A Preliminary Investigation of the Pinson
Mounds
Christopher S. Turner
2007
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Introduction
Pinson
Mounds (40Md1) stands as a major Middle Woodland site though it is only
infrequently considered as a datum within published Hopewell economic analyses
(Mainfort and Carstens 1987:60; Mainfort 1988:158; Seeman 1979). Pinson is in
regard to its earthwork morphologies, site planning schemata, and geographic
location unlike other major coeval mound centers such as at Scioto, Mann, or
Havana Hopewell. Indeed, robust
narratives for the sprawling Tennessee site are lacking.
Novel
yet valid ways of adding to the repertoire of archaeological interpretations
are an aid to gaining such apt
knowledge. These can come in the form of straightforward archaeology, such as
when Stuart Streuver helped initiate a revolution in paleobotanical studies in
American archaeology eventuating in the reorganization of the horticultural
record of the Eastern Woodlands peoples.
Methods
of inquiry can include attempts to get inside of the mind of the people in the
archaeological study. Whether one chooses to call this actualization studies or
cognitive archaeology, I would argue it is a fine line between the two.
For
example, chaine operatoire or operational sequence studies for chert
reduction not only suggest a specific order for processing the resource at
hand, but also connote an accompanying level of succinct reasoning . We can
also call it ethnoarchaeology, such as when Izumi Shimada interviewed
modern day rural pottery makers in Peru, and learned of ceramic making
processes that explained some signatures he observed in the archaeological
record (2004).
In
this regard archaeoastronomy can be used as a window into the human past. Most
obviously, such evidence parleys itself into a marker for subsistence
scheduling, and axiomatically perhaps, for an incipient developing agriculture.
Concomitant with these cultural nodes come issues of sun priests,
esoteric sodalities, or calendrical specialists, issues which themselves are
linked to questions concerning economic and societal complexity . Indeed, the
role of skywatcher seems to be ubiquitous and widespread across human
cultures, as seen with examples of lower complexity like the Zuni pekwin (Reyman
1987:134), or the sun-god paramounts at Natchez (Swanton 1928), to state
level examples as found with Chinese court astrologers or Mayan and Aztec
calendrists.
Also
interestingly, the method archaeoastronomy allows more insight into the
cognitive advancement of a given people (Flannery and Marcus 1993:261, Renfrew
1993) . Just as particular traits in ceramic analysis can be used to trace
evidence of contact or exchange or political impact between cultures, so too
can calendric forms be traced as bodies of ideas that can flow across the same
human landscape. While not as facile for this task as ceramics,
archaeoastronomy would seem to be especially well suited as a cognitive probe
into Eastern Woodlands prehistory. The Mississippian expression had at its
ideological core solar sacrality, whether in office or ideogram.
Mississippian society stands as a node in the continuum of regional traditions:
mound building, horticulture / agriculture, community, organization, ritual. A
better understanding of the prehistoric astronomies of the Woodland Period can
only contribute to a richer picture of these former day political and cultural
structures and their trajectories through time.
In
this regard, evidence from Hopewell archaeoastronomy offers a deep stream from
which to draw. However, though data are
beginning to emerge regarding Hopewell calendrical practices, there is as yet
no clear interpretation as to what such data mean. There are as with any field
of study both robust and specious items in the literature. Most importantly
here, there have been no studies into the presence of calendrical markers
across the Hopewell geographic spectrum. Such study has largely been
limited to the Scioto Hopewell area. Investigations into other Middle Woodland sites outside of the Ohio
region are needed. In this regard Pinson Mounds may show great potential per
archaeoastronomical analysis.
This
idea is not new. Presently at the Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park,
there is signage that suggests
calendrical alignments between mounds at the site. There are also printed
handouts which briefly describe these ideas . These were created by Pinson
Mounds staff archaeologist Mark Norton (2001).
A recent paper by McNutt (2005) elaborates on Norton's ideas.
McNutt's
effort gives a clear example of the problematic nature of archaeoastronomical
studies. The interdisciplinary method
can produce flawed results, often with respect to the misunderstanding of
issues which are outside the purview of the researcher. Aveni (1989) and others[1]
have advised caution to those undertaking these studies, with admonitions
originally to astronomers, imploring that they must master the details about
the society and culture about which they would profess. To ignore this
warning was to create papers that were filled with a melange of lines on poorly
explained maps with accompanying dense data tables, completely devoid of any
mention of the culture at hand. In the
20 to 30 intervening years during which Aveni and others have written about
such things, the astronomers seem to have made effort to engage with the
anthropological models, and it is now growing less common to find papers that embody only mathematical astronomy with an accompanying
dearth of any related cultural information.
Conversely,
now the weaker papers are emerging from the archaeologist's wing of the
discipline. Here we get more deeply developed social constructs and narratives,
while in most cases approximation tables and miscues characterize the
astronomical or mathematical side of the argument. Such papers can be systematically flawed, and any individual specific errors can at
times be egregious.
