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

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1963 recovered a variety of artifacts within and directly adjacent to a burial mound but the excavations remain largely unpublished.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.

Reexamining the Evidence for Bear Ceremonialism in the Lower Mississippi Valley

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.

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

Temper and temperament of prehistoric craft: Temper type evolution and clay body 'workability'

Temper is an additive incorporated into clay during the formation of a ceramic vessel, and may consist of various materials. In a number of previous experiments over the past several decades, archaeologists have experimentally demonstrated that tempers used by prehistoric craftspeople would have imparted important post-firing use-life properties to ceramic vessels. However, although widely touted, the notion that prehistoric temper types would have aided in pre-firing vessel formation has never been systematically tested. Here, we experimentally assess whether calcium carbonate-based tempers, like limestone and burnt shell, would have made clay bodies more workable relative to silicate-based grit temper, as has been previously proposed. In this study, participants were asked to build five simple and challenging three-dimensional forms using grit-, limestone- and shell-tempered clay bodies, and then rank these conditions in terms of workability. Our statistical and qualitative assessments of these data were unambiguous: contrary to claims in the scientific literature, the calcium carbonate tempers did not make clay bodies more workable, and were consistently, sometimes significantly, ranked lower than silicate grit-tempered clay bodies in terms of workability. Our results have several implications for temper selection and evolution in prehistory, specifically during the widespread silicate grit to calcium carbonate transition during the Late Woodland period (AD 500‐1400) of the North American Midwest.

Caries as an archaeological problem-solving tool: reconstructing subsistence patterns in late prehistoric west-central Tennessee

The dentition from two Middle Mississippian period (~AD 1100-1350) site samples (Gray Farm [~AD 1150-1400], Link/Slayden [~AD 1200-1400]) from the Kentucky Lake Reservoir of west-central Tennessee area are examined for the presence of caries to assess whether a maize-intensive subsistence economy is evident or the retention of the cultivation of domesticated native seeds (i.e., the Eastern Agricultural Complex). Given the absence of archaeological context, the caries prevalence operates as an archaeological problem-solving tool. The caries prevalence by tooth type are compared to a Late Woodland period (~AD 400-900) site sample (Hobbs) from the Kentucky Lake Reservoir as well as three unequivocal maize-intensive site samples from the Late Mississippian period (~AD 1300-1550) of East Tennessee. The Gray Farm site aligns statistically with the maize-intensive samples; Link/Slayden does not and resembles the caries prevalence of the Hobbs sample. The Mississippianization process in the Kentucky Lake Reservoir clearly varies in the adoption of maize as a primary cultigen. This may reflect the difference in geo-political location of Gray Farm and Link/Slayden relative to neighboring Mississippian economies, particularly to the east (Middle Cumberland Culture), or it may reflect potential temporal differences among the Middle Mississippian period settlements within the Kentucky Lake Reservoir.

When Villages Do Not Form

From AD 800 to 1300, Piedmont Village Tradition (PVT) settlements were characterized by small numbers of loosely arranged households. In the Late Woodland period (after AD 1300) in the Dan, Eno, and Haw River valleys, these households coalesced into villages with planned layouts and cooperatively built structures. However, in the upper Yadkin River Valley, the pattern of loosely arranged households appears to have continued until out-migration from the valley in the 1600s. Through the examination of regional settlement ecology and site-level spatial patterning, this chapter explores how the environment and the sociopolitical and economic landscapes that resulted from the formation of PVT and Mississippian villages influenced the distinctive cultural patterns in the upper Yadkin River valley and the North Carolina peidmont.

Shifting priorities apparent in Middle and Late Woodland ceramics from Nova Scotia

In the Maine–Maritimes Region, the Late Woodland (1350–500 BP) Period is thought to have been accompanied by a decrease in ceramic quality because of less-skilled potters. Although ceramics made during the Late Woodland tend to physically degrade easier than earlier ceramics because of coarser pastes and less well-joined coils, the reasons for the change in manufacturing practices have not been explored. Using the ceramic assemblage from the Gaspereau Lake Reservoir Site Complex in King’s County, Nova Scotia, Canada, this study used simple statistical techniques to suggest that potters increasingly used more expedient manufacture through time. These practices would have enabled potters to turn out pots under tighter deadlines to support large-scale gatherings that probably became more prevalent during the Late Woodland Period.

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

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.