According to John Walthall (Prehistoric Indians of the Southeast, Archeology of Alabama and the Middle South), it is thought that people in Alabama's Black Warrior River drainage system were influenced by Early Mississippian diffusion emanating from unknown sources.  This resulted in the emergent Mississippian West Jefferson Phase, believed to have had its highest expression during A.D. 900-1000.  West Jefferson represents a Woodland people who adopted a few Mississippian traits.

Walthall marks the Bessemer Phase (A.D. 1000-1200), named for a mound site near Birmingham, as the time when Mississippian-style rectangular buildings, earthen temple mounds, and elaborate mortuary ritual appeared in the area for the first time.  Bessemer was similar in some ways to Macon Plateau, though much smaller.  It consisted of three mounds (one ceremonial, one domiciliary, and one mortuary type).   

The ceremonial mound was 10' high with an 8' high truncated knob at its western end.  A young adult female was buried in the mound during construction of the knob.  Under the mound was a stone pavement laid over the old village area.  Three of the four structure patterns found under and around this mound were rectanuglar wall-trench buildings, one with a central clay-lined fire basin and a raised clay seat near the center of the west wall trench.  The fourth structure was rectangular with individually set wall posts.  Circular structures found at the site were 26-33' in diameter and built of single-set posts.

The domiciliary mound was a truncated pyramid 11' high constructed in six stages.  Its primary mound was flat-topped with an eight-step clay ramp.

The burial mound at Bessemer, like the Funeral Mound at Macon, was a truncated pyramid with both inclusive and intrusive burials.  No structure patterns were noted on either of the two construction stages and no burials were found under or within the 3' high core mound which was surrounded by a double line of posts forming a stockade.  In the second and final stage, 22 burials were dug into the mound or around its base.  Pottery vessels were the most common mortuary offering.  A few shell beads, pottery and stone discoidals, a greenstone hoe, a number of celts, and both small-triangular and medium-sized stemmed projectile points were also found.  

The most unique artifacts from the Bessemer burial mound were a pair of copper "sun disks" somewhat similar to those at Macon, but larger.  Embossed rays radiated from the central edge to the periphery of the copper semi-circles.  They accompanied the burial of a young adult placed in an oblong pit, which measured 4.5'x2.2' and 3.5' in depth, dug from the North edge surface of Mound Stage 2.  Associated with the copper disks was a fragment of cane matting. Bits of twill plaited fabric adhered to the back of the objects.  No suspension holes were visible.

The Moundville Site on the Black Warrior River at its peak encompassed some 300 acres, with over 19 platform mounds.  It was the largest Mississippian center outside of Cahokia and had an elaborate Southern Cult Complex.  Houses were concentrated along a plaza approximately 600x200 m. long.  Most were slightly rectangular.  Opposite walls were rarely the same length and were of both trench and individually set post construction.  Most had one or more open corners, some with poles placed in the opening.  A few may have been composed of two rooms of equal size.  There were central, circular, clay-lined fire basins noted for some structures.  The pottery included both plain and engraved types similar to Nodena or Walls Phase pottery from Northeast Arkansas and Northwest Mississippi.

Vincas Stephanoitis (Southeast Archeological Conference Bulletin, No. 22, 1980) records the following dates for Moundville:

Moundville III      A.D. 1400-1550 

He further notes:  "The chronology outlined above should once and for all lay to rest... the idea that the Moundville phase originated with a site-unit intrusion from the Central Mississippi Valley... It is now quite apparent that the Moundville ceramics with counterparts in Walls and Nodena phase assemblages... occur only in the later stages of a long, local development sequence.  Undoubtedly there was a sharing of ideas between Moundville and other areas, but no major migrations were involved.

"Based on this chronology we can also make some statements regarding the temporal placement of the well-known Bessemer site in Jefferson County, Alabama.  Judging from the ceramics illustrated in the site report, it appears that much, if not all, of the mound construction at Bessemer took place during Moundville I times, as indicated by the presence of an ovoid pedestalled bottle (Mississippi Plain, var. Hale), a flaring rim bowl with incised chevrons (Carthage Incised var. Moon Lake), and a hemispherical bowl with the incised Mound Place motif (Carthage Incised var. Akron).  The evidence therefore suggests that Bessemer and Moundville were contemporaneously occupied in the early part of the sequence, but that Bessemer was abandoned by the time the Moundville site reached its greatest size and political importance."

Ceramics of the type Mississippi Plain var. Hale commonly consists of shell-tempered bottles and bowls with burnished, sometimes blackfilmed, surfaces.  Carthage Incised bowls also have burnished surfaces, with broad, "trailed," decorations incised on the inner surfaces of flaring rim bowls or on the exterior shoulder of short-necked bowls.  Var. Akron usually consists of hemi-spherical bowls on which the major design is a horizontal band of two or more lines running parallel to and just under the lip.  The band is often embellished with loops and/or folds.  Rims are sometimes decorated with effigy adornos.   These pottery types are associated with the Moundville I phase.  Arches, common on Moundville Incised jars during this phase, seem related to similar motifs appearing on Matthews Incised in the Mississippi Valley, Ramey Incised in the Cahokia area, Dallas Incised in Tennnessee, Etowah Incised in Georgia, and Lake Jackson Decorated in Georgia/Florida. 

The Langston Phase of northeastern Alabama shares a few characteristics with Macon Plateau, but is probably emergent from a Late Woodland base.  It marks the appearance of substructure mounds and elaborate Mississippian mortuary ritual in that region.  Villages were often fortified with log stockades with rectangular bastions and an enclosed line of posts paralleling the stockade, forming a protected gateway.  Houses consisted of both wall-trench types with open corners and clay lined fire pits and single post structures.  Shell tempered Early Mississippian vessels forms were present, but the majority were of wares were clay or limestone tempered, and characteristic of the Woodland pottery in the area.  Other Mississippian traits included fabric impressed salt pans, blank-face water bottles, mushroom trowels, stone discoidals, greenstone celts, and small triangular projectile points.  

According to Ned Jenkins ("Ceramic Chronology in the Gainesville Reservoir," Southeast Archeological Conference Bulletin No. 22, 1980), the Miller III Late Subphase (A.D. 900-1100) in the Gainesville Reservoir is characterized by the increased frequency of a type called Baytown Plain, but cord marked makes up 41 and fabric marked equals 17 of the ceramics.  A small amount of plain shell tempered pottery with a few loop handles first appeared in the Gainesville Phase at approximately A.D. 1000, apparently without an evolutionary sequence, mixed with the indigenous plain and cord marked types.  Burial positions change from tightly flexed to semi-extended.  Concurrently, the first rectangular structures replaced earlier round buildings and a small semi-subterranean house appeared.  This was followed by the appearance of Moundville-type incised, engraved and black-filmed ceramics as a fully developed assemblage at sites such as Kellogg in the Tombigbee Valley.  Jenkins marks the actual beginning of the Mississippian stage in the Tombigbee Basin at A.D. 1100.

Along the upper Alabama River the Woodland Autauga Complex dominated the region from Selma as far east as Macon County on the Tallapoosa River.  It is distinguished by punctated pottery, with check stamped wares possibly occuring early in the phase (when Weeden Island influences were strongest) and being replaced by comb-incised pottery. One Carbon-14 date from this phase dated A.D. 920+105.  A very few Autauga sherds were also found in West Jefferson Phase features near Birmingham.

