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The nature and complexity of Late Archaic O’Bryan Ridge manifestations and their relationship to Poverty Point culture in the Lower Mississippi Valley have been controversial topics for more than half a century. When baked clay objects and other trappings of material culture similar to those in Poverty Point assemblages were ¤rst identi¤ed at sites in the Cairo Lowlands of southeastern Missouri , Stephen Williams characterized them as a regional variant of Poverty Point (S. Williams 1954). Questions over the strength of the relationship led Phillips (1970) to ¤nesse the issue by referring to O’Bryan Ridge as a phase of the Poverty Point period. In his seminal work on Poverty Point, Webb (1977) viewed O’Bryan Ridge as having some contact or relationship with Poverty Point, but he did not regard it as an integral part of the culture—a position reversed in the second edition of the same study (Webb 1982). At a Poverty Point conference in the mid-1980s, Williams re®ected again on the O’Bryan Ridge phase, commenting that it was probably earlier than Poverty Point (S. Williams 1991). The relationship of O’Bryan Ridge to Poverty Point is a crucial concern addressed here. On the one hand, complexity is enhanced for the former if it is an integral element of Poverty Point. On the other hand, if O’Bryan Ridge is only a peripheral trading partner, or indirectly and weakly related to the southern complex, this would affect a consideration of the complexity of the southeastern Missouri components and the scope of Poverty Point in®uence would warrant reexamination. THE BURKETT SITE AND THE O’BRYAN RIDGE PHASE Burkett (23MI20) is the type site for the O’Bryan Ridge phase, which was formulated in the mid-1950s when that site and a nearby neighbor, Weems 7 The Burkett Site (23MI20) Implications for Cultural Complexity and Origins Prentice M. Thomas, Jr., L. Janice Campbell, and James R. Morehead (23MI25), yielded a suite of artifacts that mirrored some of the assemblage traits of the Poverty Point site (S. Williams 1954). Burkett was investigated between 1964 and 1966 by Hopgood, whose effort recovered baked clay ball fragments and chipped-stone artifacts, seemingly more evidence linking the site with Poverty Point (Hopgood 1967). Similar items were found at Weems by J. R. Williams (1967), who was also the ¤rst researcher to broach the subject of mounds, con¤rming a conical one was present at Weems and hinting of one at Burkett. However, neither Hopgood nor J. R. Williams elaborated upon the O’Bryan Ridge phase data; the focus of both researchers was on the later Woodland component . The issue of mound building was also left largely unaddressed. Over two decades would pass before Burkett was examined again, this time by Mid-Continental Research Associates (MCRA), who conducted geomorphological and cultural resources investigations of the New Madrid Floodway for the Memphis District Corps of Engineers (Lafferty and Hess 1996). As part of the work, MCRA investigated both the Burkett and Weems sites and substantiated not only the presence of the O’Bryan Ridge phase components but also the signi¤cance of both properties. This evaluation led to the ¤rst large-scale opportunity to explore the archaeological manifestation of the O’Bryan Ridge phase in 1999 when Prentice Thomas and Associates, Inc. (PTA) was tasked by the Memphis District to conduct data recovery at the Burkett site. The primary objective was to con¤rm the stratigraphic separation of O’Bryan Ridge phase materials below ceramic deposits across the site. With this con¤rmed, three speci¤c issues guided research related to the O’Bryan Ridge phase deposits: (1) to de¤ne assemblage traits, (2) to establish the chronology of the O’Bryan Ridge phase, and (3) to ascertain the cultural af¤nity of the mound. The work also provided the long-awaited chance to explore the cultural complexity of O’Bryan Ridge and its external ties to Poverty Point culture. SETTING O’Bryan Ridge rises sharply above the Mississippi River ®oodplain in the vicinity of Burkett, with an absolute elevation of 315 feet above mean sea level (amsl) at the highest point on the site to 300 feet amsl in the nearby ®oodplain. The Mississippi River has occupied the same meander belt between Thebes Gap and a point 35 miles north of Memphis since about 10,000 b.p. (Saucier 1994:253). O’Bryan Ridge, the setting for both the Burkett site and its contemporaneous neighbor, Weems, is believed to...

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