A Reexamination of Human Remains from Late Prehistory in the Alabama River Valley

Summary

The late prehistory of central Alabama in not yet well understood, particularly when compared to contemporaneous occupations elsewhere in the Southeast. Previous excavations of Durant Bend (1Ds1), a late Mississippian/Proto-historic, single mound site in Dallas County on the Alabama River, resulted in a number of artifacts, including lithics, pottery, faunal remains, and human remains that enhance our understanding of late prehistoric and protohistoric occupations in the Alabama River Valley. One such excavation in the early 1970s, yielded five sets of subadult human remains as well as one single element from an adult individual, all of which are currently curated at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. These remains originally were examined and included in a 1976 report of the site. A recent reexamination of these remains by the author employing modern analytical methodologies allows for increased insight into the age and health of individuals occupying the Alabama River Valley during this time period. Utilizing extant collections such as these also allows researchers to apply modern methods to older data in order to gain a better understanding of past individuals. Examining these individuals from Durant Bend allows us to gain a better understanding of this time period in central Alabama’s history.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage