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Full-Text Articles in Archaeological Anthropology

The Colbert-Walker Site (22le1048): History And Archaeology Of A Chickasaw Home, Council House, And Travelers’ Stand, Raymond Taylor Doherty Aug 2022

The Colbert-Walker Site (22le1048): History And Archaeology Of A Chickasaw Home, Council House, And Travelers’ Stand, Raymond Taylor Doherty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In late 1813, at a time of increasing violence on the Southern frontier, Chickasaw leader George Colbert (Tootemastubee) left his home and ferry on the Natchez Trace to move back to relative safety in the heart of the Chickasaw Nation. He returned to the place that had once been his father’s plantation and made what he described as a “shelter from the weather.” He later hired skilled craftsmen to build a large and finely carpentered new home on the site. The Colbert-Walker site (22Le1048), near present-day Tupelo, Mississippi, has long been said to be the location of this structure, which …


Time And Place At Prospect Hill: A Phase-One Survey Of A Historic Plantation, William Bryce Krumcke Jan 2021

Time And Place At Prospect Hill: A Phase-One Survey Of A Historic Plantation, William Bryce Krumcke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal for this thesis was to conduct the first archaeological research at Prospect Hill plantation and to create a baseline that can be used to understand the spatial layout of the plantation and provide archaeological evidence of the enslaved people who lived there. Prospect Hill is located in southwest Mississippi and was founded in 1808 by Captain Isaac Ross. The archaeological work done at Prospect Hill was a survey of approximately 10 acres that surrounds the main house. After this survey, the artifacts were classified into two categories: chronological and functional. From this analysis, a series of patterns were …


Ceramic Analysis Of The 2019 Excavations Of Ely (44le12) Mound Site, Lee County, Virginia, Shannon Medah Wooten Jan 2021

Ceramic Analysis Of The 2019 Excavations Of Ely (44le12) Mound Site, Lee County, Virginia, Shannon Medah Wooten

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Mississippian frontier in southwestern Virginia is a relatively unexplored area. This area was occupied by Mississippian and Radford locals, creating a crossroads between the two groups. The Ely Mound site is a Mississippian frontier site that can help understand the influence of Mississippian and Radford cultures on the development of chiefdoms. This thesis will analyze the ceramics from the mound test unit and shovel test survey of the 2019 excavation at Ely located in Lee County, Virginia. The temper patterns were used to understand the date and use of the site. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze …


Crafting Stone Discoidals On The Frontier: Production And Identity In Southwest Virginia, Hamilton Hastie Bryant Jan 2019

Crafting Stone Discoidals On The Frontier: Production And Identity In Southwest Virginia, Hamilton Hastie Bryant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stone discoidals are widely recognized as a class of artifacts associated with Mississippian cultural traditions and even some of its various descendant communities. Excavations at the Carter Robinson site a Fourteenth Century Mississippian frontier site in Lee County Virginia have revealed evidence of the production of stone discoidals. Although craft production in Mississippian societies has been the subject of much debate little to no attention has been given to the production of stone discoidals. The purpose of this thesis is to explicate the method of stone discoidal production at Carter Robinson and to explore how this production was organized overtime …


Archaeological Investigations At A Mississippian Platform Mound Site In Lowndes County, Mississippi, Hannah Danielle Zechman Jan 2019

Archaeological Investigations At A Mississippian Platform Mound Site In Lowndes County, Mississippi, Hannah Danielle Zechman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Upper Tombigbee River Valley and the Black Prairie two adjacent physiographic regions located in northeast Mississippi are defined archaeologically by the existence of multiple single-mound sites with associated farmsteads or small habitation sites. This thesis is an analysis of mound-construction data and the ceramic assemblage excavated in 2017 from the Butler Mound Site (22LO500) a single-mound site located in Lowndes County Mississippi. The purpose of this thesis is to determine when construction of the Butler Mound occurred using mound-construction data ceramic analysis and radiocarbon dating. This thesis also seeks to understand how Butler and neighboring sites relate to one …


Searching Through Debris: A Mass Analysis From The Carter Robinson Mound Site In Lee County, Virginia, Robert Capps Jan 2018

Searching Through Debris: A Mass Analysis From The Carter Robinson Mound Site In Lee County, Virginia, Robert Capps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Mississippian period is one of the most widely studied periods in the prehistoric Southeast, but there are areas such as the Mississippian frontier that have not been explored in great detail. Carter Robinson is a Mississippian chiefdom located on the frontier in southwest Virginia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. To better understand the people living at this site a mass analysis was conducted to examine the lithic debris left behind by the people living there. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the degree of tool production at Carter Robinson and to identify areas of tool production, …