With
McNutt (2005) we get both. Ironically, errors like these are here and in other
cases often caused by misuse of the
“Aveni Tables” (Aveni 1972). These approximation tables came about with
Aveni's work on Mayan Mesoamerican sites. As such, the tables were geared toward
events that in some cases occur only in the tropics and that do not occur at
the geographical latitudes found in the eastern US. McNutt (2005) in this
regard mistakenly suggests alignments to southerly stars that never even rise
at the latitude of Pinson Mounds. His approximating the horizon as being flat
(to simplify the modeling) leads to less than desirable data, less accurate
than that which is relatively easy to assemble. The presented statistical
analyses are weak, overlooking many mound features which would otherwise be
mandated to appear in any thorough
sampling schema. While a full critique is beyond the scope of this paper,
McNutt (2005) does not represent a thorough or ample assessment of encoded
calendrics at the Pinson site, given other robust methods of analysis that are
available .
In
the interest of creating a comparison datum relative to the Ohio Hopewell
sites, I am endeavoring to develop such an evaluation and analysis of the
archaeoastronomical evidence, if any, at the Pinson Mounds. With regard to
Aveni's admonition, this present report is an effort to attain an overview of
the archaeological data that have been developed and explicated thus far in the
extant literature about the site. In particular, the report will examine the
sense of Pinson intersite interaction, both local and extra-regional. As with
many archaeological applications, ceramics are a primary index for such
modeling. Also, lithics and other items of material culture can serve in such
capacity, perhaps to a lesser extent. Intersite morphological variation of
earthworks can also be examined.
Pinson
is unique by virtue of its inland location, regionally proximate to watershed
divides and to historically known and presumably prehistoric trails. Pinson
itself sits on a navigable waterway with relatively easy access to the central
Mississippi River valley. I will investigate possible relations of these and
other landscape features that may have contributed to the siting of Pinson as
an earthwork complex.
Pinson Mounds: Site and Setting
Pinson
Mounds (40Md1) is a multicomponent site in western Tennessee located on the
South Fork of the Forked Deer River. The mounds themselves, numbering around a
score, are spread out over the table land north of the watercourse (Norton
2001). The various and diverse earthworks occupy an area about 2500 m by 1000
m, the long dimension running with the river channel approximately east – west
(Mainfort 1986:2-3). The dissected upland has small creeks which feed the
Forked Deer, and these divide the Pinson site into three separate lobes or
sections (Figures 1 and 2).
While
the mounds themselves cover 500 acres or more, the Pinson Mounds State
Archaeological Park exceeds 1200 acres in area (Broster and Schneider 1976:21).
According to Smith (1979:36), the park protects “thirty or more distinct
occupation areas with remains covering virtually the entire span of prehistoric
occupation...” Apparently the Fork Deer drainage was well used by prehistoric
Native Americans spanning the Holocene. Site 40Gb37 along the North Fork of the
Forked Deer shows evidence of use from Paleo-Indian to Mississippian times . A
Woodland village site (40Cs12) lies directly across the river from Pinson
(Smith 1979: 28, 31).
The
South Fork upon which Pinson lies was reportedly once navigable by steamboats
(Mainfort and Walling 1992:112, Morse and Polhemus 1963:6) and was presumably
navigated by local prehistoric peoples (Brose and Greber 1982). Smith (1979:31)
remarks on a “major village site” (40Cs9) located a few kilometers upstream
from Pinson (near the top of the watershed) that is “astride the most obvious
route of travel between the Forked Deer basin and the Tennessee River
bottomlands in the vicinity of Savannah” (Figure 3).
J.G.
Cisco writing in 1879 noted that the Pinson site is “two miles from the Mobile
and Ohio railroad ”(see also Mainfort 1986:8). This railroad line follows US
Highway 45, which itself follows an
overland trail (DeLorme 1998, Myer 1922:142, 1928: Plate 14 facing 745,
816) that stretched from Mobile Bay to west central Tennessee and perhaps
further.
The
mounds at Pinson span a wide range of forms with diverse morphologies. For
example, in terms of sheer height, the largest mound at Pinson is considered
the second tallest in the US. There are examples of bold linear and curved embankments
also. Several mounds are wide platforms of only modest height. Not all
earthworks are of regular proportions, with V-shaped and trapezoidal forms
present. There are also conical tumuli, including a set of
twin conjoined mounds.
While strongly contrasting them,
Pinson embodies a similar degree of monumentality comparable to architectural
expressions like those found in both Ohio Hopewell and Mississippian examples.
Given that interpretations of earthwork phylogenies can be rooted in miscues and
fundamentally flawed (Prufer 1964:46-48, Streuver and Houart 1972:51), Pinson's
mounds are especially problematic. To the human viewer, the mounds at Pinson
present a decidedly different visual aspect and impression than their Middle
Woodland and later cousins (Knapp and Ashmore 1999).
