Reexamining the Evidence for Bear Ceremonialism in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Bears ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 235-255
Author(s):  
Ashley Peles ◽  
Megan C. Kassabaum
Keyword(s):  
Ursus Americanus ◽  
Black Bear ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Coles Creek

This chapter reexamines the archaeological evidence for black bear (Ursus americanus) ceremonialism in the Lower Mississippi Valley (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi). While the environment of the Lower Mississippi Valley was certainly favorable for black bear, we find that not only do ethnohistorical records indicate the importance of black bear but there is a particularly high amount of bear remains at sites dating to the Late Woodland period (AD 700–1200). Feltus, a Coles Creek mound center in southwest Mississippi, is then presented as a case study of black bear ceremonialism. Extensive excavations show that black bear remained a consistent focus throughout the site’s use. Although the specific nature of bear use differs when comparing off-mound and pre-mound contexts to summit-related activities, black bear is consistently found in association with feasting events and ritual activities related to the setting of freestanding posts.

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.

Timing and Consequences of the Introduction of Maize Agriculture in the Lower Mississippi Valley

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristram R. Kidder
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Maize Agriculture ◽  
Coles Creek ◽  
Productive Environment

Archaeologists in the Lower Mississippi Valley have generally assumed that corn, beans, and squash provided the subsistence stability and the surpluses necessary for the development of complex, stratified polities which existed during the Coles Creek period. Recent research indicates that maize was probably not an important part of the diet until after this time. Therefore, the introduction of maize-based agriculture had little impact on the formation of chiefdoms in Coles Creek culture. In this regard Coles Creek is different from early Mississippian; it is a distinct adaptation to the highly productive environment of the Lower Mississippi Valley.

scholarly journals Geophysical Detection and Assessment of Leveled Mounds: An Example from the Upper Mississippi Valley

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
William Green ◽  
Adam S. Wiewel ◽  
Steven L. De Vore
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Visual Inspection ◽  
Geophysical Methods ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Magnetic Survey ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Burial Mounds

Most earthen burial mounds of eastern North America have been destroyed—or have they? We review geophysical methods for assessing whether leveled mounds retain intact deposits or features. Magnetic survey holds promise for locating and evaluating leveled mounds because it is rapid and sensitive to magnetic variations associated with anticipated features such as pits and deposits of mound fill. As a case study, we discuss our magnetic survey of the Gast Farm site (13LA12) in eastern Iowa. The survey covered 8.64 ha, encompassing loci of one previously reported mound and possible geometric earthworks as well as Middle and Late Woodland habitation areas. Interpretation of survey results incorporated quantitative differentiation of magnetic anomaly types using GIS techniques, along with standard visual inspection. We found no evidence of geometric earthworks but identified at least six leveled mounds. Displaced mound fill appears to account for the earthwork-like features. We conclude that leveled mounds are detectable and may retain subsurface integrity. Their associated features, including burials, may be identifiable even when above-ground evidence has disappeared.

New Evidence in the Upper Mississippi Valley for Premississippian Cultural Interaction with the American Bottom

2008 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
James B. Stoltman ◽  
Danielle M. Benden ◽  
Robert F. Boszhardt
Keyword(s):  
Late Woodland ◽  
Woodland Period ◽  
Petrographic Analysis ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Thin Sections ◽  
American Bottom ◽  
Late Woodland Period ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Lithic Assemblage ◽  
New Evidence

The recovery of anomalous (red-slipped, shell/grog/sandstone-tempered) pottery from three sites in the Upper Mississippi Valley (UMV) prompted a petrographic analysis of thin sections of 21 vessels from these sites. The goal was to evaluate their possible derivation from the American Bottom, the nearest locality where such pottery commonly occurs. Among the 12 UMV vessels tempered with shell (nine red slipped), ten were determined, based on comparisons to thin sections of stylistically similar pottery from the American Bottom, to have essentially identical physical compositions. Additionally, four vessels suspected of being limestone-tempered were determined to have been tempered with a type of sandstone that out-crops only farther south in Illinois and Iowa. Of the three UMV sites, only the Fisher Mounds Site Complex (FMSC) produced the presumed exotic pottery in undisturbed, dated contexts. The petrographic evidence is consistent with the C-14 age and lithic assemblage at FMSC in suggesting an actual influx of people from the American Bottom into the UMV. The time of this influx, the Edelhardt phase of the Emergent Mississippian/Terminal Late Woodland period, ca. cal A.D. 1000-1050, is earlier than previously believed, i.e., precedes the main Mississippian period in the American Bottom.

scholarly journals Coles Creek Culture and the Trans-Mississippi South

1991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank F. Schambach
Keyword(s):  
Full Scale ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Red River ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Red River Valley ◽  
Coles Creek ◽  
Michael Hoffman ◽  
Major Occupation ◽  
Fourche Maline

Certain Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) traits, mostly Coles Creek ceramic traits, but also traits such as temple mounds and certain mortuary patterns, appear at Late Fourche Maline and Early Caddo sites in the Trans-Mississippi South, particularly at sites in the Red River Valley in northwest Louisiana and southwest Arkansas. Explaining how these traits got there and understanding their role in the development of Caddo culture is one of the basic problems in the archaeology of this area. The conventional explanation has long been that they represent a full scale intrusion of Coles Creek culture into the Trans-Mississippi South. Thus Michael Hoffman has created a Crenshaw phase of Coles Creek culture in the Great Bend region of the Red River Valley in southwest Arkansas, and Clarence H. Webb attributed the initial major occupation at the Mounds Plantation site in northwest Louisiana to "Coles Creek peoples" who "laid out the plaza, possibly constructed Mound 2 as a quadrilateral temple substructure, and--at the opposite end of the plaza--established a burial area where Mound 5 sits."

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