Examining the Subsistence and Social Landscapes of the Late Precontact Occupations at the Topper Site (38AL23), Allendale, South Carolina

Summary

The Late Woodland to Early Mississippian transition within the Atlantic Coastal Plain is characterized by widespread and dynamic changes from more dispersed and politically decentralized organizational practices into highly centralized, stratified, and complex sociopolitical organization. This period also experiences changes in both hunting technologies and horticultural food production. The timing of the linkages among these developments are not well established locally, something that this project hopes to remedy. Three field seasons directed to the extensive Precontact occupations at the Topper site (38AL23), Allendale, South Carolina, have documented hundreds of features and a rich material record dominated by cross-cord-marked pottery and small triangular arrow points, as well as the widespread presence of maize. What was occurring on the site and when it occurred is the subject of a suite of specialized analyses, which are helping to reshape thinking about late prehistoric occupations in the central Savannah River Valley, and on a site formerly best known for its extensive Paleoindian archaeological record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21743