Brief History of Research at the Site
Accounts of Pinson from the 1800s are not
common (Cisco 1879, Haywood 1823, Troost 1845), and the mounds were not
mentioned in Squier and Davis' 1848 tome. Myer (1922:140) produced the most
cogent map then to date, and much nomenclature from that report is still
retained. Mainfort (1986:8-9) provides greater detail on pre-modern
investigations of Pinson.
By
the early 1960s two new reports brought the mound complex under increased scrutiny
(Fischer and McNutt 1962, Morse and Polhemus 1963). Fischer and McNutt (1962)
reported finding Mississippian house trenches, which were often cited as the
source of labeling Pinson, or at least its platform mounds, as being
Mississippian in age. In fact, Fischer and McNutt seem to go out of their way
to find ways to ameliorate the evidence and bring their observations within a
predominantly Middle Woodland time frame (1962:404-405). It is now known that
sites regionally proximate to Pinson such as Savannah (Welch 1998) bore both
complex Middle Woodland and Mississippian components. Ironically,
subsequent “excavations and surface collections have produced virtually no
additional evidence of Mississippian occupation at Pinson Mounds, and the wall
trench house is now regarded as an isolated farmstead” (Mainfort and McNutt
2004).
The
Tennessee Division of Archaeology initiated further excavations beginning in
1974, under the direction of John Broster (Broster and Schneider 1976, Norton
2001). Robert Mainfort continued with research through the 1980s. About a dozen
mounds or apparent ritual areas have been tested archaeologically, such that a
sizable body of information now exists for Pinson. Mainfort and McNutt suggest
that it may be the most thoroughly radiometrically dated Middle Woodland site
to date (2004:12).
Cultural History of Pinson
Pinson
lies at around 120 to 140 meters above sea level (Morse and Polhemus 1963:
Figures 1 and 5), and is approximately 70 km by watercraft from the Mississippi
River. This route passes through the West Tennessee Plains and the Loess Hills
on its way to the Mississippi floodplain (Figure 4). Due east from the site,
the Tennessee River lies less than 50 kilometers distant (Johnson 1988:51).
These geographical factors have in many ways shaped Pinson's cultural history.
Apparently
Native Americans have favored this region continually since Paleoindian times.
Smith in his survey of the Forked Deer and adjoining Obion drainages mentions
minimally 280 archaeological sites, many multi-component (1979:38-40). Benton
points are not uncommon in the assemblages. Smith (1979:2) suggests that “Many
routes of movement appear to have been narrow east-west strips of territory
between the Tennessee River and the eastern half of the loess sheet” (viz:
toward the Mississippi River).
West
Tennessee's proximity to the Mississippi River Valley shapes its cultural
identity. This is evidenced by the appearance of Poverty Point materials in the
region starting in the Terminal Archaic, including “...a wide variety of...
baked clay objects used for cooking” (Smith 1979:2-3). The geographical distribution of Poverty
Point culture is essentially coincident with that of the subsequent Tchefuncte
and Tchula manifestations of the Early Woodland period (Kidder 2002:70, Toth
1988:19, 26). Tchula was first defined
in 1951 when “Phillips, Ford, and Griffin...equated Tchula with Tchefuncte”
(O'Brien et al 2002:426), that is, as the upper Mississippi Valley variant of
the southern Early Woodland expression . Toth (1988) following a 1970 report by
Phillips refers to Tchula instead as a period (Ford 1990:103).
Phillips
defined a Lake Cormorant Culture in the north lower valley as in tandem with
the Tchefuncte in the south, both within the timespan of the Tchula Period.
Defined either way, the Early Woodland “Tchula” or “Lake Cormorant Culture
Tchula Period” sites are found from the area of the northwestern uplands of
Mississippi to the bootheel of Missouri (Ford 1981, 1990; O'Brien et al 2002,
Rafferty 2002:207; Toth 1988:74-83).
The
temper found in ceramics from this time and place are a taxonomist's nightmare,
yet are fascinating in their complexity. First, it is possible that the Poverty
Point cultural florescence in northeastern Louisiana included an incipient
pottery industry (Gibson 1996:297-299, Sassaman 2002:405, contra Toth 1988:26).
These and subsequent Tchula wares are said to be “temperless”, i.e., the blocky
clay inclusions in the ceramic pastes are from the local source materials and
may not have been intentionally added (Gibson 1996 , Kidder 2002:70, Mainfort
and Chapman 1994:149, Rolingson and Mainfort 2002:22). Varying degrees of sand
may or may not be present in the paste (Jennings 1952:439), which may be
related to variations within local Mississippi Valley physiography rather than
reflecting technological choice (O'Brien et al 2002:435-437, Rafferty
2002:207). Relatively inconsistent geographic and temporal variations (per the
sand / clay ratio) in these pastes have lessened their typological precision
(Ford 1981, Mainfort and Walling 1992:121-122; O'Brien et al 2002:435-437,
Price 1986:535, Smith 1979). Nonetheless,
it can be said that the diagnostic clay tempered ceramics for western Tennessee include
Withers Fabric Marked and Cormorant Cord Impressed (Toth 1988:20). Mainfort
subsumes the variants local to Pinson and western Tennessee under the Forked
Deer series (1994:150).
