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Pinson Mounds: Middle Woodland Ceremonialism in the Midsouth is a comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of the largest Middle Woodland mound complex in the Southeast. Located in west Tennessee about ten miles south of Jackson, the Pinson Mounds complex includes at least thirteen mounds, a geometric earthen embankment, and contemporary short-term occupation areas within an area of about four hundred acres. A unique feature of Pinson Mounds is the presence of five large, rectangular platform mounds from eight to seventy-two feet in height. Around A.D. 100, Pinson Mounds was a pilgrimage center that drew visitors from well beyond the local population and accommodated many distinct cultural groups and people of varied social stations. Stylistically nonlocal ceramics have been found in virtually every excavated locality, all together representing a large portion of the Southeast. Along with an overview of this important and unique mound complex, Pinson Mounds also provides a reassessment of roughly contemporary centers in the greater Midsouth and Lower Mississippi Valley and challenges past interpretations of the Hopewell phenomenon in the region.
This collection presents, for the first time, a much-needed synthesis of the major research themes and findings that characterize the Woodland Period in the southeastern United States. The Woodland Period (ca. 1200 B.C. to A.D. 1000) has been the subject of a great deal of archaeological research over the past 25 years. Researchers have learned that in this approximately 2000-year era the peoples of the Southeast experienced increasing sedentism, population growth, and organizational complexity. At the beginning of the period, people are assumed to have been living in small groups, loosely bound by collective burial rituals. But by the first millennium A.D., some parts of the region had densely packed civic ceremonial centers ruled by hereditary elites. Maize was now the primary food crop. Perhaps most importantly, the ancient animal-focused and hunting-based religion and cosmology were being replaced by solar and warfare iconography, consistent with societies dependent on agriculture, and whose elites were increasingly in competition with one another. This volume synthesizes the research on what happened during this era and how these changes came about while analyzing the period's archaeological record. In gathering the latest research available on the Woodland Period, the editors have included contributions from the full range of specialists working in the field, highlighted major themes, and directed readers to the proper primary sources. Of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists, both professional and amateur, this will be a valuable reference work essential to understanding the Woodland Period in the Southeast.
Experts throughout the Central Mississippi Valley present current views of the regional cultural sequences supported by data concerning recent surveys and excavations.
Fourteen in-depth case studies incorporate empirical data with theoretical concepts such as ritual, aggregation, and place-making, highlighting the variability and common themes in the relationships between people, landscapes, and the built environment that characterize this period of North American native life in the Southeast.
A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication Specialists from archaeology, ethnohistory, physical anthropology, and cultural anthropology bring their varied points of view to this subject in an attempt to answer basic questions about the nature and extent of social change within the time period. The scholars' overriding concerns include presentation of a scientifically accurate depiction of the native cultures in the Central Mississippi Valley prior and immediately subsequent to European contact and the need to document the ensuing social and biological changes that eventually led to the widespread depopulation and cultural reorientation. Their findings lead to three basic hypotheses that will focus the scholarly research for decades to come. Contributors include: George J. Armelagos, Ian W. Brown, Chester B. DePratter, George F. Fielder, Jr., James B. Griffin, M. Cassandra Hill, Michael P. Hoffman, Charles Hudson, R. Barry Lewis, Dan F. Morse, Phyllis A. Morse, Mary Lucas Powell, Cynthia R. Price, James F. Price, Gerald P. Smith, Marvin T. Smith, and Stephen Williams
Pinson Mounds: Middle Woodland Ceremonialism in the Midsouth is a comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of the largest Middle Woodland mound complex in the Southeast. Located in west Tennessee about ten miles south of Jackson, the Pinson Mounds complex includes at least thirteen mounds, a geometric earthen embankment, and contemporary short-term occupation areas within an area of about four hundred acres. A unique feature of Pinson Mounds is the presence of five large, rectangular platform mounds from eight to seventy-two feet in height. Around A.D. 100, Pinson Mounds was a pilgrimage center that drew visitors from well beyond the local population and accommodated many distinct cultural groups and people of varied social stations. Stylistically nonlocal ceramics have been found in virtually every excavated locality, all together representing a large portion of the Southeast. Along with an overview of this important and unique mound complex, Pinson Mounds also provides a reassessment of roughly contemporary centers in the greater Midsouth and Lower Mississippi Valley and challenges past interpretations of the Hopewell phenomenon in the region.
Archaeology of Louisiana provides a groundbreaking and up-to-date overview of archaeology in the Bayou State, including a thorough analysis of the cultures, communities, and people of Louisiana from the Native Americans of 13,000 years ago to the modern historical archaeology of New Orleans. With eighteen chapters and twenty-seven distinguished contributors, Archaeology of Louisiana brings together the studies of some of the most respected archaeologists currently working in the state, collecting in a single volume a range of methods and theories to offer a comprehensive understanding of the latest archaeological findings. In the past two decades alone, much new data has transformed our knowledge of Louisiana's history. This collection, accordingly, presents fresh perspectives based on current information, such as the discovery that Native Americans in Louisiana constructed some of the earliest-known monumental architecture in the world—extensive earthen mounds—during the Middle Archaic period (6000–2000 B.C.) Other contributors consider a variety of subjects, such as the development of complex societies without agriculture, underwater archaeology, the partnering of archaeologists with the Caddo Nation and descendant communities, and recent research in historical archaeology and cultural resource management that promises to transform our current appreciation of colonial Spanish, French, Creole, and African American experiences in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Accessible and engaging, Archaeology of Louisiana provides a complete and current archaeological reference to the state's unique heritage and history.
Contributions by Keith A. Baca, Jeffrey P. Brain, Samuel O. Brookes, Ian W. Brown, Philip J. Carr, Jessica Crawford, Patricia Galloway, Alison M. Hadley, Christopher T. Hays, Edward R. Henry, Cliff Jenkins, Jay K. Johnson, Evan Peacock, Janet Rafferty, Maria Schleidt, Mary Evelyn Starr, James B. Stoltman, Andrew M. Triplett, Melissa H. Twaroski, and Richard A. Weinstein This volume includes original scholarship on a wide array of archaeological research across the South. One essay explores the effects of climate on early cultures in Mississippi. Contributors reveal the production and distribution of stone effigy beads, which were centered in southwest Mississippi some 5,000 years ago, and trace contact between different parts of the prehistoric Southeast as seen in the distribution of clay cooking balls. Researchers explore small, enigmatic sites in the hill country of northern Mississippi now marked by scatters of broken pottery and a large, seemingly isolated "platform" mound in Calhoun County. Pieces describe a mound group in Chickasaw County built by early agriculturalists who subsequently abandoned the area and a similar prehistoric abandonment event in Winston and Choctaw Counties. A large pottery collection from the famous Anna Mounds site in Adams County, excavations at a Chickasaw Indian site in Lee County, camps and works of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the pine hill country of southern Mississippi, and the history of logging in the Mississippi Delta all yield abundant, new understandings of the past. Overview papers include a retrospective on archaeology in the National Forests of north Mississippi, a look at a number of mound sites in the lower Mississippi Delta, and a study of how communities of learning in field archaeology are built, with prominent archaeologist Samuel O. Brookes's achievements as a focal point. History buffs, artifact enthusiasts, students, and professionals all will find something of interest in this book, which opens doors on the prehistory and history of Mississippi.