Farther down the Alabama River, the Woodland (Weeden Island-related) Whiteoak and McLeod Complex held sway.  "Documenting the existence of an early Mississippian manifestation along the Lower Alabama River is virtually impossible since no components representing such a culture have been found there.  Perhaps the nearest documented Early or Middle Mississippian component is at Site 1Au28, 15 miles east of Selma, Alabama.  Shell tempered sherds from this component include Moundville Incised and Warrior Plain (Mississippi Plain var. Warrior).  Further upstream at Fort Toulouse a burial was excavated which produced a shell tempered vessel fragment of Moundville Incised (or Lake Jackson Decorated var. Cool Branch) as well as a vessel with mixed shell and coarse sand with the Moundville arch incised around the shoulder." (Ned J. Jenkins and Teresa Paglione, "Lower Alabama River Ceramic Chronology - A Tentative Assessment," Archaeology in Southwest Alabama: A Collection of Papers, Alabama Tombigbee Regional Commission)

"Our analyses of Mississippian ceramics from southwest Alabama indicate they are primarily a local Moundville-related complex centering around the Bottle Creek site." (Richard S. Fuller and Noel R. Stowe, "A Proposed Typology for Late Shell Tempered Ceramics in the Mobile Bay/Mobile-Tensaw Delta Region," Archaeology in Southwest Alabama: A Collection of Papers, Alabama Tombigbee Regional Commission).  These researchers date the beginning of Mississippian type plain ware to post A.D. 1000 in the study area.  They date Moundville Incised var. Bottle Creek, consisting of globular jars, similar to Warrior Plain, with incised arches around the shoulder, and loop, strap or strap handles or lugs, to ca. 1200-1450 A.D.

John W. Griffin in Investigations in Russell Cave, Russell Cave National Monument, Alabama (National Park Service Publications in Archeology #13) puts the beginning of the Mississippian Period at A.D. 1000.  His estimate is based on extra-site considerations in the area.  Early Mississippian sites in Alabama tend to be small and to postdate A.D. 1000.  Only when Moundville, with its elaborate Southern Cult manifestations, reached its zenith during the Mature Mississippian era was there a site in Alabama larger than Macon Plateau.

FLORIDA: 

In Late Woodland times, much of Northern Florida was dominated by the Weeden Island Culture.  The Mississippian Fort Walton Culture appears to have been a northwest Florida indigenous development out of the Weeden Island Culture. "(At Lake Jackson) there would seem to be enough evidence to postulate culture change under strong external influences rather than through migration and replacement of people, though this might be a factor as well." (John W. Griffin, "The Historical Archeology of Florida," The Florida Indian and His Neighbors, Inter-American Center, Rollins College, 1949)

It has been suggested that the difference in farming techniques between Fort Walton populations and the earlier Weeden Island peoples might have been one of row agriculture versus hillock and slash-and-burn cultivation.

In its earlier stages, Fort Walton ceramics were dominated by Wakulla Check Stamped with some cord marked and North West Florida Cobmarked wares.  Sites are many and small, but use of corn cobs on pottery indicates the presence of maize.  Carbon-14 dates for the Wakulla Phase at the Sycamore Site cluster in the late A.D. 800's.

The Chattahoochee Landing Phase marks the appearance of Mississippian pottery types Lake Jackson Plain, Cool Branch Incised, Point Washington Incised and Marsh Island Incised, along with the first indications of relationships to Mississippian cultures elsewhere in the Southeast.  Components from this phase occur at mound-village complexes.  No reliable Carbon-14 dates are available for this phase.

The Bristol Phase may have been contemporary with Chattahoochee Landing.  Average dates for this phase place it in the A.D. 900's with an upper date of A.D. 1056.  The Fort Walton pottery forms include open bowls, standard jars, flaring rim bowls, carinated bowls, bottles and beakers which resemble materials from Early Mississippian Rood Phase on the Chattahoochee River, a vague resemblance to Moundville assemblages, and a possible connection to the Marsh Island-like interval noted for Macon.

Five Carbon-14 dates for the Cayson Phase of Fort Walton Culture place it in the A.D. 1000-1200 range.  Pyramidal temple mounds were definitely present at Fort Walton sites by this time.  "The early dates for Fort Walton components in the Apalachicola Valley restricts the number of suitable invaders or donor cultures for diffusion to Macon Plateau, early Rood's phase, and Bessemer phase." (John F. Scarry, "The Chronology of Fort Walton Development in the Apalachicola Valley," Southeastern Archeological Conference, Bulletin 22, 1980)

Six mounds were located at the Lake Jackson Site near Tallahassee. The largest, Mound A, was a 48x65 meter rectangle 8 meters high ascended by a ramp of earth and logs.  Another mound consisted of clay layers with burials.  Small rectangular houses (3x5 m.) were constructed.  There was evidence of a circular structure 15 meters in diameter which was probably a council house.  

Village pottery was largely plain, sometimes ornamented with notched lips, small lugs or loop and strap handles.  Other vessels included bottles, casuela bowls incised with mostly curvilinear designs (volutes, scrolls, loops, circles, etc.), shallow bowls with with 4-6 lateral extensions, dipper-shaped gourd effigies, collared globular and flattened globular bowls, animal head adornos.  Some vessels were red slipped or had red/white paint.  A few vessels bore incised Southern Cult symbols.  Other artifacts from the site include copper celts, copper bird figures with the forked eye motif, repousse copper plates with dancing figures identical to those from Etowah, marine shell gorgets and beads.

A copper long-nosed god mask (similar to those from Gahagan and Aztalan) was found at the Grant Mound in Florida.  At the Tatham Mound a copper plume hair ornament was found in a burial.  A nearby burial contained a wooden, copper-covered baton related to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.  It has been dated to A.D. 1016-1165.  An incised vessel from the site depicted such batons and human hands. (Jeffrey Mitchem, "A Radiocarbon Date for a Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Artifact from Florida," LAMAR Briefs, No. 14, 1989)

The following is quoted from John F. Scarry's "The Chronology of Fort Walton Development in the Upper Apalachicola Valley, Florida:"  "While the Willey model of late invasion by Middle Mississippian groups has remained a popular picture of culture change in northwest Florida, more recent data have suggested alternative explanations.  From very early, the close typological resemblances between Weeden Island and Fort Walton ceramics was recognized and used to suggest an evolution of Weeden Island cultures into Fort Walton... There would seem to be enough evidence of continuity to postulate culture change under strong external influences rather than through migration and replacement of peoples, although this may have been a factor as well (Griffin 1949)"

Based on data gathered in the Upper Apalachicola Basin, Percy and Brose presented a model of change from Weeden Island to Fort Walton.  "With continuing competion for land, the situation of many small autonomous villages was adequate for controlling conflict among village groups.  It was at this point that Weeden Island people began to adopt new models for social organization presented to them by Early Mississippian communities in Centeral Georgia, as at Macon... It can be suggested that the change from Weeden Island to Fort Walton involved two main sets of developments, both needed to solve the problem of competion for agricultural land.  One was a change in farming methods, including a shift to a more intensive cultivation system and also, perhaps, the introduction of new plants such as beans... A second development was the establishment of more efficient institutions of social control; it is suggested as a general hypothesis that this involved a shift from a tribal to a chiefdom level of social organization." (Percy and Brose, 1974)

To the west of the Fort Walton area, the Pensacola Culture is distinguished from Fort Walton Culture solely on the basis of location and a few differences in pottery traits (as one moves west, the percentage of shell-tempering increases and sand-temper decreases at Pensacola sites).  In North-central Florida, the Alachua Tradition of cord marked ceramics continued into the A.D. 1000 period, with the Hickory Pond Culture that added the use of corn cobs to roughen surfaces of their pottery.  They lived in dispersed villages in circular houses about 7.6 meters in diameter.  Their small triangular Pinellas projectile points are similar to the widespread Mississippian triangular points.  Only two small sand burial mounds are known from this culture.  

