Southeastern Archaic (Archaeology in North America)

Our reliance on diagnostic biface types to assess site chronology has not diminished, despite appreciable improvements in the accuracy and reliability of radiocarbon dating. However, chronological information in the most widely used typological reference for the eastern US (Justice [1987]) has not been updated in three decades, and provides estimates of types’ age ranges from outdated or incomplete chronological data. Using Bayesian modeling of radiocarbon dates from sites throughout the eastern US, we refined the age ranges for 17 temporal diagnostics extending from the Paleoindian through the terminal Late Archaic periods in the Lower Mid-South. The results are compared with estimated ranges as provided by Justice.

The zooarchaeological remains of garfish (Lepisosteidae) appear throughout the Southeastern United States from the Archaic through the late Prehistoric periods (ca. 8,000 BC - AD 1450) and have been predominantly interpreted as food remains or the residue of feasting events. However, ethnographic and ethnohistoric data from the region provide conflicting views on how these fish were used by Native Americans, and suggest a fresh examination of the role of gar is needed. By examining ethnohistoric accounts, modern ethnographic studies, and archaeofaunal remains we attempt to explore the full range of gar use in the ethnographic past and present, and suggest new interpretive possibilities for archaeologists faced with gar remains from prehistoric contexts.

Introduction The Mississippi Paleoindian and Archaic Point Survey was initiated in 1968 by archaeologists at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and due largely to the efforts of Sam McGahey over the next 30 years, grew to include over 2,100 points at the time of his retirement in 2003. The survey was idle for a decade, but was recently reinstituted with the help of numerous avocational " citizen scientists " who share an interest in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene hunter-­‐gatherers. Intact Paleoindian and Early Archaic sites are rare in Mississippi, and most of the projectile points that are recovered from these time periods are isolated Qinds from disturbed contexts like Qields and streams. These points are often the only artifacts that remain from early cultural groups, and our interpretations about the people who used them are based on locations of Qinds, raw material types, and morphometrics. This poster reintroduces the updated Mississippi point survey, provides examples of the variety of early points found throughout the state, and examines distributions of styles and material types across time and space.

In the early twentieth century, the late William H. Claflin Jr. of Behnont, Massachusetts, made regular forays to the middle Savantiah River Valley of Georgia and South Carolina to collect artifacts from the area and occasionally dig at sites such as StalHngs Islaird. Most of his artifact collection is now curated at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Among the relatively well provenienced iten-is are 140 bannerstones from several locations in the middle Savannah. Informed by current archaeological knowledge of the region, the Claflin bannerstones register the history of group formation, interaction, and alliance over a span of ca. 1,300 years (5500-4200 cal. B.P.), During this time, three successive phases are marked by changes in bannerstone morphology, production, and distribution. Transitions between phases coincide with major changes in the distribution and alignment of regional populations. Summaries of the chief features of each phase are followed by observations on the historical circumstances accounting for such change.

The Thompson Village site (40HY5) in Henry County, TN was excavated in 1939 prior to its inundation by Kentucky Lake. Those investigations resulted in the recovery of one of Tennessee’s most unusual artifacts: the skull of an adult male embellished with a deliberately-carved pattern across the forehead. The skull has long enjoyed notoriety in the collection of the McClung Museum, and was published in /Tennessee Archaeologist/ in 1974. This presentation discusses new examinations of the Henry County skull, beginning with the results of a fresh skeletal assessment. We then use cross-cultural data to identify evidence and motivations for cranial carving. Finally, we present iconographic and historic evidence that may inform our understanding of this unique artifact.

Ancient Native American use of caves in the Eastern Woodlands occurred throughout the entire span of regional prehistory; however, the ways that these natural features were used varied considerably over time. To date only 25 cave sites containing deposits dated to the Archaic period (ca. 10,000 - 3000 B.P.) are recorded in the state of Tennessee, representing just 0.4 percent of the total known Archaic sites. In 2014 the authors conducted a salvage operation, bucket auger survey, and limited testing at the site of Black Cat Cave (40RD299) in Rutherford County, Tennessee to assess looting damage and assist in the installation of a security gate across the cave entrance. These investigations identified Black Cat Cave as the site of significant mortuary activity during the Middle Archaic (ca. 6460 - 6360 B.P.), and resulted in the recovery of rare Archaic faunal data from a cave setting. Analysis of faunal materials from the site allows us to add important new information to our understanding of ancient Native American landscape use in the Eastern Woodlands during the mid-Holocene.