Rafferty
(2002:207) suggests that Tchula wares were the initial ceramics in the west
Tennessee region. Fiber tempered Wheeler
pottery was also present in the deep south by circa 1200 to 1000 BC (Jenkins
and Krause 1986b:43, Sassaman 2002:404), originating from the traditions of the
Gulf Formational stage. Wheeler was likely derived from Atlantic Coast sources of
the early Gulf Formational such as Stallings Island (Jenkins 1981:17-18,
Jenkins and Krause 1986a:548). Examples of it have been found at the Claiborne
site at the mouth of the Pearl River in southern Mississippi (dated to 1150 BC
+/- 110). Teoc Creek in the Yazoo uplands in west central Mississippi yielded
Wheeler ceramics in a context dated two centuries older. Wheeler is also found
throughout most of Alabama including in the Tennessee River valley. It is
surmised that this early pottery piggybacked onto extant Late Archaic exchange
systems centered around steatite wares from the eastern Alabama – western
Georgia area. The Poverty Point exotic goods network is also implicated in
these transaction networks (Jenkins and Krause 1986a:548-550). Just out of reach,
west Tennessee apparently was not host to these Late Archaic exchange economies
and is lacking in Wheeler wares.
It
is against this backdrop that Pinson came into being. With several examples of
platform mounds at the site, it was considered de facto to be
Mississippian in origin. Fischer and McNutt (1962) archaeologically locating a
Mississippian dwelling seemed to confirm this. Subsequent work especially by
Mainfort and others has shown that the earthworks are actually Middle Woodland
in origin (e.g. Mainfort 1986, Mainfort and McNutt 2004). The mound precinct is
a product of the Hopewellian florescence.
The
Hopewell exchange / acquisition network implicitly involves prehistoric use of
waterways and overland trails. Larger rivers can ultimately connect Havana,
Scioto, Copena, and Marksville areas (Seeman 1979, Toth 1988:44). Also,
following Jennings (1941), it can be surmised that overland trails like the
Natchez Trace acted as conduits between
regions during the Early and Middle Woodland. The radiocarbon dates for the
Bynum mounds in northeast Mississippi, proximal to the Trace, suggest this
(Walling et al 1991:60-61).
Myer
(1922:142) asserts that Pinson was situated along such a trail that “led down
the higher lands west of the Tombigbee River, to the ancient towns around
Mobile Bay.” Myer also suggests trails from Pinson leading to the Mississippi
River at Memphis and to the Tennessee River at Johnsonville (Myer 1922:142;
1928: Plate 14 facing 746). Recalling Smith's assertion about an overland trail
to Savannah on the Tennessee (which is on Myer's 1928 map), it is evident that
Pinson may have been a node in regional exchange schemata. This may weigh
heavily in regard to the site's Middle Woodland development.
West
Tennessee and adjoining Early Woodland Tchula expression has not been noted as
a complex ritual or exchange manifestation, but rather as a “cultural
backwater..awaiting the stimulus of ideas from the Hopewell region to blossom”
(Ford 1990:103-104)[2].
This is in comparison to the noted Early Woodland complexity in Havana and
Scioto Hopewell areas (Buikstra and Charles 1999, Greber 1991). Though a few Early Woodland radiocarbon dates
have been obtained for features at Pinson, none are squarely from the context
of mounds nor of ritual features (Mainfort and McNutt 2004, Mainfort and
Walling 1989). Also indexical in this regard, though the Late Gulf Formational
pottery Alexander Incised “is probably the most widespread ceramic type found
in the Southeastern United States” during the Early Woodland (Jenkins
1981:114), apparently none has been archaeologically recovered at Pinson.
Greater
archaeological insight into Pinson's past began to come to light in the late
1930s with the construction and
development of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi (Jennings 1941,
1944). It was with this work that the
ceramic series that would later be noted at Pinson would first be described
(Jennings 1941:196-221). Excavations at the the Pharr and Bynum sites along the
Natchez Trace in northeast Mississippi would provide evidence of extra-regional
exchange along the trail. Specifically,
in addition to other exotics, specialized ceramics from the lower
Mississippi Valley Marksville tradition were found. According to Toth
(1988:134) these ceramics “from Pharr and Bynum, almost certainly trade
vessels, are diagnostic early Marksville artifacts and more than sufficient to
verify contact between the Lower Valley and the uplands of northeast
Mississippi”. Such vessels are the well-known Incised Zoned ceramics bearing
the stylized raptorial bird motif, a marker of Hopewell cultural contact
regardless of where they are found.
Jennings
(1941:211-221), based on collections from the Miller type site near Tupelo
(22Le506), first described and named the Middle Woodland component for the
upper Tombigbee River valley. This Miller Culture was subsequently divided into
phases I, II, and III (Jennings 1944: 411-414).