Southward, along the Gulf Coast, the Safety Harbor Culture seems to have developed out of Weeden Island.  Jeffrey Mitchem ("Redefining Safety Harbor: Late Prehistoric/Protohistoric Archaeology in West Peninsular Florida," LAMAR Briefs, No. 13, 1989) proposed a phase squence for Safety Harbor including Englewood (A.D. 900-1000) and Pinellas (A.D. 1000-1500) which would be at least partially contemporary with Macon Plateau.  

"Griffin has suggested that there may be a continuous range between the Ft. Walton and Safety Harbor Cultures with graduations in time and space as l) the parent Weeden Island Culture was different, 2) as the Mississippian influences penetrated through time, and 3) as the source of Mississippian influence is left farther behind in traveling southward.  This same conception might be fruitfully applied to the relation between Ft. Walton and the Later Period at Rood's... As is the case with the Lamar Culture of central Georgia, which is also a balance of Mississippian and indigenous elements... we do not know whether the later Rood's Landing people are descendants of the invaders or of the invaded." (Joseph R. Caldwell, Early Georgia, Vol. 2, 1955, "Investigations at Rood's Landing, Steward County, Georgia")

NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA: 

Napier and Swift Creek ceramics occur on appreciable numbers of sites in the northeast Georgia Piedmont, but decrease in incidence as one proceeds further east into the South Carolina Piedmont.  David Anderson ("Middle Woodland Societies of the Lower South Atlantic Slope: A View from Georgia and South Carolina," Early Georgia, Vol. 13, Nos. 1 & 2, 1985) says the lack of these diagnostic ceramics "forces us to accept that much of Piedmont South Carolina was depopulated during this time - something hard to accept... A possible solution to this problem, currently the subject of some controversy, is that plain and simple stamped wares - traditionally described as Cartersville and/or Connestee - extend later in time than previous thought, to about A.D. 800 - A.D. 1000, and effectively encompass the interval in question...

"Thought along these lines has been largely forced by recent radiocarbon dates from both Georgia and South Carolina dating simple stamped ceramics to the interval from roughly A.D. 800 - A.D. 1200..."  Contenporaneity, and some co-occurrence with Swift Creek and Napier ceramics is expected; these distributions may reflect the geographic extent, and overlap, of different cultural systems."

Platform mounds at Garden Creek, North Carolina, have been dated to the A.D. 600-800 period.  "It was at about this same time that rectilinear complicated stamping was first applied to ceramics in the South Applachians.  This style of surface finish is common on Napier and Woodstock ceramics of northern Georgia, but is only occasionally present on Hamilton ceramics of eastern Tennessee and Connestee ceramics of western North Carolina..." (Duane King, The Cherokee Nation, A Troubled History, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville).  

Between about A.D. 1000 and 1250, King lists three distinct subregional developments of Mississippian culture that emerged in the South Applachians.  These began after A.D. 1000 with the Early Etowah phase in the Piedmont region, the Hiwassee Island phase of the Ridge and Valley province, and the Early Pisgah phase in summit region of northestern Tennessee, western North Carolina and northwestern South Carolina.  These phases lasted until A.D. 1250.

According to Roy Dickens, Jr. (Cherokee Prehistory, The Pisgah Phase in the Appalachian Summit Region, University of Tennessee Press, 1976), Pisgah represented the development of a primarily Mississippian cultural pattern but does not compare in size (1/4 to six acres) and complexity to such centers to the south and west.  Pisgah sites are found as far north as Lee County, Virginia, and south to Oconee County, South Carolina.

Platform mounds were in use at a number of sites during this period and possibly earthlodges at other sites.  All three phases exhibit rectilinear complicated stamping, with Etowah and Hiwassee Island designs being identical, and Pisgah Complicated Stamped resembling the Etowah Line Block motif.  A distinctive feature of Pisgah ceramics is a collared and punctated jar rim similar to those from the northern Iroquois area.  

After A.D. 1250, Pisgah ceramics became restricted mainly to the Blue Ridge basins of western North Carolina and northwestern South Carolina.  Rectilinear motifs were bolder and some curvilinear stamping was present, with check stamping as a minority.  Southern Cult influences are present.  During this phase, Pisgah corresponds to Savannah in the Carolina Coastal Plain, Pee Dee in the Carolina Piedmont, Etowah/Wilbanks in North Georgia, Dallas in East Tennessee, and the Woodside Phase of southeastern Kentucky.  Finally, the Lamar culture spread into the region.  Its pottery is first used along with the ealier styles, then replaces them (Qualla Phase).

Pisgah villages of this phase were located adjacent to fertile bottomlands and ranged in size from a few houses to perhaps as many as 50 arranged around a plaza.  Houses were square or slightly rectangular with rounded corners.  They had raised clay hearths in the center and vestibules that extended out from one of the walls.  The interior might be divided into several small rooms.  Certain large villages contained earthlodges and houses on earthen platform mounds.  At the Garden Creek and Peachtree Mound sites, substructure mounds were raised over collapsed earthlodges.   Burials are made in both central-chamber and side-chamber tombs with the openings covered by logs or, occasionally, stone slabs.  Logs or stone slabs were used to construct formalized tombs or vaults.  

Square or slightly rectangular houses, averaging about 20' in length, constructed of individually set, vertical posts, were found at the Warren Wilson Site in Buncombe County, North Carolina.  Roofs were supported by four large posts set at points equidistant and 4-5' in from the outer walls.  Small interior posts sometimes placed between the larger posts seem to indicate a central enclosure.  Floors appeared slightly lower than the surrounding ground and there was a clay platform hearth at the center.  There was evidence for short entrance wall trenches with occasional "wind screens."  

Burials were sometimes made in the house floors.  The central hearths were removed, burial made, and another hearth constructed over the pit.  Artifacts consisted of shell necklaces and bracelets, shell gorgets usually found with infants (incised decoration consisting of coiled rattlesnake with forked eye motif; dancer motif; and cross or quadrilateral square), perforated marginella shells sewed to garments, pottery disks and miniature vessels, and small elbow pipes.

At the 12-acre Garden Creek Site in Haywood County, North Carolina, earlier Woodland Connestee Phase mounds appear to have been reused by Pisgah people.  The early Pisgah village was surrounded by a palisade with rectangular bastions.

In 1919, Mound #1 was described as conical, averaging 80' in diameter by 18' high.  A concentration of river boulders underlay part of the earliest stage.  Under the eastern 1/3 of the mound were two roughly square clay ridges with depressed centers representing the collapsed remains of Mississippian Period semi-subterranean, earth-covered buildings.  A radiocarbon date from Garden Creek registered A.D. 1435+70.

One lodge was 24' square with the floor 2.2' below ground level.  A 4.5x11' platform, 1' high, was left at the southeastern corner.  Four central supports measured 1-1.5' in diameter and outer wall posts were located 2' inside the excavation.  A central platform hearth was located in the center of the floor and a carefully dug drainage trough surrounded its base and led to a sump hole on the west side of the interior.    A second lodge, built later, was 28' square and 1.2' deep.  A roughly square 17' central area was .6' deeper, leaving a bench 6' wide around the interior wall.  Four post molds for interior supports were placed 6' in from the walls.  The central hearth was an oval basin 4x6' across and .4' deep.  It also had a narrow trough and sump hole.  A connecting passageway indicated that the two lodges had been used, at least for a time, simultaneously.

After the earthlodges were demolished, a layer of river boulders was placed over the area which was then covered with earth fill and a clay cap to form a flat-topped mound.