The recovery of a large number of Bolen
preforms and completed tools in varying stages of
retouch during excavation of the Jeanie’s Better
Back site (8LF54) in North Florida, has enabled us
to reconstruct the manufacture and use-life history
of these diagnostic tool forms.  Our results suggest that when confronted with a choice of alternative actions, Bolen tool users
often chose to minimize risk and labor costs related
to raw-material procurement, transport strategies,
future tool failure, when and where to conduct
various stages of the biface production process, whether
to thermally alter the raw material or not, when and
where to perform retooling activities, and at what point
to discard individual tools in favor of new tools. However,
some choices, such as particular aspects of haft
area morphology and the use of certain flaking techniques,
appear to reflect group differences or longstanding
traditions.

The Middle Cumberland River Valley of Tennessee comprises a unique regional environment that has supported human occupation for at least 14,000 years. Consistent human occupation and reuse of natural river levees and adjacent terrace landforms from the late Pleistocene epoch (ca. 12,000 BC) through the 15th century AD resulted in the formation of numerous archaeological sites along the Cumberland River and its tributaries. The occupants of these sites relied on the abundant natural resources of the region, and particularly vertebrate and invertebrate species that inhabited the streams and waterways for subsistence and raw materials. Over thousands of years the inhabitants of the Middle Cumberland River Valley harvested these various species and took an active role in managing riverine resources. The cumulative result of this process appears in the archaeological record of the region as abundant zooarchaeological remains, principally consisting of animal bone and shellfish.

One visually-striking archaeological facet of the Middle Cumberland River Valley is the densely deposited remains of freshwater shellfish that appear at Archaic sites throughout the region. These deposits span the period from approximately 6500 to 1000 BC, and comprise a regional manifestation of the cultural phase traditionally known as the Shell Mound Archaic. Recent survey and excavation efforts along with site file research have identified 22 sites within the Middle Cumberland Valley that exhibit intact Archaic shell-bearing components. An additional 59 sites in the region also exhibit a high probability for containing intact Archaic shell-bearing deposits, but require additional testing to determine their integrity.

The Archaic shell-bearing sites in the Middle Cumberland River Valley provide unique opportunities to examine research topics including how mid-Holocene occupants of the region adapted to changing environments, modified the natural landscape, and altered the local ecology both deliberately and indirectly. In addition, data preserved within these sites has the potential to address numerous research questions regarding settlement patterning, regional population density, social structure, initial plant domestication, the development of regional trade networks, and environmental change within the Middle Cumberland River Valley, and more broadly in the American Southeast, between approximately 6500 and 1000 BC. Because of this information potential, the archaic shell-bearing sites of the Middle Cumberland River Valley are worthy of acknowledgement, protection, and preservation under Criterion D of 36 CFR 60.4.

The Middle Cumberland River Valley of Tennessee comprises a unique regional environment that has continually supported human occupation along the natural river levees and adjacent terrace landforms since the Late Pleistocene. Over thousands of years Archaic period inhabitants of the Middle Cumberland River Valley harvested the invertebrate species that populated the streams and waterways of the region, using them for subsistence and raw materials and taking an active role in managing the riverine resources. The cumulative result of this process appears in the archaeological record as abundant and often-dense deposits of invertebrate zooarchaeological remains. However, few formal archaeological investigations have been conducted on Archaic shell-bearing sites in the region. In this field report we present initial results of site file analysis, radiocarbon dating, and species composition research in order to introduce the Middle Cumberland River Valley manifestation of the cultural phase traditionally known as the Shell Mound Archaic.

The Tennessee Division of Archaeology conducted archaeological excavations at site 40DV83 in 1987, prior to development of the site area as part of the proposed Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Although no intact midden deposits were identified at the site, mechanical excavations resulted in the recovery of more than 8,000 prehistoric artifacts and identification of 41 cultural features, including five human graves and one dog burial. This report presents the results of those investigations.

The Long Branch site (31JK477) was a multi-component late prehistoric and Late Archaic site located in the Appalachian Summit region of western North Carolina. It contained deeply-stratified Late Archaic cultural deposits, including a substantial quartzite lithic assemblage and numerous intact cultural features. The most significant and unique aspect of 31JK477 was a series of postholes and a small, artificially-created basin that defined the partial remains of a structure, the only documented instance of Late Archaic architecture in the region. Lithic debris and tools were concentrated within and immediately adjacent to the structure’s outline. Preliminary spatial analysis of the distribution of lithic refits, debitage, and knapping tools at the site suggests that tool production occurred in discrete areas, including in the interior of the structure, during the site’s use.

This is a report on the archaeological investigation of the area of Sandy Creek Site (1Bb227) that falls within the Right-of-Way of the Centreville Bypass construction project in Bibb County, Alabama. The fieldwork involved remote sensing, controlled surface collection, unit excavation, topsoil removal, and feature excavation. Specialized analysis on materials recovered included soil flotation, pedologic analysis, ethnobotanical analysis, radiometric analysis, and systematic artifact classification. Subsistence, chronological, and material culture information was added to the existing body of knowledge of the middle Woodland period Montevallo Phase. Information from these analyses is incorporated in a synthesis of the cultural history of the middle Cahaba River drainage.

