From Regional Center to Mound-Residential Compound (Phase 3)

2018 ◽  
pp. 155-167
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Pluckhahn ◽  
Victor D. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Phase 3 ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Crystal River ◽  
Area North ◽  
The Village

Recent archaeological work suggests that people began moving away from Crystal River in Phase 3, which probably began between around AD 500 and 600 and lasted until sometime between AD 650 and 750, during the Late Woodland Period. Nevertheless, the site seems to have continued to serve as a ceremonial center. The village contracted to the area north of Mound A, which was expanded during this interval; perhaps the continuing presence represents a caretaker population or a compound occupied by a leader and his or her family. Some of the former residents of Crystal River may have moved the short distance downstream to Roberts Island, where settlement was initiated in this interval. Shifts in settlement such as this abandonment and collapse are typical of the Gulf Coast at this time, and may be at least in part a response to a more variable climate and lowered sea level associated with the interval known as the Vandal Minimum.

From Early Village to Regional Center (Phase 2)

2018 ◽  
pp. 117-154
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Pluckhahn ◽  
Victor D. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Warm Period ◽  
Phase 2 ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
Crystal River ◽  
Southern Florida ◽  
The Village ◽  
Weeden Island ◽  
Small Platform

The village at Crystal River expanded greatly in size and permanence in Phase 2, which began sometime between around AD 200 and 300 and ended by around AD 500. This growth may have owed partially to a rise in sea level associated with the warmer temperatures of the Roman Warm Period, which might have made life on the seaward islands more difficult. The exchange of Hopewell exotics faded in this interval, but the societies of the Gulf Coast appear to have witnessed a fluorescence, as indicated by the widespread exchange of Swift Creek pottery and Weeden Island pottery. Crystal River was peripheral to these pottery traditions, but it may have been an important nexus between these and the Glades tradition of southern Florida, specifically with regard to the exchange of craft goods manufactured from marine shell. The gulf coast fluorescence is also indicated by a heightened pace of the construction of mounds. At Crystal River, three small platform mounds were initiated in this interval, clearly differentiating it from its peers in the region.

A Center Emerges

2018 ◽  
pp. 71-100
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Pluckhahn ◽  
Victor D. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
Small Islands ◽  
Small Family ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
Complex Construction ◽  
Crystal River ◽  
Surrounding Landscape ◽  
The Village

Current radiocarbon evidence suggests that monument construction at Crystal River began sometime around 1000 BC, based on dating of human remains excavated from the circular embankment of the Main Burial Complex. Construction of the two burial mounds began a few centuries later, but likewise predates the earliest occupation of the village. Thus, the site began as a vacant ceremonial center, probably a place where small family groups dispersed on small islands in the surrounding landscape came together at certain times of the year. This pattern is typical for burial mound sites on the Gulf Coast, but Crystal River exhibits a unique degree of elaboration of architecture and burial treatments that suggest it had already emerged as a regional center. Likewise, the presence of large quantities of exotic Hopewell culture artifacts in a few burials suggest that certain people were already differentiated from others, perhaps owing to their roles as ritual specialists.

Evidence for Stepped Pyramids of Shell in the Woodland Period of Eastern North America

2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Pluckhahn ◽  
Victor D. Thompson ◽  
W. Jack Rink
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Construction Material ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Woodland Period ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Mississippian Period

AbstractAntiquarians of the nineteenth century referred to the largest monumental constructions in eastern North America as pyramids, but this usage faded among archaeologists by the mid-twentieth century. Pauketat (2007) has reintroduced the term pyramid to describe the larger, Mississippian-period (A.D. 1050 to 1550) mounds of the interior of the continent, recognizing recent studies that demonstrate the complexity of their construction. Such recognition is lacking for earlier mounds and for those constructed of shell. We describe the recent identification of stepped pyramids of shell from the Roberts Island Complex, located on the central Gulf Coast of Florida and dating to the terminal Late Woodland period, A.D. 800 to 1050, thus recognizing the sophistication of monument construction in an earlier time frame, using a different construction material, and taking an alternative form.

New Centers Emerge (Phase 4)

2018 ◽  
pp. 168-193
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Pluckhahn ◽  
Victor D. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Late Woodland ◽  
Woodland Period ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Corporate Groups ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Isotopic Studies ◽  
Spatial Layouts ◽  
Crystal River ◽  
Small Platform

Phase 4, the final phase of occupation at Crystal River and Roberts Island, started sometime between around AD 780 and 870 and ended between 900 and 980, spanning the transition between the Late Woodland period and Mississippian period, and the beginning of the Medieval Warm period. Occupation at the former site waned during this interval, while Roberts Island emerged as a major ceremonial center that included three small platform mounds tightly clustered around a small plaza. The pattern is reminiscent of earlier spatial layouts at Crystal River, but other features--such as linear ridges of shell and a water court--suggest greater influence from the Caloosahatchee tradition to the south. Isotopic studies of oyster shells from Roberts Island display less variability in habitat relative to those from earlier contexts, perhaps consistent with ownership of particular resource locations. Possibly, larger corporate groups (such as matrilineages) began working cooperatively to target specific resource locales that they owned and managed for themselves, to the exclusion of other such groups.