It
is Miller I (100 BC to AD 300) (Jenkins 1981:20-22) that is largely
representative of the components at Pinson during its mound building
florescence, with evidence of continued use during Miller II (AD 300 to 600)
(Mainfort 1986:83). The geographical
range of these typological categories is essentially coincident with the extent
of the Tombigbee River, except where in the southern valley we find Porter
Hopewell, with an increasing amount of Gulf Coast varieties found amongst the
ceramics. Jackson et al (2002:244) have noted the presence of Miller I and II
ceramics as far south as southeastern Mississippi, out of the drainage of the
Tombigbee.
Distinguishing
Miller I and II ceramics is the presence of fine sand as a tempering agent.
Late Gulf Formational Alexander pottery was coarse sand tempered, and it has
been suggested that the impetus for Miller temper may have come from this
variety and the sand tempered Bayou la Batre and other wares found in the
Mobile Bay area, which is the mouth of the Tombigbee River (Jenkins
1981:123-124, Jenkins and Krause 1986b:47).
The
diagnostic ceramics for Miller I and II are termed Saltillo Fabric Impressed,
Baldwin Plain, and Furrs Cord Marked.
Saltillo marks early Miller I, and decreases such that by Miller II Furrs begins to dominate the assemblages. A
sub-mound undisturbed occupation stratum at Pinson yielded an uncalibrated
radiocarbon date of 205 BC +/- 115. This level was “characterized by a
sand-tempered, fabric marked ceramic assemblage and is not associated with
earthwork construction” (Mainfort 1988:169). Furrs Cord Marked and its
undecorated counterpart Baldwin Plain “throughout the mound complex...comprise
in excess of 75% of the ceramic assemblage” (Mainfort 1988:169).
At
Pinson, the Duck's Nest is a donut shaped small earthwork surrounding a fire
pit atop a small bluff immediately adjacent to and overlooking the Forked Deer
River (at least it was prior to the river's channelization). The nearby
Duck's Nest Sector has archaeologically yielded an array of exotic ceramics
unlike the remainder of the Pinson inventory. The estimated ten exotic vessels
recovered include examples of limestone tempered wares presumed to be from the
Tennessee River Valley, sherds of which in general seem underrepresented at
Pinson considering the rather close distance to this region[3].
Also included among Duck's Nest Sector exotics are vessels of Early Swift Creek
Complicated, red filmed examples possibly also from Florida, grit tempered cord
marked sherds possibly from eastern Tennessee, bone tempered Turkey Paw Cord
Marked from the middle Tombigbee Valley, and McLeod Simple Stamped from the
lower Tombigbee (Mainfort 1986:46, 1988).
Various
excavated ritual and mortuary areas at Pinson have yielded evidence of Hopewell
exotics, including examples of mica, copper, galena, large numbers of Marginella
beads, quartz crystals, Flint Ridge bladelets, and other non-local cherts.
Also recovered were a pair of rattles made from human parietal bones, engraved
in a fashion similar to an artifact from the Turner site in Ohio or to designs
on Weeden Island Incised ceramics (Mainfort 1985:57, 1986:70). There is an
apparent dearth of Marksville ceramics at Pinson (Mainfort and Walling
1992:24), with no such sherds found at the archaeologically rich Duck's Nest
sector (Mainfort 1988:168). Morse and Polhemus
report finding Marksville sherds, but these number only 10 out of 2122 (1963:Table 2).
Mainfort
(1988) asserts that the primary period of mound construction at Pinson lasted
from AD 1 to AD 300 (contra Mainfort et al 1982:18). Two smaller additional
mounds also at the site (mounds # 31 and 12) were radiometrically dated to the
5th century AD (Mainfort 1988:168-169) and are interpreted as having
been constructed by “small, local social groups”. Mainfort and McNutt (2004)
provide a summation of all extant absolute dates for Pinson. The calibrated averages
grouped by mound (or “sector”) yields a distribution that appears to be
bi-modal (actually tri-modal if the c 12th century dates for the
Mississippian structure are included). The smaller burial mounds # 31 and # 12
form another of the modes, circa 5th century AD. The primary and
largest group of dates are in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th centuries AD, the equivalent of spanning Miller I and early
Miller II.
Earthworks at Pinson: Implications of
Morphology
Based
on its radiocarbon dates and the presence of exotic artifacts, Pinson can be
included in the Hopewell interaction sphere. Its mortuary tumuli do not compare
so readily to other Hopewell centers however. Consider the Ohio example of
Adena and Hopewell mounds. Adena burial mounds are typically ridge top conical
tumuli built over the burned remains of a round presumably crematory or
mortuary processing structure (Clay 1998). Present with Ohio Hopewell mortuary
practices were large (approaching 100 m in length) loaf shaped valley bottom
mounds (Greber 1983). Havana sites in
the lower Illinois River valley also featured such loaf mounds, in addition to
ridge top burial mound complexes originating as early as the Late Archaic
(Buikstra and Charles 1999).
Pinson
lacks mortuary mounds with such designs. Rather, three of the mounds tested
revealed mortuary facilities containing internal earthen platforms
(Mainfort 1986:59). These platforms are either atop of mound floor crypt
burials, or as in the case of mound 6, surround them. A subsequent conical
mound is erected over these.
