Plaquemine Archaeology

Plaquemine Archaeology

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

Plaquemine Archaeology

Edited by Mark A. Rees and Patrick C. Livingood

the uni v ersit y of a l a ba m a press Tuscaloosa

Copyright © 2007 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Typeface: AGaramond and Triplex ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Plaquemine archaeology / edited by Mark A. Rees and Patrick C. Livingood. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-1543-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-1543-8 (alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-5366-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-5366-6 (alk. paper) 1. Plaquemine culture. 2. Mounds—Louisiana. 3. Mounds—Mississippi. 4. Plaquemine pottery—Louisiana. 5. Plaquemine pottery—Mississippi. 6. Excavations (Archaeology)— Louisiana. 7. Excavations (Archaeology)—Mississippi. 8. Louisiana—Antiquities. 9. Mississippi—Antiquities. I. Rees, Mark A. II. Livingood, Patrick C. E99.P635P57 2007 976′.01—dc22 2006016065

Contents Figures Tables Preface

vii xi xiii

1. Introduction and Historical Overview / Mark A. Rees and Patrick C. Livingood 1 2. Coles Creek Antecedents of Plaquemine Mound Construction: Evidence from the Raffman Site / Lori Roe 20 3. Extraregional Contact and Cultural Interaction at the Coles Creek–Plaquemine Transition: Recent Data from the Lake Providence Mounds, East Carroll Parish, Louisiana / Douglas C. Wells and Richard A. Weinstein 38 4. Plaquemine Mounds of the Western Atchafalaya Basin / Mark A. Rees 66 5. Transitional Coles Creek–Plaquemine Relationships on Northwest Lake Salvador, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana / Malcolm K. Shuman 94 6. Plaquemine Recipes: Using Computer-Assisted Petrographic Analysis to Investigate Plaquemine Ceramic Recipes / Patrick C. Livingood 108 7. Feasting on the Bluffs: Anna Site Excavations in the Natchez Bluffs of Mississippi / Virgil Roy Beasley III 127 8. Plaquemine Culture in the Natchez Bluffs Region of Mississippi / Ian W. Brown 145 9. The Outer Limits of Plaquemine Culture: A View from the Northerly Borderlands / Marvin D. Jeter 161

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10. Contemplating Plaquemine Culture / Tristram R. Kidder References Cited Contributors Index

261

207 259

196

Figures 1.1. The Lower Mississippi Valley, showing the major drainages and regions discussed in the text 2 1.2. Areas discussed by individual authors

16

2.1. Core Coles Creek region and locations of most sites discussed in the chapter 22 2.2. Middle Woodland through Historic phase chronology for the central Lower Mississippi Valley 23 2.3. The Raffman site, showing locations of 1998 through 2004 excavations 27 2.4. Mound B at Raffman, showing locations of excavations and soil cores 33 3.1. Location of the Lake Providence Mounds

39

3.2. Contour map of the Lake Providence Mounds, showing the four extant mounds and the Corps’ right-of-way during the 1998–1999 datarecovery program 40 3.3. Pro¤les of north and east walls of TU N80W79 showing the three construction stages revealed during excavation 41 3.4. Plan of wall trenches and postholes associated with the Preston phase in Block 1, showing evidence of the three building episodes believed to have been present 43 3.5. Date ranges of the seven Coles Creek occupations recognized at Lake Providence 44 3.6. Proposed site-formation sequence at Lake Providence

45

3.7. Ceramics normally thought to be representative of the Balmoral and Routh phases but clearly part of the Preston phase component at Lake Providence 47

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figures

3.8. Preston phase ceramics from Lake Providence

48

3.9. Additional Preston phase ceramics from Lake Providence

49

3.10. Ceramic types and varieties of the Balmoral, Preston, and Routh phases 50 3.11. Examples of pottery associated with the “Preston ¤neware complex” 51 3.12. Sherds of the Powell and Coker sets recovered at Lake Providence 53 3.13. Additional artifacts suggestive of contact with the American Bottom region 54 3.14. Depiction of Early Mississippian in®uences on the Yazoo Basin during the Crippen Point phase 55 3.15. Chronology chart illustrating the temporal relationship of archaeological phases in the Tensas Basin and American Bottom regions since about a.d. 750 59 4.1. South-central Louisiana, showing the locations of major Plaquemine mound sites 73 4.2. Site 16SL3 4.3. Site 16SM38 4.4. Site 16SM5 4.5. Site 16SMY10

74 77 81 85

5.1. Lake Salvador and archaeological sites mentioned in the chapter 98 6.1. Plane-polarized scan of PRP27

115

6.2. Cross-polarized scan of PRP27

115

6.3. Example of a false-color enhanced image of the cross-polarized scan for PRP27 115 6.4. Boolean image of the shell and shell void identi¤cations for PRP27 115 6.5. Biplot of grog and shell percentages

120

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figures

6.6. Biplot of grog and shell percentages showing clusters determined by analysis of the petrographic data 122 7.1. Location of Anna site

128

7.2. Site map of Anna Mounds group

131

7.3. Neo-Indian chronology in the Lower Yazoo Basin and Natchez Bluffs region of the Lower Mississippi Valley 135 7.4. Plan view, Block 1 excavations 7.5. Chicot Red, var. Fairchild vessel 7.6. Addis Plain, var. Addis vessel

139 140 140

8.1. Selected Plaquemine sites in the Natchez Bluffs region of Mississippi 146 9.1. Southeast Arkansas, showing major streams, county boundaries, and locations of some key sites mentioned in the chapter 164 9.2. The Bellaire “serpent-cat” pipe

168

9.3. Addis Plain bowl with deeply notched rim from the Boydell site in southeast Arkansas 173

Tables 2.1. Radiocarbon dates from the Raffman site

29

3.1. Proveniences of samples and results of sourcing analysis on selected Lake Providence sherds 57 4.1. Radiocarbon dates from mound sites in the western Atchafalaya Basin 79 6.1. Samples used in the analysis

118

6.2. Description of the temper clusters

125

7.1. Faunal MNI and estimated meat yields from Foster phase surface 137

Preface

I wish I could be sure when I ¤rst encountered the term Plaquemine, but it cannot be less than 50 years ago. Probably it occurred when I was in Ann Arbor in 1949–1950 with Jimmy Grif¤n, although I trust that my earlier Yale mentor, Ben Rouse, could not have been ignorant of it either, due to his amazingly broad knowledge of world archaeology and his having been the editor of American Antiquity. In the text herein, I am cited as using the term in a 1956 article! Wow, how little one remembers of one’s own past. However, we Lower Valley scholars must not be too brazen in our knowledge and usage. I am sure that we cannot make Plaquemine a broadly known term in the eastern United States or even in the southeastern corner of our nation. But we can take heart from other quite well-known terminology and realize that every area in American archaeology has its own best-known words: “Clovis and Pecos” for New Mexico, “Cahokia” for Illinois, “Hopewellian” for Ohio, and so on. So why not “Plaquemine,” then, for a culture in the southern part of the Lower Mississippi Valley, named for a town in Louisiana? Of course, I do support large overviews from the elders. My own introduction to the Lower Mississippi Valley began even before Ann Arbor in the 1950s; it actually began with a December 1948 visit to the Sandy Woods site in southeast Missouri with my father and my twin brother, Philip. I had been working in the Yale Peabody Museum on an archaeological collection from that site for my Senior Honors paper. I grew up—one through ¤ve years—on the very banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. But enough of the past. From southeast Missouri the whole Lower Mississippi Valley lay ahead for me: Nodena in northeast Arkansas, the Lake George site in the Yazoo Basin, and also much farther south still with the Lower Mis-

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sissippi Survey through Louisiana, only ending at Avery Island on the Gulf of Mexico. The Lower Mississippi Survey from the Harvard Peabody Museum has been there and done that, starting with Phil Phillips’s work in the late 1930s. So back to Plaquemine: this volume provides a very good coverage on the topic, and there is not too much more that I can add. When the readers ¤nish this lengthy discussion on Plaquemine I think they will have learned quite a lot of useful information on this perennially discussed topic. Stephen Williams, Professor Emeritus Harvard University

1 Introduction and Historical Overview Mark A. Rees and Patrick C. Livingood

The town of Plaquemine, Louisiana, seems an unassuming southern community for which to designate an entire culture. Of course names can be misleading and Plaquemine is no exception. Like Mississippian culture of southeastern North America, of which Plaquemine has been described as a regional focus or variant (Grif¤n 1946, 1967), Plaquemine was devised by archaeologists to describe the material remains and sites of pre-Columbian and protohistoric Native American societies for which there exists little or no written documentation. Its geographic position has been associated with the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV), extending from the Mississippi delta on the Gulf coast to just south of the Arkansas River ( Jeter and Williams 1989:207–208; cf. Neuman 1984:259). This area spans the southern Yazoo Basin and Natchez Bluffs on the east and the lower Ouachita and Red river valleys on the west, encompassing a diverse range of valley topography and environments (Figure 1.1) (Autin et al. 1991; Kidder 2004b:545; Saucier 1994). So what’s the problem or, rather, what are the problems with Plaquemine? Like the town for which it was named, it has seemed at times on the verge of washing into the Mississippi River (Riffel 1985:38–41). Unlike its more wellknown and extroverted Mississippian cousin, Plaquemine seems to have been fraught with dif¤culties since early on. No sooner had the concept been de¤ned than the exigencies of archaeological research required that it be deconstructed and rede¤ned (Phillips 1970:950). Alternating descriptions of diagnostic pottery types, earthen mounds, and architecture in different regions have produced the appearance of an imprecise or “nebulous” tradition (Brown 1985b:252; Jeter and Williams 1989:205). Yet Plaquemine is today still regarded as a distinct cultural tradition on the frontier of the Mississippian world, with ties to both earlier Coles Creek and contemporaneous Mississippian tradi-

Figure 1.1. The Lower Mississippi Valley, showing the major drainages and regions discussed in the text.

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3

tions, beginning in the second or third century of the Mississippi period (ca. a.d. 1000–1700). As advances in research continue to make contributions to our understanding of the archaeology of the LMV, it is apropos to reconsider the concept of Plaquemine culture. An attempt has been made in this volume to draw together recent studies that call attention to variability as well as uniformity, including views from such disparate environments as the Mississippi River ®oodplain, the Tensas Basin, the Natchez Bluffs, and the “northerly borderlands” of southeastern Arkansas. Even so, much variability in the archaeological record has yet to be adequately investigated. There is little doubt that Plaquemine will continue to serve on one level as a valuable heuristic in examining and making sense of that variability. This chapter examines the origins and de¤nitions of Plaquemine, summarizes some of the history and themes of Plaquemine archaeology, and introduces some ongoing problems and directions for future research.

Historical Genesis and Adjustments Plaquemine ¤rst appeared in print in James Ford and Gordon Willey’s classic 1941 synthesis of eastern United States prehistory, although without further consideration in the text. Plaquemine was shown to be intermediate to the preceding Coles Creek period and subsequent Natchez and Bayou Goula cultures. The embryonic nature of the concept is illustrated in the atypical spelling (“Placquemine”) in two chronological pro¤les (Ford and Willey 1941:Figures 2 and 6). Ford and Willey (1941:359) also cited the Bayou Goula report as “in preparation” by Quimby. “Placquemine” was portrayed by Ford and Willey (1941:328, 330) as transitional between the Temple Mound I and II stages along the north–south axis of eastern North American cultures and associated with the Temple Mound II stage in the east–west axis. The Temple Mound stage terminology was eventually superseded by the Mississippi period and Plaquemine would come to be de¤ned by way of contrast (Grif¤n 1946, 1967; Williams 1956; cf. Willey 1966:292–304). The origins of Plaquemine can ultimately be traced to a series of distinctions made during the ¤rst half of the twentieth century, distinctions that at least initially had little to do with Plaquemine. Surveying the geographic distributions of Native American pottery in the eastern United States a century ago, William Henry Holmes (1903:21) predicted that the groups of pottery he laid out contained suf¤cient internal variability to eventually warrant further subdivision (see also Moore 1913). Holmes (1886, 1903) was instrumental in the creation of the Mississippian concept via his “Middle Mississippi Valley

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group,” which by mid-century had become ¤rmly established as the late preColumbian and protohistoric period in the Southeast, as well as a precocious and expansive culture subsequently thought to have emanated from the Central Mississippi Valley (DeJarnette and Wimberly 1941:99–110; Grif¤n 1943:257, 1946, 1952; Phillips et al. 1951; Williams 1956; see Grif¤n 1985 for an overview). Holmes (1903:21) suggested that ceramic traditions do not inevitably coincide with ethnicity or culture, nor are they always a reliable measure of cultural complexity (i.e., “important groups” versus “insigni¤cant communities”). He described the geographic distribution, function, stylistic variation, and temper of pottery in the Mississippi Valley, including the physical properties of shell temper and general similarities between Lower and Middle Mississippi wares (Holmes 1903:20–80, 101–104). Mississippian culture and the Mississippi period were derived from this and subsequent works in the context of an emergent culture historical archaeology in the Southeast (Grif¤n 1985:44–57). Plaquemine was developed by James Ford and George Quimby based on the results of WPA work conducted between 1938 and 1941 under the auspices of the Louisiana State Archaeological Survey. It represented a re¤nement of Ford’s (1935a, 1936, 1938) earlier chronology of ceramic-producing cultures in the LMV: Marksville, Coles Creek, and Natchez (Quimby 1942:256, 1951:87). In an article completed the same year Ford and Willey’s overview was published (1941), Quimby (1942:256) de¤ned Plaquemine as a “culture which preceded the Natchezan type.” Like Mississippian, Plaquemine had its roots in more fundamental pottery typologies and their chronological classi¤cation. More than any other culture trait, pottery types were seen as central in distinguishing Natchez from contemporaneous and earlier cultures. Among the types initially regarded by Quimby (1942:265–268) as characteristic of a “Plaquemine period” were Addis Plain (Baytown Plain, var. Addis), Manchac Incised (Mazique Incised, var. Manchac), Hardy Incised (Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy), Plaquemine Brushed, Pocahontas Plain (Mississippi Plain, var. Pocahontas), and Pocahontas Punctated, the latter two types subsequently associated more strictly with the Natchez Bluffs (e.g., Neitzel 1983:95). Coles Creek was in effect split into thirds: Troyville, Coles Creek proper, and Plaquemine. Plaquemine was also envisioned as a spatially intermediate pottery complex, wedged between Caddo sites on the west and various Mississippian complexes farther north and east (Ford and Willey 1941:328, 330). In this sense, Plaquemine was initially conceptualized as “a logical correction for the hasty 1940 overextension of the Caddoan concept, rather than an outgrowth of it” ( Jeter and Williams 1989:205; cf. Phillips 1970:946). Plaquemine thus came into being as a somewhat vague designation for post–Coles Creek,

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5

pre-Natchez, non-Caddo, and non-Mississippian pottery assemblages in the Lower Valley (Brown 1985b:252; Jeter and Williams 1989:205; Quimby 1942:256). Plaquemine consequently received the dubious distinction early on of being “de¤ned more in terms of what it lacks than in what it possesses” ( Jennings 1952:267). Archaeological understanding of Plaquemine components and assemblages advanced slowly during the ensuing decades, despite the fact that it was never “adequately de¤ned” as a culture (Williams and Brain 1983:373). As it turns out, 1951 was a seminal year for publications on Plaquemine as well as Mississippian archaeology (e.g., Cotter 1951a; Ford 1951; Phillips et al. 1951; Quimby 1951). Sites such as Greenhouse, Medora, Emerald, and Anna yielded a wealth of information with which to ®esh out the concept of Plaquemine culture. With the addition of publications by Cotter (1952a) and Quimby (1957) on the Gordon and Bayou Goula sites, these works made up until the early 1970s, according to Phillips (1970:950), the “basic documentation for the Plaquemine culture period” (see also Belmont 1967; Bohannon 1963; Brain 1969; Hally 1967; Neitzel 1965). The rapid appearance of these groundbreaking publications, delayed by World War II, provided the impetus for examining internal variability in respect to pottery types and the rede¤nition of Plaquemine-related phases (Phillips 1970:950). Ironically, it would also in®uence consideration of similarities between regional variants of Plaquemine culture and Coles Creek, Mississippian, Natchez, and Caddo cultures, or precisely what had made it necessary to differentiate Plaquemine in the ¤rst place (e.g., Brain 1978; Brown 1985a, 1985b; Gregory 1969; Hally 1972; Neitzel 1965, 1983; Steponaitis 1981; Webb 1959, 1961). Quimby’s (1951) Medora site report is generally cited as establishing the formal, archaeological criteria for both Plaquemine culture and a Plaquemine period (e.g., Ford 1952:327; Jeter and Williams 1989:206; Phillips 1970:950). Quimby argued that speci¤c ceramic types such as Addis Plain (Baytown Plain, var. Addis), Plaquemine Brushed, L’Eau Noire Incised, Manchac Incised (Mazique Incised, var. Manchac), Hardy Incised (Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy), and others are integral to the de¤nition of the Plaquemine concept. Certain ceramic vessel forms such as plates with interior incising and jars with brushed decoration remain key Plaquemine indicators. Because the report was based on excavation and not just surface collections, he was also able to suggest other traits that characterize Plaquemine (Quimby 1951:128). Some of these, such as the presence of truncated, pyramidal mounds around a plaza and post construction with and without wall trenches, have generally held up over time.

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Like most chronologies proposed before radiocarbon dating was available, the original dates for Plaquemine turned out to be too short and too recent. Originally thought to date not much earlier than a.d. 1400–1500 (Ford and Willey 1941:328, 330; Quimby 1951:130, 1957), it is now commonly considered to date from at least a.d. 1200. Phillips, Ford, and Grif¤n (1951:454, Table 17) suggested as much in the conclusion of their monumental Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, based on the correlation of sites with Mississippi River channel chronology. Plaquemine was preceded according to some by a Coles Creek transition (a.d. 1000–1200; Jeter and Williams 1989:172; Weinstein and Kelley 1992:31, 38). Medora, the type site for Plaquemine culture, in fact appears to date in large part from this transitional era (Brown 1985b:256; Weinstein 1987a:87–90). Plaquemine culture is now also usually placed within the Mississippi period (rather than Quimby’s Plaquemine period), re®ecting the greater in®uence of Mississippian culture and Mississippian archaeology (Brown 1998e).

Plaquemine Origins Reconsidered There remain substantial differences of opinion concerning Plaquemine cultural origins, particularly in relation to preceding Coles Creek and contemporaneous Mississippian traditions. At the risk of oversimplifying the present state of affairs, three lines of argument generally characterize these differences. The ¤rst is represented in the formative works of Ford (1951), Quimby (1942, 1951, 1957), and Phillips (1970) and is referred to here as “neither Mississippian nor Coles Creek.” In contrast, the second has been described as “Mississippianized Coles Creek” (Brain 1978:344–345; Brown 1985b:253; Williams and Brain 1983), while a third approach represents a middle ground of sorts and might be characterized as endogenous development or “continuity and change” (Kidder 1998b:131, this volume). Although there is certainly room for compromise (e.g., Kelley et al. 2000:17–18; Weinstein 1987a:87), we use these distinctions here as a means of highlighting the diversity of Plaquemine through time and space.

Neither Mississippian nor Coles Creek Phillips (1970) both emphasized the position of Plaquemine as a culture and rede¤ned the culture in terms of speci¤c phases. This allowed him to talk about the Mississippi period throughout the LMV but to distinguish between Plaquemine and Mississippian cultures. Phillips re¤ned and codi¤ed the typevariety system used for classifying ceramics in the Lower Valley. One of the hallmarks of this system is that it is hierarchical; it calls for investing more

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7

importance in certain distinctions by using them as the criteria to separate types, and it calls for subsuming other, presumably more minor differences under the divisions between varieties (e.g., Brown 1998b). The presence or absence of shell tempering was recognized as one of the ¤rst-order distinctions used in the descriptions of types. Since Phillips used ceramic evidence as the primary criteria for making cultural distinctions, the absence or presence of shell tempering became the axiomatic means for separating Plaquemine from Mississippian (Kidder 1998b:131; Williams and Brain 1983:337, 340). The de¤nition of Plaquemine we inherit from Phillips (1970:30, 34) thus hinges almost entirely on ceramics. He stipulated that Plaquemine is de¤ned by a cluster of ceramic types and forms, the absence of signi¤cant shell tempering being the most important characteristic that ties these complexes together. Plaquemine is distinguished by “long-standing typological criteria” developed out of Phillips, Ford, and Grif¤n’s (1951) earlier Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (Phillips 1970:923). Phases as well as cultures were distinguished on the basis of ceramics, according to Phillips (1970:9) representing “discontinuities of a minor order that are no less inherent in the material.” Phases were consequently emphasized as the central mechanism for understanding cultural dynamics, as embodied in regional designations such as Medora, Crippen Point, and Fitzhugh (Phillips 1970:558–560, 945, 950–951; cf. Phillips and Willey 1953). Phillips (1970:950–951) thus commented on the phase-based “dismemberment” of Plaquemine culture as a necessary analytical exercise, excising all except those phases that maintained Plaquemine as a cohesive and unadulterated complex. Of course, one result of this approach was to emphasize the need to determine whether a particular phase was either Plaquemine or Mississippian ( Jeter and Williams 1989:212). On a broader scale, Phillips (1970:13) described Mississippian in®uence in the Lower Yazoo Basin in terms of intrinsic cultural movements, falling somewhere between diffusion and invasion. He referred to the ability of Plaquemine culture bearers to repel, at least for a time, the seemingly indomitable Mississippian drive southward (“Drang nach Süden”; Phillips 1970:954), what a later generation of archaeologists would critique as the “Mississippian expansion” (i.e., Smith 1984). The idea of Plaquemine as neither Mississippian nor Coles Creek was thus integral to its origin as an archaeological culture, pottery complex, culture period, and phase. Ford (1951:85–89) found only minor evidence for an early Plaquemine component at Greenhouse, a major Coles Creek mound site in central Louisiana. Similarities between Plaquemine and Coles Creek were

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seen as strongest in this area and to the south, both in terms of pottery types and the continued use of burial mounds (e.g., Jennings 1952:267; Rees, this volume). In contrast, similarities between Plaquemine and Mississippian were more readily apparent to the north, particularly at sites with large platform mounds. Yet perceptions of difference and similarity had actually provided little explanation for Plaquemine cultural origins. Near the end of his Yazoo Basin report, Phillips (1970:967–968) amended an earlier suggestion that Plaquemine architecture and settlement patterns in the Yazoo Basin appeared to represent the “Mississippianization” of Plaquemine culture, arguing instead that “the hypothesis can only be tested by thorough excavation.”

Mississippianized Coles Creek Following Phillips’s prescient advice, Stephen Williams and Jeffrey Brain reformulated and advanced the concept of Plaquemine in several key ways from the vantage point of the Lower Yazoo Basin (Brain 1978, 1989, 1991; Williams and Brain 1983). They produced the most coherent and far-reaching interpretation of Plaquemine cultural origins and development by arguing that Plaquemine could be best viewed as “a hybridization of Coles Creek and Mississippian cultures” (Williams and Brain 1983:338). On the basis of the results of investigations at Lake George and Winterville, they argued that during the Coles Creek period LMV residents, especially in frontier zones, began to adopt new technologies with Mississippian origins, such as shell tempering, the Mississippian jar, and wall-trench houses (Brain 1969, 1989:114–120; Williams and Brain 1983:408–414). This was followed by the encroachment of small numbers of Mississippian communities into the northern part of the Yazoo Basin, at sites such as Buford. By a.d. 1200 direct person-to-person contacts were occurring between major Mississippian settlements to the north and major sites in the Lower Valley. Between a.d. 1300 and 1400 sites in the Lower Yazoo began to be acculturated to the Mississippian pattern and more closely resembled sites farther north (Brain 1989:125, 128). As a result, a Mississippian/Plaquemine frontier formed and moved south. Prior to a.d. 1300 it was somewhere north of Greenville, Mississippi, but by a.d. 1400–1500 the frontier had moved to the vicinity of Vicksburg. Plaquemine was consequently de¤ned as the Mississippianization of Coles Creek culture, a concept that has more recently undergone historical-processual revision (Brain 1989:122; e.g., Pauketat 2002, 2004). Williams and Brain further amended the de¤nition of Plaquemine by reclassifying the Crippen Point phase as terminal Coles Creek instead of early

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Plaquemine, thus moving the Coles Creek–Plaquemine transition from about a.d. 1000 to a.d. 1200. Phillips (1970:558–560) had originally classi¤ed Crippen Point as Plaquemine because it was associated with the appearance of Addis-paste ceramics. However, Williams and Brain (1983:318) argued that Crippen Point ceramics continued to exhibit linear decorative techniques focused on the vessel rim, like most previous Coles Creek forms. Beyond ceramics, they pointed out that the Lake George site underwent only small, gradual changes during the Crippen Point phase, placing it more comfortably within the preceding Coles Creek period. As Jeter and Williams (1989:208–209) indicate, the reformulation of the Coles Creek–Plaquemine transition has far-reaching consequences for how we characterize the late prehistory of the Lower Valley. If the Crippen Point phase is categorized as Coles Creek, then Williams and Brain (1983:405) are correct in describing Coles Creek as a relatively conservative period followed by dramatic changes, including the abrupt adoption of Mississippian technologies. Plaquemine is in effect the culmination of Mississippian cultural in®uences upon conservative Coles Creek societies. Alternatively, if the Crippen Point phase is categorized as Plaquemine, then the origins of Plaquemine culture predate major Mississippian in®uence and changes appear more gradual. Outside the Lower Yazoo Basin, researchers have faced related dif¤culties in classifying phases according to broader cultural categories. For example, there have been disagreements over whether to classify the Bayou Petre phase in the Mississippi delta as either Mississippian or Plaquemine (Brown 1985b:283; Phillips 1970:951–953; Weinstein 1987a:98). Differences of opinion have also arisen regarding the Preston phase in the Tensas Basin and whether or not to classify it as Coles Creek (Hally 1972:605–607; Jeter and Williams 1989:210– 212; Wells and Weinstein 2005). Such decisions ultimately transcend differences regarding which period or culture a certain phase should be associated and strike at the heart of how we conceive of Plaquemine. Faced with the ambiguities of drawing an exact boundary between Coles Creek and Plaquemine where none appears to exist, some scholars have instead advocated using “transitional Coles Creek–Plaquemine” to refer to intermediate phases such as Crippen Point, Gordon, Preston, and St. Gabriel (Belmont 1982a; Belmont and Williams 1981; Brown 1985b; Jeter and Williams 1989; Weinstein 1987a; Wells and Weinstein, this volume). In doing so, the question of Plaquemine origins is effectively rephrased as a problem of understanding continuity and change.

