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6 MacCord’s Excavation of McLean Mound and Recent Excavations in the Sandhills A unique feature of the North Carolina Sandhills and southern Coastal Plain is the presence of sand burial mounds found along the Upper Cape Fear and scattered across the lower Cape Fear and Neuse river valleys (Irwin et al. 1999; see their Figure 1). Woodland period burial mounds have not been found in the Piedmont , west of the Coastal Plain Sandhills, or north of the New River. It appears, however, that they once existed throughout the interior southern Coastal Plain of North Carolina, and at least one mound has been documented on the coast. Interpretation of these mounds is hindered by the fact that most were excavated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in a manner that would, by today ’s standards, be considered little more than looting. Enough evidence remains, however, to suggest that these mounds were part of a regional social complex that emerged during the late Middle Woodland period and flourished in the Cape Fear River valley in the early centuries of the Late Woodland period (a.d. 800–1600). McLean Mound The McLean Mound site (31CD7) lies about 100 feet above sea level on an ancient levee of the Cape Fear River in Cumberland County (Figure 4.1). The mound is situated about 1 km from the Cape Fear, where it is accompanied by the Breece village site (31CD8). The soil at the mound site is unconsolidated sand and, at the time of excavation, the water table was within a meter of the surface. The mound was explored by amateur excavators during the early twentieth century, when it was described as being about 6 feet high and covered with trees. By the time it was excavated (1960–1962), the mound had been part of a cultivated field for many years and was substantially reduced in height (MacCord 1966). When excavated, the diameter of the mound’s base was about 15 × 20 m, several meters larger than it must have been before the land was put into agricultural use, during which time the mound would have been reduced in height and spread out by plowing. MacCord excavated 5-×-5-foot units in 4-inch levels, but the stratigraphy was made 98 Chapter 6 exceedingly complex by many superimposed reinterments and very poor preservation . The disarticulated skeletal remains of 50 individuals were found in the plow zone and the remains of another 268 were found buried within the mound itself, an area about 6 m in diameter. Among the 268 burials were 25 cremations, a primary bundle, and 242 secondary bundles (MacCord 1966:11). Artifacts found with the burials included shell and bone beads, stone and clay pipes (stone pipes were both platform and tubular and a single clay pipe was tubular), triangular projectile points, and pottery. Although pottery was found in almost all of the burial mounds on the southern Coastal Plain, in most cases the number of sherds recovered has been but a handful . In the McLean Mound excavations, however, about 200 sherds were found and these are compared to descriptions of about 600 sherds from the Buie, or Red Springs, Mound presented in Wetmore’s (1978) study. Although these two assemblages cannot be considered representative of all the mounds of the southern coast of North Carolina, they provide some perspective of temporal or geographic trends. The McLean Mound pottery assemblage was reanalyzed for the present study and these data are compared to Wetmore’s (1978) results of her analysis of pottery from the Buie (Red Springs) Mound. The McLean Mound pottery exhibits enough homogeneity in paste, surface treatment, and vessel form to constitute a contemporaneous assemblage. Although some whole cup-sized vessels appear to be intentionally included with burials, many more sherds of incomplete vessels did not appear to be interred with any particular burial but are assumed nevertheless to be contemporary with the period of mound construction and use. Consisting of a few pieces from many vessels possibly interred over several hundred years, pottery from the mound contrasts with that from many Sandhills Woodland sites where pottery assemblages reflecting short-term habitation sites not uncommonly are made up of a few singlevessel clusters. As such, the mound assemblage represents an opportunity to examine a broader range of technological and stylistic variability associated with a site of regional importance, a location for reunions of groups whose social contacts may have encompassed broad geographic regions with enhanced opportunities for trade...

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