Field Notes

CONSERVANCY Field Notes

Soil Core Reveals Data About Bates Mound

SOUTHEAST—A team of archaeologists recently took soil cores from the Conservancy’s Bates Mound, which is located 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.

An examination of the soil’s qualities, such as color and texture, can indicate the degree of weathering of the soil since the mound was constructed. While additional testing is required to confirm a mound’s age, soil core analysis can provide a great deal of information and has played a large role in the identification of Middle Archaic period (ca. 3700 b.c.) mounds in Louisiana.

The archaeologists had been uncertain about Bates’ age, as very few artifacts had been found on the mound itself or in the pasture around it. So they decided that taking soil cores would be a quick, non-destructive means to obtain more data about the mound.

Chip McGimsey, Louisiana state archaeologist, and Joe Saunders, an archaeologist with the Louisiana Division of Archaeology, conducted the coring with the assistance of

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 from the Bates Mound using a coring rig attached to an ATV. that found in mounds that were built approximately 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. If further testing corroborates this suspicion, Bates will be acknowledged as the oldest known mound in the area. Recovery Work at pamplin pipe Factory NORTHEAST—Last February, the staff of the Conservancy’s Eastern Regional Office conducted work at its newest preserve in Virginia, the Pamplin Pipe Factory. The site, which was in operation from the 1860s to the 1950s, was once the largest tobacco pipe producer in the world, turning out a million clay pipe bowls a month at the factory’s peak. This vast production also generated a vast amount of waste. For a single firing of 200,000 bowls, 20,000 might be discarded due to deforming or breaking. Consequently, the grounds surrounding the factory and brick kiln were covered with pipe bowls and fragments. In an effort to discourage looting and trespass, the Conservancy’s staff conducted a controlled surface collection at the site to recover the visible artifacts. The process consisted of mapping and photographing each of the kiln features, and the careful removal of all exposed artifacts. In summer • 2009

a single day, approximately 20 pounds of pipe bowls and pipe-making material were recovered from the site. The Conservancy donated these items to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, where they will be permanently curated.

In addition to the controlled surface collection, the Conservancy is also fencing the site and awaiting an architectural assessment of the factory.

Research Resumes at the Carson Site

SOUTHEAST—In January, the University of Mississippi’s Center for Archaeological Research resumed work at the Conservancy’s Carson site near the Mississippi River in northwest Mississippi.

The Center worked on a portion of the site where the Conservancy holds an archaeological easement. The work consisted of remote sensing surveys, mapping, and excavating wall trenches, postmolds, and storage and garbage pits. These features were exposed when the landowner removed approximately a foot of topsoil to improve the drainage of an agricultural field.

A map of the site published in 1894 shows 80 mounds, one of which was enclosed by a large embankment. Though only six mounds remain, the site still contains a wealth of archaeological information. At last count, 1,214 postmolds, 103 pits, and 13 wall trenches had been recorded.

The research is providing new insight into the types of structures that once stood at Carson and the types of activities that took place there. Archaeologists Jay Johnson and Gabe Wrobel of the University of Mississippi and John Connaway of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History plan to continue working at the site for the next several years.

Numerous pipe bowls fill the center of the kiln chamber. The discarded bowls were used to cover the down draft flue of the kiln.

A crew from the University of Mississippi excavates a large trash pit at the Carson Site. One of the site’s six remaining mounds stands in the distance.