Exploring the Unexpected Early Woodland Occupation at Smith Creek, Wilkinson County, Mississippi

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Smith Creek (22Wk526) is a multi-component Native American mound site in the Natchez Bluffs region of the Lower Mississippi Valley. Surface collections and excavations from 2013–2016 clearly demonstrated a dense Mississippian (AD 1200–1500) occupation at the site and suggested a Late Woodland (AD 750–1200) date for the construction of the mounds. However, excavations during Summer 2018 revealed an unexpected Early Woodland (500 BC–AD 1) component underlaying these later deposits. We examine the distribution of Early Woodland artifacts and features across the Smith Creek landscape before focusing our attention on a large circular structure in the northeast sector of the site. We compare this structure, and the artifacts recovered from it, to those from the small number of excavated Early Woodland sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley. In addition, we discuss the implications our excavations have for understanding the pace of soil development in the Natchez Bluffs and how this may affect the visibility of Early Woodland and Archaic components on later sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24169