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Continuity and Change An alternative approach to Plaquemine origins is to describe it as an endogenous cultural tradition or outgrowth of preceding Coles Creek culture, with no less signi¤cant exogenous in®uences (Haag 1965:304–307, 1978, 1988; Hally 1972; Kidder 1998b; Neuman 1984:258; Sibley 1967:157). From this perspective, interpretations of Plaquemine culture as “Mississippianized Coles Creek” rely too heavily on the Lower Yazoo data and do not generalize well to other regions such as the Lower Ouachita, Tensas Basin, or Natchez Bluffs (Kidder 1998b:131). In fact, there is little evidence from Plaquemine components in areas far removed from the Lower Yazoo Basin for direct contacts or similar wide-ranging Mississippian in®uence (e.g., Quimby 1951; Rees 2003, this volume). Despite the fact that communities in regions closer to the Lower Yazoo Basin adopted similar site plans and ceramic forms, it seems unrealistic to consider all Plaquemine components throughout the LMV as Mississippianized Coles Creek (Brown 1985b; Hally 1972). When Mississippian contacts have been identi¤ed in other regions it has been in juxtaposition with a clear progression from Coles Creek to Plaquemine traditions (Brown 1999; Davis and Giardino 1980; Weinstein 1987a, 1987b; Weinstein and Kelley 1984; Wells and Weinstein, this volume). For example, Mississippian in®uences from the Mobile Bay region via the Bayou Petre phase have been identi¤ed for a coastal Plaquemine variant represented in the Barataria and Burk Hill phases (Brown 1985b; Brown et al. 1979; Davis 1984; Jeter and Williams 1989:218–220; Shuman, this volume; Weinstein 1987a). It should come as no surprise, then, that Caddo in®uence has likewise been discerned for Plaquemine phases on the western “frontier” ( Jeter and Williams 1989:213; Rolingson 1976). Similarities between Caddo and Plaquemine ceramic assemblages were recognized early on by Grif¤n (1946:83), Krieger (1946:253, 255), and Webb (1959:148, 150, 153, 202, 206), supposedly based on a common Coles Creek derivation (see also Sibley 1967:157–164). Despite differences of opinion, many archaeologists now recognize clear continuities between Coles Creek and Plaquemine traditions (Brown 1984:115, 118; Kelley 1984:43; Miller et al. 2000:47; Ryan, ed. 2004:23–24; Weinstein 1987a:87; Wells 2001:16). Regarding the “typological criteria” set forth by Phillips (1970:923), David Hally (1972) has suggested that archaeologists may be placing too much importance on the appearance of shell tempering. T. R. Kidder (1998b:132) has likewise suggested that an emphasis on shell tempering might be creating an “arti¤cial dichotomy between Mississippian and Plaquemine cultures and

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gloss over some obvious similarities” (see also Kidder 2004b:555). The appearance of shell tempering was likely a much more complex and varied phenomenon (Shuman, this volume). Shell tempering was adopted at some sites in the Tensas Basin, such as Transylvania, much earlier than at nearby sites (Hally 1972:423–426). At sites like Transylvania, where both Addis and shelltempered pastes were used, the majority of decorated forms were placed on shell-tempered ware while the majority of plain sherds were Addis (Hally 1972). At sites such as Pevey on the Pearl River, however, the opposite condition is true (Livingood 1999, this volume). Furthermore, several decorative techniques seem to have been exclusively reserved for Addis paste, while others were more likely to be executed on shell-tempered vessels or vessels containing shell in an otherwise Addis paste (Hally 1972:426–430; Kidder 1998b:132). Until some of these complex relationships are addressed, it is dif¤cult to fathom the precise meaning of the adoption of shell tempering. Whether it is regarded as an unambiguous technological innovation or part of a foreign cultural package, it would have involved the negotiation of new social meanings on a local level (Nassaney 2001:168–169; Pauketat 2001b:82). Investigating Plaquemine components in terms of both continuity and change is to allow for historical connections with Coles Creek, Caddoan, Natchezan, and Mississippian traditions, while at the same time recognizing essential differences. Unlike the Mississippianized Coles Creek point of view, this does not provide an intrinsic or straightforward explanation of cultural origins. From yet another perspective, the question of cultural origins seems misplaced. Following the example of Mississippian archaeology elsewhere in the Southeast, Plaquemine might be approached from a regional, political-economic perspective (e.g., Anderson 1996b, 1999; Barker and Pauketat, eds. 1992; Hally 1993; Pauketat 1997a, 1997b). Archaeologists are again confronted with the familiar challenge of working from the ground up, in hopes of re¤ning presentday knowledge of Plaquemine culture, one site and one assemblage at a time.

Future Directions and the Present Work Plaquemine, it seems, despite six decades of research, is still badly in need of de¤nition (cf. Jennings 1952:267; Kelley 1984:42; Williams and Brain 1983:373). Variability between phases in the Lower Yazoo Basin, Natchez Bluffs, Tensas Basin, and Baton Rouge area even now threaten to erode the conceptual foundation laid long ago by James Ford; yet these are the very regions that might be construed as a Plaquemine “heartland” ( Jeter and Williams 1989:207–212). Considerably less is known about the Lower Ouachita Valley or Felsenthal region of southeast Arkansas, the Bartholomew-Boeuf Basin, Catahoula Ba-

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sin, Lower Red River, Atchafalaya Basin, or Gulf coastal plain. Having de¤ned Plaquemine as a more or less cohesive cultural tradition in contrast to other spatially and temporally adjoining traditions, archaeologists are still in the process of ¤lling in the details on local and regional levels. Part of the problem, of course, is that the term Plaquemine has been so broadly applied (Jeter and Williams 1989:205–220). Consideration of a Plaquemine “heartland” implies Coles Creek antecedents more or less removed from Mississippian stimulus. In contrast, Plaquemine components along the western margin in the Catahoula Basin, Lower Ouachita, and Felsenthal region exhibit af¤liations with Caddo traditions (Fuller and Williams 1985; Gibson 1983, 1996:69–73; Gregory 1969; Gregory et al. 1987; Kidder 1990a, 1998b; Rolingson and Schambach 1981). A coastal Plaquemine culture can likewise be distinguished in regard to ceramics, settlement, and subsistence (Brown 1985b; Jeter and Williams 1989:212–220; Weinstein 1987a). Regardless of how we conceive of Plaquemine culture, greater attention to regional diversity promises to increase our understanding of those who were actively engaged in its production and dissemination (sensu Pauketat 2001a, 2001b). The intersection of practice theory and historical process has focused archaeological research on the political contexts of agency, material culture, and traditions (Dobres and Robb 2000:10–13; Pauketat 2000:114–117). At the same time, earlier explanatory models will continue to inform the direction of research. The presence or absence of shell tempering might be understood in this light not only as a technological choice or intrinsic cultural decision of potters but also in terms of long-distance contacts, migrations, intermarriages, ethnic identity, and resistance—as one facet of a historical process of Mississippianization (Livingood, this volume; Pauketat 2001b:81–83, 2004: 131–141). The majority of the debate over Plaquemine origins in the LMV has in retrospect been framed in the context of an older, essentialist culture historical approach, the same point of view that inspired James Ford to breathe life into the concept. Without undermining the culture historical foundation of Plaquemine, future research promises to enhance current knowledge in regard to historical ecology, subsistence economies, and political dynamics—the actual practices that produced and made up multiscalar cultural variability. Following in the footsteps of Mississippian archaeology, it is ¤tting that our understanding of Plaquemine diversity be more ¤rmly situated within a set of generalizations drawn from cultural ecology (e.g., Kottak 1999; Orlove 1980; Smith 1978). The hurricanes of 2005 that led to the evacuation of New Orleans and caused extensive damage to the Gulf Coast region are powerful recent reminders that the LMV and Gulf Coast region can be unpredictable

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environments with extremely volatile ecological processes (e.g., Saucier 1994: 321–322). A full understanding of Plaquemine culture must necessarily account for how people dealt with the abrupt changes and periodic threats of dynamic landforms. Hurricane Katrina, in particular, evokes anthropogenic factors and serves as a tragic reminder that the Mississippi River has become increasingly channelized since the ¤rst arti¤cial levees were built in the eighteenth century. Lower Valley residents took advantage of a dynamic riverine environment well before Mississippian times by hunting wetland game and harvesting ¤sh trapped in oxbow lakes replenished by annual ®oods. However, we have little understanding of how Plaquemine peoples or their progenitors coped with exceptional ®ooding events that on occasion must have affected thousands of square miles. Human–environmental relationships within any particular “riverine adaptation” (or variant thereof ) are negotiated in terms of socially and historically contingent landscapes (Crumley 1994:6, 11; Kidder 1998d; Patterson 1994; cf. Smith 1978). Just as recent anthropogenic processes are transforming the LMV (Saucier 1994:331–332), archaeologists should not assume indigenous populations were merely passive recipients of natural processes. Such regional and local-level cultural diversity and divergent historical trajectories defy straightforward eco-functionalist or systemic explanation (Anderson 1994b, 1999; Barker and Pauketat 1992; Cobb 1996; Pauketat 2001b). While it might be tempting to attribute such diversity at the macroscale to environmental differences, historical documentation hints at profound ethnic and linguistic variations within the LMV, distinctions undoubtedly transformed and trans¤xed by living peoples during the preceding millennium (Galloway 1998, 2002; Giardino 1984; Jeter 2002a; Kidder 1993b; Swanton 1911). One of the most valuable contributions in this regard involves problems of subsistence and subsistence economies (Fritz and Kidder 1993; Harmon and Rose 1989; Kidder 1992b; Kidder and Fritz 1993; Rose et al. 1984; Rose et al. 1991). In particular, the adoption of maize agriculture is no longer regarded as a causal mechanism in the evolution of Coles Creek social complexity (Kidder 1992a). Although maize has been recovered from Plaquemine components in the Lower Yazoo, Natchez Bluffs, and Tensas Basin, little is actually known about the relative dietary and economic signi¤cance of agriculture throughout the LMV. Furthermore, it is risky to generalize to other regions where data are sparser. The intensi¤cation of maize agriculture in the Tensas Basin was associated with the terminal Coles Creek–Plaquemine transition, raising additional questions regarding possible Mississippian contacts, the development of social inequalities, and political complexity (Kidder 1992a, 1992b; Kidder and Fritz 1993; Roberts 2004). Some Plaquemine groups may have continued in

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the Coles Creek tradition of focusing on an abundance of ¤sh, waterfowl, and shell¤sh (Fritz and Kidder 1993; Gregory 1969; Jeter and Williams 1989:215– 216, 219; Kidder et al. 1993; Miller et al. 2000:435–436; Rolingson and Schambach 1981; R. Smith 1996), while in some areas white-tailed deer and small mammals appear to have been relatively more important (Coxe and Kelley 2004; Springer 1980; Stevenson 1992). However tempting further generalization may be, it will be advantageous to situate new data on subsistence economies within the historical context of regional polities. One productive area of research will be to examine the evidence for feasting and food provisioning in such contexts (e.g., Beasley, this volume; Blitz 1993; Jackson and Scott 1995, 2003; Knight 2001; Pauketat et al. 2002; Welch and Scarry 1995). Finally, greater interest in political dynamics in the Mississippian Southeast during the past decade has paved the way for consideration of similar issues in the LMV (e.g., Anderson 1994a; Cobb 2003; Pauketat and Emerson, eds. 1997; Scarry, ed. 1996). Yet, in comparison, less research has focused speci¤cally on Plaquemine sociopolitical organization or dynamics. Much of what we know has been inferred from settlement patterns or extrapolated from documentary sources on early historic polities (e.g., Brain 1978; Brown 1985a, 1998c). The historic Natchez, with widely acknowledged Plaquemine associations, have informed current understanding of Mississippian polities (I. Brown 1990, this volume; Lorenz 1997; cf. Muller 1997:63–68). Recognizing the pitfalls of historic analogy (e.g., Galloway 1992, 1993), it would be bene¤cial to contrast the historical trajectories of regional Plaquemine polities with better-known Mississippian data sets (e.g., Knight 1997; Knight and Steponaitis 1998). A system of hereditary social ranking is thought by many to have emerged during the Coles Creek period in the LMV, subsequently elaborated upon by Plaquemine societies (Barker 1999; Kidder 1992a, 2002:79–90; Steponaitis 1986:385–387). Site hierarchies have been described for some polities, particularly in the Tensas Basin, Natchez Bluffs, and Lower Yazoo, suggesting multiple levels of political administration (Brain 1978; Kidder 1998b:143). Large mound sites appear to have become larger and less numerous from Coles Creek to Plaquemine times, possibly indicating a process of political centralization in which certain communities or factions were exerting political authority over larger territories (Brain 1978; Kidder 1992a, 1998b; Wells 1997, 1998). Kidder (1998b:137, 146) suggests that mound-and-plaza arrangements become increasingly exclusionary, indicating that elites were appropriating the symbols of public ceremony. Comparisons among Coles Creek, Plaquemine, and Mississippian polities stretch thin beyond this point. One of the greatest challenges in the LMV

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concerns the relative lack of archaeological evidence for preciosities or prestige goods and differential ranking in mortuary practices—the kinds of data that have proven helpful in past studies of ranked Mississippian societies (e.g., Pauketat 1997a, 1997b; Peebles and Kus 1977; Steponaitis 1991; Welch 1991). Another serious issue is the lack of comparable data sets in the LMV. Plaquemine as it is currently conceived may be too normative to encompass regional variation within the LMV. Part of the solution, then, will be to develop new explanatory models to account for this variation. Rather than approaching the Coles Creek–Plaquemine transition in terms of a Mississippian cultural expansion, it will be more productive to consider Plaquemine as a series of endogenous, local-level practices, in®uenced in some instances by agents of an analogous, macroscale tradition, what has been referred to as a historical process of Mississippianization (Pauketat 2001a, 2001b, 2004). This in turn raises the thorny question as to whether we might consider “Plaqueminization”— born of Coles Creek conservativism and traditions of resistance (see also Brown 1998e:657). The following chapters are arranged more or less geographically, with some re®ection of a chronological sequence (Figure 1.2). Beginning in the Tensas Basin of northeast Louisiana, a somewhat different scenario is emerging than across the river at Lake George and the Lower Yazoo Basin. Lori Roe addresses the Coles Creek antecedents of Plaquemine mound construction at the Raffman site. Greater attention to the Coles Creek–Plaquemine transition is particularly warranted in this region, where large mound centers were established during the Coles Creek period (Kidder 1998b:143). Roe argues for strong continuities in ceremony and ideology based on mound and plaza construction, architecture, and reuse. As a result, archaeologists working in the region must turn to Coles Creek rather than Mississippian societies in order to trace the antecedents of Plaquemine sociopolitical organization. At the Lake Providence Mounds, approximately 20 miles north of Raffman, Douglas Wells and Richard Weinstein have uncovered striking evidence for extraregional Mississippian contacts dating from the late Coles Creek transition. Presenting the results of a recent study by Coastal Environments, Inc., Wells and Weinstein demonstrate through sourcing analyses that ¤neware associated with the Preston phase (a.d. 1100–1250) included vessels that originated in the American Bottom region to the north. The expansion of interregional exchange in the development of a Lake Providence elite is suggested, although additional data are clearly needed. Subsequent Mississippian in®uence on Plaquemine society is regarded as largely indirect, via the Yazoo Basin, with Coles Creek society providing the basis for increased social inequalities and political centralization.

Figure 1.2. Areas discussed by individual authors.

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Moving south along the western edge of the LMV ®oodplain, Mark Rees investigates a series of little-known mound sites in the western Atchafalaya Basin, only 40 km (25 miles) west of the Medora site. Continuity between Coles Creek and Plaquemine is apparent in pottery types, a lack of shell tempering, and the spatial layout of mound groups. As this is far from resembling “Mississippianized Coles Creek,” an argument is made for endogenous political development in the context of regional conservativism. Possible connections between historic Chitimacha villages and ceremonial centers indicate that additional research has the potential to substantially expand on current understanding of regional political culture. A productive synthesis of culture historical and processual perspectives is advocated in this regard. Farther southeast in the Barataria Basin of coastal Louisiana, Malcolm Shuman draws attention to important yet poorly understood pottery assemblages on the north shore of Lake Salvador. From a vantage point deep in the Mississippi delta, the Plaquemine-Mississippian connection (divide?) seems more curious than ever, raising new questions concerning the apparent source, direction, and actual process of Mississippianization. As Shuman points out, Mississippian in®uence of some sort appears to have entered the LMV from the east, namely in the adoption of shell tempering at sites in the delta and Gulf coastal plain. Distinctions between Plaquemine and Mississippian are not so clear from the perspective of the Barataria phase, particularly if shell tempering is to serve as a diagnostic marker. Nor does there appear to have been a simple progression from grog-tempered to shell-tempered pottery types, raising fundamental questions regarding transitional Coles Creek. If such distinctions seem muddied this far south, it seems as though a careful reexamination of basic concepts is long overdue. Shuman also provides a compelling example of the dif¤culty in applying cultural generalizations about Plaquemine to its many diverse phases. Moving east across the Mississippi all the way to the Pearl River, Patrick Livingood examines the introduction of shell tempering as a basis for understanding Mississippianization. Using a digital image analysis technique, Livingood examines the paste recipes of Plaquemine potters at the Pevey and Lowe-Steen sites in south-central Mississippi. Pottery types based largely on grog or shell tempering do not separate into simple categories under digital image analysis but instead suggest the use of temper in paste recipes was a functional and aesthetic decision associated with household production. Conventional categories and assumptions must consequently be reexamined. On the Natchez Bluffs to the west, Virgil Beasley presents the results of the 1997 excavations at the Anna site, a major Plaquemine mound center and the

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type site for the Anna phase (a.d. 1200–1350). Long associated with ancestors of the historic Natchez, the Anna site has been described along with sites such as Emerald, Foster, and Fatherland as representative of the shifting political fortunes of Plaquemine chiefdoms on the Natchez Bluffs (Brain 1978; Brown 1985a, this volume; Neitzel 1965). Investigation of architectural remains in a mound precinct at Anna yielded associated ceramic and faunal deposits. Along with architectural evidence for a small scaffold or screen, Beasley argues, these may represent the remains of a ceremonial feast as described in early historic accounts of the Natchez. Drawing upon multiple lines of evidence, the archaeological interpretation of ritual feasting holds enormous potential for understanding the relationships between subsistence economy and regional political dynamics (e.g., Jackson and Scott 1995, 2003). Plaquemine culture in the Natchez Bluffs region of Mississippi is revisited by Ian Brown, who summarizes what is presently known about ethnohistoric connections with the Natchez, political development, and mound construction. He argues that large mound sites such as Anna and Emerald represent the culmination of historical trajectories that produced shifting regional consolidation, alliances, and hierarchies. Importantly, he points out that towns with mounds and dispersed households were the main components of Plaquemine settlement hierarchy on the Natchez Bluffs. Unlike previous Coles Creek or contemporaneous Mississippian societies, there do not appear to have been large villages without mounds. More controversial, the evidence for mound construction points toward Plaquemine rather than Coles Creek origins at single-component and multicomponent sites. Discontinuities in architecture and pottery lead Brown to further surmise a decisive break between Coles Creek and Plaquemine habitation in the Natchez Bluffs region. As to exactly what these discontinuities mean will require further study, yet comparison with other Plaquemine regions is striking, particularly in the context of a Coles Creek transition (e.g., Rees, this volume; Roe, this volume; Shuman, this volume; Wells and Weinstein, this volume). Moving boldly upriver to the “outer limits” of Plaquemine culture, Marvin Jeter reexamines Plaquemine from the perspective of southeast Arkansas or the “northerly borderlands.” The noticeable omission of recent research from the Lower Yazoo Basin, so prominent in the literature, may appear incongruous (see above). Yet in terms of exactly how Plaquemine is to be reconceptualized, the Lower Yazoo Basin looms large (e.g., Brain 1978, 1989; Phillips 1970; Williams and Brain 1983). In a wide-ranging essay, Jeter provides an introduction to Plaquemine in southeast Arkansas and examines its manifestation in the Bellaire, Bartholomew, and Gran Marais phases. On the basis of

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a careful reexamination of the evidence, Jeter concludes that the Bellaire phase in the Bartholomew-Macon region, tentatively identi¤ed by Phillips (1970), might be discarded or subsumed under Mississippian culture. The substantive evidence for the Bartholomew and Gran Marais phases is likewise summarized in terms of pottery, lithics, site and settlement data, and subsistence. Jeter addresses regional variation in Plaquemine societies in southeast Arkansas, including its antecedents and descendants, and concludes with a compelling argument for connections with ethnohistorically documented groups of Native Americans. The volume closes with T. R. Kidder “contemplating Plaquemine culture,” returning to several of the themes outlined in earlier chapters. Kidder summarizes by emphasizing the local Coles Creek antecedents of Plaquemine societies and drawing attention to political, economic, and religious practices in the LMV after a.d. 1000, historical variation that he argues cannot adequately be accounted for by “unspeci¤ed Mississippian in®uences.” A more nuanced understanding of regional political consolidation in the LMV after a.d. 1200 will likewise require greater attention to both the scale and source of interactions. Turning the familiar homology upside down, if the cultural heirs of Coles Creek in the LMV were in fact informed of the imposing Mississippian polities upriver and to the east, what conditions and events, what actions would have entailed their being or remaining Plaquemine? As the following authors demonstrate, the dif¤cult work needed to answer these and other questions has just begun.

Acknowledgments The chapters in this volume were originally presented in the symposium “Plaquemine Problems: Recent Investigations and Reappraisals” at the 60th annual meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, on November 12–15, 2003. We would like to thank the staff at the University of Alabama Press for their guidance, assistance, encouragement, and patience. We are indebted to Kathy Cummins, who edited the entire manuscript and corrected numerous mistakes. We would also like to extend a special thanks to those contributors who were personally affected by hurricane Katrina. The hurricane hit during the ¤nal revisions to the manuscript but did not prevent any authors from completing their revisions and submitting their chapters. We are also grateful for the support of our families, especially Johanna Rees and Susannah Livingood.

2 Coles Creek Antecedents of Plaquemine Mound Construction Evidence from the Raffman Site Lori Roe Plaquemine culture (ca. a.d. 1200–1700) developed in the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) at a time when the Mississippian cultural tradition dominated most of southeastern North America. Plaquemine culture shares traits such as maize horticulture and hierarchical social organization with Mississippian cultural variants throughout the Southeast (Brain 1989:133; Kidder 1993a). However, Plaquemine culture maintains a distinct LMV ®avor, and differences between Plaquemine and Mississippian iconography and technology continue in some areas into historic times (Kidder 2004b). The local ancestor of Plaquemine culture is the Late Woodland Coles Creek culture (ca. a.d. 700– 1200). While there is continuity between Coles Creek and Plaquemine culture, important changes in subsistence and sociopolitical developments take place during the transition from Coles Creek to Plaquemine. Evidence of interaction with Mississippian cultural groups, in the form of ceramic and lithic artifacts, is found at some Coles Creek sites in the LMV (e.g., Lake Providence, Lake George, and Winterville) beginning around a.d. 1000 (Brain 1989; Phillips 1970; Williams and Brain 1983; Wells and Weinstein, this volume). The impact this cross-cultural contact had on the origin of Plaquemine culture is debated by archaeologists and appears to have varied in different subregions of the LMV. Research in the Yazoo Basin, notably work by Williams and Brain (Brain 1989; Williams and Brain 1983), led to the idea that Mississippian contact was instrumental in the development of Plaquemine culture. However, some archaeologists working in the Tensas Basin (e.g., Hally 1972; Kidder 1993a) argue that evidence for Mississippian in®uence on the development of Plaquemine culture is equivocal. Disagreement over the nature of the preceding Coles Creek culture contributes to the debate over Plaquemine origins. Williams and Brain (1983:405) see the Coles

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Creek culture as relatively static, with early innovations followed by nearly 500 years of “conservative resistance to major change.” However, changes in settlement patterns, increases in the scale of earthen mound construction, and concomitant alterations of mound-and-plaza site plans have been offered as evidence that Coles Creek polities were becoming larger and more hierarchically organized over the span of the Coles Creek period (Kidder 1992a, 1998b, 2002:87–88; Wells 1997). In order to understand Plaquemine culture, we must examine the developments in the preceding Coles Creek period and reevaluate the nature of interactions between Coles Creek and external Mississippian groups. Earthen mound architecture has factored strongly in interpretations of both Coles Creek and Plaquemine sociopolitical organization, and continuities in Coles Creek and Plaquemine mound architecture are the focus of this chapter. In particular, results of research at the Raffman site (16MA20), an impressive Coles Creek mound-and-plaza center that exhibits strong similarities with later Plaquemine mound centers, are presented (Figure 2.1). Raffman is much larger than most contemporary mound centers in the Coles Creek region and does not ¤t the “typical” Coles Creek site plan of two to four modest-sized mounds (Williams and Brain 1983:405). The massive scale of construction at Raffman and a large and rapid expansion of the site around a.d. 1000 suggest that the Raffman vicinity may have been an early locus of political complexity in the region and support the idea that signi¤cant sociopolitical developments occurred during Coles Creek times. There is a long history of platform mound construction in the LMV. The ¤rst substructural platform mound-and-plaza precincts in the eastern United States were constructed by Coles Creek cultural groups (Knight 2001; Williams and Brain 1983:405). By Plaquemine culture times, platform moundand-plaza precincts clearly served as ceremonial and political centers (Brain 1978, 1988; Neitzel 1965; Quimby 1951). Continuities in this form of monumental architecture suggest that the ceremonial and, presumably, sociopolitical organization of Plaquemine began developing during the preceding Coles Creek period. The facts that Raffman mound construction and use predates Plaquemine culture and that it shows no direct evidence of Mississippian in®uences are signi¤cant for interpretations of indigenous cultural development and cross-cultural interactions in the LMV.

Coles Creek Culture The Coles Creek period (a.d. 700–1200/1250) marks an important transition in social organization in the LMV from the relatively egalitarian cultures of

Figure 2.1. Core Coles Creek region and locations of most sites discussed in the chapter.

