The Turk Site (
15CE6) is a
Mississippian culture 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 a ...
located near
Bardwell in
Carlisle County, Kentucky
Carlisle County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,826, making it the fourth-least populous county in Kentucky. Its county seat is Bardwell. The county was founded in 1886 and named ...
, 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 fl ...
floodplain.
Site
The site was occupied primarily during the Dorena Phase (1100 to 1300 CE) and into the Medley Phase (1300-1500 CE) of the local chronology. Its inhabitants may have moved from the
Marshall Site, which is a slightly older settlement located on the nearest adjacent bluff spur.
For a regional administrative center, Turk is a small site, but this is because of constraints placed on it by the geography of the bluff spur it sits on. The layout of the site is characteristically Mississippian, with a number of
platform mound
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
s surrounding a central
plaza
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
.
The earliest published investigation at the site was that of Robert Loughridge, published in 1888; the most extensive work at the site was conducted under Richard Edging and published in 1985.
[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
Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...
: U of Illinois Department of Anthropology, 1987, 41.
See also
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Carlisle County, Kentucky
*
Mississippian stone statuary
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture (800 to 1600 CE) and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. Two distinct ...
*
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (formerly the Southern Cult), aka S.E.C.C., is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture. It coincided with their ado ...
*
List of Mississippian sites
This is a list of Mississippian sites. The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, inland- Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 C ...
References
External links
Early shell tempering in far Western Kentucky
Middle Mississippian culture
Mounds in Kentucky
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
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