Abstract

Seventy years of archaeological investigations at the site of Angel Mounds (12VG1) have led to a broad overall understanding of the cultural practices of the Mississippian people in southwest Indiana nearly 1,000 years ago, but have also raised ever expanding new questions. Recent field-school excavations at Angel Mounds, sponsored by the Glenn A. Black Laboratory (GBL) at Indiana University, explored magnetic anomalies in a previously unexcavated area at Angel Mounds. Analyses of features and artifacts encountered during the excavations at Unit A (the “Potter's House”), including large amounts of Mississippi Plain pottery and craft-production objects, inspired new questions on the organization of craft production at Angel Mounds and other Mississippian archaeological sites. In this article, I test whether a structure at Unit A may have been a craftproduction workshop by reviewing data archaeologists traditionally associate with workshops and examining the standardization of pottery found at the location. Preliminary results demonstrate the variability of Mississippi Plain pottery, even within single locations, and also show the potential analytical utility of such variability for testing important issues in the archaeology of Mississippian societies, including supposed elite-control over craft production and intrasite social organizations.     

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON MISSISSIPPIAN OCCUPATIONS IN WESTERN TENNESSEE AND NORTHWESTERN MISSISSIPPI: RECENT CHRONOLOGICAL AND GEOPHYSICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT CHUCALISSA (40SY1), SHELBY COUNTY,TENNESSEE

Abstract

Investigations at Chucalissa (40SY1) in Shelby County, Tennessee, have been instrumental in establishing Mississippian period chronology for southwestern Tennessee and much of the surrounding region. Excavations conducted in 2003 produced a suite of new radiocarbon dates that has provided a refined developmental lineage of occupations in West Tennessee and northwestern Mississippi, while geophysical investigations in 2011 have clarified our understanding of the late prehistoric occupation of the site and validated suggestions of distinctive mound architecture in a region extending over a large portion of the Southeast.     

Social integration at a frontier and the creation of Mississippian social identity in southwestern Virginia

ABSTRACT

Frontier areas are poor in labor but rich in land. To be successful, frontiers must attract people and socially integrate them using both low- and high-level social integrative mechanisms, which can range from basic work groups to elaborate feasts. Craft production can be a useful means of accomplishing low and high levels of social integration because it can be done as part of a work group but for special purposes, such as exchange. In the process of social integration, social identity specific to the types of crafts produced and their uses emerges. This paper examines a Mississippian frontier site, Carter Robinson, and discusses evidence for the production and use of ceramics and shell beads as integrative mechanisms at the Southern Appalachian Mississippian frontier area. Through the use of these types of mechanisms I argue that both a communal social identity and an identity of social inequality were created at Carter Robinson which resulted in the production and reproduction of Mississippian identity.     

Paired Mississippian Communities in the Lower Ohio Hinterland of Southern Illinois

Abstract

Millstone Bluff and Hayes Creek are principal sites in a late Mississippian complex in the upper Bay Creek watershed in southern Illinois. These and other settlements represent a 13th century expansion of Mississippian settlement away from large stream valleys into remote interior locations. Although contemporaneous and very close to one another, these sites are very different and have a complex history. These two sites were explored in six seasons of excavation and here we summarize that work, focusing on commonalities and differences in architectural patterning and community structure. These reveal that the two sites appear to have varied as a function of nature of initial settlement, adherence to a village layout, and respective roles in the larger settlement system.     

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.     

Molecular evidence of changing foodways across the Mississippian transition at the George Reeves site (11S650)

ABSTRACT

The George Reeves site (11S650) is a multicomponent village on the bluffs in the central American Bottom, Illinois. The site was occupied from the Late Woodland Rosewood phase through the Mississippian Lohmann phase. Pottery use and dietary variation between the Late Woodland and Emergent Mississippian occupations at the site were explored through stylistic analysis, pottery residue analysis, and compound-specific carbon isotopic analysis of pottery residues. Although more samples should be analyzed, diet and pottery use at George Reeves seems to have been varied, with maize present by cal AD 900–1000, but comprising a relatively small portion of lipid residues in pottery. Residue analysis indicates a C₄ presence in 5 of 16 sampled pots from the early Emergent Mississippian deriving from either maize or from meat from animals consuming maize. Pottery residues were mixed, showing C₃ and C₄ plants as well as meat and fish or shellfish. One residue showed a high incidence of C₄ contribution, most likely from Portulaca oleracea (common purslane), as well as large amounts of fish or shellfish and another C₃ plant. Residue from a ceramic pipestem indicates that maize may have been smoked, probably in the form of maize silk mixed with other nontobacco plants.     