Similar internal platforms have been found in
other Middle Woodland mounds in the Tombigbee drainage. These include mound A
at Bynum (22Cs503)(Walling et al 1991:54),
mound A at Pharr (22Ps500)(Walling et al 1991:56), the Brogan mound (22Cl501)(Baca and Peacock
1996:16), and in southern Alabama the McQuorquodale mound (Jennings 1952:263).
Mounds near to but outside of the Tombigbee drainage with a similar internal
platform include the late Tchula period Little Spring Creek mound in north
central Mississippi (22La636) (Ford 1990:114), and possibly the McRae mound in
southern Mississippi (22Ck533)(Blitz 1986:30). Additional mounds with such
internal platforms include the Grand Gulf Mound in Claiborne County Mississippi
(Baca and Peacock 1996:16), mound A at the Crooks site in La Salle Parish
Louisiana (Kidder 2002:76-77, Toth 1988:33), and mound 4 at the Marksville type
site (16Av1)(Kidder 2002:75-76, Toth 1988:34). Toth (1988:41) gives examples of
internal platforms at some sites in the Lower Illinois valley, noting that
these are similar to Marksville examples, “but only in disjointed bits and
pieces, not as a unified whole... [such that]... the associations needed to
link the mortuary elements are extremely tenuous”.
Also,
there are at Pinson platform mounds per se. As mentioned earlier, these
were long interpreted as indicative of a Mississippian phase at the site. Now
it is reliably known that some platform mounds were constructed by prehistoric
Native Americans beginning in the Late and even Middle Archaic period (Russo
1994). Most of these are in Florida and Louisiana . By contrast, the platform
mounds at Pinson all date to the Middle Woodland. Among these are mounds # 5,
9, 10, 28, and 29.
Mound
5, the Ozier mound, is of special interest. Ozier is rather tall (c 10 m),
roughly square at the base, and its corners point approximately to the cardinal
directions. This same design is found at
other relatively nearby Middle Woodland mounds. These include mound 14 at the
Ingomar site in northern Mississippi (c 9 meters in height)(22Un500)(Rafferty
1983, 1990), and the Florence Mound in the Tennessee River valley in
northeastern Alabama ( >12 meters in height)(1Lu10) (Boudreaux and Johnson
2000). Ozier and mound 14 at Ingomar also have ramps pointing to the northeast.
All have been dated to the Middle Woodland. It is presently impossible to
conjecture as to the original use of these earthworks, but presumably their
design is related to intended function, where such function may be the same at
each of the three sites mentioned (Figure 5).
Overland Trails in the Miller Culture Area
Myer
(1928) gives accounts of many and various trails created and used by Indians in
the American Southeast. As mentioned earlier, Myer (1922:142) briefly describes
an overland path that paralleled the Tombigbee River along the uplands to its
west. Ceramic evidence seems to support the idea that this region was a unified
cultural area: Miller. Contact and Historic period accounts also suggest this,
inasmuch as the entire area was peopled (and / or traversed) by members of the
Chickasaw tribe (Myer 1928:815-828).
This
may have also been the case prehistorically. At least two mounds can be found
along putative trail segments in this area of Mississippi.
The
Brogan mound archaeological site (22Cl501) is located immediately adjacent to
modern highway US 45 in the town of West Point (Baca and Peacock 1996:12). Myer
states thusly “It will be observed that this trace road leaves the Tombigbee
river on an elevated plateau and follows the “divide” through to the Tennessee,
thus avoiding watercourses”. Referring to a section of this trail located in
eastern Mississippi, he notes that “...the road forked, one branch leading
northeast[4]
to Pontotoc, where it intercepted the Natchez Trace.[...] The other branch
turned southeast through the prairie, running not far from Muldon and West
Point to Waverly, in Clay County” (1928:826-827)(italics mine). The mound
was excavated in 1934, resulting in less than ideal notes and curation of the
recovered material. Three sherds of Saltillo Fabric Impressed and a “mica
sheet” are still present in the material accessioned at LSU Museum of Natural
Sciences. The Saltillo sherds are diagnostic of the Miller I phase, and the mica
also suggests a Middle Woodland context. Again, as mentioned earlier, this
burial mound apparently had an internal basal platform. An adjacent “habitation
area is multi-component with a significant Middle Woodland occupation” (Myer
and Peacock 1996:21).
