Mortuary Patterns In West-Central Tennessee: Contextualizing Historic Field Data From Nine Mississippian Period Sites

Abstract

pagesMiddle Mississippian is a both a cultural and temporal (1200 CE -1400 CE) archaeological context of Midwestern North America. This cultural tradition is associated with mound building, specific art motifs, arguably stratified societies, intensive agriculture, and specific ritual/mortuary practices. Burial sites can be very valuable to archaeologists because of the purposeful interaction between the living and the deceased and reconstruction of cultural elements such as social identity and group membership. While American archaeology continues to be fieldwork-focused, there are a considerable amount of cultural resources housed in museum collections that could provide data for research into pre-Columbian life-ways in North America.This project used archived excavation information from past fieldwork to ask modern contextual questions about sites that are archaeologically inaccessible. These field notes and reports as well as a recent inventory of the curated human osteological remains were used to analyze the mortuary patterns (e.g., grave accompaniments, burial orientation, burial location, segregation by age or sex) of nine Middle Mississippian period sites from what is now the Kentucky Lake reservoir of west-central Tennessee. Among the results of the mortuary assessment is the recognition that sex, rather than rank or social role, is a primary identity marker.

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

“…Relative to the present study, the mortuary pattern of the Gray Farm site includes stone boxes as well as secondary interments of charnel house burials, whereas the entirety of the mortuary treatment at Link/Slayden is stone box (Bass, 1985;Wamsley, 2018). Predictably, no stone box interments occur at the Late Woodland Hobbs site (Kuemin Drews, 2000;Wamsley, 2018). Unfortunately, no caries data are available from Middle Cumberland Culture sites.…”

“…In contrast, the mortuary pattern of interment characterized by the lining of the grave pit with stone slabs ("stone box burials") associated with the Middle Cumberland Culture (AD 1250-1450, Thruston phase) of the Nashville Basin (Figure 1) (Dowd, 2008;Ferguson, 1972) frequently occurs in Kentucky Lake Reservoir Mississippian sites (Bass, 1985;Wamsley, 2018). Relative to the present study, the mortuary pattern of the Gray Farm site includes stone boxes as well as secondary interments of charnel house burials, whereas the entirety of the mortuary treatment at Link/Slayden is stone box (Bass, 1985;Wamsley, 2018). Predictably, no stone box interments occur at the Late Woodland Hobbs site (Kuemin Drews, 2000;Wamsley, 2018).…”

Patterns of Antemortem Tooth Loss in Late Prehistoric West-central Tennessee

“…There is also no archaeological evidence that the KLR samples had contact with Mississippian period sites in the Mississippi River drainage of west Tennessee (Mainfort, 1996;Mainfort & Moore, 1998). However, some shared cultural elements with the MCR (Dowd, 2008;Ferguson, 1972;Smith, 1992) are evident (e.g., infants interred within house structures and at least some use of limestone slabs to line graves (i.e., stone box burials) (Bass, 1985;Wamsley, 2018).…”