Spatial and temporal variation of prehistoric cultural elaboration in the Yazoo Basin of Mississippi

Summary

The Yazoo Basin of Mississippi is a rich and varied landscape that has been inhabited by humans for millennia. Sediment cores and tree-ring dates have documented that populations living in the basin had to contend with massive flooding events as well as substantial environmental change over the course of the Holocene. Populations contended with these changes by shifting settlement patterns, altering in subsistence strategies, engaging in intergroup competition, as well as varying investments in cultural elaboration. The freshwater mussel shell ring phenomenon that emerged during the Archaic and Woodland periods, for example, may reflect a combination of these factors. This paper explores the degree to which spatial and temporal patterns of refuse deposition can be explained as cultural responses to environmental instability during the Archaic through Mississippian periods.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14959