At Garden Creek, many burials were flexed and placed in simple, side chamber and central chamber pits.  The most common grave goods were conch columella beads, tubular shell beads, shell gorgets , and knobbed shell ear pins.  A few ground stone disks, celts, mica disks, conch shell bowls, red ocher, panther claws and perforated bones were found.  There was only one pottery vessel which was inverted next to a child's skull.  Many adult crania were artificially fronto-parieta-occipitally deformed.  Burial pits were often in house floors (sometimes beneath the hearth which was subsequently rebuilt), associated with a palisade or wall around a platform mound base, or intrusive into mound stages.  Pits were sometimes sealed with logs.

At Town Creek, a Pee Dee Phase site on Little River in North Carolina, earth-covered structures similar to those at Garden Creek were uncovered.  However, the floors in these structures did not appear to have been sunken.  Carbon 14 dates from this site are A.D. 1205+140, 1280+140, 1350+140, and 1355+50.  Pee Dee Phase sherds were found in direct association with Pisgah Phase sherds at the Garden Creek and Warren Wilson Sites.

At the Chauga Site, in northwestern South Carolina, clay and sand caps were placed over successive mound stages and boulders incorporated into the construction.  A palisaded enclosure was associated with mound margins and trough-like ditches with outer "embankments", similar to one on the west featheredge of Etowah Mound B, were found at the bases of early mound stages.  Three parallel log molds were embedded in the clay base at the northeast side and north corner of Mound Stage 1.  Masses of water-worn boulders were placed in the base of the clay cap on three sides of Mound Stage 2 and four remnants of logs were found spotted along the edges of two flanks.

Southern Cult objects were scarce at Chauga.  Affiliations were indicated by two copper plates, one showing a human figure that is unlike those found at Etowah, a shell gorget, shell spoons, two conch dippers, cut square shell disks, and shell beads are noted.  

It has been said that the Chauga, Tugalo and Estatoe sites seem to derive from a late Etowah/Savannah focus with gradual change and replacement leading to full-blown Lamar, but there is one mystery.  "Lamar Complicated Stamp has a heavy distribution through all levels down to Level H...  It is strange that such a strong deposit should occur down to base of cut, two feet in this instance, resting on subsoil... Etowah Complicated Stamp shows up in impressive strength in Level G, 18-21 inches, with only a sparse sample from Level H over sterile base and a sprinkling in the supper zones to Level C., 6-9 inches.  The occupation for the Etowah period would seem to be definitely concentrated along a plane nearly two feet beneath the present plowed surface.  What is puzzling is the equally strong showing of Lamar Complicated on the same horizon.  The depths are sufficient here to insure protection from modern cultivation but the likelihood of some marked churning up of the midden during the time of Indian habitation is increased.  Of the Woodland types, Woodstock shows in the deeper levels as expected.  Check stamped and Simple Stamped persist in all levels, with a strong representation at the top as both of these occur in the Lamar complex..."  (A. R. Kelly and R. S. Neitzel, "The Chauga Site in Oconee County, South Carolina," University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology Series, Report No. 3)

Carbon 14 dates at Chauga were A.D. 1070+150 (premound base), 1120+150 (fill of Mound Stage 1), 770+150 (Mound Stage 3).  The authors of the above report noted the discrepancy in these dates.

TENNESSEE AND KENTUCKY: 

Hiwassee Island and the Norris Basin Small Log Townhouse sites in Tennessee have often been compared to Macon Plateau.  More recently, archeologists have questioned the nature of Early Mississippian cultures in these areas.  "Although the appearance of the Mississippian cultures in the eastern Tennessee Valley has been interpreted as simple cultural replacement with little effect on either the indigenous Woodland groups or the intrusive Mississippians, there is some evidence that the cultural transition may also have been more complex in this area.  There now appears to have been intereaction between these two groups, and even a possible internal development of Mississippian culture in the area... 

"During the initial contact, some Woodland peoples may have relinquished certain desirable portions of the  major river valleys.  That this contact was peaceful in some instances is suggested by the absence of what could be called heavily fortified sites... Early Mississippian settlements in the Little Tennessee and Clinch valleys seem to be small and dispersed, and some large Early Mississippian sites such as Hiwassee Island were not palisaded during the earliest part of their existence.  At present, it seems that at least some of the contact was peaceful and some kind of accomodation had developed." (Charles Faulkner, "The Mississippian-Woodland Transition in the Middle South," Southeast Archeological Conference Bulletin, No. 15, 1972).

Faulkner describes a number of sites with a mixture of Woodland-Mississippian elements, including the Bowman Farm site which yielded a date of A.D. 1190+150.  He notes that the most conclusive evidence for a Woodland-Mississippian transition in the area comes from the Martin Farm Site which produced material from two Early Mississippian phases that were designated Emergent Mississippian and Developed Hiwassee Island.  

The first phase exhibited both limestone- and shell-tempered plain and cord marked globular jars with flaring rims and occasional loop handles, along with minor amounts of Woodstock Complicated Stamped pottery; Hamilton Triangular projectile points, wall-trench houses with open corners, and a shallow ditch about five to nine feet in width and 1.5 feet deep within which the majority of Emergent Mississippian artifacts were recovered.  A palisade may have been associated with this ditch.  Faulkner suggests a date of A.D. 900 for this assemblage.

The latter phase included jars with loop handles, Hiwassee Island Red Filmed bowls, and fabric-impressed salt pans, and both wall-trench and single-post dwellings.  It is to this phase that the Hiwassee Island Mounds and Village seems to belong.  This site consisted of a village of perhaps 25-30 acres with a truncated substructure mound and the vestiges of another lower platform mound, along with a number of small conoidal burial mounds dating to the Late Woodland Hamilton Culture.  

One burial in these Hamilton mounds seems to have been in a tomb covered with log or bark.  The majority of the burials were flexed and placed directly on the ground, or occasionally in shallow pits, covered with soil.  Sometimes there was an additional layer of mussel shell.  Shell beads and projectile points were the most frequent artifacts found in the graves.  No burials dating to the Early Mississippian Hiwassee Island Culture were located and it is possible this culture had cemetary areas, as did some of the Woodland cultures in the area.  People of the succeeding Dallas Culture seem to have buried their dead in their village area on any available plot of earth large enough for a grave. (Thomas Lewis and Madeline Kneberg, Hiwassee Island, An Archaeological Account of Four Tennessee Indian Peoples, University of Tennessee Press, 1946)  

Cord marking, which was commonly applied by the Woodland Hamilton people preceding the Hiwassee Island Culture, occurs with considerable frequency on Hiwassee Island ware.  Caldwell (Early Georgia, Vol. 2, 1955, "Investigations at Rood's Landing") notes:  "The cordmarked decoration at Hiwassee Island may be an indication that these people are already partly acculturated to the Tennessee area when first we meet them."  Hiwassee Island Complicated Stamped, another type found in Tennessee accompanying the typical Early Mississippian Bibb Plain type pottery, is a shell-tempered equivalent of Woodland-derived Etowah Complicated Stamped.  It was probably borrowed from Georgia, which was the center for this form of decoration.  The appearance of Etowah Complicated Stamp is usually dated to around A.D. 1000-1100.

The type Etowah Incised appears (probably late) in the Hiwassee Island assemblage.  This type is similar to the types Ramey, Matthews, O'Byam, Moundville, Marsh Island, Point Washington Incised, etc., and Lake Jackson Decorated, characterized by "soup plates" and jars with incising on the shoulders or collars of forms that are sometimes "pumpkin" lobed, from numerous Mississippian cultures.  

