Time's River: Archaeological Syntheses from the Lower Mississippi Valley (A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication)

567 Pages·2008·3.77 MB·English

by  Janet Rafferty

Time’s River
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Distribution of occupation patterns in the early Mississippian Period (based on Phillips,
Ford, and Griffi n 2003).
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Time’s River
Archaeological Syntheses from the
Lower Mississippi River Valley
Edited by
JANET RAFFERTY AND EVAN PEACOCK
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS
Tuscaloosa
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Funding for and sponsorship of this research provided by
the Mississippi Department of Transportation.
A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication
Copyright © 2008
The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
∞
The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information S cience—P ermanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress C ataloging-i n-P ublication Data
Time’s river : archaeological syntheses from the lower Mississippi River Valley / edited by
Janet Rafferty and Evan Peacock.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8173-1614-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-5489-3 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8112-7 (electronic) 1. Mississippi River V alley—A ntiquities.
2. Interstate 69—Antiquities. 3. Archaeology—M ississippi River Valley. 4. Excavations
(A rchaeology)—Mississippi River Valley. 5. Mississippi River V alley—H istory.
6. Prehistoric p eoples—M ississippi River Valley. 7. Indians of North A merica—M ississippi
River V alley—A ntiquities. I. Rafferty, Janet, 1947– II. Peacock, Evan, 1961–
F350.8.T56 2008
977—dc22
2007046797
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Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables x
1. Introduction: Reconsidering the Archaeology of
the Lower Mississippi River Valley
Janet Rafferty and Evan Peacock 1
2. The Interstate 69 Project in Mississippi:
Generation of an Archaeological Synthesis
John R. Underwood, James H. Turner, and Kevin L. Bruce 8
3. Archaeology in the Lower Mississippi Valley
Robert C. Dunnell 16
4. Archaeological Things: Languages of Observation
Robert C. Dunnell 45
5. Paleoenvironmental Modeling in the Central and
Lower Mississippi River Valley: Past and Future Approaches
Evan Peacock 69
6. Settlement Patterns, Occupations, and Field Methods
Janet Rafferty 99
7. Prehistoric Settlement in the Lower Mississippi Valley:
A Critical Review
Carl P. Lipo and Robert C. Dunnell 125
8. Absolute Dating in the Mississippi Delta
James K. Feathers 168
9. Bioarchaeology in the Mississippi Delta
S. Homes Hogue 182
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vi / Contents
10. Through the Lens of the Lithic Analyst:
The Organization of Mississippi Delta C hipped-S tone Technologies
Philip J. Carr 201
11. Review of Ceramic Compositional Studies from
In and Around the Mississippi Valley
Hector Neff 223
12. Ceramic Petrography and the Classifi cation of Mississippi’s
Archaeological Pottery by Fabric: A GIS Approach
Michael L. Galaty 243
13. Faunal Research in the Yazoo Basin and Lower Mississippi Valley:
Setting Parameters for Future Research in the I-69 Corridor, Mississippi
H. Edwin Jackson 274
14. Paleoethnobotanical Information and Issues Relevant to
the I-69 Overview Process, Northwest Mississippi
Gayle J. Fritz 299
15. Archaeological Remote Sensing Research in the Yazoo Basin:
A History and Evaluation
Jay K. Johnson 344
16. Culture Contact along the I-69 Corridor: Protohistoric and
Historic Use of the Northern Yazoo Basin, Mississippi
Ian W. Brown 357
17. Sad Song in the Delta: The Potential for Historical
Archaeology in the I-69 Corridor
Amy L. Young 395
18. Fording the River: Concluding Comments
Janet Rafferty and Evan Peacock 426
References Cited 433
List of Contributors 535
Index 539
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Illustrations
Figures
Frontispiece. Distribution of occupation patterns in the early Mississippian
Period (based on Phillips, Ford, and Griffi n 2003).
1.1. Location of counties and parishes included in study area. 4
2.1. Location of the proposed Interstate 69 corridor across
the United States. 9
2.2. Location of Interstate 69 corridor across
northwestern Mississippi. 11
3.1. Number of sites recorded in study area. 20
3.2. Number of publications listed in the Lower Mississippi
Valley Survey online bibliography. 41
5.1. A model for linking paleoenvironmental and archaeological
data through the use of occupations. 94
6.1. Ceramic seriation, northern Yazoo Basin, by decoration modes. 115
6.2. Ceramic seriation, southern Yazoo Basin, by decoration modes. 116
