Recollections of Hiram Landol Ridge: Field Assistant to W.E. Myer (original) (raw)
Related papers
WPA Excavations at the Mound Bottom and Pack Sites in Middle Tennessee, 1936-1940
New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee, 2016
From July 1936 to January 1937, archaeologists from the University of Tennessee directed excavations at the Pack site (40CH1) under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration. Limited excavations were conducted during this time at the Mound Bottom site (40CH8). Charles Nash returned to Mound Bottom in February 1940 for additional investigations. This presentation summarized current research on the curated Mound Bottom and Pack site records and collections.
Subdivision construction in 2003 within the Little Harpeth River headwaters of northeast Williamson County uncovered several Mississippian stone-box graves. Subsequent consultant investigations exposed a Mississippian period village yielding artifacts suggestive of a mid-14th to mid-15th century occupation. A charred maize sample from inside a fish-effigy vessel on a probable structure floor returned a date of cal 430+/-30 BP (AD 1440-1455 at one-sigma). Inglehame Farm (40WM342) represents another example of an upland Mississippian habitation in the Middle Cumberland River valley. Interestingly the Little Harpeth River drainage has a number of substantial Mississippian settlements including the Fewkes Mounds, Brentwood Library (Jarman Farm), Arnold (Emily Hayes Farm), and Kellytown sites. This paper presents a complete reanalysis of the Inglehame Farm artifact assemblage, as well as a preliminary review of the Mississippian period settlement pattern within the Little Harpeth River.
Return to the Great Mound Group: 2016 Investigations at Mound Bottom State Archaeological Area
Tennessee Archaeology, 2018
The Mound Bottom site is located along the Harpeth River west of Nashville, and with the adjacent Pack site comprises the largest Mississippian mound complex in the Nashville Basin during the eleventh through fourteenth centuries AD. The initial formation of these sites ca. AD 1000 may be tied to the arrival of Mississippian colonizers who carried with them influences seminal to the formation of the Middle Cumberland Mississippian culture. Despite its apparent importance in the late prehistoric sequence, few modern archaeological excavations have been conducted at Mound Bottom, and many aspects of the site remain poorly understood. The summer of 2016 witnessed the early stages of a new research effort at Mound Bottom which culminated in the first excavations in 40 years. Herein we discuss the results of our initial field season at Mound Bottom, including the use of LiDAR data to create the first modern map of the entire site, and subsequent ground truthing of previously unmapped above ground features.
Tennessee Archaeology 6(1-2):149-163, 2012
Although the Beasley Mounds site (40SM43) has been known since the early nineteenth century, only brief antiquarian notes and limited collections have been available to evaluate its relationship to the Middle Cumberland culture sites of the Central Basin. As part of the on-going efforts of the Middle Cumberland Mississippian Survey to refine the boundaries and chronology of the region, we directed a small-scale mapping and excavation project at Beasley Mounds in early 2008. Resulting ceramic samples suggest that the site residents were more closely affiliated culturally to those of the upper Cumberland and East Tennessee than to their nearer neighbors to the west. A single radiocarbon date from platform mound construction at the site suggests that it served as a socio-political center contemporaneous with those at the nearby Castalian Springs and Sellars sites to the west and south -- but was occupied by people whose material culture was (ethnically?) distinct from those to the west and south and more closely related to those from the east and north.
Tennessee Archaeology 6(1-2)
"The “Dover Flint Quarries” of Stewart County, Tennessee have achieved an almost mythological status in the archaeological literature, based primarily on the widespread distribution of hypertrophic weapons and “eccentric flints” made from this high-grade chert during the Mississippian period. Recent historical research suggests that the Dover quarry sites were first formally identified and investigated by Warren K. Moorehead (Curator of the Department of Archaeology at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts) and Parmenio E. Cox (Tennessee's first official State Archaeologist) between 1926 and 1932."
Tennessee Archaeology 6(1-2):105-138, 2012
Identification and recording of information from the Sandbar Village site (40DV36) was initiated between 1967 and 1974 by avocational archaeologist John T. Dowd. Dowd conducted surface collections during that period as well as limited test excavations in 1969. Additional test excavations were completed at the site in 1989 by Tennessee Division of Archaeology staff, and in 1990 by Vanderbilt University Archaeological Field School students. Here, we summarize the results of all documented artifacts, structures, and features from the site, along with a series of radiocarbon dates. Although Sandbar Village was previously interpreted as a Mississippian hamlet, we suggest that the apparent contradictions created by the presence of several artifacts usually associated with larger Mississippian communities can be resolved by understanding the site as a remnant of a more substantial settlement. Alternatively, we propose the (then) contemporary Cumberland River channel was located to the south of 40DV36, and that Sandbar Village represents a peripheral section of a large town (and possible mound center) that includes what is currently known as the Widemeier site (40DV9) located directly across the river.