Further
south in Clarke County Mississippi, the McRae mound (22Ck533) may also have
been along an overland trail. Plate 15 in Myer (1928: facing 748) shows three
parallel branches of the Pinson to Mobile route in this section of Mississippi
just east of the city of Meridian (Figure 6). The mound site is actually in the
upper reaches of the Pascagoula drainage along Buckatunna Creek. The recovered
ceramic inventory is remarkably similar to that at Pinson. Among the types
found are in descending frequency “plain, sand tempered” (n=20)(presumably
Baldwin Plain)(see Jenkins 1981:123), Furrs Cord Marked (n=10), “plain, clay
tempered” (n=8)(presumably Baytown Plain)(see Jenkins 1981:87), Saltillo Fabric
Marked (n=8), Swift Creek Complicated Stamped (n=5), McLeod Simple Stamped
(n=5), Withers Fabric Marked (n=2), in addition to 2 Incised Marksville sherds
and other minority amounts of Gulf Coast varieties (Blitz 1986:21). Exotic
Hopewellian items included a copper and silver sheathed panpipe, Flint Ridge
bladelets, and quartz crystal. As mentioned earlier, an internal platform was
suspected within this mortuary mound.
A
thorough review of the trails described in Myer (1928) seems to leave little
doubt that an overland trail did exist between the Pinson site and Mobile Bay.
Ceramic distributions and varieties found at sites along this trail are not at
odds with this notion. The route surely served as a conduit for the
distribution (exchange?) of especially the Gulf Coast ceramic varieties. The
trail from Pinson to the Tennessee River is also described in Myer
(1928)(Figure 7). Using this trail system, exchange could be accomplished
between the Mobile Bay / Gulf Coast area and the central Mississippi River
valley and northward to Illinois. This may have been a primary route for the
acquisition of shell items by some northern polities.
Mainfort
has suggested that the Duck's Nest Sector at Pinson may have been a long
distance destination for mortuary or ritual observances (Mainfort 1986:46,
1988:168). The Duck's Nest is adjacent to the Forked Deer River bottoms, and,
to speculate, it may have served as a sort of “welcoming area” to those
venturing past. In such a regard, mound complexes such as Pinson and others
located along trails or rivers may have had a centripetal effect on traders and
travelers in such environs.
In
northeastern Mississippi, also within the Miller culture area, are two mound
groups located proximally to the Natchez Trace. These are the Pharr (22Ps500)
and Bynum (22Cs503) sites. These sites are not along the path that leads from
Mobile to Pinson, but rather along the trail from the Marksville area to the
Tennessee River valley and beyond, the famed Natchez Trace (Jenkins and Krause
1986b:58).
A
Marksville Stamped var. Marksville vessel was recovered from Bynum, and
a Marksville Incised vessel was found at Pharr (Walling et al 1991). According
to Toth (1988:134), these vessels are “extremely incongruous in a setting
almost totally dominated by sand-tempered ceramics”. Various exotics were noted
at these sites including copper earspools, galena, Busycon sp. shell,
copper beads, greenstone celts, Gibson or Norton projectile points from the
Illinois River valley, a silver covered panpipe, and a Flint River Cord Marked
vessel. Mortuary architecture included evidence of a charnel processing
facility and internal mound platforms. These exotic assemblages far exceed what
has been recovered thus far at Pinson, though Bynum and Pharr are much
smaller.
Again
to conjecture, it may be possible that the two trails represented different
arenas of exchange or distribution.[5]
The routes may have been dominated by competing ethnic groups. Lekson (1999),
discussing the roads of Chaco Canyon, has commented on the notion of trails as
ritually significant corridors. Lepper (2006) suggests pilgrimage as a factor
in the use of such pathways, a notion that dovetails nicely with Mainfort's
observations concerning the Duck's Nest Sector at Pinson. In any case, the
exotica at Pinson compared to Bynum and Pharr along the Natchez Trace differ
markedly. There is a notable lack of Marksville wares at Pinson, whereas entire
vessels have been recovered at the other two sites. Obviously, this may be an artifact of
insufficient sampling. Conversely, if additional efforts at Pinson fail to
reveal greater quantities and varieties of Marksville ceramics and Hopewellian
items, there may be a case for such an interpretation.
Pinson: Evidence of the Eastern Agricultural
Complex
There
is no mention in the extant literature of any paleobotany results from Pinson.
This may be due to the attention that has been given to mortuary and ritual
contexts during excavations there. Conversely, it may be due to poor research
design. Mainfort mentions for instance that the mound fill was not screened, much
less floated, during excavations at Pinson's Twin Mounds (Mainfort et al
1985:51). Only feature fill was
screened, some of which was floated. Ritual contexts such as these would seem
to be the most unlikely to yield domestic residues such as carbonized botanical
material.
Given
the number of apparent habitation sites in the region mentioned by Smith
(1979), including just across the river from Pinson, it again seems like poor
research design that may have eventuated in the lack of data on EAC use. According
to Gremillion (2002:490) “flotation based reports for the Woodland period from
the lower southeast are relatively few and geographically scattered [creating]
an artifact of sampling bias”. Jenkins and Krause (1986b:76), in reporting on
archaeological work in the Tombigbee watershed, seem to admit to such bias when
they write “Many seeds of weedy annuals such as goosefoot, pokeweed, pigweed,
wood sorrel, knotweed, and chickweed were probably a consequence of the
clearing which accompanied base camp residence”. Jenkins is apparently in the “real men don't
eat pigweed” camp!