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Figure 2.2. Middle Woodland through historic phase chronology for the central Lower Mississippi Valley (after Kidder 1992a:Figure 8.2).

the preceding Baytown period (a.d. 400–700) to the hierarchical chiefdoms that prevailed among the Mississippi period Plaquemine culture (a.d. 1200/1250–1450). Coles Creek culture is found throughout much of the LMV from the mouth of the Arkansas River to the Gulf of Mexico. It thrived in the Yazoo, Tensas, and Ouachita River basins, in the Natchez Bluffs region, and in coastal Louisiana (Figure 2.2). Coles Creek occupations are most commonly identi¤ed by their ceramics—grog-tempered wares with decorative motifs and temper characteristics

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that distinguish them from earlier types. Ceramics are by far the most abundant artifacts recovered from Coles Creek sites. Settlement types included camps, hamlets, villages, and mound centers (Kidder 1992a; Wells 1997). Ceremonial site architecture, consisting of ®at-topped mounds constructed around level plazas, is found throughout the Coles Creek region. Population in the region increased during the Coles Creek period, measured by increases in overall site size and density (Kidder 2002). Coles Creek subsistence was assumed to be based on farming of maize and other tropical and native cultigens because settlements are typically located on arable lands of major river valleys (Williams and Brain 1983:408). Research by Fritz and Kidder (Fritz and Kidder 1993; Kidder 1993a; Kidder and Fritz 1993), though, shows that maize was not a signi¤cant part of the diet until at least a.d. 1200. Even cultigens of native plants that were farmed elsewhere in the Mississippi River valley, such as maygrass and chenopod, are largely absent from Coles Creek sites south of the Arkansas River. Recent research indicates there is considerable plant food subsistence variability among Coles Creek peoples, with contemporary groups living in close proximity practicing different strategies (Roberts 2004). Evidence for increasing social complexity and the emergence of social elites in Coles Creek societies includes construction of platform mounds that may have served as the location for elite residences; mound architecture that suggests restriction of access to the mound-and-plaza precinct; a high degree of community planning; hierarchical settlement patterns; and, to some degree, mortuary patterns (Barker 1999; Belmont 1985; Kidder 1992a, 1998b, 2004b; Steponaitis 1986:385–386; Wells 1997; Williams and Brain 1983:370). However, status and wealth distinctions are not seen in accumulations of exotic trade goods or other prestige items or in elaborate tomb preparations and grave offerings. Coles Creek material culture is fairly mundane; ornate special-use or ceremonial objects are extremely rare. Few exotic items are found in Coles Creek contexts and the large majority of artifacts were made on local materials, suggesting that extraregional trade was uncommon (Kidder 2002:89). Excavation of Coles Creek mounds at sites such as Greenhouse, Lake George, and Morgan revealed that these features were often constructed in multiple stages. Perishable structures were erected on mound summits and burials were often interred in the mounds (Ford 1951; Fuller and Fuller 1987; Williams and Brain 1983). Mound summit structures have been interpreted as residences or charnel houses, on the basis of associated midden deposits or burials, though further research is needed to determine what functions these structures served (Steponaitis 1986:385). Steponaitis (1986:385–386) observes

ev idence from the r affm a n site

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that the construction of multistage platform mounds that appear to have served as residences and/or burial locations is reminiscent of platform mounds known to have been used by generations of elites in Mississippian and protohistoric chiefdoms. He suggests that Coles Creek platform mounds may represent the emergence of hereditary social ranking, with each mound stage being constructed for and used by a new generation of chiefs (Steponaitis 1986:386). Excavations at sites such as Greenhouse, Mount Nebo, and Lake George have demonstrated that mound centers were used and expanded over hundreds of years. Greenhouse and Mount Nebo were mortuary ceremonial centers during the Baytown period and continued to be used for much of the Coles Creek period (Belmont 1967; Ford 1951; Giardino 1977; Kidder 1998b; Kidder and Fritz 1993). Mounds were constructed over existing structures and burial tumuli, eventually resulting in multiple mounds demarcating a central plaza. The Lake George site was also occupied during the Baytown and Coles Creek periods and had a remarkable expansion during the initial phases of Plaquemine culture in the Yazoo Basin (Williams and Brain 1983). The continued use or reuse of the same sites as ceremonial centers suggests continuity of cultural heritage and the importance of ancestral social and ceremonial centers. Coles Creek mound centers were often constructed over Baytown period mortuary centers. Steponaitis (1986:386) asserts that Coles Creek leaders began to transform these centers—which had previously been used for communal burial and ceremony—into symbols of elite power. Kidder (1992a) further contends that by constructing residential and burial mounds over ancestral burial locations, incipient Coles Creek elites symbolically and physically linked themselves with locations that were of the utmost social and ceremonial importance. The aggrandizement of some Coles Creek sites as the Plaquemine culture emerged may represent a similar legitimization of elite power and desire to perpetuate ancestral ceremonial ties. The growth of mound centers, through construction of new mounds and enlargement of existing mounds, led to mound-and-plaza precincts that were increasingly demarcated from surrounding areas (Kidder 1998b). As opposed to there being a single mound adjacent to an open plaza, multiple mounds were constructed and these more tightly delineated the boundaries of the mound-and-plaza precinct. Kidder (1998b:138–139) interprets this physical bounding as an indication that access to mound-and-plaza precincts was becoming more restricted and that the activities that took place at these precincts were becoming more clearly distinguished from activities that took place in the villages and hamlets where the large majority of the population lived. This

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architectural trend begins in the Coles Creek period, lending support to the idea that mound centers became associated with social elites during this time (Kidder 1992a, 1998b; Steponaitis 1986:385–386; Williams and Brain 1983). The increased scale of mound construction indicates that these centers played a more important role in surrounding communities and that social leaders were able to coordinate greater labor efforts for mound construction.

The Raffman Site Location and Description Unlike many Plaquemine and Mississippian mound centers, Raffman is not situated near a major river (see Brain 1978). The site is located near the west bank of Tensas Bayou, in Madison Parish, northeast Louisiana (Figure 2.1). The Raffman mounds were constructed at the edge of an elevated ®ood deposit created by a crevasse in Joes Bayou to the west. Floodwaters and sediments broke through the natural levee on Joes Bayou and formed an elevated, fan-shaped splay (Kidder 2004a:519; Saucier 1994:272–273). The great construction efforts expended to create the Raffman site suggest that it was an important ceremonial and possibly political center in its region. The mounds at Raffman are closely spaced around a central plaza that measures approximately 80–90 m wide by 100–110 m long (Figure 2.3). Seven of these mounds, Mounds A–G, delineate the plaza. The remaining two mounds, Mounds H and I, are situated to the southeast of the plaza. The largest mound (Mound A) is a ®at-topped, rectangular feature, approximately 12 m tall and 75 m by 100 m at its base. It is located at the southern edge of the plaza. Flanking the northwest and northeast corners of Mound A are two relatively large platform mounds, labeled B and G. Four more mounds (C, D, E, and F) complete the boundary of the central plaza. Mounds A, B, C, G, and I have well-de¤ned, ®at summits. Mounds E and F have low, slightly rounded summits, and Mounds D and H are conical. Because of the size, shape, and arrangement of earthworks at Raffman, the site was considered by some to be a Mississippi period site, associated with the Plaquemine culture (Kidder 1998b:143; Phillips 1970:Figure 447). Investigations at Raffman, however, revealed that the earthworks are primarily Coles Creek period constructions. These excavations also demonstrated that, in addition to mound construction, extensive landscaping was involved in the creation of the mound-and-plaza precinct (Kidder 2004a; Kidder and Roe 1999). Additionally, excavations in mound summits and slope midden deposits have uncovered cultural remains associated with mound activities.

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Figure 2.3. The Raffman site, showing locations of 1998 through 2004 excavations. Mound B excavations shown in Figure 2.4.

Research at Raffman Located in a large, dense tract of woods, the Raffman mounds are dif¤cult to access. Raffman’s isolation has made research at the site challenging but has also contributed to the site’s excellent preservation. Raffman was ¤rst recorded as an archaeological site by Phillips and Neitzel in 1954. Archaeological investigations at the site over the next few decades were extremely limited. In 1981, Williams, Belmont, and Kardish mapped the site with a tape and compass and excavated shovel tests (Belmont 1985:272).

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In the summer of 1998, Kidder initiated more extensive investigation of the Raffman site. These investigations were continued during the summers of 2000, 2002, and 2004. Initial research goals included establishing a basic occupation sequence for the site, uncovering evidence of how and when the mounds were constructed, and examining the geomorphology of the Raffman vicinity. During the initial ¤eld season, a single 1-by-1-m excavation unit was placed in the slope of each mound and two units were placed in the plaza. Solid soil cores extracted from the mounds and plaza provided further information about site stratigraphy. In addition, two backhoe trenches were excavated. The “north trench” was located at the edge of the raised landform on which Raffman is situated and the “south trench” was located at the southwest toe of Mound B (Figure 2.3) (see Kidder 2004a). Later ¤eldwork has been focused on excavation of mound summits and slopes to examine midden deposits and activity areas on the mounds. Additional soil cores were extracted from the mounds and from non-mound contexts; these cores have proved to be a valuable source of information about the construction of the site.

Construction Chronology and Mound Use The Raffman site is large and stratigraphically complex; mound construction and landscaping at the site are extensive. Additional excavations and analyses will be necessary to provide more details about the exact sequence of mound construction and the function of each mound at Raffman. However, ¤eld investigations and analyses of cultural remains to date have provided a framework for the chronology of construction and occupation at Raffman. Examination of cultural remains from Raffman, especially those associated with mound activity areas, is ongoing. Available data do not indicate how each mound at Raffman was used. It is clear, though, that not all the mounds were used for the same purpose or activities. Mounds at Raffman vary in terms of size, shape, stratigraphy, and the presence or absence of associated occupation debris. Following is a discussion of the current data on site chronology and mound function. Cultural remains at Raffman indicate occupation during the Tchula (ca. 500 b.c.–a.d. 1) and Marksville (ca. a.d. 1–400) periods, prior to construction of the mounds. There is a notable absence of cultural remains that can be con¤dently dated to the Baytown period (ca. a.d. 400–700). A few surfacecollected ceramics dating to the Fitzhugh phase of the Plaquemine culture (ca. a.d. 1400–1500) suggest an ephemeral occupation during the Mississippi period (Kidder 2004a:523, 525). Coles Creek cultural components at Raffman include early (ca. a.d. 700–1000) and late (ca. a.d. 1000–1250) phases. Re-

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search thus far indicates that all mound construction, with the possible exception of Mound I, dates to the Coles Creek period (Kidder 2004a:519–526). Excavations were conducted on the summit of Mound A, and a single excavation was located on the lower northwest slope (Figure 2.3). No structural remains or other occupation debris was uncovered on the mound summit. A mound construction stage that contained relatively few artifacts was situated immediately underneath the humus stratum. Hand augering on the summit revealed that this mound construction stage was at least 2.5 m thick. Likewise, excavation on the slope of the mound did not reveal any evidence of occupation debris associated with the mound (Kidder 2004a:519). Though three construction episodes were identi¤ed on the basis of color and texture differences, there was no evidence of occupation debris or erosion between these mound ¤ll strata (Kidder 2004a:519). Mound A is a very large earthwork, and excavations to date cannot rule out the possibility that earlier mound stages were used for residence, ritual, or burial. However, no evidence for activities associated with this mound has been uncovered. Excavations did uncover a sub-mound midden, though. A radiocarbon date from charcoal near the surface of this midden deposit places the ¤nal accumulation of the midden around a.d. 700–750 (Table 2.1). Ceramics from the midden are in line with this date, including early Coles Creek period varieties of Baytown Plain, with two early Coles Creek period decorated sherds (French Fork Incised, var. Larkin and Coles Creek Incised, var. unspeci¤ed ) (see Phillips 1970:69–70, 85). There is no indication that a substantial amount of time elapsed between the ¤nal deposition of this midden and the initial construction of Mound A (Kidder 2004a:519). Ceramics from sub-mound middens also suggest that construction of Mounds B and C was begun in the early Coles Creek period. Extensive excavations have been conducted in Mound B, and the results of these investigations are discussed in the following section. Mound C has had only limited testing, consisting of a single excavation on the slope of the mound, soil cores extracted from the mound, and probing for occupation debris on the summit using an Oak¤eld soil corer. Ceramics from midden underlying Mound C are similar to those found under Mound A and indicate a contemporary occupation (Kidder 2004a:519). A radiocarbon date from this sub-mound midden places the construction of Mound C around a.d. 800–900 (Table 2.1). Mound C appears to have been constructed in a single episode; no occupation debris has been located on the mound slopes or on the ®at summit. Mounds D, H, and I have also only been subjected to limited testing. Available data suggest that Mounds D and H were constructed during the Coles Creek period and that Mound I was constructed perhaps during termi-

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nal Coles Creek period or Plaquemine times. Mound D overlies a midden that contains a few Marksville decorated sherds and plainwares that appear to date from the Marksville, Baytown, and/or early Coles Creek periods. Mound D construction ¤ll contains early Coles Creek decorated sherds. A single stage of construction was identi¤ed during excavation, and no midden deposits were uncovered on the surface of this dome-shaped mound. Mound H overlies a Tchula and Marksville period midden, and the ¤ll of the mound contains Coles Creek ceramics. No occupation debris was uncovered on the mound surface. Mound I overlies a midden that contains ceramics associated with the terminal Coles Creek and Plaquemine periods (Baytown Plain, var. Addis, Baytown Plain, var. unspeci¤ed, and a single sherd of Plaquemine Brushed, var. unspeci¤ed ). It is unclear whether prehistoric occupation debris is associated with the mound surface. The upper surface of the mound was disturbed by the construction of an early nineteenth-century house. At approximately a.d. 1000, a large expansion of Raffman was undertaken. The elevated crevasse splay on which Raffman is situated was arti¤cially extended to the northeast. This landscape modi¤cation served to enlarge the plaza and created space for additional mound construction (Kidder 2004a). Stratigraphy in soil cores and the north backhoe trench revealed that an arti¤cial platform, measuring approximately 100 m long, 40 m wide, and 3–4 m thick, underlies Mounds E and F (Kidder 2004a:520–526). A radiocarbon date from charcoal near the base of the arti¤cial platform and another from midden overlying the slope of Mound E indicate that the platform was rapidly constructed (Table 2.1) (Kidder 2004a:519–520). Excavation and soil cores suggest that Mound E was constructed in two small stages and that occupation debris is associated with each stage (Kidder 2004a:520). A sub-mound midden was uncovered in excavations of Mound F, but no midden deposits were recovered from the surface of the mound (Kidder 2004a:520). The eastern portion of Mound G appears to overlie an arti¤cial surface that was constructed to extend the natural ground surface to the east. Excavations and soil cores have revealed that the western portion of the mound overlies a midden containing Tchula and Marksville period ceramics, and the eastern portion rests on over 2 m of loaded soil. It is not known whether this extension of the natural ground surface was constructed rapidly or whether it is part of the arti¤cial platform constructed on the northeast side of the plaza. A radiocarbon date from midden overlying the ¤rst construction stage of Mound G places the initial use of this mound in the Coles Creek period, but the date has a large standard deviation (Table 2.1). Mound G was constructed in at least two stages, and occupation debris has been recovered from the surface of each stage.

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Occupation at Raffman continued until the end of the Coles Creek period. Radiocarbon dates and ceramics from occupation debris on the summit and east slope of Mound B indicate that the mound was used until approximately a.d. 1100–1200 (Table 2.1). As discussed above, the erection of Mound I appears to be the ¤nal episode of mound construction at Raffman. Whether this mound was constructed after a hiatus of occupation at the Raffman site is not known.

Mound B Investigations Mound B is the most extensively excavated mound at Raffman (Figure 2.4). This platform mound is approximately 2.5 m tall, with a large square summit approximately 25 m on each side. The mound was constructed in two distinct stages, and occupation debris overlies each of these mound stages. The initial mound stage (stage B-1) was constructed and used during the early Coles Creek period, and the second stage (stage B-2) was used during the late to terminal Coles Creek period. Mound stage B-1 appears to be a small, low platform. The summit and one slope of this platform were encountered during excavations on Mound B. Construction of mound stage B-2 greatly increased the size of the mound summit. Most ceramics recovered from the surface of mound stage B-1 are Baytown Plain. Among the few decorated sherds recovered from the surface of this mound stage are examples of Coles Creek Incised, var. Coles Creek and Mulberry Creek Cord Marked, var. Smith Creek. The remains of a few small posts (10–13 cm in diameter) were uncovered on the surface of this ¤rst mound stage, but no pattern of posts was discernable. Midden deposits and structural remains have also been excavated from the summit and east slope of mound stage B-2, the ¤nal construction stage. Remains of posts, ranging in size from 15 to 30 cm in diameter, are concentrated in the southeast quarter of the summit. The size and shape of the structure or structures represented by these posts are not discernable. A possible hearth was uncovered in the southeast quarter of the summit as well. Midden deposits on the mound contained abundant ceramics and faunal remains and smaller amounts of lithics. Analysis of the cultural remains recovered from Mound B is in progress. Initial examination of these remains suggests that Mound B may have been a residential mound. Three radiocarbon dates from midden deposits on the east slope and summit of mound stage B-2 indicate that this ¤nal stage of the mound was used circa a.d. 1100–1200. A radiocarbon date from charred wood recovered near the base of one of the post molds on the Mound B summit indicates a some-

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Figure 2.4. Mound B at Raffman, showing locations of excavations and soil cores.

what earlier occupation, though the 2-sigma ranges of the dates overlap (Table 2.1). Ceramics recovered from midden deposits on the mound surface also indicate a late to terminal Coles Creek occupation of the mound. The majority of ceramics are markers of the Balmoral phase (a.d. 1000–1100), a late Coles Creek phase in the Tensas Basin. Commonly represented decorative types include Coles Creek Incised, vars. Coles Creek and Mott, Beldeau Incised, var. unspeci¤ed, and French Fork Incised decorative motifs on wares with ¤ne grog tempering. There are also some examples of decorative and paste varieties that are typically associated with the Preston phase (a.d. 1100– 1200), considered a transitional phase between the Coles Creek and Plaquemine cultures in the Tensas Basin. These include sherds classi¤ed as Carter Engraved, var. unspeci¤ed, Mazique Incised, var. Preston, and a few sherds of Baytown Plain, var. Addis. The radiocarbon dates from Mound B surface midden and the presence of some Preston phase ceramic markers indicate that Mound B was used during this culturally transitional phase. However, the ceramics from Mound B midden deposits do not resemble a typical Preston phase assemblage (see Kidder 1993a:75–109; Ryan 2004). The ceramic assem-

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blage from Mound B is weighted toward the earlier Balmoral phase. The midden does not appear to be strati¤ed, with earlier ceramic types more abundant in lower levels and later types more abundant in upper levels. In addition, dates from two different levels within the midden are essentially identical.

Social Implications of Raffman Mound Architecture There is a notable lack of direct evidence for contact with Mississippian groups at Raffman. There are no shell-tempered ceramics or imported ceramic styles. Rather, the combination of radiocarbon dates and ceramics from Mound B (stage B-2) suggests that the occupants at Raffman were somewhat conservative in terms of ceramic technology and style. Raffman demonstrates that large, impressive mound sites existed in the LMV without obvious in®uences from Mississippian groups. The scale of mound construction and landscaping at Raffman is far greater than expected for the petty chiefdoms thought to characterize the sociopolitical landscape of the Coles Creek period. Large Coles Creek sites like Raffman, and perhaps Mott (16FR11) as well (see Barker 1992:15, 42; Morgan 1999), may represent the centers of large hierarchically organized Coles Creek societies. The scale and arrangement of mound-and-plaza architecture at Raffman suggests an elite arena, physically separated from the community as a whole (Kidder 1998b). Substantial effort was expended to arti¤cially extend the natural ground surface in order to construct more mounds around the plaza, indicating that the con¤guration of the site was of considerable importance. Furthermore, elite leaders may have been living on some of the Raffman mounds, aligning themselves with ceremonial locations and setting themselves apart from the rest of the community. The large-scale, rapid expansion of the mound-and-plaza precinct circa a.d. 1000 suggests that Raffman’s position in the sociopolitical landscape had shifted. Raffman had presumably become an important ceremonial and political center. The grandeur of the site would have commanded respect for the leaders who coordinated its construction and perhaps for all communities interacting with the Raffman site.

Comparison of Mound Architecture The mounds at Raffman are similar in size and con¤guration to Plaquemine sites in the Tensas Basin, such as Routh and Fitzhugh (Kidder 1998b). Raffman, Routh, and Fitzhugh each have a preeminent truncated pyramidal mound, with other large, relatively closely spaced mounds arranged around a single plaza (see Gibson 1996; Hally 1972; Morgan 1999).

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While ceremonial activities presumably took place at Coles Creek mound centers, the centers do not appear to have supported large resident populations. Late Coles Creek mound sites are not necessarily “vacant” ceremonial centers; however, those sites that have been investigated do not have extensive occupation debris on or between the mounds (Kidder 2002; Williams and Brain 1983). During the Coles Creek period, occupation seems to have shifted away from the mound-and-plaza area (see Kidder 1992a, 1998b). While nearby settlements have been discovered at late Coles Creek mound sites such as Mott (Barker 1992:55–59), occupation on the mounds appears to be restricted to fewer individuals, presumably civic and/or religious leaders (Kidder 2002; Williams and Brain 1983:407). The relative scarcity of occupation at the mound-and-plaza precinct continues into Plaquemine cultural times. While Plaquemine mound sites often supported larger resident populations than their Coles Creek predecessors, most do not show evidence of intensive occupation, unlike Mississippian mound centers to the north (Brain 1978; Brown 1985b; Hally 1972). Relative to its size, the Raffman site does not have much occupation debris on or between the mounds. In addition, soil coring outside the mound-andplaza precinct combined with surface survey in plowed agricultural ¤elds has yet to reveal a residential area near Raffman. However, the entire landscape around Raffman was blanketed with between 30 and 70 cm of ¤ne-grained sediment as a consequence of postoccupational ®ooding and thus traditional site survey is not likely to provide good evidence of Coles Creek settlement patterning. The Routh site, a Tensas Basin mound site that has components spanning the late Coles Creek and Plaquemine cultures, also has few midden deposits in and around the mound-and-plaza precinct (Hally 1972:228, 243). The Fitzhugh mound site, another Plaquemine mound site in the Tensas Basin, has more occupation debris than Routh but still does not appear to have been a residential location for a large population (Hally 1972:137).

Contact with External Mississippian Groups Interaction between Coles Creek and Mississippian groups in the LMV appears to have varied between and within geographical subregions and was not necessarily correlated with the size or complexity of the Coles Creek polities involved in the interaction. Mississippian pottery and projectile points from the Central Mississippi Valley and American Bottom are found at Coles Creek settlements in the Yazoo Basin. Evidence of interaction with Mississippian groups is well known from the Lake George and Winterville mound sites in the Yazoo Basin (Brain 1989; Williams and Brain 1983). Large construction efforts and alterations to the site layout are evident at these sites after contact

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with Mississippian groups began and have been attributed to Mississippian cultural in®uences (Brain 1989; Williams and Brain 1983). There is less evidence for Mississippian contact in other regions of the Coles Creek culture area, and some archaeologists (Brain 1978; Hally 1972; Kidder 1993a) have argued that Mississippian in®uences on the development of Plaquemine culture in the Yazoo Basin were much more pronounced than in the Tensas Basin or Natchez Bluffs regions. Changes in mound-and-plaza architecture associated with the transition from Coles Creek to Plaquemine cultures are less dramatic in the Tensas Basin, where Coles Creek sites like Raffman and Mott are very similar architecturally to Plaquemine sites like Routh and Fitzhugh. Recent excavations led by Wells and Weinstein (this volume) at the Lake Providence mound site, however, have demonstrated that direct Mississippian contacts did occur in the Tensas Basin. These excavations uncovered ceramics from Cahokia as well as locally produced imitations of Mississippian pottery. The Lake Providence site is located approximately 20 miles north of Raffman. Trade goods and local copies of foreign ceramics are associated with a Preston phase, or terminal Coles Creek, occupation at Lake Providence (Weinstein 2005; Wells and Weinstein, this volume), indicating temporal overlap in Raffman and Lake Providence occupations. However, while extraregional interactions may have played a role in sociopolitical developments at Lake Providence (Wells and Weinstein, this volume), there is no indication that Raffman’s leaders were pursuing similar contacts and alliances.

Discussion Strong continuities are evident between the Coles Creek and Plaquemine cultures. Coles Creek antecedents to Plaquemine mound construction suggest hierarchical social organization and hereditary rights to leadership may have developed among Coles Creek societies. The great scale of mound construction and landscaping at the Raffman site and the presence of a possible residential structure on the Mound B summit support the claim that social elites commanded control of large communities in some Coles Creek societies. Continuities in ceremony and ideology are indicated by similarities in mound-and-plaza architecture and mound construction techniques and by reuse of the same locations for ceremonial precincts. The relative lack of occupation at Plaquemine mound centers is reminiscent of Coles Creek mound sites, not Mississippian sites. However, there is an apparent increase in population at some Plaquemine mound sites compared with Coles Creek sites, and this change may re®ect in®uences from Mississippian societies. Changes in subsistence and extraregional exchange are perhaps the core

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developments of the Plaquemine culture. Plaquemine settlement patterns in the Yazoo Basin appear to re®ect the increased importance of maize as well as the importance of access to and control of major water transportation routes (Brain 1978). However, few cultural developments and transitions are seen universally in the entire Plaquemine cultural area. Mississippian technologies such as shell-tempered pottery and wall-trench houses were not universally adopted in the LMV during Plaquemine times. Even societies that adopted these technologies often continued to use traditional LMV ceramic and structural technologies as well (Brown 1985b; Hally 1972; Williams and Brain 1983). The distribution of shell-tempered pottery and Mississippian projectile points at LMV sites demonstrates varying degrees of interaction and exchange between Coles Creek and Mississippian cultural groups. There is little doubt that contact with Mississippian groups in®uenced the development of Plaquemine culture. However, possible antecedents to Plaquemine social organization and ceremonial activities are indicated by the architecture and landscaping of large Coles Creek mound complexes like Raffman. Coles Creek groups were probably not passive recipients of Mississippian cultural in®uences. Changes in the Coles Creek political landscape may have led some groups to seek extraregional alliances. Additionally, subsistence changes may have both facilitated and required trade. As Hally (1972) has suggested, goods and presumably ideas were traveling up as well as down the Mississippi during this period of change in the LMV.

Acknowledgments My research at Raffman was conducted with grants from the Newcomb Foundation, the Tulane University Department of Anthropology, and the Anderson-Tully Corporation. T. R. Kidder provided me the opportunity to work at Raffman and has offered immeasurable support and advice. Dennis LaBatt, David Grif¤ng, and the rest of the staff at the Poverty Point State Historic Site provided housing, research facilities, support, and hospitality. I am grateful to them and the Louisiana Of¤ce of State Parks. E. Thurman Allen, Chip McGimsey, and Joe Saunders supplied soil coring equipment and worked hours extracting and interpreting soil cores from Raffman. T. R. Kidder and Anthony Ortmann volunteered their manual labor and expertise for ¤eld research and offered editorial comments for this chapter. Finally, I am indebted to all the students from Tulane University, Washington University, and the University of Alabama who assisted with ¤eld and lab work. Without their efforts, excavation of Raffman would not have been feasible.

3 Extraregional Contact and Cultural Interaction at the Coles Creek– Plaquemine Transition Recent Data from the Lake Providence Mounds, East Carroll Parish, Louisiana Douglas C. Wells and Richard A. Weinstein The Lake Providence Mounds site (16EC6) is located in the upper Tensas Basin, 4.5 miles north of the town of Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, Louisiana (Figure 3.1). What remains of the site lies beneath and immediately adjacent to the west side of the modern Mississippi River levee (known in the area as the Wilson Point New Levee) that was constructed through the region in the 1930s. Unfortunately, extensive levee borrow pits removed most of the site’s occupation area to the east of the levee, and the levee itself buried or destroyed two of the mounds. Prior to levee construction, the site consisted of at least ¤ve mounds grouped around a central plaza, a man-made ridge located at the south edge of the plaza, and buried aboriginal midden deposits covering an area of about 116,280 m2 (28 acres) (Figure 3.2). In the 1990s, the Vicksburg District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, decided that additional levee construction in the area of the mounds needed to take place to prevent water seepage under the levee. Accordingly, the site was tested in 1996 and later subjected to data-recovery excavations in 1998–1999 by personnel from Coastal Environments, Inc. (Weinstein 2005). Three test units, a series of six “well units,” and two block excavations were the main means by which the site was examined (see Figure 3.2). Two of the test units were located in Mounds D and E and produced excellent views of mound construction. The unit placed atop Mound D showed that the mound consisted of at least three different construction stages, with the lowest stage presenting some of the best-preserved basket loading ever seen by the investigators (Figure 3.3). In fact, it appears that the basket loads actually consist of

Figure 3.1. Location of the Lake Providence Mounds. Note the modern mainline Mississippi River levee running through the site (after Weinstein 2005:Figure 1-2).

