SUMMER FIELD SCHOOL IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHODS-2005

2005 Summer Archaeological Field School at the Winterville Mounds.

Influenced early in its occupational history by the evolution of the Cahokia chiefdom in the American Bottoms, and undergoing an apparently rapid rise to prominence as the center of a Mississippian polity, Winterville provides an important case study for the development and operation of prehistoric chiefdoms in the Lower Valley. Originally including as many as twenty mounds, the site today consists of ten mounds defining two mound-plaza groups, each plaza centered on the 55 foot tall Mound A. Investigations there in the late 1960s by Jeffrey P. Brain (1989) provided the framework for the site’s occupation and construction chronology and tantalizing evidence of the range of activities at the site. No substantial work has occurred at the site since Brain’s excavations.

Because Brain’s efforts were directed toward chronology-building, evidence for mound summit activities and architectural function was somewhat incidental. Excavations was limited primarily to mound summits, so there is little documentation of the nature and extent of off-mound residential areas. The current project seeks to address these gaps in our understanding of the site.

During the 2005 field season, an area of approximately a half hectare northeast of mounds E and F was shovel tested on a ten meter grid. Shovel testing units recovered abundant artifactual remains, as well as encountered an area of burned thatch, a burned daub layer, and nearer Mound F, a rich midden. More extensive excavations partially documented two and possibly three structures. Flanking Mound F is an extensive midden deposit where excavations encountered a large refuse-filled pit that may be associated with Mound F. In addition to these off-mound excavations units were placed on the summit and flank of Mound F, in an attempt to document a structure revealed by Brain’s excavation there. Mound summit excavations will be completed during the next field season. See report 2006

Photos by Harold Webster, Adam Boyette, Princella Nowell, Ed Jackson