Under the supervision of Dr. David G. Anderson, Thaddeus Bissett will study the origins of cultural traditions associated with the midcontinental Shell Mound Archaic (SMA), using archaeological materials from four stratified shell mound sites in western Tennessee. Freshwater shell mounds first appeared in that region during the early centuries of the Mid-Holocene Warm Interval (ca. 8,900 - 5,700 cal years before present [cal yr BP]), corresponding to the Middle Archaic cultural period. Sites of the SMA are known from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama, and collectively span more than 6,000 years of history (ca. 8,900 - 3,200 cal yr BP). However, despite extensive archaeological investigation of these often massive accumulations of shell, stone, cultural material, and human burials for nearly a century, the origins and nature of the cultural practices associated with the creation of such sites are not well understood.
This study will assess how models of social interaction and group identity formation can be applied to archaeological data, and will address key questions regarding the history of population movement, group interaction, and ethnogenesis during the early development of the SMA. The work will refine methods used to investigate stratified shell sites, which are known from nearly every region of the world. Finally, this research will produce a high resolution chronology for the early Mid-Holocene in the Midsouth that will serve as a baseline for future research in the region.
Traditional models have viewed shell mounds as accumulated refuse from routine subsistence behaviors, but recent alternative models suggest that SMA sites were ritual locations where hunter-gatherer social groups gathered periodically for ceremonial feasting using shellfish and for ritual interment of the dead. These models further posit that such practices originated from the active renegotiation of group identities, representing the development of new cultural traditions after the arrival of outsiders to the area and their subsequent interaction with peoples already inhabiting the region. The proposed research will evaluate these arguments.
Multiple AMS 14C dates from cultural strata at four Middle Archaic shell mounds will be used to estimate the duration of occupation at these sites. These data will permit the comparison of depositional rates of shell and other artifact classes within and between strata to assess relative occupational intensity and history of site use. Intra-site variation in deposition rates will be compared to determine if changes in site use occurred over time. Contemporaneity of strata will be assessed to evaluate whether these changes occurred during the same period over a large area. Stylistic analyses of artifacts from strata of similar age at multiple sites will address whether changes in cultural practices resulted from interaction between groups, and whether and how differing cultural traditions may have emerged in the region.
Because SMA sites are threatened by natural factors like flooding and from ongoing looting, an important contribution of this study will be the documentation of their utility for understanding the origins of complex societies and the effect of Mid-Holocene climate change on human populations in eastern North America. The results are of broad public as well as academic interest, and will be useful in teaching and public education. This work will make use of under-reported museum collections from fieldwork dating to the New Deal era, and all results will be made available to the general public, and will be presented at scientific meetings and in peer-reviewed journals.
Data from seven Middle and Late Archaic sites in western Tennessee dating to ca. 8900 – 3200 cal BP are used explore how shell middens and mounds were created and used. The study sites – Eva (40BN12), Big Sandy (40HY18), Kays Landing (40HY13), Cherry (40BN74), Ledbetter Landing (40BN25), McDaniel (40BN77), and Oak View (40DR1) – were excavated during the Great Depression prior to the construction of the Kentucky Dam by the Tennessee Valley Authority. A high-resolution chronology of site use was developed, based on existing older radiocarbon assays and 50 new AMS determinations. These chronological data were used in conjunction with analyses of curated collections at the Frank H. McClung Museum to produce a synthesis of human occupation, including shell fish use, in this part of the Tennessee River Valley. The temporal data also formed the basis for in-depth examination of the composition of, and variation in, artifact assemblages, cultural features, and burial populations through time to assess changes in the intensity and manner of site use. Results indicate that shellfishing appeared in western Tennessee by the mid-9th millennium cal BP, and continued sporadically throughout the Middle and Late Archaic periods until at least the mid-3rd millennium cal BP. Shell-bearing sites accumulated over many centuries. Although raw numbers of artifacts and human burials recovered from them are impressive, when contextualized within a temporal span of many centuries, they suggest periodic, or even sporadic, occupation rather than continuous use. It has been suggested, based on burial numbers, that freshwater shell-bearing sites resulted from feasting and other activities associated with funerary rituals. However, average annual burial rates for the study sites, when compared with modern and historic ethnographic data on hunter-gatherer mortality rates, suggest that these burial populations represent only a tiny fraction of the total number of deaths that would have occurred during the time the sites formed, and may be better interpreted as the long-term aggregated result of occasional deaths among groups who periodically occupied these sites.