"Another center for earth-covered ceremonial structures is Tennessee... Of the two types reported in the Norris Basin (Web 1938), the earlier small-log town houses are related to the Macon structures... (They) are similar in the possession of baked-clay 'furniture,' usually just one large seat and an alter in Tennessee rather than the elaborate setup found in Macon... They differ in that all the small-log town houses are square, as are all such early edifices recovered archeologically in the Eastern United States except the Macon specimen...  The Norris Basin houses also differ from the Macon building in the lack of a four-post center arrangement... As Fairbanks suggests, this four-post arrangement is a typical Caddo feature, and may thus indicate that Macon drew first from the probable homeland of the earth-covered house... Other ceremonial structures that belong in the Early Mississippi period are those at Hiwassee Island... Although they are generally similar to the small-log structures in shape, wall construction, and in the use of molded clay fireplaces and seats, Kneberg and Lewis do not believe these buildings were earth covered."

"None of the evidence supports the hypothesis that these buildings were entirely covered with earth.  In the first place, the tapering ends of small, flexible poles used as wall uprights would not have afforded a sufficiently strong roof framework, even though interwoven, to support any great amount of weight..." (Thomas Lewis and Madeline Kneberg, Hiwassee Island, University of Tennessee Press, 1946).  Lodges at neither location had projecting entrance-ways.

Current studies indicate that an emergent Woodland-Mississippian Martin Farm Phase in the Hiwassee Island area may predate the pure Early Mississippian culture which is now thought to have originated around A.D. 1000.  This helps to confirm Charles Fairbanks's theories that the preponderance of evidence from the Hiwassee Island/Norris Basin suggests that the Tennessee sites are slightly later than Macon Plateau.

Other sites in Tennessee have Early Mississippian components.  "...the Obion site on the headwaters of the Obion River in Henry County is one of the earliest Mississippian communities in West Tennessee and could have been the origin for early Mississippian influences in the western Tennessee Valley.  Obion appears to have been a large ceremonial center consisting of seven mounds grouped around a plaze.  Although the mounds were tested in 1913 and 1940, virtually nothing is known about the village except that both wall-trench and single-post houses were constructed... An extensive study of this site subsequently demonstrated that both clay- and shell-tempered pottery were used throught the occupation, with a possible increase in shell-tempered pottery during a late phase... Charcoal from the midden under the largest substructure mound at this site dated A.D. 1040+110 and A.D. 990+150 years...

A similar site that could have played an even more critical role in the emerging Mississippian culture in West Tennessee is the Pinson Site... At least two mounds were identified as Mississippian and re-investigation of the wall-trench house (found at this site) suggested a Mississippian structure superimposed on a Woodland village... Two dates (A.D. 850+120 and 1130+110) on charcoal from the burned house appears to validate the Mississippian identification for this structure... it is possible there is a transitional Mississippian culture at Pinson that developed from an indigenous Woodland complex.

"There is also evidence that an Early Mississippian culture was present in the western valley.  Although this culture--called Harmon's Creek--is distinct from Obion, it does share a number of traits with this later manifestation.  These traits include wall-trench houses, usually with open corners, clay-tempered pottery, sherd discs, flint spade or hoe, and polished flint adzes or chisels.  The most striking differences appear to be in settlement plan and surface treatment of ceramics.  Substructure mounds are not found on pure Harmon's Creek sites and the settlement plan at the type station is a small dispersed hamlet rather than the large nucleated village found at Obion... The pottery found in these houses is typically Woodland in surface finish; predominant types are Mulberry Creek and Harmon's Creek Cordmarked... It seems likely that it represents an emergent Mississippian culture developing out of a Late Woodlannd base at the same time Early Mississippian cultures are appearing in other localities of the middle south.

"If Harmons's Creek is the earliest Mississippian phase in the western valley, then Late Mississippian phases such as Gray are possibly the result of indigenous development rather than migration from the Duck and Cumberland valleys.  Although there are certain traits at the Gray Farm Site that could be considered 'late' Mississippian (negative painted bottles and engraved plates)... there also are traits that could be considered early in the Mississippian sequence; one of the most pervasive is the clay-tempered pottery that occurs most frequently in the lower levels of the site.  It also was noted that some sherds combined what were called 'Woodland and Mississippi trait elements'...The other significant feature is a sequence of house types, the earliest being both the circular wall-trench type and the open-corner rectangular wall-trench type... At the Eveland Tract at Dickson Mounds Park in Illinois, a circular wall-trench house was dated at A.D. 930+100.  In Ohio, a similar structure was found in a Late Woodland Cole complex mound that was dated at A.D. 1135+95.. 

It should be noted, however, that the round wall-trench house type also is found in what appears to be a later Mississippian context and some may have had a very specialized function.  At the Kincaid Site in southern Illinois, a round wall-trench pattern was discovered under a truncated mound.  The large fireplace in the center of this structure suggested a sweat lodge.  This structure type also occurs at the closely related Angel Site in southwestern Indiana where two were found in diffferent areas of the village.  These features also were interpreted as possible sweat lodges or winter 'hot houses.' There are two radiocarbon dates of A.D. 1420+100 and A.D. 1370+100 years for the Angel Site that are acceptable. (Charles Faulkner, Southeastern Archeological Conference, Bulletin #15, 1972, "The Mississippian- Woodland Transition in the Middle South")

"Hot houses" seem to have early antecedents in the deep South. The following description of Woodland Period structures from Tennessee is exerpted from "Middle Woodland Structures in the Upper Duck River Valley," Tennessee Archaeological Society Newsletter, Vol. 28, No. 3, 1983:

"Another structure typical of the Middle Woodland period was the 'hothouse.'  The hothouses excavated during the Normandy Project are the earliest known examples of this type of structure and are forerunners of the 'council houses' common to later southeastern Indian groups.

"The hothouses were sometimes double the size of arbor houses and were intended to hold heat.  They had maze-like entryways that acted as airlocks.  They were sealed with a roof of bark or thatch and some may have been capped with a layer of earth or sod for extra insulation.

"The heavy roof required a very sturdy structure.  To support the weight, four timbers 8 to 12 inches in diameter and 13 to 15 feet tall were set into carefully prepared postholes and chinked with rocks.  These four posts supported a pyramid of crisscrossed logs which in turn supported the upper end of heavy beams that sloped outward to form rafters.  The lower ends of the rafters sometimes rested on the earth or in shallow postholes but were most often supported by a low wall..."  These "hothouses" had firepits containing stones to retain heat.

The "arbor houses" mentioned above are described as usually circular, 20-30' in diameter, constructed of slender poles or sapplings set in postholes that sloped outward about 15 degrees.  The poles were then bent inward and lashed to a central post.  A third type of Woodland structure was square or rectangular and also lacked heavy timbers.

The Jonathan Creek Site in Kentucky is often referenced when sites related to Macon Plateau are mentioned.  Available literature simply records the date for the site as pre-1300 A.D. It was a small village of about 11 acres with two low mounds surrounded by a bastioned palisade.  Its closest relationship to Macon Plateau seems to be its pottery assemblage, one-third of which was a "salt pan" type generally similar to Hawkins Fabric Marked and McDougal Plain.  Another type was close to Bibb Plain, but about half of the jars had lobed bodies, a form rare at Macon.  Not present at Macon are single- or multiple-pointed lugs below the lip of vessels at Jonathan Creek, along with plates and fish effigy bowls.  Fairbanks and others have stated that these are later Mississippian forms.  

One of the frequently mentioned Macon Plateau connections is to the Old Village Focus at the great Cahokia site across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.  Old Village materials are now included in what is called the Fairmount Phase, A.D. 900-1050, with transition into the Stirling and Moorehead Phases, A.D. 1050-1250), and the Sand Prairie Phase (A.D. 1250-1500) when "Southern Cult" objects first appeared at the site.