Analysis Of Prehistoric Ceramics From A Fourteenth-Century Native American House, Carter Robinson Site (44le10), Lee County, Virginia, Emily J. Warner Jan 2018

Analysis Of Prehistoric Ceramics From A Fourteenth-Century Native American House, Carter Robinson Site (44le10), Lee County, Virginia, Emily J. Warner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chiefdoms located on the frontier of the Mississippian world have not been examined in great detail, yet they have the potential to provide evidence for the emergence of hierarchy and the interaction of hierarchical and egalitarian societies. Frontiers can help identify the emergence and maintenance of power in southeastern chiefdoms. Carter Robinson (44le10) is a frontier site that can help understand the degree of interaction between hierarchical and non-hierarchical groups nearby. This thesis will analyze the ceramics at structure 6 based on the 2015 excavation at Carter Robinson located in Lee County, Virginia. The use of attribute and morphological analyses …


Sherds With Style: A Ceramic Analysis From A Protohistoric Site In Oktibbeha County, Mississippi., Allison Smith Jan 2017

Sherds With Style: A Ceramic Analysis From A Protohistoric Site In Oktibbeha County, Mississippi., Allison Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A key part of understanding the lesser known contact period in the Southeastern United States is studying the effects of contact on Mississippian chiefdoms and their descendant population. The Starkville Archaeological Complex is an archaeological pattern of a distinct clustering of contact-era sites in the Blackland Prairie physiographic district of northeast Mississippi. Atkinson (1979) defined these sites as a dispersed settlement pattern with distinct ceramic assemblages associated with European metal. The ceramics are characterized as sandy historic Chickasaw pastes with Mississippian-like distinct curvilinear or angular surface decorations. This thesis is an analysis of the ceramic assemblage excavated in 2016 from …


The Analysis Of Contact-Era Settlements In Clay, Lowndes, And Oktibbeha Counties In Northeast Mississippi, Emily Lee Clark Jan 2017

The Analysis Of Contact-Era Settlements In Clay, Lowndes, And Oktibbeha Counties In Northeast Mississippi, Emily Lee Clark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this project is to compare the spatial distribution of sites across Clay, Lowndes, and Oktibbeha counties between the Mississippi and Early Historic periods using site files from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), sites were mapped chronologically to examine change through time to investigate how people reacted to European contact and colonization. Site locations and clusters also were used to evaluate possible locations of the polities of Chicaza, Chakchiuma, and Alimamu discussed in the De Soto chronicles. Sites in Clay, Lowndes, and Oktibbeha counties were chosen due to the existence of …


A Comparison Of Shovel Testing And Surface Collection As Archaeological Site Discovery Methods: A Case Study Using Mississippian Farmsteads, Cameron Smith Howell Jan 2016

A Comparison Of Shovel Testing And Surface Collection As Archaeological Site Discovery Methods: A Case Study Using Mississippian Farmsteads, Cameron Smith Howell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shovel testing and controlled surface collection are commethods of archaeological site investigation that are generally approved by state and federal agencies as well as the academic community for cultural resource management projects and research. While both techniques are equally utilized, little research has been conducted on how equivalent these techniques are in terms of their efficacy for finding site. This thesis seeks to find a way to compare these techniques by creating mathematical models to describe how well the methods behave when tested on known datasets generated from Mississippian period farmsteads. The predicted performance can then be compared to real …


Fluorine Dating Of Human Bone At The Pre-Columbian Maya Cemetery Of Caves Branch Rockshelter, Belize, Morgan Isaacs Jan 2016

Fluorine Dating Of Human Bone At The Pre-Columbian Maya Cemetery Of Caves Branch Rockshelter, Belize, Morgan Isaacs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis tests the ion-selective electrode fluorine dating method on the remains from the Maya mortuary site Caves Branch Rockshelter (CBR) in Belize. CBR is a cemetery containing at least 400 burials from the late Preclassic to the Postclassic periods. The intensive use and reuse of the site has disturbed the burial matrices, making it difficult to seriate the burials. Fluorine dating analyzes the amount of fluorine that has accumulated in bone over time. In principle, an older burial will contain more fluorine from groundwater than a more recently buried bone; however, this principle must be tested at each site …


Linearly Stressed To Death: Consideration Of Early Childhood Stress As A Main Contributor To The Regional Variability In Classic Maya Mortuary Profiles, Nicholas Billstrand Jan 2016

