Issaquena: An Archaeological Phase in the Yazoo Basin of the Lower Mississippi Valley.

The Issaquena phase is postulated as a discrete culture unit identified at four sites in the southern part of the Yazoo Basin in the Lower Mississippi Valley. The primary criteria distinguishing this culture unit are a number of pottery types within a Lower Mississippi Valley ceramic tradition. The four marker types are: Manny Stamped, characterized by medium-sized open bowls with thickened rims, and decorated by zoned, dentate rocker-stamping outlined by deep U-shaped incisions on the exterior; Yokena Incised, with similar forms, but decorated by bold designs without background roughening; Troyville Stamped, again with the basic open bowls, but decorated with zoned non-dentate rocker-stamping; and Churupa Punctated, a type closely related to the other three but decorated by zones of hemiconical punctations outlined by the above-described type of incised line. These ceramic groups have prototypes in the preceding Marksville phase, apparently centered somewhat to the south in the Lower Mississippi Valley. It may be noted here that all of the pottery of the Issaquena phase has come from occupation deposits and thus may be construed as utility ware.

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American Indians in the Lower Mississippi Valley: Social and Economic Histories, par Daniel H. Usner, Jr.American Indians in the Lower Mississippi Valley: Social and Economic Histories, par Daniel H. Usner, Jr. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1998. xvi, 189 pp. $45.00 U.S. (cloth).

Canadian Journal of History ◽

10.3138/cjh.35.1.177 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 35 (1) ◽

pp. 177-178

Author(s):

Nelson Ouellet

Keyword(s):

American Indians ◽

Mississippi Valley ◽

Lower Mississippi Valley

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Presumed Trade and Aberrant Pottery

Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology ◽

10.1017/s0081130000004901 ◽

1949 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 130-145

Author(s):

Alex D. Krieger

Keyword(s):

Mississippi Valley ◽

Lower Mississippi Valley ◽

Great Range ◽

Source Areas ◽

Site Occupation ◽

Foreign Origin ◽

Pronounced Deviation

The pottery in the following sections is not considered to belong to the Alto Focus complex, but to occur with it at different points in the Davis site occupation by trade or other means. If the writer appears to vacillate over what is and what is not trade pottery here, it is due in part to the problem of separating what could have been produced at the site (as extreme variations of resident styles) from what probably was not (because of some distinctive attribute which would mark it as foreign). In certain cases of pronounced deviation, a foreign origin is obvious enough, particularly when the source areas are well known. But where the whole tradition is similar as in the clay-tempered pottery of the lower Mississippi Valley region, and a great range of decorative techniques was employed for long periods of time, the problem is not easy.

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