Figure 3.2. Contour map of the Lake Providence Mounds, showing the four extant mounds and the Corps’ right-of-way (ROW ) during the 1998–1999 data-recovery program. Note that Mound B was partially buried by the 1930s levee, while Mound C either was completely buried or entirely removed by the same levee construction. The relict channel situated immediately to the south probably was the source of the alluvium that buried much of the site. TU, Test unit; WU, well unit (modi¤ed from Weinstein 2005:Figure 5-32).

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Figure 3.3. Pro¤les of north and east walls of TU N80W79 showing the three construction stages (Stratum 3, Strata 6 through 8, and Stratum 9, respectively) revealed during excavation. Note that the lowest construction stage (Stratum 9) consists of well-de¤ned sod blocks that are believed to represent the northwestern end of a manmade ridge upon which the mound was constructed (modi¤ed from Weinstein 2005:Figure 5-37).

“sod blocks” (Van Nest et al. 2001) that had been acquired from a grassy area near the site and then deposited upside down, causing the old A horizon to appear at the base of each block. The unit in Mound E uncovered the remains of a mound-top midden deposit that was ¤lled with hundreds of artifacts, including a unique assemblage of aboriginal ceramics that will be discussed in more detail shortly. The block excavations examined areas southeast of Mound D and north-

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west of Mound B. Block 1 uncovered evidence of a low ridge that contained numerous wall trenches and postholes indicative of at least three building episodes that included extensive walls and small, square structures of unknown function (Figure 3.4). The ridge, in fact, likely extended to the northwest and actually formed the initial construction stage recognized in the test unit in Mound D. Block 2 revealed a sequence of midden layers separated by thin ®ood deposits and a large trash pit that contained organically rich layers of redeposited trash, including ash, charcoal, ¤red clay, and a wealth of artifactual, faunal, and botanical refuse. A variety of faunal remains were recorded, including squirrel, deer, turtle, ¤sh, waterfowl, opossum, and raccoon. Surprisingly, tree squirrels were dominant in terms of numbers of identi¤ed specimens present and second only to white-tailed deer in total weight of bone (Scott 2005). Of the botanical remains, corn was particularly abundant (ca. 70-percent ubiquity) along with arboreal resources such as persimmon, pecan, and acorn (Roberts 2005). Considering the proximity of the trash pit to Mound B, it was envisioned that much of the ¤ll represented material discarded by the inhabitants who lived atop that mound.

Occupation Sequence at Lake Providence In addition to the general stratigraphic sequence uncovered in each area of the site during the testing and data-recovery excavations, 22 radiocarbon dates were obtained from charred material (almost all of which was wood charcoal), organic sediment from bulk soil samples, charred seeds, or baked-on cooking residue scraped from the outer surface of several of the site’s sherds. Likewise, 27 samples of soil were submitted for oxidizable carbon ratio (OCR) dating. When all of these dates were coupled with the various artifacts recovered across the site, it was possible to develop what is believed to be a fairly accurate sequence of site occupation and mound and ridge construction, at least for those areas within the Corps’ right-of-way that were available for archaeological research. This sequence is shown graphically in Figures 3.5 and 3.6. A few scattered sherds related to the Tchefuncte and Marksville cultures, plus one dart point base, mark the ¤rst evidence of occupation in the area of the Lake Providence site, although all were found in secondary contexts, such as mound or pit ¤ll. These were very brief and ephemeral occupations that played no role in the construction of the earthworks at the site. Any midden once associated with these occupations probably was situated along the edge of the relict Mississippi River channel located to the northeast of the site, an area destroyed by the 1930s levee (see Figure 3.6a). The ¤rst occupation for which intact deposits still exist can be dated to the

Figure 3.4. Plan of wall trenches and postholes associated with the Preston phase in Block 1, showing evidence of the three building episodes believed to have been present (after Weinstein 2005:Figure 7-105).

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Figure 3.5. Date ranges of the seven Coles Creek occupations recognized at Lake Providence. Note that Occupation I falls within the Balmoral phase, while all others fall within the middle to late Preston phase (after Weinstein 2005:Figure 8-8).

late Balmoral phase of the late Coles Creek period (ca. a.d. 1065–1080). Identi¤ed simply as Occupation I, evidence for this comes from the pre-mound midden found beneath Mound E and the similar pre-ridge midden found beneath the ridge in Block 1 (see Figure 3.6b). Despite the fact that the ceramic sample associated with this occupation is somewhat limited in size, it contains a sherd of Coles Creek Incised, var. Mott and three Vicksburg rims. Although such sherds were found in subsequent occupations dating to the succeeding Preston phase, their early stratigraphic position, the lack of later ceramics, and several complementary chronometric dates indicate that occupation during the Balmoral phase was a reality. It is uncertain whether mound construction began during the phase, but the initial stages of Mounds A and C are shown to re®ect such a possibility (see Figure 3.6b). Regardless of the minor Balmoral component, the main occupation at Lake

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Figure 3.6. Proposed site-formation sequence at Lake Providence (after Weinstein 2005:Figure 14-1).

Providence can be attributed to the Preston phase of the terminal Coles Creek period. As shown in Figure 3.6c–f, a series of additional site occupations, identi¤ed as Occupations II through VII, all date to the middle to late Preston phase, circa a.d. 1150–1260. It was during this relatively short, roughly 100year period that most, if not all, mound and ridge construction took place

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and the trash pit in Block 2 was utilized. Certainly the extensive walls and wall-trench structures found in Block 1 date from this time. Given the relatively short Preston phase occupation identi¤ed at the site, plus its occurrence right at the tail end of the Coles Creek period, one would be hard pressed to ¤nd a ceramic assemblage with a more “transitional” look to it. Decorative styles normally attributable to both the Coles Creek and Plaquemine cultures are found in these deposits, plus a few sherds suggestive of Mississippian culture (Figure 3.7). Ceramics typically considered markers for the preceding Balmoral phase, such as Coles Creek Incised, vars. Mott, Greenhouse, and Blakely and Mazique Incised, var. Kings Point, are present in the Preston deposits, as are ceramics generally associated with the Routh phase: Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine, Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy, Mazique Incised, var. Manchac, and a number of other early Plaquemine types and varieties that occur on a paste equivalent to the Addis variety of Baytown Plain. That these sherds do not represent separate occupations but rather a single cohesive unit is evident from the repeated and consistent associations of these markers across the site, both in sealed midden deposits and in the undisturbed ¤ll of trash pits, wall trenches, and postholes. Despite the presence of the above ceramics typically considered indicative of the Balmoral and Routh phases, the great majority of the Lake Providence collection can be assigned, without any hesitation, to the Preston phase, the terminal expression of Coles Creek culture in the Tensas Basin. Most important are those ceramics with a paste equivalent to the Little Tiger variety of Baytown Plain (Figures 3.8 and 3.9). These sherds provide the most consistent and identi¤able markers for the Preston phase. Well-established Preston varieties, such as Coles Creek Incised, var. Hilly Grove and Mazique Incised, var. Preston (Belmont 1983; Fuller and Kelley 1993; Hally 1972), are now joined by several newly proposed or rede¤ned varieties that are based on Joanne Ryan’s (2004) work on the ceramics from the Hedgeland site, Cherie Schwab’s (1996) master’s thesis at Louisiana State University, and the present investigations at Lake Providence. These include Plaquemine Brushed, var. Blackwater, Carter Engraved, var. Crawford, Anna Incised, vars. Hedgeland, Little Red, and Tassin, Rhinehart Punctated, var. Chatlin, Avoyelles Punctated, var. Stack Island, Hollyknowe Pinched, var. Rose Hill, Evansville Punctated, var. Jack Falls, and possibly French Fork Incised, var. Iberville (Figure 3.10). With the exception of the last variety, all are within the stylistic limits of the decorated varieties normally associated with the Routh phase, but they occur on a medium to ¤ne grog–tempered paste that does not meet the criteria of Addis. Also present within the Preston assemblage at Lake Providence is a group of ceramics identi¤ed by Wells (2005) as the “Preston ¤neware complex.” This

Figure 3.7. Ceramics normally thought to be representative of the Balmoral and Routh phases but clearly part of the Preston phase component at Lake Providence. (a-c) Coles Creek Incised, var. Mott; (d-e) Coles Creek Incised, var. Greenhouse; (f-g) Mazique Incised, var. Kings Point; (h-i) Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine; (j) Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy; (k-l) Mazique Incised, var. Manchac; (m-n) Harrison Bayou Incised, var. Harrison Bayou; (o) Barton Incised, var. unspeci¤ed.

Figure 3.8. Preston phase ceramics from Lake Providence. (a-c) Coles Creek Incised, var. Hilly Grove; (d-e) Mazique Incised, var. Preston; (f-h) Plaquemine Brushed, var. Blackwater; (i) Anna Incised, var. Tassin; (j-k) French Fork Incised, var. Iberville; (l-m) Rhinehart Punctated, var. Chatlin.

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Figure 3.9. Additional Preston phase ceramics from Lake Providence. (a-c) Avoyelles Punctated, var. Stack Island; (d-f ) Hollyknowe Pinched, var. Rose Hill; (g-i) Evansville Punctated, var. Jack Falls.

group comprises more than 40 percent of the ceramics from the midden uncovered in the test unit atop Mound E. It contains several varieties of Carter Engraved, sherds of Baytown Plain, var. Vicksburg, a few decorated varieties that occur on Vicksburg paste, and numerous ¤ne, shell-tempered wares (Figure 3.11).

Figure 3.10. Ceramic types and varieties of the Balmoral, Preston, and Routh phases (after Wells and Weinstein 2005:Figure 13-2).

Figure 3.11. Examples of pottery associated with the “Preston ¤neware complex.” (a-g) Carter Engraved, var. Shell Bluff; (h) partial ¤sh-ef¤gy bowl of Carter Engraved, var. Carter; (i) Carter Engraved, var. Mud Lake.

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It was realized fairly quickly that many of these latter shell-tempered sherds did not ¤t comfortably into assemblages from the region, and a search of the literature and consultation with colleagues in neighboring regions led to the conclusion that a signi¤cant portion of the pottery might have been imported. Many of these exotic-looking sherds closely resembled pottery from the American Bottom region, in particular the Mississippian sites concentrated around the great mound center of Cahokia. Included were most of the classic elements of the so-called Powell set, a group of ceramic types and varieties established by Williams and Brain (1983:321) to re®ect the remains of vessels considered to be direct imports from the American Bottom—Powell Plain, var. Powell (n = 278), Ramey Incised, var. Ramey (n = 2), and Old Town Red, var. Cahokia (n = 70) (Figure 3.12)—together numbering 350 sherds. Of some surprise was that this assemblage represents the largest collection of American Bottom ceramics from any site in the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV). Also included were 61 sherds of the related Coker set (Williams and Brain 1983:321–322), a group of locally made ceramics that are thought to represent copies of the exotic vessels associated with the Powell set—Mississippi Plain, var. Coker (n = 34) and Old Town Red, var. Sharbrough (n = 27) (see Figures 3.10 and 3.12)—which brought the total number of American Bottom sherds or copies of American Bottom sherds at Lake Providence to 411. To these can be added a partial vessel typed as Coleman Incised (Figure 3.13a) that was made on local paste but whose decoration is exceedingly similar to that found on Ramey Incised, plus a single Mississippi Triangular, var. Cahokia arrow point fashioned from Illinois kaolin chert (see Figure 3.13b). Although found in small amounts in most contexts at the site, these exotics or exotic-inspired ceramics came primarily from the midden atop Mound E, the ¤ll of the Block 2 trash pit just northwest of Mound B, and the midden and structures atop the ridge in Block 1 southeast of Mound D. Clearly, these locations suggest elite, high-status deposits.

The “Cahokia Horizon” in the LMV In the concluding chapter of their report on the Lake George site, Stephen Williams and Jeffrey Brain (1983:409–412) devoted several pages of text toward an attempt to identify the nature and extent of the so-called Cahokia horizon in the LMV, particularly at sites within the Yazoo Basin. They recognized this horizon as a distinct event that took place during terminal Coles Creek times and was marked by unmistakable evidence of direct contact with the great site of Cahokia and other locales in the American Bottom region of southern Illinois. Williams and Brain theorized that such contact occurred

Figure 3.12. Sherds of the Powell and Coker sets recovered at Lake Providence. (a-e) Powell Plain, var. Powell; (f ) Ramey Incised, var. unspeci¤ed; (g-k) Old Town Red, var. Cahokia; (l-n) Old Town Red, var. Sharbrough.

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Figure 3.13. Additional artifacts suggestive of contact with the American Bottom region. (a) Partial vessel of Coleman Incised, var. unspeci¤ed that is very similar in form and decoration to the type Ramey Incised; (b) Mississippi Triangular, var. Cahokia arrow point.

between circa a.d. 1150 and 1250 and, within the Yazoo Basin, was most noticeable at sites with components of the Crippen Point phase, especially the large mound centers of Winterville and Lake George (Figure 3.14). The main evidence indicative of contact with Cahokia came in the form of exotic ceramics, although at least one foreign arrow point also was noted. As discussed above, Williams and Brain (1983:321) classi¤ed the exotic pottery as elements within their Powell set, including Ramey, Cahokia, Powell and Tippets Incised, var. Tippets. They also recognized two closely related ceramic groups, labeled the Coker set and the Yazoo 1 subset (Williams and Brain 1983:321–322). As noted previously, these latter sets included locally made ceramics that were viewed as copies of the exotic vessels associated with the Powell set. Included were such varieties as Cahokia Cord Marked, var. Montrose and Old Town Red, var. Sharbrough for the Coker set and Cahokia Cord Marked, var. Buford and Old Town Red, var. Old Town for the Yazoo 1 subset. One arrow point, given the name Mississippi Triangular, var. Titterington, also was seen as excellent evidence of Cahokia contact (Williams and Brain 1983:236). Seven sites in the Yazoo Basin were identi¤ed as having produced examples of the Powell, Coker, and Yazoo 1 sets, thereby indicating direct ties to the American Bottom region (Williams and Brain 1983:Figure 12.15), while several

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Figure 3.14. Depiction of Early Mississippian in®uences on the Yazoo Basin during the Crippen Point phase, from Williams and Brain’s (1983:Figure 12.14) Lake George report. (Courtesy Peabody Museum Press. Copyright 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.)

other sites were known to have yielded only elements of the Yazoo 1 subset, thus implying some type of horizon in®uence, though not necessarily direct contact. In concluding their discussion, Williams and Brain (1983:411–412) noted: “The Yazoo remains the best laboratory for the consideration of the events outlined above. Artifactual diagnostics of Cahokia have not yet been reported from other Lower Mississippi regions, even where there has been intensive investigation.” Furthermore, they went on to say, “it is illogical to think that the Tensas Basin would have been completely ignored at the same

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time that the Yazoo was receiving considerable attention across the river. Nevertheless, no artifactual evidence relating to Cahokia was reported for the former during the course of two ¤eld seasons of survey and test excavation conducted by the LMS in 1963 and 1964” (Williams and Brain 1983:412). If con¤rmed, the presence of Cahokian imports at the Lake Providence Mounds would indicate that the in®uence of the American Bottom polities was also felt in the Tensas Basin of Louisiana.

Sourcing Analyses To con¤rm the likelihood that the apparent American Bottom sherds truly came from that area of the country, a small sample of both the local claytempered ware and the potentially exotic ceramics was submitted for sourcing analyses (Table 3.1). A petrographic analysis of 37 thin-sectioned sherds and two pieces of ¤red clay from Lake Providence was conducted by James B. Stoltman of the University of Wisconsin, and portions of these same samples then were sent to the University of Missouri’s Research Reactor Facility (MURR) where Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría and his colleagues conducted instrumental neutron activation analysis (INA A). Using point-counting techniques, Stoltman (2005) found that all of the clay-tempered sherds produced statistically identical indices, and he came to the conclusion, as suspected, that these probably represented locally produced pottery. Also as suspected, Stoltman found that the Powell Plain pottery identi¤ed at Lake Providence matched very well with examples from the American Bottom. Surprisingly, Stoltman further suggested that all of the other shelltempered sherds in the sample, including all specimens of Mississippi Plain, had a nonlocal but probable common origin. Thus, they also could have come from a far-off region, perhaps from Mississippian sites located in Arkansas, northern Mississippi, or Missouri, having traveled to Lake Providence by the same means that brought the American Bottom vessels to the site. The data collected by neutron activation allowed Rodríguez-Alegría et al. (2005) to group the sherds into three clusters on the basis of their chemical signatures. Groups 1 and 2 overlapped to a signi¤cant degree and were considered to represent locally made pottery. Signatures that fell outside these groups were usually classi¤ed as “unassigned.” A third group of Lake Providence sherds was assigned to MURR’s provisional Cahokia-Halliday group, a tentative formulation based on ongoing research on American Bottom collections. Two shell-tempered sherds were assigned to this chemical group. Petrographic and neutron activation analyses agreed that 19 of the 37 sherds submitted for analysis were locally made (see Table 3.1). They further agreed

Table 3.1. Proveniences of samples and results of sourcing analysis on selected Lake Providence sherds.

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that seven of the 37 sherds were nonlocal and that two of these imports were manufactured in the American Bottom area. Taken together, the two sourcing studies, particularly the thin-section analysis, suggest that the potential American Bottom sherds found at Lake Providence likely originated in that region, probably during the Stirling 2 (ca. a.d. 1150–1200) or Moorehead 1 (ca. a.d. 1200–1250) phase (Figure 3.15). However, the predominance of brown ¤lming on the sherds of Powell Plain from Lake Providence, as well as the absence of Cahokia Cord Marked, suggests that a Stirling 2 date may be more likely (Milner 1984:166). Recognizable rims at Lake Providence also include forms common to the Stirling 2 phase (see Pauketat 1998b:Figures 7.27, 7.28, 7.31, and 7.32). Thus, contact with the American Bottom region (presumably including the great mound center at Cahokia) probably occurred at Lake Providence during the earlier half of the Preston phase component at the site or roughly sometime between a.d. 1150 and 1200. This is in keeping with several other locales in the LMV, where sherds attributable to the so-called Cahokia horizon have been found (Brain 1969, 1989; McNutt 1996:237–238; Williams and Brain 1983:409–412).

Lake Providence and the Evolution of the Mississippi Period Elite The “conservative and introverted character” (Williams and Brain 1983:410) of Coles Creek society has often been noted (Kidder 1992a; Wells 1998). While some Weeden Island–related decorative styles and a number of Plum Bayou rim forms are found in Coles Creek sites in the Tensas Basin, Coles Creek ceramics prior to a.d. 1000 exhibit a very limited number of extraregional contacts and in®uences (Fuller et al. 1995:129–136; Hally 1972; Kidder 1990b, 1993a; Wells 1998; see also Williams and Brain 1983). This apparent parochialism has been interpreted as a sign that the incipient elite of Coles Creek societies preferred not to (or was not allowed to) participate in extraregional trade networks. This may re®ect the organization of early Coles Creek society; the low degree of social ranking probably prevented the incipient elite from exercising the prerogatives that later elites were to enjoy (Kidder 1992a:156; Nassaney 1991:195–196; Wells 1998). As the Coles Creek period approached its last two or three centuries (Balmoral and Preston phases), however, it seems evident that some changes were beginning to take place. Substantial programs of mound construction continued, often following the standard Coles Creek three-mound site plan. However, several sites with ¤ve or more mounds also appeared. This suggests a two- or three-tiered program of settlement in some areas, consisting of small hamlets and possibly two levels of mound settlement (Wells 1997). Limited

Figure 3.15. Chronology chart illustrating the temporal relationship of archaeological phases in the Tensas Basin and American Bottom regions since about a.d. 750. The Preston phase is highlighted, as it represents the principal occupation at Lake Providence (Tensas sequence after Wells and Weinstein 2005:Figure 13-1. American Bottom sequence after Bareis and Porter 1984:Figure 3; Pauketat 1998b:Figure 5.1).

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numbers of trade goods appear in Balmoral phase contexts (Kidder 1990b), and the ¤rst corn is found in the Tensas Basin during this phase. A distinctive ¤neware (Vicksburg paste) makes its ¤rst signi¤cant appearance, albeit in minor amounts (2 to 4 percent in Tensas Basin sites; Hally 1972:Table 28). Ceramically, this paste may be one of the strongest indicators of special-function, proto-elite activity (Ryan 2004:248). The bulk of pottery, however, is still made on a Percy Creek/Valley Park-like paste. Exotic designs are rare, and imported ceramics are virtually unknown from the phase. The terminal Coles Creek period dramatically ampli¤es this trend of social change. Larger villages appear that may suggest an extra tier in the settlement hierarchy below the level of mound site (Kidder 1993a; Wells 1997). Corn increased its presence in Preston phase contexts, although it had yet to reach the levels found in Plaquemine phases (Kidder 1993a:26). If the Lake Providence site is any indication of the constitution of elite activities in the Tensas Basin, however, one of the most dramatic changes in social differentiation and material culture may be seen in the ceramic containers used in high-status contexts. The presence of a “Preston ¤neware complex” has already been noted in the midden atop Mound E and in most other locations at the Lake Providence Mounds. This complex consists of Carter Engraved, Vicksburg, and related decorated varieties and the ¤ne shell-tempered wares Powell Plain, Ramey Incised, Mississippi Plain, var. Coker, and their red-¤lmed counterparts. Sherds identi¤ed as Powell Plain and Ramey Incised appear to be derived from the American Bottom. Their presence adds even more signi¤cance to this exotic-looking assemblage. Ryan (2004:248) notes an increase in ¤newares at Hedgeland and other sites during the Balmoral phase. While observing that ¤newares (in this case, represented by sherds with Baytown Plain, var. Little River paste) were used for a limited number of vessels in early Coles Creek contexts, she points out that the percentages of ¤ne clay–tempered pottery double during the Balmoral phase. She attributes this to the rise of an elite by the end of the Coles Creek period, a segment of society that required an expression of their status and social/ceremonial responsibilities through the use of well-made pottery. The numbers of imported goods evident in late Coles Creek contexts at Hedgeland indicate an increase in external contacts as well, although the Cahokian imports appear to be missing from this site. Instead, Ryan takes the presence of bone-tempered Morris Plain and possible limestone-tempered sherds (Unclassi¤ed Plain at Hedgeland) to indicate Caddoan and/or eastern contacts (Ryan 2004:248–249). It is tempting to view the sudden increase in external contacts and trade

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goods at terminal Coles Creek mound sites in the LMV as causal in the evolution of the Plaquemine-Mississippian elite. Certainly, Brain (1989) and Williams and Brain (1983:409–412) have cited Cahokian contact as one of the primary forces behind the “Mississippianization” of Coles Creek societies. However, the evolution of the incipient Coles Creek elite probably has its roots in the Baytown and early Coles Creek periods with the initial construction of platform mounds. These mounds were not intended for communal burials as they were in Baytown period (Troyville culture) sites. Instead, they represent an elaboration of mortuary ceremonialism (Kidder and Wells 1992). This change marked the gradual exclusion of the overall community from some aspects of ceremonial life and the beginning of an increasingly important role of a limited number of people in ritual activities. Steponaitis (1986:386), Kidder (1992a), Knight (1986), and Wells (1998) have postulated that it was primarily this co-option of ceremonial roles, not economic activities, that led to the rise of the Mississippi period elite. Certainly, the Coles Creek period saw a gradual but steady increase in the amount of mound construction at many Tensas Basin sites, a sign that central direction or control of labor was increasing from the Mount Nebo to the Preston phases (Wells 1997, 1998). This is an indication that the evolution of centralized power and the rise of the elite in Coles Creek society were taking place well before trade and external contact became factors. Therefore, these external contacts and the apparent monopolization of trade goods should be seen as signs that an existing elite segment of Coles Creek society was beginning to exercise its power more widely. These ongoing, indigenous processes probably have far more to do with the rise of the subsequent Plaquemine elite than the presence of a few trade goods in sites dating to the end of the Coles Creek sequence. As for the “Mississippianization” of the Tensas Basin, it does not seem likely that the succeeding Plaquemine phases of the area really derived much of their Mississippian leanings from Cahokian contact. The established Mississippi period phases within the Tensas Basin appear to be direct descendants of Coles Creek ceramic traditions (Kidder 1993a). Any Mississippian in®uences appear to be derived from sustained contact with middle Mississippi period (Winterville and Lake George phase) peoples in the Yazoo Basin and areas to the north. The lone exception is the Transylvania phase, believed to date largely to the late end of the Mississippi period sequence (Hally 1972). Transylvania does contain a large, truly Mississippian shell-tempered assemblage and may represent the intrusion of groups from outside the Tensas Basin. Surface collections from the Rose Hill (Panola Mounds) site just to the northwest of Lake Providence appear to be derived from true Routh phase

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deposits and contain very few shell-tempered sherds (Hally 1972:Table 25). Thus, it appears that the local sequence was largely unaffected by contact with the powerful American Bottom chiefdom (or chiefdoms). Although Cahokian contact may not have left a permanent impression on the local cultural sequence, there is clearly a Mississippian presence in the Preston phase assemblage at Lake Providence. Just over three percent (n = 625) of the sherds from this site are shell tempered and the wares they came from may have been produced by foreign potters. There are two primary explanations of how these sherds came to be part of the assemblage at Lake Providence. The ¤rst relies solely on trade, particularly from the north and especially with the American Bottom. Certainly, one of the strategies of an emerging elite is the manipulation of both exotic goods and the new ideologies they represent. There is often prestige attached to the exotic and mystical elements of other cultures, which can be translated to prestige for the manipulator of said elements (Bishop 1987; Earle 1991; Helms 1993; Wells 1998). On a less ethereal level, control over the exchange of essential raw materials, such as stone, and superior ¤nished goods may also play a role (Nassaney 1992; Redmond 1996). A second theory to explain the presence of exotic and exotic-looking ceramics involves a combination of trade for ¤nished goods and the physical presence of Mississippian potters. A certain number of these shell-tempered pots were probably imported into the site, particularly the examples of Ramey Incised, Powell Plain, and Old Town Red, var. Cahokia. However, many of the sherds of shell-tempered pottery may not be imported, as suggested by INA A. These sherds are very clearly not within the tradition of Coles Creek pottery. There are, however, sherds of var. Greenville and associated varieties (such as var. Carter) that exhibit both shell and grog tempering. This combination suggests that local potters were being in®uenced in their manufacturing techniques by Mississippian methods of pot construction, adding small amounts of shell to their grog-tempered repertoire. A likely explanation for this is the actual presence of a few Mississippian potters who were producing vessels in their own tradition. This would probably have involved the exchange of women (the most likely candidates for prehistoric Native American potters) or perhaps the presence of “war brides” or slaves taken in raids. Certainly, the appearance of wall-trench structures at Lake Providence argues for a more extensive Mississippian presence than could result from indirect, down-the-line trade contacts. Although Lake Providence has one of the largest samples of shell-tempered pottery from this time level in the LMV, it is not likely that the current data can be used to convincingly support either of the above hypotheses. The small

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percentage of these shell-tempered sherds suggests neither a “site-unit intrusion” of Mississippian peoples nor heavy contact between the cultures. Simple exchange might be an explanation, although the presence of shell-and-grog– tempered pottery in the terminal Coles Creek levels at Lake Providence and at sites in the Lower Yazoo Basin does imply more sustained communication between potters. Ceramic data alone are probably not adequate to evaluate these hypotheses; other lines of evidence, particularly mortuary data, are needed to help establish the presence or absence of Mississippian peoples, as well as the nature of the contact. Unfortunately, these analyses will have to await future projects, as there are no data currently at hand to answer these questions.

