LOOKING BEYOND THE OBVIOUS: IDENTIFYING PATTERNS IN COLES CREEK MORTUARY DATA Megan C. Kassabaum mound-building and burial practices; (2) investigate whether meaningful patterns exist in the burials from Greenhouse (16AV2), Lake George (22YZ557), and Mount Nebo (16MA18); and (3) offer suggestions as While the lack of grave goods has been the focus of most to how the results of my analyses can be combined with scholarly discussion of Coles Creek burial practices, the future research to more fully understand Coles Creek mortuary analyses presented here focus on recognizing social organization. correspondences among sex, age, and burial position. Using assemblages from three Coles Creek sites (Greenhouse, Lake George, and Mount Nebo), I find that while there is Site Descriptions significant intersite variability among Coles Creek mortuary programs, certain age groups are consistently treated The small number of Coles Creek sites that have been differently from each other and from everyone else. Thus systematically excavated limits the body of information interments were being made with deliberate care and available about mortuary practices. Moreover, al- consideration for those involved and are not nearly as though small numbers of burials have been reported haphazard and disorderly as previously thought. from numerous Coles Creek sites throughout the lower Mississippi Valley, few have provided large enough assemblages to allow for the identification of statistical Two characteristics of prehistoric societies in the patterns. The Greenhouse, Lake George, and Mount southeastern United States are commonly used to Nebo sites were chosen for this analysis principally support arguments for the presence of chiefly political based on the availability of high-quality data from a and social organization. One of these characteristics is significant number of excavated burials. the large-scale construction of earthworks (particularly Greenhouse, located in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, large platform mound and plaza complexes); the other was first described and excavated by Gerard Fowke in is elaborate mortuary ceremonialism and sumptuous 1926 (Fowke 1928:411–433). Twelve years later, the site burial goods. Some claim that the earliest indications of was systematically excavated as part of a Works chiefdoms can be recognized in the indigenous Coles Progress Administration (WPA) project directed by Creek tradition (ca. A.D. 750–1200) of southwestern James Ford (1951). The 3.2-ha Greenhouse site consists Mississippi and east-central Louisiana (Kidder 1998, of seven mounds (A–G) arranged around a central 2004; Steponaitis 1986). Around A.D. 700, people in this plaza (Figure 2). The three most prominent mounds (A, region began building large-scale earthworks similar to E, and G) are roughly rectangular platforms that form a those of later, decidedly hierarchical Mississippian triangle with the longest axis along the shore of a lake. polities. However, previous investigators of mortuary The four smaller mounds (B, C, D, and F) lie between remains from these Coles Creek sites report a paucity the large mounds and could possibly have been of burial goods and absence of ornate individual rectangular platform mounds as well, but they no burials (Ford 1951; Giardino 1977; Neuman 1984). longer retain that shape. Due to the distinct presence of one traditional marker During the WPA project, three mounds were heavily for hierarchical social organization and the reported excavated: A, C, and F. Excavations in Mounds A and F lack of another, the issue of Coles Creek social revealed that the earthworks were constructed over a differentiation remains a matter of interest to South- thick midden in as many as seven stages, most of which eastern archaeologists. While a relatively small number supported structures (Ford 1951:32–36). Nine burials of Coles Creek sites have been satisfactorily excavated, were recovered from Mound A and two from Mound further analysis of data from these previous archaeo- F. Mound C differed markedly from Mounds A and F. logical investigations may still reveal significant in- Although there was one layer of loaded soil on top, sights. In this paper, I present a reanalysis of three Mound C was made up almost entirely of black previously excavated Coles Creek cemeteries in the midden that accumulated on the original ground lower Mississippi Valley as a step toward a better surface during the occupation. Two surfaces were understanding of the Coles Creek mortuary program identified within the midden and showed evidence of and social organization (Figure 1). My goals are to (1) posts, hearths, and other living features, but no specific review the previous interpretations of Coles Creek structures could be identified (Ford 1951:42). In 215 Southeastern Archaeology sarc-30-02-02.3d 29/11/11 04:03:51 215 SOUTHEASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 30(2) AUTUMN 2011 Figure 2. Map of the Greenhouse site showing the topogra- phy, mound locations, and areas excavated (adapted from Ford 1951:Figure 3). 