Morhiss and Buckeye Knoll Cemetery Sites: A Comparison of Hunter-Gatherer Mortuary Chronologies and Traditions

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Socioecological Dynamics of Holocene Foragers and Farmers" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Located on the Guadalupe River in Victoria County, Texas, Morhiss (41VT1) and Buckeye Knoll (41VT98) represent two of the oldest and largest hunter-gatherer cemeteries in the United States. Recent accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of 90 burials at the Morhiss site offers unique insights into its mortuary complex. AMS dates suggest Morhiss was in use from the Early Archaic (9000–6000 BP) to the Late Prehistoric I period (1150–700 BP). Morhiss is associated with one of the most extensive shell assemblages in the Texas coastal region, including marine shell ornaments, beads, and tools. Buckeye Knoll, on the other hand, was in use primarily in the Early Archaic, but has burials extending into the Late Archaic (4000–1200 BP). Buckeye Knoll’s burials are associated with elaborate ground and chipped stone artifacts, as well as some marine shell ornaments. In this poster, we compare Morhiss with Buckeye Knoll, both representing rare cases of long-term mortuary sites situated on the Texas Coastal Plain. We evaluate the chronological distributions of burials at both sites and compare long-term patterns in burial populations, as well as associated mortuary assemblages.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Socioecological Dynamics of Holocene Foragers and Farmers   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36335.0