“…Trader (2005) and Clay and Charles (1992) suggest the beginning of mound construction and elaborate burial practices mark the beginning of the Middle Woodland period (∼2600–1600 cal BP or 400 BCE - 400 CE) in the Kanawha River Basin ∼150 km southwest of Hyre Mound. Specific mortuary practices there include accretional burial mounds with associated tombs, cremations, and circular paired-post structures (Clay and Charles, 1992; Purtill et al., 2014). Armstrong pottery is the diagnostic pottery type in those same Middle Woodland period sites (Trader, 2005).…”
The archaeology of the eastern West Virginia uplands remains significantly understudied compared to other areas of the Appalachian Plateau. Bettye Broyles’ excavations at the Hyre Mound site (46RD1) in 1963 recovered a variety of artifacts within and directly adjacent to a burial mound but the excavations remain largely unpublished. We provide a report of Broyles’ excavations, new radiocarbon dates, and an analysis of the lithic raw material frequencies at the site. Material culture and ceremonial practices suggest the initial mound construction dates to the Middle Woodland period. Radiocarbon dating of cultural features confirms that people also used the locality during the Late Woodland period. Lithic raw material frequencies indicate a preference for non-local, Hillsdale chert found ∼100 km from the site throughout both time periods. The directionality of toolstone conveyance supports existing models that emphasize the quality and location of raw material sources and the orientation of the region’s physiography.
“…Trader (2005) and Clay and Charles (1992) suggest the beginning of mound construction and elaborate burial practices mark the beginning of the Middle Woodland period (∼2600–1600 cal BP or 400 BCE - 400 CE) in the Kanawha River Basin ∼150 km southwest of Hyre Mound. Specific mortuary practices there include accretional burial mounds with associated tombs, cremations, and circular paired-post structures (Clay and Charles, 1992; Purtill et al., 2014). Armstrong pottery is the diagnostic pottery type in those same Middle Woodland period sites (Trader, 2005).…”
The archaeology of the eastern West Virginia uplands remains significantly understudied compared to other areas of the Appalachian Plateau. Bettye Broyles’ excavations at the Hyre Mound site (46RD1) in 1963 recovered a variety of artifacts within and directly adjacent to a burial mound but the excavations remain largely unpublished. We provide a report of Broyles’ excavations, new radiocarbon dates, and an analysis of the lithic raw material frequencies at the site. Material culture and ceremonial practices suggest the initial mound construction dates to the Middle Woodland period. Radiocarbon dating of cultural features confirms that people also used the locality during the Late Woodland period. Lithic raw material frequencies indicate a preference for non-local, Hillsdale chert found ∼100 km from the site throughout both time periods. The directionality of toolstone conveyance supports existing models that emphasize the quality and location of raw material sources and the orientation of the region’s physiography.
“…Similar decommissioning of wood post structures by post removal was reported earlier for Poverty Point by Haag (1990), although the nature of the structures he encountered was not clear because of the limited nature of his test excavations. Despite the perimeter testing of only four post circles and their interiors being known only from magnetic signatures, I interpret them as hypaethral or unroofed spaces or “stages” for ritual performance because of their size and apparent lack of interior features that might be expected in a roofed structure (Pacheco et al 2021:84–65; Riordan 2015, 2021); this interpretation is also influenced by current thinking on later timber circles (e.g., Clay 2009; Henry and Barrier 2016:100; Purtill et al 2014; Zink 2009). Figure 2.Large timber post circles identified by magnetometry at Poverty Point.…”
Section: Timber Circles At Poverty Pointmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the Ohio Valley Middle Woodland where a similar bimodal distribution of timber circles occurs (no cultural historical connection is implied), the smaller of the circles were first interpreted as houses and the larger as open enclosures (Webb and Snow 1945:52–53). Currently both large and small timber circles are now considered open spaces associated with unspecified ritual events (Clay 2009; Purtill et al 2014:75–79). The same may probably be said for Poverty Point, where limited excavation has not identified interpretable features inside the smaller circles that would suggest that they were enclosed.…”
Section: Timber Circles At Poverty Pointmentioning
Two types of features at the Late Archaic period Poverty Point site in Louisiana—large timber post circles and repetitively used activity surfaces later covered by mounding—are examined as spaces that were the products of historical event sequences involving their construction, their entwined but differing ritual uses, and their final deconstruction or removal. This approach is a particularizing, historicizing way of approaching the features of this monumental hunter-gatherer site, an alternative to a more generalizing view in which its totality as a site or “place” is seen as the interrelated product of many historical acts over time or as a mosaic of historically created and used “spaces.” Analysis of these feature types suggests that spaces of ritual activity in the larger site were used differently, involving different types of events and serving different functions in a developing, perhaps shifting, larger ritual landscape.
“…Thus, it is unlikely that people lived here on a regular basis (Table 2). Instead, the structures were probably Adena paired-post ritual structures-screen-like enclosures arguably used for non-mortuary, or ancillary mortuary, activities (Clay 1987(Clay , 1998(Clay , 2014Purtill et al 2014). Evidence for episodic gatherings and collective ritual suggests that social consensus was built through the assembling of members of kin-based coalitions for rituals at a communal locale.…”
Section: The Organisation Of Dissonance At Wright Mound Kentuckymentioning
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