New Investigations at Russell Cave, Alabama

Summary

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

Russell Cave (1Ja181), located in Jackson County, Alabama, contains one of the longest prehistoric occupational sequences known in the southeastern U.S., spanning approximately 9,000 years. Excavations were conducted by the Chattanooga Chapter of the Tennessee Archaeological Society (1953-1955) the Smithsonian Institute in conjunction with the National Geographic Society (1956-1958) and finally by the National Park Service 1962. Original analyses focused on ceramics, lithics, human skeletal remains, and faunal remains. These analyses along with radiocarbon dates have helped to define the archaeological framework of the cave as well as that of the greater Southeast. The era of the early excavations did not address plant use at the site or study the complex stratigraphy. Recently the Sewanee field school, in collaboration with archaeologists from NPS-SEAC, conducted the first excavation of the cave in over 50 years. Here we present the preliminary results of the focusing on the first float samples analyzed from the cave, new radiocarbon data, and geoarchaeological analysis of the well-preserved anthropogenic deposits.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23601