Linearly Stressed To Death: Consideration Of Early Childhood Stress As A Main Contributor To The Regional Variability In Classic Maya Mortuary Profiles, Nicholas Billstrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Late and Terminal Classic periods were times of great social, economic, and political change in Maya civilization. Scholars have suggested that increasing levels of dietary stress during this time may have been the result of ecological instability, drought, warfare, and significant levels of population movement across the Maya lowlands. All of these processes may have affected human health and left measurable markers of stress in human skeletal material. The burial population recovered from two sites on Ambergris Caye, located near the coast of Belize, have significantly more sub-adult individuals than sites in inland Belize, such as Actuncan, suggesting the …


From Turkeys To Tamales: Paleoindian To Preclassic Period Faunal Use At Maya Hak Cab Pek Rockshelter In Southern Belize, Stephanie Raye Orsini Jan 2016

From Turkeys To Tamales: Paleoindian To Preclassic Period Faunal Use At Maya Hak Cab Pek Rockshelter In Southern Belize, Stephanie Raye Orsini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Very little is known about Paleoindian and Archaic subsistence strategies of the people of Mesoamerica prior to the development of ceramics. Rockshelters with good preservation and stratigraphic deposits can provide excellent contexts for a comparative faunal analysis though time. In February of 2014 the Bladen Paleoindian and Archaic Project (BPAP), directed by Dr. Keith Prufer, began excavations at the rockshelter Maya Hak Cab Pek (MHCP). The site has evidence for human activities from the Paleoindian period (11,500 BC to 8,000 BC) through the Preclassic Maya period (2,000 BC to AD 250). This research uses zooarchaeological analysis to investigate animal use …


Developing An Architectural Sequence For A Portion Of The Mound A Enclosure At The Carson Mound Group, Coahoma County, Mississippi, Todd Bryan Mcleod Jan 2015

Developing An Architectural Sequence For A Portion Of The Mound A Enclosure At The Carson Mound Group, Coahoma County, Mississippi, Todd Bryan Mcleod

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


Excavations Of Mound B: A Ridge-Top Mound At The Carson Site, A Mississippian Mound Center In The Northern Yazoo Basin, Samuel Henri Butz Jan 2015

Excavations Of Mound B: A Ridge-Top Mound At The Carson Site, A Mississippian Mound Center In The Northern Yazoo Basin, Samuel Henri Butz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


Spatial Distribution Of Debitage At A Chert Procurement Site And A Cultural History Assessment On Orange Lake In North Central Florida, Joseph Petererson Culen Jan 2015

Spatial Distribution Of Debitage At A Chert Procurement Site And A Cultural History Assessment On Orange Lake In North Central Florida, Joseph Petererson Culen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project evaluated a 90 acre parcel of property located on the southern shore of Orange Lake in NCFL (North Central Florida). A cultural resource management style survey was conducted to determine what archeological evidence for prehistoric activity was present. In addition to this general assessment, this research was conducted in order to identify specific settlement patterns in the area and determine if they corresponded with the settlement strategies already identified for wetland environments within the area of north central Florida. Further, after a tool stone procurement zone was identified a study examining debitage size grade drop-off trends was conducted …


Temper, Mounds, And Palisades: The Walford Site (22su501) Of Sunflower County, Mississippi, Kimberly Nicole Harrison Jan 2015

Temper, Mounds, And Palisades: The Walford Site (22su501) Of Sunflower County, Mississippi, Kimberly Nicole Harrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Walford site is a multicomponent site with Archaic, Woodland and Mississippian components located in the northern Yazoo Basin of Mississippi. The site has been recorded by several surveys, and was subjected to salvage excavations from 2003–2007. This excavation confirmed multiple components identified in previous surveys, and added a wider chronological range and occupation area. Current excavations also identified a palisade constructed before all of the adjacent Mississippian structures, as well as one of the mounds. Using stratigraphy, GIS, and ceramic analysis, the date of this palisade was determined to be Late Woodland or Early Mississippian.


