1st Unnamed Cave: a Mississippian period cave art site in east Tennessee, USA

The well-protected walls and floors of deep caves are some of the few places where human markings on soft materials — sands, muds, clays — survive archaeologically. Since 1979, a special group of caves in the eastern United States has been reported with ‘mud-glyphs’ or prehistoric drawings etched in wet mud. Here, the seventh of these mud-glyph caves is described; once again, its iconography connects it to the ‘Southern Cult’ or ‘Southeast Ceremonial Complex’ of the Mississippian period.

Download Full-text

Investigations in the Cahokia Site Grand Plaza

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/281972 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 306-319 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

George R. Holley ◽

Rinita A. Dalan ◽

Philip A. Smith

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Remote Sensing ◽

Initial Growth ◽

Eastern United States ◽

Significant Information ◽

Mississippian Period ◽

Deep Pit ◽

Cahokia Mounds

Research designed to explore the Grand Plaza at the Cahokia Mounds site, the largest Mississippian-period mound center in the eastern United States, documents that plazas may yield significant information regarding Mississippian manipulation of the landscape and the initial growth of mound centers. Probing and excavation within the Grand Plaza revealed that buried ridge-swale topography, identified through an electromagnetic-conductivity survey, was stripped and then filled by the Cahokians. Excavation also corroborated the presence of deep-pit borrows identified by remote sensing. Based on the ceramics recovered from our excavations, we argue that these earth-moving events were initiated prior to the onset of the Mississippian period (ca. A.D. 1000). Reclamation of the borrowed areas resulted in the formation of the mound-plaza configuration early during the Mississippian period.

Download Full-text

Testing for Mississippian Period Turkey Management in the Archaeological Record of the Southeastern United States

American Antiquity ◽

10.1017/aaq.2021.58 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-21

Author(s):

Erin Kennedy Thornton ◽

Tanya Peres ◽

Kelly Ledford Chase ◽

Brian M. Kemp ◽

Ryan Frome ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Southeastern United States ◽

Meleagris Gallopavo ◽

American Southwest ◽

Intensive Management ◽

Archaeological Record ◽

Eastern United States ◽

Mississippian Period ◽

Dna Analyses ◽

Combined Data

People living in Mesoamerica and what is now the eastern and southwestern United States used turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) as sources of meat, eggs, bones, and feathers. Turkey husbandry and domestication are confirmed in two of these regions (Mesoamerica and the American Southwest), but human-turkey interactions in Eastern North American (eastern United States and Canada) are not fully explored. We apply stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) and ancient mitochondrial DNA analyses to archaeofaunal samples from seven sites in the southeastern United States to test whether turkeys were managed or captively reared. These combined data do not support prolonged or intensive captive rearing of turkeys, and evidence for less intensive management is ambiguous. More research is warranted to determine whether people managed turkeys in these areas, and whether this is generalizable. Determining whether turkeys were managed or reared in the southeastern United States helps define cultural and environmental factors related to turkey management or husbandry throughout North America. This inquiry contributes to discussion of the roles of intensified human-animal interactions in animal domestication.

Download Full-text

A Mississippian Period Ritual Cave in Tennessee

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/280023 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 49 (2) ◽

pp. 350-361 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Charles H. Faulkner ◽

Bill Deane ◽

Howard H. Earnest

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Southeastern United States ◽

Radiocarbon Dates ◽

Mississippian Period ◽

East Tennessee

Trailed and incised drawings on the mud-covered walls of an East Tennessee cave have been identified as the artwork of Mississippian Indians who visited this sanctuary about 800 years ago. These unique drawings, called “mud glyphs” because of their similarity to certain petroglyphs found in the southeastern United States, include abstract designs, symbols, zoomorphic forms and anthropomorphic figures. Symbols such as the forked eye and the “bird-man” anthropomorphic representation correlate with six radiocarbon dates on torch charcoal that range between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries A.D. The occurrence of thousands of superimposed elements on the walls indicates that Mud Glyph cave was a Mississippian period sanctuary and further suggests that certain southeastern caves during this period were used for ritual activities rather than for mining as they were during earlier Woodland and Archaic times.

Download Full-text