C O N S E R VA N C Y
Field Notes Jessica Crawford, the Conservancy’s Southeast regional director, retired Natchez archaeologist Joseph V. Frank, and Vincas Steponaitis, director of the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina. The core, which was nearly eight feet in length, was taken from the center of the mound. Examining the core, the archaeologists discerned the foundation of the mound at a depth of about six feet, meaning Bates was about six feet high. The core showed no break or drastic change in soil color or texture that would suggest a pause in mound construction, indicating that it was a “singlestage mound” built in one episode. The soil at the top of the core (From left) Joe Saunders, Jessica Crawford, and Chip McGimsey extract soil core samples seemed weathered and aged, resembling that found in mounds that were built from the Bates Mound using a coring rig attached to an ATV. approximately 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. If further testing SOUTHEAST—A team of archaeologists recently took soil corroborates this suspicion, Bates will be acknowledged as cores from the Conservancy’s Bates Mound, which is located the oldest known mound in the area. in southwestern Mississippi near the city of Natchez. This procedure can help determine how many building stages a mound has, provide samples for radio carbon dating, and recover small diagnostic artifacts that can indicate when the mound was built. NORTHEAST—Last February, the staff of the Conservancy’s An examination of the soil’s qualities, such as color and Eastern Regional Office conducted work at its newest pretexture, can indicate the degree of weathering of the soil serve in Virginia, the Pamplin Pipe Factory. The site, which since the mound was constructed. While additional testing was in operation from the 1860s to the 1950s, was once the is required to confirm a mound’s age, soil core analysis can largest tobacco pipe producer in the world, turning out a provide a great deal of information and has played a large million clay pipe bowls a month at the factory’s peak. role in the identification of Middle Archaic period (ca. 3700 This vast production also generated a vast amount of b.c.) mounds in Louisiana. waste. For a single firing of 200,000 bowls, 20,000 might The archaeologists had been uncertain about Bates’ age, be discarded due to deforming or breaking. Consequently, as very few artifacts had been found on the mound itself or the grounds surrounding the factory and brick kiln were in the pasture around it. So they decided that taking soil covered with pipe bowls and fragments. cores would be a quick, non-destructive means to obtain In an effort to discourage looting and trespass, the more data about the mound. Conservancy’s staff conducted a controlled surface collecChip McGimsey, Louisiana state archaeologist, and Joe tion at the site to recover the visible artifacts. The process Saunders, an archaeologist with the Louisiana Division of consisted of mapping and photographing each of the kiln Archaeology, conducted the coring with the assistance of features, and the careful removal of all exposed artifacts. In
Recovery Work at Pamplin Pipe Factory
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summer • 2009
Vincas Steponaitis
Soil Core Reveals Data About Bates Mound
