The Mississippian Emergence

7. Emergent Mississippian in the Central Mississippi Valley

Dan F. Morse and Phyllis Morse Chapter 7 Emergent Mississippian in the Central Mississippi Valley INTRODUCTION The central Mississippi Yalley, as defined here, is that part of the alluvial valley between the Ohio and Arkansas Rivers (Fig. 65). The region is laterally bordered by and includes part of the Ozark Highlands on the west and the uplands immediately east of the Mississippi River, which include the Chickasaw Bluffs. Constituting approximately 40,000 sq km, the Central Yalley is essentially oval in shape and oriented northnortheast to south-southwest. All major lowland streams are similarly oriented, and upland tributaries are perpendicular to the lowland drainage. The Central Yalley is bifurcated into two lowlands, called "Eastern" and "Western," by an erosional remnant known as Crowley's Ridge. Sikeston Ridge segregates the Cairo Lowland from the rest of the Eastern Lowlands in the northeast. 1b be discussed later in this chapter, the Cairo Lowland portion of the Central Yalley is considered by us to be of paramount importance in understanding the emergence and evolution of Mississippian culture in the central Mississippi Yalley. Extending across portions of five different states, the central Mississippi Yalley is not a small homogeneous region, but rather supports a rich variety of different landforms and environmental settings (Morse and Morse 1983: 1-15). Two basic kinds of soils and landforms can be identified within the Central Yalley proper. Most of the region west of Crowley's Ridge, as well as substantial areas of the Eastern Lowland, have older braided stream terraces, formed during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, when the Mississippi River flowed as a braided stream west, then east, of Crowley's Ridge. These braided stream terraces, with their characteristic sand dune interfluve topography, are frequently interrupted by more recent meandering streams of various sizes. The eastern portion of the central Mississippi Yalley, in contrast, is dominated by the more recent meander belt landscape of natural levees, oxbow lakes, and backswamps, reflecting the meandering nature of the Mississippi River after its course shifted east of Crowley's Ridge. This central Mississippi Yalley area, with its rich variety and abundance of plant and animal resources, and excellent agricultural soils, has long been proposed as a "heartland" of initial Mississippian development (Smith 1984). Yet it is only recently, with the excavation of the Zebree site (Morse and Morse 1980; Chapter 4, this volume) that an early period Mississippian presence in the Central Yalley has been clearly and convincingly established. The recognition and analysis of early Mississippian remains in the central Mississippi Yalley constituted the primary goal of the classic Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940-1947, by Phillips , Ford, and Griffin (1951:39-40). The earliest Mississippian remains found by them were plain shelltempered ceramics, as exemplified by the lowest levels of a test pit at the Rose Mound site south of Parkin, Arkansas. This complex would today be classified within middle period Mississippian (A.D. 1000-1200) 153 154 Morse and Morse Fig. 65. Map of the central Mississippi Valley showing the distribution ofsites yielding Varney Red ceramics, Plum Bayou related materials, shell-tempered flatbased vessels, and beakers. N 1 rather than early period Mississippian (A.D. 800-1000) (Fig. 66). Even though Phillips, Ford, and Griffin did not recover artifactual evidence of an early Mississippian presence in the Central Valley, such evidence, in the form of Varney Red ceramics, was recovered and identified soon after the publication of their landmark study. Credit for the initial recognition of Varney Red ceramics (named after the Old Varney River site) and the interpretation that they dated early within the Mis- • Beakers • Varney Red Ceramics + Plum Bayou Related Sites • Shell Tempered Flat Based Vessels o 75 , Meters sissippian period goes to Stephen Williams in his Ph.D. dissertation, An Archeological Study of the Mississippian Culture in Southeast Missouri (1954, table 1, 34, 210, 275). Another decade would pass, however, before the first extensive report of excavations at an early period Mississippian site-the Kersey site located in the Missouri Bootheel (Fig. 65)-would appear (Marshall 1965a). Marshall placed "the early Mississippian component" at the Kersey site within his newly established Hayti Baytown Period A.D. SOO 600 ? 700 Ba)'loWIl 800 Early Period Mississippian Middle Period Mississippian Late - Midcfte Period Mississippian Late Period Mississippian 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 •..•••• !.i.•Ii: .. .:.. Mathews Horizon . Beaker Horizon Vantey lIorizon Fig. 66. Radiocarbon dates plotted by horizon...