McNutt's
weak paper on Pinson archaeoastronomy (2005) provides a lackluster assessment
of EAC use at Pinson. Page 161 is devoted to ad hoc tertiary observations based
on generalizations about EAC use and distribution made by credible
paleobotanists and archaeologists. He summarizes by saying:
“It is reasonable to regard the large Middle Woodland
sites discussed in this paper as “corporate-ceremonial” non-agricultural
centers supported by small settlements practicing the Eastern Agricultural
Complex. This natural phenomenon is the result of continued development of
agricultural practices that had been in place for 1000 years, combined with a
permissive climate and advances in technology, including ceramics” (2005:162).
As any student of the EAC will find, use of
these foods have been in development for closer to 4000 years.
Additionally, their use is not tied to any specific settlement size, having
been demonstrated in the relatively densely peopled lower Illinois Valley, and in small rock
shelters in eastern Kentucky. Some of the EAC taxa were present in ruderal form
at Koster as long ago as 6500BP, well before the advent of pottery as a cooking
tool. McNutt could instead reserve his speculation to private discussions, and
aim toward developing a realistic flotation program for potential habitation
sites in the environs of Pinson.
McNutt
can do no more than suggest that Pinson lies within a specific band of
geographic latitude. He claims that “Ongoing analysis of botanical remains at
the Pinson site has provided little if any evidence of the EAC at that center
(Monte Abbott, personal communication, 2004)” (McNutt 2005:162). Unless I have
missed something, there has been no reporting of any paleobotanical efforts at
Pinson, with either positive or negative results. As mentioned above, the
context of samples that have been floated is non-applicable to the problem. In
any case, the results of these efforts have not been reported in the
literature.
Summary
The
Pinson Mounds site has been firmly established as a Middle Woodland ceremonial
or mortuary center. Its noted platform mounds have, like other previously
anomalous platform mound examples, been correctly assigned to non-Mississippian
contexts. Though some damage had occurred to the archaeological resource by
pothunters, ownership under the state of Tennessee has resulted in what appears
to be a long term archaeological program geared toward preservation. Robert
Mainfort has been the primary archaeologist to conduct these efforts thus
far.
Due to its proximity to the Mississippi River,
there is a mixed assemblage of sand and grog tempered ceramics at Pinson. The
location of the mound group seems to have been determined by its placement
along specific overland trails and navigable waterways. Pinson is squarely in
the time frame of the Miller Culture, that is, it has strong material cultural affiliation with
sites within the Tombigbee drainage. This cultural association has likely
facilitated its exchange connections with coastal societies adjoining the Gulf
of Mexico.
The
assortment of mound types present makes Pinson unique in comparison to other
coeval earthwork centers. The mounds were apparently constructed during the
Miller I phase, c AD 1 to AD 300, with the exception of two of the smaller
burial mounds at the site which are thought to have been built during the 5th
century AD (Miller II phase). While there are examples of elite burials and
Hopewellian exotica at Pinson, the quantities recovered thus far pale in
comparison to that found in Ohio, the Illinois River valley, or at the
relatively nearby Copena sites. While there may be a lack of Marksville items
at Pinson, the mortuary programs seem more closely related to those found
toward the Gulf Coast or the lower Mississippi valley than with such treatment
further north.
Paleobotanical
data for Pinson are lacking or are at best are inconclusive. No robust efforts
have been made to retrieve such data at or near the site.
Mark
Norton's probative efforts at interpreting calendrical practices at Pinson have
provided a starting point for such efforts. The results of McNutt's paper on
the same topic have been specious and ill-founded. Credible efforts need to be
made toward establishing, yea or nay, the verity of archaeoastronomy at the
Pinson Mounds.
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[1] “First, we must respect the archaeological
record and the interpretations derived from it. We should work with an
archaeological awareness for every site and culture, and even generate
hypotheses that archaeologists can test [...] To demonstrate that a site
“works” astronomically is not enough, it should “work” culturally also. This
means marshalling evidence from different aspects of the archaeological record
so that any astronomical proposition makes cultural sense” (Zeilik 1989:144)
[2] Notwithstanding Ford's delineating a few
examples of Tchula period mortuary ritual and earthworks in the north
Mississippi hills, I have come across no accounts of Tchula period mounds in
west Tennessee.
[3] For instance, only 23 out of 732 sherds
recovered from the Ozier Mound were limestone tempered, including only two
Wright Check Stamped and one Flint River Cordmarked (Mainfort 1988:123, 132,
Mainfort and Walling 1992:123-124). At the Duck's Nest sector, only 94 out of
over 2000 sherds were limestone tempered (Mainfort 1986:35,46).
[4] Within the Myer text, considering the litany
of towns and places listed along this particular trail, this is an obvious
typo, and should probably read northwest.
[5] The two trails cross in the vicinity of
Saltillo Mississippi, and it would be extremely interesting to see if the
original locus of this specific crossing could be determined, to be followed up
with archaeological excavation if possible. There may have been a sort of
ritual nexus there.
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