4 minute read
point acquisition
acquisition In Pursuit of the First Moundbuilders
Advertisement
How old are the first Indian mounds constructed in America? For years, most archaeologists agreed that the Late Archaic period Poverty Point culture in Louisiana (c. 1800–500 B.C.) constructed the earliest major earthworks in North America. Archaeologists thought that the older cultures lacked the social complexity, technology, and sedentary lifestyle required to construct monumental earthworks.
However, recent research on sites in Louisiana such as Banana Bayou, Hedgepeth Mounds, Frenchman’s Bend, and Watson Brake by archaeologists like Joe Saunders and others changed the old notions by the mid-1990s. Numerous radiocarbon dates from these sites, combined with diagnostic artifacts and soil dating processes like pedogenesis, showed that mound construction began at least 2,000 years earlier than was previously thought, thus placing the earliest mounds into the pre-ceramic Middle Archaic Period. (c. 3500–3000 B.C.) Archaeologists have now begun to re-examine a number of sites around the Southeast to determine if mound construction at those sites also began in the Middle Archaic period. Their work has led to some remarkable new discoveries. Among the most significant of these discoveries is Saunders’ recent work at the Caney Mounds in Louisiana.
The Caney Mounds site is a 78acre, six-mound complex located in eastern Louisiana that was first recorded by James Ford of Harvard University in 1933. Ford was followed by a variety of professional and avocational archaeologists who performed a number of surface collections over several decades indicating that every major period of human occupation in Louisiana, from PaleoIndian through historic period, were represented at the site. In 1970, noted Louisiana archaeologists Clarence Webb and Jon Gibson mapped Caney and excavated portions of the site. Along with producing the first map of the site, they uncovered significant occupations from the Poverty Point and Marksville (a local derivative of Hopewellian Culture, c. 200 B.C.– A.D. 400) phases.
Based on their findings, Gibson and Webb reasonably concluded that the mounds at Caney must be Poverty Point period in origin. In fact, the site was the largest Poverty Point culture site and the largest mound complex in the region. For these reasons alone, Caney was considered highly significant. As early as the 1970s, Webb and Gibson called for the site’s preservation and urged the landowner to refrain from farming the site. The owners agreed, and the site remained intact until 1998, when new owners permitted an irrigation pivot to be erected on the site and cultivation to creep onto the lower portions of the mounds.
In 2000, after completing his groundbreaking work at Watson Brake, Saunders turned his attention to other mound groups in Louisiana that he thought could contain Mid-
Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Caney Mounds are more than 5,000 years old.They are among the earliest major earthworks in North America.
dle Archaic mounds. Gibson and Webb’s map of the Caney Mounds soon caught his attention. Caney and Watson Brake sites are of similar size and both contain an arc of mounds that follow a Pleistocene escarpment. The Caney complex contains an arc of five mounds that follow the escarpment, plus a sixth mound located to the west across a broad open plaza. Like Watson Brake and Frenchman’s Bend, Caney was located along the same ancient channel of the Arkansas River.
Saunders cored the mounds at Caney to determine if they had Middle Archaic period origins. His coring produced materials that yielded two radiocarbon dates with a calibrated range of 3540–3360 B.C.and 3630–3370 B.C., perhaps indicating that Caney is the oldest mound complex known. Researchers of the Archaic period, such as Brigham Young’s John Clark and the University of Florida’s Ken Sassaman, have asserted that Caney is the benchmark site for the Middle Archaic, and that its design is possibly the prototype for all other mound sites of the era. But Saunders disagrees. “It’s true that Caney has a number of similarities
POINTAcquisitions
acquisition
with Watson Brake and other sites,” he explained. “But, with only two radiocarbon dates, I would have to say that I think that Caney is more likely contemporaneous with other sites like Watson Brake.”
Beginning in 1997, the Conservancy tried unsuccessfully to acquire the Caney Mounds. The property changed hands twice during that time. Finally, thanks to POINT Program funds and willing sellers, the Conservancy purchased the site late last year.
“The remarkable thing about Caney that is different from the other pure Middle Archaic sites,” said Saunders, “is that Caney is a multi-component site. It was reoccupied by various later cultures. Though coring and pedogenesis indicate that at least some of the mounds were constructed in the Middle Archaic period, I think it’s likely that later cultures augmented the mounds and possibly constructed a couple others themselves.” More work needs to be done to determine when each mound was constructed. “It will be a great site for comparative study for Middle Archaic, Poverty Point, and Marksville Periods.” —Alan Gruber
The Protect Our Irreplaceable National Treasures (POINT) Program was designed to save significant sites that are in immediate danger of destruction.
