The submound and mound architecture and features of Mound C, Etowah, Bartow County, Georgia

Southeastern Archaeology

Volumn 23, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 127-141

  Larson Jr , Lewis H ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE; ARCHITECTURE;

GEORGIA; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES; WESTERN HEMISPHERE; WORLD;

EID: 14644426546     PISSN: 0734578X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented as a part of a symposium organized by Adam King and titled Lost Realm of Itaba: The Archaeology and Iconography of Mississippian Period Etowah, presented at the 66th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 20 April 2001, New Orleans, Louisiana.
2. Adam King (2003:28) has redefined the ceramic sequence for the Etowah River Valley, largely replacing the terminology of the sequence proposed by Sears (1950:137-142, 1958:163-176). The premound area of Mound C would be placed within the King sequence as a part of the Late Etowah phase of the Etowah Regional period. King dates the period AD 1100-1200. It should be noted that I have argued elsewhere for a much later date for the last phase of activity at Mound C (Larson 1993:184); suffice to say I have found few colleagues who agree with me.
3. A large portion of the southeastern quarters of the floors of Structure 5 and 7 had been destroyed by the scouring of the Etowah River during flood periods and by Moorehead, who began his work by excavating into the eroding south face of the mound. Moorehead had moved his excavation across the floors of these structures, destroying their surfaces and associated features.
4. This was the only area of a mound surface that was encountered in the excavation, undoubtedly because it was the only area preserved; the higher mantle surface had all been completely removed.
5. The profiles clearly show that mantle fill was added by what is usually termed "basket loading."
6. The burial consisted of articulated bones, arguing for the burial of dismembered body parts rather than bones without flesh to maintain the articulation.
7. Burial 1 and Burial 15 may well be associated chronologically, although such an association is almost impossible to demonstrate. Burial 1 may have been the first burial made during the completion of the addition of Mantle 5, as its placement is inclusive in the Mantle 5 ramp construction. Placement of the sequence of burials encircling Mantle 5 then followed. Burial 15 would have then been made in the toe of the ramp, concluding all Mantle 5 burial activity. On the other hand, they may have ben the concluding mortuary action if they were associated with the completion of a ramp on the east side of the mound and the placement of the ramp concluded the addition of Mantle 5.
8. The number of palisades that were associated with a particular mantle is difficult to determine. It would appear that the palisade encircling Mantle 4, the penultimate mantle, had been replaced several times as the addition and modification of the north side features demanded.
9. The United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin, identified wood from both the wall trench post and the floor planks of Burial 57.
10. This burial, because of an apparent field error, was never assigned a number. The pit was not identified and excavated until a year after the other north-side features and burials. At the time, it was the intent to review the burial numbering and then work the burial into the sequence; unfortunately, this apparently never happened.
11. After I wrote the 1971 description of Burial 38, Dr. Robert Blakely, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, undertook a preliminary examination of the skeletal material from the burial and determined that there were five individuals placed in the burial rather than four as I had stated earlier.
12. The males of the ethnohistorically known Southeastern chiefdoms were normally the individuals who held positions of political and religious authority, although females regularly had roles in the activities taking place in these areas.
13. The repeated restoration of the palisade screen as Mantle 5 construction advanced seems to suggest that the screen was of considerable importance, not only as a barrier to wild animals and village dogs but also as a means to conceal mortuary ritual from the uninitiated, or for some other reason that cannot currently be determined.
14. Bourne, Edward Gaylord, editor 1922 Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto. Vol. 1. Allerton Book, New York.
15. Jones, Charles C., Jr. 1873 Antiquities of the Southern Indians, Particularly of the Georgia Tribes. D. Appleton, New York.
16. King, Adam 1991 Excavations at Mound B, Etowah: 1954-1958. Unpublished master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens.
17. King, Adam 1995 Steps to the Past: 1994 Archaeological Excavations at Mounds A and B, the Etowah Site (9Br1), Bartow County, Georgia. Report on file at the Division of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Sites, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Atlanta.
18. King, Adam 2003 Etowah: A Political History of a Chiefdom Capital. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
19. Larson, Lewis 1959 A Mississippian Headdress from Etowah, Georgia. American Antiquity 25:109-22.
20. Larson, Lewis 1971 Archaeological Implications of Social Stratification at the Etowah Site, Georgia. In Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, edited by James A. Brown, pp. 58-67. Society for American Archaeology Memoir 25. Washington, D.C.
21. Larson, Lewis 1993 Examination of the Significance of a Tortoise-Shell Pin from the Etowah Site. In Archaeology of Eastern North America: Papers in Honor of Stephen Williams, edited by James B. Stoltman, pp. 169-85. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archaeological Report No. 25. Jackson.
22. Larson, Lewis 1994 The Case for Earth Lodges in the Southeast. In Ocmulgee Archaeology, 1936-1986, edited by David J. Hally, pp. 105-11. University of Georgia Press, Athens.
23. Lewis, Thomas M. N., Madeline D. Kneberg Lewis, and Lynne P. Sullivan 1995 The Prehistory of the Chickamauga Basin in Tennessee, compiled and edited by Lynne P. Sullivan. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.
24. Moorehead, Warren K. 1932 Exploration of the Etowah Site in Georgia. In Etowah Papers, edited by Warren K. Moorehead. Published for the Phillips Academy by Yale University Press, New Haven.
25. Morgan, Lewis Henry 1881 Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines. In Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. 4. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, Washington, D.C.
26. Sears, William H. 1950 Preliminary Report on the Excavation of an Etowah Valley Site. American Antiquity 16:137-42. Society for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City, UT.
27. Sears, William H. 1958 The Wilbanks Site (9CK-5), Georgia. River Basin Surveys Papers No. 12. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 169, pp. 129-94. Washington, D.C.
28. Swanton, John R. 1911 Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 43. Washington, D.C.
29. Thomas, Cyrus 1887 Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections of the United States. Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
30. Thomas, Cyrus 1894 Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
31. Varner, John Grier, and Jeannette Johnson Varner, translators and editors 1951 The Florida of the Inca. University of Texas Press, Austin.
32. Webb, William S. 1938 Archaeological Survey of the Norris Basin in Eastern Tennessee. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 118. Washington, D.C.