The Mississippi Paleoindian and Early Archaic point database redux

Summary

The Mississippi Paleoindian and Archaic Point Survey was initiated in 1968 by archaeologists at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and due largely to the efforts of Sam McGahey over the next 30 years, grew to include over 2,100 points at the time of his retirement in 2003. The survey was idle for a decade, but was recently reinstituted with the help of numerous avocational "citizen scientists" who share an interest in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene hunter-gatherers. Intact Paleoindian and Early Archaic sites are rare in Mississippi, and most of the projectile points that are recovered from these time periods are isolated finds from disturbed contexts like fields and streams. These points are often the only artifacts that remain from early cultural groups, and our interpretations about the people who used them are based on locations of finds, raw material types, and morphometrics. This poster reintroduces the updated Mississippi point survey, provides examples of the variety of early points found throughout the state, and examines distributions of styles and material types across time and space.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage