Architectural Variability in the Southeast

4. Typology, Chronology, and Technological Changes of Mississippian Domestic Architecture in West-Central Alabama

4 Typology, Chronology, and Technological Changes of Mississippian Domestic Architecture in West-Central Alabama Cameron H. Lacquement Archaeological studies of Mississippian houses in the southeastern United States have revealed several forms of domestic floor plans.The two most common floor plans are a design utilizing small poles, which are set relatively close together and typically inserted in a wall trench, and a design employing large posts spaced relatively far apart and set in individual postholes (see Figure 1.2). These two layouts of domestic houses are also apparent at Moundville and the surrounding areas in west-central Alabama. The purpose of this research was to first, statistically test the idea that these two forms of domestic floor plans are distinct and not a continuum of the same floor plan. Early southeastern archaeologists such as David DeJarnette (Jones and DeJarnette 1936), Thomas Lewis (1937), and William Webb (1938) believed that these layouts were indeed two distinct designs, each representing a distinct form of architecture. If this assumption can be statistically supported, it would provide additional evidence for the existence of two distinct above-ground architectural forms. Second, this research seeks to provide a chronology of all Mississippian domestic house types in west-central Alabama. The diagnostic components and chronology of each house form are presented based on a sample of 73 Mississippian structures from six sites in west-central Alabama, including Moundville , Lubbub Creek, Bessemer, Big Sandy Farms, the Pride Place site, and the Powers site (Figure 4.1). Concluding the discussion of the results, a typology and chronology of house types from the six Mississippian sites is presented, focusing on both archaeological characteristics and inferred above-ground architecture . Assuming that there is an architectural shift, reasons for this transition will also be explored. 50 Cameron H. Lacquement Study Specifications and Research Sample This study will be focused specifically on Mississippian (A.D. 1000–1550) domestic architecture. For this purpose, “structure” will be defined as a building that possessed wall posts and a roof.Therefore, palisades and stockades are excluded from this research. The examination also will be focusing on domestic housing rather than public or ceremonial buildings. For the purposes of this study, “domestic” will be defined in terms of size, location, and internal features within the structure. Only structures that are less than 37 m2 (400 ft2 ) of roofed space, and which are neither located on earthworks nor in the posses4 .1. Map of Moundville and surrounding areas. Domestic Architecture in West-Central Alabama 51 sion of specialized internal features such as clay seats or specially prepared clay floors will be considered domestic buildings (Lewis and Kneberg 1946). Because the focus of the study is Moundville, the architecture examined will be only that of square and rectangular structures, omitting consideration of ones that possessed a circular or oval foundation shape. Many Mississippian societies and historic southeastern tribes used circular structures, and there is no evidence to suggest that these structures were limited to one specific building technique. However, no evidence of circular structures has been found at the Moundville ceremonial center and they are of rare occurrence at Mississippian sites in the surrounding areas. In the immediate region, they are found only at the Bessemer site (DeJarnette and Wimberly 1941), in the Pickwick Basin of the Tennessee River in northern Alabama (Webb and DeJarnette 1942), and on the Mississippi side of the Tombigbee River (Blitz 1993). Moundville Moundville is a Mississippian mound site on the banks of the Black Warrior River in west-central Alabama. The civic-ceremonial center, including at least 29 earthen mounds situated around a central plaza, was initially excavated by Thomas Maxwell and Nathaniel Lupton during the mid-nineteenth century (Knight and Steponaitis 1998). The largest excavations at Moundville occurred in the 1930s and early 1940s by geologist Walter B. Jones and the Alabama Museum of Natural History, in which the Museum used Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) federal relief labor for a number of archaeologically related projects.One of these projects of the CCC was to construct a road that encircled the site.The excavations undertaken to complete this project are referred to as the Roadway excavations. McKenzie (1964) described the characteristics of 22 of these Roadway structures , 21 of which were constructed with wall trenches and one with individually placed posts. Nineteen of these structures were used in the sample of this study, as the other three exceeded the dimensions for typical...