Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana

2005 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe W. Saunders ◽  
Rolfe D. Mandel ◽  
C. Garth Sampson ◽  
Charles M. Allen ◽  
E. Thurman Allen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Clay Loam ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Full Extent ◽  
Ritual Space ◽  
Middle Archaic ◽  
Poverty Point

Middle Archaic earthen mound complexes in the lower Mississippi valley are remote antecedents of the famous but much younger Poverty Point earthworks. Watson Brake is the largest and most complex of these early mound sites. Very extensive coring and stratigraphic studies, aided by 25 radiocarbon dates and six luminescence dates, show that minor earthworks were begun here at ca. 3500 B.C. in association with an oval arrangement of burned rock middens at the edge of a stream terrace. The full extent of the first earthworks is not yet known. Substantial moundraising began ca. 3350 B.C. and continued in stages until some time after 3000 B.C. when the site was abandoned. All 11 mounds and their connecting ridges were occupied between building bursts. Soils formed on some of these temporary surfaces, while lithics, fire-cracked rock, and fired clay/loam objects became scattered throughout the mound fills. Faunal and floral remains from a basal midden indicate all-season occupation, supported by broad-spectrum foraging centered on nuts, fish, and deer. All the overlying fills are so acidic that organics have not survived. The area enclosed by the mounds was kept clean of debris, suggesting its use as ritual space. The reasons why such elaborate activities first occurred here remain elusive. However, some building bursts covary with very well-documented increases in El Niño/Southern Oscillation events. During such rapid increases in ENSO frequencies, rainfall becomes extremely erratic and unpredictable. It may be that early moundraising was a communal response to new stresses of droughts and flooding that created a suddenly more unpredictable food base.

The Archaic of the Lower Mississippi Valley

1961 ◽  
Vol 26 (3Part1) ◽  
pp. 317-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
William G. Haag
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Ohio River ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Alluvial Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Poverty Point

AbstractNo archaeological remains which the majority of specialists will accept as Archaic have been found in the Mississippi Valley from the mouth of Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico. Despite this, the literature reflects a general acceptance of the belief that the Archaic stage is well represented in the Lower Valley. The presence of concentrated Archaic populations in northern Alabama and western Tennessee and Kentucky has given comparative support to these expectations and has provided part of the source for some of the hypothetical statements in the literature of what the Lower Valley Archaic ought to be like. Although the failure of writers to agree on a definition of Archaic which will satisfy the evidence in all of the areas of Eastern United States has contributed to the problem of identifying Archaic materials in the Lower Valley, the lack of these remains can best be explained by the geology of the region. The cutting and filling of the Alluvial Valley during the Pleistocene changes in sea level have removed or buried all of the surfaces that might have been occupied by Archaic peoples. The surface of the Alluvial Valley is everywhere less than 5000 years old. Possible Late Archaic sites are located on old stable beach ridges or near enough to the Pleistocene terraces not to have been included in the general pattern of Recent coastal subsidence. It is concluded that Archaic or earlier materials are absent in the Lower Alluvial Valley of the Mississippi River. Neither Tchefuncte nor Copell are accepted as Archaic; Poverty Point is viewed as transitional from an Upper Archaic tradition to some phase of the Formative stage. Poverty Point materials may not be expected to be found in quantity along the Gulf Coast of the Mississippi Delta region.

Alluvial geoarchaeology of a Middle Archaic Mound complex in the lower Mississippi Valley, U.S.A.

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 591-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee J. Arco ◽  
Katherine A. Adelsberger ◽  
Ling-yu Hung ◽  
Tristram R. Kidder
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Middle Archaic

Additional notes on the Poverty Point Site in Northern Louisiana

1954 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Ford
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
American Antiquity ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Extensive Surface ◽  
Made In ◽  
Poverty Point

The two large mounds at the Poverty Point and Motley sites in West Carrol Parish, Louisiana, were first adequately described by C. B. Moore (1913, Fig. 29), and for a long while these structures and the cultural remains scattered about them remained one of the principal puzzles in the archaeology of the lower Mississippi Valley. Clarence Webb has made extensive surface collections from this locality for a number of years and his three articles inAmerican Antiquity, the last written with Haag, form the bulk of the information which we have on the culture (Webb, 1944, 1948; Haag and Webb, 1953). The purpose of the present brief note is to report some newly discovered facets of the Poverty Point cultural complex.The writer was able to work a few weeks at the site in the spring of 1952 and again in 1953. However, the most remarkable discovery was not made in the field but in the Cartographic Laboratory of the Mississippi River Commission in Vicksburg.

SITUATING THE CLAIBORNE SOAPSTONE VESSEL CACHE IN THE HISTORY OF POVERTY POINT

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 781-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth E. Sassaman ◽  
Samuel O. Brookes
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
The State ◽  
Southern Appalachians ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Poverty Point

A cache of 12 soapstone vessels from the Claiborne site in Mississippi was recently repatriated to the state after being excavated in 1968 and removed to Ohio. As a locus of Poverty Point affiliation, Claiborne was positioned along a Gulf Coast route for the influx of soapstone into the lower Mississippi valley from quarries in the southern Appalachians, hundreds of kilometers to the east. Although residents of Claiborne were likely to have been active traders during the heyday of Poverty Point exchange, ca. 3600–3400 cal BP, new AMS assays on carbon deposits from seven of the soapstone vessels show that the cache was emplaced ~200 years later, during or shortly before the abandonment of Poverty Point. Reported here are the results of AMS assays, observations on vessel form and function, and preliminary inferences about the significance of the cache in the context of environmental and cultural change after 3200 cal BP.

scholarly journals The Pine Saddle site (3PL1080) in the Ouachita Mountains, Polk County, Arkansas

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula ◽  
Bo Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
The South ◽  
Ouachita Mountains ◽  
Tool Manufacture ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Indian Populations ◽  
East And West ◽  
Local Materials ◽  
Poverty Point

Novaculite was procured and knapped by aboriginal Indian populations living in southwestern Arkansas for thousands of years, and there are numerous prehistoric novaculite quarries in the Ouachita Mountains. In Late Archaic times. this desirable material was widely traded and exchanged with other groups to the south, east, and west, particularly with the peoples living at the Poverty Point site and environs in the lower Mississippi valley in northern Louisiana. Later groups such as the Caddo also made considerable use of this material, since it was in their traditional homelands, and many habitation sites and mound centers in the region contain quantities of novaculite lithic debris and tools. Other local materials were also chosen for lithic tool manufacture, such as Big Fork chert, a distinctive black chert. Abundant amounts of novaculite and Big Fork chert are also found apparently in nondomestic Caddo contexts on lithic workshops and camp sites in the Ouachita Mountains, and one such site is discussed in this article.

Presumed Trade and Aberrant Pottery

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.

Loess stratigraphy of the Lower Mississippi Valley

1996 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 167-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.M. Rutledge ◽  
M.J. Guccione ◽  
H.W. Markewich ◽  
D.A. Wysocki ◽  
L.B. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley

Age, genesis, and paleoclimatic interpretation of the Sangamon/Loveland complex in the Lower Mississippi Valley, U.S.A.

2010 ◽  
Vol 123 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. W. Markewich ◽  
D. A. Wysocki ◽  
M. J. Pavich ◽  
E. M. Rutledge
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document