The Marshall Site (
15CE27) is an Early
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...
archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...
located near
Bardwell in
Carlisle County, Kentucky, on a bluff spur overlooking the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
floodplain. The site was occupied from about 900 to about 1300 CE during the James Bayou Phase of the local chronology and was abandoned sometime during the succeeding Dorena Phase. Its inhabitants may have moved to the
Turk Site
The Turk Site ( 15CE6) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located near Bardwell in Carlisle County, Kentucky, on a bluff spur overlooking the Mississippi River floodplain.
Site
The site was occupied primarily during the Dorena Phase ...
,
which is located on the nearest adjacent bluff spur to the south,
and which was founded about this time. It is several miles south of the
Wickliffe Mounds
Wickliffe Mounds ( 15 BA 4) is a prehistoric, Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Ballard County, Kentucky, just outside the town of Wickliffe, about from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Archaeological inve ...
Site.
Site description
Marshall is a large village site, with evidence of once having had
platform mounds and
earthworks
Earthworks may refer to:
Construction
*Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour
* Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil
*Earthworks (military), m ...
, although it is unclear from what time period these mounds would date. It is one of the few James Bayou Phase sites to be extensively
excavated. Because it was abandoned. its archaeological features were undisturbed by later occupations.
In 1985, an archaeological team from the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
conducted excavations at Marshall, with some work being performed by the university's summer field school.
[Sussenbach, Tom, and R. Barry Lewis. ''Archaeological Investigations in Carlisle, Hickman, and Fulton Counties, Kentucky: Site Survey and Excavations''. ''Western Kentucky Project Report #4''. Champaign: U of Illinois Department of Anthropology, 1987.] Four locations were excavated: spots on the eastern and western sides of the central knoll, another on a spur to the north, and a fourth at the bluff edge to the southwest of the center.
On the eastern side of the knoll, a substantial
midden
A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...
was investigated and found to possess good
stratigraphy
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock (geology), rock layers (Stratum, strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary rock, sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigrap ...
; a piece of
charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
from the midden was
radiocarbon dated to c. 1027 CE.
On the western side of the knoll, excavations examined the remains of a house under a midden,
finding
Mississippian culture pottery tempered with mussel shells, while the excavation north of the knoll revealed the presence of numerous linear
features
Feature may refer to:
Computing
* Feature (CAD), could be a hole, pocket, or notch
* Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob
* Feature (software design) is an intentional distinguishing characteristic of a software item ...
interpreted as being the remains of several houses that were constructed on the site in sequence.
Little was found in the excavation site to the southwest of the knoll; the excavators tested a horseshoe-shaped earthwork but were able to establish virtually nothing aside from a conclusive determination that it was the site's southwestern corner.
See also
*
References
External links
Early shell tempering in far Western Kentucky
{{Pre-Columbian North America
Mississippian culture
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky
Geography of Carlisle County, Kentucky
National Register of Historic Places in Carlisle County, Kentucky
Native American history of Kentucky