Late Woodland Period Settlement Patterns in the Piedmont Uplands of Pennsylvania: The Evidence from 36CH161

1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-285
Author(s):  
Paul A. Raber
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Woodland Period ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Chester County ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
A Site ◽  
Local Materials ◽  
Early Late

Investigations at 36Ch161, a site in the Piedmont Uplands of Chester County, Pennsylvania, have revealed a series of early Late Woodland Period camps associated with the Minguannan Complex. The use of local quartz seems to have been a primary focus of settlement at the site. Quartz, which formed an overwhelming majority of the assemblage, was used in ways that contrast strongly with that of non-local materials like jasper, a minority component of the assemblage obtained from quarries in the Hardyston Formation. The selection of raw materials suggests restrictions on access to certain materials perhaps imposed by territorial constraints. The combined evidence of artifact assemblage and cultural features indicates that 36Ch161 was inhabited seasonally by small, mobile groups of non-horticulturalists, a reconstruction consistent with that of Custer and others regarding the economy of the Minguannan Complex and related cultures of the Piedmont Uplands.

Gathering in the Late Woodland

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey R. Barrier ◽  
Megan C. Kassabaum
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Archaeological Work

The practice of enclosing open spaces with earthen mounds begins in the Lower Mississippi Valley around 3500 B.C. As the earliest recognized monumentalized landscapes in Eastern North America, these locations are thought to have provided periodic bases for the exploitation of rich natural resources and the maintenance of social relationships. Archaeological work at these early plaza sites has focused on establishing the age and stratigraphy of the associated mounds, leaving little known about the everyday activities that occurred around or between them. In this chapter, two case studies from separate areas of the Late Woodland Southeast are discussed: Feltus and Range sites. Participants in the large-scale rituals occurring in the Feltus plaza spent much of their time spatially separated, but the periodic moments of aggregation quite literally created the personal relationships, social structure, and ritual system in which they lived their daily lives. On the other hand, participants in the daily activities that occurred in the Range courtyards co-resided, but the particular relationships they shared with other individuals were negotiated in outside spaces, and the very presence and structure of the courtyard itself tied them – every day – into a much larger local community around formal, central plazas.

Other-Than-Human Persons, Mishipishu, and Danger in the Late Woodland Inland Waterway Landscape of Northern Michigan

2020 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-366
Author(s):  
Meghan C. L. Howey
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Early Spring ◽  
Woodland Period ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Inland Lakes ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Inland Waterway ◽  
Northern Michigan

Other-than-human persons and the role they play in transforming social, economic, and ideological material realities is an area of expanding interest in archaeology. Although the Anishinaabeg were an early and vital focus of cultural anthropological studies on nonhumans given their significant relationships with other-than-human persons, known to them as manitou, emerging archaeologies advancing this topic are not largely centered on ancestral Anishinaabeg sites and artifacts. This article analyzes a set of nonvessel ceramic artifacts from Late Woodland archaeological sites in the Inland Waterway in northern Michigan, which are interpreted to be ceramic renderings of manitou. I argue that these were manitou-in-clay, vibrant relational entities that are brought into being for and through use in ceremonial perspective practices related to Mishipishu—a complexly powerful, seductive, and dangerous nonhuman being known as the head of all water spirits. I contextualize the making and breaking of Mishipishu manitou-in-clay as acts of petition by hunter-fishers who had been seduced by this manitou in dreams, as they headed out on necessary but high-risk early-spring resource harvesting in the inland lakes of the Inland Waterway. This case advances insights into how relationships with other-than-human persons were coproductive of the world in the northern Great Lakes region during the Late Woodland period.

Over the hills and far away: Middle to Late Woodland archaeology and toolstone conveyance at Hyre Mound (46RD1), West Virginia

2020 ◽  
pp. 019769312097631
Author(s):  
Richard L Rosencrance ◽  
Amy J Hirshman
Keyword(s):  
West Virginia ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Woodland Period ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Lithic Raw Material

The archaeology of the eastern West Virginia uplands remains significantly understudied compared to other areas of the Appalachian Plateau. Bettye Broyles’ excavations at the Hyre Mound site (46RD1) in 1963 recovered a variety of artifacts within and directly adjacent to a burial mound but the excavations remain largely unpublished. We provide a report of Broyles’ excavations, new radiocarbon dates, and an analysis of the lithic raw material frequencies at the site. Material culture and ceremonial practices suggest the initial mound construction dates to the Middle Woodland period. Radiocarbon dating of cultural features confirms that people also used the locality during the Late Woodland period. Lithic raw material frequencies indicate a preference for non-local, Hillsdale chert found ∼100 km from the site throughout both time periods. The directionality of toolstone conveyance supports existing models that emphasize the quality and location of raw material sources and the orientation of the region’s physiography.

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