6.3. Ceramic seriation, northern Yazoo Basin, by t emper-s urface
fi nish types. 118
6.4. Ceramic seriation, southern Yazoo Basin, by temper-s urface
fi nish types. 119
6.5. Radiocarbon dates associated with seriated ceramic assemblages. 120
6.6. Site locations in seriated order, Yazoo Basin. 122
7.1. Locations identifi ed as potential archaeological deposits on
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viii / Figures
the basis of the inspection of aerial photographs and 7.5′
U.S. Geological Survey quadrangles. 133
7.2. Archaeological location identifi ed as “Indian Mounds” on
a 7.5′ U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle near the Sunfl ower River
in Mississippi and the aerial photograph from http://www.terraserver.com
(B) showing mound features. 134
7.3. Archaeological location identifi ed as “Indian Mound” on a 7.5′ U.S.
Geological Survey quadrangle (A) along Opossum Bayou in Quitman
County, Mississippi, and the aerial photograph from http://www.terraserver.
com (B) showing what appears to be a shell midden ring. 135
7.4. Locations of Taylor (25-I-1) and Boothe Landing (24-I-4) on a 7.5′
U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle (A) along the Ouachita River in
Louisiana and the aerial photograph of the same location from
http://www.terraserver.com (B) showing a semicircular ring earthwork
feature that surrounds both locations. 136
7.5. Location of a semicircular earthwork feature on a 7.5′ U.S. Geological
Survey quadrangle (A) along Wolf Lake in Humphreys County, Mississippi,
and the aerial photograph of the same location from http://www.terraserver.
com (B) showing a semicircular earthwork feature. 137
7.6. Location of a semicircular earthwork feature on a 7.5′ U.S. Geological
Survey (A) along Black Bayou in Issaquena County, Mississippi, the aerial
photograph of the same location from http://www.terraserver.com
(B) showing a circular earthwork feature, and (C) a g round-l evel photo
of wall feature. 138
7.7. A hierarchy of organizational units for the study of
settlement patterns. 144
7.8. Surface ages of the Mississippi valley based on Saucier (1994). 148
7.9. All 1,345 recorded locations in the Mississippi River
valley study area. 150
7.10. Counts of Clovis lithics by county in the survey area. 151
7.11. Counts of Dalton lithics by county in the survey area. 152
7.12. Early and Middle Archaic earthworks. 154
7.13 Distribution of Late Archaic settlement forms. 155
7.14. Distribution of shell midden settlement forms. 157
7.15. Distribution of overall settlement forms. 158
7.16. Distribution of earthworks forms. 160
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Figures / ix
7.17. Overall numbers of mounds in the study area per location. 161
7.18. Distribution of mound sizes as measured by the ratio of
height to basal area. 162
7.19. Distribution of conical and fl attop earthen mounds. 164
8.1. Radiocarbon dates from the Mississippi Delta. 169
8.2. Post-0 a.d. radiocarbon dates from the Mississippi Delta (Sims
and Connaway 2000), plotted as one-s igma calibrated ranges against the
midpoint of the range. 170
11.1. Plot of logged elemental concentrations of vanadium and thorium in
ceramics derived from alluvial clays of the LMV. 235
11.2. Plot of logged elemental concentrations of sodium and potassium
in ceramics derived from alluvial clays of the LMV and e xtra-v alley locations
to the east (Moundville) and west (Titus, Eagle Lake). 236
11.3. Plot of logged elemental concentrations of thorium and antimony in
the Moundville, Titus, and Eagle Lake reference groups. 237
11.4. Plot of logged elemental concentrations of potassium and chromium
in ceramics derived from alluvial clays of the LMV, northeast Texas (Titus),
n orth-c entral Arkansas, and the Red River valley of northeast Texas and
southern Oklahoma. 238
12.1. Map of all sites in the MDAH site fi le. 259
12.2. Map of sites in the MDAH site fi le that report “grog”-tempered pottery
(fi lled circles) and “sand”-tempered pottery (open circles). 263
12.3. Map of sites in the MDAH site fi le that report Early Woodland
types traditionally characterized as g rog-t empered (fi lled circles)
and the Middle Woodland Miller type traditionally characterized as
sand-t empered (open circles). 265
12.4. Sites in the LMV from Table 12.1. Open circles mark those that
produced sand-tempered pottery. 271
12.5. Map of sites in the MDAH site fi le that report
“shell”-tempered pottery. 272
13.1. Sites in the Mississippi Delta with analyzed faunal assemblages
discussed in text. 281
13.2. Sites with analyzed faunal assemblages used in regional analysis. 287
13.3. Relationship between sample size (NISP) and the number of identifi ed
species (richness) in samples included in present study. 290
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