Conclusions Testing and data-recovery operations at the Lake Providence Mounds have yielded a wealth of information relating to the beginnings of Plaquemine culture in northeast Louisiana. In addition to feature and structure patterns, the site has produced a large number of artifacts that shed light on social development at the terminal end of the Coles Creek sequence. To date, it appears that the imported ceramics at Lake Providence are among the only examples of Cahokian pottery to be found in the southern LMV outside of the Yazoo Basin. Certainly, recent programs of similar intensity undertaken at mound centers such as Osceola (Kidder 1990b), Raffman (see Roe, this volume), and Hedgeland (Ryan 2004) have not encountered these imported shell-tempered types in Preston phase contexts. Despite this, Lake Providence shares a closely related assemblage of artifacts with these other sites, an assemblage that clearly belongs to the Preston phase. All four sites share a multiple-moundand-plaza plan and a robust program of mound construction. In all probability, it is Lake Providence’s unique position at the northern end of the Tensas Basin, close to the Mississippi River and mound centers in the nearby Yazoo Basin, that constitutes the primary difference. This proximity probably afforded the emergent Lake Providence elite access to the Cahokian goods. While this access may have given these elites a few quality exotics to bolster their positions within the local sphere of in®uence, shell-tempered types retained a minor position in the Tensas Basin until the late Mississippi period. It is dif¤cult to argue that contact with full-blown Mississippian societies to the north during terminal Coles Creek times had a substantial impact on succeeding generations. While Ian Brown, in this volume, has questioned the ancestral relationship

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of Coles Creek and Plaquemine culture bearers in the Natchez Bluffs region, there seems to be little doubt about this relationship in other areas. This is particularly true for the Tensas Basin, as expressed at Lake Providence. Traditional Coles Creek ceramic varieties appear alongside Plaquemine ceramics and have consistent associations with imported shell-tempered varieties. All of these, of course, are minority wares included in a larger Preston phase assemblage, which often features Plaquemine decorative techniques on a nonAddis ware. These associations suggest a strong continuity between the native Coles Creek potters and their Plaquemine successors. One thing is certain, however—the late Coles Creek residents of the upper Tensas Basin were not as parochial as many once believed. They clearly had contact with other groups farther to the north in the heartland of the Mississippian world. The terminal Coles Creek occupation at the Lake Providence site provides a clear break with the rather provincial tendencies of earlier Coles Creek phases, in which evidence of extraregional contact and interaction generally is lacking. The Preston ¤neware complex is predominantly associated with mound-top activities associated with the upper echelon of Preston society. The fact that much of the ¤neware at Lake Providence can be tied to sites in the American Bottom region adds even more signi¤cance to this complex. How and why these exotics came to Lake Providence, whether directly down the Mississippi River or through intermediate centers such as Winterville and Lake George, is still unknown.

Acknowledgments Several individuals aided in the preparation of this essay. James B. Stoltman, Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, conducted the petrographic thin-section analysis and produced the related data utilized herein. Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, Robert J. Speakman, and Michael Glascock of the Research Reactor Facility, University of Missouri, conducted INA A and provided the relevant information. Curtis Latiolais and Cherie Schwab of Coastal Environments, Inc., produced and/or aided in the production of the maps and ¤gures used throughout the chapter. The Peabody Museum of Harvard University graciously permitted use of Williams and Brain’s (1983) Figure 12.14, reproduced here in Figure 3.14. In addition to Stoltman, several archaeologists examined examples of the unique and potentially exotic ceramic and lithic artifacts recovered from Lake Providence and provided insight into their possible points of origin. Included were T. R. Kidder, Washington University, St. Louis; Marvin Jeter, Station Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey at the University of Ar-

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kansas at Monticello; Timothy Pauketat, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign; John E. Kelly, Washington University, St. Louis; Frank F. Schambach, Station Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey at Southern Arkansas University; and Stephen Williams, Professor Emeritus, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Others generously provided examples of pottery from their respective regions for the sourcing analysis. Included were Martha Rolingson, former Station Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey at Toltec Mounds; Mary Beth Trubitt, Station Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey at Henderson State University; and Timothy Perttula of Archaeological and Environmental Consultants, LLC, Austin, Texas. Lastly, Tad Britt, former archaeologist with the Environmental Resources Branch of the Vicksburg District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and now with the Corps’ Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) in Champaign, Illinois, was instrumental in overseeing most of the testing and data-recovery investigations for the Corps. James Wojtala, present archaeologist with the Environmental Resources Branch of the Vicksburg District, provided the ¤nal contract needed to complete most of the analyses on the recovered data. Without their efforts and the concern of the Vicksburg District, none of the work at Lake Providence would have been possible.

4 Plaquemine Mounds of the Western Atchafalaya Basin Mark A. Rees

When the Louisiana State Archaeological Survey began digging into the Medora mounds on the west bank of the Mississippi River in the winter of 1939, Plaquemine was just a small river town around the next bend, thought to have been named for the wild persimmons that grew along the riverbanks (Riffel 1985:32). The cultural tradition of the people who built the mounds at Manchac Point was yet to be de¤ned, only vaguely conceived on the basis of surface collections as “either . . . late Coles Creek or . . . that of an unformulated period that followed Coles Creek but . . . older than Natchezan” (Quimby 1951:91). While James Ford (e.g., 1951:13) intended Plaquemine to serve alongside Coles Creek as a typological construct in his chronology of Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) ceramics, it was not long before its identi¤cation as a period, a culture, and even a phase was recognized as problematic, particularly in relation to more expansive Coles Creek and Mississippian traditions (e.g., Cotter 1952a:124–125; Willey 1966:308). Phillips (1970:950) effectively isolated (or “reduced”) Plaquemine culture as represented by the Medora phase in his most in®uential work, while subsequent research upriver rede¤ned the problem of Plaquemine origins in terms of “hybridization”—an admixture of indigenous Coles Creek and subsequent exogenous Mississippian in®uence (Brain 1989:122; Rees and Livingood, this volume; Williams and Brain 1983:414). The Lower Yazoo Basin and Natchez Bluffs would thus be seen as focal points of Coles Creek–Plaquemine “transculturation” or at least the “geographical center of Plaquemine culture” (Brain 1978:332, 1989:122; Brown 1985b:251, this volume). The southern delta and vast ®ood basin to the west have consequently been regarded as “peripheral, or marginal” to mainstream Plaquemine development (Gibson 1975:28), a point of view ostensibly supported by relatively less-spectacular earthen

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mound sites and a paucity of ceramic evidence for formative Mississippian in®uence (Duhe 1981; McIntire 1958; Weinstein 1987a). Of course, these different perspectives have in®uenced and in turn re®ect disparate theories of Plaquemine origins and development (Rees and Livingood, this volume). Setting aside questions of cultural origins and in®uence, it is also possible to approach Plaquemine peoples from a combined political and historical perspective, in terms of regional political culture. The most obvious comparisons to be made here are with contemporaneous Mississippian polities to the north and east, although apparent similarities with earlier Coles Creek polities should not be ignored. Acknowledging the pitfalls of typological constructs such as the chiefdom (e.g., Cobb 2003:65; Earle 1987:279–281), it is reasonable to conceive of Plaquemine culture in terms of regional polities of various geographic scales in the LMV, each interacting on different levels at different points in time between circa a.d. 1200 and 1700. With this in mind, we turn to the ®ood basin on the southwest edge of the LMV to examine the evidence for the political culture of Plaquemine peoples, as represented in numerous mound sites. It will then be possible to revisit the problem of cultural origins and consider whether it is accurate or even useful to conceive of polities in the western Atchafalaya Basin as peripheral to Plaquemine culture. First, however, a little background is in order.

Archaeology in the Atchafalaya Basin The Atchafalaya Basin in south-central Louisiana is a complex network of bayous, bottomlands, natural levees, swamplands, ®ood basins, and backwater lakes on the southwest edge of the LMV. From Old River north of Simmesport to Atchafalaya Bay west of the Terrebonne Basin, the Atchafalaya River is today a major distributary of the Mississippi and Red rivers. Covering approximately 3,800 square miles, the surrounding Atchafalaya Basin is the “largest major division of the deltaic plain” (Saucier 1994:30). While it has long been renowned for its proli¤c wildlife, archaeologists have only just begun to explore the history of human occupation in the region. The basin is made up of deltaic plain alluvium deposited during the mid to late Holocene (7000–3000 b.p.) and the river became a distributary of the Mississippi as recently as ¤ve centuries ago (Autin et al. 1991:561–564; Saucier 1994:30–31, 284–286; Smith et al. 1986:45, 49–56). The Atchafalaya Basin has been increasingly in®uenced by human modi¤cations, resulting in large-scale environmental transformations during the past century. Central to these efforts have been the system of levees and the Old River control station that restrict the volume of water entering the Atchafalaya from the Mississippi. Knowl-

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edge of site geomorphology in such a dynamic and rapidly changing landscape is essential in understanding human habitations during the past millennium, particularly the Mississippi period (Autin et al. 1991:561–564; Gagliano 1984; Reuss 2004; Saucier 1981:16–17). The present study encompasses that portion of the basin west of the main channel of the Atchafalaya River and east of the Prairie Terrace and Chenier Plain of southwest Louisiana. It includes the Teche Ridge, a former Mississippi River meander belt (Saucier 1994:278–280). This is the traditional homeland of the Chitimacha, described by Swanton (1911:337–360) as living in villages along Bayou Lafourche, Bayou Teche, and Grand Lake by the early eighteenth century. Little has been published regarding the Chitimacha prior to the eighteenth century, yet they are generally recognized as among the descendants of Plaquemine populations ( Jeter 1989:242; Kniffen et al. 1987:53, 230; cf. Neuman 1984:278; Weinstein 1987a:101). Plaquemine components are far more numerous than Mississippian in the study area and the mound sites discussed here are culturally af¤liated with the present-day Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana (Gibson 1990:105–107). The cultural landscape has remained somewhat obscure archaeologically, perhaps owing in part to characterizations of the natural environment as a backwater (Gibson 1975:28, 1976:20, 1978a:44). A brief overview of previous investigations serves to demonstrate an even more compelling reason that the region as a whole has been portrayed as culturally marginal. During the late winter and early spring of 1912–1913 the now legendary steamboat the Gopher plied the Atchafalaya River and Bayou Teche, carrying avocational archaeologist C. B. Moore to little-known Indian mound sites hidden along the muddy banks. Moore (1913:9–21) mentions seven mound sites in the study area, although he investigated only four in the most cursory fashion (16SL2, 16SMY2, 16SMY10, and possibly 16SM2). Describing his investigations as an “unproductive task” and ¤nding few of the spectacular artifacts he encountered at other mound sites, Moore’s attention was soon drawn elsewhere (Moore 1913:7; Weinstein et al. 2003:126–144, Appendix A-3). In the decades following Moore’s expedition some of the same mound sites were brie®y visited by Collins (1927), Kniffen (1938), and McIntire (1958). Groundbreaking research to the north and east meanwhile contributed to the formation of a culture historical framework and nomenclature that would in®uence subsequent investigations throughout the southeastern United States (e.g., Belmont 1967; Ford 1935a, 1936, 1951, 1952; Ford and Webb 1956; Quimby 1951, 1957). Of particular importance were excavations by the Louisiana State Archaeological Survey at Medora on a natural levee of the Mississippi River

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immediately east of the Atchafalaya Basin (Quimby 1951; see also Quimby 1957). Although little work was attempted in the western Atchafalaya Basin during this time, surface collections from some sites were suf¤cient to ¤t within a broad culture chronology (e.g., Phillips 1970:920–923, 950–954). A new era of archaeology began in the basin in the 1970s, accompanied by the arrival of university archaeologists and the growth of cultural resource management (CRM). Jon Gibson (1976, 1978a, 1979, 1982, 1990), with the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, surveyed portions of the basin and Teche Ridge (see Neuman 2002:90–91). Under the direction of Ian Brown (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982b, 1984), the Lower Mississippi Survey extended the scope of its investigations to Avery Island and the Petite Anse region of coastal Louisiana (Brown and Lambert-Brown 1978; Brown et al. 1979). Among the sites investigated were late Coles Creek, early Plaquemine, and Mississippian components at Salt Mine Valley (16IB23) on Avery Island (Brown and Lambert-Brown 1979) and at Morgan (16VM9), a Coles Creek mound site in coastal Vermilion Parish (Brown 1981; Fuller and Fuller 1987). The Atchafalaya Basin Archaeological Survey at Louisiana State University (LSU) picked up where C. B. Moore left off, documenting mound sites that had otherwise escaped the attention of archaeologists (Neuman and Servello 1976). Described by Neuman and Servello (1976:71) as the “¤rst systematic investigation of archaeological sites in the region,” their survey consisted of background research, brief site visits, and surface collections (see also Gagliano 1967, 1984; Gagliano et al. 1975; Neuman 1972, 1977). Also during the 1970s, James Springer (1973, 1977, 1980) produced detailed studies of Coles Creek ceramics and subsistence from excavations at the Bruly St. Martin (16IV6) mound site in the eastern Atchafalaya Basin south of Baton Rouge. Since the 1980s archaeologists employed in CRM have examined numerous mound sites in the basin (e.g., Gibson 1982; Goodwin et al. 1985; Goodwin et al. 1991b; Kelley et al. 2000; Manning et al. 1987; Santeford et al. 1995; Shuman 1985; Vigander and Maygarden 1994; Wells 2001). Many of these surveys dealt only indirectly with mound sites. Jones and Shuman (1987, 1991) mapped and performed surface collections at mound sites in a portion of the study area, producing some of the ¤rst maps of sites that had been known about for a century or more. Creation of a regional program within the Louisiana Division of Archaeology (LDA) provided stimulus for additional studies, including Mike Russo’s (1992, 1993) work at the Baker (16SM19) and Stelly (16SL1) sites (Russo and Fogleman 1996). Regional archaeologists continue to visit and record sites (e.g., McGimsey 1995, 1998, 2001; Mann 2001, 2002). By the late

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1990s Plaquemine components were known for many of the mound sites in the western Atchafalaya Basin. Yet there had been no concerted program of research aimed speci¤cally at examining the timing of mound construction and site occupations, potential contemporaneousness of various sites, or regional political economy. In short, prior to the 1970s archaeological research in the Atchafalaya Basin as a whole was characterized more by general overviews and decades-long periods of inactivity than by any particular systematic or intensive program of study (Gibson 1978a:27, 1979:29; Kelley et al. 2000:9–10; Wells 2001:7–8). Since then the pace of research has escalated within the context of CRM and university-based investigations, yet it has involved few detailed studies of Plaquemine mound sites. Current understanding of Plaquemine societies of the Atchafalaya Basin as marginal to a Plaquemine “heartland” is consequently as much a re®ection of the data sets available to archaeologists as it is a measure of supposed cultural associations. The dearth of information ultimately raises questions concerning Plaquemine origins and the notion of a heartland or cultural center. The Medora site, after all, where Plaquemine was conceived, is located only 40 km (25 miles) east of the study area (Quimby 1951). Taking into account the ongoing risks of site destruction, the Plaquemine Mounds Archaeological Project (PMAP) was designed as a means of redressing the need for additional study of mound sites in the western Atchafalaya Basin. Earthen mounds are today still the most visible features of Native American sites and their study presents an opportunity to examine the timing and scale of regional political development and decline. During the ¤rst year of PMAP investigations (2003–2004) background research and reconnaissance surveys were conducted in order to identify mound sites with possible Plaquemine components. A total of 80 mound sites were identi¤ed through a search of the available literature and the LDA site ¤le database, encompassing portions of St. Landry (31 sites), Lafayette (6 sites), St. Martin (17 sites), Iberia (12 sites), and St. Mary (14 sites) parishes. These represent known or previously recorded mound sites; sites as yet unrecorded may potentially remain, and some sites may have been destroyed without ever having been recorded. Due to the vagaries of early site recording it is sometimes unclear whether an earthen mound, shell midden, or both mound and midden are present at a site. Terms such as shell mound and earth midden do not adequately distinguish intentionally constructed mounds from transposed, primary contexts resulting from accretional midden formation. Furthermore, insuf¤cient data are presently available from many sites to make such distinctions. Several of the above mound sites were recorded in only cursory fashion and

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have subsequently been ®attened or destroyed. The number of obliterated mounds has grown steadily since the nineteenth century, including at least one presumably lost to coastal erosion and others having been leveled in agricultural ¤elds. The Pharr or Fairview Plantation site (16SMY148), near the town of Berwick, consisted of two mounds when visited by Collins in 1926 (McGimsey 2001:124–125). When revisited in July 2003 residential development had recently encroached where the mounds once stood. In the case of Berwick Mounds (16SMY184), across the Atchafalaya River from present-day Morgan City, four large mounds in a quadrilateral layout were described by James Cathcart in 1819 and subsequently destroyed before ever having been investigated or adequately documented (Prichard et al. 1945). Any investigation of mound sites in the region must consequently take into account the void created by site destruction, ¤lled in when possible by studies of intact deposits. On the basis of the preliminary results of the PMAP investigation, there are 23 mound sites with known or suspected Plaquemine components in the study area, including those with mounds partially or largely destroyed. This number includes multicomponent sites and re®ects a likelihood for mixed deposits or ephemeral Plaquemine occupations at mound sites dating from Coles Creek (ca. a.d. 700–1200) and earlier periods. Assessment of site components is in many instances problematic given the uneven nature of earlier investigations, often consisting of only brief surface inspections or unsystematic surface collections. More well-known sites such as Lafayette (16SM17) and Meche-Wilkes (16SL18), thought to date from the Tchefuncte period, can be excluded from further consideration (Ford and Quimby 1945; Gibson 1990:81–85; Melancon 1999). The majority of mound sites with Plaquemine components are thought to have one or two mounds, some of which are located in the vicinity of larger mound sites. Association of mound sites with historic Chitimacha villages in the LMV has received relatively little attention (but see Giardino 1984 for the Mississippi delta). Drawing upon Gatschet (1883, 1907) and Chitimacha sources, Swanton (1911:337–344) was instrumental in identifying village locations. In reviewing the archaeological and historical data, Gibson (1978b, 1980) assessed the possible locations of more than 36 villages dating from as early as 1702. The paucity of documentary sources has been exacerbated by a lack of reliable archaeological information, including investigations that might con¤rm whether speci¤c sites were occupied during the eighteenth century. Many of the mound sites in question may have initially been constructed ¤ve or more centuries prior to the earliest documentary evidence of Chitimacha vil-

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lages. Reoccupation or reuse of mound sites is consequently a possibility, further complicating matters of cultural af¤liation at multicomponent sites (e.g., Mann 2005). While tentative at best, correlation of mound sites with known Chitimacha villages nonetheless represents an attempt at making historical connections between the archaeological record, descendant populations, and their living traditions (i.e., Lightfoot 1995; Trigger 1980). The remainder of this chapter summarizes what is presently known about six of the extant major Plaquemine mound sites in the western Atchafalaya Basin, drawing upon the results of recent PMAP investigations (Figure 4.1). Three of these sites can be associated with known Chitimacha villages, although it is uncertain at present whether the names referred to the mound complexes, nearby (or neighboring) villages, or both. This is followed by a discussion of regional chronology, settlement patterns, and political culture, including the implications of this study for Native American culture history in the LMV. Moving from north to south, the sites to be considered are 16SL3, 16SL20, 16SM38, 16SM5 (Hi′pinimtc na′mu), 16SMY2 (Okû′nkîskîn), and 16SMY10 (Qiteet Kuti′ngi na′mu).

16SL3 Site 16SL3 is located on a terrace overlooking the south bank of a bayou that ®ows in an easterly direction toward its former con®uence with the Atchafalaya River, approximately 8.9 km (5.5 miles) to the east. An abandoned course of the Mississippi-Teche meander lies 1 km (0.6 miles) to the west (Saucier 1994:Plate 11). The mounds at 16SL3 are among the most impressive and best preserved of any in the study area (Figure 4.2). Surprisingly, these appear to have escaped the attention of archaeologists until the early 1970s (LDA Site File, 16SL3). The PMAP crew visited the site in April 2004 in order to produce a contour map and collect core samples from the mounds. Four rectangular platform mounds are positioned in a linear arrangement along the bayou, covering an estimated 3.6 ha (8.8 acres). The site may be much larger, however, considering the potential areas of habitation around the mounds. Mound A, the largest in the group, lies farthest east. It is approximately 4.8 m (15.7 feet) high with basal dimensions covering approximately 3,600 m2 (38,750 square feet). Mounds B and C are approximately 3.6 and 3.3 m high, respectively, and are slightly smaller in size but appear to be multistage platforms. Possible ramps on the north slopes of Mounds A and B suggest an orientation toward the bayou rather than a centrally located plaza ( Jones and Shuman 1991:49–57). Mound C is distinguished from the other mounds in having what appears

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Figure 4.1. South-central Louisiana, showing the locations of major Plaquemine mound sites.

to be a small conical mound on its northern summit. Depressions in the spaces between Mounds A, B, and C have been interpreted as borrow pits, although the mounds appear to have been constructed on low ridges separated by natural swales. Mound D is the westernmost mound and located farthest south of the bayou. In fact, the distance between this mound and the other three raises questions as to whether it was constructed contemporaneously and

Figure 4.2. Site 16SL3.

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how it might relate to the rest of the mound complex. Mound D is a low-lying platform mound 1.8 m (6 feet) high, the smallest in height of the four mounds. The summit of Mound D is conspicuously level and larger than that of any of the other mounds, indicating its likely use as a substructural platform. A ravine has been dug into the west slope of Mound D and partially ¤lled in with debris. The mounds at 16SL3 are otherwise in good condition, with only slight evidence of pot hunting, damage from off-road vehicles, and erosion. Both Coles Creek and Plaquemine components have been identi¤ed at 16SL3 on the basis of unsystematic surface collections and a small-scale salvage excavation in Mound A. Unprovenienced pottery sherds reported from the site include Avoyelles Punctated, var. Dupree, Coles Creek Incised, vars. Hardy and Coles Creek, Evansville Punctated, var. Sharkey, French Fork Incised, var. French Fork, Harrison Bayou Incised, var. unspeci¤ed, Indian Bay Stamped, var. unspeci¤ed, Mazique Incised, var. Manchac, Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine, and Pontchartrain Check Stamped. Projectile point types include Alba, Bayou Goula, and Scallorn ( Jones and Shuman 1991:59). Excavation of 60 cm of disturbed soil within a 1-by-2-m unit placed over a tree fall on the summit of Mound A in 1998 produced a small collection of Coles Creek Incised, Harrison Bayou Incised, Pontchartrain Check Stamped, and undecorated pottery sherds (McGimsey 1998:87–89). Following Neuman and Servello (1976:23), Jones and Shuman (1991:62) suggest 16SL3 may represent a “classic Coles Creek occupation.” Mound construction might just as plausibly date from the Mississippi period given the pottery types recovered from Mound A. A village area and associated midden have yet to be identi¤ed at the site. Without radiometric dates or diagnostic artifacts from controlled, stratigraphic contexts it is dif¤cult to add much more.

16SL20 The second mound site of interest is located on the south bank of a southeasterly ®owing bayou approximately 800 m (0.5 miles) northwest of its con®uence with a smaller bayou in St. Landry Parish. Less is known about this site than any in the study area, perhaps in part because of its relatively remote location 5.5 km (3.4 miles) west of the main channel of the Atchafalaya River. The site was originally described as having three mounds arranged in a triangular pattern and a fourth located at some distance to the southeast (LDA Site File, 16SL20). Mounds A, B, and C have been described as rectangular platforms ranging in height from 1.2 to 3.7 m (4–12 feet). Mound D is a low rise approximately 0.6 m in height and 63 m southeast of Mound A. Jones and Shuman

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(1991:124–128) described the site layout as a quadrilateral or diamond with the short axis (64 m or 210 feet) running between the two largest mounds, A and C, and the long axis (128 m or 420 feet) between Mounds B and D. The area enclosed by the mounds is estimated to cover 0.98 ha (2.4 acres). Extensive pot hunting has been reported at the site and it has never been systematically investigated (LDA Site File, 16SL20). Site 16SL20 has been described as a late Coles Creek center on the basis of the layout of the mounds and a few small surface collections that consisted mostly of undecorated and Pontchartrain Check Stamped sherds ( Jones and Shuman 1991:129). A surface collection by the Louisiana southwest regional archaeologist in 1992 included mostly Baytown Plain, var. unspeci¤ed sherds (n = 22) and one sherd of Plaquemine Brushed (LDA Site File, 16SL20). On the basis of this and earlier surface collections it has also been associated with Plaquemine culture (Neuman and Servello 1976:24; Prentice 2000:274). Little more can be said about 16SL20 without further investigation.