1958 test unit in Mound C, a Coles Creek mound, revealed 22 burials, and hence the truncated, pyrami- dal mound became the focus of the 1959 and 1960 Figure 1. Map of the lower Mississippi Valley showing excavations (Williams and Brain 1983:39). Built on a associated river basins and the location of the three sites used thick midden, this two-stage platform mound appeared in this analysis (adapted from Brain 1991:Figure 5.2). to have been used primarily as a burial mound during the first stage and as a foundation for a number of addition to the large amount of habitation debris, the structures during the second stage (Williams and Brain upper levels of Mound C contained 93 burials. 1983:55–56). During the one and a half seasons of Although in some cases it is difficult to tell, it appears excavation at Mound C, approximately 200 skeletons that most of these burials were secondary interments of were recovered. Like those at Greenhouse, these burials large numbers of people deposited at once, a pattern appear to have occurred as mass interments such as consistent with the emptying of a charnel structure would result from the periodic emptying of a charnel (Ford 1951:37, 42–44). A number of distinct spatial house. Again, distinct spatial clustering is visible, clusters may represent different burial episodes though the Lake George Mound C burial clusters are throughout the construction of the mound. With few identified by depth of deposit and various irregular exceptions, there is no evidence of pits or other markers and ill-defined pits (Williams and Brain 1983:42). of individual graves (Ford 1951:42–44). The Mount Nebo site sits in the Tensas basin of Lake George is situated on the shore of a lake in the Madison Parish, Louisiana, and consists of only one Yazoo basin of west-central Mississippi (Williams and mound, approximately 3.5 m tall and covering roughly Brain 1983:1). Although the mounds had deteriorated 0.3 ha (Giardino 1982:101; Neuman 1968:9) (Figure 4). significantly by the time C. B. Moore visited Lake During salvage excavations in 1968 and 1969, it was George in the early twentieth century, he was able to determined that this mound was constructed in seven record more than 30 mounds inside the walled, 22-ha stages (Giardino 1977:1). While the beginning of site (Moore 1908:590). Today, only 25 mounds and mound construction dates to the Baytown period (ca. parts of the earthen wall and ditch complex can be AD 400 – 750) (Stage G), the majority of the mound was discerned (Williams and Brain 1983:1) (Figure 3). constructed during the Coles Creek period in six stages Excavations at Lake George took place between 1949 (Stages F–A). Two of these stages, F and A, are of and 1960 and included major work on and around particular importance here because together they Mounds A, C, F, and P (Williams and Brain 1983:23– contained roughly 100 human burials. Giardino 68). Excavations revealed that while only a small (1982:116–118) notes that during the early Coles Creek portion of the earthworks at Lake George dated to the period (Stage F), bodies were most often interred in the Coles Creek period, nearly all the Lake George mounds extended prone position with the skull toward the showed evidence of repeated structural occupations. A south and during the late Coles Creek period (Stage A), 216 Southeastern Archaeology sarc-30-02-02.3d 29/11/11 04:03:52 216 COLES CREEK MORTUARY DATA Figure 3. Map of the Lake George site showing topography, mound locations, and areas excavated (from Williams and Brain 1983:Figure 1.2). bodies were most often interred in the extended supine position with the skull toward the north. Additionally, Giardino (1982:118) notes the presence of small non- crematory fires at the gravesites in late Coles Creek levels and the distinct lack of evidence for fires in early Coles Creek levels. Giardino’s (1982:117) conclusion that ‘‘there are significant differences between the burial custom of Stage A and Stage F’’ represents the first significant recognition of patterning in the Coles Creek mortuary record. Previous Interpretations of Coles Creek Burial Practices As these three examples demonstrate, the largest mounds at Coles Creek civic-ceremonial centers were continuously used for up to several hundred years, they were usually built in stages, and often, during each stage, at least one structure was erected on top of the mound (Neuman 1984:167; Steponaitis 1986:386). Past interpretations of these buildings as elite residenc- es or important civic-ceremonial structures have led some archaeologists to believe that Coles Creek sites provide evidence of a significantly more differentiated and institutionalized social organization than that of earlier Woodland cultures (e.g., Barker 1999; Kidder and Fritz 1993; Nassaney 1992; Roe 2007; Sears 1954; Steponaitis 1986). They argue that the consistent reuse Figure 4.