While the Cahokia complex started as groupings of small settlements, these eventually merged into a Mississippian metropolis.  Its huge Monks Mound is the largest in the country.

The center of the town was palisaded. "The function of Mississippian palisades has been much debated.  One result, if not a function, of palisading is to partition the community into interior and exterior precincts.  At Cahokia, for example, the area within the stock is considered to have been the ceremonial precinct... the Mitchell site, a major satellite of Cahokia, which was essentially surrounded by water on three sides, may also have been palisaded."  (Lynne Gail Goldstein, Mississippian Morturary Practices, A Case Study of Two Cemeteries in the Lower Illinois Valley, Northwestern University Archeological Program)

In "Cultural Change and Continuity in Eastern United States Archaeology" (Man in Northeastern North America, Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, Vol. 3), James B. Griffin states:  "The ceramic complex of the Old Village Focus is distinctive.  The tall beaker is suggestive of certain Weeden Island forms while a shallow plate with short vertical rim has analogous forms in the Coles Creek (Woodland) Aspect... A type of limestone-tempered pottery, almost always with a red slip, which I called Monks Mound Red, is found at Cahokia... The running scroll and carefully executed incised decoration on the shoulder of pots belonging to the Ramey Incised type is not a part of the early Middle Mississippi cultures of the southeast.  Therefore it may be suggested that we have here a possible origin of the designs and shapes found in the Lamar Incised style... The "cooking pot" with its small loop handle and nodal elaborations is the most plausible link between this Old Village level and the jars associated with the Macon and Hiwassee foci.  In many other ceramic features, however, there are strong differences."

Powell Polished Plain pottery is similar to Bibb Plain and Monks Mound Red Filmed is related to Brown's Mount Plain, but they do not seem early enough to be ancestral.  The "soup plate" and decorated forms, characterized by single or parallel horizontal incising on collars of jars that sometimes have bulging or "pumpkin" lobing and up to 8 loop handles, are common in Mississippian Ramey Incised pottery from Cahokia.  These types may be related to the the types (Matthews, O'Byam, Lake Jackson, Marsh Island, Etowah, Moundville Incised, etc.) that appear at Mississippian sites in every region.  Such decorations do not, however, seem to be present at Macon until very late in the Macon Plateau sequence and then are relatively rare, becoming more common during Stubbs Phase Lamar.

Archeological reports from outside the immediate Cahokia area date the Late Bluff or Jersey Bluff (Central Illinois Valley) Emergent Mississippian cultures to A.D. 800-1050.  Their pottery is primarily cordmarked, with limestone and some grog tempering.  "The major period of Mississippian occupation seems to have been roughtly A.D. 1100-1300... Mississippian occupations seem to be restricted to the western side of the main valley.  Central towns with thick village middens are usually characterized by a single large platform mound situated at one end of a plaza surrounded by village area (usually about 8-14 acres).

"There was intentional axial positioning of burials, the preferred position being with the head pointing south... Nearly all Mississippian mortuary sites in the region are located on bluff edges adjacent to main village areas.  Most common are sites with small conical mounds; burials were placed i graves in a hill, then subsequently covered by a mound of earth.  Dickson Mounds is atypical of this pattern... Within the mass graves at Dickson, secondary burial  is obvious, suggesting either differential treatment or the exposure of some burials for other reasons.  Charnel houses may have been used... We find within the central Illinois Valley region an extension and regionalization of the behavior seen at Cahokia...

"In the lower Illinois valley, most Mississippian sites are very small settlements.  Most have little pottery on the surface.  The majority are located along the Illinois Valley corridor, although the incidence of sites occurring farther up the secondary valleys is greater in Mississippian than in most other prehistoric periods."  (Lynne Gail Goldstein, Mississippian Mortuary Practices, A Case Study of Two Cemeteries in the Lower Illinois Valley, Northwestern University Archeological Program)

Gregory Perino describes the Schield Site near Eldred, Illinois (Mississippian Site Archaeology in Illinois, Site Reports from the St. Louis and Chicago Areas, Illinois Archaeological Survey, Inc., Bulletin #8, 1971) as an acculturation of indigeneous Woodland people on an Old Village time level between A.D. 1000 and 1150.  He notes a rapid, progressive change from flexed, to semi-flexed to extended and bundle burials.  Triangular arrowheads embedded in bones and crushed skulls indicate warfare.  

Exotic materials attest to widespread trade, though Perino suggests that many objects (redstone pipe, copper-covered earspools, shell beads and pendants, discoidals, multi-notched triangular projectile points, and Ramey knives) may have been manufactured at Cahokia.  "Shells for the manufacture of objects could have been acquired from three sources:  1. from the southern Atlantic coastal area through contemporary Mississippi groups in Georgia and Tennessee; 2. from the Lower Mississippi Gulf Coast via the Mississippi people living in that area; and 3. from Caddoan sources who got them from the Gulf areas of Louisiana and Texas."

Pottery types combining both Woodland and Mississippian traits were found, along with Ramey Incised, Powell Plain and Cahokia Red Filmed ware.  Perino notes:  "Indications that southern ceramic influences might have reached into this area were noted on two vessels found in burials which were adjacent to each other.  The first was a large angular-shouldered jar that had thin, high-looping handles with nodes on them.  The second, a similar vessel, was lighter in color but also had noded handles.  The two vessels had exact counterparts in the Tennessee-Cumberland area."  They are also identical to vessels from the Macon Plateau. 

In relation to burial practices at Schield, he says:  "Late Woodland mortuary practices were similar to those used by the Hopewell and included the use of log-covered subfloor tombs...  the tombs acted as mortuary retention places similar to charnel houses.  That was precisely what most of the Illlinois Hopewell log tombs and log-covered subfloor pits had been used for... Infants and young children were included for burial in Late Woodland mounds and cemeteries but, with the emergence of the new Mississippi mortuary practices and its social order, individuals of all ages were buried in the cemetery... Exotic artifacts were found in association with Burial 66, and the skeleton of an infant lay near the left hand while two large femurs lay next to the child."  It might be of interest that filed (or edge-notched) teeth were occasionally found in both males and females at the Schield Site, Krueger Site, and at Cahokia and other related sites.  

In closing, he states:  "By comparing contemporary Cahokia and local sites with the Schield Site, we are better able to understand how Cahokia was developed through the incorporation of a numerically larger number of Late Woodland peoples.  I believe that a relatively small group of Mississippians were instrumental in effecting the acculturation of Jersey Bluff groups into a Mississippian way of life.  There are those who believe that Mississippian culture originated at Cahokia with the union of various loosely organized Late Woodland groups; this led to the creation of a new ceramic assemblage and to a Mississippi culture that spread southward.  However, this theory has not been well supported.  I see two factors that were highly instrumental in the development of the Mississippi culture; first, the introduction of agriculture into the Mississippi Valley on a grand scale, and second, the introduction of a socio-religious force that, in the Cahokia area, utilized the vast man power to construct huge temple mounds which, in themselves, indicate the presence of considerable authority.  If such forces began at Cahokia out of the evolution of Late Woodland, why do we find evidence of a Mississippian that has already developed at Cahokia from Late Woodland?  The Mississippi could equally have come from outside the area."

Paul Parmalee, Illinois State Museum, records the finding of paired raccoon mandibles, the ascending ramus of each having been cut off immediately behind the last molar, one at each ear of a child's burial at the Schield Site.  Moorehead sites the discovery of copper-covered deer jaws from the Mitchell Mound group 8 miles north of Monks Mound.  These jaws appear from his description to be cut in the same manner as the Macon Plateau puma specimen.  They are however, perforated like Hopewell specimen.  The pottery complex and other traits from the site seem definitely earlier than Macon Plateau.

In Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri, the inhabitants of the Steed-Kisker Phase constructed semi-subterranean structures with sub-rectangular floor plans, central fire pit, and covered entrance passageways.  Roofs were supported by four large center posts and smaller wall posts.  These buildings ranged from 13 to 18' in diameter.  A second type of structure was rectangular with rounded corners, four center posts, wall posts, but no evidence of an entrance passage.  Both types of buildings seem to have been covered with wattle and daub and to have been residential in nature.  Carbon-14 dates for this phase at the Steed-Kisker, Friend and Foe, Gresham, and McClaron Sites were in the A.D. 970-1260 span.  

People of this culture grew maize of 8, 10 and 12-row varieties. It was mainly northern flint with some mixture of older types of flint corn.  Villages were located in the valleys along the smaller streams emptying into the Missouri River.  At some sites, houses were dispersed 200-300 feet apart and roughly paralleled the stream banks.

Pottery was similar to Ramey Incised from the Cahokia area and included jars similar in shape to Bibb Plain but with incised decorations that, as has been noted earlier, are rare at Macon until Stubbs Phase Lamar.  Burial was in large cemetaries on sloping hillsides with a few mound burials.  Conch shell disk beads were found at the site, as were triangular projectile points, and equal-arm and elbow pipes.

At the Cherry Valley Site, Cross County, Arkansas, a circular structure 10 meters in diameter built on the original ground surface, with a 6-meter long entrance way and four 40 cm. diameter postholes around a large, rectangular fire basiN, was Carbon-14 dated to A.D. 1102.  However, "The Cherry Valley Carbon 14 dates... are presently interpreted as being too early since the ceramic complex is similar to the Spoon River and Trappist phases in Illinois.  In addition, sherds from vessels similar to those vound at Cherry Valley have been found at St. Francis phase (late) sites on the other side of Crowley's Ridge." (Dan Morse, "Introducing Northeastern Arkansas Prehistory," Bulletin of the Arkansas Archeological Society, Vol. 10, 1969)  

At the Hoecake Site in Arkansas, one mound covered the remains of three collapsed log tombs with 14 burials.  Pottery at these sites was similar to some of the Macon wares.  At the Towsahgy (Beckwith Fort) Site which is later than Hoecake, another pottery type called Matthews Plain included a so-called "moccasin pot" almost identical in shape to one on display in the Ocmulgee National Monument museum, though the Towasahgy specimen was decorated with incising.  This asymetrical shoe-shape also appeared in Weeden Island ceramics from Georgia and Florida.

The Zebree Site "...has obvious close connections with the Cahokia Fairmount phase.  At Cahokia, the Fairmount phase is the earliest Mississippian manifestation yet defined, and is thought to date between A.D. 900 and 1050...  (at Zebree) there is little doubt that we are dealing with the outright transplant (site-unit instrusion) of a sophisticated agricultural community into a frontier region.  The Early Mississippian component at Zebree occurs on top of a Late Woodland Baytown deposit.  It is characterized by a completely new Mississippian assemblage which includes shell-tempered Varney Red Filmed and Wickliffe Cord-Marked ceramics...  Suddently, a strong and viable Early Mississippian occupation appears for which there is no evidence of local development.  In sharp contrast to the diffuse Late Woodland occupation, the Early Mississippian component began with a concentrated village surrounded by a ditched palisade.  This palisade ditch was dug immediately after the site was occupied... The establishment of an Early Mississippian outpost at Zebree is followed by an apparent local social amalgamation of Late Woodland people into an expanding Big Lake phase... (which) subsequently developed into the later Middle Mississippian phases."  (Fletcher Jolly, III, "Zebree, Early Mississippian Expansion and the Cahokia Microlith Industry," Tennessee Archaeological Society Newsletter, Vol. 21, No. 4)

Zebree was characterized by rectangular houses, some with shallow wall trenches.  Pottery included Mississippi Plain (Neeley's Ferry Plain, Varney Red Filmed, and Wickliffe Thick in the form of a coarsely shell tempered globular funnel. (Dan and Phyllis Morse, Archeology of the Central Mississippi Valley, Academic Press, 1983).  Jolly states that house construction, burial mode, ceramic temper, vessel shape and decoration, raw materials employed, the microlith industry and certain tools such as the barbed harpoon are all similar to those at Cahokia.   

In Northeast Arkansas, a Woodland-Mississippian substage is dated A.D. 900-1100.  During this time period, the Big Lake Phase is represented by villages situated on natural knolls along an extinct terrace of the Little River.  None of the sites have associated mounds.  Pottery is almost all either sand or shell tempered with a few Mississippian types, some with an orange or black polished surface (Neeley's Ferry Plain), or red-filmed (Varney Red Filmed).  Most wares, however, are earlier cord marked types and some Woodland decorations, such as lip-impressing, appear on Mississippian forms.  Pottery disks and stone discoidals were used.

On the same time leve, the Hyneman Phase near Weona, two sites produced predominately grog-tempered ceramics and the Baytown "flowerpot" shape was present, along with net-impressed wares.  These and other artifacts indicate a group changing from Woodland to Mississippian.  The Adams Phase near Newport is different, but also represents a mixture of Woodland and Mississippian ideas.

After A.D. 1200, large multiple-mound social-ceremonial centers appear and around A.D. 1400, there apparently was increased fortification and political unification. Ties with Cahokia, Etowah, Moundville and the Link Sites are evident in such artifacts as a seated human figurine from Schugtown, copper-plated eagle from Rose Mound, copper-covered earspools, ceremonial celts, copper-covered wooden bear canine, incised shell gorgets (discoidal throwers), etc.  The Walls-Pecan Point Phase in this area and around Memphis appears to be the last Mississippian culture.

The Village Farmer Tradition (A.D. 900-1200) at Sikeston, Missouri, included several low platform mounds ranging from 3' to 11' high, some surmounted by ramps, with a plaza, and house "depressions," 1-3' deep basins, 15-30' in diameter with central hearths. An embankment 3-5' high by 15' wide enclosed 40-50 acres. 

Burials were spaced 2-3' apart, extended, head toward the center of the mound, apparently in a circular arrangement continuing beyond the circumference of the mound.  Three pottery vessels were gourd-shaped bottles with long necks, smaller bottles often molded into the form of a bird or hump-backed female, and effigy bowls in the form of frogs, fishes or shells. Pottery was primarily cord marked and plain.  However, the pottery type called Wickliffe Thick, with a form typically referred to as a "juice press," was similar to funnel-shaped varieties of Macon Thick.  This type is found in the Cairo lowlands along the Mississippi River and as far east as Wickliffe Mounds in Kentucky. (Carl Chapman, Archeology of Missouri, II, University of Missouri Press, 1980)

It has been postulated that a small Fortune Noded (Arkansas type) bowl found on the Plateau was carried to Macon during the migration from the Mississippi.  It was more likely to have been acquired through trade.

Similarities between Mexican pyramids and Southeastern temple mounds have been noted and a convincing case can be made for their common origin, though archeologists are divided on the question of cultural connections.  Among the major similarities are truncated (flattened) tops, ramps or stairways leading up one side, evidence of periodic destruction of the temples, and construction of additional layers over the entire pyramid, elite tombs in some mounds, etc.  The size and amount of human labor expended on such construction in both geographic regions often staggers the imagination.

Comparisons also been made between Macon Plateau's circular earthlodges and the ceremonial kivas of prehistoric people from the Southwestern United States.  Some archeologists have also drawn parallels between the Macon structures and those of the Caddoan culture of Louisiana which may have been the source for the historic earth-covered houses of the Great Plains.  The question remains:  Are the western structures early enough to have been prototypes for the lodges at Macon?