16SM38 In contrast, more is presently known about 16SM38 than any other mound site in the study area as a result of a series of ¤eld school investigations by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (Everett et al. 2002; Gibson 1990; Rees 2002, 2003). The site is located on a natural levee of the Mississippi-Teche meander, on the south bank of a bayou that ®ows easterly into craw¤sh ponds and a modern canal (Saucier 1994:279). Prior to these landscape alterations and construction of the west Atchafalaya protection levee, the bayou would have ®owed more directly into the Atchafalaya River approximately 12 km (7.5 miles) to the east. The low-lying area immediately surrounding the site is subject to periodic ®ooding and does not appear to have been historically cultivated. Although it was not mentioned by Moore (1913) or Neuman and Servello (1976:27), Phillips (1970:920–923, 950–951:Figures 446, 447) associated 16SM38 with both the Coles Creek Bayou Cutler phase and the subsequent Medora phase. Six earthen mounds were initially identi¤ed, positioned around a centrally located plaza and surrounded by a series of shallow depressions, some of which have been interpreted as borrow pits (Figure 4.3). Mound A is the largest in both area and height, at approximately 4 m (13 feet) higher than the surrounding terrain. As a consequence of off-road vehicle traf¤c, pot hunting, and erosion it is estimated to have been reduced in height by at least 0.5 m. Mound A is conical in shape and connected to Mound B by a low causeway or ramp. Mounds C and D are similarly joined on the western side of the

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Figure 4.3. Site 16SM38.

plaza. Mound D, the second largest in the group, is the only mound that appears to have been a rectangular platform. Two low rises, designated Mounds E and F, are positioned on the south edge of the plaza but may actually represent midden deposits, perhaps similar to two small mounds at the Greenhouse site (Ford 1951:101–102; Kidder 1998b:139). Additional similarities with Greenhouse include the paired layout and general orientation of four mounds (Rees 2002). A seventh small mound was recently identi¤ed approximately 200 m northeast of Mound A. Mound G lies in a wooded area outside of the main mound complex and its potential association with the other mounds is uncertain. Excavations at 16SM38 indicate that the site extends well beyond the mound-and-plaza complex, with midden accumulation around Mounds A, B, and C. The entire site is conservatively estimated to cover at least 3 ha (7.4 acres) on the basis of the recovery of artifacts from 50-by-50-cm test units during the winter of 2001–2002. Trench walls excavated into two erosional gullies in Mound A revealed intact mound deposits, basket loading, and a thick layer of slope wash. A core placed through the summit of Mound A revealed two distinct episodes of mound construction above a pre-mound surface. Pottery sherds recovered from excavation units during the 1998, 2001, and 2003 ¤eld schools are classi¤ed primarily as Baytown Plain (78 to 88 per-

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cent). Among the decorated pottery, the most common types are Pontchartrain Check Stamped, Plaquemine Brushed, Mazique Incised, and several varieties of Coles Creek Incised. Other decorated types include Avoyelles Punctated, Evansville Punctated, Harrison Bayou Incised, and L’Eau Noire Incised. Two Scallorn or Colbert-like projectile points were recovered along with one Alba point during the 2003 ¤eld school, further indication of a multicomponent, Coles Creek–Plaquemine habitation. Site 16SM38 is at present the most precisely dated mound site in the study area (Table 4.1). Wood charcoal from a small hearth (Feature 1) northeast of Mound A ¤rst investigated during the 2001 ¤eld school returned a radiocarbon age of 620 ± 70 b.p. (UGa-10994). Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analysis of two wood charcoal samples from midden excavated in the vicinity of Feature 1 yielded radiocarbon ages of 690 ± 40 b.p. (Beta-190916) and 860 ± 40 b.p. (Beta-190917). Calibrations for these samples and the one from Feature 1 are consistent with the overall stratigraphic sequence and produce calendar age ranges spanning circa a.d. 1040–1483 (Beta-190917, Beta-190916, and UGa-10994). AMS analysis of wood charcoal from a pre-mound surface beneath Mound A produced a radiocarbon age of 850 ± 40 b.p., indicating that construction of Mound A likely postdates circa a.d. 1212 (UGa-10995). This corresponds very closely with one of two previous radiocarbon ages obtained for charred materials from the lowest stratum of mound ¤ll in Mound B, at 850 ± 70 b.p. (Beta-127975). A second radiocarbon age of 560 ± 70 b.p. was more recent, but in the context of mound ¤ll provides no more reliable indication of the actual time of mound construction (Beta-132764; Everett et al. 2002:9; McGimsey and van der Koogh 2001:6–7). On the basis of these results the habitation northeast of Mound A appears to date from the early thirteenth through the late fourteenth centuries, with the construction of Mounds A and B likely dating sometime after a.d. 1200. This corresponds with the excavated assemblages of decorated pottery and con¤rms an early Plaquemine habitation. Given the substantial inclusion of Coles Creek pottery types in mound ¤ll, there also appears to be a sizable Coles Creek component.

16SM5 (Hi′pinimtc Na′mu) Like the aforementioned sites, 16SM5 is located on a bayou that ®ows easterly into the Atchafalaya Basin, entering Lake Fausse Pointe through Lake Dauterive. Association of this site with the Chitimacha village of Hi’pinimtc na’mu is far from certain but proposed here as one plausible scenario requiring further scrutiny. Drawing upon Gatschet (1883) and Chitimacha sources,

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Swanton (1911:344) described the location of Hi′pinimtc na′mu or “Prairielanding village” as being “on the western part of Grand Lake, at Fausse Pointe, near Bayou Gosselin” (see also Brightman 2004:643). Swanton adds that another village of the same name was located “on Lac d’Autre Rive, between Charenton and St. Martinsville.” Site 16SM5 is 8.0 km (5 miles) from Little Gonsoulin Bayou but in fact near Lake Dauterive. Although this is hardly a ringing endorsement for the identi¤cation of Hi′pinimtc na′mu, a Chitimacha village was likely in the vicinity. The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana maintains oral histories regarding the use and symbolism of the mounds at 16SM5. It is believed to have been the location of a sacred tree marking the boundary of the Chitimacha homeland (LDA Site File, 16SM5; Kim Walden, personal communication, 2002; cf. Swanton 1911:354). Historic villages of the Chitimacha are also thought to be located across the bayou to the south (McGimsey 1995:8–10). An association between 16SM5 and one of two villages referred to as Hi′pinimtc na′mu is therefore one reasonable interpretation (cf. Gibson 1978b:14). Site 16SM5 is located on a natural levee dissected by several low-lying swales and a minor, intermittent drainage (Figure 4.4). Although these channels accentuate the height of the mounds, it is unknown whether they predate mound construction or represent intentional modi¤cations to the landscape. Three earthen mounds are laid out in a triangular arrangement around a bend in the bayou. Mound A is approximately 2.6 m (8.5 feet) high with a southeasterly sloping summit and roughly rectangular shape. It is bounded on the south by the bayou and on the west by an intermittent channel. Mound B is located 25 m (82 feet) northeast of Mound A and is approximately 1.2 m (3.9 feet) high. At around the same height, Mound C lies 50 m (164 feet) east of Mound B. The shapes of mounds B and C are dif¤cult to discern at present but they appear to have been platforms. A low ridge extends from the southeast slope of Mound C, turning westward along the bank of the bayou. The bayou demarcates the southern edge of what appears to be a centrally located plaza, enclosing an estimated area of 0.5 ha (1.2 acres). Two low-lying, intermittently water-¤lled areas east and west of Mound B may represent borrow pits. Connected by shallow channels and intermittent drainages to the bayou on the south, the mound-and-plaza complex seems to be nearly entirely surrounded. However, it is unknown whether these gullies and low-lying areas are cultural features associated with mound construction. An extensive shell midden lies outside of the mound-and-plaza arrangement, across a shallow gully northeast of Mound C. The midden extends for at least 50 m (164 feet) along a natural levee overlooking the bayou and exhibits high

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Figure 4.4. Site 16SM5.

concentrations of pottery sherds, bone, and shell. The site is conservatively estimated to cover 1.3 ha (3.2 acres) but may have originally been much larger before having been impacted by nearby road construction. Each of the mounds and the midden exhibit signs of extensive pot hunting. Given the size and location of this site it is somewhat surprising that it was not mentioned by Moore (1913) or Neuman and Servello (1976). McIntire (1958:Plates 7a, 7b, 10, 12, and 13) described it as a Coles Creek site with a small collection of Pontchartrain Check Stamped and Mazique Incised pottery sherds. Phillips (1970:920–923, Figures 446 and 447) subsequently associated this site with the Coles Creek Bayou Cutler phase. More recent surface collections suggest both Coles Creek and Plaquemine components. McGimsey (1995:8–10) recorded decorated pottery types such as Coles Creek Incised, vars. Blakely, Coles Creek, Curtis, Hunt, Keogh, Manchac, and Mazique, Pontchartrain Check Stamped, L’Eau Noire Incised, Churupa Punctated, var. Churupa, and Hollyknowe Pinched (LDA Site File, 16SM5). Decorated ceramics noted on the surface of the midden and west of Mound A during the 2003 PMAP investigation included small sherds of Carter Engraved, Harrison Bayou Incised, Mazique Incised, Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine,

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Pontchartrain Check Stamped, var. Pontchartrain, and French Fork Incised, var. Larkin. Two AMS dates were obtained from core samples taken from Mound A and the shell midden at 16SM5. The ¤rst consisted of wood charcoal in sediment from a sub-mound A horizon, at 2.66–2.73 m below surface (Beta190914, Table 4.1). The radiocarbon age was 1210 ± 40 b.p., merely indicating a terminus post quem for the construction of Mound A. The second sample consisted of one shell (Rangia cuneata) specimen from 10 cm below the surface of the midden. It produced a radiocarbon age of 730 ± 40 b.p. (Beta-190915). This generally corresponds with three radiocarbon dates more recently obtained for samples excavated from two 1-by-1-m units in the midden. Two samples of wood charcoal near the bottom of the midden yielded radiocarbon ages of 1260 ± 50 b.p. (Level 6, Beta-200908) and 1460 ± 40 b.p. (Level 7, Beta-200909). The third produced a similar radiocarbon age of 1270 ± 50 b.p. for charcoal from Level 3 (Beta-201513). Several small, shell-tempered pottery sherds were recovered from the upper levels of one test unit, lending support to the later radiocarbon age of 730 ± 40 b.p. for a more recent and perhaps terminal midden deposit (Beta-190915, 2-sigma cal a.d. 1240–1300). As at 16SM38, these dates indicate a multicomponent or transitional Coles Creek– Plaquemine habitation, in this case spanning seven centuries between circa a.d. 600 and 1300. Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that the historic Chitimacha village of Hi′pinimtc na′mu was subsequently located here or in the vicinity.

16SMY2 (Okû′nkîskîn) On the basis of Chitimacha sources, Swanton (1911:344, 352) described the village of Okû′nkîskîn (“deep-shoulder”) on Grand Lake, a short distance from the town of Charenton (Tc8t Kasi′tuncki). The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana recognizes 16SMY2 as the village of Okû′nkîskîn (LDA Site File, 16SMY2). Another possibility is that 16SMY2 was the nearby village known as Ama’tpan na’mu (Brightman 2004:643–644; Gibson 1978b:15, 1982:458– 459; cf. Swanton 1911:343; Weinstein et al. 2003:140–141). Surprisingly little is actually known about the mounds at 16SMY2 despite the site’s having drawn the interest of scholars throughout the past century (e.g., Collins 1927:201; Gibson 1982:450–459; Kniffen 1938:194; McIntire 1958:Plate 5b; Moore 1913: 19–21; Neuman and Servello 1976:29, 64; Phillips 1970:920–923, 950–951; Prentice 2000:274; Swanton 1911:344, 352). It was one of the few mound sites in the study area visited by C. B. Moore (1913:19–21), due no doubt to the

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site’s high visibility and accessibility on Grand Lake. Moore (1913:19) described the site as “¤ve mounds composed largely of shell” but found little of interest there, perhaps because most of the mounds were planted in sugar cane. Henry Collins, assistant curator of ethnology at the U.S. National Museum, visited the site in 1926 at the request of the Bureau of American Ethnology and U.S. National Museum. He was accompanied to the site by Benjamin Paul, Chief of the Chitimacha. Collins described the site as consisting of three earthen mounds and an extensive shell midden. He excavated a test pit into one mound that he described as eight feet high (Collins 1927; McGimsey 2001:114, 125–126). McIntire (1958:Plates 5a, 5b, 7b, 8b, 13) subsequently described the site as having Troyville, Coles Creek, and Plaquemine components on the basis of surface-collected pottery. Phillips (1970:920–923, 950–951, Figures 446 and 447) associated 16SMY2 with the Coles Creek Bayou Cutler phase and Medora phase of the Mississippi period. Okû′nkîskîn may at one time have consisted of as many as six mounds and shell midden in linear arrangement along Grand Lake. It has been heavily impacted by road construction and recreational development. The shell midden had already been damaged by the time of Collins’s visit and is today nearly obliterated. Beginning on the western edge of the site, Mound A is a circular earthwork that has been damaged by modern landscape renovations. Mound B was destroyed by construction of a boat landing and access road. Mound C lies east of mounds A and B and may have been the focus of investigations by Moore (1913) and Collins (1927). Mound D is a large, rectangular platform approximately 3 m in height. It is the largest of the existing mounds at the site but has been impacted by a ditch that cuts across the northern slope. Mounds E and F, recorded during a site visit in 1997, are low rises adjacent to a remnant of the shell midden (LDA Site File, 16SMY2; McGimsey 2001:86, 125–126; Weinstein et al. 2003:141). Based on Collins’s brief visit, McGimsey (2001:125) suggests a Coles Creek component associated with Mound C. The pottery in this collection consists of a few sherds of Baytown Plain, Coles Creek Incised, vars. Blakely, Greenhouse, and Pecan, Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine, Mazique Incised, var. Manchac, and one sherd each of Pontchartrain Check Stamped, var. Pontchartrain, Evansville Punctated, var. Rhinehart, Carter Engraved, var. Shell Bluff, L’Eau Noire Incised, var. unspeci¤ed, French Fork Incised, var. McNutt, and Beldeau Incised, var. Bell Bayou. Plaquemine and historic Chitimacha components are also indicated on the basis of these pottery types, historic documentation, and oral histories (LDA Site File, 16SMY2).

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16SMY10 (Qiteet Kuti′ngi Na′mu) The ¤nal site to be considered here is recognized by the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana as the village of Qiteet Kuti’ngi na’mu ( Jason Emery, personal communication, 2003; McGimsey and Cring 2003:184). It is located on the north bank of Bayou Teche near a former con®uence with the Atchafalaya River, subsequently diverted by levee construction. On the basis of conversations with Chief Benjamin Paul, Swanton (1911:344) referred to the village of “Tca′ti Kuti′ngi na′mu, at junction of Bayou Teche with Bayou Atchafalaya.” Gatschet (1883) mentioned this village as well, although since the con®uence of the Teche and Atchafalaya has changed over the years it is unclear whether Tca′ti Kuti′ngi na′mu was located at 16SMY10 or farther downstream near Morgan City (McGimsey and Cring 2003:208). Brightman (2004:643) refers to the same site as “Chati kutingi namu” but places it at the Atchafalaya River and Bayou Courtableu. While the issue is far from resolved, 16SMY10 is referred to here by the Chitimacha designation Qiteet Kuti′ngi na′mu. As discussed below, recent research con¤rms an eighteenth-century Native American presence at the site. C. B. Moore (1913:19) appears to have brie®y visited this location and described two large mounds, 13 feet and 10.5 feet in height, “in full view from the water [Bayou Teche]” (Weinstein et al. 2003:141–143). Moore had his crew dig into these mounds but found little of interest, except for the skeletal remains of one individual, which had previously been damaged by looters. Indiscriminate digging and erosion appear to have already severely truncated the larger of the two mounds by the time of Moore’s visit. It was this mound, according to Moore (1913:19), that was “connected with a shell ridge on the eastern side, formed almost entirely of a variety of clam-shell, Rangia cuneata, and midden deposit extending along the bank of the river.” In all, Moore spent less than three hours at the mounds “at Moro plantation.” Because the site was originally recorded in 1952 as a ceremonial center consisting of “four mounds and a shell midden,” the identi¤cation of 16SMY10 with the mounds at Moro plantation is not certain (LDA Site File, 16SMY10). However, it is possible that Moore missed two of the smaller mounds (Weinstein et al. 2003:142–143). If so, the larger mound described by Moore as attached to a shell ridge and midden may have been destroyed soon thereafter, perhaps as a result of continued bank erosion and/or the excavation of a narrow channel or boat slip. McIntire and Saucier recorded the site as a ceremonial center with Coles Creek, Plaquemine, and historic components (LDA Site File, 16SMY10). McIntire (1958:79) later referred to an initial Coles Creek

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Figure 4.5. Site 16SMY10.

occupation on the basis of its location on the Teche Ridge. However, his pottery tabulation also included later types such as Fatherland Incised, Australia Interior Incised, and Plaquemine Brushed (McIntire 1958:128, Plate 13). Phillips (1970:920–923, 950–951, Figures 446 and 447) associated the site with the Bayou Cutler, Medora, and Delta Natchezan phases (cf. Neuman and Servello 1976:64–65). Collections in the LSU Museum of Natural Science include Anna Incised, vars. Anna and Australia, Coles Creek Incised, vars. Blakely, Hardy, and Pecan, French Fork Incised, vars. Larkin, McNutt, and Lafayette, Harrison Bayou Incised, var. Harrison Bayou, Mazique Incised, var. Mazique, Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine, and Pontchartrain Check Stamped, var. Pontchartrain (McGimsey and Cring 2003:187, Table 14.1). The site was revisited in 1991 as part of a larger survey of the lower Bayou Teche and again described as four earthen mounds with a shell midden (Goodwin et al. 1991a; Goodwin et al. 1991b:103–105; LDA Site File, 16SMY10). In December 2003 the PMAP investigation recorded three earthen mounds and a linear shell midden extending along the bank of the bayou (Figure 4.5). Mound A, the largest extant mound at the site, is approximately 2.8 m (9.2 feet) in height and 30 m (98 feet) in diameter. Mound B is located 25 m (82 feet) to the northeast and is approximately 2.4 m (7.9 feet) high. The south slope of Mound B appears to have been sharply truncated from the summit to the base. Although Moore (1913:19) noted similar damage at Moro plantation, it was in reference to the larger mound located “nearer the bayou.” Since this is

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not an accurate description of Mound A, it once again raises the possibility that a fourth mound adjacent to the midden was subsequently obliterated. Mounds A and B appear to have included platforms, although the precise shapes are dif¤cult to establish as a result of sustained damage from pot hunting, off-road vehicles, and erosion. Mound C, located 30 m southeast of Mound B, is more noticeably a rectangular platform. It is approximately 0.8 m (2.6 feet) in height but may have been con®ated by years of cultivation and erosion. The shell midden extends along the bank of the bayou from 10 m (33 feet) southeast of Mound A nearly to the southwest slope of Mound C. The existence of a fourth mound could not be con¤rmed during the PMAP study, despite several attempts at coring an area of higher elevation on the western edge of the midden. The contour map indicates ramps may have extended from the northeast slope of Mound A and southwest slope of Mound B. Along with Mound C, the mounds appear to be positioned around a centrally located plaza, with the midden making up the southern boundary. The area enclosed by the mounds and midden is approximately 0.44 ha (1.09 acres) and the overall site size is conservatively estimated at 1.2 ha (2.97 acres). However, this does not include potentially inhabited areas outside of the mound group subsequently impacted by modern development. An associated village was reportedly destroyed by a large, modern borrow pit to the north (Goodwin et al. 1991b; Neuman and Servello 1976:29, 64). It is unknown whether this area or the mound group itself would have been the location of the Chitimacha village of Qiteet Kuti′ngi na′mu. The PMAP investigations support successive Coles Creek, Plaquemine, and historic habitations at 16SMY10. Cores were placed through each of the mounds and the midden, from which two samples were submitted for radiometric analysis. The ¤rst consisted of shell (Rangia cuneata) fragments from 27–50 cm beneath the surface of the midden (Beta-190918). The resulting radiocarbon age was 1210 ± 50 b.p. (2-sigma cal a.d. 1290–1450), in concurrence with the ceramic evidence for an early Plaquemine occupation. The second sample consisted of wood charcoal from beneath the lowest layer of ¤ll in Mound A. AMS analysis yielded a radiocarbon age of 1010 ± 40 b.p. (Beta-190919, 2-sigma cal a.d. 980–1050 and cal a.d. 1100–1140). It is therefore probable that construction of Mound A was most likely begun sometime after a.d. 1020, perhaps coinciding with a terminal Coles Creek or transitional Coles Creek–Plaquemine habitation. Recent investigations shed new light on the association of 16SMY10 with

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the Chitimacha village of Qiteet Kuti′ngi na′mu, referred to by Swanton (1911:344) as Tca′ti Kuti′ngi na′mu. A site inspection in July 2003 yielded evidence of exposed human remains and artifacts eroding from the north slope of Mound A. A partially damaged burial in one of several off-road vehicle paths was in imminent danger of destruction. Personnel from the LDA, Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, and PMAP conducted a salvage excavation with permission from the landowner and a permit issued by the Louisiana Unmarked Human Burial Sites Board. Subsequent analysis indicated the primary interment of a 3-year-old child with numerous grave goods dating between a.d. 1763 and 1820. The burial offerings consisted of both indigenous items and trade goods, such as black, white, and blue glass beads (McGimsey and Cring 2003:200–205). Pottery sherds recovered from disturbed mound ¤ll consisted of Baytown Plain, var. unspeci¤ed, Carter Engraved, var. Sara, and Larto Red, var. unspeci¤ed. Although the burial likely postdates initial mound construction by several centuries or more, it supports either historic reuse of the mound precinct or continued inhabitation in this locale potentially associated with the village of Qiteet Kuti′ngi na′mu.

Discussion Several observations can be drawn from the preceding description of sites. First and foremost is the paucity of information on even the largest mound sites in the region. While some sites have been known about for a century or more (e.g., 16SMY2 and 16SMY10), others have until relatively recently gone virtually unnoticed by archaeologists (e.g., 16SL3 and 16SL20). Site destruction from indiscriminate digging, off-road vehicles, and erosion in many instances continues unabated, highlighting the critical need for additional information on extant mound sites. The PMAP has begun to document such poorly known sites by producing topographic maps, conducting systematic coring, and carrying out small-scale test excavations. Only two of the six sites discussed here have been systematically investigated in any detail (16SM38 and 16SM5). Second, greater temporal and spatial resolution regarding mound construction and use, site habitation, potential abandonment, and reuse are needed in order to provide tighter chronological controls for a more re¤ned culture history of the western Atchafalaya Basin. Third, combined with studies of material culture and subsistence, information on the construction, layout, and locations of mound sites has the potential to signi¤cantly advance our understanding of regional polities during the late Coles Creek and Mississippi pe-

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riods (ca. a.d. 1000–1700). The present study has intriguing implications concerning the last two issues: regional chronology and Native American political culture. Chronology building does not in itself explain social or political dynamics, a point emphasized in earlier processualist critiques of a culture historical approach (e.g., Binford 1968; Flannery 1967). Yet archaeologists have more recently recognized that re¤nement of regional chronologies is fundamental to understanding political development and decline (e.g., Knight and Steponaitis 1998; Pauketat 1995). Advancement from cultural periods to phases and subphases in Mississippian archaeology has been characterized by more nuanced distinctions regarding regional political economy, allowing for consideration of human agency alongside long-term ecological factors (Pauketat 1997a, 1997b, 1998a). The gist of this approach has been to rearticulate the preColumbian, Native American past as a historical process (e.g., Pauketat 2001a, 2001b). The relevance of historical processualism, besides taking into account Native American cultural traditions, contradictions, diversity, and practices as agents of change, is in bridging the formidable protohistoric transformations of escalating contacts and colonialism (Lightfoot 2001; Wesson and Rees 2002). The PMAP has so far contributed only to the preliminary advancement of a regional chronology for the western Atchafalaya Basin. Earlier studies have hinted at a centuries-long hiatus in the occupancy of the western margin of the LMV prior to the Coles Creek period (Gibson 1990:25; see Phillips 1970: Figures 444 and 445). On the basis of the series of radiometric dates presented here, it appears that initial construction and habitation of major mound centers dates from the late Coles Creek and early Mississippi periods, or what has been called the Coles Creek–Plaquemine transition (i.e., Weinstein 1987a:87– 93). Eight of 13 available radiometric dates from three sites have calibrated calendar ranges within a.d. 1025–1483, with intercepts clustering between a.d. 1190 and a.d. 1405 (Table 4.1). The remaining dates are associated with sub-mound contexts, representing a terminus post quem for mound construction at 16SM5 and 16SMY10 (Beta-190914 and Beta-190919) and a Coles Creek context for the initial midden deposit at 16SM5. The argument for Plaquemine culture as representing Mississippianized Coles Creek ¤nds little support at 16SM5, where mound construction seems to have been preceded by two centuries of habitation and any evidence for interaction with Mississippian societies appears to have been late and ephemeral. While additional dates are urgently needed from these and other sites, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries stand out as a time when Plaquemine peoples, including ancestors of the Chitimacha, were building large earthen

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mounds that may have served as political-administrative and ceremonial centers. Arguments regarding the contemporaneous or successive establishment of these centers will require further re¤nement of a regional chronology. Issues regarding cultural af¤liation come into view at the other end of the chronology. While the importance of documentary evidence and oral histories has long been realized in establishing the locations and cultural af¤liations of sites in the LMV (e.g., Giardino 1984), there is much archaeology that remains to be done. In particular, compelling associations of the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana with three of the sites mentioned here indicate the potential for multidisciplinary research into mound building, reuse, and the persistence of traditions in the face of momentous demographic, political, and economic change (e.g., Mann 2005). The investigation of eighteenth-century villages and potential associations with mound centers represents a virtually untapped source of information on Chitimacha history spanning the Mississippi and early historic periods. It may be no coincidence that the best-known sites are those located farthest south, within the homeland of the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana. Archaeological and ethnographic evidence for protohistoric or early historic habitation, while sparse, is restricted at present to these sites (16SM5, 16SMY2, and 16SMY10). This raises questions regarding the construction, reoccupation, and reuse of mound sites that essentially demarcate the western boundary of the Chitimacha homeland. Given the relatively later habitations at these southernmost mound sites, perhaps sites to the north such as 16SL3 and 16SL20 correspond to the frontier of a yet earlier, ancestral Chitimacha homeland. A creation myth of the Chitimacha is purported to recount their origin in the vicinity of the Natchez (Swanton 1911:348, 356), with whom they have been compared and contrasted (e.g., Grif¤n 1952:363; Kniffen et al. 1987:53– 55). Additional re¤nement of a regional chronology is also necessary in order to evaluate such propositions and will undoubtedly assist in establishing clearer connections between archaeological, ethnographic, and historical sources. Information on the timing and scale of mound and village construction also has the potential to inform our understanding of regional political culture. Large political-administrative centers elsewhere in the Southeast were characterized by demographic nucleation and decentralization concurrent with the development and decline of regional polities. Six major multimound sites with known or suspected Plaquemine components were constructed at fairly regular intervals along the western margin of the Atchafalaya Basin, ranging in distance from 22.9 km (16SM38 to 16SM5) to 28.9 km (16SL3 to 16SL20), the mean straight-line distance being approximately 26.4 km

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(16.4 miles). If distance or travel time between centers can be used to gauge the scale of political organization, as has been argued for Mississippian polities (e.g., Hally 1993, 1999), one might be tempted to draw inferences regarding the multimound sites discussed here. Of course, estimates of travel time must ultimately take into consideration the ef¤ciency of water transport, especially in the LMV. Arguments for a series of contemporaneous or consecutive polities will also ultimately require re¤nement of the regional chronology introduced here. The fact that four of the northernmost mound centers were located on major east–west drainages suggests political and economic interactions focused consistently around the regional transport and exchange of resources and information between the basin and Teche Ridge, rather than a single, regionally integrated polity. If the latter were the case, one might expect a strategic arrangement of mound centers along the Teche Ridge, taking advantage of both the higher elevation and the bayou as a major north–south transportation route. Yet surprisingly few mound centers are accordingly positioned (e.g., 16IB40 and 16SMY10). Instead, site placement suggests an overall east–west orientation in the cultural landscape, once more resembling the historic boundaries of the Chitimacha homeland and potentially indicating a borderland with ancestral Attakapa of the Prairie Terrace and perhaps other Coles Creek, Plaquemine, and Mississippian communities of the southwest Louisiana Chenier Plain (Swanton 1911:360–363). Did Plaquemine peoples, including ancestors of the Chitimacha, establish a half-dozen autonomous or loosely allied polities on the western edge of the Atchafalaya Basin prior to the fourteenth century? In order to answer such questions it will be necessary to collect additional information on the timing of mound construction and evidence for contemporaneous habitation. Whether these centers were built and inhabited in close succession or at different times, the data seem to indicate the shifting or movement of regional political culture. By examining the timing of mound construction and midden deposition it will be possible to more thoroughly address the pace and scale of regional political development. Lastly, ideas concerning dispersed settlement patterns and ceremonial centers must also be reexamined, particularly in light of the midden deposits noted at sites such as 16SM38, 16SM5, and 16SMY2 (Neuman 1984:260). Of the sites discussed here, none straightforwardly correspond to what might be thought of as a “typical” design for a Plaquemine ceremonial center (Kidder 1998b:141–148; cf. Neuman 1984:258–268; Quimby 1951). Rectangular platforms, conical mounds, causeways, shell middens, and ridges were incorpo-

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rated in a variety of arrangements, including linear alignments along bodies of water (16SL3 and 16SMY2), quadrilaterals with centrally located plazas (16SL20, 16SM38, 16SMY184), and triangular patterns with the addition of a low ridge or midden (16SM5 and 16SMY10). Interpreting site layout and design as the cumulative result of intentional actions rather than merely accumulative deposition or accretional processes, it is possible to form general inferences regarding the social import of monumental architecture and ceremonial spaces (e.g., Knight 1998; Wesson 1998). The existence of social templates or archetypal patterns for mound groups and ceremonial spaces is suggested by similarities among the above sites, as well as between 16SM38 and the Greenhouse site in Avoyelles Parish (Ford 1951). The meanings of these archetypes are not entirely beyond the grasp of archaeologists, in that the built environment effectively represents the materialization and negotiation of social identities (Lewis et al. 1998). Similarities between sites 16SM5 and 16SMY10, ostensibly associated with the Chitimacha villages of Hi′pinimtc na′mu and Qiteet Kuti′ngi na′mu, might thus be viewed as diagrammatic of comparable community organizations. Substructural mounds corresponding to residential and mortuary precincts of the nobility, as noted among the Chitimacha, would have been designed, constructed, and administered by corporate groups or lineages (LDA Site File, 16SM5; Swanton 1911:348–351). The higher ranking or elite of Chitimacha society are reported to have comprised endogamous lineages. Marriages in such cases have been considered ethnographically to create “new alliances among equals” or maintain existing social inequalities, particularly in the context of land tenure (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991:138–140; Wolf 1959:228). Following exhumation and ceremonial bundling in the ha ′na katci ′ or “bone house,” the remains of a Chitimacha chief and his possessions were interred in a mound. According to Swanton (1911:351), “the mounds erected over chiefs are said to have been 4 or 5 feet high.” In view of this ethnographic analogy and the available archaeological evidence, it seems ill-advised to portray the western Atchafalaya Basin as a cultural backwater to the Plaquemine heartland of the Natchez Bluffs or Yazoo Basin. From the perspective of Coles Creek–Mississippian hybridization, inhabitants of the western Atchafalaya Basin may appear to have been left behind, with clearer connections to Coles Creek in terms of both mound complexes and pottery; shell-tempered sherds are nearly nonexistent in the assemblages from major mound sites discussed here. Even from the viewpoint of indigenous Coles Creek development, most of the mound sites discussed

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here appear lacking in size and grandeur (except perhaps for 16SL3), particularly in comparison with large Coles Creek mound centers such as Raffman (Roe, this volume). From a regional, political perspective, the mound groups of the western Atchafalaya Basin take on new meanings. Blitz and Livingood (2004:299) point out that the size or volume of Mississippian platform mounds is a re®ection of both duration of use and political power or authority, as well as the mobilization of labor in different social contexts. To equate the magnitude of mound complexes with comparative cultural prominence seems ill advised, particularly for a region in which so little is known concerning the social contexts of mound construction and use. Mound centers are representative of historical processes of political consolidation, alliance formation, shifting authority, and ultimately the movement of peoples across a cultural landscape. In understanding the societies that constructed mounds in the western Atchafalaya Basin, it will be more productive to frame new ¤ndings not as marginal to Coles Creek or Plaquemine culture but in terms of regional political culture, as a historical process that produced living traditions such as the Chitimacha.

