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

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.

Patterns of Antemortem Tooth Loss in Late Prehistoric West-central Tennessee

The later prehistoric subsistence-settlement pattern in the Kentucky Lake Reservoir (KLR) of northern west-central Tennessee is of interest as human occupation inexplicably terminates by AD 1450 as part of a larger regional depopulation. Antemortem tooth loss (ATL) collectively and by tooth type was identified in four site samples from the KLR. These are a Late Woodland (AD 600-900) sample (Hobbs) and three Middle Mississippian period (AD 1100- 1400) hierarchically organized and presumptively maize agriculturalist samples (Link/Slayden, Gray Farm , Thompson Village). ATL prevalence in the Hobbs sample is consistent with a native crop and seasonal foraging economy. The ATL in the Link sample is more congruent with the pre-maize Late Woodland sample than the essentially contemporaneous Gray Farm site sample. Thompson Village, a later-dated satellite community of the Gray Farm polity, exhibits significantly fewer ATL than the Gray Farm sample. This may flag climate-influenced agricultural shortfall of dietary carbohydrates later in the occupation sequence. Additionally, males in the Gray Farm site sample have significantly more ATL than males in the other two Mississippian samples. The patterns suggest regional, possibly shortfall mitigated, differences in maize intensification with a polity-specific male-focused maize consumption in the Gray Site.

8. Southern tastes

‘Southern tastes’ discusses southern foodways, which go back to the Native American peoples who had established distinctive food traditions by the Mississippian period. European American and African American settlers on the southern frontier came to eat as Indians ate from what grew well in southern soils, heat, and plentiful rain, in a long growing season. The household was the location of food production in the antebellum South, and the domestic economy depended on food. Meanwhile, the rural South, where most black Americans lived, nurtured distinctive African American foodways that went back to African methods of food preparation. The modernization of southern foodways has had an impact on the food of the South.

Archaeological Investigations at the Audrey-North Site (11GE20)

This chapter describes previous and recent archaeological investigations at the Audrey-North site (11Ge20) in the Lower Illinois River Valley. The Center for American Archaeology excavated from 1975 to 1983, exposing both Late Woodland and Cahokia-style structures, a circular sweatlodge, pit features, and a palisade segment. In 2000, Colleen Delaney-Rivera analyzed the ceramic artifacts recovered, identifying Woodland- and Mississippian-period pottery in addition to hybrid pots and non-local vessels. A magnetic gradiometry survey of the site in 2014 revealed two areas of interest for excavation: one Mississippian house and one unidentified anomaly. The house area was exposed with a backhoe, revealing a Stirling-phase (AD 1100–1200) wall trench house and associated pit features. Excavations over the other anomaly revealed a small early Mississippian wall trench structure, the floor of which was lined with yellow clay.

Vestiges of the Braden Corridor

The widespread exchange of masterful artworks in the Mississippian period has long been a topic of interest among North American archaeologists. The Braden Style, an artistic tradition whose origin has been placed at Cahokia, is recognizable on objects unearthed from locales that are remarkably distant from the American Bottom. In the Tallahassee Red Hills of Florida, the Lake Jackson site hosted burials in Mound 3 that contained a variety of these examples. While the contents of Mound 3’s burials have been investigated to explore ties to other major ceremonial centers in the Greater Southeast, the nature of those ties and their timing have not been fully investigated, especially in consideration of Cahokia. This chapter offers an assemblage based exploration of exchange between these two different and distant sites.

The Mississippian Period in Western Tennessee

I examine what is currently known regarding Early-Middle Mississippian settlement patterns in western Tennessee. This chapter outlines the first appearance, then demise, of household-scale as well as town-scale settlements in the region. The extent to which settlements also interacted with extra-regional Mississippian groups is discussed.