Archaeology at Shiloh Indian Mounds, 1899-1999

5 / Queens College Fieldwork in 1998

Table 4.6 Continued Although no artifacts were found with the burials, six items were recovered during excavation of the mound. One is a small metal spoon of historic origin. A fragmentary blocky preform of Ft. Payne or Dover chert and a section of a biface made of agate are not very informative. A fragment of a Mill Creek chert hoe and fragments of two chunkey stones are at least diagnostically Mississippian. One of the fragmentary chunkey stones is sandstone , the other ferruginous sandstone. Perhaps the most interesting item from this portion of the site, however, is a small cube of galena, or lead sul¤de. This very dense crystalline mineral has a dark gray, metallic appearance and produces a glittery, dark gray powder when abraded. It was used widely throughout the Southeast by Mississippian people, apparently being esteemed for its unusually great weight, its glittery appearance, or both (Walthall 1981:15–18). Of those fragments that have been traced to their geological sources, most come from the upper Mississippi Valley source region (adjoining portions of northwestern Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin, and Iowa) and the southeast Missouri source region a few tens of kilometers southwest of Cahokia (Walthall 1981:41–42). The Field Catalogue gives this Shiloh artifact an improbable provenience, W-2+4/S-4+6, that is part way down the river bluff. It is likely that the provenience should have been written W-2+40/S-4+60, which would put the galena within the area excavated on the southeast side of the mound. Galena is certainly known from Mississippian burials elsewhere and was found elsewhere at Shiloh. If the correct provenience really was Mound C, it is not terribly surprising that the galena was not found with a burial, because there was so much digging of graves on the southeast side of the mound that several graves were disturbed by later graves. The galena may initially have been in a grave and may have been moved by the digging and ¤lling of a later grave. The color white was evidently of symbolic importance to the people at Shiloh. In addition to the use of white clay to cap the initial roofed burial pit, “irregular shaped masses of white clay were usually found near burials, often close to the head” (Chambers 1933–1934:31). Color symbolism was highly signi¤cant to later Southeastern Indians (Hudson 1976:235–239), and it is not uncommon to ¤nd mineral pigments with Mississippian burials elsewhere in the region. Mound C, or the burials in it, appear to have been associated with the color white. CONCLUSION As anyone who has waded through this chapter will appreciate, the excavations in 1933–1934 were extensive. We know the general areas where excavation was focused, though we often do not know precisely where the limits of 170 Chapter 4. excavation were. Substantial numbers of artifacts were picked up by the workmen and were usually given at least horizontal proveniences. Samples of pottery—hundreds of sherds—were collected by stratigraphic unit in several parts of the site, giving us some tantalizing hints at the chronology of these parts of the site. Mounds E and F were trenched and the pro¤les drawn, giving us information about the constructional history of these monuments. A large fraction of Mound C, the burial mound, was excavated, exposing 19 burials and a remnant of the central, log-covered tomb from which Cadle had removed the ¤gurine pipe in 1899. Mound Q was trenched, revealing it to be arti¤cial rather than a natural topographic rise. Portions of a few dozen houses were excavated, revealing the domestic construction techniques used by the Shiloh occupants. An enigmatic long building with at least one round end was exposed near Mound A. It is clearly some kind of “public” building, but its precise use and signi¤cance eludes us. The ground surface around Mound A was revealed to be an arti¤cial apron up to 2 m thick, showing us that Mound A is actually a lot taller than it appears to be. Portions of the plaza area were revealed to have sheets of ¤ll, probably deposited in an effort to make the plaza more level. A fence or wall extending across part of the plaza area was revealed. Over 100 m of the palisade line was excavated. The scale of this work is staggering, by the standard of today’s typically more...