Acknowledgments The Plaquemine Mounds Archaeological Project was supported by a Research Competitiveness Subprogram grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund. I would like to thank all those involved in this research at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, including the many ¤eld school students, assistants, and volunteers who have participated in the project. Lance Blanchard, Rikki Dugas, Jamie Lee Grossie, Madelyn Hebert, Taylor Lasley, Rene “Chip” Lorio, and Rachel Moss were among the student assistants who contributed in the laboratory and ¤eld, despite the most inclement conditions. James Fogleman, avocational archaeologist with encyclopedic knowledge of St. Landry Parish sites, contributed valuable information on site reconnaissance. Essential equipment for the ¤eld schools was supplied by a grant from the Student Technology Enhancement Program at UL Lafayette. A special debt of gratitude is owed to all of the landowners who provided access to their property, especially Dr. Jean Kreamer and family, The Archaeological Conservancy, Mr. and Mrs. Silton Boudreaux, Allen Babineaux, Karen Broussard, Lou Ella Bonin, Anna Belle Bonin, and Suzanne Cocke. This research could not have been accomplished without their generosity and hospitality. At their request, an attempt has been made to safeguard the speci¤c

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locations of mound sites in order to protect against further destruction from looting and off-road vehicles. At the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, C. Ray Brassieur continues to offer provocative insights on the cultural landscape of south Louisiana. Chip McGimsey, southwest Louisiana regional archaeologist, has been especially helpful in the ¤eld and laboratory. The Louisiana Division of Archaeology provided access to the state site ¤les and made the generous loan of a Giddings rig coring device. The late Thomas H. Eubanks, former Louisiana State Archaeologist, obtained ¤nancial support from the National Association of State Archaeologists at the beginning of the project for the emergency stabilization of Mound A at 16SM38. Kimberly Walden, Cultural Director with the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, provided matching funds from the Chitimacha and along with John Paul Darden has assisted in the ¤eldwork and offered much appreciated advice. Patrick Livingood, co-editor and coorganizer of the Plaquemine Problems symposium, provided constructive remarks on this chapter. Jay Johnson and Martha Rolingson also offered helpful comments. Nonetheless, I am accountable for any errors. Finally, I am grateful for the personal support and devotion of the four most in®uential women in my life: Johanna Chautin, Sarah Caitlin, Jennifer Catherine, and Gwyneth Margaret Rees.

5 Transitional Coles Creek–Plaquemine Relationships on Northwest Lake Salvador, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana Malcolm K. Shuman

Despite the criticisms of the New Archaeologists about the use and implications of the taxonomic systems employed by culture historians (e.g., Binford and Binford 1966), the effective use of taxonomic terminology has continued to be a problem. There are several reasons for this. At least with regard to the Lower Mississippi Valley, Belmont (1982b:69–70) suggested the problem has been simple confusion among archaeologists, which has led them to use many taxa interchangeably. This confusion is at least partly the result of the inability of investigators to decide among themselves what the various terms mean. Just as important, however, are the limitations inherent in the way culture historians go about their work. Regardless of the criticisms leveled at them by processualists and their successors, the major ¤gures in southeastern archaeology have long been aware of the problems they faced with their approaches. Willey and Phillips attempted to resolve some of the issues with their evolutionary synthesis in 1958. The junior author, in the introduction to his monumental work on the archaeology of the Yazoo Basin, admitted to being unabashedly “old fashioned” in stating that such theory as he proposed to employ “is in fact little more than ‘method.’ ” Phillips gently criticized such theoreticians as Ford who, in attempting to derive laws of cultural change, “make certain assumptions . . . that are in effect the laws he is trying to deduce” (Phillips 1970:3). To Phillips, then, our tools are de¤cient, but at the present they are the only tools we have. This is especially problematic when we try to extend our terminology spatially: “So long as we are forced to operate with the mixed culturechronological criteria inherent in our ‘culture periods,’ it is more important that these be locally intelligible than that they be capable of expansion across the board” (Phillips 1970:8). This, then, highlights one of the problems this

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chapter will address. Let us now consider the meanings commonly ascribed to the terms Coles Creek, Plaquemine, and Mississippian. The term Coles Creek in archaeology derives from the landmark work of James A. Ford (1936), who analyzed collections from Louisiana and Mississippi. In that work Ford refers to Coles Creek as a ceramic complex. Thereafter, he and Willey, in one of the ¤rst syntheses of eastern archaeology, call it a period de¤ned on the basis of ceramic traits (Ford and Willey 1941:345). At that time the Coles Creek period was thought to have lasted until the middle of the sixteenth century (Ford and Willey 1941:346). Since that time, besides being described as a period (Phillips 1970), it has also been described as both a period and a culture (Williams and Brain 1983:369, 405), a hyphenated culture, linked to the preceding Troyville (Neuman 1984), and an interval (Weinstein and Kelley 1992:351). Central to all these is the notion of a set of ceramic characteristics, although since the time of Ford other diagnostic traits have been added, such as site features and plans and overall settlement patterns (Williams and Brain 1983:405). As regards ceramics, Coles Creek is recognizable by “the use of incised, stamped, and punctated pottery types in which the decorative zone is largely restricted to a band around the rim of the vessel” (Weinstein and Kelley 1992:37). Architecturally, Coles Creek sites often consist of small platform mounds centered on plazas (Weinstein and Kelley 1992:37). The heartland for Coles Creek is the mouth of the Red River and the Lower Yazoo Basin (Miller et al. 2000:44), though it eventually extended to the coastal areas. The dates conventionally accepted for Coles Creek in south Louisiana are a.d. 700–1200 (Weinstein 1987a:86). The concept of Plaquemine derives from the work of Quimby (1951) at the Medora site in west Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. As Neuman (1984:258) writes, little about Plaquemine is distinctive. However, he notes that, besides the decorative technique of brushing as applied to ceramics, other apparent characteristics are “the occasional use of shell to temper the clays; small projecting lug handles on the vessel rims; engraving; and the general absence of stamped designs” (Neuman 1984:259). Most Plaquemine sites contain at least two rectangular mounds, but the number of mounds may be as many as 24, centered on two plazas (Neuman 1984:259). It goes almost without saying that the term Plaquemine, like Coles Creek, has been ascribed to varying taxonomic units (see Miller et al. 2000:44), though probably culture has been most frequently employed (e.g., Neuman 1984). The Plaquemine phenomenon may be conceived as a triangle with coastal Louisiana as its base and Greenville, Mississippi, at its apex (Neuman 1984:259). Dates for Plaquemine are usually given as a.d. 1200–1700 (Weinstein 1987a:86).

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Finally, the term Mississippian derives from the pioneering work of W. H. Holmes, who employed it to describe the shell-tempered ceramics often found with burials in the Central Mississippi Valley (Holmes 1903). Thus, from its inception, the term was linked to shell tempering as a technique of ceramic manufacture. This term, like the others discussed, came to be used for the “entire cultural complex which usually accompanies this characteristic pottery” (Ford and Willey 1941:348). It, too, is variously called a culture (Neuman 1984), a period (Weinstein and Kelley 1992:37), and even a stage (Miller et al. 2000:47). The term has been so variously and confusingly used, in fact, that Brain, for this reason, refused to employ it in the title of a paper on the subject (Brain 1978:331). The Mississippian cultural complex is associated with the great mound site of Cahokia in East St. Louis, beginning about a.d. 800 (Neuman 1984:272). According to Neuman (1984:273), these in®uences radiated outward to other regional centers as far a¤eld as the Aztlan site in Wisconsin, the Etowah site in Georgia, and the Moundville site in west-central Alabama. In addition to the presence of shell-tempered pottery, fully developed Mississippian culture is de¤ned by a reliance on agriculture; the presence of extensive mound sites, sometimes consisting of 20 or more mounds; and a ceremonial complex variously referred to as the Death Cult, the Southern Cult, the Buzzard Cult, and the Eagle Warrior Complex (Neuman 1984:272– 278). Many centers of Mississippian culture, such as Cahokia and Moundville, seem to have declined in the fourteenth century into more dispersed and less centralized communities (Brown 2003:224, citing Wesson 1998:119–120; Young and Fowler 2000:311). So pervasive was the in®uence of the Mississippian culture concept that this term was also assigned to a period that began around a.d. 800 in the middle Mississippi Valley and reached the lower valley by about a.d. 1200 (Weinstein and Kelley 1992:31; Young and Fowler 2000). The Moundville in®uence stretched to the inhabitants of the Gulf coast, so that by a.d. 1200 we ¤nd elements of Mississippian culture at sites from Florida to Louisiana (Blitz and Mann 2000; Brown 2003). The earlier tendency to refer to Coles Creek as a period as well as a culture may be assigned to the literary styles of the various archaeologists who have written about the subject. The use of the term Mississippi for both culture and period, however, would appear to be a lot more self-conscious, in that there is an assumption that during the span a.d. 1200 to roughly a.d. 1700, Mississippian culture strongly in®uenced the other cultures of the Southeast. The nature of that in®uence is one of the preoccupations of specialists in the prehistory of the Southeast coast and one of the issues considered by this essay. On charts of culture chronology, the Coles Creek phenomenon is usually divided into a

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Coles Creek proper, lasting from a.d. 700 to 1000, and a transitional Coles Creek, lasting from a.d. 1000 to 1200 (Weinstein 1987a:86). What I ask here is what, precisely, did Coles Creek transition into? The two possibilities usually cited are the Plaquemine and the Mississippian cultures. Here there is a divergence of opinion. For Phillips (1970), Plaquemine was a development from the preceding Coles Creek culture, but over time interaction between Plaquemine and the external Mississippi in®uence produced changes in the former, so that as time passed there was considerable convergence between Plaquemine and Mississippian proper. Brain (1978), on the other hand, sees Coles Creek as the essential culture that, about a.d. 1200, under Mississippian in®uences, evolved into Plaquemine. As a result of Brain’s in®uence, “phases . . . which were formerly considered Plaquemine culture manifestations . . . are now placed late in the Coles Creek period and assigned to a transitional Coles Creek culture” (Weinstein and Kelley 1992:38). This essay does not provide a de¤nitive answer to the question posed above, but it does suggest the pitfalls of overreliance on techniques of pottery manufacture in assigning cultural categories. This problem was noted long ago by Phillips (1970:108, 152), who predicted that with the passage of time tempering would come to be de-emphasized as a primary typological criterion.

The 2002 Lake Salvador Shoreline Protection Project The sites of 16SC4 (Bois Chactas) and 16SC14 (Tabatiere Perdu) are middens composed primarily of Rangia shells, though occasional freshwater and saltwater bivalves are also found in the deposits. Each site is situated on the natural levee of a distributary that at one time emptied into Lake Salvador (Figure 5.1). Each site has suffered major erosion from the transgression of the lake over time, as can be seen from dead oak trees as much as 30 m offshore. The larger site is 16SC4 (Bois Chactas), which is also the site farther to the east. It consists of a shell beach approximately 210 m long from east to west, with approximately 75 m separating the lake on the south from the marsh to the north. Though the name implies the existence at some past time of Choctaw Indians at this location, no historical evidence of such an occupation could be found. The tribe most closely associated with this site and others in the area is the Washa. The site’s elevation is about 1 m above the lake surface in most places, but at its western extreme it rises to 2 m; it is said by locals that at one point this prominence was higher but that the lake has taken most of it.

Figure 5.1. Lake Salvador and archaeological sites mentioned in the chapter.

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The second site, 16SC14 (Tabatiere Perdu), is located about 5 km northeast of the point at which Bayou des Allemands empties into Lake Salvador and is the westernmost of the three sites examined in the Lake Salvador Shoreline Protection Project. It is 1.75 m high at the point overlooking the lake, where there are two camp structures, but this elevation, which is part of a relict distributary ridge, slopes down sharply to the lake on the south. The main portion of the site, which is wedged between the marsh on the north and the lake on the south, consists of about 1 acre, but on the northwest a shell ridge some 1.5 m high extends for 200 m north into the marsh. This ridge is part of the natural levee that continues into the main part of the site. These sites are in an area rich in archaeological remains. Several dugout canoes have been taken from the lake near them, and, indeed, one such canoe sat for years behind a camp house on 16SC4 until the craft deteriorated. The famous Grand Temple site (16LF4), a shell mound 15.2 m high, for years stood at the mouth of Bayou des Allemands where the bayou meets the lake. Because geomorphological reconstructions suggest that Bayou des Allemands did not begin to empty into Lake Salvador until a.d. 500, this impressive shell mound must have been no older than Baytown times. The mound was gradually destroyed by the Jahnke dredging company of New Orleans, which sold the shell, and what was left was ¤nished off by Hurricane Juan in 1985. Other shell middens are present up and down the lake and several signi¤cant archaeologically known sites are within approximately 20 km of the study area. These include Pump Canal, Bayou des Familles, the Sims site, the Discovery site, and the Peyregne site. The two sites described above have also received some archaeological attention over the years. McIntire visited and collected from both sites, as well as the Grand Temple, in the early 1950s. Neuman also went to the sites and made collections. Rebecca Saunders, while regional archaeologist for that area, visited the sites in the company of Forrest Traverica and also collected. Marco Giardino, now with NASA, and Michael Commardelle visited the sites at various times. Prior to 2001, however, the most intensive work at any of the sites was Traverica’s 1976–1977 excavations at 16SC14. Aided by a chapter of the Louisiana Archaeological Society and an Explorer Scout troop, Traverica excavated three test units and supervised an admirable analysis of the artifacts recovered. His collections and data are at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science, along with his analyses, though a complete draft of his report could not be located (Traverica 1977). This, then, was the situation in 2001, when I was employed by St. Charles Parish to conduct a survey in connection with a shoreline protection project (Shuman 2002). The survey led

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to a second project in 2002, whereby test excavations were conducted at both sites (Shuman and Shuman 2003). The data presented herein derive from that project. A third site, 16SC8, was also tested during the project, but no data will be presented from 16SC8 because of the shallowness of the two test units and the extreme disturbance in portions of that site. It should be noted, however, that the 16SC8 data do not contradict the other data presented in this chapter.

Phases of Coles Creek, Plaquemine, and Mississippian The contemporary archaeological view is that in the Barataria area of Louisiana, Coles Creek culture (a.d. 800–1000) led into a transitional Coles Creek phase (a.d. 1000–1200) that, in turn, split off into two successor phases. In the western part of the Coastal Zone, it developed into a distinct Plaqueminetype culture referred to as the Barataria phase, distinct from the “Classic” Plaquemine farther to the north. In the eastern part of this area, it evolved into a synthetic Mississippian culture, represented by the Bayou Petre phase (Miller et al. 2000:343; Phillips 1970; Weinstein 1987a). Miller et al. (2000:347) have suggested dates for the Barataria phase as circa a.d. 1200–1450. They cite radiocarbon dates from 16JE218 that range from a.d. 1300 to 1450 and “limited radiocarbon dates” from other sites in the region ranging from a.d. 1200 to 1500 (Miller et al. 2000:345). They de¤ne the phase through the presence of Plaquemine ceramics, though there is an almost total absence of Plaquemine Brushed. On the other hand, Southern Cult motifs are present. The signi¤cant types they and others associate with the phase are Avoyelles Punctated, var. Dupree, L’Eau Noire Incised, vars. L’Eau Noire and Bayou Bourbe, Carter Engraved, Maddox Engraved, and Mazique Incised, var. Manchac (Miller et al. 2000:344). Buras Incised and Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy are also apparently markers, though Miller and colleagues note that Holley and DeMarcay (1977) do not include them in their discussion of Plaquemine sites in the area. The Mississippian culture Bayou Petre phase, according to Kniffen (1936), contains a “high percentage of shell-tempered sherds” and is concentrated in northernmost St. Bernard Parish. Kniffen noted a similarity between Bayou Petre sites and sites in Mobile Bay on the Gulf coast to the east. Indeed, Blitz and Mann (2000:55) describe the use of shell tempering as being a Pinola phase (a.d. 1200–1350) innovation on the eastern Gulf coast and they relate this to Mississippian in®uence from the interior; it is clear, then, that there was considerable interaction among coastal peoples at this time (though, for a slightly different perspective, see Greenwell 1984:151). Until that time on the

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eastern coast, “most of the grog-tempered pottery consists of late Coles Creek/ early Plaquemine series type-varieties” (Blitz and Mann 2000:55). The divider between the western zone, with its dominant Barataria phase, and the eastern zone, with its dominant Bayou Petre manifestation, has been identi¤ed as the Barataria Basin (Miller et al. 2000:346–348). In the eastern zone, the Barataria phase is succeeded by the Bayou Petre phase: “Both of these phases are associated with the local Plaquemine culture, but the later phase shows strong in®uence from the east” (Miller et al. 2000:348). In the western zone, the late Plaquemine successor to the Barataria phase is “probably represented by the Delta Natchezan phase” (Miller et al. 2000:348). The demarcation between these two zones would pass very near the two sites considered herein. Thus, it should not be surprising that 16SC4 and 16SC14, during the transitional Coles Creek phase, seem to show characteristics of both zones. What is more interesting is what appears to be the early, extensive use of shell tempering. All the Lake Salvador sites have higher frequencies of shell than Sims (16SC2) (Davis and Giardino 1980). Bayou des Familles (16JE218) produced just three shell-tempered sherds, all evidently from the same vessel (Kidder 1995). At the Discovery site (16LF66), only one shell-tempered type, Pensacola Incised, is listed in the ceramic descriptions; the rest are grog tempered (Miller et al. 2000). Finally, the test units at the Pump Canal site (16SC27) yielded only three shell-tempered sherds out of a total of 3,359 (Giardino 1994). Winterville Incised, largely absent at the Sims, Pump Canal, Bayou des Familles, and Discovery sites, is present at both Lake Salvador sites. Mound Place Incised is also present as well as a small but signi¤cant amount of Moundville Incised. Interestingly, the only sherd of Maddox Engraved found during the current project was shell tempered and so was one sherd of Addis, attesting to the inclination of the inhabitants of these sites to use shell as much as possible.

Description of Excavations and Radiocarbon Dates 16SC4 (Bois Chactas) Five 1-by-1-m test units were excavated at 16SC4, the largest of the project sites. All units were as close as possible to the beach ridge (i.e., on the extreme south side of the site), approximately equidistant from one another. Of these units, four were productive and one showed disturbance from late historic activity. Test Unit No. 2 extended to a depth of 94 cm to the water table, at which point the cultural deposits had played out. The most complex of all the units excavated, this unit revealed an oval feature of burned shell at 20 cm

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below datum (bd) that extended to a depth of 40 cm bd. Included in the feature were animal bones and sherds. Extending from this feature on its east side was a crumbly matrix of solidi¤ed shell and ash. At 50 cm the shell ¤ll of the unit became dense, and at about 60 cm the shell became compacted. At about 80 cm was a sand lens 5 cm thick, sloping downward from east to west. Underlying this lens was a layer of loose Rangia shell. The unit produced 66 prehistoric sherds. Prehistoric ceramics were concentrated in the upper 50 cm of the unit. The single most frequent ceramic type found was Baytown Plain, var. Cataouatche, but there were also single examples of Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy and Mazique Incised, var. North. There was also a sizable collection of shell-tempered material, which consisted largely of plainware, which I have typed as Bell Plain, Mississippi Plain, and Pinola Plain, the latter being a term I use (with apologies to Blitz and Mann) for a coarse grog–tempered ware identical to Baytown Plain, var. Cataouatche, except that it also includes shell. Decorated shell-tempered ceramics from this unit include Cracker Road Incised, Mound Place Incised, var. unspeci¤ed, and Moundville Incised, var. Singing River. The faunal complement of the unit consisted primarily of ¤sh bone (352 g), with small amounts of mammal (15 g) and reptile (9 g). The most frequent mammal identi¤able by species was the muskrat. This unit yielded three radiocarbon dates. A sample of charcoal from Feature A, at the 20–30 cm level, produced 2-sigma date ranges of cal a.d. 1050– 1095 and cal a.d. 1140–1300. A second date was obtained by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) from a fragment of charcoal associated with Feature B at a depth of 30–40 cm bd. The 2-sigma range for this date was a.d. 795–1000. A third date, from ¤ll charcoal, came from 94 cm bd and produced a 2-sigma range of cal a.d. 885–1020. It must be mentioned that a small fragment of bottle glass was recovered at the 50–60 cm level. The consistency of the radiocarbon dates and the fact that this was the only historic artifact from below 20 cm suggests that the glass fell from higher in the pro¤le and was inadvertently incorporated into the ¤ll when the ¤ll was water screened. The second test unit that was radiocarbon dated was Unit 5, which extended to a depth of 60 cm bd, at which point the water table was encountered. Prehistoric cultural materials did, however, continue below this point. The stratigraphy of this unit consisted of four layers of shell of varying density, with considerably more soil content than in other test units. The 10– 20 cm level was notable for producing oyster shells along with the Rangia shells and small quantities of historic and prehistoric artifacts. At 30 cm bd a stratum consisting of Rangia shell, quantities of animal bone, and prehistoric

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ceramics was encountered. The percentage of animal bones and ceramics increased at the 40–50 and 50–60 cm bd levels, and the Rangia shells became mixed with the shells of a freshwater clam, Quadrula sp. In all, the lower 20 cm of the unit produced 93.5 percent of the unit’s aboriginal ceramic content and 91 percent of the unit’s faunal complement. Two-thirds of the ceramics from this unit were grog tempered. This is the result of the presence of large quantities of Baytown Plain, var. Cataouatche, which made up 58.1 percent of the ceramics from the unit. Decorated grogtempered types included Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy and Evansville Punctated, var. Braxton. Of the shell-tempered wares, the most frequent types were Bell Plain, Mound Place Incised, var. Walton’s Camp, and Pinola Plain, in that order. There were also two sherds of Moundville Incised, var. Snow’s Bend. In the Walton’s Camp category were four sherds, apparently from the same vessel, with a single external, parallel-incised line and a bright red interior slip. The red slip is not characteristic of var. Walton’s Camp and it would probably be equally justi¤ed to place these sherds in the var. unspeci¤ed category. The faunal array of this unit was composed predominantly of ¤sh, followed closely by mammals. Fully 83 percent of the mammals by weight were from one taxon, muskrat. A sample of muskrat bones from the 50–60 cm level produced an AMS 2-sigma range of a.d. 1040–1260. The other two productive test units yielded similar results, though no radiocarbon dates were obtained from them. In all, 68.8 percent of the ceramics from 16SC4 were grog tempered and 31.2 percent were shell tempered. The calibrated radiocarbon dates span the years from a.d. 795 to 1260.

16SC14 (Tabatiere Perdu) Three test units were excavated at this site. Two, near the beach ridge, were badly contaminated by recent materials, while the third, which extended to a depth of 90 cm bd, produced a large quantity of prehistoric ceramics and animal bones, as well as a radiocarbon date. Three-quarters (75.6 percent) of the aboriginal ceramics from this site were grog, grit, and sand tempered, while only a quarter (24.4 percent) were shell tempered. Again, the largest single variety was the grog-tempered Baytown Plain, var. Cataouatche, followed by the shell-tempered types, Mississippi Plain, Bell Plain, and Pinola Plain, in that order. Also represented were small amounts of Barton Incised, Moundville Incised, var. Snow’s Bend, and Winterville Incised, vars. Winterville and unspeci¤ed. The faunal remains consisted of almost equal amounts of ¤sh and mam-

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mal, plus a smaller amount of reptile. Of those mammalian remains that could be speciated, there was only one taxon, Odocoielus virginianus (whitetailed deer). A radiocarbon date from a deer femur taken from the north wall at 58 cm bd produced a 2-sigma range of cal a.d. 1290–1420. The ceramics and radiocarbon date from this unit strongly suggest a Plaquemine occupation. This is bolstered by Traverica’s excavations in 1976–1977. His test units, located atop the distributary ridge, were deeper than the 2002 units because they were located farther from the beach ridge. A tabulation of decorated types indicates that Traverica’s assemblage spans the Coles Creek and Mississippi periods, although nearly two-thirds are Mississippian in age, and almost all the Mississippi period sherds are grog-tempered types.

