Archaeology of the Lower Muskogee Creek Indians, 1715-1836

Contents

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List of Figures

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pp. ix-xii

List of Tables

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pp. xiii-xiv

Preface

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pp. xv-xx

The purpose of this book is to investigate the diversity of the people referred to as the Muskogee (Mask�k�) Creek Indians who lived along the Lower Chattahoochee and Flint River watersheds of southeastern North America during the eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries as revealed through archaeological...

Acknowledgments

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pp. xxi-xxii

This book builds on and summarizes the contributions of decades of research, and the first acknowledgments should go to the individuals who have worked in the Lower Chattahoochee for decades and on whose work I have depended. A few of these individuals are Frank Schnell, Jr., Dan Elliot, Dean Wood, Chad Braley, Vernon J. Knight, Tim Mistovich, and Paul Jackson. Dean Wood, Southern Research, Frank Schnell, Jr., Jerald Ledbetter, and Chris Hamilton gave me...

Notes on Orthography and Pronunciation

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pp. xxiii-

In this book, I have defaulted to spellings of native words, such as the proper names of talwas, to those used by Benjamin Hawkins in the late eighteenth century (Foster 2003a). I used his spellings because he lived among and studied the language of the Creek Indians during the time with which this book deals. He wrote native words in a syllabic form in an attempt to preserve...

1. Ethnohistoric Context

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pp. 1-25

The Creek Indians were an amalgam of diverse people who lived in southeastern North America during the historic period (circa 1540–1836). The core population of the Creek Indians were Maskókî (Muscogee, Muskogee, Muskhogee, Creek) speakers, but it also included Hitchiti, Euchee, Natchez, and Alabama speakers (Braund 1993; Brown 1989; Hahn 2004:242–243; Hann 1988, 1996; Harper...

2. Environmental Context

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pp. 26-36

The environmental context of the Mask�kalk� is relevant to understanding the people and their heritage. Creek Country, as Robbie Ethridge (2003) has called it, was a dynamic environment that responded to the native and foreign settlers. The environment shaped the decisions of the people and the people shaped the environment. Recent archaeological, geological, and ethnohistoric research...

3. History of Archaeological Investigations

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pp. 37-71

There has not been a major summary of the archaeology of post–Yamassee War (circa 1715) Lower Creek Indians since Huscher’s unpublished Lower Creek summary (1959). The archaeological classification of post–Yamassee War Indian sites is called the Lawson Field phase (Foster 2004d; Knight 1994b:189; Knight and Mistovich 1984; Schnell 1990, 1998; Willey and Sears 1952), which spans 1715–1836. The history of the definition of that phase will be described in detail below. Recently John Worth provided the most thorough synthesis...

4. Pottery

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pp. 72-101

For a number of reasons, pottery has become the most studied Indian artifact type, and the pottery of the Lower Creek Indians is no exception. Pottery is related to and reflects the subsistence economy, which is an important cultural analytical unit. In addition, it is usually well preserved and is assumed to be time sensitive, two practical characteristics that are significant reasons it is one...

5. Architecture

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pp. 102-135

Architecture reflects social space. It reflects public and private areas and household organization. It can reflect gender roles and changes in society. Historians and archaeologists have argued that changes in Mask�kalk� society and culture are reflected in architectural forms and household organization (Braund 1993; Waselkov and Smith 2000; Waselkov et al. 1990; Wesson 2002). However, just...

6. Botanical Remains

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pp. 136-193

In this chapter I summarize and interpret the archaeobotanical remains that have been reported from Creek Indian archaeological sites. Since plant remains can also contribute to our understanding of the paleoenvironment, some of these results are discussed in Chapter 2. The paleoethnobotanical analysis is based exclusively on macroplant remains that are interpreted in conjunction...

7. Animal Remains

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pp. 194-255

Prior to contact with Europeans during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Native Americans in Georgia subsisted primarily on deer, turtles, and turkeys. Other native wild mammals and birds, fish, and shellfish supplemented the diet. There is no archaeological evidence of diet among the Lower Creek in the seventeenth or early eighteenth century, although historical accounts of the...

8. Conclusion

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pp. 256-266

Owing to the amount of research on Creek Indian sites over the last few decades, archaeologists are beginning to discern patterns and can measure and characterize variation among the archaeological sites. Now that we have a relatively comprehensive data set, we should reevaluate our archaeological models, our metrics of material culture, by comparing archaeological and historical...

Bibliography

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pp. 267-288

Index

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pp. 289-292