A REASSESSMENT OF THE CHRONOLOGY OF MOUND A AT TOQUA

Abstract

The Toqua site (40MR6) is one of the most thoroughly excavated Late Mississippian mound sites in East Tennessee. The site has been a focal point of research on late prehistory in southern Appalachia, but there are issues surrounding its chronological placement. The radiometric dates obtained for the site in the 1970s and the archaeomagnetic dates reported in 1999 have large standard deviations. These dates are too imprecise to be useful for a temporal placement of the site that is clear enough for current discussions of the development of Mississippian culture. A newly obtained Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) date from the large platform mound (Mound A) allows a reevaluation of the occupation sequence of the Toqua site. This date provides an anchor for a refined chronology for Mound A. In addition to the new AMS date, this refined chronology is based on complementary lines of evidence, including architectural evidence, mortuary practices, pottery traditions, and shell gorget styles.     

A Mississippian Mace at Iroquoia's Southern Door

Abstract

This paper documents a Mississippian chipped stone mace, found by Lyle Edger, an amateur collector, in an agricultural field in Nichols, NY, along the Susquehanna River. This crown-form mace is made out of Dover chert and was probably produced by Mississippian people who lived in Middle Tennessee, circa A.D. 1200–1400. We argue that the Nichols Mace could have been acquired by Iroquoian people as the result of either a gift or diplomatic negotiations. We conclude that the meanings the mace held for Iroquoian people were likely tied to how they acquired it.     

Foodways and community at the Late Mississippian site of Parchman Place

ABSTRACT

Communal eating events or feasts were important activities associated with the founding and maintenance of Mississippian communities in the southeastern United States. More often than not, however, archaeological deposits of food refuse are interpreted along a spectrum, with household-level consumption at one end and community-wide feasting at the other. Here, we draw attention to the important ways that domestic food practices contributed to social events and processes at the community level. We examine ceramic, botanical, and faunal assemblages from two fourteenth-century contexts at Parchman Place (22CO511), a Late Mississippi period site in the northern Yazoo Basin. For the earlier deposit, everyday ceramics and plant foods combined with high-utility deer portions and exotic birds suggest potluck-style feasting meant to bring people together in the context of establishing a community in place. We interpret the later deposit, with its pure ash matrix, focus on serving wares, and purposeful disposal of edible maize and animal remains, as the result of activities related to maize harvest ceremonialism. Both practices suggest that household contributions in general and disposal of domestic food refuse in particular are critical yet underappreciated venues for creating and maintaining community ties in the Mississippian Southeast.     

Shell beads from Mississippian sites in the northern Yazoo Basin,Mississippi

ABSTRACT

In this paper, which focuses on the Mississippian period in the northern Yazoo Basin, Mississippi, I present some interesting findings from research done over the past century. In this area, most shell beads come from surface collections, or from excavated burials in cemeteries or ossuaries. Burial styles include extended, flexed, semi-flexed, and bundles, with very few cremations having been encountered. Bead burials also seem to reflect both common and elite people, and there are some interesting discoveries concerning association of shell beads. I will use 33 archaeologically investigated major sites as examples to illustrate an unexpected paucity of shell beads and other shell ornaments at some of the most heavily populated Mississippian sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Two other sites with shell beads in the uplands will be used for comparison.     

MAIZE ADOPTION AND INTENSIFICATION IN THE CENTRAL ILLINOIS RIVER VALLEY: AN ANALYSIS OF ARCHAEOBOTANICAL DATA FROM THE LATE WOODLAND TO EARLY MISSISSIPPIAN PERIODS (A.D. 600–1200)

Abstract

We consider the causes and timing of maize (Zea mays) intensification in the central Illinois River valley and argue that an understanding of changes in maize production requires a consideration of changes occurring in the entire plant subsistence system. To this end, we explore trends in the collection and production of plant foods from the Late Woodland (A.D. 600–1100) to Early Mississippian periods (A.D. 1100–1200). The plant data reveal a stepwise decrease in nut collection during the Late Woodland period, and again during the transition to the Early Mississippian period. This pattern is accompanied by statistical increases in maize abundance, indicating an intensification of maize production around A.D. 1100. We consider these patterns in light of similar maize increases occurring throughout the Eastern Woodlands and evaluate several possible interpretations related to population pressure, climate change, competitive generosity, and cultural emulation, the latter which appears to have been inspired by prolonged contact between local populations and Mississippian groups in the greater Cahokia area.     

Copper Working Technologies, Contexts of Use, and Social Complexity in the Eastern Woodlands of Native North America

The creative ways in which native North American peoples of the Eastern Woodlands utilized copper throughout prehistory present provocative contrasts to models of Old World metallurgical development. Archaeological approaches that incorporate laboratory methods into investigations of indigenous metalworking practice have brought new insights and raised new questions about the development and use of techniques, sources of materials, and the social dynamics of copper consumption. This paper integrates the results of these studies into a discussion of copper use in Old Copper, Hopewellian, and Mississippian traditions that focuses on illuminating the complex relations among levels of technological sophistication in the manipulation of the material itself, the often elaborate and meaning-laden contexts in which artifacts were used, and the relative social complexity of the cultures that supported copper procurement, transformation, and use. It is suggested that ‘technological style’ approaches will assist archaeologists in efforts to flesh out culture-specific aspects of its consumption.