Summary of 16SC4 and 16SC14 To summarize, the ceramics from 16SC4 were concentrated in layers containing heavy accumulations of muskrat bones, this animal being particularly prevalent in Coles Creek sites in this area (Davis 1984; Misner and Reitz 1994). Four radiocarbon dates span the Coles Creek and transitional Coles Creek periods. On the other hand, 16SC4 produced a higher proportion of shelltempered, Mississippian ceramics than any other site in the immediate area, including Sims, Bayou des Familles, Pump Canal, and Discovery. Judging from the foregoing, the site seems poised to develop into a Bayou Petre phase Mississippian site. At nearby 16SC14 the ceramic assemblage is primarily Plaquemine with some Coles Creek sherds. The predominant mammal is deer, and the single radiocarbon date is Barataria phase Plaquemine. The differences in excavated assemblages, both my own and Traverica’s, might be explained by the greater protection of 16SC14 from storm surges as a result of higher elevation. If 16SC14 is what 16SC4 would have become (and may, in fact, have once been, if we assume that storm surges obliterated the upper strata of 16SC4), then we have a situation in which Coles Creek, heavily in®uenced by Gulf Coast Mississippian, evolves not into Mississippian but into Barataria phase Plaquemine. For if the Barataria phase is de¤ned by the presence of Anna Incised, Avoyelles Punctated, Carter Engraved, Coles Creek Incised, var. Hardy, Harrison Bayou Incised, Southern Cult motifs, and the near absence of Plaquemine Brushed, 16SC14 meets six of the seven criteria.

Questions One of the most intriguing questions raised by this project is the relationship between what I have called Pinola Plain and Kidder’s Baytown Plain, var.

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Cataouatche. The former refers to the grog-and-shell–tempered wares that Blitz and Mann (2000) describe for the Pinola phase (a.d. 1200–1350) of the eastern Gulf coast. The latter indicates the grog-tempered ware that Kidder (1995) found at the Mississippi period Bayou des Familles (16JE218) site. The only difference between these two classes from the Lake Salvador sites is the presence/absence of shell in the paste. If we accept the dating suggested by Blitz, Mann, and Kidder for these two classes of wares, we are faced with the situation of having a shell-tempered ware evolve into a grog-tempered one. Such a view, while not irrational, ascribes what I consider rather too much importance to paste characteristics. It is far more reasonable to view these as one single, contemporaneous group of wares, some of which had shell added (either by accident or design) and some of which did not. If the latter explanation is correct, then the question resolves into the issue of whether Pinola wares occur in the Lake Salvador area later than they do on the eastern Gulf coast or whether it is a matter of the var. Cataouatche wares occurring earlier on Lake Salvador (i.e., beginning in transitional Coles Creek times and lasting until Mississippi times). The available evidence suggests the latter is the case. The radiocarbon dates and faunal evidence for 16SC4 indicate a transitional Coles Creek occupation. If var. Cataouatche is late Mississippian, then we have a case in which the radiocarbon dates and faunal array indicate transitional Coles Creek even though few Coles Creek ceramics occur to support this assignment and in which Pinola phase shell-tempered ceramics are followed chronologically by an identical ceramic sans shell. If, on the other hand, var. Cataouatche is transitional Coles Creek and early Mississippian (a situation that does not exclude its also extending into late Mississippian times), then Pinola Plain is seen as contemporary with var. Cataouatche (i.e., the same ware with shell). This is especially likely if we adopt Davis’s (1981:68) view of some Mississippian designs (e.g., Mound Place Incised) as being simply Coles Creek ceramics with shell added. This view is bolstered by the statistical analysis of plainware versus decorated ware sorting at 16SC4, which suggested that plainwares tended to be sorted as being somewhat later than decorated ones. It is also supported by the dearth of decorated Coles Creek ceramics in the archaeological deposits: if var. Cataouatche is an all-purpose variety with a long lifespan, its high percentage in the ceramic inventory may indicate that it represents both plainware of the transitional Coles Creek and Mississippi periods and also the incised (and thus diagnostic) vessels of the same periods, which tended to have decorations only below the rims.

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In short, then, it seems probable that grog-tempered Baytown Plain, var. Cataouatche and grog-and-shell–tempered Pinola Plain are virtually the same ware and that the manufacture of this ware began no later than transitional Coles Creek times. Furthermore, it seems that this ware was used in transitional Coles Creek times as the vehicle for incised pottery as well as plainware. In the northwest Lake Salvador area, certain shell-tempered Mississippian wares based on Coles Creek designs also appear to occur with some frequency in the transitional Coles Creek period. This situation could provide partial validation for Brain’s (1978) suggestion that the Mississippian in®uence began in late Coles Creek times. If so, however, it would appear that this in®uence, at least on the ceramics, withered with time. Returning to Phillips, we must now ask whether, in applying the conventional terminology (transitional Coles Creek, Plaquemine, and Mississippian) we have, in the case of these sites, even a “locally intelligible” situation. If we analyze the data in terms of the conventional taxonomy, the following possibilities are evident: the use at these sites of shell tempering during Transitional Coles Creek and the withering of this use in the succeeding Plaquemine period represents an in®ux of Mississippian ideas/peoples during the former and their supercession by Plaquemine ideas/peoples during the latter. While these possibilities cannot be excluded, they tend to simplify what was in all probability a complex situation. The sites in question are situated at a crossroads of historic commerce (Shuman and Shuman 2003). The Barataria–Lake Salvador corridor was a gateway from the Gulf to the interior in historic times, perhaps most famously used by the pirate Jean La¤tte. In the nineteenth century groups from New Orleans held Sunday outings on 16SC4. It is clear that the same situation pertained prehistorically. Transport would have been from the Gulf to Barataria Bay to Lake Salvador and into Lake Cataouatche, or from Lake Salvador up Bayou des Allemands. In short, the sites described herein were at the nexus of an interaction sphere that linked groups along the east and west Gulf coast with the interior. While there may have been some migration of individuals from one area to another, it makes more sense to me to suggest that the major movement of individuals through this area was for the purpose of commerce and that the practice of shell tempering resulted from a combination of borrowing the concept from the eastern Gulf coast and the ready abundance of shell. The cessation of the use of shell may, indeed, be the result of a stronger in®uence (Plaquemine) from the interior and the west in the post–a.d. 1200 period, as the Mississippian interaction sphere shrank and the tribes as we know them today formed from the disintegration of Moundville (see Galloway 1995).

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These are, however, speculations, and in the end we must return to Phillips’s caution about not attributing too much signi¤cance to paste characteristics. These sites are located in an area of unusually high demographic activity, with frequent comings and goings, as others have long noted (i.e., Brown 1984:122). Sampling error is thus not out of the question. So, there are several possible explanations for the phenomena noted herein and it remains for future investigators to determine which explanation is most viable.

Acknowledgments I am grateful for the assistance of the following persons during the course of the project: Earl Matherne, Roy Madden, Rocky Sexton, and Duke Rivet. Dr. Becky Saunders of the LSU Museum of Natural Science kindly provided access to previous collections and documents. I am also grateful to my wife, Margaret, for assistance during the writing and analysis and to Mark Rees, Patrick Livingood, and the two reviewers, Jay Johnson and Martha Rolingson, for assistance during the preparation of this chapter. R. Hampton Peele, of the Louisiana Geological Survey, created Figure 5.1.

6 Plaquemine Recipes Using Computer-Assisted Petrographic Analysis to Investigate Plaquemine Ceramic Recipes Patrick C. Livingood

Archaeologists working in the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) have focused a great deal of energy on identifying, classifying, and explaining the Plaquemine-Mississippian dichotomy (Phillips 1970; Phillips et al. 1951; Williams and Brain 1983). The primary tool in this investigation has been ceramics, and the principal attribute is the presence or absence of shell tempering (see Rees and Livingood, this volume). Despite the axiomatic role that shell tempering plays in identifying the Plaquemine-Mississippian divide, there are many places and times in the Plaquemine world in which a signi¤cant percentage of the ceramic assemblage contains provocative mixtures of shell and grog tempering and in which decorative motifs span temper types. This has led some archaeologists (Hally 1972; Kidder 1998b) to question whether too much interpretive weight has been given to the presence and absence of shell tempering. One of the challenges faced by archaeologists attempting to study the Plaquemine phases in which shell and grog are both used as tempering agents is that it is not clear that the varieties speci¤ed for distinguishing ceramic fabric correspond well to real cultural and technological distinctions made by the potters. Part of the problem is that the type-variety system developed by Ford, Phillips, Williams, and Brain for the LMV is based on macroscopically observed criteria, whereas potters often ground the tempering agents into very small sizes and sometimes mixed tempering agents together in ways that make macroscopic classi¤cation challenging and subjective. A cursory glance at the intellectual history of the sorting criteria for plainwares in the Lower Yazoo and Natchez regions reveals how murky these classi¤cations can be. Addis Plain was originally documented by Quimby (1942:265–266, 1951: 107–109) as a “clay-tempered type” and a major diagnostic of Plaquemine culture. Phillips (1970:48–49) designated Addis as a variety of the type Bay-

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town Plain and de¤ned it as the “clay-tempered plainware of the Mississippi period from the Medora and Plaquemine phases in the Delta and Lower Red River regions to the Mayersville phase in [the Lower Yazoo].” Interestingly, Phillips (1970:60–61) also acknowledged the similarity between his Baytown Plain, var. Addis and his Bell Plain, vars. Holly Bluff and St. Catherine, which contain ¤nely pulverized shell sometimes in quantities so small that their inclusion seems to be “accidental.” Williams and Brain (1983:92) retained Addis as a variety of Baytown Plain but used Bell Plain, var. Greenville to describe Addis with the addition of shell temper to the paste. They also retained Bell Plain, var. Holly Bluff to describe heterogeneous Addis-like sherds in which shell tempering is slightly more prevalent than in Bell Plain, var. Greenville. Steponaitis (1974:116) proposed elevating Addis to the level of type and de¤ned it as having a heterogeneous organic grog-tempered paste but allowed for the presence of shell in some types. Steponaitis then relocated the Greenville and St. Catherine varieties from their position under Bell Plain to be varieties under Addis Plain. The elevation of Addis to the level of type has been made by some archaeologists, particularly those who have worked in the Natchez Bluffs (e.g., Brain 1989; Brain et al. 1994; Brown 1985a) but has not been embraced by others (e.g., Kidder 1993a; Ryan 2004). More recently, Ryan (2004:94) proposes keeping Addis as a variety of Baytown Plain for the analysis of Hedgeland ceramics because of the close relationship between Addis and Baytown Plain, var. Little Tiger. Little Tiger is proposed as a transitional ware between earlier Baytown pastes and Addis and is differentiated from Addis because it has less temper. There are two fundamental explanations for the tortured history of these types. First, Phillips (1970) and later Williams and Brain (1983) fundamentally viewed the Plaquemine-Mississippian phenomenon as a cultural divide and it was necessary to de¤ne phases as either belonging to Mississippian or Plaquemine ( Jeter and Williams 1989:212; Rees and Livingood, this volume). The primary tool in this enterprise was ceramic typology and in the hierarchical system of type-variety classi¤cation the presence or absence of shell was a ¤rst-order attribute. This is entirely understandable from a macroregional perspective, and it explains why Phillips would place the Addis variety under Baytown Plain and the closely related Holly Bluff and St. Catherine varieties under Bell Plain. However, for archaeologists working in phases in which these closely related types are common, this system of nomenclature can be unwieldy. Another explanation for the dif¤culties archaeologists have had in de¤ning and arranging these taxa is that in the phases in which potters were freely choosing between shell and grog temper, a larger number of permutations is possible; designing a system to accurately describe these permutations

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is problematic. Support for this argument can be found from merely counting the number of plainware varieties in use in the LMV. Despite large quantities of coarse shell–tempered ceramics, only three varieties of Mississippi Plain are in common use in the Plaquemine world: Coker, Mainfort, and Yazoo. However, there are eight varieties commonly used to categorize ¤ne-sized-grog– tempered and grog- and shell-tempered fabrics in the Plaquemine period: Addis Plain, vars. Addis, Greenville, Junkin, Ratcliffe, and St. Catherine, and Bell Plain, vars. Bell, Holly Bluff, and New Madrid. Michael Galaty (2006) has used a ceramic ecology approach to argue that on a regional scale differences in tempering choices in Mississippi might be related to differences in the types of clays and tempering agents available to potters. For example, he argues persuasively that pre-Mississippian period potters in west Mississippi may have lacked access to sand suitable for tempering and relied instead on grog, whereas potters in east Mississippi may have preferred the easily available sand. Although he does not speci¤cally address the regional differences in the use of grog and shell, his work raises the possibility that macroregional differences in temper might be related to ecology, not culture. However, within a site the variation being re®ected in the varieties of Addis Plain and other closely related types originates from the choices made by potters during clay preparation. It is possible that the potters could have been haphazardly adding grog and shell to certain vessels, which would lead to a random-looking distribution of temper frequency. However, it is much more likely that the Plaquemine potters were in fact very careful about clay preparation and the addition of tempering agents, like most ethnographically studied potters (Arnold 1985; Krause 1985). Potters often clean their clays to remove extraneous particles and then add carefully prepared tempering agents. Some potters mix temper with the prepared clays until the paste reaches a desired texture. For example, the Ibibio of Nigeria add grog or sand to the clay until it reaches the correct consistency called aduang nbibiot (Nicklin 1981:173; Rice 1987:121). Other potters follow a speci¤c recipe that designates the ratio of clay and temper (Rice 1987:121). For example, some Kavango potters in southern Africa mix two parts grog to three parts clay (Blandino 1997:26), whereas the Shipibo-Conibo of eastern Peru have a ratio of clay to temper of two to three (DeBoer and Lathrap 1979). The goal of this study is to test a small assemblage of Plaquemine ceramics to see whether it is possible to detect modes in the distribution of temper size and abundance. If there are modes, then these can be used to reconstruct the paste recipes used by the potters. Armed with knowledge of the paste recipes, we can evaluate the utility of the commonly used plainware varieties for class-

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ifying the ceramic assemblage. Furthermore, it seems likely that of all of the decisions a potter makes, that of temper is probably one of the most resistant to change over time. Vessel form and decoration can change over decades in pre-state societies, but temper choices typically persist for centuries. In most pre-state societies, pottery production is a household activity (Arnold 1985:100– 101; Sinopoli 1991:98–102; van der Leeuw 1977), and it is presumed that knowledge about pottery production is handed down through generations within the household. Whereas more visible aspects of pottery production such as vessel form and decoration might be subject to changing personal or group concepts of pottery construction, less visible and more technological decisions about temper are likely to be more resistant to change. Because of this, with suf¤cient information about paste recipes it might be possible to tease apart different communities of production, especially when multiple tempering agents encode greater information. Since the terms used in ceramic studies such as paste and temper are often de¤ned differently by different authors, it is important to be clear how they are used in this chapter. Following the connotations common to the discussion of LMV ceramics (which differ somewhat from the de¤nitions common to petrographic literature [e.g., Stoltman 1991:109–110]), temper refers exclusively to material intentionally added to a clay to improve its physical properties. Inclusion refers to all aplastics in a clay, whether they were added deliberately or were naturally occurring. Paste is de¤ned as the clay plus all inclusions. Therefore, a paste recipe refers to all of the rules a potter follows to create the paste used to form a vessel, including where the clay should be gathered, how it should be processed, what temper should be added and in what quantities, and how the clay should be handled and treated before and during vessel creation.

The Sample The sample under study comprises 29 sherds from the Pevey (22LW510) and Lowe-Steen (22LW511) sites located on the central Pearl River in Lawrence County, Mississippi. The Pevey site is a large mound site, with nine extant ®at-top mounds, located approximately 18 km south of the two-mound LoweSteen site. Both sites date primarily to the Winstead phase (Livingood 1999), which is temporally equivalent to the Anna or Winterville phases, and the Pevey site also has a small Pevey phase occupation, which is temporally equivalent to the early Foster or Lake George phases. The Pevey site was ¤rst investigated by Baxter Mann and John Blitz between 1982 and 1984 (Mann 1988). More extensive excavations were carried out at both sites by the University of North Carolina Field Schools in 1993

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and 1994 (Livingood 1999), including test units in every mound. In 2000, I returned with volunteers primarily from the University of Michigan to test the plaza area to the west and north of the Pevey site. The two most common decorated varieties found at the Pevey and LoweSteen sites are Anna Incised, var. Anna and Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine. Other common decorated types include Carter Engraved, var. Carter, Grace Brushed, var. Grace, D’Olive Incised, var. D’Olive, L’Eau Noire Incised, var. L’Eau Noire, Leland Incised, Mound Place Incised, and Parkin Punctated. Most of these types are most commonly found at sites to the west of the Pearl River along the Mississippi River, while other types, such as Mound Place Incised and D’Olive Incised, are more commonly associated with sites to the east such as Bottle Creek or Moundville. Several of the most abundant types represent decorative traditions that span multiple tempers. For example, Anna Incised, var. Anna is the type assigned to sherds from shallow bowls or plates with interior decoration if the temper is categorized as being Addis Plain, var. Addis or Addis Plain, var. Greenville. But if the exact same vessel were tempered more heavily with shell, it would be classi¤ed as D’Olive Incised, var. D’Olive. Likewise, jars with exterior brushing on Addis or Greenville pastes are called Plaquemine Brushed, var. Plaquemine, while jars with shell tempering are called Grace Brushed, var. Grace. The initial analysis and classi¤cation of ceramics indicates that middle Pearl potters were making interesting and complex choices with regard to temper. The most common fabric used at the Pevey and Lowe-Steen sites is coarse shell tempering (72 percent of all sherds). However, Pearl River potters assigned special importance to Addis paste sherds because they executed most of their decorative motifs on these wares. Fifty-two percent of all decorated sherds have Addis Plain, var. Addis paste, 17 percent of decorated sherds have a Greenville paste, and only 27 percent have a Mississippi Plain paste. Despite the preference for Addis pastes, several decorative techniques crosscut temper types. If we consider all of the interior decorated plates and bowls (Anna Incised and D’Olive Incised) together, 60 percent are executed on Addis paste, 25 percent on Greenville paste, and 14 percent on Mississippi Plain paste. On the basis of these initial observations, it is clear that middle Pearl potters were comfortable using a wide variety of temper combinations. Additionally, it is not obvious whether the plainware varieties developed primarily for the Lower Yazoo and Natchez regions are the most appropriate varieties to classify the ceramics from the middle Pearl River. All of the 29 sherds selected for this analysis are diagnostic of vessel shape, decoration, or both. The sherds were deliberately chosen to represent the dif-

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ferent temper combinations under investigation and to be representative of different vessel forms and functions. Of the 29 sherds in this analysis, 24 were excavated from a single 2-×-2-m unit at the Pevey site designated Unit M. This unit is located approximately 25 m northwest from the base of the site’s large mound, Mound E, in a small rise on the edge of the natural terrace. Only four of the sherds from Unit M come from the upper level, which probably has an early Pevey phase assignment while the remaining 20 sherds have a Winstead phase date. Of the sherds not from Unit M, two come from the Mound H excavation and one from the Mound I excavation at the Pevey site, while the ¤nal two come from the Feature 1 excavation at the Lowe-Steen site. All have a Winstead phase date.

Methodology The only technique appropriate to gather data on temper abundance and size from this sample is ceramic petrography, which is the practice of examining ceramics microscopically to study the clay characteristics and inclusions. Hitech chemically based approaches such as x-ray diffraction or neutron activation can provide only a partial picture since they are unable to chemically distinguish grog from the clay matrix. Ceramic petrography has been a part of American archaeology since the days of Anna Shepard (Shepard 1976), but most modern analysis owes much to Jim Stoltman, who systematized the use of point-counting techniques borrowed from geological petrography in order to bring a higher level of rigor and accuracy to the ¤eld (Stoltman 1989, 1991, 2000). Today, most ceramic petrographers use a point-counting technique to quantify inclusions, which involves overlaying the sample with a grid of points in order to obtain representative counts of constituent particles. This technique is excellent at measuring the abundance of constituent particles, and it remains the gold standard for measuring petrographic data (Cordell and Livingood 2004). For this study, I have employed computer-assisted petrographic analysis (CAPA) (Livingood 2002, 2004; Velde and Druc 1998). This procedure starts with a digital image of the thin section and uses digital image analysis software to help produce a map of the section identifying the constituent particles. For some particle types, the software can do most of the work. It can be scripted to automatically identify a class of particles with a high degree of accuracy and precision. In other cases, a human operator is required to map the particle types, but the software can help by producing false-color images that make identifying the particles much easier. CAPA has a few bene¤ts over traditional microscope-based petrographic

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analysis (Cordell and Livingood 2004). First, it is less expensive under some circumstances, since an inexpensive consumer-quality ®atbed scanner has suf¤cient resolution to identify temper particles. Second, because a complete map of the thin section is produced, far more information is produced. Since every particle is individually identi¤ed and measured, every possible metric related to particle count, size, shape, orientation, and location can be generated. Third, under some circumstances, this procedure can be faster than manual point-counting techniques. This is especially true if the samples are relatively homogenous and the features of interest are distinct. Fourth, the digital nature of the analysis makes it much easier to revise and correct analyses and to share results. For this study each thin section was scanned at 3,200 × 1,600 dpi using an Epson Perfection 1640 scanner with a transparency adapter and polarizing ¤lm. Two scans were produced from each thin section: the ¤rst scan was produced with plane-polarized light and the second with cross-polarized light (Figures 6.1–6.2). Next, the images were aligned as layers within Adobe Photoshop. Software from Reindeer Graphics called Image Analysis Toolkit (Russ 1999) was used to create derivative images from these two layers by manipulating the information in their color channels (Figure 6.3). If the image can be manipulated in such a way that the desired features are distinguished by color, intensity, or texture, it is possible to automate the process of identifying the pixels corresponding to the features. Under cross-polarized light certain crystals appear to have unusual or bright colors because they split the light into two rays with different refraction indices. This property is referred to as birefringence, and these particles are very easy to identify with the software. In general, the identi¤cation of birefringent particles and voids was almost entirely automated, the automatic identi¤cation of shell was fairly accurate but required some editing, and the identi¤cation of grog was primarily done by hand. The end result of each identi¤cation is a series of Boolean images for every type of feature of interest (Figure 6.4). Every pixel in a Boolean image is either black, indicating it is a part of the feature, or white, indicating it is not. A function in the Image Analysis Toolkit produces measurements of the features in the Boolean images for analysis in a spreadsheet or statistical analysis software package. At a scanning resolution of 1,600 dpi there are approximately 63 pixels per millimeter in the ¤nished scan. Based on the Wentworth scale (Rice 1987:38), silt particles would appear to be 0.2 to 3.9 pixels wide, very ¤ne sand would appear to be 3.9 to 7.9 pixels wide, ¤ne sand 7.9 to 15.7 pixels wide, and medium sand 15.7 to 31.5 pixels wide. Obviously, larger particles are easier to identify and map precisely. However, there are no easy rules to determine the

Figure 6.1. Plane-polarized scan of PRP27.

Figure 6.2. Cross-polarized scan of PRP27.

Figure 6.3. Example of a false-color enhanced image of the cross-polarized scan for PRP27.

Figure 6.4. Boolean image of the shell and shell void identi¤cations for PRP27.

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minimum size that a feature must be scanned at in order to accurately distinguish it. This size depends on the degree of visual contrast between the particle and the surrounding matrix. However, tests de¤nitively proved that 3,200 × 1,600 dpi is not suf¤cient to accurately identify particles the size of very ¤ne and ¤ne sand (Cordell and Livingood 2004). Since measuring particles of this size is not crucial to the research goals of this project, all measurements of birefringent particles with an area less than 0.2 mm2 were discarded from consideration in this study. Therefore, all measurements of birefringent particles in this report pertain only to larger particles. The majority of birefringent particles in these samples are sand, which appears to be a natural inclusion. However, traditional petrographic analysis by Ann Cordell (2004) also found in some of the samples a small number of naturally occurring constituents such as muscovite mica that also have high birefringent values. Regardless, because they are rare and because they made little difference to the study goals, no effort was made to differentiate different particles with high birefringent values. Furthermore, in order to accurately measure all of the birefringent particles in the sample, it is typically necessary to take two cross-polarized scans, with the sample rotated 90 degrees between scans, and together these will identify all of the birefringent particles. However, since the orientation of birefringent particles is assumed to be random, it is possible to estimate their total abundance by doubling the area measured from a single cross-polarized scan. This produces a reasonably accurate estimate, which is ¤ne for the research goals of this study. Therefore, the values reported in Table 6.1 to measure the abundance of birefringent particles in the sample are most accurately called an estimate of large birefringent particle abundance (ELBPA) and have been calculated by doubling the sum of the area of all birefringent particles at least 0.2 mm2 in area identi¤ed in the analysis of a single cross-polarized image. This estimate avoids making any claims about the abundance of birefringent particles of a smaller size. It can be effectively interpreted as a proxy for the abundance of medium to large sand particles or, more precisely, an estimate of the sum of the surface area of all sand with particle size greater than 0.2 mm2. In an earlier study, four samples were measured using CAPA and using traditional microscope-based petrographic point-counting (Cordell and Livingood 2004). Once the problems of identifying smaller birefringent particles using the scanning resolution of 3,200 × 1,600 dpi were controlled for, CAPA was deemed suf¤ciently accurate to proceed with additional petrographic analyses. In the test, there was one sample for which the grog measurements were signi¤cantly different. The problem was that I inaccurately identi¤ed

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some hematitic, ferric concretions, lumps, or stains as grog. Although I was able to ¤x the problem, it underscored the dif¤culty of distinguishing grog from other natural stains even when using traditional microscope-based analysis (Di Caprio and Vaughn 1993). Great care has been taken in this analysis to try to ensure that the category of grog measured in Table 6.1 only includes recycled pieces of pottery that were intentionally added as temper. However, these classi¤cations can sometimes be dif¤cult and I expect the range of error to be greater for this temper identi¤cation than for shell, voids, or ELBPA. Following the standards of petrographic point counting (Stoltman 1989, 1991), Table 6.1 reports the size of each thin section and the percentage of nontemper voids inside each sample. The percent abundance of each temper type is the ratio of temper area to matrix area, not including voids. Voids in the sample from leached shell are counted as shell temper.

Analysis Before presenting any results, it is important to mention a few caveats. First, there is the standard warning that this is a small sample size and any patterns that are discovered must be considered merely suggestive. Second, there is no expectation that any conclusions drawn from these Pearl River ceramics will generalize to the rest of the Plaquemine area or anywhere else. In fact, there are strong reasons to suspect that the Pearl River assemblage might be a unique re®ection of the social, historical, and ecological needs of the middle Pearl community. Figure 6.5 shows the biplot of the percentage of shell and grog with each sample coded by the original plainware variety classi¤cation. At ¤rst glance, a few important observations can be made. First, there is a single outlier that is a heavily shell-tempered sherd. Second, the graph has a general L shape. Eight of the samples have a relatively high abundance of shell (>10 percent) and low abundance of grog (8 percent) and a low abundance of shell (