"Recent evidences that...early Mississippi cultures (Aztalan, Old Village, Hiwassee Island, Macon Plateau) possibly had their origins about the time of the Basketmaker-Pueblo change in the Anasazi area put a different complexion on the idea of possible relationships between these areas.  Certainly the "weeping eye" symbol indicates that the Macon Plateau people participated in early development of the Southern Cult, and therefore may have had some contact with early Caddoan peoples among whom the Cult also prevailed...

"Wedel conjectured as to the origin of house patterns in the Plains, where semi-subterranean earth-covered rectangular lodges with four roof supports and projecting entrances in the Upper Republican and Nebraska foci were succeeded by circular structures with covered entrance passages and a variable number of roof supports (four earlier, two to six later) in the protohistoric and historic periods.  He discussed the possible origin of the circular structures from the Southeast (Macon Plateau) and the earth lodges of the earlier cultures from the Caddoan area or from the pit houses of the Southwest. 

"Krieger emphasizes the parallel use of certain features--four roof supports, extended entrance or ventilator, central firebed--from the Southwest through Antelope Creek, Upper Republican, Spiro focus and east to Macon Plateau.  This theory of parallel spread of these features would be more attractive if the intervening areas in the Plains, the Caddoan area, and Mississippi demonstrated the same tendencies, seen in the Southwest and Macon, for rectangular domiciliary structures and circular, four-post roof support ceremonial chambers... 

"Since the Mississippi structures generally lack the extended entrance and interior roof supports, other origins should be considered for the rectangular pattern which spread so rapidly with advent of this period.  The two exceptions to the general rule of circular patterns in Woodland cultures, noted in Baumer and Hopewell in Illinois and in Swift Creek-Savannah in Georgia, could possibly serve as points of origin.  Due to its geographic nearness to the Cahokia area, the Illinois sequence might be considered as a more likely source for rectangular house patterns in Mississippi than the Georgia area (unless the spread of Mississippi culture is eventually demonstrated to have been from Macon Plateau to the Middle Mississippi region...) or the Southwest through the Plains and/or the Caddoan area... Except for the rectangular shape, there actually is little resemblance between the houses of the Gibson period or the Plains and the "small-log" or wall-trench pole-constructed house of the early Mississippi levels.   

House 4 at Belcher is the only structure found in the Caddoan area which combines the projecting entrance and prepared central fireplace... with the wall trench-pole or "small-log" construction without roof supports which is characteristic of early Mississippian culture periods." (Clarence H. Webb, The Belcher Mound, A Stratified Caddoan Site in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology #16) 

"The Belcher Mound presents an interesting sequence.  Of the two houses attributed to the Belcher I period, one was rounded-rectantular with four- to six-inch posts set in trenches and had an extended entranceway; the other was small, circular without post trenches.  Webb places this period in the late Gibson Aspect.  Belcher II houses were small, circular, with three- to five-inch posts set individually.  Belcher III, which Webb states may conceivably have existed until 1650, had circular houses thirty to forty feet in diameter with seven- to eight-inch posts, large center post molds and extended entranceways."  (Edwin N. Wilmsen, "A Suggested Developmental Sequence for House Forms in the Caddoan Area," Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society, Vol. 30, 1959)

While a certain parallels may be drawn between Caddoan and Macon Plateau structures, the ceramic complexes differ considerable. Caddoan Alto Focus pottery was elaborately decorated and included long necked bottles and other found in Central Georgia until probably after A.D. 1100.  Archeologist James A. Ford ("Measurement of Some Prehistoric Design Developments in the Southeastern States," Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 44, 1952) interpreted the Caddoan ceramic sequence as late because:   "Caddoan area ceramic traits, particularly engraving, do not appear in the Lower Mississippi Valley until the Plaquemine period; and ceramic influences seem to be moving from east to west.  Certain decorative motifs, such as meander and repetition of curvilinear incision, zoned punctation, and horizontal incision were thought by Ford to have originated in the Florida Gulf Coast in Weeden Island times." (Timothy K. Perttula, "Caddoan Prehistory:  Some Relationships to Lower Mississippi Valley Prehistory," Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Bulletin #22, 1980)

Platform mounds were evidently constructed by the Late Woodland Coles Creek Culture (pre A.D. 1000) in the Louisiana region.  According to Jeffrey Brain ("Late Prehistoric Patterning in Yazoo Basin and Natchez Bluffs Regions," Mississippian Settlement Patterns, Academic Press 1978), burial interments in the Lower Mississippi Valley during this period were not elaborate, with all ages and sexes buried with a minimum of differential treatment, even at the largest mound centers.  Early Caddoan mortuary customs established separate functioning burial areas, conical burial mounds, with ceremonial burials of individuals with presumably high status, retainer sacrifice and abundant grave goods in elaborately prepared and deeply excavated burial pits.

Earliest Caddoan components in a few areas where Coles Creek ceramics also occur may date prior to A.D. 1000, but in the middle Red River (Louisiana) area at the Crenshaw Site and Mounds Plantation Carbon-14 dates place the culture A.D. 1000-1050 time range.  Caddoan occupation in these areas was characterized by one or more major nucleated centers, usually containing a number of platform and conical burial mounds, with a network of minor ceremonial centers and smaller dispersed hamlets.  Specialized burial areas, in pyramidal flat-topped mounds were established at both Mounds Plantation and Crenshaw.  

At Mounds Plantation, at least four culture periods were indicated by pottery sherds.  Several small mounds started by earlier Coles Creek people were also used for Caddoan burials in large shaft tombs and smaller pits.  One huge tomb contained the skeletons of 21 persons, from elderly adults to unborn infants.  Part of the tomb was covered with a framework of cedar logs. Carbon-14 dates from logs in the tomb indicate a time between A.D. 1000 and 1100. (The Caddo Indians of Louisiana, Dept. of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Lousiana Archeological Survey and Antiquities Commission, Anthropological Study #2).

Gahagan, a Caddoan site on the Red River in Louisiana, consisted of a village area and a dome-shaped burial mound associated with a large plaza.  Three large pits in the mound contained multiple extended burials which contained many offerings, including stone 'spuds,' discoidals, and celts; shell beads; elaborate effity pipes; copper-covered wooden beads, 'bear claws,' and ear spools; two hand effigies; and two copper "long-nosed god" mask, an idea thought by some archeologists to have been imported from Mexico where a long-nosed god symbol relates to the worship of the rain God, Chaac.  The Grant Mound, Duval County, Florida produced a duplicate "long-nose god" copper mask.  Two other specimens from the Aztalan Site in Wisconsin are at the Milwaukee Public Museum.    

The Bynum Mound group in Mississippi shows a number of similarities as well as differences with the Macon Plateau complex.  Burial mounds at both sites had subfloor pits with multiple burials.  The mounds at Bynum were domed. Some sort of shelter had been erected over the area and the pit was lined with, or surrounded by, logs.  Half of the burials were cremations.  Large greenstone celts from the site are highly similar to those at Macon, however, this type has a very wide distribution.  Shell hoes, copper spool-shaped objects, rolled copper beads and galena found at Bynum were not found at Macon.   

Charles Fairbanks notes:  "It seems probable that the burial complex at the Funeral Mound represents a relatively old system carried forward into Early Mississippian times.  Its source may well lie in some culture like Bynum.  The origins of other cultural elements at Macon Plateau must, however, be sought elsewhere."  (Archeology of the Funeral Mound, Ocmulgee National Monument, National Park Service 1956).

                                                                                                                                        Text by Sylvia Flowers