Understanding Strawberry Plains Through Landscape Archaeology, Leeanne Wendt Jan 2014

Understanding Strawberry Plains Through Landscape Archaeology, Leeanne Wendt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Strawberry Plains is a site that is located in Marshall County, Mississippi and is comprised of Woodland, Chickasaw, antebellum, and postbellum components. The focus of this thesis was placed on the postbellum time period. The information presented here is intended to give a comprehensive view into the lives of the sharecroppers that resided and worked on Strawberry Plains during the early to mid-twentieth century and also understand the economic relationship between them and the landowner. Also of importance to this project was the placement of the houses and their dispersed pattern across the landscape and comparing this pattern to other …


Childhood Growth In An Oneota Community: Examining Long Bone Growth Differences In The The Juveniles At Norris Farms 36, Whitney Broughton Jan 2014

Childhood Growth In An Oneota Community: Examining Long Bone Growth Differences In The The Juveniles At Norris Farms 36, Whitney Broughton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Oneota migration into the central Illinois River valley around ad 1300 resulted in a number of different interactions with Mississippian groups. Milner and colleagues (1991) identified significant numbers of perimortem injuries at the Norris farms 36 cemetery, along with biological markers for poor health, such as cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis. They suggested that the threat of violence may have forced the Oneonta at Morton village to limit subsistence activities to circumscribed areas close to the settlement, thereby reducing the resource base and negatively impacting the health of the community. However, recent research (Bengtson et al. 2012; Bengtson and O'Gorman …


From The Mouths Of Mississippian: Determining Biological Affinity Between The Oliver Site (22-Co-503) And The Hollywood Site (22-Tu-500), Hanna Stewart Jan 2014

From The Mouths Of Mississippian: Determining Biological Affinity Between The Oliver Site (22-Co-503) And The Hollywood Site (22-Tu-500), Hanna Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Mississippian period in the American Southeast was a period of immense interaction between polities as a result of vast trade networks, regional mating networks which included spousal exchange, chiefdom collapse, and endemic warfare. This constant interaction is reflected not only in the cultural materials but also in the genetic composition of the inhabitants of this area. Despite constant interaction, cultural restrictions prevented polities from intermixing and coalescent groups under the same polity formed subgroups grounded in their own identity as a result unique histories (Harle 2010; Milner 2006). As a result, phenetic similarities and differences are not homogenized. In …


Cohonina Social Organization And The Role Of Forts In Integration And Interaction: A View From The Pittsberg Community., Travis Brent Cureton Jan 2014

Cohonina Social Organization And The Role Of Forts In Integration And Interaction: A View From The Pittsberg Community., Travis Brent Cureton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of "forts" in the sociopolitical organization of a prehistoric people known as the Cohonina through the application of settlement systems analysis and functional studies. The primary objective of this thesis is to test ideas of Cohonina sociopolitical organization through an examination of the functional characteristics of forts and their positions on the landscape using a combination of theory derived from settlement and landscape archaeology, deployed in a geographic information system work environment. A Cohonina fort site known as the Pittsberg Fort Complex, was placed in its community context through broad scale survey. Artifact, architectural, and …


Decorated Ceramics At Cypress Citadel (11js76): Patterning At A Late Woodland Site In Southern Illinois, Megan Kathleen Cook Jan 2013

Decorated Ceramics At Cypress Citadel (11js76): Patterning At A Late Woodland Site In Southern Illinois, Megan Kathleen Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Cypress Citadel (11js76) is a late Woodland hill top site located in southern Illinois in the southwest portion of Johnson County, near the community of Cypress. Previous research has documented it as a Lewis phase site within the late Woodland period. The Lewis phase is set apart from late Woodland phases by the existence of decorated ceramics. The information presented in this thesis is intended to identify and describe specific decorative attributes of the ceramics at Cypress Citadel and examine specific patterns of incising within the site. Although determining patterning in the decoration is difficult, a focus on attributes …


Examination Of Architectural Features On Mound C Of The Carson Mound Group, Coahoma County, Mississippi, Erika Carpenter Jan 2013

Examination Of Architectural Features On Mound C Of The Carson Mound Group, Coahoma County, Mississippi, Erika Carpenter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


Mounds In The Landscape: A Comparative Study Of Landscape Archaeology In English-Speaking Northwest Europe And North America, Jennifer Ann Rich Jan 2013

Mounds In The Landscape: A Comparative Study Of Landscape Archaeology In English-Speaking Northwest Europe And North America, Jennifer Ann Rich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Humans have been intrigued by their surrounding landscape for centuries. Sometimes intrigue has led to particular manipulations of the land by groups of people, such as the building of mounds and other monuments. Thus, the study of past landscape use is an important part in understanding our own interests. Over the years, developments in archaeology have come to include various perspectives on how past landscapes should be interpreted. This thesis will examine the changes within the theoretical perspectives in landscape archaeology through the decades. Within the regions of English-speaking Northwest Europe (including Britain and Ireland) and North America, I will …


