C O N S E R VA N C Y
Stephanie Orsini
field notes
Archaeologist Todd McLeod uses a magnetic gradiometer to collect geophysical data at Carson Mounds.
A Geophysical Survey At Carson Mounds SOUTHEAST—The Conservancy recently added a tract of approximately eight acres to its Carson Mounds preserve. Carson, which dates to a.d. 1200-1500, is located near the Mississippi River in northwest Mississippi. In the 12th Annual Report to the Bureau of American Ethnology published by Cyrus Thomas in 1894, several low mounds and an earthen embankment were noted on the recently acquired tract. These features have since been plowed down and are no longer visible. In 2015, archaeologists with the University of Mississippi’s Center for Archaeological Research conducted a geophysical survey of a portion of this tract in hopes of finding subsurface evidence of the mounds and earthen embankment.
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The geophysical work offers the promise of being able to learn more about the site without subjecting it to further disturbance. Based on preliminary analysis of the data, there are a number of anomalies that appear to be archaeological features. Several of these anomalies are aligned with the location of the embankment that was drawn on the map that appeared in the 1894 report, while others could be houses of the sort that have recently been exposed by salvage excavations conducted by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History on an adjacent portion of the tract. These excavations began in 2008 when human remains were exposed by plowing.
spring • 2016
