Archaeobotanical Analyses of the Winterville Mounds Site (22Ws500) and Other Southeastern Ceremonial Complexes
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The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Master's Theses Fall 2019 Archaeobotanical Analyses of the Winterville Mounds Site (22ws500) and Other Southeastern Ceremonial Complexes Dana Hauffe University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Hauffe, Dana, "Archaeobotanical Analyses of the Winterville Mounds Site (22ws500) and Other Southeastern Ceremonial Complexes" (2019). Master's Theses. 689. https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/689 This Masters Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARCHAEOBOTANICAL ANALYSES OF THE WINTERVILLE MOUNDS SITE (22WS500) AND OTHER SOUTHEASTERN CEREMONIAL COMPLEXES by Dana Hauffe A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School, the College of Education and Human Sciences and the School of Social Science and Global Studies at The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Approved by: Dr. Marie Danforth, Committee Chair Dr. Bridget Hayden Dr. Homer Edwin Jackson Dr. Daniel Ladu ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ Dr. Marie Danforth Dr. Edward Sayre Dr. Karen S. Coats Committee Chair Director of School Dean of the Graduate School December 2019 COPYRIGHT BY Dana Hauffe 2019 Published by the Graduate School ABSTRACT The prehistoric Southeast region of the United States has had very limited archaeobotanical research focused on botanicals’ medicinal or ritualistic characteristics. An analysis of reported botanical remains recovered from Winterville Mounds (22WS500) and seventy- two other Late Woodland and Mississippian sites, from seven states, was conducted to identify their potential medicinal and ritual use of seventy-five botanicals based on reported ethnobotanical evidence. By classifying botanicals into four classes, modeled after the dissertation of Dr. Michele Williams in 2000, taxon frequency and feature ubiquity is configured and utilized to identify the possible ceremonial and medicinal use plants. At Winterville Mounds Site a Chi Square statistical analysis utilizing maize and purslane inclusions from four features identified a negative correlation between the two, suggesting a distinction between food consumption (feasting) and deposits associated with medicine-ritual activities, possibly medicine or sweat lodges, specifically in contexts associated with the site’s largest mound, Mound A. The results suggest the need for more research focusing on less commonly studied botanical inclusions. Broadening the analysis to the remainder of the sample, the collateral effects of agriculture in the form of disease, land clearing, workload, and increased access to farmed subsistence products is shown to have both indirect and direct connections to changes in these botanical inclusions. Finally, this research acknowledges a need to broaden the analytical perspective of archaeobotany beyond simply economic and environmental interpretations by considering other plants’ associations with ceremonial ii and medicinal uses; and calls for professionals to include the Indigenous voice in their research. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project could not have been completed without the help, guidance, and mentorship of Dr. Homer Edwin Jackson. Even after his retirement he has continued to be instrumental in not only guiding this research to fruition; but has helped me maintain the necessary focus that was required to be successful in this endeavor. A research project such as this has potential to spiral into so many directions and as such, I am forever grateful for “Doc’s” assistance. Additional thanks and acknowledgement must be made to my committee members, Dr. Marie Danforth and Dr. Bridgette Hayden, who from time to time, sent short emails to check on my progress and to offer words of encouragement at what seemed to always be just at the right moment of need. A very special and heartfelt thank you must be made to Dr. Tammy Greer, who has become a dear friend and advisor through this writing process. Her knowledge of the indigenous use of botanicals and access to her personal collection of medicinal and ceremonial plants has been instrumental in identifying an appropriate botanical class for those botanicals not previously classified. Also, her expertise in statistical analysis has been instrumental in identifying botanicals of interest that should be further studied to learn more about the ceremonial and medicinal ways of the prehistoric people of the Southeast. An acknowledgement of the professional assistance from the various State Historic Offices must also be made. Without the help and cooperation of Jeff Kruchten, Chief Archaeologist, of the Illinois Historic Preservation Office, and Eugene Futato, Deputy Director, of the Office of Archaeological Research at the University of Alabama, iv access to the original site reports for many of the sites utilized in this research would not have been available. Finally, a huge thank you to Dr. Jessica Kowalski for providing access to unpublished conference papers, Dr. Gayle Fritz for her advisement and access to her personal collection of reference materials, Dr. Mac Alfred for providing lab time in the USM botany lab, and last but not least, my family. Without the support and encouragement of my husband Nick, and our four children, I am not sure I would have ever completed this thesis. v DEDICATION The following thesis is dedicated to the elders of the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, specifically the Anderson Lewis Family, and the ancestors from whom this work was made possible. May the generational knowledge of the aboriginal people of the Southeast continue to be recovered and recorded for our descendants and the seven generations to come vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. x CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 Plant Domestication in the Southeast Region of the United States ................................ 2 Emergence of the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) ........................................... 3 Tropical Cultigens ....................................................................................................... 4 Understanding Divisions of Prehistoric Time................................................................. 6 The Late Woodland and Emergent Mississippian of the American Bottoms ............. 7 Coles Creek Period ................................................................................................... 11 Terminal/Late Woodlands of the West-Central Alabama Area ................................ 12 The Mississippian Cultural Period ............................................................................ 12 Project Objectives ......................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER II PREHISTORIC BOTANICAL USAGE ................................................... 15 Regional Geography and Temporal Associations of the Southeast .............................. 15 American Bottoms .................................................................................................... 16 The Tensas Basin and Natchez Bluffs ...................................................................... 17 West Central Alabama .............................................................................................. 20 vii The Yazoo Basin ....................................................................................................... 21 Cultigens with Ethnographical Documentation of Ceremonial and Medicinal Use ..... 26 Subsistence Plants with Medicinal Properties .......................................................... 28 Ritual and Medicinal Plants ...................................................................................... 31 CHAPTER III METHODS ............................................................................................... 34 Quantification ........................................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER IV RESULTS ................................................................................................. 50 Winterville Mounds Site (22WS500) ........................................................................... 50 Class 1 Botanicals: Medicine Plants ......................................................................... 51 Class 2 Botanicals: Medicine/Food Plants ................................................................ 54 Class 3 Botanicals: Food/Medicine Plants ................................................................ 56 Class 4 Botanicals: Ritual Plants .............................................................................. 59 Ritual Plants