Nationalism In Ireland: Archaeology, Myth, And Identity, Elaine Kirby Tolbert Jan 2013

Nationalism In Ireland: Archaeology, Myth, And Identity, Elaine Kirby Tolbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A nation is defined by a collective identity that is constructed in part through interpretation of past places and events. In this paper, I examine the links between nationalism and archaeology and how the past is used in the construction of contemporary Irish national identity. In Ireland, national identity has been influenced by interpretation of ancient monuments, often combining the mythology and the archaeology of these sites. I focus on three celebrated monumental sites at Navan Fort, Newgrange, and the Hill of Tara, all of which play prominent roles in Irish mythology and have been extensively examined through archaeology. I …


The Use Of Space At The Late Woodland Shady Grove Site (22-Qu-525), Stephen George Harris Jan 2012

The Use Of Space At The Late Woodland Shady Grove Site (22-Qu-525), Stephen George Harris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Very little previous work has been done at the Late Woodland Shady Grove site. This thesis will examine and reconfirm some of the previous conclusions about this site's placement within the temporal framework of the Northern Yazoo Basin. The Late Woodland and Mississippian occupations of the site used the same space in decidedly different ways. How the use of space has changed through time will be examined from several different perspectives, including geophysical survey and the intra-site distribution of artifacts.


15md158: Excavations And Lithic Analysis Of A Late Archaic/Early Woodland Lithic Workshop Site In Meade County, Kentucky., Lee Michael Creswell Jan 2012

15md158: Excavations And Lithic Analysis Of A Late Archaic/Early Woodland Lithic Workshop Site In Meade County, Kentucky., Lee Michael Creswell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes archaeological investigations carried out at 15Md158, a prehistoric lithic workshop site in Meade County, Kentucky. Although there has been a wide range of diagnostic projectile points as well as some late radiocarbon dates recovered from the site had been identified as a mostly Late Archaic special purpose site where mostly late-stage lithic reduction took place. The goals of this project were to develop a more secure chronology for the site, document a change in the use of the site in order to relate it to changes in mobility patterns of those who utilized the site, and document …


The Archaeology Of Mortuary Ritual As Rite Of Passage In Prehistoric Europe, Jacquelyn Mary Roberts Kyle Jan 2012

The Archaeology Of Mortuary Ritual As Rite Of Passage In Prehistoric Europe, Jacquelyn Mary Roberts Kyle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the ways in which mortuary ritual functioned as a rite of passage at three sites in prehistoric Europe: Wor Barrow on Cranborne Chase, Tumulus 17 in the Speckhau Mound Group at the Heuneburg, and the Hochdorf tomb in southwestern Germany. The sites were selected with diversity among the dimensions of mortuary practice, including the presence and types of grave goods, the structure of the grave, and the treatment of the corpse, as a priority. By examining the ways in which cemeteries functioned as spaces of personal and group separation and transformation, I seek to clarify the role …


Food And Identity: A Case Study Of Roman Soldiers And Native Civilians In Roman Britain, Aaron Michael Bobik Jan 2011

Food And Identity: A Case Study Of Roman Soldiers And Native Civilians In Roman Britain, Aaron Michael Bobik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Food is a universal medium through which identity is expressed. In cultures both past and present, food represents a direct way to communicate many aspects of identity such as ethnicity, nationality, status, age, and gender. In archaeology, while the nutritional and economic roles of food have been a topic of study for decades, the relationship between food and identity is a research area largely in its infancy. In my thesis, I explore general aspects of identity in the past, and in particular, I utilize a case study of four archaeological sites (Segontium (Caernarfon), Portchester Castle, Wavendon Gate, and Dragonby) to …


Postglacial Sandy Hill: A Regional Manifestation Of The Gulf Of Maine Archaic Tradition, Benjamin Russell Jan 2011

Postglacial Sandy Hill: A Regional Manifestation Of The Gulf Of Maine Archaic Tradition, Benjamin Russell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over twenty years of archaeological excavations at Sandy Hill, in Mashantucket, CT, have provided an incredibly rich assemblage of artifacts. Yet some of the most basic questions about Sandy Hill's Early Archaic inhabitants remain unanswered. This thesis will synthesize the results of major excavations at Sandy Hill by analyzing site morphology, lithics, and hard tissue macrobotanical remains from several radiocarbon dated contexts. Macrobotanical artifacts recovered from Sandy Hill indicate a preference for hazelnut as well as wetland roots and tubers. The lithic assemblage is related to the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition and the predominance of quartz flakes technology and …