Ancient Native American tattooing presents an interpretive dilemma, in which archaeologists are faced with the presence of a widespread and highly-significant cultural practice to which existing artifact typologies --and therefore our interpretive framework for understanding ancient ritual and regalia-- have been overwhelmingly blind. This work builds on previous examinations of bundle traditions from the eastern Great Plains in order to focus on tattoo bundles as a material assemblage, the constituent parts of which may be identified in archaeological settings. Applying this model to the archaeological record of the American Southeast allows a case to be made that Native American tattooing extends to at least ca. 3300 BC, by which time it was already connected with bundle traditions.

You may also download an annotated PDF of this chapter here: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/environment/archaeology/documents/staffpubs/arch_Deter-Wolf%20and%20Peres%202019.pdf

A cache of 12 soapstone vessels from the Claiborne site in Mississippi was recently repatriated to the state after being excavated in 1968 and removed to Ohio. As a locus of Poverty Point affiliation, Claiborne was positioned along a Gulf Coast route for the influx of soapstone into the lower Mississippi valley from quarries in the southern Appalachians, hundreds of kilometers to the east. Although residents of Claiborne were likely to have been active traders during the heyday of Poverty Point exchange, ca. 3600–3400 cal BP, new AMS assays on carbon deposits from seven of the soapstone vessels show that the cache was emplaced ∼200 years later, during or shortly before the abandonment of Poverty Point. Reported here are the results of AMS assays, observations on vessel form and function, and preliminary inferences about the significance of the cache in the context of environmental and cultural change after 3200 cal BP.

Low-gradient coastlines are susceptible to inundation by rising water, but they also promote marsh aggradation that has the potential to keep pace with sea-level rise. Synergies among hydrodynamics, coastal geomorphology, and marsh ecology preclude a simple linear relationship between higher water and shoreline transgression. As an archive of human use of low-gradient coastlines, archaeological data introduce additional mitigating factors, such as landscape alteration, resource extraction, and the cultural value of place. The Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey (LSAS) is an ongoing effort to document the history of coastal dwelling since the mid-Holocene, when the rate and magnitude of sea-level rise diminished and the northern Gulf coast of Florida transitioned into an aggradational regime. Results of the first six years of the LSAS suggest that multicentury periods of relative stability were punctuated by site abandonment and relocation. Subsistence economies involving the exploitation of oyster and fish, however, were largely unaffected as communities redistributed themselves with changes in shoreline position and estuarine ecology. After A.D. 200, civic-ceremonial centers were established at several locations along the northern Gulf coast, fixing in place not only the infrastructure of daily living (villages), but also that of religious practice, notably cemeteries and ceremonial mounds. Intensified use of coastal resources at this time can be traced to a ritual economy involving large gatherings of people, terraforming, feasting, and the circulation of socially-valued goods. To the extent that religious practices buffered the risks of coastal living, large civic-ceremonial centers, like aggrading marshes, afforded opportunities to “outpace” sea-level rise. On the other hand, centers introduced a permanence to coastal land-use that proved unsustainable in the long term.

All societies face contradictions between experienced pasts, imagined futures and the reality of the present. Changing social and ecological contexts are catalysts for intervention by communities hoping to restore or assert structure during turbulent times. terraforming is one mode of intervention in which large-scale modifications to land reference ancient times, events and persons to create new opportunities for the future. At the landscape scale, terraforming is a form of futurism that reproduces or redirects the relations between communities, ecologies and cosmologies as historical process. In North America, ancient Floridians engaged in a wide range of landscape modifications to navigate the diverse relations between underworlds, upperworlds and the day-today. over 6000 years ago on the St Johns River, communities deposited shell, earth and objects in ridges over assemblages of massive pits dug by their predecessors, arguably restructuring the relationships among wetlands, the living and the dead. Later communities of the Florida Gulf coast constructed mounds and ridges, which were conjoined with celestial events, at a time of rapid sea-level rise to redirect their social capital towards landward communities of lesser vulnerability.

Overview: The proposed research investigates the changing relationships between place-based communities and regional networks of interaction through a reconstruction of the ceramic social geography of the oldest pottery tradition of North America. Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) and petrography will be conducted on large samples of sherds from Stallings period (5150-3800 cal B.P.) sites in the Savannah River valley of Georgia and South Carolina to document spatial variation in the distribution of pottery as a proxy for community scale and complexity. The results of these tests will enable us to determine how the organization of Early Stallings communities enabled and constrained the emergence of place-based communities of Classic Stallings times.